Torchwood: Miracle Day/Characters


Torchwood

For the Cardiff side, please see Torchwood.

The CIA

Rex Matheson

What, you mean Wales is separate? It's like the British equivalent of New Jersey.

Played by: Mekhi Phifer (2011-present)

A hard-boiled CIA agent with zero patience for Torchwood's antics, Miracle Day's weirdness or Jack's... everything. Gets impaled on Miracle Day and has to live on with a giant hole in his heart. Is very reluctantly roped into joining Torchwood.

  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Immortality? Ok. Jack is several centuries old? Ridiculous. He also doesn't believe that aliens are the cause behind Miracle Day, and dismisses claims that Torchwood got their tech offworld.
    • Skepticism Failure: Until the events of Episode 8 occur, when Jack proves beyond a shadow of a doubt it's possible.
  • Big Damn Heroes He rescues the Torchwood crew not once, but twice.

I am sick of Torchwood acting like amateur clowns.

  • Boisterous Bruiser
  • Cartwright Curse
  • CIA
  • Despair Event Horizon: Met when he witness Vera's execution in the overflow camps. Taken Up to Eleven when Esther is shot, and he has to make the choice to end the Miracle, ensuring that Esther dies.
  • Determinator: Have an injury obtained from being impaled in the heart by a pole? No problem, just keep on going and find a way to end the Miracle. Nothing gets in the way of Rex when he sets out to accomplish a goal.
  • Eaglelander: The Mixed type.
  • Healing Factor: At the end of the series, after having transplanted Jack's blood into himself to use it as a weapon, it appears he's now gained Jack's immortality.
  • Hypocrite: He calls Esther out for visiting her sister in an attempt to say goodbye before the shit hit the fan. Never mind that, not twenty minutes later in the episode, Rex does the exact same thing only with his father. To be fair, however, Rex is trained for this sort of thing, while Esther isn't.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Emphasis on the Jerk. The Heart of Gold is in there, but it takes the Torchwood crew a bit to actually find it. He's also a casual homophobe, which is a source of endless entertainment for Jack.
  • The Lancer: Which annoys him to no end. Torchwood's methods are too unprofessional for his taste.
    • But when he sees just what the government is doing to the Category 1s, he finally cuts all ties to them and now officially considers himself a member of Torchwood... at least to a certain degree.
    • By "The Gathering", Torchwood's lack of professionalism has actually become an in-joke between him and the other members. When he quickly finds out where they're hiding due to Gwen's presence, everyone laughs to themselves.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: An undead man hurling insults at everyone? Hi Owen!
    • For bonus points, he's now the American version of Jack!
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Jack, eventually.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?

Esther Drummond

I'm kind of guessing alien doesn't mean foreign.

Played by: Alexa Havins (2011)

A CIA analyst whose curiosity attracts too much attention. Is asked by Rex to come help out when things go bad, and soon finds herself in way over her head.

  • Action Girl: Averted. She isn't a fighter and it shows. However, she puts up an impressive and surprisingly realistic fight when actually attacked.
  • Audience Surrogate
  • Badass Bookworm
  • Break the Cutie: She tried to make sure her sister Sarah's children were taken care of by calling Social Services. Instead of working with her as she had hoped, they had Sarah committed and put the children into foster care. Of course, she only has herself to blame for not seeing it coming, since Sarah had boarded up every window out of fear of the miracle.
    • It Got Worse. Now Sarah's trying to get herself set up as a Category 1 so she can die, since she feels she has no soul.
    • Even Better! Sarah also volunteered her kids to be Category 1.
    • And once more! Esther gets fatally shot in "The Blood Line", and there's the Hope Spot of Rex and Jack surviving... only Esther's Killed Off for Real.
  • CIA
  • Combat Pragmatist: Justified - since she's not a trained fighter, the one time we've seen her fighting for her life she reacts like anyone desperate would and goes for the eyes, crotch, etc.
  • Heroic BSOD: She has a breakdown after seemingly made Maloney a Category 1, which is about as close to killing someone as you can during the time of the Miracle. Made worse when Maloney still tries to kill her.
  • Killed Off for Real
  • Kill the Cutie: Nicest, most likeable character in this entire series. Of course she was going to get killed off.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Jack gives her this... only for it to mean literally nothing after she joins the team anyway.
  • Meaningful Funeral
  • My God, What Have I Done?: See Heroic BSOD.
  • The Chick
  • The Smart Guy
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Toshiko with a touch of early Gwen.
  • Voice with an Internet Connection
  • The Watson: To American audiences.

Other characters

Dr. Vera Juarez

Looks like someone changed the rules. Miracles got... easy.

Played by Arlene Tur (2011)

Rex' doctor, whose first instinct when Miracle Day happens is to join as many medical panels and discussion groups as possible. Realises soon enough that talking won't save the world, and joins Torchwood.

Oswald Danes

She should have run faster.

Played by: Bill Pullman (2011)

A convincted child rapist and murderer whose execution happened to take place on Miracle Day. Decides to manipulate the media and secure his freedom.

  • Dark Messiah: There are hints of it in episode 3, but he really skyrockets into it in episode 4.
  • Death Seeker: Jack suspects this of him, but Oswald seems content to stick with PhiCorp and his growing popularity.
    • As it turns out, he does want to die - so that he can chase his victim into Hell.
  • Easily Forgiven: At the start of the series he's one of the most reviled men in all of America, even the police want to kick his ass. Then he cries on TV and people tweet with the hashtag #forgive so much it trends and apparently that means he's been redeemed.
    • "End of the Road" makes a distinction here: as a celebrity, people idolize him. As a man, they still hate him.
  • Famous Last Words: "Suzie, keep running, I'm coming to get you! RUN FASTER! FASTER!"
  • Go Out with a Smile: Goes out ranting about how all the "bad little girls go to hell" and the girl he killed will be there and she'd better run faster, while blowing himself up.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • New Era Speech: This is what PhiCorp hired him for.
  • Not So Different: When talking with Jack in "Dead of Night", he concludes Jack once killed a child as well.
  • Obviously Evil: You mean the murdering paedophile is a villain?
  • Taking You with Me
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Offered to him by Jilly. He turns it down, at first, but after some police brutality decides it might be a good idea. Unfortunately for him, that popularity was engineered to be temporary, which he finds out to his later horror.

Jilly Kitzinger

Frankly I think if the Devil himself were to walk this earth, he'd need representation.

Played by: Lauren Ambrose (2011-present)

A mouthy Phicorp PR woman with impossible amounts of lipstick and her conscience very neatly tucked away. Thinks she can cope with Oswald Danes.

Jilly: Personally? It's your hands. I can't look at your hands without thinking about what they did.

Vera Juarez: This is disgusting.
Jilly Kitzinger: I KNOW!!


The Three Families

We are everywhere. We are always. We are no one. And soon the families will rise.

  • Ancient Conspiracy: Dating back to about the mid-1920's, give or take a few years.
  • Big Bad
  • Evilly Affable: The finale shows Cousin and Mother to be the epitome of this. Mother is courteous, and speaks wonderfully of Jack and the Blessing. Cousin speaks with a tone that makes him seem like a preacher. Both of them constantly speak in nice, calm tones, with smiles on their faces... even as they explain their plan to take over the world, and rid the world of the weak, sick, and the poor.
  • Mysterious Past: Jack had dealings with them in the past, though the reference is vague enough that even he doesn't seem to remember the incident. It turns out that it has to do with three businessmen who offered to buy him when his immortality was discovered by a butcher.
  • Time for Plan B: Their reaction to the "Miracle Day" plan failing is to prepare to activate "Plan B"
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Even at the end, their ultimate goals are still not very well-explained.
  • Voice with an Internet Connection
  • We Are Everywhere: Yet at the same time are "no one".
    • Which is actually correct: Since the three men they are descended from had over a thousand descendants (whose names have been wiped out), they are no one, and they have spread throughout the world, so they are everywhere.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Poor Ellis Hartley Monroe.

The Blessing

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