Gwens fiancee Rhys arrives at the scene of a serious road accident and discovers that a friend has died in the crash. More shockingly, Torchwood arrive on the scene and he sees Gwen with them.

The team discover a load of meat in the back of one of the vans that is suspicious. As Owen analyses the meat, the others look at Rhys’ haulage firm. Tosh calls posing as a police officer and discovers that they didn’t take reliable contact information, so can’t offer any leads.

Owen confirms the meat is alien and that it’s most likely slipped into the food chain. Meanwhile, Gwen goes back home to check on Rhys, but he’s suspicious of her having seen her earlier. She leaves to return to Torchwood, but Rhys follows and sees her walk off arm-in-arm with Jack.

He follows Jack and Gwen to a warehouse, but gets caught by a couple of shady characters. Jack sees him with them and assumes that Rhys is in on the plot. He’s taken into an office and finds out that his friend was involved in the scheme. Picking up some bravado, Rhys bluffs that he knew about everything and says he wants in on the action.

The gang take him into another part of the warehouse and show him the source of the meat - a gigantic, whale-like alien that keeps growing no matter how much meat they took from it. Rhys vomits in front of them.

Back home, Rhys and Gwen have a huge confrontation, and Gwen tells him that she hunts aliens. Rhys goes purple in the face with disbelief. She tries to convince him, but he asks her to prove it. So she takes him to Torchwood. Bring a partner to work day.

Rhys explains to the team about the alien. Jack accuses him of ruining the operation, but Rhys counters by telling him that he’s found a way to get them into the warehouse. They have a meeting and talk about how to save the alien and post it back through the rift. Gwen on the other hand is worried about Rhys getting involved.

Owen is being stand-offish with Tosh while she’s showing signs of being more interested in him. She invites him to have a game of pool sometime (which she played with Tommy in the last episode). He gets the wrong end of the stick and offers to invite the other along for a tournament.

En route to the pickup, Jack and Rhys talk about Gwen, and it’s apparent they both have feelings for her. Rhys finishes with a brilliant “I don’t suppose you’re gay by any chance?”

At the abbatoir, Rhys covers nicely for the team, but they sneak out of the van without him knowing. They see the alien in question and watch a man cutting a cavern into the side of the alien for meat. Jack talks to the creature and they realise it can understand them.

Meanwhile, Rhys and Ianto get captured and the gang discover Ianto’s gun. They hold a gun to Rhys’ head and Gwen exposes herself (not in the nude sense) to delay them shooting Rhys. They turn their guns on Ianto, and then Jack and Tosh step out in his defense.

Jack explains to the gang that they’re cutting up an alien, but this falls on deaf ears. There’s a scuffle and the gang leader moves to shoot Gwen, but Rhys jumps in the way and takes the bullet for her. In the fight,the creatures bonds break and it starts to move. They need to stop it before it crushes everything in its path.

Owen attempts to sedate the creature, but only succeeds in killing it. He’s wracked with guilt when he realises what he’s done.

Back at Torchwood, they patch up Rhys, but Jack insists that they have to wipe his memory of events. After the incident in the warehouse, they incinerated the creature’s remains and wiped the memories of the men in the gang.

Gwen is on the verge of slipping Rhys a pill to erase his memory, but after listening to his excitement about her job, she storms back to Torchwood and tells Jack she won’t do it - even if it means leaving. He shoots her a sexually charged glance, but eventually concedes and allows her to leave Rhys intact.

There was an interesting theme running through this episode about the Torchwood gang and their (lack of) partners. Tosh and Owen talked about relationships and Tosh hinted that only someone who did the same job would understand the things the team go through. Gwen is hesitant to involve Rhys in Torchwood activities, but she too has to deal with a relationship with a non-Torchwood.

I see in the preview of the next episode that Gwen pulls a gun on Rhys, so I can’t help wondering if she’ll change her mind about slipping him the memory pill after all.