04.09.08
Torchwood - Exit Wounds
Ok, this started as basically me in the shower the next morning, thinking about how if buried for 2000 years Jack’s clothes held up well. I was planning on writing something lighter, a bit like the Doctor Who thing, but it got a little deep and probably pompous. Full of spoilers.
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Negatives:
1. The guy playing Grey couldn’t act for shit. And for such a pivotal role that really sucked. He was playing a guy pushed over the edge by abandonment, rage and torture and I just felt nothing, it was too wooden, too much like someone reading through lines.
2. Jack gets buried alive for 2000 years, really liked the concept and I will get to that in my positive list, but first a couple of comments. First, the bitchy one. 2000 years in a hole in the ground and his clothes were all in one piece, I don’t think so (and no this isn’t about me wishing to see more of naked!Jack). Now I know, maybe they gave him clothes when they unearthed him and just never showed it on screen, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter but still. The second one is a little less bitchy. You get buried in a hole by your brother, who you thought you’d lost forever, who when you are finally reunited with blames you for every horrendous thing he lived through, died and forced back to life countless times over the centuries and when they finally pull you free, you are not only coherent but able to make sensible complicated decisions on what needs to occur, again I say, with my bigger emphasis, I don’t think so. Ok, story, plot, 40 minutes, I get it, I would have just liked to seen a little more struggle, a little more effect on Jack of the experience.
Meh, could have been better:
Weevils. For those that don’t know Weevils are like the resident aliens/demons, and of course if you don’t know that then you probably aren’t reading me rabbitting on about a Torchwood episode. They often play a small part in the episodes and I’m ok with that, but in this one they just ended up annoying me, it was like, yeah weevils moving right along. And whilst I’m at it, it’s sort of been established that weevils are pack animals with little ability to communicate or be communicated with, so how does Grey or John, or whoever it was convince four weevils to target the main officers at the police station. It was just a little too easy and it made me go.. meh.
Positives:
1. I love Torchwood, but for the record I am a much bigger Doctor Who fan. This is to take nothing away from Torchwood, but simply if I had to choose only one to watch it would be Doctor Who. So as a complete and utter self-proclaimed fangirl, when I see consistency and fandom crossover between the shows I do get a little gushy. The first things are pretty much just basic nods to them being in the same verse. The alien Owen fought in the hospital was a Hoix, this is the same one that Rose and the Doctor fought with the whole running, red bucket, blue bucket, gag in Love and Monsters. The cynic amongst us could just say it saves on having to create a new costume, but I say, costume? Those aliens are real don’t you know.
Space Pig! So yes, it’s been confirmed it was Tosh that was in London when the Slitheen tried to destroy the world. I know there has been some debate about this, especially since that woman appeared to be a doctor and Tosh isn’t one. So now we find out why. She was covering for Owen, too hung over to go. Probably a good thing because I think Owen might have just punched the Doctor. But I just loved that they mentioned this.
For me, the biggest connection to Doctor Who was the whole, I forgive you stuff. My reading of Doctor Who’s Last of the Time Lords, was both Jack and Martha struggled with the readiness of the Doctor to try to save the Master. This was the man that not only decimated the population, was about to wage a war that would make the whole universe burn, but also on a more personal, and therefore more devastating level had inflicted so much cruelty and pain on them and on Martha’s family. So when at the end of all that, the Doctor cradles him first to offer forgiveness, and then later in the pain and grief of watching him die, I feel both Jack and Martha, perhaps for different reasons, felt betrayed and confused by the man they had so much trust and respect for.
Ok, so I know this is about Torchwood not Doctor Who, so I’ll get to my point. When Jack is pulled from his status pod, the first thing he says to Grey is “I forgive you”. The echo is clear there. Then there is the confrontation. Jack gives forgiveness to his brother for the crimes he committed in his hatred and insanity, and seeks forgiveness in return for not being able to keep his brother safe. His brother refuses, he will not forgive Jack. I believe this is his choice, not just that he’s so fucking screwed he can’t forgive. To me, it is the same as the Master refusing to save himself, refusing to regenerate because he would have to be with the Doctor. That was the Master twisting the knife, just as Grey twisted it in his refusal. In the end Jack can not kill his brother, even if on some level he knows it’s the best, and probably safest option, and again this echoes a lot of what the Doctor did when confronted with the Master, he constantly refused the option of killing the Master, even when at the end it was the Master that was choosing death.
I believe as a slasher of Jack and the Doctor, and as someone that thinks far too much about a couple of television programmes that Jack finally understood more about what the Doctor was feeling, what decisions he had to make, and how when it all goes wrong just how devastating that is to one’s soul.
2. Captian John Hart. Ok for me, he’s Spike, or at least Spike before Joss destroyed Spike turning him into little more than a joke. I loved him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but loved him more in this. There were hints in the first episode that he wasn’t just a one dimensional bad guy. And since I knew he was returning at some point, I figured that there would be more character development. They didn’t, in my opinion, take the easy route and turn him into a nice guy. He’s still snarky, you still aren’t sure you can trust him, he’s still got that evil twinkle, bad boy thing going on. But you do end up seeing more, knowing more about him.
Jack’s rejection of John is poignant here. And excuse me if I flick back to Doctor Who here for a bit. When we meet Jack, he makes it clear he’s out to con the Time Agency, not just for money, but rather because it’s the only way he can think of to enact some revenge for what they did to him. He carried, and perhaps still carries a lot of anger and resentment towards to Agency. It was while working for the Time Agency that he met John, it is the backdrop to their relationship. His rejection of John is due to a lot of things (high on the list is probably that John keeps trying to murder him), but I believe the connection John has to the Time Agency and Jack’s past is one of those reasons.
Jack rejects him again, he chooses his new life, the new people in his life over John. But it’s more than just Jack wanting to move on, its also that in doing so Jack wipes everything he had with John away. The people he chooses over John don’t have any clue of the parts of Jack’s past that connect him to John. It is therefore more than I do not want to be with you anymore, it is, I do not want there to be any trace of it left in my life. He destroys not just the relationship but the whole history/memory of it, and that must be devastating to John.
When John tells Jack he loves him I believe it. It could be a throw away line, a joke, but for me it is a lot about John’s emotions at this time. In the end he is also faced with the choice of forgiveness, of whether to hold onto his anger and resentment and live in that place or be something more. It also explains why after it all he swapped allegiances. Ok, part of that might have to do with originally he had a high explosive grafted to his wrist, but still. Love isn’t enough, love doesn’t turn him into a saint or even someone terribly honest or morale, but it does influence his choice, and perhaps allow him to make those choices.
A few of my friends (waves to Gina and Eric) have said that it would be really call if in Season Three John joined the team but I am really hoping they don’t do that. John isn’t a team player, and for him to be a member of the team he would have to become someone they could trust, there would have to be a lot of changes to John’s nature, and also, after blowing up half the city and being a part of Jack’s kidnap, well there’s just too much baggage there. I don’t want John cleaned up and sanitised because he ended up doing the right thing. I want John to remain a bit of a bastard, someone you are never sure about, someone whose motives you question. This can’t happen and make him someone that could fight into Torchwood. The Torchwood team survive because they can rely on each other, because they know, even when personal issues occur and things go wrong, that they have each others back. So yes, a recurring role would be cool, but for him to join would end up robbing the aspects that make John so damn perfect.
3. Rhys. When the show started they set up Gwen as the human face of Torchwood. And in some ways she still is, just like in some ways she’s annoying, self-absorbed and has too high an opinion of herself. And no, I don’t actually hate Gwen, all the characters of Torchwood have aspects about them that I don’t particular like, but that’s part of human nature really. But over the arch of this series Rhys has become, to me, the human heart of the story.
Perhaps this is because he doesn’t actually work at Torchwood. I do not believe that someone can do that sort of work, see the things they see, have to do the things they do without hardening themselves to it in some way. Because Rhys knows about Torchwood and aliens and the world almost ending on a weekly basis but still is able to stay outside it he can see things from a more human (for the lack of a better word) viewpoint. He hasn’t become so entrenched in it.
4. Ok, the big thing about it. The Death of Tosh and Owen. To me, this is one event. That doesn’t diminish either character or their death, but the way it played out, their deaths were a joint affair. This was their date, their happy ever after. Alright that might sound strange but let me see if I can explain. Tosh it seems has always been in love with Owen from the moment he joined Torchwood four years ago. There were some slight hints in that, but it was overshadowed, mostly with Owen and Gwen’s story line. For Owen he did not become aware of that until after he died (the first time). There could be some hint of the possibility of Owen’s feelings towards Tosh becoming more than friendship in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but life got away from them, and nothing ever happened. They never had the time, the space to connect until they were both dying, separate but together. It is in that moment that they do connect amongst all the chaos and tragedy they are able to have their quiet moment of love.But the good thing about this for all the heart-wrenching emotion they didn’t take the easy approach. It would have ruined everything if there had been some undying proclamation of love. What made it so special was that they found peace in each other, that their relationship was there, shining through.
Owen, quite understandably totally freaked out when he found out he would be dying again, for good this time. Yes, he hated living as a dead person, but faced with the destruction of his body he didn’t want to let go. He was panicked and scared and felt very alone. Owen is someone that uses his anger to deal with his emotions, he doesn’t pull in on himself, he rages. He did this many times, and at this time he did it again. It was Tosh, and I believe only Tosh that could have calmed him. But it wasn’t her telling him to be calm that did it, when she tried that it just made him rage more. It was those soft spoken words, that even now make me cry to think about it. Supposedly the whole scene of her talking to Owen while he raged was shot in one take, and perhaps that is why the emotion felt so real and raw. When he’s screaming at her, demanding to know why he should be calm, it isn’t until he hears how much it is destroying her to listen that stops him. He stops for her, even as his death approaches it is his caring, his love for Tosh that gets through all the rage.
He doesn’t know that Tosh is dying as well. She never told him. At first I think because she thought he would live, that he had so much to do, and did not want her own impending death to disrupt that. This is a thing about Tosh, she often puts her own needs last. It is one of the things I used to want to slap her about. But in doing so in this episode it stayed true to her character and made the scene even more haunting. She is lying there bleeding to death, knowing her life is over and all her focus is on saving the world or at least Cardiff and then comforting and supporting Owen, so he doesn’t get to die alone. And I believe, Owen wanted to comfort her, wanted her to not have to live with the memory of his last moments being filled with rage and regret. In the end he tells her that it is ok, that in the end he is ready, and she helped him to face his death.
I believe Owen had to die by the end of the season. There were always some issues with me about dead!Owen. Without air how can he talk? And if the blood isn’t being pumped around his body shouldn’t it pool in places and bruise? I’m not a doctor or anything, but there were just niggly things with me. But aside from my nitpicking, Owen being an active member of Torchwood will mean he would get hurt. This is a dangerous job, bones get broken, people get sliced up and shot. Owen can not heal, and eventually that would catch up on him. Plus I don’t think its fair, I don’t think Jack should have brought him back, not that he knew this was going to happen, but still it created a life of unliving for Owen. The guy couldn’t sleep, eat, drink, have sex, and it seemed he couldn’t even feel things. Jack might hate he can’t die, but he still gets to experiencing living, Owen becomes the outsider to life, only being able to watch others. The funny thing is in the first season I really disliked Owen. He irritated me. I couldn’t feel connected to him at all. Somehow that changed in this season. More of Owen’s character was shown, he was still a smart arse, still callous at times, but there was something interesting about him, more of his depth. I came to love Owen, just to have him die. Bastards.
Tosh. I had heard Tosh died before I watched this. It made sense to me that if a character died it would be her. There wasn’t much character development on Tosh. What was shown of her was hidden in the background a lot. She was smart, and loyal, and although I liked her, as a character she was lacking any real development. The same could probably be said about Ianto, but I have some really strong theories about Ianto, and anyway, can’t have him die who would Jack shag then, ok, its Jack, he’d find someone.
Tosh’s final death scene was probably the one that got to me the most, it was so simple and intimate. In the end it was a moment between Tosh and Jack. Gwen, there trying to fix things as she would, trying to keep Tosh alive and focused, but Jack, he was just able to hold her, to let her say what she needed, even if that was without words. Jack’s lived hundred’s of years, thousands if you could the two thousand buried under the earth. He’s seen death and understands it. He might not accept it, doesn’t just give into it, but I believe he knows death is part of this life. There is a thing about Torchwood, the work they do, death comes early for these people, it always will. All except Jack, and I think he often feels guilty about that, and that guilt drives him to bad decisions. Using the glove on Owen, and trying to protect Gwen from the reality of their world, are two examples. But I do believe the incident with Owen taught him something, that in the end, you just have to be there for the person, to hold them so they don’t die alone. He gave that to Tosh.
There is a connection for me that between the soft smile she gives to Jack and her message at the end, when she thanks Jack. We found in the previous episode that Tosh was held without trial, a Guantanamo Bay sort of situation and it was Jack that freed her from that. Although she was never free, he basically owned her, was her captor. She willingly gave him five years, which as it turned out was her last five years. But I think he gave her more than that, he gave her challenges and a life, he gave her something to feel confident and proud of. She thanked him in the end, because I believe for her Jack saved her, not just from the prison but from the life she had found her in. And the emotion between them was deafening. There was Gwen in the background, but it was all about that moment. There wasn’t the screaming over the body. I still stand by my belief that on Doctor Who and Torchwood, they do death well. There of course exceptions to that, but when it comes to it being an important character or moment it is played out with dignity and enough realism.
I am hearing all sorts of bad rumours about season three. There is talk that they will sanitise it, make it child friendly. God please no. I heard that Jack won’t be back, and I can’t see it working. This show needs Jack, it’s built around it. I think if Jack leaves it will be like the X-Files when Mulder left, it just won’t work. I will just sit and hope and wait and go all geeky over Doctor Who in the meantime.