Combat: A Humorous Review with No Real Analytical Value Whatsoever
Combat: A Humorous Review with No Real Analytical Value Whatsoever
Disclaimer: As the title should indicate, this review is written purely to vent my own frustrations. It makes no attempt at in-depth, unbiased analysis regarding this episode or the within characters’ actions or motives. I’m posting it online, not to piss anyone off, but so that like minded people can my share in my humor. If you are strongly disposed toward the character of Gwen Cooper or the Gwack Ship, I suggest you do not read this review.
The episode begins with Jack chasing down a Weevil. I’m assuming he’s trying to capture it but he could just as easily be trying to talk it back to the Hub for some fun since apparently it’s Ianto’s night off. The Weevil turns Jack down with swipe of its claws.
Meanwhile, Gwen is ignoring Rhys yet again. But to top it off, this time she’s ignoring him in public at a fancy outdoor café where they’re having dinner. Rhys calls her on it- and I’ll give Gwen this, she can occasionally turn those cow eyes into doe eyes when she needs to. This writer paused the episode at the wrong time and was forced to admit that Gwen is kinda cute (it’s the freckles, I love freckles) - and thinks he’s done something make her turn away. No Rhys, Gwen’s just going through a rough patch with her lover right now. She’ll get over it soon enough. Gwen makes no effort to dissuade him from the notion that it’s all his fault though.
Jack arrives, making Gwen’s face light up like a kid on Christmas morning either before they realize that all they got was coal, or after they realize how much coal is actually worth these days. Gwen’s out of her chair and pawing over Jack in an instant, not bothering to wonder how this must look to Rhys. Jack’s request to borrow her and subsequent promise that he’ll have her back for desert leaves Rhys with the mostly justifiable notion that Gwen’s running off for some mid-date nooky, Florence Nightingale-style, with her boss. At least he doesn’t think it’s all his fault anymore. Thus he yells at Gwen to sit back down, finally finding his balls in the process.
Gwen tells him not speak to her like that again. The writers undoubtedly wanted this scene to dispel any belief that Gwen would allow herself to become a battered woman, since apparently people think that all abusive spouses cause a scenes in the middle of crowded restaurants and in front of their SO’s boss-who definitely have considerable influence over said SO and could probably talk them into leaving the abusive bastard- rather than, you know keeping it low key. Most abusive spouses know what they’re doing is wrong, and therefore act as loving and normal in public as possible, only letting their nastier sides out when away from prying eyes. No Gwackers (by Gwackers, I mean the teenagers who don’t know any better and the feminazis rather than the handful of sane ones), that scene was not proof that Rhys is an abusive S.O.B-though after watching Something Borrowed, I won’t deny that Rhys’s mother is a bitch-, it’s proof that Rhys has spent the past few months watching the woman he loves pull away from him for no apparent reason and is fed up.
Gwen runs off with Jack over Rhys’s protestations that she promised it was her night off and that they would spend it together. She gives him one last disgusted look and runs off with Jack. Unfortunately, Gwen’s a good sprinter so Rhys doesn’t bother finishing his threat to leave her if she runs out on him tonight, because she’s already too far away to hear it.
As they wander down a deserted back road, Jack apologizes for interrupting her date, but Gwen brushes it off, claiming Rhys will get over it. Gwen, I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but Rhys is about ready to call it quits with you. Jack, for once, agrees with me and reprimands Gwen for not keeping her promise that she’d hold onto her normal life. Gwen is miffed that Jack cut off any chance of her being able to bitch about Rhys, but they get a lock on the Weevil’s location before she can say anything.
They arrive in the car park (for us clueless Americans, that means a multistory garage) in time for a white van to speed out of nowhere, bundle the Weevil inside, and vanish without a trace. I still find it to be too soon to make any jokes about the Beltway Snipers, who turned out to be driving a blue sedan anyway.
Jack bitches about other people knowing about Weevils to Tosh and Ianto because Owen’s still moping about the Amelia Earhart rip off who left him for the Rift, and Gwen’s trying to suckup to Rhys, who isn’t answering the phone. Gwen whines that things have gotten away from her lately and blames her job again even after she admits there is no excuse for how she’s been acting.
Owen’s moping in a bar, and like Rhys, is ignoring his phone. If the Gwacker really want to see possessive, they should look at the bartender’s boyfriend, though he throws his punches at Owen. Owen kicks his ass without breaking a sweat, gives the bartender some relationship advice, finishes his drink, and runs off.
At the Hub, Gwen notes that Owen still isn’t answering his phone. Tosh’s response is that Owen’s even more erratic since ‘that thing with Diane’. Gwen doesn’t catch her meaning until Tosh says “It’s none of my business”, the same words she used to describe Gwen and Owen’s affair back in Greeks Bearing Gifts. At first she’s clearly in denial, demanding, surprisingly gently, ‘what thing?’ Tosh admits Owen slept with Diane, but says she thought Gwen knew. Gwen backtracks, saying of course she knew there was a thing, but not a thing thing.
Meanwhile Jack and Ianto meet up down in the vaults to study the moaning Weevils. This deserves a fanfiction. They determine that the Weevils are weeping.
Tosh and Jack track down a warehouse the baddies stopped at and find a body. Lovely. The dead guy’s cell phone rings, and Jack is briefly insulted that Tosh thought he’d choose that cruddy ringtone. Ianto proves he is more useful than Gwen by being able to trace phone calls.
Owen finally answers his phone and Jack tells him to get his bony little ass to the Hub, now. That exchange leaves me with the image of Jack groping Owen, as that’s the least disturbing way I can think of for Jack to have discovered what Owen’s ass feels like.
At work, we determine that Owen and Gwen are once again on the outs, since Owen’s treating her like he usually treats Tosh. Discussions are had, and Gwen mentions that someone needs to break it to the dead guy’s wife that he’s dead.
Cut to Gwen coming out of the dead guy’s house and joining Owen in the SUV. She bitches to Owen about how she hated telling families about their loved ones being dead. Legitimate as her issue is- as I’m sure it’s right up there with ‘attending a fellow officer’s funeral after they’ve been killed in the line of duty’ as one of the crappiest things about being a cop- complaining about it to the guy who just lost the woman he loved is not very sensitive for ‘The Heart of Torchwood’. Bitching about how Owen’s not comforting her in this moment of hardship doesn’t help matters. Of course she then confronts him about the thing with Diane, and when he admits it she asks why they’re still doing ‘this’. She seems to want an apology or maybe a sign of his continued interest. Instead she gets dumped. Owen proclaims he was getting tired of her “fuck tricks” anyway. Gwen calls him a wanker and drives off, leaving him behind.
Back at the Hub, Tosh is now the teacher’s pet, as Gwen and Owen are pissing Jack off with their personal problems and she’s the only one who’s actually doing her job at the moment. And apparently Owen’s going under cover. This won’t end well.
Owen’s cover is obviously blown within minutes as he’s the worst secret agent ever, but the baddie plays along because he wants in Owen’s pants. Ianto, I have to say, would have pulled it off with James Bond flair. But enough about that. The baddie is asking Owen out on a date. Owen ogles the office chicks while the baddie turns on the charm. Owen turns him down flat.
Gwen’s trying to avoid Rhys- and move onto greener pastures with Jack- so she offers to tag along to interrogate a witness at the hospital. Jack says no, she had her chance, he’s with Ianto now. Besides, Ianto’s better at the intimidating witnesses thing and won’t bitch about how inhumane it is. Actually he tells her to go home and talk to Rhys, but I like to think that’s what he really meant to say. Jack then leaves with Ianto, and Gwen stands there looking lost. She doesn’t understand how Jack could choose Ianto over her.
Gwen goes home to find Rhys getting ready for a night on the town with his buddies. He’s also wearing his ‘pulling top’, which I think is the British equivalent to the infamous ‘lucky shirt’ (i.e. what you wear when you are hoping to get lucky). Apparently he’s a little further gone than Gwen thought. And he’s going to a faux ‘stag-do’, which I know translates to a bachelor party. Gwen finds the concept amusing until Rhys tells her he’s essentially planning on getting drunk and going to a strip club. If a stripper could break up Bennifer, what chance does her relationship stand? She tries to entice him to come home early, as she’s staying in tonight. Rhys, remembering the last time she said that-meaning yesterday-, gruffly replies “Well I’m not”, leaving Gwen alone with her guilty conscience.
Meanwhile, Jack and Ianto are intimidating the witness/victim/suspect. Ianto is scarily sexy while wearing that evil grin. The witness/victim/suspect claims he was mugged at first, and then admits the others will kill him if he talks and then promptly clams up.
Jack decides they need bait. Looks like Janet’s going on a field trip. I hope it’ll end better than Gwen and Suzie’s field trip. Tosh is extremely disturbed that Jack plans to release a Weevil in the middle of Cardiff, while Ianto looks a little turned on. That also requires a fanfic to explain. Despite being turned on, Ianto agrees with Tosh that this is a bad idea, thereby proving that, unlike his co-workers, he is not ruled by his libido. Janet’s field trip ends just as badly as Suzie and Gwen’s when she’s kidnapped. Tosh is disgusted at the beating Jack allows Janet to take from the masked strangers.
At the same bar from earlier, Owen is on a date with the baddie. The bartender’s boyfriend never seems to go home and starts something, bringing a few of his buddies along for protection. Owen and the baddie wipe the floor with them. They then go back to the baddie’s place and the baddie proceeds to lose his shirt. He’s only showing off his Weevil induced injuries, but still.
At home, Gwen takes solace in alcohol. She’s also changed clothes, now wearing some wholesome clothes designed to make her look like a 50’s American housewife. Rhys arrives home, having felt guilty for leaving Gwen alone on her night in. He sits down to have a drink with her, and Gwen watches intently as he takes his first sip. Rhys begins to speak, only to be cut off by Gwen who insists she needs to tell him something. Rhys guesses it’s bad and probably already knows what she’s going to say. She says she’s been sleeping with someone else, which he probably takes to mean the ever sexy Jack, but at the last second she admits it’s Owen who he’s never met luckily, or he’d feel even worse since Owen is the bastard son of Dolores Umbridge and Dobby the House Elf-which would explain Owen’s issues with his mom. She admits Owen’s a tosser and it’s all going to stop while Rhys sits there in denial. Rhys demands to know why she’s telling him this. Now this scene is too emotional for a proper sci-fi show and could possibly end in some negative consequences for Gwen, so there’s gotta be a catch. I’d prefer it if she also claimed to be pregnant with a half alien baby, but no. She’s says she’s ashamed, angry, and needs Rhys’s forgiveness. And, oh yeah, she’s slipped him some retcon too.
The look on Rhys’s face says it all. It’s sort of a mix between ‘WTF?!’, and ‘I’m dating a psycho’. She explains it’s nothing but an amnesia pill and he’ll wake up tomorrow just fine, sans any memory of this conversation. The flippancy with which she says this is very disturbing. It’s not even funny.
As he begins to collapse, Rhys sums up the audience’s opinion on the matter exquisitely. “God, you selfish bitch!”
Gwen desperately agrees with him, trying to get him to say he forgives her before he passes out. She claims it’s a chance for them to get everything out in the open. Yeah, that doesn’t really work Gwen, since Rhys would have to remember this little talk for it to all be ‘out in the open’. Rhys passes out without granting Gwen his forgiveness. She actually seems to be a little mentally unstable during this scene, giving some credence to those Psycho!Gwen fics.
Elsewhere, Owen is wandering around the baddie’s house, and finds a Weevil. He and the baddie flirt, the baddie reveals that he made Owen the moment he walked into his office, and they beat up a Weevil. And I thought Ianto and Jack were kinky.
After putting her drugged boyfriend to bed, or maybe she just left him where fell for all the audience knows, Gwen returns to the Hub with pizza. Nobody’s there to comfort her because they’re all actually working. Well, Janet’s missing and Owen’s joining his new boyfriend at the fight club.
Gwen sit’s alone in the Hub, sobbing into her pizza. Say what you will about Eve Myles’s acting, her tears actually seem genuine, coming in waves rather than great wailing sobs thankfully, and this scene is pretty well acted. That said, sobbing in self-pity because your boyfriend didn’t forgive you for having an affair in the two minute between when you told him and when the drugs kicked in? Come on, Gwen, I don’t feel that sorry for you.
It turns out she’s perfectly placed to receive the clue, in the form of a text message on the dead guy’s phone. She now has the fight club’s address and sets to work. She tries to get the message to Jack, but realizes she has no clue where her comm. unit is. Oh I love this.
After picking up Gwen, the whole team heads out to the fight club to save Owen’s butt from being mauled by a Weevil.
At the fight club, the baddie explains to Owen that since they’re disillusioned with society and atheist, beating up Weevils gives them meaning. Yeah, are we sure RTD is promoting an atheist agenda? Because that kinda reminds me of why I started going to church again after a five year crisis of faith.
Baddie talks Owen into getting into the cage by liberal use of a gun and Owen’s suicidal stupidity. Jack and the crew break in just in time to distract Owen and get him attacked. Baddie commits suicide and Owen gets rushed to the hospital. Gwen’s attitude is also a STD, since Owen seems to have caught it as he’s pissy that they refused let him die in peace. While I understand that he’s in a spiral of suicidal depression, blaming Jack for everything wrong in his life is way too much like Gwen for me to feel any sympathy.
In conclusion, this episode had some of the best acting of the season and some of the worst content. Seriously, they need to strike some sort of balance.