S02E11: 'Adrift'

PC Andy passes Gwen a case involving a teenage boy called Jonah, who suddenly vanished on a bridge on his way to meet his mother Nikki seven months earlier. Tosh discovers that there was negative rift activity on the night of Jonah's disappearance and also finds Captain Jack on CCTV footage of the night, but he denies any knowledge of Jonah. Gwen puts together a list of all the people who have mysteriously disappeared and finds that many vanished at the moment of negative rift activity.

Despite Jack's warnings, Gwen continues her quest to find the truth and attends a support group meeting set up by Jonah's mother to help the parents of the missing persons. After Ianto gives her some GPS coordinates, Gwen heads to a nearby island after giving Andy the slip and enters an underground facility using her Torchwood password. The building contains many of the supposedly vanished people including Jonah. However, when Gwen convinces a nurse to let her see him, she is shocked to discover that he has aged several decades and is deformed.

Captain Jack arrives at the facility and finally admits the truth to Gwen about his involvement, stating that he set up the facility in order to care for the victims after plucking them out of the rift. He explains that returning the physically and mentally damaged people to their relatives would cause more harm than good. Jonah tells Gwen about his experience on a burning planet and Jack later reluctantly agrees for his mother to be brought to see him.

Nikki initially refuses to believe the figure is her son, but Jonah drags up some memories to convince her. However, he takes a turn for the worse and emits a piercing scream - a sign of the madness that regularly envelops him. Nikki quickly flees the scene, with Gwen learning that the screams can last 20 hours. Later, Nikki begs Gwen to not tell any other relatives of missing persons about the island, as it only serves to have a negative effect and take away their hope.