Discussion post for Countrycide

[the_silver_sun]

This is the discussion post for Countrycide

Comments

[fide_et_spe]

RTD said at the time that the episode was set up to get Owen and Gwen together. The kiss game thing just has Gwen being cruel IMO, but TPTB don't seem to get that's how she comes across. Clearly she says it because she and Owen are sniffing around each other

[rabecka]

As to the Cyberwoman kiss, I wasn't actually thinking about that. I'm in the camp that thinks something was going on between them pre-Cyberwoman, and I'm not at all sure Ianto knew about the kiss in Cyberwoman. Now that would actually make Ianto telling the truth, that his last kiss was Lisa, because he did kiss her when she was in the conversion unit, and I absolutely don't believe that he took up with Jack again btwn Cyberwoman and Countrycide.

I think Jack's look was more that Ianto could have avoided answering at that point and rubbing everyone's nose in it. (After Jack and Owen, I doubt anyone would have pushed him.) At the time, I thought Ianto's reply was more of a FU to Gwen than anything to do with Jack, and I think I'm still there. Gwen's asking that so soon after Cyberwoman was just mindless.

[coldwater1010]

Well I suppose even if he had been shagging Jack pre-Lisa's demise it still wouldn't make the idea of Lisa being his last snog a lie. She could still very easily have been unless you count the unconscious kiss or assume they got back together between Cyberwoman and this epsiode.

[fide_et_spe]

It would have been great, but the show may have gone in a different direction!

[coldwater1010]

I tend to go with post-Lisa and leave it at that. Pre-Lisa is an idea that I love seeing explored in fanfiction, but on the show if they wanted me to buy they'd been shagging all that time and then pick up that soon post-Lisa like it was no big thing then they really needed to do more with this arc. And Jack kissing Ianto while he's unconscious doesn't really cut it because that's just creepy and weird. I mean it's hard enough for me to buy that a post-Lisa hook up happened when it did when they show Ianto still kind of bitter about her demise and not afraid to rub their faces in it in this episode and still grieving pretty hard about her in the next and the only way I even begin to square that is by Ianto feeling he did everything he could to do his best by her and that makes acting on his attraction to Jack ok. Otherwise it just gives this story too much emotional baggage for how trivially the show seems to treat its aftermath.

[fide_et_spe]

See I think Fragments did a really nice job of showing how conflicted Ianto was. I mean it's one of those things that bothers some people, where I don't really care either way, but I do think it's all along pretty much. I admit I'm influenced by the fact that GDL says it was, and RTD also implied as much when he said that Cyberwoman was the point that the actors realised Jack and Ianto were meant to be shagging, so when I saw them say it, I did look at it and think how easy it is for that to be the case.

By the way, I think of them as just shagging and not really being that emotionally attached, but I don't know how much evidence there is for much emotion/romance really at any point in series 1. I think there is a lot of attraction though.

Just my opinion though, and like I said, I wouldn't bother trying to defend it if a fan has a different interpretation, I guess it's like when an author intends something to be one way but the readers see something else, it's up to the consumer at the end of the day.

[coldwater1010]

By the way, I think of them as just shagging and not really being that emotionally attached, but I don't know how much evidence there is for much emotion/romance really at any point in series 1. I think there is a lot of attraction though.I meant the emotional baggage/fall-out from the Lisa debacle and then the idea that Ianto, who gets pretty emotional just from the idea of being attracted to Jack in Fragments is then coolly screwing Jack while Lisa, the woman he supposedly loves and is committed to, lies strapped and injured and in pain in basement below them and that supposedly being no big thing. And then not long after she's finally killed off and all their plans are shot to hell Ianto being all casual 'hey, Jack, do you want screw again'. For me this storyline already comes with a ton of that kind of baggage/wtf just from what we get on-screen that the show either never thought about or just overlooked nevermind what tptb suggest might have happened in their off-screen interviews. I feel like if they wanted all this stuff to be

[fide_et_spe]

I see it differently though. I think there is attraction, and I think the scene in Fragments is really telling when Ianto has tears in his eyes. I don't think Ianto was ever coldly doing anything. I would see him as very conflicted. I think they are affectionate and friendly but what I meant was I don't think it's a great romance in series 1, or at least not shown on screen, but I could make an argument that it is in series 2. I'm not saying it's ethically right, although I could come up with a scenario that has Ianto realising in his heart that Lisa is long gone, but assuming he didn't, then it may be ethically dodgy, but I can see him using sex as comfort, especially with what he'd been through, and divorcing that from Lisa.

[coldwater1010]

I don't really have a problem with the idea that there might have been an attraction between them or the idea that they might have been involved with each other pre-Cyberwoman although I don't see any evidence of that on screen. My issue is with the way their relationship, such as we get, plays out as if the Lisa incident never happened and Jack is just some guy Ianto happens to be hot for. There's not even a hint of the emotional conflict we get in Fragments from Ianto just realising he's attracted to Jack. I think the reason why this idea works for me in fanfiction in a way it doesn't in canon is precisely because that aspect isn't usually ignored. It's incorporated as a part of the relationship and minefield they have to navigate. I think BeesandBrews s1 series is a great example of this for me.

[lawsontl]

I've always felt the Jack/Ianto thing had a huge element of emotional detachment to it, either because it started as a means of distracting Jack from the robot on the basement, or because it was never meant to be anything other than shagging for the sake of shagging. When real emotion started creeping in, it shook them both up, which is how I justify things like the latter part of S2 and, well, ALL of CoE.

The show, I think, was a bit heavy on the retroactive continuity. Lots of that.

[fide_et_spe]

Oh yes, retroactive continuity, gotta love that! I think you can see they want to introduce emotion in KKBB, it seems to start then, and that scene in To the Last Man is pretty loaded with meaning as well, and very sweet of course, bless. I would see series 1 as being attracted, and affectionate, which is really there in the kiss after Abbadon, but I agree, not a great romance.