(no subject)
...oh. Oh, I think I am broken. I don't really know what more to say than that, but -- my god, I cannot believe they went there. Which is really what I've had to say for this show from the start -- I can't believe they did the alien egg pregnancy at Gwen's wedding, I can't believe they actually left Jack buried underground for two millenia, I can't believe they let Grey mind-rape Ianto.
So what's new: I can't believe they killed off Ianto, not like that. And I can't believe they made Jack kill his own grandson. And I can't believe that they plan to end it like that -- though honestly, I don't think I ever believed that Torchwood would decide to have a happy ending. It was always, really, about taking that extra step into the place where you thought no one would tread. They will kill your favorites. That's how they keep you on the edge of your seat.
And I have to say, the one complaint I'd had prior to the mini-series was that I wasn't believing Jack's distress anymore. I mean, the obvious hazard to having an immortal man on your show as a main character is, aside from fightening TARDIS's, he's hard to keep sympathetic. What's he got to be afraid of? He can't die. The viewer's got no suspense left; they know Jack Harkness will still be standing at the end of the episode.
So they tried making it look like he'd died -- nope, sorry, I didn't fall for it, even if Gwen did. And they implied that Jack's the Face of Boe, so that you wonder how he came to just be a tentacled head. But they started to hit upon the proper strategy when they started to flesh out his co-workers.
Suzie died, and frankly, I didn't care especially. Sort of, but not really. But then Tosh and Owen gave me a nasty knock -- just after we figured out who they were and where they'd come from, they got taken away, from us and from Jack. And with that, we sympathize. They gave him a lovely Welsh teaboy who's secretly capable of chasing pterodactyls and has a magnificent line in dry British humor to shag and fall in love with, and so did we(minus the shagging), and then they killed him off. Because you can't kill an immortal man, but you can break him. And that's the point of sympathy us lesser mortals can have with Jack. We can break, and then we can die, and then we can rest. He can break, and then he can only attempt to forget -- and do you really think he can?
In short, I thought they managed it magnificently. But still, I'm going to go cry now, and I'm going to hope for Jack's sake that the Doctor finds him and makes him better.
ETA: I'd like to say that the above was written in a very bizarre and fairly uncontrolled headstate directly after watching Days Three, Four and Five all in a row. That said, I mean everything I wrote (I checked it through later to make sure I said what I meant to say), but I've also recently become aware that this season has affected various people much more strongly than it has me. I am sorry that all of them are hurting, and would like to clarify that my analysis below, while completely genuine when I wrote it, is not in any way meant to antagonize or belittle any reaction you may yourself have had. (This ought to go without saying, but with emotions running as high as they are, I figure it can't hurt to say it. :-)