Analysing Torchwood - Part Seven

[clarrisani]

Well, this one took me a little while because firstly I had to work out how to approach it because Jack, Gwen, and Ianto are all over the place in this episode, and Rhys barely appears, but I managed it. I'm sure from now on after "Countrycide" things will be a little easier... until I get to "The Keep Killing Suzie".

Analysing Torchwood Part Seven

Comments

[haldane]

I've never understood the tent issue. If they're planning to stay long enough to need tents, and carry out an investigation, I would have a 'day tent' for meals and planning sessions. Otherwise you end up eating seated on your sleeping bags (uncomfortable both when you eat and when you try to sleep in your crumbs/stains), and everytime you spread out the maps you have to gather them in again in order to sleep.

I always dubbed the three tents His, Hers, and Central Command. What I really want to know if how on earth they got three tents that size into a single vehicle with five adults and other equipment, and also where are everybody's bags with their changes of clothes and toiletries.

(Yes, I have a post-Countrycide fic that has struck a rock over this problem.)

Before I forget and submit this let me add that I am enjoying your depth of analysis on the episodes I've read so far.

[dvanulya]

You know, when I was in the army, those 3 tents would have been enough for a whole company. And at company level and below (don't know about battalion and up), we never had a separate command tent. Yep, you just had to eat on your sleeping bags (or in them, depending on how cold it was), and spread your maps out on them, etc. The only real problem was when we had 24-hour ops, and there were people trying to sleep in the tent while other people were planning, eating, talking on the radio, changing their stinking socks, etc.

I figure the SUV is bigger on the inside. Has to be.

[nikki4noo]

Owen interesting refers to the tent that he is putting up as his, as does Tosh, from memory. Hence why I always thought of the first one being for the girls, the second was most definitely Ianto and Jacks and the third Owen's.

Ianto just can pack really well it seems. ;)

Oh and I wonder if Jack told them to bring a change of clothes? They didn't know they were going to be camping until he told them once they were out there. I think it was only for one night. Jack thought it was going to be an easy safe mission and didn't plan too much. It's Jack!

[haldane]

I'll say he can pack well. I just recently came back from a holiday with the husband and two teenagers (call it four adults for size). We rented a Subaru X7-something, anyway it was a Torchwood-shaped vehicle with three rows of seating, the back one mainly kept folded down.

We had four suitcases and four day bags, and I would not have been happy to load much more into the luggage area without at least a restraining net, since it was "full" to the point where any more would have obscured rear visibility.

I just have a very clear image of the amount we had in our car, and mentally adding tents (big tents too, not the little backpacking kind I used to have), chairs, heating, cooking, and then an extra for Torchwood-specific equipment (damn, forgot food) and it ain't going to go in the back of one SUV.

Heck, I would have taken two cars anyway, just for flexibility and backup. But it would have got in the way of the story, and we can't have that. :D

[dvanulya]

Very thoughtful analysis. Now I need to re-watch with this fresh in my mind. I have to say that I never once thought Gwen was with Jack in that final scene, though. It seemed pretty obvious to me, from everything that went on in the episode, that it had to Owen.

Plus, how pissed off would I have been if it *had* been Jack? Very.

[lone_star_woman]

I love it when Tosh gets bitchy. That comment about "getting your feet under the table" makes me laugh. Too bad we didn't get to see that side of Tosh other than briefly in "Day One" and later in "Something Borrowed." I think Afterelton.com called it her inner drag-queen.

Great analysis of Ianto. What I love about the guy is that he is pragmatic. He feels safer having something to do and that allows hims to control his emotions.

What really bugged me about Gwen getting shot is that I thought as a police officer, she would know better. I thought she might have had some training about entering suspicious buildings.

[nikki4noo]

Gwen didn't know how to handle a gun remember. UK police don't get training in terms of tactics, especially beat cops which was all Gwen was. Here in my state in Australia we have a large number of UK police emigrating to work in our police force and you ought to hear the bitching from the local police about how under prepared they are for actual policing. The training is pretty deplorable from what has been said to me.

[lone_star_woman]

So in that case, why not follow Jack's lead or wait for his orders?

But that's very scary for police officers to be undertrained, especially when sometimes even simple things, like bar brawls or domestic disputes can get out of hand.

[nikki4noo]

She had been following his lead and his orders. He had nodded to her about opening the door. She was doing what he was telling her to, but I am sure Jack thought she would step to the side.

My opinion of her getting shot at that time and not opening the door and standing to the side, is that she was enjoying the thrill of being an operative like she had only seen on tv or the movies up to that point.

So she was feeling a little cocky and sure of herself and that feeling of invincibility. So she forgot for that moment and it cost her. Jack doesn't know about UK police procedures and training and he just presumed that she should or would know to get out of the way.

[ceindreadh]

Interestingly, despite his earlier outburst to Tosh, Ianto seems to be incredibly calm at this point in time. He is clearly of the defensive and now winded which makes him vulnerable, but he no longer seems to be panicking, instead studying the situation for a point where they can escape only to be pulled up short by the gun when he does attempt it.
I think that Ianto being stuck on his own with only an unconscious Tosh and his own thoughts for company was bound to end up on the verge of panic. But once there's a situation where he can focus on externals, he finds it a lot easier to subdue his panic.

Where Tosh had looked to the less experienced Ianto to follow his lead, here we have Gwen looking to the more senior Owen who orders her without speaking that no, she should not shoot. Owen does not seem to want Gwen to have the blood on her hands, and Gwen lowers her weapon, forcing herself to calm down, shooting Owen a look of sheer helplessness My take on it was that Owen was trying to stop Gwen from handing over her gun rather than

[haldane]

I'm with you, and add personal experience: 'Not being able to talk about it' is hardly confined to Torchwood or the armed forces. My last three long-term jobs have been in software (open access to 10,000 employee personnel databases, including home info and annual assessment reports), a major bank (money. 'Nuff said), and nine years in medical research at our city's biggest hospital (me, in the icon).

Okay, so it's nothing that: "nobody else would believe" but you can be sure that I was under signed confidentialty agreements, where a simple remark on the bus home could cost me my job *and* distress a lot of people. Image: you're going home on a bus, after waiting ten hours outside surgery to see if your wife's going to live or not, and this person on the seat behind you starts up "We had the most *obese* woman in today; she was just gross!". So your mouth stays shutOh, and years in a cardiac surgery theatre can leave more than a few disurbing images in your head. But that's how it is; you deal or you leave

[fide_et_spe]

Again interesting, I have to say I never thought Gwen was with Jack at the end. I think there was too much build up towards her and Owen for that to be the case. In fact it would have been quite a twist.

I always felt Jack looked with real anger at Ianto, that glare really struck me the first time I saw it. I felt he was cross with Ianto for bringing the subject up, and residually for the whole Lisa thing. I did also think there was some kind of relationship going on, and who am I to say to what level, but given that it was obvious from the start, even flirting and UST may well be enough to inspire that kind of glare. Ianto definitely knew something happened in Cyberwoman, those google eyes weren't for nothing, but whether he counted it as a kiss, well, who knows.

[clarrisani]

No, actually, Gwen brought the subject up. Ianto just reminded her that it was not the best subject to be bringing up at that point in time, after he so recently lost his girlfriend (which is true). Jack also glares at Gwen (so does Owen) for bringing up the subject.

Originally I though Ianto remembered the kiss, but after analysing the episode "Cyberwoman" Jack pulls back as Ianto regains consciousness/life and before Ianto would have realised what was happening (listen for when Ianto gasps at the air much like Jack does when he comes back to life).

[fide_et_spe]

Oh I didn't mean the subject of the kiss, I meant Lisa, Ianto could have kept his mouth shut and just not said anything, changed the subject even as it had almost moved on when Jack made his joke. It felt petulant of him, and no doubt was quite deliberate. I thought Jack may well have been cross about that.

[clarrisani]

No, he couldn't. Ianto was trapped into answering. Everyone else had taken their turn and the others would have eventually gotten around to asking him once they stopped laughing at Jack, but he beat them to it so that no one did have to ask (it would have been Tosh or Owen, probably) because I really do think they may have forgotten, and Ianto realises this. Jack, I felt, was cross at a) for Gwen bringing it up, and b) Ianto for taking it a little too far with Gwen by chastising her (someone had to do it, though).