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Esther Drummond was a CIA analyst in the 21st century and a member of Torchwood upon its reformation in 2011. She was a good friend of fellow CIA agent, Rex Matheson. Esther sought to bring about the greater good, even at the cost of her own life. She did so by encouraging Rex and Jack to reverse the Miracle, after being shot.
Biography
Early life
Esther Drummond was of US descent, but her place and date of birth were listed as N/A in her Central Intelligence Agency file. (TV: Rendition) She always had to look after her older sister Sarah, whom she would later remark had never been able to cope with things. (TV: Dead of Night) Their mother died in 2003 (TV: The Categories of Life) and Sarah had two daughters, Melanie and Alice, between 2002 and 2004. (TV: Escape to LA)
Early career
Esther got a job at the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence as an analyst, (TV: Rendition) which involved sitting at her desk all day and reading blogs. Working in Langley, Virginia, she lived in an apartment on 11th Street in Washington DC (TV: Dead of Night) whilst Sarah lived in Los Angeles. (TV: Escape to LA)
Passionate about the subject, Esther once spent six months compiling a list of malware for the CIA. (TV: Rendition) She worked closely with Rex Matheson (TV: The New World, etc.) and believed that Broderick, whom Rex disliked and argued with over a mission in Venezuela, was sexually attracted to her.
In 2011, Esther worked with Rex on a mission which he hoped would restore him to favour in the CIA. She correctly believed that rogue members of the S.O.G. killed Oscar Lupé's death and, later, his wife Penelope and helped Rex in his investigations by arranging travel and sifting through data. (PROSE: The Men Who Sold the World)
The Miracle
Joining Torchwood
Esther investigated Torchwood after its name was emailed to the East Coast section chiefs and subsequently wiped from the Internet and met Jack Harkness in the archives, but he retconned her to protect Gwen Cooper. The Institute was brought back to her attention by Noah Vickers and she and Rex, who suffered an accident that she felt responsible for, realised that there was a connection between them and the Miracle. Esther successfully tracked Gwen down through Andy Davidson's phone calls and Rex was able to rendition Torchwood to the US. (TV: The New World)
Despite not being part of Clanedestine, Esther asked Brian Friedkin for the opportunity to assist Rex in the Torchwood case and confirmed that she was being kept up to date, unaware that he was working against Rex. She saw two men going through Rex's computer and fled headquarters with Charlotte Wills's ID after being notified of a bank transfer from China, calling Rex to alert him that they were being targeted and picking him, Jack and Gwen up from the airport. (TV: Rendition)
Forced to go on the run with Rex, Esther joined Torchwood to form a new team. She helped Gwen learn American terms and food to avoid sticking out. Sneaking back into the C.I.A., they found the director's phone, which had been giving the orders to kill Torchwood's last members along with Rex and herself. She accompanied the team to a warehouse owned by PhiCorp. Inside were a large stockpile of painkillers. This led the team to believe that PhiCorp had foreknowledge of Miracle Day and might have had a hand in bringing it about. (TV: Dead of Night)
The team decided to escape to LA to infiltrate PhiCorp's facilities there but Esther decided to say goodbye to her sister first. However, when Esther arrived at her sister's house, she found it boarded up, and Sarah refused to let Esther come inside or see her nieces. Esther called child services to report her sister. She went to meet the rest of Torchwood, but was followed by an assassin. The Torchwood team went to LA, where they began planning to infiltrate PhiCorp. Gwen and Jack broke into the building, followed by the assassin. Meanwhile, Esther called child services and found her sister's daughters had been removed. After the assassin threatened to kill Jack and hurt Gwen, Rex saved them, and shouted at Esther for endangering the mission. (TV: Escape to LA)
Investigating the camps
After the new categories of life were introduced, and the overflow camps were reopened, Esther realised the modules were on the camps' plans but had been removed from the photos. The team decided to find out what was in them, so Esther got an office job in the camp, Rex was admitted into the camp for his injury, and new Torchwood member Dr Vera Juarez used her position on the medical panels to gain access. Inside the camp, Esther reassigned Rex to category one so that he would be moved to the module. Esther also saw Vera arriving at the camp, and Colin Maloney leave with her for a tour of the camp. When Esther worried that Vera had not returned, she phoned her, but the call failed. (TV: The Categories of Life)
When Colin Maloney returned, Esther asked him where Dr Juarez was. Colin claimed she had gone home, and had praised his leadership of the camp. Esther tried to eavesdrop on Colin speaking with Ralph Coltrane but heard nothing. She later overheard Colin being told that Rex had been captured. She tried to follow Colin as he went to interrogate him but the camp had been put in lockdown mode, preventing this.
Later, Esther found Colin and Rex ignoring the lockdown rules. Esther told Colin he had received a phone call and that she could watch the prisoner for him. When Colin asked who was on the phone, Esther said that it was Dr Juarez. Unfortunately, Colin had murdered Dr Juarez and, as such, knew that Esther was lying. Rex shouted at Esther to run, but Colin attacked her. Esther strangled him to unconsciousness; Rex had to comfort her afterwards as she considered this to be her first kill, even though Rex reminded her there was no longer any such thing as killing. Esther took the keys out of Colin's pocket, but Colin was apparently still in either category two or three and attacked. Colin started to strangle Esther, but was shot by Ralph. Esther freed Rex, and the two of them escaped. (TV: The Middle Men)
Colasanto
When they returned to their base, Esther tried to comfort Rex about Vera's death, and asked if he had tried to contact her family. Rex pointed out that he hardly knew Vera and asked Esther to drop the subject. Soon afterwards, Esther noticed that the eye-5 contact lenses had been activated. Esther looked through the text messages that had been sent to the lenses, and realised that Gwen's family had been kidnapped and that she had been forced to take Jack to the kidnappers. Esther and Rex followed Gwen and Jack until they arrived at their meeting place with Olivia Colasanto in addition to contacting Andy Davidson and asking him to help Gwen's family. Esther and Rex both pointed guns at Colasanto and her men, and forced them to surrender. However, they were persuaded to go with her anyway as she was taking them to the one man who knew the true nature of the miracle. (TV: Immortal Sins)
Olivia took them to Angelo Colasanto's house. Upon arriving there, Rex asked Esther to stay outside and to keep an open cell phone line. While everyone else went inside, Esther researched the families and was surprised to find that nobody existed with any of their last names. While she was waiting outside, Brian Friedkin arrived and pointed a gun at her. Fiedkin, along with several other CIA agents, brought Esther inside and arrested all members of the Torchwood team, and everyone who was working for the Colasanto family. Friedkin then took Rex out of the room, and before long the eye-5 system was activated to show Friedkin admitting that the families owned him. Allen Shapiro soon arrived and arrested Friedkin and everyone working with him, as well as Olivia Colasanto. Shapiro took over operations at the Colasanto house, and put the CIA in charge. Esther was then able to webchat with her CIA colleagues, and was informed by Charlotte Wills that her sister had been committed. Esther spoke to her sister on the phone, and found out that she was planning to transfer to category one. Esther tried to talk Sarah out of this, but she wouldn't listen, as she believed that her body no longer contained a soul. Esther decided that the best way to help her sister was to try to end the miracle.
When Angelo became the first person to die since Miracle Day, the CIA's priority then became to discover how Angelo had died. Esther then realised that there was something under the floor where Angelo's bed had been. After Gwen was deported, Jack admitted that it was a null field generator, which had cancelled out the morphic field that was preventing death. Jack persuaded Esther and Rex that it would be dangerous to allow the CIA to obtain the null field generator, and convinced them to help him escape. Esther was planning to stay with Rex and the CIA after they helped Jack escape, but Jack was shot so Esther was forced to go with him. Unfortunately, Esther had no idea how to help him. (TV: End of the Road)
Finding the Blessing
Esther spent the next two months helping Jack recover, and the two eventually ended up in Scotland. Esther collected Jack's blood, as she assumed that it must be somehow relevant to the miracle. Eventually Gwen contacted the two and informed them that Oswald Danes was at her house, and wanted to speak to Jack. Esther and Jack went to Wales, and met with Oswald. Oswald informed them that he had stolen Jilly Kitzinger's laptop, and that she was working for a man named Harry Bosco. Esther laughed, and explained that Harry Bosco was a process rather than a person, and that Jilly's job was to mistranslate things for the families. Torchwood managed to find some of the reports that Jilly had mistranslated, but as none of them spoke Chinese, Esther sent them to Rex to have the CIA translate. Torchwood then determined that the Blessing was in Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Esther then went to Buenos Aires, where she met up with Rex. (TV: The Gathering)
Esther and Rex secretly switched Rex's blood for Jack's and called for army support. Rex's wound started to bother him due to the transfusion. Esther was climbing into a truck that was to take her and Rex to the Blessing, and handed the case with Jack's blood to a soldier. Esther then went to help Rex with his wound, and one of the soldiers blew up the truck. Esther and Rex pretended to have become category ones in the explosion to trick the Families, and proceeded to infiltrate the Blessing. Unfortunately they were captured upon entering.
The Family members at the Buenos Aires side of the Blessing took Rex and Esther to see the Blessing, where they were allowed to talk to Jack, Gwen and Oswald who were at the Shanghai end. Jack decided to reverse the Blessing by feeding it his mortal blood but was informed that his blood would have to be put into both ends of the Blessing.
Rex then revealed that he had Jack's blood in him and he and Jack decided to sacrifice themselves to end the Miracle. The leader of the Families in Buenos Aries, the Cousin, shot Esther to try to force them not to, as ending the Miracle would mean allowing her to die. However both men, encouraged by Gwen and Esther, decided to go ahead and successfully end the Miracle. Rex killed the leader and they were rescued by the army. However, while Rex survived, Esther did not. Unlike many people, Esther received a full funeral. (TV: The Blood Line)
Legacy
Gwen, upset by Esther's death, decided that she would give some money from a Torchwood safety deposit box to Sarah for her and her daughters. (AUDIO: Army of One)
On Cotter Paluni's World, Jack remembered Esther's death in the process of saving the world and felt responsible for it. (AUDIO: Red Skies)
Pumped full of drugs, Gwen reminded Jack that he was unable to save "poor, poor Esther". (PROSE: Exodus Code)
When leaving Torchwood, Gwen mentioned how she loved Owen, Tosh, Ianto and Esther. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn)
Aliases and nicknames
| Name | When used/given | Story | Etymology |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miss Translation | Given by Gwen Cooper, following Esther's habit of highlighting language differences between UK English and American English. | Dead of Night | A possible play on "mistranslation". |
| Lorraine | Used by Esther, pretending to be from PhiCorp's Human Resources department, in order to get Gwen into the building. | Escape to LA | |
| Useless Esther | Given in jest by Jack, following in conversation in which Esther questioned Jack as to whether he thought that she was useless. | The Categories of Life |
Behind the scenes
During pre-production of Torchwood: Miracle Day, this character's name was reported as "Esther Katusi". This was due to the original profile of the character as a non-Caucasian; the casting of Alexa Havins resulted in the character being renamed. When Havins was announced on 6 January 2011, BBC publicity still referred to the character as Katusi. (DWM 427)