TW meta: The last scene of Children of Earth. (My Captain)
So, the last scene. I have no words for how much I loved it, or how perfect I think it is... but I’ll try. The parallels, circles and repeated themes are so thick that I’m probably only scratching the surface. But here is what I see:
The book-ending was what struck me mostly at first, and what makes it all seem so final.
At the very beginning Gwen saw Jack, coat buttoned up just like he wears it on the hill. These are the only two times in the entire show he buttons up the coat, belt and all. (Apart from flashbacks obviously.) It signifies his remoteness - the way he inhabits a different world. At the beginning he ends up inviting Gwen into that world, and now he leaves her behind. The symbolism is gorgeous. I’m almost tempted to read something into the fact that at the beginning she’s looking down at him, and he pulls her down into Torchwood (he’s mysterious, ruthless, in-your-face and overly sexual) - but at the end he is the one above her, going up into the heavens (calm, ethereal, remote, alien).
One parallel that struck me was ‘Doomsday’ - or rather, the differences struck me. And Jack actually comes off much better than the Doctor...
Rose made the Doctor her entire life (“There’s nothing for me here”, PotW), and the Doctor never questioned that, really. Sure, he wanted her to appreciate her human life, but he didn’t question that he was worth it (“I love you.”/”Quite right too.”). Jack’s story is different. He wanted Gwen, that much is very obvious, but he never went there. Now this is partly because Jack’s relationship story was split into the Gwen/Jack/Ianto triangle, with the three sides making up a unit, so for the “I love you” we have to go to Ianto, where Jack’s response of course is “Don’t”. And so in CoE we see Doomsday refracted - no permanent separation with a broken life, but one death (the one who had lost everything and made Jack and TW his entire life) and one life deeply touched, but still intact.
So I think this is the reason why Gwen had to be the one to survive - she was never fully absorbed into Jack’s world the way the others were. She (sometimes more by accident than planning) managed to hang onto life outside Torchwood, outside Jack. You could say that she saved herself. Or - she was saved by Rhys, since Rhys is the very embodiment of ‘everyday, ordinary life’ that RTD (mostly through the Doctor) keeps holding up as the most important thing of all. (The Doctor asks if Rose is the one who’s pregnant. She’s not, she can’t move beyond the Doctor. But Gwen is.)
Anyway, I’ve transcribed the whole scene, because it is amazing, and because there were so many things that made me think, that I kinda had to do it this way. Transcript is the indented stuff, other quotes are in italics, and general thoughts are like this.
Last scene
Gwen: Couldn’t just have chosen a pub, could you?
Rhys: It’s bloody freezing. My feet!
Jack: Oh I missed that - the Welsh complaining.
Jack: That is so Welsh.
Gwen: What is?
Jack: I show you something fantastic - you find fault.
More bookending. I love it.
Jack: You look good.
Gwen: I look huge.
Rhys: She’s bloody gorgeous.
Gwen: You OK?
Jack: Yeah.
Donna: Is "all right" special Time Lord code for... "really not all right at all"?
He’s *so* Doctor-like here. ‘I’m always all right.’ The mask is in place and nothing can put even the tiniest dent in it.
Gwen: Did it work?
Jack: Travelled to all sorts of places. This planet is too small. The whole world is like a graveyard.
Jack: These people. This planet. All the beauty you could never see. That's what I come back for.
The difference between these two statements just *guts* me.
Gwen: Come back with us.
Jack: Haven’t travelled far enough yet. Have a lot of dirt to shake off my shoes. And right now there’s a cold fusion cruiser surfing the ion reefs just on the edge of the solar system. Just waiting to open its transport dock. I just need to send a signal.
Doctor: Off we go! The open road! There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio.
And there it is... the running away.
[Gwen holds up her hand]
Gwen: They found it in the wreckage. Indestructible. Like it’s owner. I put on a new strap for you.
Rhys: Cost me fifty quid that.
Jack: Bill me.
Gwen: Are you ever coming back Jack?
Jack: What for?
Gwen: Me...
Jack [to Ianto]: I came back for you. [looks around] All of you.
Jack [to Gwen]: But after it was all over ... I knew I belong here. What kept me fighting was the thought of coming home to you.
As he says at the beginning of Day 5, he can’t even look at Gwen anymore. What was once his refuge - his reason to fight - has now become something far, far different. The only thing that could have kept him on Earth would have been Ianto (partly, I think, because Ianto never had any illusions about Jack), but with him gone...
Gwen: It’s wasn’t your fault.
Jack: I think it was. Stephen and Ianto. And Tosh and Owen and Suzie and... All of them. Because of me.
Gwen: But you saved us - didn’t you?
Jack: Began to like it. And look what I became. Still. I have lived so many lives. It’s time to find another one.
Gwen: But they die, and I am sorry Jack, but you can not just run away. You can not just run away.
Jack: Oh yes I can. Just watch me.
Ianto [to Jack]: You like to think you're a hero. But you're the biggest monster of all.
Davros: How many more? Just think. How many have died in your name? The Doctor... the man who keeps running, never looking back, because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you... yourself.
I’m not sure that the Doctor is the best role model Jack could have, although on the plus side he knows exactly what he’s doing here. The writers (on purpose, one presumes) are dragging Jack through every single thing the Doctor has been through... all that’s left is genocide, and I doubt they’ll go there. Anyway, Jack is now very much at the same point that the Doctor was when we first met him at the start of New Who. The parallels are eerie by now:
Dr Constantine: Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither. But I am still a doctor.
The Doctor: Yeah. Know the feeling.
Martha: Have you got a brother?
The Doctor: No, not any more. Just me.
So they keep running... As Buffy once put it:
Buffy: I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point.
Or, to bring it back to the show, here’s Gwen.
Gwen: This is what Torchwood does, you see? It ruins your life.
It echoes Suzie’s despair at the very beginning, but Gwen manages to fight her way back because she has something to live for. Jack doesn’t, but he has no choice but go on...
You know, for the first time ever I’m genuinely glad for the Face of Boe connection, because it means that one day he will actually find peace.
That’s all for now. Goodbye my Captain. Goodbye show. Goodbye Ianto. I loved you all entirely too much, but I guess you had a good run.
ETA: I'm rather impressed at how calm I can sound, but then I've never really been quite as utterly shattered by a character death before. It'll take me *forever* to get used to a world without Ianto.
The book-ending was what struck me mostly at first, and what makes it all seem so final.
At the very beginning Gwen saw Jack, coat buttoned up just like he wears it on the hill. These are the only two times in the entire show he buttons up the coat, belt and all. (Apart from flashbacks obviously.) It signifies his remoteness - the way he inhabits a different world. At the beginning he ends up inviting Gwen into that world, and now he leaves her behind. The symbolism is gorgeous. I’m almost tempted to read something into the fact that at the beginning she’s looking down at him, and he pulls her down into Torchwood (he’s mysterious, ruthless, in-your-face and overly sexual) - but at the end he is the one above her, going up into the heavens (calm, ethereal, remote, alien).
One parallel that struck me was ‘Doomsday’ - or rather, the differences struck me. And Jack actually comes off much better than the Doctor...
Rose made the Doctor her entire life (“There’s nothing for me here”, PotW), and the Doctor never questioned that, really. Sure, he wanted her to appreciate her human life, but he didn’t question that he was worth it (“I love you.”/”Quite right too.”). Jack’s story is different. He wanted Gwen, that much is very obvious, but he never went there. Now this is partly because Jack’s relationship story was split into the Gwen/Jack/Ianto triangle, with the three sides making up a unit, so for the “I love you” we have to go to Ianto, where Jack’s response of course is “Don’t”. And so in CoE we see Doomsday refracted - no permanent separation with a broken life, but one death (the one who had lost everything and made Jack and TW his entire life) and one life deeply touched, but still intact.
So I think this is the reason why Gwen had to be the one to survive - she was never fully absorbed into Jack’s world the way the others were. She (sometimes more by accident than planning) managed to hang onto life outside Torchwood, outside Jack. You could say that she saved herself. Or - she was saved by Rhys, since Rhys is the very embodiment of ‘everyday, ordinary life’ that RTD (mostly through the Doctor) keeps holding up as the most important thing of all. (The Doctor asks if Rose is the one who’s pregnant. She’s not, she can’t move beyond the Doctor. But Gwen is.)
Anyway, I’ve transcribed the whole scene, because it is amazing, and because there were so many things that made me think, that I kinda had to do it this way. Transcript is the indented stuff, other quotes are in italics, and general thoughts are like this.
Last scene
Gwen: Couldn’t just have chosen a pub, could you?
Rhys: It’s bloody freezing. My feet!
Jack: Oh I missed that - the Welsh complaining.
Jack: That is so Welsh.
Gwen: What is?
Jack: I show you something fantastic - you find fault.
More bookending. I love it.
Jack: You look good.
Gwen: I look huge.
Rhys: She’s bloody gorgeous.
Gwen: You OK?
Jack: Yeah.
Donna: Is "all right" special Time Lord code for... "really not all right at all"?
He’s *so* Doctor-like here. ‘I’m always all right.’ The mask is in place and nothing can put even the tiniest dent in it.
Gwen: Did it work?
Jack: Travelled to all sorts of places. This planet is too small. The whole world is like a graveyard.
Jack: These people. This planet. All the beauty you could never see. That's what I come back for.
The difference between these two statements just *guts* me.
Gwen: Come back with us.
Jack: Haven’t travelled far enough yet. Have a lot of dirt to shake off my shoes. And right now there’s a cold fusion cruiser surfing the ion reefs just on the edge of the solar system. Just waiting to open its transport dock. I just need to send a signal.
Doctor: Off we go! The open road! There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio.
And there it is... the running away.
[Gwen holds up her hand]
Gwen: They found it in the wreckage. Indestructible. Like it’s owner. I put on a new strap for you.
Rhys: Cost me fifty quid that.
Jack: Bill me.
Gwen: Are you ever coming back Jack?
Jack: What for?
Gwen: Me...
Jack [to Ianto]: I came back for you. [looks around] All of you.
Jack [to Gwen]: But after it was all over ... I knew I belong here. What kept me fighting was the thought of coming home to you.
As he says at the beginning of Day 5, he can’t even look at Gwen anymore. What was once his refuge - his reason to fight - has now become something far, far different. The only thing that could have kept him on Earth would have been Ianto (partly, I think, because Ianto never had any illusions about Jack), but with him gone...
Gwen: It’s wasn’t your fault.
Jack: I think it was. Stephen and Ianto. And Tosh and Owen and Suzie and... All of them. Because of me.
Gwen: But you saved us - didn’t you?
Jack: Began to like it. And look what I became. Still. I have lived so many lives. It’s time to find another one.
Gwen: But they die, and I am sorry Jack, but you can not just run away. You can not just run away.
Jack: Oh yes I can. Just watch me.
Ianto [to Jack]: You like to think you're a hero. But you're the biggest monster of all.
Davros: How many more? Just think. How many have died in your name? The Doctor... the man who keeps running, never looking back, because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you... yourself.
I’m not sure that the Doctor is the best role model Jack could have, although on the plus side he knows exactly what he’s doing here. The writers (on purpose, one presumes) are dragging Jack through every single thing the Doctor has been through... all that’s left is genocide, and I doubt they’ll go there. Anyway, Jack is now very much at the same point that the Doctor was when we first met him at the start of New Who. The parallels are eerie by now:
Dr Constantine: Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither. But I am still a doctor.
The Doctor: Yeah. Know the feeling.
Martha: Have you got a brother?
The Doctor: No, not any more. Just me.
So they keep running... As Buffy once put it:
Buffy: I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point.
Or, to bring it back to the show, here’s Gwen.
Gwen: This is what Torchwood does, you see? It ruins your life.
It echoes Suzie’s despair at the very beginning, but Gwen manages to fight her way back because she has something to live for. Jack doesn’t, but he has no choice but go on...
You know, for the first time ever I’m genuinely glad for the Face of Boe connection, because it means that one day he will actually find peace.
That’s all for now. Goodbye my Captain. Goodbye show. Goodbye Ianto. I loved you all entirely too much, but I guess you had a good run.
ETA: I'm rather impressed at how calm I can sound, but then I've never really been quite as utterly shattered by a character death before. It'll take me *forever* to get used to a world without Ianto.