I don’t see much value in killing such a brand new character. I had just begun to get interested in Vera Her death would have more impact if it were later, maybe ep9. Then we’d have a reason to care.
As you mentioned, her death was so badly written. Come on. Who’s stupid enough to confront the camp warden inside their own camp? She was practically begging to get knocked off. Common sense tells us that she should play it cool. Don’t comment too much on anything bad. Get out of the camp and then report it.
That’s how I’d write it. She plays it cool. Gets out of the camp. Reports it and that person kills her. At least then we have a character that showed good common sense.
I think a big part of the show is that untrained people do stupid things and die because of it. I don’t know that the average hot tempered person who was already pissed at the guy, would have enough common sense to play it cool.
I mean we all know people in real life whose common sense leaves them at the most dangerous moments and if characters in fiction behaved with common sense, we would lose whole genres.
That being said, I really was beginning to warm to character.
It was clear that she felt the guy was impotent and wasn’t a threat. The mistake was that the guy was a ‘nazi’ and had already rationalized his actions.
I see your point but somehow the whole thing with Vera in the overflow camp just didn’t ring true for me. Other stuff like Esther going to visit her sister I could believe (but why was she surprised when CPS took her sister’s kids away? What did she think was going to happen?). And I wonder if she will ever find out that the visit caused Nicholas (the guy who designed the security system for Phicorp) to get maimed, even though the rest of the Torchwood crew got out mostly unscathed.
I also thought it was kind of crazy how they drove in together and Esther got out of the car while they were in line to drive in to the camp. Then the whole “pretend you don’t know me in there.” She should have gotten out well before they were in sight of the camp. I would think that would have been planned out better with some of the more experienced members of the team.
I can see how the guy came off as a wimp but she was clearly in a dangerous situation and could have put Esther in danger as well. She is strong willed but she is smarter than that, IMHO. And smart enough to see that the world has changed and she can’t be sure the old rules will apply anymore or that the same power structure is in place. Does she really believe no one in the government or military or law enforcement knows what is going on in the camps?
I just think the whole thing could have been written better and was disappointed by much of this episode. Be interesting to see how Gwen’s situation gets resolved though.
I also think Oswald would be more believable if he had been someone who had say, killed someone while robbing a bank or something. I just can’t buy a child rapist-murderer as any kind of folk hero, no matter how sorry he seems or how charismatic he might be.
I agree that the writing was a bit clumsy, but I think Vera’s behaviour in the overflow camp was a realistic portrayal of her character.
We have a saying, “book smart but life stupid” and people like Vera who reach a certain level of confidence, power (remember she mentioned that she wrote the procedures / the rules that Colin was abusing) are so used to being in control, that they lose the ability to realize when they are in over their head. Especially when the threat would not be a threat in normal circumstances.
Vera believed that the problem wasn’t the ‘government’, but that the systems weren’t being followed or weren’t designed correctly by individuals, such as Colin.
So if she wasn’t ‘part’ of Torchwood and found out the same information, she would have sought out an official and still ended up dead, as you suggested, because she didn’t understand the new world order.
Vera says that Colin represented the very thing she was afraid of the most, petty people granted power over the weak, this is a constant theme of Torchwood.
So while I think your example of Vera being killed by an outside agent would have shown the depth of the problem, it would have been unnecessary because we already know how powerful the organization is.
That being said, I don’t think Vera needed to die to expose the ovens, as Gwen figured it out or to make what I consider a link to the Nazi’s meme of the average man becoming a inhuman monster, when they are granted power; which is being reinforced by Oswald as Hitler and the categories of people.
Unfortunately, I am not so sure how off the mark the depicted level of society’s acceptance of a ‘reformed’ Oswald would reach.
I don’t see the argument - what Vera did was undoubtedly stupid. However, it was also understandable. Keep in mind that she didn’t know what was going on there - she thought they had a shitty system that was the best that could be arrived at in a really short time. Instead, it was a shitty system that was being made even worse by a penny pinching bureaucrat who was causing undue suffering just to keep his numbers looking good. So, she lost her cool. Stupid? Definitely. But believable.
The thing I didn’t get is why Rex’s first visit to the Module had cold walls like it was refrigerated. Which seems unnecessary in a crematorium. It annoys me because my first guess was that the things were ovens and then I was thrown off by the fact that they seemed refrigerated…
If the walls were thick and coated with a heat resistant material, they would feel cool, maybe cold to the touch. I think Rex would think, “cool walls to keep the bodies ‘fresh’ and heat out”, as opposed to, “cool walls because they are insulated to keep heat in”.
That pretty much sums up how I feel about the show right now. It just doesn’t seem like a professionally finished product.
I can’t figure Jack out at all. His character has been replaced by a new character and I don’t know who he is, and there hasn’t been an explanation for it. Sure, he’s been through some stuff, but I can’t tell at all in what ways that was supposed to have changed him, and Gwen doesn’t act like he’s different.
That may be one of the most interesting turns. What made Jack so powerful, was that he was immortal and could take stupid risks, knowing that he could eventually outlast his enemies; it was often his team that paid the price.
The ability to rush head first into any situation without dying, would turn any person into a primary character.
With that ability removed, now he’s the only person who can’t rush head first into danger. That reality would naturally turn him into a figure who needs to stay in the background in order to stay alive. He literally can’t afford to be anything other than a secondary character.
I would love to see Gwen become even more kick ass, as the reality of her relative immortality becomes more matter of fact to her.
You know, since presumably the immortality thing will be taken away at some point, things could get really ugly between the moment people are mortal again and the time those same people figure out that they have to go back to their prior caution.
I guess. It doesn’t seem obvious to me that’s the reason he seems different. Plus, he was a very mortal risk-taking adventurer before becoming immortal, and even as an immortal, he was never really keen on getting hurt unless he had to, since it still hurts.
That bothers me too, especially since I’m not seeing any charisma. But I suppose the idea is that the Miracle Day is such a weird thing that people are responding in a different way.
I did like how Jack played up the gay lover bit when Rex was being taken away. That was funny.
BTW, the Onion AV Club write-up of the episode suggested that perhaps whoever is behind this (presumably aliens; it’s always aliens) wants “magical living people dust” or living cremains.
Well, the only other time we knew Jack before his immortality was when he was in WW2 with 51st century technology. That would probably make me seem pretty cool too.
But she was staying with two CIA agents who are in hiding and if I remember correctly she was at the meeting where they were discussing how the satellite images had been changed to hide the modules. Clearly she is in some deep shit here. I just don’t believe she is that “life stupid.” YMMV.
That would have made a much better story, IMHO.
Well Casey Anthony was acquitted of “just” murder, not even rape and people won’t let it go. Sure, some of that is because it was her own daughter but I can’t think of any pedophiles who have gotten any real public support. Bonnie and Clyde types, sure but not child rapists.
Anyway, I will keep an open mind for next week. I do think the whole premise is pretty interesting and horrifying. I shudder to think what aliens would do with magical living people dust. Hopefully it’s going somewhere good. And I am more hopeful about Gwen’s storyline.
Well I know people (men) who think she is drop dead gorgeous and would have no qualms against sleeping with her. Hell if she gets a book/movie deal, the money would only make her more attractive to some. So while some people won’t let it go, others want to ‘tap that ass’ and bath in the glow however tainted it may be and she is not a fictional construct.
So in regards to the new normal of Miracle Day, where millions of people have lost their bearings, I just don’t know whether or not the child rapist part is remembered or considered by the millions of people who are the living dead or are with the living dead and are viewing Oswald through the filter of the media.
Although we have seen that there are still some people who consider and treat Oswald as a pariah, it usually only occurs when people have to deal with him personally, as when no one wanted to be in a dressing room with him; but they still were on the same program with him, as it benefited them.
Miracle day is somewhat misleading. People can’t die. They are immortal.
That doesn’t mean they can’t be hurt. You still don’t want to drive 200 mph on the freeway. Spending eternity brain dead and alive isn’t much of a life. Or getting shot multiple times could leave you in tremendous pain for eternity.
Jack had the ideal situation. He couldn’t die and he couldn’t be injured for very long. He had perfect health no matter what risks he took.
I’m not sure how they’ll explain Jack’s aging if the show continues for more seasons.