Torchwood Season 2
Apr. 8th, 2008 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakJust the other day, I checked when the second season will be out on DVD, which you definitely wouldn’t have caught me doing after season 1, individual episodes and their potential notwithstanding. Overall, as far as I’m concerned, Torchwood did really good in its second year. Which, naturally, does not mean there weren’t monumental screw-ups as well. (And I don’t mean those by Our Heroes.) But the net result was a show that I’m now glad exists, and see as a genuine enrichment of the Whoverse.
I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the greatest achievement of s2 to me is that it made me care about all the characters, to believe them as a team that works together and is fond of each other and to do so in a way that doesn’t ignore their previously established character traits and dysfunctionality.
The season opener, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is in retrospect a case in point. It’s entertaining crack, the plot really doesn’t bear much thinking through, but it has some neat character scenes. The much hyped guest appearance of James Marsters as John Hart fell somewhat flat for me, and I still think his scenes with John Barrowman feel forced (there is such a thing as forced homoerotic chemistry, too, just as there is forced het chemistry) and a bit embarassing in their derivativeness, but I will concede that his scenes with the rest of the team are good. (My favourite is Gwen’s eyerolling when she says “that’s a poodle”. Ianto’s glee at the prospect of John’s impending demise is also neat.) But you know what really works? Basically everything else. We get the sense that the people Jack left behind really gelled as a team in his absence. They missed him, but they didn’t stop working. Jack, for his part, figured out he’s not just using Torchwood as something to fill his time with while waiting for the Doctor – that he really cares about these people. I still stand by my claim that his “I came back for you” is said with “you” in the plural, as in “all of you”, not just Ianto. (Or Gwen, for that matter.) When he pulls off his grand entrance, complete with “did you miss me, kids?” one liner, he’s trying to charm them. And despite feeling in various degrees relieved, irritated, guilty or grateful, they are charmed. Loved the “it is more fun if he’s around, though” – “Yes” moment in the car. And how each of them reacts to the whole return-of-Jack in their own way. Ianto, in the office scene, indicates he wants a bit more than just the occasional casual sex, and Jack asks him out on a date. Gwen, who stepped up to the leader role in Jack’s absence, says what everyone is thinking in the initial reunion scene, and love or hate her for it, complain about her sense of entitlement or admire her blunt honesty about it (especially in comparison to certain former Time Agents), they were all thinking it: “You left us, Jack. We knew nothing.”
(Selena’s grand No.1 theory about Jack Harkness: every trauma he went through, he deals out to others. Abandonment sans explanation, torture, resurrection, all check.)
Tosh asks the sensible thing – “where were you?”, and again, that’s not just Tosh being sensible but also, alas, a symptom for Tosh getting the most exposition-like and not-character-revealing question. Especially compared with the follow-up, for as Jack replies with “I found my Doctor”, Owen asks – and it’s the only thing Owen asks Jack in this episode – “Did he fix you?” This can be tied to so many things about both Jack and Owen: the recognition of messed-up brokeness which we now know is mutual, the reason for Jack forgiving Owen in the previous season finale, Jack replaying, in parts, his relationship with the Doctor via Owen, with Jack in the Doctor role, the foreshadowing that if Owen was on a path to self-destruction in s1, in s2 he tries to fix things; a small moment, but one of my favourites in the season premiere.
Something I have changed my mind about since watching the season opener for the first time: the sudden resurrection of Gwen/Jack vibes, last spotted, if I recall correctly, in the gun training scene in early s1 but then put aside. When I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I thought this was forced, and it also reminded me of how s3 of AtS with the way it paired up Cordelia and Angel really tried my patience as a viewer. However, as I saw the season progress, I changed my opinion about this – i.e. the purpose of the Gwen/Jack vibes early in the season, not the chemistry. (I think Eve Myles and John Barrowman are excellent together in terms of conveying a loving friendship with confrontations, but not in the sense of exuding “omg let’s get them laid now” chemistry. Luckily for them, this isn’t required, as that is not where the storyline goes. On a sidenote, I think on Torchwood JB probably had the most chemistry with the actor who played Real!Jack Harkness, in the sense of romance; for “highest emotional intensity”, I’m going for his scenes with Burn Gorman, but that’s not a romantic relationship, or meant as such.) Gwen had been emotionally all over the place in season 1 (so had the writing for her, but let’s talking Watsonian for now); but in s2, from the start she had come into her own, she had found her place in Torchwood and exuded confidence and competence. However, this still left a question mark over her relationship with Rhys and her ability to fully commit to him as she had to Torchwood. The romantic storyarc for Gwen in s2, in as much as she had one, was not, and was never meant to be with Jack; it was with Rhys. Jack was the temporary obstacle that romance requires, and less so as the traditional rival than as the embodiment of Gwen’s job, of Torchwood. Hence vibes, and note they disappear post- Something Borrowed. That goodbye dance was just that – a goodbye dance. As thankfully we don’t get a Red Shoes style “career or husband” choice, the result is synthesis – aftewards, Gwen is living her life with Rhys and her life with Torchwood, not always perfectly, but honestly. Meat, where Rhys finds out the truth about Gwen’s job, is the first big test – and a direct recall/contrast to something she did in s1, when she tried to get reconciliation and emotional peace through a lie and retconned Rhys, whereas now she refuses to do so, and implicitly chooses Rhys over Torchwood and Jack when stating she would rather give up them (and her memories of them). In a fitting irony, the next episode is Adam where Gwen loses her memories of Rhys (and everyone else’s memories get manipulated as well). Adam addresses a fear Rhys and Gwen both state – is she just settling for him, and would she have chosen Jack/Torchwood if she had met Jack first? Early on in the episode, it seems to be the case, but then Gwen starts to fall in love with Rhys again in a scenario where, as far as she remembers, she did meet Jack first. The whole thing, as far as the Jack angle is concerned, culminates in Something Borrowed, and it works in terms of symbolism that the reason why Jack temporarily stops the marriage is something entirely job-related (the discovery that there is a second shapeshifter on the prowl), and that after the marriage took place, something possible through everyone, especially Jack, Rhys and Gwen working together, Gwen refuses retcon for herself and Rhys one more time. As she is not living in a romantic comedy, this does not mean her life with Rhys is a smooth happily ever after, but the difficulties they face are no longer embodied in symbols of possible romantic rivals, and in Adrift, they reach synthesis and reconciliation without Jack’s help (or hinderance).
On a less theoretical note: I have really come to love Gwen this season. I think the moment of revelation was the teaser to Something Borrowed, Gwen’s waking up scene which showcases Eve Myles’ talent of comedy, which left me thinking through the credits: “I love Gwen! When did I start to love Gwen?” (As I did not love her in s1. I didn’t hate her, either, but the writing for Gwen was so wildly uneven that I had trouble forming an opinion of her one way or the other.) But I do. Whether it’s teammate!Gwen, talking with Ianto about Torchwoodians dying young in To the Last Man or conspiring with him in Adrift, leader!Gwen, taking charge in KKBB, Dead Man Walking or Exit Wounds, Gwen the physically expressive (pushing Jack back in KKBB or jumping into his arms relieved in SB, hugging Owen silently and fiercely in DMW, clutching Tosh’s hands in Exit Wounds, and saying-the-wrong-thing-Gwen (to her Dad when trying to explain Aliens so she don’t have to pretend having a misscarriage, to Rhys during their early argument in Adrift), Gwen in a full scale temper tantrum, scaring Jack and Owen early in SB, Gwen dragging John Hart towards the Rift, shooting the shapeshifter through her wedding bouquet or Gwen crumbling alone in both DMW and EW, needing comfort from Rhys so she can be strong again – I just love her.
Ianto I still don’t love, but I have come to like him quite a lot, after having spent a season wondering what on earth the big attraction for the fandom was, beyond the m/m relationship, because to me, he spent s1 being a complete cypher, and I couldn’t understand the jump from Cyberwoman emo to stopwatch propositions. (All hail, Fragments, for giving us a flashback that makes sense of it at last! And of Jack’s reactions to the whole Cyberwoman disaster, too.) This season, Ianto often amused me with his wonderful expressions to the goings-on (his horrorstruck face when Jack told Owen to make the coffee comes to mind, or the way he and Gwen quickly switched coffees when Owen’s back was turned in the same episode, the insulted expression in Reset when Owen’s device caused an explosion near his head or the half wistful, half gleeful expression which he had when praising Jack’s “avant-garde”-ness to Martha), the scripts handed him fun lines, showcasing his deadpan sense of humour, and most importantly, I finally could believe in his relationship with Jack as something beyond “look, audience! Men! Kissing!” Scenes like the office conversation from the season opener, Ianto bringing up Jack’s own out-of-timeness and asking him about a desire to return (or not) in To the Last Man, the ongoing ease and comfort in Jack’s presence thoughout the season all sold them to me as a couple with a consensual sexual relationship that might not be a conventional romance (in the sense of being exclusive) but definitely had emotional investment on both sides, and made them both pretty happy. If Jack and Ianto in s1 were at least supposed to be the (positive) contrast to Owen/Gwen (I’m qualifying this because we just didn’t see enough of Jack/Ianto developing in s1 for it to work as it was meant to), Jack and Ianto in s2 can be taken as the contrast to Owen and Tosh, a reading supported by the fact the season opener shows both couples engaged in a conversation with a subtext of longing for a deeper connection than the previous one. Owen and Tosh, though, are never on the same page at the same time except very briefly and intermittendly; and it’s usually death that allows them to genuinenly connect for these moments – Tommy’s death letting Owen show open concern for Tosh, Owen’s (first) death allowing Tosh to express her feelings, Henry Parker’s death letting Owen open up to Tosh, and of course their final conversation as they both are dying. Othewise, they keep “missing each other”, as Owen puts it during that final conversation. Meanwhile, Jack and Ianto might not think of adopting children any time soon, but they are on the same page, and their relationship works for them.
As during the last season, Owen got this season’s best written character arc. (With the one, imo as always, misstep on the writer’s part of going OTT in his flashback, but Burn Gorman sold it and in any case, it was a flashback, not part of his current day story.) Early on in the season, he’s mostly in the background, but it’s clear he a) tries to make more sense of his life, after having been given his second chance in End of Days, and b) still has a lot of git-ness in his personality, he’s not magically cured of it. As mentioned, he’s able to show compassion and understanding for Tosh – but just when she is in extremis, and safely occupied with another man. When she reaches out to him again, he withdraws behind his shell. He wants to save people – and is, in fact, able to save the day via medical solutions in a couple of episodes, starting with KKBB (where he comes up with the idea of how to get rid of John’s bomb via a genetic cocktail) – but then we get to Meat, and Owen’s luck runs out. All he is able to do for the captured and tormented alien is to kill it. From the episode transcript:
(Owen stands up and looks at the creature, knowing it’s going to die. He spreads his arms out with his hands extended toward the creature. He puts his head down and closes his eyes.)
OWEN: (whispers) I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Given the strong emphasis this season has on Owen as a doctor (from the teaser onwards, when the blowfish calls him “the doctor, with his hands full of blood”, it’s impossible to miss the parallel here this particular expression of remorse has if you know The Other Show. But DW echoes aside, s2 brings the contradiction in Owen – someone who has chosen a profession that is defined as healing, as saving people, and someone who is in a job where he uses weapons and deals out death all the time, plus the only TW who has the blood of a friend on his hands (including Jack; Jack killed Suzie the second time around, but Suzie was threatening Gwen’s life at that point, whereas Owen’s killing of Jack is framed in a very different context) – in sharp focus. He is a doctor, a healer; and he has blood on his hands.
Adam brings up some background for Owen – and as opposed to the dead fiancee in Fragments, the lack of connection with his mother didn’t seem OTT to me, and tied well in the intense mixture of love and resentment Owen has for Jack, the need for Jack’s approval coupled with the need to push and challenge said approval – and in none too subtle fashion spells out that this fits a need of Jack’s as well. If Jack presents himself as the one who sees the specialness in Tosh when no one else will, and the one who gave Ianto a home post-Lisa, the question/answer with Owen is “who will save me?” “I will”. He does, and he doesn’t; there is an inherent hubris here that will lead directly to what Jack does in Dead Man Walking. In Fragments, we find out how Jack recruited Tosh and Owen. Both had great professional skills, but just as importantly, they were in situations where Jack could appear as a saviour. He was Tosh’s alternative to prison and the one who recognized her tech genius. For Owen, on the other hand, he was the one who arrived with the lethal truth that destroyed Owen’s old life in one hand and the offer of another life on the other; he arrived at the breaking point, and Owen being broken was a precondition to Owen becoming a part of Torchwood.
With Reset, we reach the next big turning point for Owen after End of Days. I’m biased, admittedly, but I think this midseason trilogy of episodes - Reset, Dead Man Walking and A Day in the Death is the heart of season 2. Not a perfect one. Reset and A Day in the Death are both far better written than Dead Man Walking, which has the mitten attack, and a really embarassing climactic struggle with Death on the downside, but otoh has fantastic character scenes, plus even the questionable use of a “death” monster is thematically justified, so I do love it, a lot. But death and the question of sense have been ongoing TW themes ever since Suzie killed herself in the pilot, and this mid-season arc with its all-season implications brings them to the fore.
Of course, Reset is about a lot of other things, too. It reintroduces us to Martha (or introduces, for TW only watchers), who walked through the apocalypse for an entire year and saved the world, but that was in a different narrative. Here, she can only be a catalyst for the regular crew, a sympathetic observer. Her presence triggers the conversaton in which Tosh finally finds the courage to ask Owen out, point blank; it makes Owen want to prove himself as a doctor, and he is able to save her life, twice, from another doctor, who the second time around kills him – with a gun shot, the way Owen killed Jack (and Jack, in retaliation, kills that doctor, who as Owen said earlier in the episode used to be a medical hero of his). It’s a scene that paralles and contrasts Owen’s confrontation with Ed Morgan in The Ghost Machine, another character functioning as a might have been and dark double for Owen, one season earlier; Owen trying to persuade the man to put his weapon down versus the provocation and near killing back then. But again, it ends in death, only this time, Owen’s own death. Which, this being Torchwood, is not the end at all, because one of Owen’s functions on this show is to be a parallel and opposite to Jack.
Jack does to Owen what was done to Jack: he resurrects him as Rose-plus-TARDIS resurrected Jack, without a clear idea of what the result would be. As opposed to Rose, however, Jack had several warnings ahead of time. Both literally – the girl who probably is that same Faith who defeated Death – and by implication; the resurrection of Suzie a season earlier resulted in something lethal. But Jack isn’t prepared to let go, he wants his miracle, and he gets it; in a distorted fashion that has all the appearance of a curse. Jack’s immortality and ability to heal instantly from absolutely anything are contrasted with Owen’s state as a corpse and and infinite brittleness, a complete lack of healing. Resurrection on demand for the whole world, isn't that good? Isn't it though? Suzie said, in the pilot, shortly before first shooting Jack and then killing herself; and here we get resurrection played out as purgatory. Purgatory in the original sense, though; because, and this is where s2 replies to s1, that mid-season trilogy ends with a note of hope. Suzie in the pilot finished her bitter summing up of her life and her job at Torchwood with: “Is that what alien life is? Filth? But maybe there's better stuff out there, brilliant stuff, beautiful stuff. Just ... they don't come here. This planet's so dirty, that's all we get - the shit.” And going just by s1, the show didn’t exactly refute her. But s2 does. Beth in Sleeper is an alien, but a sympathetic one, programmed to kill against her will, and in the end willing rather to sacrifice her own life than to harm others. Meat presents the captie alien as a victim and his human captors as the monsters; Reset similarly shows the aliens as dangerous but in the end victims, turned lethal against their will because of the way humans use them. A Day in the Death, at last, presents us with one more step, the one that was missing before – the wonder, the “brilliant, beautiful stuff” that Suzie never saw, an alien artifact which doesn’t kill, or harm, or is put to bad use, but functions as a symbol of hope. Because it is an attempt at communication, of reaching out, and Owen, at his lowest, is able to respond to this and, most importantly, able to share this via reaching out to someone else.
(It’s not enough to be saved in this universe; you have to go on and do your share for others.)
The remaining third of the season, after Something Borrowed as the episode where Gwen’s wedding provides a respite of cheer and coming togetherness, the comic relief point which tragic dramas do have, gets increasingly darker again, but not for character-inherent causes. This is, btw, where the lack of tight plotting shows. You could go from “Something Borrowed” to “Fragments” without a problem. Adrift is a good character episode for Gwen, both in relation to her job at Torchwood and her post-marriage life with Rhys, but in terms of the overall season story, it doesn’t push the narrative forward. From Out of the Rain is just a waste of opportunities, and definitely feels as if it belongs in another season. Fragments looks back at the histories of four of our characters, their connection to Torchwood and each other, and presents both the lethal and the hopeful side of their job. Exit Wounds then plays on all the previously established seasonal themes – the affection the team has for each other, Jack’s saviour complex, the question of how to face death, how to cope with death, of hope – and gives them a climax that both works and fails. Again, as in the season opener - it works as far as the team is concerned. The deaths of Tosh and Owen, the different ways they face it, the way they finally connect, all the spoken and unspoken things, Jack, Ianto and Gwen connecting in grief for them and affection for each other – all this works beautifully. The problem, again, is the guest star and the guest star part of the story, only this time not John Hart but Gray. As opposed to Bilis Manger and Abaddon a season earlier, Jack’s brother and Jack’s guilt relating to same was established before they showed up in the finale, but only at two points of the season – in the final scene of the season premiere, and in the Adam flashbacks for Jack. This made for a huge imbalance in terms of emotional impact. There simply hadn’t been much opportunity to invest in Jack’s relationship with his brother, or that brother himself. Add to this that the only thing that makes Jack’s 1900-something years underground and immediate recovery remotely believable is the theory that he must have, since deprived of air, been dead and in stasis that entire time (instead of experiencing all those deaths Gray wished on him), and you have a genuine problem with Jack’s part of both season finale and season narrative.
Bad execution aside, though, the parallels and contrasts the finale offers provide some interesting character stuff to chew on. Within the Whoverse, “I forgive you” and the cradling of an adversary has both the precedent of the Doctor and the Master in Last of the Time Lords, and Jack and Owen in End of Days. The Doctor/Master relationship with its decades of tv canon backstory and millennium of within-canon backstory is too complicated to get into here, so I’ll just say that forgiveness in that case can’t be accepted because of who these two are. Similarly, it can’t work in the Jack and Gray case. Jack adds “…can’t you forgive me?” to his statement, and there you have the problem; for Jack, the need to forgive Gray is tied to the need to be forgiven, but Gray, underwritten character that he is, has defined himself completely through blame; he can’t forgive, and even if he did – what Jack wants to be forgiven for isn’t what he actually did, a simple failure to hold a child’s hand while running away, but for everything that followed. Gray’s life and his own, one presumes. It’s too abstract to work, just as Jack’s forgiveness in this case is too abstract to be accepted. He forgives Gray for what? Being buried alive? All those recent deaths in Cardiff?
Whereas where forgiveness did work was in End of Days. Again, same phrase: “I forgive you.” But in that case, Jack did not tie it to his own need to be forgiven, and what he forgave Owen for was a definite and personal injury – Owen shooting him. Of course, Owen being emotionally unstable but not insane or a supervillain helped with the end result being a turning point rather than another death (or semi-death) as well.
Speaking of forgiveness: Tosh’s post-mortem message, which she must have recorded at some point prior to Dead Man Walking, does offer this to Jack. Or rather, it offers absolution, telling him not to blame himself, that he didn’t damn her but save her. We’ll see whether or not Jack accepts this. His last words to Gwen and Ianto certainly offer hope in all the death around them. Slightly paraphrasing Mary Stuart’s motto, he tells them in the end there is a beginning. Whether or not the other two believe it, they remain with him, connected. The time of isolation is over. Which, in many ways, is what this second season has been all about.
I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the greatest achievement of s2 to me is that it made me care about all the characters, to believe them as a team that works together and is fond of each other and to do so in a way that doesn’t ignore their previously established character traits and dysfunctionality.
The season opener, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is in retrospect a case in point. It’s entertaining crack, the plot really doesn’t bear much thinking through, but it has some neat character scenes. The much hyped guest appearance of James Marsters as John Hart fell somewhat flat for me, and I still think his scenes with John Barrowman feel forced (there is such a thing as forced homoerotic chemistry, too, just as there is forced het chemistry) and a bit embarassing in their derivativeness, but I will concede that his scenes with the rest of the team are good. (My favourite is Gwen’s eyerolling when she says “that’s a poodle”. Ianto’s glee at the prospect of John’s impending demise is also neat.) But you know what really works? Basically everything else. We get the sense that the people Jack left behind really gelled as a team in his absence. They missed him, but they didn’t stop working. Jack, for his part, figured out he’s not just using Torchwood as something to fill his time with while waiting for the Doctor – that he really cares about these people. I still stand by my claim that his “I came back for you” is said with “you” in the plural, as in “all of you”, not just Ianto. (Or Gwen, for that matter.) When he pulls off his grand entrance, complete with “did you miss me, kids?” one liner, he’s trying to charm them. And despite feeling in various degrees relieved, irritated, guilty or grateful, they are charmed. Loved the “it is more fun if he’s around, though” – “Yes” moment in the car. And how each of them reacts to the whole return-of-Jack in their own way. Ianto, in the office scene, indicates he wants a bit more than just the occasional casual sex, and Jack asks him out on a date. Gwen, who stepped up to the leader role in Jack’s absence, says what everyone is thinking in the initial reunion scene, and love or hate her for it, complain about her sense of entitlement or admire her blunt honesty about it (especially in comparison to certain former Time Agents), they were all thinking it: “You left us, Jack. We knew nothing.”
(Selena’s grand No.1 theory about Jack Harkness: every trauma he went through, he deals out to others. Abandonment sans explanation, torture, resurrection, all check.)
Tosh asks the sensible thing – “where were you?”, and again, that’s not just Tosh being sensible but also, alas, a symptom for Tosh getting the most exposition-like and not-character-revealing question. Especially compared with the follow-up, for as Jack replies with “I found my Doctor”, Owen asks – and it’s the only thing Owen asks Jack in this episode – “Did he fix you?” This can be tied to so many things about both Jack and Owen: the recognition of messed-up brokeness which we now know is mutual, the reason for Jack forgiving Owen in the previous season finale, Jack replaying, in parts, his relationship with the Doctor via Owen, with Jack in the Doctor role, the foreshadowing that if Owen was on a path to self-destruction in s1, in s2 he tries to fix things; a small moment, but one of my favourites in the season premiere.
Something I have changed my mind about since watching the season opener for the first time: the sudden resurrection of Gwen/Jack vibes, last spotted, if I recall correctly, in the gun training scene in early s1 but then put aside. When I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I thought this was forced, and it also reminded me of how s3 of AtS with the way it paired up Cordelia and Angel really tried my patience as a viewer. However, as I saw the season progress, I changed my opinion about this – i.e. the purpose of the Gwen/Jack vibes early in the season, not the chemistry. (I think Eve Myles and John Barrowman are excellent together in terms of conveying a loving friendship with confrontations, but not in the sense of exuding “omg let’s get them laid now” chemistry. Luckily for them, this isn’t required, as that is not where the storyline goes. On a sidenote, I think on Torchwood JB probably had the most chemistry with the actor who played Real!Jack Harkness, in the sense of romance; for “highest emotional intensity”, I’m going for his scenes with Burn Gorman, but that’s not a romantic relationship, or meant as such.) Gwen had been emotionally all over the place in season 1 (so had the writing for her, but let’s talking Watsonian for now); but in s2, from the start she had come into her own, she had found her place in Torchwood and exuded confidence and competence. However, this still left a question mark over her relationship with Rhys and her ability to fully commit to him as she had to Torchwood. The romantic storyarc for Gwen in s2, in as much as she had one, was not, and was never meant to be with Jack; it was with Rhys. Jack was the temporary obstacle that romance requires, and less so as the traditional rival than as the embodiment of Gwen’s job, of Torchwood. Hence vibes, and note they disappear post- Something Borrowed. That goodbye dance was just that – a goodbye dance. As thankfully we don’t get a Red Shoes style “career or husband” choice, the result is synthesis – aftewards, Gwen is living her life with Rhys and her life with Torchwood, not always perfectly, but honestly. Meat, where Rhys finds out the truth about Gwen’s job, is the first big test – and a direct recall/contrast to something she did in s1, when she tried to get reconciliation and emotional peace through a lie and retconned Rhys, whereas now she refuses to do so, and implicitly chooses Rhys over Torchwood and Jack when stating she would rather give up them (and her memories of them). In a fitting irony, the next episode is Adam where Gwen loses her memories of Rhys (and everyone else’s memories get manipulated as well). Adam addresses a fear Rhys and Gwen both state – is she just settling for him, and would she have chosen Jack/Torchwood if she had met Jack first? Early on in the episode, it seems to be the case, but then Gwen starts to fall in love with Rhys again in a scenario where, as far as she remembers, she did meet Jack first. The whole thing, as far as the Jack angle is concerned, culminates in Something Borrowed, and it works in terms of symbolism that the reason why Jack temporarily stops the marriage is something entirely job-related (the discovery that there is a second shapeshifter on the prowl), and that after the marriage took place, something possible through everyone, especially Jack, Rhys and Gwen working together, Gwen refuses retcon for herself and Rhys one more time. As she is not living in a romantic comedy, this does not mean her life with Rhys is a smooth happily ever after, but the difficulties they face are no longer embodied in symbols of possible romantic rivals, and in Adrift, they reach synthesis and reconciliation without Jack’s help (or hinderance).
On a less theoretical note: I have really come to love Gwen this season. I think the moment of revelation was the teaser to Something Borrowed, Gwen’s waking up scene which showcases Eve Myles’ talent of comedy, which left me thinking through the credits: “I love Gwen! When did I start to love Gwen?” (As I did not love her in s1. I didn’t hate her, either, but the writing for Gwen was so wildly uneven that I had trouble forming an opinion of her one way or the other.) But I do. Whether it’s teammate!Gwen, talking with Ianto about Torchwoodians dying young in To the Last Man or conspiring with him in Adrift, leader!Gwen, taking charge in KKBB, Dead Man Walking or Exit Wounds, Gwen the physically expressive (pushing Jack back in KKBB or jumping into his arms relieved in SB, hugging Owen silently and fiercely in DMW, clutching Tosh’s hands in Exit Wounds, and saying-the-wrong-thing-Gwen (to her Dad when trying to explain Aliens so she don’t have to pretend having a misscarriage, to Rhys during their early argument in Adrift), Gwen in a full scale temper tantrum, scaring Jack and Owen early in SB, Gwen dragging John Hart towards the Rift, shooting the shapeshifter through her wedding bouquet or Gwen crumbling alone in both DMW and EW, needing comfort from Rhys so she can be strong again – I just love her.
Ianto I still don’t love, but I have come to like him quite a lot, after having spent a season wondering what on earth the big attraction for the fandom was, beyond the m/m relationship, because to me, he spent s1 being a complete cypher, and I couldn’t understand the jump from Cyberwoman emo to stopwatch propositions. (All hail, Fragments, for giving us a flashback that makes sense of it at last! And of Jack’s reactions to the whole Cyberwoman disaster, too.) This season, Ianto often amused me with his wonderful expressions to the goings-on (his horrorstruck face when Jack told Owen to make the coffee comes to mind, or the way he and Gwen quickly switched coffees when Owen’s back was turned in the same episode, the insulted expression in Reset when Owen’s device caused an explosion near his head or the half wistful, half gleeful expression which he had when praising Jack’s “avant-garde”-ness to Martha), the scripts handed him fun lines, showcasing his deadpan sense of humour, and most importantly, I finally could believe in his relationship with Jack as something beyond “look, audience! Men! Kissing!” Scenes like the office conversation from the season opener, Ianto bringing up Jack’s own out-of-timeness and asking him about a desire to return (or not) in To the Last Man, the ongoing ease and comfort in Jack’s presence thoughout the season all sold them to me as a couple with a consensual sexual relationship that might not be a conventional romance (in the sense of being exclusive) but definitely had emotional investment on both sides, and made them both pretty happy. If Jack and Ianto in s1 were at least supposed to be the (positive) contrast to Owen/Gwen (I’m qualifying this because we just didn’t see enough of Jack/Ianto developing in s1 for it to work as it was meant to), Jack and Ianto in s2 can be taken as the contrast to Owen and Tosh, a reading supported by the fact the season opener shows both couples engaged in a conversation with a subtext of longing for a deeper connection than the previous one. Owen and Tosh, though, are never on the same page at the same time except very briefly and intermittendly; and it’s usually death that allows them to genuinenly connect for these moments – Tommy’s death letting Owen show open concern for Tosh, Owen’s (first) death allowing Tosh to express her feelings, Henry Parker’s death letting Owen open up to Tosh, and of course their final conversation as they both are dying. Othewise, they keep “missing each other”, as Owen puts it during that final conversation. Meanwhile, Jack and Ianto might not think of adopting children any time soon, but they are on the same page, and their relationship works for them.
As during the last season, Owen got this season’s best written character arc. (With the one, imo as always, misstep on the writer’s part of going OTT in his flashback, but Burn Gorman sold it and in any case, it was a flashback, not part of his current day story.) Early on in the season, he’s mostly in the background, but it’s clear he a) tries to make more sense of his life, after having been given his second chance in End of Days, and b) still has a lot of git-ness in his personality, he’s not magically cured of it. As mentioned, he’s able to show compassion and understanding for Tosh – but just when she is in extremis, and safely occupied with another man. When she reaches out to him again, he withdraws behind his shell. He wants to save people – and is, in fact, able to save the day via medical solutions in a couple of episodes, starting with KKBB (where he comes up with the idea of how to get rid of John’s bomb via a genetic cocktail) – but then we get to Meat, and Owen’s luck runs out. All he is able to do for the captured and tormented alien is to kill it. From the episode transcript:
(Owen stands up and looks at the creature, knowing it’s going to die. He spreads his arms out with his hands extended toward the creature. He puts his head down and closes his eyes.)
OWEN: (whispers) I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Given the strong emphasis this season has on Owen as a doctor (from the teaser onwards, when the blowfish calls him “the doctor, with his hands full of blood”, it’s impossible to miss the parallel here this particular expression of remorse has if you know The Other Show. But DW echoes aside, s2 brings the contradiction in Owen – someone who has chosen a profession that is defined as healing, as saving people, and someone who is in a job where he uses weapons and deals out death all the time, plus the only TW who has the blood of a friend on his hands (including Jack; Jack killed Suzie the second time around, but Suzie was threatening Gwen’s life at that point, whereas Owen’s killing of Jack is framed in a very different context) – in sharp focus. He is a doctor, a healer; and he has blood on his hands.
Adam brings up some background for Owen – and as opposed to the dead fiancee in Fragments, the lack of connection with his mother didn’t seem OTT to me, and tied well in the intense mixture of love and resentment Owen has for Jack, the need for Jack’s approval coupled with the need to push and challenge said approval – and in none too subtle fashion spells out that this fits a need of Jack’s as well. If Jack presents himself as the one who sees the specialness in Tosh when no one else will, and the one who gave Ianto a home post-Lisa, the question/answer with Owen is “who will save me?” “I will”. He does, and he doesn’t; there is an inherent hubris here that will lead directly to what Jack does in Dead Man Walking. In Fragments, we find out how Jack recruited Tosh and Owen. Both had great professional skills, but just as importantly, they were in situations where Jack could appear as a saviour. He was Tosh’s alternative to prison and the one who recognized her tech genius. For Owen, on the other hand, he was the one who arrived with the lethal truth that destroyed Owen’s old life in one hand and the offer of another life on the other; he arrived at the breaking point, and Owen being broken was a precondition to Owen becoming a part of Torchwood.
With Reset, we reach the next big turning point for Owen after End of Days. I’m biased, admittedly, but I think this midseason trilogy of episodes - Reset, Dead Man Walking and A Day in the Death is the heart of season 2. Not a perfect one. Reset and A Day in the Death are both far better written than Dead Man Walking, which has the mitten attack, and a really embarassing climactic struggle with Death on the downside, but otoh has fantastic character scenes, plus even the questionable use of a “death” monster is thematically justified, so I do love it, a lot. But death and the question of sense have been ongoing TW themes ever since Suzie killed herself in the pilot, and this mid-season arc with its all-season implications brings them to the fore.
Of course, Reset is about a lot of other things, too. It reintroduces us to Martha (or introduces, for TW only watchers), who walked through the apocalypse for an entire year and saved the world, but that was in a different narrative. Here, she can only be a catalyst for the regular crew, a sympathetic observer. Her presence triggers the conversaton in which Tosh finally finds the courage to ask Owen out, point blank; it makes Owen want to prove himself as a doctor, and he is able to save her life, twice, from another doctor, who the second time around kills him – with a gun shot, the way Owen killed Jack (and Jack, in retaliation, kills that doctor, who as Owen said earlier in the episode used to be a medical hero of his). It’s a scene that paralles and contrasts Owen’s confrontation with Ed Morgan in The Ghost Machine, another character functioning as a might have been and dark double for Owen, one season earlier; Owen trying to persuade the man to put his weapon down versus the provocation and near killing back then. But again, it ends in death, only this time, Owen’s own death. Which, this being Torchwood, is not the end at all, because one of Owen’s functions on this show is to be a parallel and opposite to Jack.
Jack does to Owen what was done to Jack: he resurrects him as Rose-plus-TARDIS resurrected Jack, without a clear idea of what the result would be. As opposed to Rose, however, Jack had several warnings ahead of time. Both literally – the girl who probably is that same Faith who defeated Death – and by implication; the resurrection of Suzie a season earlier resulted in something lethal. But Jack isn’t prepared to let go, he wants his miracle, and he gets it; in a distorted fashion that has all the appearance of a curse. Jack’s immortality and ability to heal instantly from absolutely anything are contrasted with Owen’s state as a corpse and and infinite brittleness, a complete lack of healing. Resurrection on demand for the whole world, isn't that good? Isn't it though? Suzie said, in the pilot, shortly before first shooting Jack and then killing herself; and here we get resurrection played out as purgatory. Purgatory in the original sense, though; because, and this is where s2 replies to s1, that mid-season trilogy ends with a note of hope. Suzie in the pilot finished her bitter summing up of her life and her job at Torchwood with: “Is that what alien life is? Filth? But maybe there's better stuff out there, brilliant stuff, beautiful stuff. Just ... they don't come here. This planet's so dirty, that's all we get - the shit.” And going just by s1, the show didn’t exactly refute her. But s2 does. Beth in Sleeper is an alien, but a sympathetic one, programmed to kill against her will, and in the end willing rather to sacrifice her own life than to harm others. Meat presents the captie alien as a victim and his human captors as the monsters; Reset similarly shows the aliens as dangerous but in the end victims, turned lethal against their will because of the way humans use them. A Day in the Death, at last, presents us with one more step, the one that was missing before – the wonder, the “brilliant, beautiful stuff” that Suzie never saw, an alien artifact which doesn’t kill, or harm, or is put to bad use, but functions as a symbol of hope. Because it is an attempt at communication, of reaching out, and Owen, at his lowest, is able to respond to this and, most importantly, able to share this via reaching out to someone else.
(It’s not enough to be saved in this universe; you have to go on and do your share for others.)
The remaining third of the season, after Something Borrowed as the episode where Gwen’s wedding provides a respite of cheer and coming togetherness, the comic relief point which tragic dramas do have, gets increasingly darker again, but not for character-inherent causes. This is, btw, where the lack of tight plotting shows. You could go from “Something Borrowed” to “Fragments” without a problem. Adrift is a good character episode for Gwen, both in relation to her job at Torchwood and her post-marriage life with Rhys, but in terms of the overall season story, it doesn’t push the narrative forward. From Out of the Rain is just a waste of opportunities, and definitely feels as if it belongs in another season. Fragments looks back at the histories of four of our characters, their connection to Torchwood and each other, and presents both the lethal and the hopeful side of their job. Exit Wounds then plays on all the previously established seasonal themes – the affection the team has for each other, Jack’s saviour complex, the question of how to face death, how to cope with death, of hope – and gives them a climax that both works and fails. Again, as in the season opener - it works as far as the team is concerned. The deaths of Tosh and Owen, the different ways they face it, the way they finally connect, all the spoken and unspoken things, Jack, Ianto and Gwen connecting in grief for them and affection for each other – all this works beautifully. The problem, again, is the guest star and the guest star part of the story, only this time not John Hart but Gray. As opposed to Bilis Manger and Abaddon a season earlier, Jack’s brother and Jack’s guilt relating to same was established before they showed up in the finale, but only at two points of the season – in the final scene of the season premiere, and in the Adam flashbacks for Jack. This made for a huge imbalance in terms of emotional impact. There simply hadn’t been much opportunity to invest in Jack’s relationship with his brother, or that brother himself. Add to this that the only thing that makes Jack’s 1900-something years underground and immediate recovery remotely believable is the theory that he must have, since deprived of air, been dead and in stasis that entire time (instead of experiencing all those deaths Gray wished on him), and you have a genuine problem with Jack’s part of both season finale and season narrative.
Bad execution aside, though, the parallels and contrasts the finale offers provide some interesting character stuff to chew on. Within the Whoverse, “I forgive you” and the cradling of an adversary has both the precedent of the Doctor and the Master in Last of the Time Lords, and Jack and Owen in End of Days. The Doctor/Master relationship with its decades of tv canon backstory and millennium of within-canon backstory is too complicated to get into here, so I’ll just say that forgiveness in that case can’t be accepted because of who these two are. Similarly, it can’t work in the Jack and Gray case. Jack adds “…can’t you forgive me?” to his statement, and there you have the problem; for Jack, the need to forgive Gray is tied to the need to be forgiven, but Gray, underwritten character that he is, has defined himself completely through blame; he can’t forgive, and even if he did – what Jack wants to be forgiven for isn’t what he actually did, a simple failure to hold a child’s hand while running away, but for everything that followed. Gray’s life and his own, one presumes. It’s too abstract to work, just as Jack’s forgiveness in this case is too abstract to be accepted. He forgives Gray for what? Being buried alive? All those recent deaths in Cardiff?
Whereas where forgiveness did work was in End of Days. Again, same phrase: “I forgive you.” But in that case, Jack did not tie it to his own need to be forgiven, and what he forgave Owen for was a definite and personal injury – Owen shooting him. Of course, Owen being emotionally unstable but not insane or a supervillain helped with the end result being a turning point rather than another death (or semi-death) as well.
Speaking of forgiveness: Tosh’s post-mortem message, which she must have recorded at some point prior to Dead Man Walking, does offer this to Jack. Or rather, it offers absolution, telling him not to blame himself, that he didn’t damn her but save her. We’ll see whether or not Jack accepts this. His last words to Gwen and Ianto certainly offer hope in all the death around them. Slightly paraphrasing Mary Stuart’s motto, he tells them in the end there is a beginning. Whether or not the other two believe it, they remain with him, connected. The time of isolation is over. Which, in many ways, is what this second season has been all about.
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Date: 2008-04-08 08:03 pm (UTC)(And you picked up the stasis theory! It really is the only thing that makes psychological sense.)
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Date: 2008-04-08 08:36 pm (UTC)Must run now, but will be back tomorrow morning with some actual input. Just wanted to say how impressed I am. *applauds*
ETA: Re 'Adrift' then it suddenly struck me that although it is on the surface a Gwen-centric story, it really functions as great foreshadowing re Jack and Gray. The missing son/brother, who when found is too broken to ever connect with.
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Date: 2008-04-08 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 03:10 am (UTC)I appreciate you pointing out some things I hadn't noticed, like Gwen choosing not to retcon Rhys being followed directly by Adam, where she forgets him, and that when Jack, interrupts her wedding, Torchwood is interrupting her wedding. Which, well, I got, but seems more poignant written down.
You make great points also with: Jack dealing out every trauma he gets, add to that his happy use of retcon when he himself has memory loss issues; the theme of forgiveness and how it is used and when it does or does not work; all my issues with Fragments, namely, Gray being NOT INTERESTING; and the Gwen/Jack thing, that on hindsight, and knowing it doesn't get in the way of Gwen/Rhys, I think is done beautifully.
All in all, a good season of television, interesting characters with interesting relationships, and even some very brave plot themes(the way Owen's death was dealt with, which I loved and hated, because it was very painful to watch. The dark and gritty world they wanted to show since the first season, they got it right there.)
Again, fantastic meta.
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Date: 2008-04-09 03:14 am (UTC)Selena’s grand No.1 theory about Jack Harkness: every trauma he went through, he deals out to others. Abandonment sans explanation, torture, resurrection, all check.
This makes so much sense - the cycle of abuse repeating itself.
I have really come to love Gwen this season
I really loved Gwen this season - it's so true about the writing being much more even for her character.
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Date: 2008-04-09 05:04 am (UTC)You are so clever. :)
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Date: 2008-04-09 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 05:21 am (UTC)Oh, me too. They are my favourite couple on this show, and one of the most realistic long-term screen couples I can think of - I totally believe their arguments and their reconciliations, and if I ship anyone on this show, it's Gwen/Rhys.
the way Owen's death was dealt with, which I loved and hated, because it was very painful to watch. The dark and gritty world they wanted to show since the first season, they got it right there.
Absolutely. Now that was adult storytelling. And you know I agree with you about Owen being the most interesting; always did, from Ghost Machine onwards.
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Date: 2008-04-09 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 06:01 pm (UTC)What does work, though, and is not exactly subtle foreshadowing: in the season opener, the man from Jack's past brings all his friends near death and (temporarily) kills Jack. Also, as Sky pointed out above, the radiation chamber in Utopia which Jack is able to enter and leave unharmed because of his immortality, but Owen gets trapped and finds his (final?) death in. They both have conversations of emotional intimacy in these chambers with people outside which they didn't have in "normal" circumstances when in the same room with them before.
came from journal hopping
Date: 2008-04-09 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-04-11 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 06:35 pm (UTC)Where do you find the episodes recaps?
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Date: 2008-04-13 06:37 pm (UTC)BRILLIANT!
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Date: 2008-04-13 06:55 pm (UTC)http://www.kilohoku.com/tw.html
Very useful both for fanfic and review research.*g*
Also, thank you!