“excuse me, have you seen a blowfish driving a sports car?”
Originally published at Dark Territory. You can comment here or there.
Spoilers for “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” and “Sleeper” this way….
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There was one moment in the steaming pile of cowcrap that was Torchwood season 1 that got to me. In the finale, when Gwen and Jack are having a small closure moment, Jack hears the TARDIS engines and gets a look of pure, unadulterated joy on his face. He’s finally going to be able to die. He’s finally going to confront the Doctor and demand answers and make him fix what he broke all those seasons and regenerations ago. And he grabs his trusty Hand and goes running out the door, straight into “Utopia” and the Year That Never Was. Poor bastard.
“Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” had me at the blowfish driving the car. And then the team showed up, and they were talking like real people! I had to scroll back to the beginning and check the credits because I could not believe Chris Chibnall had anything to do with this delightful setup.
Gwen is large and in charge, and then oops! Hostage! Gwen’s police training tells her to negotiate and makes her hesitate, Owen is a useless wanker as usual, but you can see the wheels turning in Ianto’s head, the realization that he’s the only one who has a clear shot, and the decision to take it play out on his face. The teaboy is not fucking about any more. Then, his careful and weighted choice gets ripped away from him and everything goes sideways, because Jack is Back. Jack stripping people of their potency/dignity is an unfortunate theme that I had hoped would die with a new season, but alas.
I’ve believed this since the character first showed up in series 1 of Doctor Who: Jack Harkness is a sociopath-understandably, considering his life and circumstances, but the fact remains that he is a broken, broken man. And Gwen knows it, and you can tell when she cheerfully calls him on his bullshit Moment about how the only thing keeping him going during the lost year was coming back to Torchwood. She shoves his face into the fact that she can feel, and can fix relationships when she damages them (though I have no doubt her newfound happiness with Reese will go straight down the tubes now that Jack is up to his old tricks.)(Also, her story about the proposal? Best acting Eve Myles has ever done. I’m really pleased to see her grow in her craft.)
Then John Hart (do all Time Agents have JH initials?) shows up, which is basically an excuse for James Marsters to be James Marsters, to great effect, and the team seems to remember, hey, we know nothing about our fearless leader and that sort of bothers us but we’ll forget about it for the sake of this week’s contrived alien-menace plot (THAT was pure vintage Chibnall, but the dialogue and character moments were so good I ALMOST forgive him.) Marsters is great, even if he is playing exactly the same dynamic that Spike played with Angel in the Whedonverse. John Hart is unapologetic about his status as a bastard. Jack is in denial, witnessed by his asking Ianto out and trying to distance himself from his old lover, and the reminder of his old ways. John hints that Jack was the worse of the two-”I think Harkness might have taught me this trick” as he leaves Gwen for dead. And the contrivance rolls on, to a predictable A-plot conclusion (though I was happy to see that Hart returns later in the season.) What matters in KKBB is the setup-Jack is no longer the immortal golden boy, Gwen is a serious challenger to his position as the Poobah of Torchwood (and I think she’d do a far better job, because she actually has some sense and compassion) and Ianto has decided that he’s not taking anybody’s shit, not anymore. Owen remains a useless ferret-boy and Tosh is so bland she makes toast look like Cayenne pepper. Before the season is over, if they don’t fuck it up, Torchwood is going to be ripped apart and Gwen and Jack are going to have a throwndown. She knows he’s not what he claims to be, that there’s something dark coming down the line, and Jack knows she knows, and I don’t think his ingrained sense of self-preservation is going to let it lie.
I’m also extraordinarily glad that Jack is no longer emo about not being able to die. I think his year on the Valiant, watching the Master gleefully destroy his adopted planet gave him an appreciation for immortality, or at least a bitter sense of irony that’s serving to mask his angst. John Barrowman is a good actor and he was being wasted on moaney “woe is me, i r immortal” speeches.
And then we have “Sleeper” and the old “what does it mean to be human?” chestnut, as well as a lot of crying. Same old Torchwood, much better writing. And bonus!suicide bomber aliens. You can see Gwen build through the episode, from mild frustration with Jack’s brutal insistence that Everyone Is Evil At the Core (And Possibly An Alien Menace) to rage and disgust at his treatment of the sleeper agent. Jack tortures, Jack destroys lives, and he masks his agenda with the Greater Good. Parable, much? Owen, Tosh and Ianto may do what he says and accept his excuses (albeit reluctantly, in Ianto’s case), but not Gwen. She knows this is wrong, but she doesn’t yet know how to stand up. But she’ll figure it out. You can see it in her eyes when Jack refuses to shut down the mind probe, that cold moment when she tweaks to the fact that Jack is a son of a bitch. I liked the terrorist-parallel plot of “Sleeper”, though it would have been nice to have a REASON for the alien invasion (real estate, maybe? A nuked planet isn’t good for much else. Property-speculating aliens would be a hoot.) And the fact that Torchwood’s failure to shut down the sleeper’s computer leads to real-life consequences and proves that no matter what Torchwood does, the human race is ignorant and vulnerable. It’s a terrifying world they live in, and I wonder how long it will take for the impact to slam into Gwen, Ianto and Tosh. Owen is even worse than Jack-he enjoys his work. Classic psychopath-recruited-by-the-government behavior. He and Jack remind me of what Jack Bauer would be like in real life. Not a guy you really want to spend a lot of time with. Gwen must want to vomit every time she looks at him-but she does the best thing she can do, and dismisses him. There hasn’t been a single instance in either episode of season two when she’s deferred to him, respected him or treated him like a human being. It’s exactly what he deserves, the prick.
Something bad is coming this season. I really hope they don’t eff it up.
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Death Wish
New words: 4,399
Total words: 28,440
Dee: Flirting with the law man, getting her past called out into the open, seeing the worst vision of the past yet
Vincent: Becomes a manly man around a girl he likes, comforts his sister because he understands her damage even if he doesn’t understand his own, rushes off to save the day in the middle of the night
Ghosts spotted: Big Bad, bound spirits, past psychic impressions, results of a binding ritual
Research topics: None
Random sampling of text: The door stood ajar, and flickering blue light strobed through the crack. A broken LCD television scrolled endlessly through its channels, static bursting like electric snow and throwing shadows to all the corners of the Kendall’s front room.
Other work: None. Today was Butt In Chair Day, to do wordcount makeup.
Reading: A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
Viewing: The Corpse Bride