(no subject)

[sapote]

Finally the Oh the Huge Manatee jokes all over my flist make sense!

With the exception of Jack's weird emo moments wrt the Whale Creature, this episode did not suck! Two episodes of Torchwood in a row that weren't lolariously bad = complete win.

Personally, I'd been rooting for some sort of resolution to the Rhys plotline since early in s1, so I was pleased that he got some honesty and agency in this ep. Also, since my reading of Jack is kind of heavy on the manpain / sociopathic tendencies, I am completely unsurprised that Jack is territorial over Gwen. He's actively or passively killed everyone else's significant other, so really, Gwen's only special because Rhys has survived this long. I was surprised the poor guy outlived the episode. If anyone wants to discuss this Jack is a Psychotic Bastard theory in comments, man, do I have ideas about this. However, in the Jack is Actually an Okay Person? world of canon, his meeting with the Doctor seems to have rekindled his compassion for giant whales, etc, etc. Something like that.

The Tosh/Owen needs to end, now, yep. Ick.

Ianto was completely unexpectedly hot in this episode. And his delivery held some emotional consistency, even - he really doesn't seem to care what happens to him, which makes sense given the plot arc we kind of imagine exists around him.

I enjoyed all the flaily Welsh fighting. That was pretty quality.

However, when it's blatantly canonical that Ianto is blowing the boss during office hours, why does no one acknowledge their relationship? I thought that was Jack acknowledging it in 1x13, what with the snogging. Apparently not. And Tosh slashes everyone.

Also, the Face of Boe is actually the offspring of Cap'n Jack and a huge manatee. You heard it here first.

Comments

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen the ep yet. Re Jack - remember him going on about being a torture expert in countrycide?

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was maybe my first serious inkling that all is not smiles and hugs in Jack's little universe. He may well have been bullshitting to scare the cannibal guy, but given some of the interactions he had with Captain John, I kind of suspect not.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

That's what's interesting about him though. If he was all smiles and hugs I'd fall asleep. He's been a pretty bad-ass bastard in the past, and unlike most heroes he's not above torturing or killing ppl who get in that way. In that he's similar to Mal, but he doesn't have Mal's unwavering-although-odd moral compass, because he still seems to be developing it. Jack's gone from bad to good, whereas Mal went from good (and somewhat naive) to let down and bitter, perceiving himself as a bad guy now, a criminal, but unable to really take that on because at the core of him he's everything he was before. Doesn that imply that ppl don't change? that the core of Jack is also what it was before? Hmm.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

PS *Have* seen the ep now ;)

I attempt to meta while medicated

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

::nods:: I definitely appreciate that complexity, too, even if sometimes I feel like the scripting is beating us over the head going JACK: LIKE AN ONION, IN THAT HE HAS LAYERS.

I don't know if Jack's basically amoral or if his morality is just really alien - Torchwood's whole "greatest good no matter what the cost" ethos seems to spring from Jack, and the other characters comment again and again about how dealing in that other morality makes them themselves kind of aliens in 21st century Earth culture. So I wonder about that.

Does that imply that ppl don't change? that the core of Jack is also what it was before? Hmm.

I think it implies that Jack, like, knows that he is capable of awful things (and awesome things), where a lot of people tootle along through life all "I would never do a thing like that!". Mal knows he's not the kind of guy who does bad things, even when he does, yeah?

urgh cold medicine.