Ianto Jones
Ianto Jones (19 August 1983-2009) was a junior researcher at Torchwood One who later joined Torchwood Three. He first approached Captain Jack Harkness with enthusiasm about joining Torchwood Three in Cardiff, eventually winning him over. He initially served as more of a "support man" or "tea boy", but later took a more active role in missions, though his attempts to shroud his past impacted the team. He later fell in love with Jack and became his romantic partner.
He was murdered by the 456 ambassador when it spread a deadly virus through Thames House. The after-effects of Ianto's death left Jack riddled with guilt and grief, ultimately spelling the end of Torchwood Three.
Biography
Early life
Ianto was born in Cardiff on 19 August 1983, (TV: From Out of the Rain, Fragments) making him a Leo, (AUDIO: Through the Ruins) to Glenda Jones and her husband. (AUDIO: Broken) He had a sister, Rhiannon, (TV: Children of Earth: Day One) and grew up in Newport, but he spent part of his childhood living in a small Welsh village. (AUDIO: Torchwood: SUV)
Ianto claimed that his father enjoyed taking him to the cinema, (TV: From Out of the Rain) but his sister implied that their relationship was not as strong as he made out. Rhiannon and Ianto recounted that their father pushed Ianto too hard on the swings in his childhood and broke his leg. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two) He repeatedly told Ianto that working in the steelworks or fixing cars was a proper job (PROSE: Trace Memory) and taught him how to pick locks. (AUDIO: Blind Summit) Although his father worked in Debenhams, Ianto told people that he was a tailor. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Five)
Every weekend, Ianto took a bus to Brecon, where his mother came from, to visit his grandmother. (AUDIO: The Last Beacon) He was forced to attend his Uncle Kevin's Christmas parties and thought that his flatulent rottweiler was "horrible". On Boxing Day, Ianto would have to go on a walk around Roath Park in the rain. (AUDIO: The Grey Mare) He also had an aunt who once tipped a cow whilst drunk in a field. (AUDIO: Torchwood: SUV)
Ianto played with Action Men as a child (PROSE: The House That Jack Built) and once got lost in Cardiff Castle whilst on a school trip. (AUDIO: Outbreak) He was brought up to never speak ill of the dead. (TV: Something Borrowed) He had no criminal record apart from one minor conviction for shoplifting in his teens, (TV: Fragments) although he was adept at breaking into cars. (AUDIO: Torchwood: SUV) At one point, Ianto went through a "goth phase", during which he became interested in Finnish black metal. A particular favourite group for him was Zeal, who presented themselves as "genderless dark angels". He never got to see them perform live. (AUDIO: Dinner and a Show)
Ianto, Rhiannon and his parents once went snorkelling in Greece. (AUDIO: The Sin Eaters) He was an able but not exceptionally-gifted student (TV: Fragments) and did not do Biology for his GCSEs. (AUDIO: Ghost Train) After school, he took a series of temporary jobs (TV: Fragments) and worked for some time at Cardiff Museum. (AUDIO: Blind Summit)
Life in London
Ianto told Rachel Allan that he moved to London because his father disagreed with certain life choices of his. (AUDIO: New Girl) However, Yvonne Hartman said that he moved there in search of his father, which he did not deny.
Ianto rented 56 Stanmore Crescent for himself and his father, who broke in whenever he forgot his key and often passed out drunk and urinated on the carpet. The flat was rented from Willie and was also home to a rat that Ianto named Steve.
Ianto worked at a coffee shop for two months with Miriam as his boss. He met Yvonne several times: she repeatedly confided in him before using retcon to make him forget. During one day at work, a soldier killed Miriam and shot Ianto in an attempt to kill Yvonne. The two were saved by Matthew and Ianto was tended to by the Arachmed. Matthew drove Ianto and Yvonne to Stanmore Crescent, where Yvonne told him about the Torchwood Institute and Blind Summit before using retcon on him.
The following day, Ianto's father went missing and Yvonne told him that he had been taken by Blind Summit, eliciting his help. Ianto went undercover as a volunteer and was injected with Excellium by an Arachmed, which restored his memories erased by the retcon. He and Yvonne were saved by Tommy Pierce. Yvonne bought off Willie and sorted out Ianto's flat, hiring pest control who dealt with Steve. She also offered to "remove" his father from his memories and offered him a job at Torchwood, but he declined on both counts. He instead asked to have his job at Cardiff Museum returned and his memory of Torchwood wiped, which she assented.
Yvonne successfully had him re-hired by the museum by March 2005. (AUDIO: Blind Summit) His father died in hospital, waiting in vain for a call from his son. (AUDIO: The House of the Dead)
Torchwood One
Early days
Shortly after his father's death, (TV: Children of Earth: Day One) Ianto met Yvonne once more when she arrived on his doorstep. He was to work on the excavation of a Viking ship which she alleged was a threat to the whole of South Wales and, as Torchwood Three had all gone missing, she sought his help. (AUDIO: Blind Summit) Ianto submitted his CV to Torchwood that month but Bev Stanley had no interest in hiring him. It was only when his CV crossed Yvonne's desk that he was hired (AUDIO: Uprising) in March 2005, (AUDIO: New Girl) as a junior researcher. (TV: Fragments, AUDIO: Uprising)
Rupert Howarth became Ianto's mentor when he started at Torchwood One. (COMIC: The Legacy of Torchwood One!) In his first week, Ianto helped Yvonne stop a monster in Cardiff. A few days later, Torchwood One went into meltdown and his line-manager disappeared, presumed dead. (AUDIO: New Girl) One of his first jobs at Torchwood One was at the Millennium Dome, where he saw what was sealed beneath it. The memory of what he saw made him shudder for years to come. (PROSE: Almost Perfect)
Ianto got to know Lisa Hallett within his first two weeks at Torchwood. She met him near the fountains in Cabot Square before his shift started. (PROSE: Trace Memory) On 26 March 2005, Yvonne advised Ianto to ask Lisa out. (AUDIO: One Rule) They only went on two dates before deciding that it would not work out. (AUDIO: New Girl) While dating Lisa, Ianto worked with Carlie Roberts, who was attracted to him. (AUDIO: Submission)
During his first month at Torchwood, Ianto met Dave Cooke and attended the small party held in the basement for him. (AUDIO: Locker 15) Within a few months, he had become Yvonne's personal assistant. (AUDIO: New Girl) He was aware of Torchwood's research into Huon particles, but did not know the details as the project was top secret. (AUDIO: In the Shadows)
Ianto remained on good, if distant, terms with his sister, although he was not as friendly with her husband Johnny Davies. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two) He would occasionally call his mother. (AUDIO: Broken)
Rachel's takeover
Ianto met Rachel Allan on her first day at Torchwood, during which he co-ordinated an investigation into a time explosion at the Royal Hope Hospital which was complicated by Sameer and Kenny's animosity. He quickly befriended Rachel and entered into a relationship with her, having given up on Lisa. He helped plan a party with Yvonne and Rachel to identify who was sowing discord and distrust in Torchwood and witnessed Dean's death. Like the rest of Torchwood, he believed that Yvonne was responsible. (AUDIO: New Girl)
Yvonne, on the run from Torchwood, arrived on Ianto's doorstep looking for shelter, which he begrudgingly agreed to give for one night. He went on an Away Day where he stuck with Pippa and Dave Underwood. He was surprised with the war games that Rachel - the new director - had them engaging in and was disgusted when Rachel brushed off Pippa's death. (AUDIO: Through the Ruins) He was angry with her and not particularly grateful when she promoted him to junior field agent grade 4, sub-grade 2.
A month later, Ianto had broken up with Rachel and was unhappy at Torchwood, just like his colleagues. Nonetheless, he remained and asked Guleraana Arbid to stay as well. Rachel eventually told him about her father Howard Allan's death before making him drink retcon. However, he had swallowed a neutraliser first. He turned against Rachel during the attack of the Korvax First Brood and helped Yvonne, who retconned Rachel to forget her time at Torchwood and had her start the following day believing that she was an orphan. (AUDIO: Uprising)
Return to normal
Info from Lola and Less Majesty needs to be added
WOTAN's return
In 2006, Ianto attended the unveiling of the Law Machines with Yvonne and fled with her and Mayor McAndrew when they went out of control. They met with Tommy and infiltrated Torchwood Tower, which the Law Machines had taken over. McAndrew died and, whilst Yvonne went with Julian Delaware, Ianto and Tommy avoided falling under WOTAN's control by putting cotton in their ears. They managed to disable WOTAN's signal that was being transmitted across London. Ianto then met up with Yvonne, who deleted WOTAN. (AUDIO: The Law Machines)
Whilst destroying hard drives, Tommy almost revealed that Ianto had been involved in a previous run-in with technology from Blind Summit before Yvonne caught him. (AUDIO: Blind Summit)
Ianto assisted Yvonne in her investigation of the offices set up by Whitehall and staffed by Temporary Solutions, both sneaking into HQP. Ianto told Stacey Newman about her true identity as a temporary person and chased after her to where she believed was her home. She eventually accepted what the truth and agreed to help. Ianto changed WOTAN's limiters, meaning that when it tried to update itself, it was downloaded in its entirety into every temp. With WOTAN again defeated and Stacey dead, he came to wonder if he was simply a tool to Yvonne. (AUDIO: 9 to 5)
The three retirements
Tommy showed Ianto the machine that he had made to which he planned to upload his mind to after committing suicide. Ianto agreed to look after it so long as Tommy showed him the simulated reality. Whilst in there, Ianto was given the chance to live out his James Bond fantasies and was tempted to stay. After exiting, Yvonne told them that they had been being watched and Ianto suggested that they retcon themselves. (AUDIO: Retirement Plan)
Ianto was sent to a nursing home to find out about the contents of Locker 15 from Dave Cooke. He was unsuccessful and Dave was brought to Torchwood Tower, where Torchwood learnt that he was actually a retconned shapeshifter. Once the situation was resolved, Yvonne told Ianto that Dave was to live out the rest of his life in the nursing home. She did not tell him that she smothered him with a pillow. (AUDIO: Locker 15)
Ianto answered a call from Anne Hartman and had to tell her that Yvonne would not be able to visit her. (AUDIO: The Rockery)
The Battle of Canary Wharf
During the Battle of Canary Wharf, Lisa was partly converted into a Cyberman. Ianto saved her and took her to safety. (TV: Cyberwoman) Before fleeing Torchwood Tower, he was given Object 1 by Kieran Frost. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)
Torchwood Three
Hiding Lisa
Info from Coffee, Another Life, Border Princes and Slow Decay needs to be added
Ianto believed that he could cure Lisa (TV: Cyberwoman) and returned to Cardiff to persuade Jack Harkness to give him a job at Torchwood Three so that he could hide her in the Hub. Jack initially rejected his request to join on account of having severed all links with Torchwood One, even after Ianto helped him tranquillise a Weevil and offered to work for free, but relented and hired him as a butler after he tracked Myfanwy with a Rift activity locator and helped him capture her. (TV: Fragments) He then moved Lisa and her life-support unit into a storeroom in the Hub. (TV: Cyberwoman)
On his first day, Ianto was taken to the roof of the Cardiff Bay Millennium Hall by Jack. (AUDIO: Dinner and a Show) His duties included cleaning up Torchwood's messes, getting the team where they needed to be on time, operating a fake tourist information desk (TV: Everything Changes) and making coffee. (TV: Cyberwoman) He, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper (TV: Day One) and Suzie Costello wondered who Jack really was, (TV: They Keep Killing Suzie) with Ianto not caring about his sexuality and believing that he once held an important role in the CIA. (TV: Day One)
Ianto introduced colleague Sebastian Vaughan to a Chinese takeaway near the Hub. Sebastian died some time later. (AUDIO: The Vigil)
When Gwen Cooper arrived at the information desk carrying pizzas, Ianto let her into the Hub where Jack, Suzie, Tosh and Owen were expecting her. He was put on standby to back up Owen when the latter was tasked with getting a hold of Chandler and Bell and he later hacked Gwen's computer to delete the notes that she made on Torchwood as she fought against the retcon Jack had given her. She triggered her amnesia, however, and joined the group after Suzie's suicide. (TV: Everything Changes)
Ianto alerted the team after Matt Stevens's death was reported to the emergency services and, after the Sex Gas-possessed Carys Fletcher was captured, he ordered Chinese for himself and his colleagues and shared his thoughts on Jack once he was out of the room. As Carys was escaping the Hub, Ianto offered to attack her, but Jack told him to allow her to leave. (TV: Day One)
Ianto jokingly asked for a warning if Bernie Harris was going to visit the Hub on account of his convictions and "corrected" Tosh and Owen's pronunciation of "Splott". Jack later had him put the quantum transducer in the secure archives. (TV: Ghost Machine)
On a mission that Ianto believed was simply to impress the newly-recruited Gwen, he and Tosh were sent by Jack to look into Rift energy in the Valleys and encountered the Zahir and a terraforming mist. They were trapped in the Torchwood SUV and eventually defeated the threat by burning the SUV's petrol to destroy the mist, causing the Zahir to suffocate. When the Sun rose and recharged the vehicle's battery, Ianto and Tosh headed back to Cardiff for their appraisals, but they were cancelled as Jack and Gwen were hunting a Yeti. (AUDIO: Torchwood: SUV)
In the hope of curing Lisa, Ianto invited Dr Tanizaki to the Hub and lied to his colleagues about the power drain which he found was caused by Lisa killing Tanizaki, a death that he felt responsible for. He attempted to protect Lisa when she attacked the rest of the team and refused to give up on curing her despite Jack's insistence that she could not be saved, disobeying Jack when he told him at gunpoint to execute her. Ultimately, she transplanted her brain into Annie Botchwell's body so that she and Ianto could be converted together and was shot by his colleagues. (TV: Cyberwoman)
Making amends
Ianto felt depressed after Lisa’s death. The day after she died he went to The Ferret and disclosed his feelings to the barmaid Mandy Aibiston. He became a regular at The Ferret, continuing to confide in Mandy. At work, Jack asked Ianto how he was after Lisa's death and took him on a Weevil hunt where Ianto unleashed some of his frustrations by attacking the Weevil. (AUDIO: Broken)
Ianto told Jack about unusual weather patterns in Cardiff (TV: Small Worlds) and took a telephone call from Estelle Cole inviting Jack to her lecture. He was disappointed when Jack took Gwen instead of him. (AUDIO: Broken) Later, he expressed his scepticism of the Cottingley fairy photos by blaming them on magic mushrooms and gave Jack the weather forecast when strange weather was detected at Jasmine Pierce's school. (TV: Small Worlds)
Encouraged by Mandy to try to ask to get more involved with the team, he helped Jack deal with an incursion of Scorchies. Afterwards he explained his grief at loss of Torchwood One and Lisa to Jack. He was pleased with his breakthroughs with the team and told Mandy about his anticipation of a trip to the Brecon Beacons to investigate disappearances. (AUDIO: Broken)
Ianto was upset by Tosh, Owen and Gwen's thoughtlessness when discussing the last person each of them had kissed given Lisa's death and could not understand their apparent excitement for danger. He and Tosh tracked the SUV after it was stolen and were kidnapped by Evan and Helen Sherman to be eaten, soon being joined by Owen and Gwen and saved when Jack drove a tractor into the building. (TV: Countrycide) Returning home after the ordeal, he attempted suicide but was unsuccessful and called Mandy to confess what he had done, after which she rushed to his aid. (AUDIO: Broken)
Ianto regularly checked in on Major Kreg after Torchwood had him settled at Mumbles Bay Caravan Park, though the Sontaran noted Ianto visited him more often than necessary and wondered if he simply had nothing else to do and considered Kreg his pet. Ianto struggled to keep the peace between Kreg and the site's owner, Mr Higgins, and was horrified when Kreg used a radio to summon Rutan forces for a battle. After surviving an attack by Rutan elemental mercenaries, Ianto let Kreg run the caravan site, giving him money to buy off Higgins. (AUDIO: The Great Sontaran War)
Ianto unknowingly had his grief-stricken thoughts listened to by Tosh through a telepathy pendant and offered her some of the "industrial strength" coffee that he was making for Jack. He was in the Hub when Mary threatened to kill Tosh for the transporter she had arrived with and was reminded of Lisa's death, but Tosh was saved when Jack teleported Mary into the Sun. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)
This casual killing horrified Ianto. Later that night Jack came to The Ferret to investigate some missing people in Radyr and Ianto became concerned when Jack went after Mandy. He theorised that the missing people wanted to leave of their own accord, and thought it was Mandy. He told Jack to let him deal with it and went along with Mandy when she took him to meet the Saviour. Jack interrupted the confrontation, revealing the Saviour was a slave trader, and Ianto let the Saviour take him through the Rift and left. After his mother called him, he went back to save Jack, shooting the Saviour and ordering Mandy to leave. He then went to retrieve Jack from being processed in the slavers camp. Afterwards he confessed his problems to Jack and they kissed, deciding to be broken together but “just for tonight”. (AUDIO: Broken)
Ianto encountered and defeated several Drifters that came through the Rift into the Restricted Items Archive. Whilst cataloguing some alien items, including a number recovered from Dwyford House, he became aware of the presence of another Drifter and made himself sound lonelier and unhappier than he truly was to draw it out. Once it took form using stationery and appliances and attempted to take Ianto's skin, he attracted a Rift flare and jumped forwards in time five seconds with a time machine to avoid it himself. (AUDIO: Restricted Items Archive Entries 031-049)
When a life-optimisation engine absorbed Jack, Tosh, Owen and Gwen as they helped get Abigail Forehill to the Hub, Ianto was left believing that he was the sole member of Torchwood and that his reason for being in Cardiff was to find Lisa's killer. He helped Abi when she told him that she had no memory of her friends or family and eventually made the connection between her and the engine, removing part of it from her and allowing her to regain her memories and order the engine to destroy itself. This resulted in Torchwood being restored and Ianto remembering that it was his friends who killed Lisa. (AUDIO: Ex Machina)
Ianto went with Jack, Owen and Gwen to destroy a warehouse full of alien artefacts in the Brecon Beacons whilst Tosh remained in Cardiff to follow whoever purchased a teleporter being sold. (AUDIO: Drive)
Ianto used his stopwatch to count the time as Gwen used the resurrection gauntlet on Alex Arwyn, Mark Brisco and Suzie and incorrectly assumed that Jack had put the Hub on lockdown when Suzie escaped with Gwen and locked them all inside. He used the water tower as a relay to call for help and put Suzie's corpse back in the morgue following her second death, recording the circumstances as "death by Torchwood" and remarking on the fact that a second resurrection gauntlet was likely out there. He began a sexual relationship with Jack. (TV: They Keep Killing Suzie)
After Jack was arrested in connection with the death of Robert Craig, Ianto visited the Caru Clinic due to Jack having made a telephone call to them and found that Megan Brook and two other staff members had been murdered by the Arcanis Servitorus to cover up Craig's immortality. Ianto was subsequently driven off of the road and flown to a hospital for treatment, receiving a visit and a kiss on the forehead from Jack once he was released. (AUDIO: Hidden)
After Eugene Jones's death, Ianto looked through his possessions with Owen and found his collection of things that had come through the Rift. He later informed Owen and Gwen that the man who hit Eugene in his car had been stopped outside Caernarfon, apparently confirming that his death was ordinary. (TV: Random Shoes)
Ianto and Owen went on a mission to the Brecon Beacons. He was in charge of the mission as he knew the area. He went with Owen to find signal they had traced back in Cardiff. He worked out that the HSRC that everyone was talking about was the local rugby club. In the clubhouse he saw an illusion of his nan, and was knocked out by Pat. He told Pat she had to come to Torchwood so that she could be relocated. (AUDIO: The Last Beacon)
When a number of high profile celebrities took a flight on the SkyPuncher, Ianto also boarded the flight to ensure that nothing went wrong and also to get close to Ephraim Salt to learn more about The Committee. While he was on this flight, Zeynep called him about injury at work insurance and Ianto asked her to help him find any information she could on the SkyPuncher. He bought insurance for Myfanwy and Zeynep also helped with some first aid. She then helped him through the procedure get to land the ship. Trying to find a phone charger, Ianto found out that that Ephraim Salt was alive and he bit him. Zaynep later suggested that he was being framed. Shortly afterwards, the autopilot was switched on by remote, and he found out that the ship was being piloted towards the call centre. Ianto realised that spaceship was homing into Zeynep's headset. He found a parachute and used the ejector seat to escape the ship. Shortly afterwards Zeynep rang him to let him know she survived. (AUDIO: Fall to Earth)
Ianto led the shutdown of Milne Futures, an office block in Splott using brain augmentation drugs supplied by the Committee. He confronted the boss, Oliver Milne, and revealed he’d used Retcon to undo the effects on all the workers. The workers were too far gone however, resulting in the Retcon killing them all. Ianto kept Torchwood out of the subsequent inquest, arranging for some of the workers’ relatives to have their memories retconned, and posed as Oliver’s taxi driver to offer him a Retcon pill to forget it all. Oliver angrily refused, but Ianto took one himself to keep his conscience clear. (AUDIO: The Office of Never Was)
In December, Ianto took the temporally-displaced Diane Holmes, John Ellis and Emma-Louise Cowell to a supermarket to help them acclimatise and then dropped John off at the Millennium Stadium. He gave a bus timetable to John at the Hub and later realised that John had stolen his keys and taken his car, which he killed himself in. (TV: Out of Time)
Ianto decided to spend Christmas alone, renting a property from Annie Watkins in a rural village to spend a couple of days alone. They were hunted by Mari Lwyd, which Ianto believed was an entity that had come through the Rift simply following the rules of the local folklore, and dead bodies it reanimated, the Grey Men. After being besieged overnight Annie decided to confront the entity and to Ianto's surprise managed to rally the locals it had made into Grey Men to turn on it. Ianto subsequently joined Annie for Christmas dinner and got a phone call from Jack that he'd been hoping for. (AUDIO: The Grey Mare)
Ianto noticed increased reports of unusual injuries at the hospital, bringing them up after Torchwood became aware of Weevils being kidnapped, and informed Jack when Janet started weeping in the cells. He tried to trace calls made to Dan Hodges' phone to find out who was behind the kidnappings and went with Jack to the hospital to question a Weevil victim who claimed to have been mugged. He voted against releasing Janet to find the Weevil Fight Club and later joined Tosh in holding the club members at gunpoint as Owen was taken to safety following his fight with a Weevil. (TV: Combat)
Ianto sent Gwen to the Ritz to find the uncontactable Jack and Tosh after the Rift monitor sounded and researched the building with Owen, leading them to a photograph of Jack, Tosh and Bilis Manger taken in 1941. He disagreed with Owen about opening the Rift with the Rift Manipulator because of the risks and shot him in the shoulder, but Owen still managed to use the device and bring their missing teammates back. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
When the Rift being opened caused worldwide chaos, Ianto spent the night on the telephone with the British government, UNIT and the CIA and filled up the cells with Weevils. He saw an apparition of Lisa who told him to open the Rift and mutinied against Jack with Tosh, Owen and Gwen to do so, undoing the damage and releasing Abaddon. Once Abaddon was defeated and Jack recovered from a death of several days, Ianto kissed Jack before he disappeared (TV: End of Days) and joined the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones in the TARDIS. (TV: Utopia)
Jack's absence
As the team argued over who should lead Torchwood in Jack's absence, Ianto found a manifesto written by Emily Holroyd which indicated that Tosh should become leader as the most senior member and stopped their squabble about who should go to the Fenmere estate to investigate a burst of energy. Once the team returned, Ianto noticed that they were behaving oddly because of the Rehabilitator. The effects wore off and Tosh named Gwen the team leader. (PROSE: Kaleidoscope)
Ianto learnt that the Faust audience at the Cardiff Bay Millennium Hall was full of aliens and joined Tosh there after taking the ticket she had given Owen out of the rubbish to investigate. Upon finding the fire escape padlocked, he was reminded of Zeal and later concluded that Ilmatar was their lead singer and planned to burn members of the audience to feed to the Grosche. He and Tosh managed to evacuate the audience and drank Proseccio on the hall's roof as Owen tried to get in contact with them. (AUDIO: Dinner and a Show)
During the months that Jack was gone, Ianto, along with the rest of Torchwood Three, was dispatched on a "wild goose chase" to the Himalayas by Mr Saxon. (TV: The Sound of Drums)
Jack's return
Info from Something in the Water, Trace Memory, Mend Me, Unplugged, Tropical Beach Sounds and Other Relaxing Seascapes #4, The Twilight Streets, The Return of the Vostok, The Book of Jahi, Requiem, Pack Animals, SkyPoint and Monster and further information from Rift War! needs to be added
When Jack returned only to drive off in the Torchwood SUV to meet John Hart, Ianto went after him with Tosh, Owen and Gwen and was sent with Jack to recover what John claimed was one of three radiation cluster bombs. He accepted Jack's offer of a proper date as they searched an office and was told by John at gunpoint to go and save his friends. After he did so and the three canisters formed an explosive device which latched onto John, he kept a countdown with his stopwatch until Owen removed the device and Jack threw it into the Rift. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)
Ianto was surprised to be approached by Rupert Howarth and took him to the Hub where Howarth lied to the team about how he faked his death to avoid being assassinated by pharmaceutical companies as he neared a breakthrough in immunity-boosting drugs. He later admitted that he had come to the Hub to retrieve the recipe for a drug to suppress the Chimera hunting him, making Ianto feel betrayed. He went looking for the Chimera himself and was attacked, but Howarth saved him at the cost of his own life and Ianto put his body in the morgue. (COMIC: The Legacy of Torchwood One!)
Ianto reminded Jack of the dangers of the mind probe when he decided to use it on Beth Halloran and gave her water to ensure that she did not get dehydrated. He was surprised by the amount of information that Cell 114 had gathered and helped put Beth in the morgue, but she escaped and he helped piece together Cell 114's plan to use humanity's nuclear warheads against them. (TV: Sleeper)
Jack and Ianto tracked a Cell 114 signal to Serenity Plaza and went undercover to track the sleeper agent, choosing the name Ifan, a variant of Ianto. He spent most of his days perfecting the "perfect house husband" routine whilst Jack went off to work. The longer he stayed in the housing estate, the more he became impatient. They discovered the sleepers’ base in Bob and Mary’s house during a party and learnt that Cell 114 had devised a way to convert humans into sleepers. They went looking for Bob and Mary but encountered Vanessa, who revealed herself as a sleeper. When all the sleepers activated, they fled and got separated. He planted an improvised explosive, setting it so it would trigger a chain reaction to destroy the estate, and encountered Jack, though was unconvinced he hadn’t been replaced by a sleeper. After they returned to the base in Bob and Mary’s house he shot Jack in the head to test if he was real whilst recalibrating a scanner to melt the sleepers’ bones. Jack suggested they use the same weapon on Cell 114’s spaceship in orbit, but he couldn't bring himself to commit genocide so gave the button to Jack. Together they watched Serenity Plaza burn. (AUDIO: Serenity)
Ianto helped explain Tommy Brockless to Gwen and kept an eye on the temporally locked box containing Gerald Carter's sealed orders until it finally opened. He stayed with Tommy as Jack explained the orders to Tosh and gave him back the clothes that he was wearing when he was taken from St Teilo's Hospital by Gerald and Harriet Derbyshire to return to 1918 in. (TV: To the Last Man)
Ianto remained in the Hub with Tosh whilst Jack, Owen and Gwen investigated the energy field that caused people in Cardiff to start greeting one another and share information. They were able to save some of the Hub's hardware after the field began frying the systems and Jack later had them send gibberish to his phone to make the Light believe that Earth was beyond its comprehension and make it shut down the energy field, which it did. (AUDIO: Everyone Says Hello)
Ianto narrowed down the site that the Cash Cow's meat came from to an unoccupied warehouse outside Merthyr Tydfil and sneaked in with Owen. When he returned, he and Rhys Williams were captured by Dale, but he managed to untie his hands before emptying Dale's gun of bullets and stunning Vic and Greg. The Cash Cow was euthanised and Ianto reminded Gwen that the rules stated that Rhys had to be retconned, but Jack broke the rules for them. (TV: Meat)
Ianto was lured back to Milne Futures’ abandoned office block after a man told him about it being haunted in the Torchwood office. He started to hear voices and the lift started acting strangely and found himself trapped In the office block. As he tried to find away to escape and contact the outside world, he met the girl who struggled to remember anything. They found all the leaflets in the office had his face on them. He traced the voice to a locked room, and when he entered it, he and the girl were attacked by a swarm of rats. The girl chose to abandon him but was tricked into falling down the lift shaft. Oliver let Ianto up to the top floor and reminded him of what he’d done, planning to trap him in the office. Ianto pretended to beg for his forgiveness, tricking him into allowing Ianto to steal his gun and key card. Ianto accessed the lift and closed the door, listening to Oliver beg him to let him in. He revealed he’d taken another Retcon pill to forget Oliver again and abandoned him, leaving the office block. (AUDIO: The Office of Never Was)
Ianto was the first to suspect that Patrick Jefferson could be involved in the death of Steven Ballard and comforted Darren Sowersby after Gwen brought him to the Hub for questioning. He was distraught after Jefferson sent Jack to Hell and took Jefferson's matchbox to send himself there to recover him after Tosh found that the Hub's systems could follow the Huon particles. He saved Jack and Darren thanked him for their talk which helped give him renewed confidence in life. (AUDIO: In the Shadows)
Ianto checked his diary for information on a supposed alien artefact and realised that there were no references to Adam Smith, who had altered Torchwood's memories to believe that he had been working with them for years. Adam then made Ianto believe that he was a serial killer and that Adam had helped him dispose of the bodies, leading him to confess to Jack and ask to be locked up. Jack soon found CCTV footage of Adam altering everybody's memories and Ianto was the first to take retcon to forget about him. (TV: Adam)
Tosh told Ianto and Owen after she was drugged by a ritual motorcycle. Ianto later hired a helicopter so that Jack could chase her and Drew Blayney. (COMIC: Jetsam)
After oil was found in the water at Cardiff Bay, Ianto liaised with the fire brigade and told them not to let The Dread burn under any circumstances. He confirmed with Tosh that the oil was moving towards power supplies and, after micro-organisms reduced the oil to water, the two of them watched as Jack, Owen and Gwen emerged from the bay following The Dread's dissolution. (PROSE: Black Water)
Ianto and Gwen investigated Rift activity at Cardiff Museum and found that they were being distracted by the Harrowkind, who stole the Hub in the belief that the Rift Manipulator was a threat to the Sanctified. The Hub was restored thanks to Vox. (COMIC: Rift War!)
Ianto helped Jack and Tosh retrieve a chrysalis from which a creature burst in the Hub, prompting him to shoot at it without causing it any harm. He and Owen located a second chrysalis and he looked after Owen as he suffered from infected wounds following the first creature's attack. (PROSE: Harm's Way)
Ianto escorted Martha Jones into the Hub when she arrived to perform a post-mortem and was tasked with helping Gwen pursue the criminal investigation into a series of attacks. They learnt that Barry Leonard had recovered from diabetes, leading the team to investigate Aaron Copley and the Pharm and Ianto to put together a false identity for Martha to infiltrate them. He helped Jack threaten Billy Davis with Janet to learn about the side effects of Reset, had Tosh shut down the Pharm on Jack's orders and attempted to save Owen after Copley shot him. (TV: Reset)
Following Owen's resurrection with a second resurrection gauntlet, Ianto checked the Hub's systems for dimensional anomalies and retrieved a universal translator to translate what Owen said under Death's control. He fought against the attacking gauntlet with a hockey stick, evacuated the hospital that Death targeted and looked into the legend of Death claiming souls, finding that he was stopped by a girl named Faith. (TV: Dead Man Walking)
With Owen forbidden from going on missions whilst Martha ran tests on him, Ianto showed him how to use the coffee machine and rhetorically asked him if he was going to let being dead beat him after everything he had done. Gwen had Ianto get an inventory of Henry Parker's collection, which included a number of items that he did not recognise. (TV: A Day in the Death)
Ianto and Jack put Colin Acres Junior in a body bag after his suicide and loaded it into the SUV to be taken back to the Hub. (PROSE: Mrs Acres)
Ianto found that an artefact was missing from the archive and followed the trace radiation with Jack through the tunnels, during which Jack theorised that it might have been removed and sold by a member of Torchwood in the 1950s. After Gwen and Tosh located the artefact at the Arkanovitch Hotel, Ianto, Jack and Owen joined them and planned to retrieve it. (PROSE: The Beauty of Our Weapons)
After Gwen was bitten and impregnated by a Nostrovite, Ianto shopped for a new wedding dress for her and shut down the phone lines during her wedding to prevent the guests from calling the police when the Nostrovite mother attacked. Once the situation was resolved, he helped retcon all of the guests and clean up, a role which he likened to being a "wedding fairy". (TV: Something Borrowed)
Ianto became controlled by a plant in the hothouse and became obsessed with caring for it to the point that Jack and Tosh were worried about him. He refused to allow Tosh to take a cell sample from the plant and grabbed Jack's wrist when he went to touch it, but Jack finally killed it when he saw it feeding on Ianto's blood. (PROSE: Plant Life)
Ianto took Owen and Gwen to the Electro where they saw Jack in an old film also containing footage of the Night Travellers, but Ianto later noticed that the Ghostmaker and Pearl had vanished from it. When Jack filmed the Ghostmaker to trap him back inside film, Ianto grabbed the silver flask containing the last breaths of his victims, but all of the breaths aside from a young boy's escaped. Afterwards, Ianto destroyed Jonathan Penn's reels of circus sideshows in an attempt to prevent the Night Travellers from returning again. (TV: From Out of the Rain)
When Gwen was investigating people taken by the Rift, Ianto told her that they were likely ordinary missing persons but went on to give her a GPS directing her to Flat Holm without Jack's knowledge. Jack immediately realised that he was responsible. (TV: Adrift)
As part of Owen's investigation into the Church of the Outsiders, Ianto signed up to the organisation and was tazed by the Greys when he was caught spying on them and pretended to want to join their circle. Chris threatened to replace his body parts if he did not reveal who sent him, but he awoke in his own bed after being saved by Jack and went to an assembly where Jack demonstrated his immortality to become the new leader. Ianto spreaded the footage of the resurrection, leading to the Church being ridiculed and upsetting Ianto's co-pilot, Erin Lewis. (AUDIO: Believe)
Ianto sent Gwen the location of an abandoned building where he, Jack, Tosh and Owen went to investigate strange energy patterns which turned out to be explosives. The resulting destruction dislocated Ianto's shoulder and required Jack to put it back into place. After the team managed to leave the ruins, Jack received a hologram message from John, claiming responsibility for the attack. (TV: Fragments)
Jack sent Ianto and Tosh to investigate a Rift flare at the Central IT Server Station, where they shot three cowled figures, and then to stabilise the Turnmill Nuclear Power Station systems. Owen went in their stead due to his connection to the Weevils crowding the streets and was killed whilst Tosh was killed by Gray. It was Ianto's job to update the personnel records to record them both as deceased. (TV: Exit Wounds)
Torchwood trio
Info from Into the Silence, The House That Jack Built, Who by Fire, The Selkie, Gordian, They Keep Killing Andy, Happy New Year, Ma and Par, Virus, Closing Time, Consequences, The Wrong Hands, Stakes on a Plane, I May Be Some Time, Broken, Flotsam and Jetsam, Fated to Pretend, Photo Finish, Reflections, The Package, Ashes to Ashes, Lockdown, Rare Earth, Everything's True, The Secret of Crow Island, Red-Handed, Cultural Firsts, The Mind's Eye, The Last Voyage of Osiris, Risk Assessment, The Undertaker's Gift, Shrouded, Somebody Else's Problem, Hell House, Ghost Train, Rhys & Ianto's Excellent Barbecue, We All Go Through and Coffee needs to be added
The extra workload following Tosh and Owen's deaths affected Ianto's focus and, as Jack noted, even the normally exceptional standard of his coffee slipped in the months which followed. He had to take on Owen's duties as the team medic, which - with little experience - he found particularly stressful. (PROSE: Bay of the Dead)
Ianto believed that Jack was dealing well with Tosh and Owen's deaths until he learnt that he had agreed to carry the heir to the Yalnix Empire. He saved Jack from a man-eating dragon and stunned Paula before she and the other people at Monkstone Abbey Health Spa influenced by the baby could attack him before deliberately driving the two of them off Penarth Pier so they would be teleported to the birthing ship. There, Jack delivered the baby and handed him over to Jonty. (AUDIO: Expectant)
Ianto posed as the Ambassador for Wales when Martha invited him, Jack and Gwen to Geneva to investigate a series of disappearances at CERN. He and Gwen confirmed that everybody who had fallen ill and disappeared had been inside the Large Hadron Collider tunnel and went there themselves, riding in opposite directions on bicycles in search of clues. Ianto encountered the neutron eater, which claimed to be Tosh, Owen and Lisa, and was left comatose until Jack and Katrina Johnson destroyed it. (AUDIO: Lost Souls)
Following a cannibalistic massacre on a yacht in Cardiff Bay, Ianto and Jack found themselves zombie-hunting in Trowbridge, as much as Ianto refused to believe in "horror-movie hokum". They came across mother-to-be Sarah Thomas stranded in her Passat, which was under attack from a quartet of "zombies". Ianto and Jack eliminated the zombies and drove Sarah and her husband, Trystan, back to the Hub, where Ianto delivered their baby in the Boardroom. Jack and Ianto then travelled to St Helen's Hospital, where they met up with Gwen and Rhys, and found that Leet - a Dellacoi - had created the zombies to search for his life-shell and control over the creatures had passed to Oscar Phillips, a coma patient. Ianto witnessed Oscar awaken from his coma and jump out of the hospital window, killing himself and relinquishing his control over the zombies. (PROSE: Bay of the Dead)
In late 2008, Jack, wanting to finally retrieve the alien parasite attached to Gareth Robert Owen, had Ianto and Gwen get jobs at G.R. Owen's in menswear and handbags respectively and Ianto found evidence of one of the parasite's victims. He almost gave away Torchwood's mission to Firestone Finance because of Miss Valentine's telepathic powers and slipped into the Department of Curiosities where he met Gareth, whom the parasite exchanged for Martin Absalom after he entered with Jack, Gwen and Miss Valentine. Ianto returned through the dimension gate and he and Jack returned to the store once Gareth had taken it over. (AUDIO: Department X)
After Earth was transported to the Medusa Cascade by the New Dalek Empire, Ianto realised that they were deliberately keeping humanity alive and, like Gwen, was kissed by Jack when he realised who was responsible. Torchwood were put in contact with Martha Jones and Sarah Jane and Luke Smith thanks to Harriet Jones and the Sub-Wave Network and they decided to boost the signal of Martha's superphone to call the Tenth Doctor using the Rift's power. The transmission made them visible to the Daleks and one was sent to the Hub; whilst Jack used his vortex manipulator to find the Doctor, Ianto and Gwen opened fire on the Dalek despite knowing that they would prove useless. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
Ianto and Gwen were saved by Tosh's time lock, the completion of which he was unaware, and they were left in a time bubble which they could not leave without unlocking the Dalek. Trapped inside, they had to put their faith in Jack. The Doctor later contacted the Hub and asked Ianto and Gwen to open the Rift Manipulator and send its power to be used to tow the planet back where it belonged with the TARDIS. Ianto did so and the Earth was returned. (TV: Journey's End)
Gwen detected an unusual energy signal which led Torchwood to discover the corpse of Ron Arnold and that he had been used to incubate alien maggots which Ianto and Jack went to trace, first by using the SUV's untested submersible mode and then aboard the Sea Queen. They located the creatures' mother in Arnold's sunken ship and returned to Cardiff when Gwen reported that Neil Hayward had dozens of creatures ready to take flight and absorb the guilt of humanity, which they soon learnt was to be fed to their mother. The mother grew and began to transform, but the team killed it with a diesel explosion. (AUDIO: The Sin Eaters)
After Torchwood was invited to the police station by Andy Davidson to see Freda and her Universal Remote Control, Ianto and Jack took the device to the Hub and, on the way, Jack unwittingly used it to cause major disruption to the traffic. Jack then stole a motorcycle which they used to get to the Hub, where Ianto tested Freda's blood and concluded that she was an alien. As Jack and Gwen argued about what to do with Freda, Ianto deduced that Torchwood 2069 sent her back in time so that the three of them would come up with an asylum policy for aliens who came through the Rift. (AUDIO: Asylum)
Tracking an energy spike to Delhi, Ianto, Jack and Gwen discovered that thousands of people had disappeared as the result of an energy field spreading from Torchwood India's base at the Royal Connaught Hotel. Ianto and Gwen were given a tour of the hotel by George Gissing whilst Jack spoke with the Duchess of Melrose and discovered that the Duchess had had Mr Mahajan set up a transmitter to increase the energy field. The two of them were to be sacrificed to the time store keeping the club unchanged since 1924, but they were saved by Jack and the time store was shut down, putting an end to Torchwood India. (AUDIO: Golden Age)
Ianto, Jack and Gwen were investigating the collapse of twenty people after answering their telephones when Jack answered one and entered the same coma-like trance. Having heard about Jack's relationship with neuroscientist Stella Courtney, Ianto invited her to examine him and sat with him as Gwen and Rhys looked into the history of the telephone calls, sharing with him his worries about their differing lifespans. He realised that the phenomenon was similar to a computer virus and wired up an MRI scanner to the Hub to release an electromagnetic pulse which restored everybody affected. (AUDIO: The Dead Line)
When the United Kingdom began suffering from power cuts that spread to Europe, Ianto and Jack found that the cuts seemed to be feeding something in the countryside which they found was Fitzroy, unable to travel to Earth due to electrical interference. Joanna Carew, whom Ianto looked into for Gwen following her visit to Ivyday Nursing Home, fell from a height and died before Project F could be completed and the world left completely without power. Ianto and Jack then returned to the Hub, leaving Gwen and Rhys with Miss Carew's body. (AUDIO: The Devil and Miss Carew)
Ianto researched a cry that he, Jack and Gwen heard after crashing into the River Severn and found that it had been heard all over the world, after which he traced it to the Mariana Trench and contacted Carlie Roberts to assist. The four of them sailed on the USS Calvin and took the Octopus Rock to the bottom of the trench where they encountered a parasite in possession of Sam Doyle's body. After Sam fried the Octopus Rock's systems, the group resurfaced in the Guernica and the possessed Carlie died as the parasite got too far away from the black smokers, but Ianto was able to resuscitate her and he supported her decision to continue exploring the trench. (AUDIO: Submission)
Tasked with keeping people from entering Kool Fried Chicken whilst Jack was rescuing a Ytraxorian, Ianto wrestled with a fat woman in a tiara. (PROSE: The Men Who Sold the World)
Ianto looked into accidents caused by people going into dream states and investigated one such occurrence with Gwen. Jack tried to lock them out of the Hub to save them when he realised that he was infected with Invictus, but Ianto was still inside. Ianto used the pharadyne projector to get information on Good Thinking from Norton Folgate, who helped him get to safety, although he was forced to abandon Jack when men came for his body after he entered Stage 4. He sneaked into the Emergency Response Centre with Luke Palmer and found those that were left to die. Afterwards, he confessed to Jack that he had been infected with Invictus but had fought it. (AUDIO: Outbreak)
Ianto ended up discovering a stange snowglobe, which offered him to be transformed into him into the ideal version he wished to be. This unintentionally turned him into a woman, but Ianto felt happy about it; even though Jack had his doubts. Ianto eventually passed on a beach, where a jogger named Emma Webster swiped the snowglobe from him after resuscitating her; reverting Ianto back to a man. (PROSE: Almost Perfect)
Return of the 456
Whilst investigating the phenomenon of children stopping and chanting "We are coming", Ianto visited Rhiannon in the hopes of getting a hold of Mica to examine her, but Rhiannon refused to let her leave and instead asked him about his relationship with Jack. The SUV was stolen whilst they were talking, but he managed to return to the Hub where he learnt that Gwen was pregnant and that Jack had had a bomb placed inside of him on Agent Johnson's orders. After initially refusing to leave Jack, he took the invisible lift out before the detonation. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
Ianto escaped the bullets of Agent Johnson's men and got Rhiannon to meet by delivering a greetings card asking her to take a laptop to where their father broke his leg. He used the laptop to track the van in which Jack's remains were removed from the Hub and commandeered a JCB to save him after he was encased in concrete, carrying the block to a quarry where he dropped it from a height and freed him. He and Jack then left with Gwen and Rhys to continue investigating the children. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two)
Ianto took the team to a disused Torchwood One holding facility in London which they made their base, stealing laptops, money and a vehicle. He was able to track down Clement McDonald, whose homophobic language he disliked, and translated Lois Habiba's shorthand transcript of the first meeting between John Frobisher and the 456 ambassador, who said that the 456 would take 10% of the world's children. Jack revealed that he had delivered children to them in 1965, (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three) something that Ianto was surprised that he had never told him. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four)
Death
Torchwood decided to blackmail the government with the meetings they had recorded thanks to Lois and the Eye-5s and, as he and Jack headed to Thames House, Ianto warned Rhiannon not to let anybody take David or Mica. He and Jack threatened to expose the truth if the 456 did not leave Earth, but this only prompted the ambassador to release a virus to kill everybody in the building. Jack and Ianto unsuccessfully tried to shoot the ambassador, after which Ianto collapsed and asked Jack not to forget him before dying in his arms. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four)
Afterlife
Six months after Ianto's death, Jack visited the House of the Dead in Wales in an attempt to see Ianto's spirit. Ianto had been recreated by an ancient being within the Rift, along with many other spirits — such as his father — in an attempt to convince Jack to free it. For a time, Ianto thought he was alive. He was physically tangible and believed that he was in contact with Gwen. However, it later transpired that Jack, not anticipating Ianto would be "so real", had come with the plan of using the House of the Dead and an explosive device containing Rift energy-soaked materials from the Bay to close the Rift forever. Jack figured that he would be sucked into the Rift for eternity as well, making his attempt akin to suicide. Ianto convinced Jack they could both leave the House, and Jack could continue his life alongside a resurrected Ianto. Ianto tricked Jack into leaving so that he would live, and vowed to seal off the Rift and die again to give Jack a chance at a new life. (AUDIO: The House of the Dead)
Shortly after this incident, Jack left Earth behind out of grief, due to not only the death of Ianto, but also of Suzie, Tosh, Owen and Steven. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Five)
Legacy
During the events of Miracle Day, Jack and Gwen continued to mourn Ianto's death, and wished that the Miracle had happened sooner so that he would still be alive, along with all their other deceased friends. (TV: Dead of Night)
When Jack discovered that his former lover, Angelo Colasanto, had been watching him throughout the 20th century and part of the 21st, he asked him whether had had observed him and Ianto, and speculated as to whether the two would like each other or not. (TV: End of the Road)
In the 2020s, the Torchwood emergency hologram assumed the appearance of Ianto, believing he had an "honest face". (AUDIO: Cuckoo)
As a member of Torchwood, Ianto's likeness was among those assumed by the intuitive hard-light simulations of the Torchwood Archive. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)
A poster featuring an image of him captioned "RIP Ianto", "Missed" was placed next to a missing poster for Kamelion. (POEM: Have You Seen..?)
Alternate timelines
Ianto once noticed an attractive coffee saleswoman who introduced herself as Mairwyn. She was a time-traveller who had come to manipulate Ianto into travelling back in time, acquiring some vital technology from Torchwood One with which she could enslave the world. She had chosen Ianto because of his access to Torchwood One security and because, with the knowledge of Torchwood Three's destruction, Tosh and Owen's deaths, and Ianto's own demise, he was exploitable. He was later visited by Rhys Williams and John Hart, who had travelled from the future to stop Mairwyn, who knew John Hart by the name "Beatrice"; she had stolen a vortex manipulator from him.
When Mairwyn next saw Ianto, she used a device to show him his future and told him that Captain Jack was not a loyal lover, was a heartbreaker, and wouldn't take long to get over Ianto's death. Ianto later looked at Hub CCTV footage of Jack's attempt to romance Gwen. When he found out about her engagement, not long before Jack formally asked Ianto out, Jack said, "I don't know what I'd do without you", when he recommended Ianto get on with his computer work; his wonted coldness left Ianto visibly upset.
When Mairwyn next appeared to Ianto, he kissed her, took her home and had sex with her. When he used her device again to see the future he would be responsible for creating, he refused her original offer and knifed her. After saying goodbye to John and Rhys, he sent his sister Rhiannon Davies an uncharacteristically friendly email saying he loved her before retconning himself.
With the timeline restored, Gwen and Jack attended Ianto's funeral, watched from afar by John Hart. Further afar were alternate universe doppelgängers of Ianto and Mairwyn; Ianto commented, "I can't believe there's a reality where I said no." (COMIC: Shrouded)
In another alternate timeline, in which John Hart took control of the Torchwood Institute and became King of the British Empire, he hired Ianto as his personal assistant, making him dress in bondage-themed outfits and torturing him for fun. (AUDIO: The Death of Captain Jack)
Parallel world
In a parallel world, Ianto and Gwen sacrificed their lives in defeating the Sontaran invasion of Earth. (TV: Turn Left)
Personality
Ianto was at first quite distant and reserved in the company of the other Torchwood members, with a quiet and dutiful nature like a butler. He was often neglected and unnoticed by the rest of the team, being left to manage the Torchwood Archive. The rest of the team knew little about what he did; they were often too busy and never interested enough to ask. (PROSE: Slow Decay)
Ianto wasn't the sort of person who hugged anybody, nor did he ever punch somebody playfully on the arm or even put an arm around somebody. Owen assumed he was probably gay and hiding his sexuality. (PROSE: Another Life)
However, when the discovery of his girlfriend was made, Ianto revealed a tormented and passionate side that would do anything to help and save her even if it destroyed him. His behaviour during a conversation with Doctor Tanizaki about Torchwood One suggested that there was some mental scarring from the incident, as he quickly and abruptly changed the subject. (TV: Cyberwoman)
Conversations with his sister about their parents suggested that their relationship had become difficult. One such conversation about Ianto breaking his leg in an accident revealed that Ianto perceived his father as someone who always pushed him. His sister pointed out that his father had cared about him and had been only trying to bring out the best in him; maybe Ianto should have "held on tighter" instead of buckling. The results seemed to have caused more problems than solutions. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two)
When Tosh received the mind pendant from Mary, she caught a glimpse into his mind, revealing that he was in pain, but, because of his withdrawn nature, he kept it to himself. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts) Ianto gradually came out of his shell a bit, showing a quick and humorous wit, usually at serious moments. (TV: Sleeper) Despite this, it was hinted that there was a darker side within him. (TV: Adam)
Ianto had difficulty expressing himself emotionally, being reserved and stiff in conversation. He was uncomfortable around emotional people; he went rigid around his brother-in-law when he greeted him with a large bear hug and a slight tease about being gay. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
When he did lose control of his emotions, the outbursts were quite intense and he later seemed to regret his actions and behaviour. When the team chided him about Lisa, he angrily and venomously told them that they had no idea what his life was like and how he put up with cleaning up their mess without question because that was how they liked it. (TV: Cyberwoman)
After the incident he was very apologetic and tried to avoid the team whenever possible. When he got into an argument with Owen over whether or not to open the Rift, a more commanding part of Ianto took over and he ended up having to shoot Owen to stop him. This shocked both of them. It also hinted at his dark side when Owen joked afterward that he was glad Ianto was a bad shot; in response Ianto stared at him darkly, saying, "I was AIMING for your shoulder", implying that if he'd wanted to kill Owen, he would have. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
Skills
Ianto was highly organised, managing Torchwood's logistics with ease. (TV: Everything Changes, et al.)
He could throw the Torchwood SUV into a hairpin turn, knock down a Weevil with a well-placed blow, and run a hundred metres, according to Owen, like Christian Malcolm. (PROSE: Another Life)
He also had considerable computer skill, being able to hack into Gwen Cooper's computer and erase a document containing information about Torchwood. (TV: Everything Changes)
Other information
Duties
Ianto supported the main team. He staffed the Tourist Information Centre above the Hub and generally worked to "clean up their shit... no questions asked". (TV: Cyberwoman) Though not precisely one of his duties, he also kept a detailed journal of day-to-day operations. (TV: Adam) He was also responsible for cleaning the Torchwood SUV. Following Owen's death, he took on the duty of being the team medic which he found particularly stressful. (PROSE: Bay of the Dead)
Ianto also made coffee as part of his role in Torchwood Three. He took this responsibility very seriously, and would often remake a cappuccino if it did not have an “acceptable crema”. (PROSE: The Wrong Hands) On the final Thursday of each month, he would leave the Hub to pick up more coffee-making supplies. Ianto had exceptionally high standards for coffee, something he prided himself on. He could also identify coffees from different cafés in Cardiff by their smell alone, after an incident in the past had forbade any of the Torchwood team from visiting a Starbucks. (PROSE: Virus)
Relationships
Can we leave information about Lisa on the Lisa subheader, and info about Ianto's relationship with Jack on the Jack subheader?
Lisa Hallett
Ianto and Lisa had a very close relationship and he risked a lot to keep her alive. Her eventual death affected him deeply and he promised that if he ever got the chance he would leave Jack for dead. (TV: Cyberwoman) But although the pain over her death still lingered, (TV: Countrycide) he would not use the second Resurrection Gauntlet on her. (TV: They Keep Killing Suzie)
An apparition of Lisa, in her human form, convinced Ianto to side with Owen against Jack and open the Rift. (TV: End of Days)
Jack Harkness
In an attempt to show he had put the Lisa incident behind him, Jack tried to be friendly and even patted Ianto on the back, (TV: Small Worlds) although the conversation about the team's last kisses revealed that there was still some lingering tension between the two over the incident. (TV: Countrycide)
After going through a difficult time, Ianto asked that Jack kiss him. Ianto then kissed Jack but insisted that he did not want a relationship beyond the sexual. (AUDIO: Broken)
Gwen caught on to the relationship between Jack and Ianto and Ianto explicitly referred to being bisexual. (PROSE: The Twilight Streets)
Owen made remarks about the sexual nature of Ianto and Jack's relationship and, after believing Jack was dead, a distraught Ianto breathed in the scent of his coat. The two kissed upon reunion. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness, End of Days)
When Jack returned to the Hub, he asked Ianto out on a date, which Ianto accepted. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) This was followed by another kiss between the pair. (TV: To the Last Man)
The existence of the relationship was confirmed verbally in a conversation Ianto had with Martha Jones (TV: Reset) and in another conversation Ianto had with Owen Harper. (TV: A Day in the Death) The first public display of Ianto and Jack's relationship was when they danced together at Gwen's wedding. (TV: Something Borrowed)
Gwen accidentally walked in on Jack and Ianto in a decidedly sexual situation when she stormed into the Torchwood greenhouse, angry about the secrets Jack was keeping from her. After their conversation, Jack called Ianto back into the greenhouse to finish what they had started. (TV: Adrift)
Later, Ianto expressed a little jealousy when Jack mentioned having learned about Project Indigo by meeting a soldier in a bar; Jack had to reassure Ianto that it was strictly business. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
Whilst together, the two owned a dog named Untitled. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)
When his sister confronted him about rumours that he was gay, he reluctantly acknowledged his relationship with Jack. He tried to explain that Jack was the first man he had ever taken to in this way, and also that he was insecure about the exact status of his relationship with Jack. His brother-in-law, Johnny, took a more simplistic view of Ianto's sexual ambiguity, crassly concluding, "Ay ay, gayboy." (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
After Ianto collapsed from the virus the 456 released, Jack cradled him in his arms and the two cried. Ianto then told Jack that he loved him. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four)
After Ianto's death, Ianto and Jack reunited one more time with Ianto as a spirit. Jack confessed that he wanted to be trapped in the Rift forever as he couldn't bear to live in a world without Ianto. Before Ianto's spirit disappeared forever, the couple confessed their love for each other for the first and last time. (AUDIO: The House of the Dead)
Aliases and nicknames
| Name | When used/given | Story | Etymology |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iantoya | Given by the Gwen Cooper after Ianto woke up in the body of a woman. | Almost Perfect |
Behind the scenes
Death
When writing the initial outline of Series 2, Russell T Davies' original intention was that Ianto would die and be resurrected instead of Owen. This was changed only hours before production. (REF: The Writer's Tale)
Ianto was eventually killed off in Day Four of the Children of Earth mini series. This spurred an online campaign to resurrect the character[1], which branched into a drive to give to the Children in Need charity "in memory" of Ianto. By October 2010, over £15,000 had been raised[2]. The slogan used by the online community was "Save the Coffee Boy, Save the World," a takeoff of the Season One slogan for the American science fiction television show Heroes: "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World."
Yanto Jones
- According to Russell T Davies in the January 2008 radio special Torchwood: All Access (released on CD with Lost Souls in September 2008), Ianto Jones' name was based on another character (Yanto Jones) created by Davies for another television production (Mine All Mine); Gareth David-Lloyd played that character, too.
Other matters
- In the episode Adam, Ianto told Jack that he always felt that there was something inside of him that wanted to kill. This could have just been a result of Adam's influence, but his sudden violent behaviour in episodes like Countrycide and Meat and the dark voice Toshiko heard through Mary's pendant suggests there was more to Ianto's character that we had chance to see.
- Ianto appeared in the cancelled audio story Absent Friends.
Footnotes
External links
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