A few days late with this thread but got here eventually.
I enjoyed this episode on the whole, although the ending was pretty terrible. It could definitely be submitted as evidence in the “Gwen Cooper is a stupid bitch” case. Surely you’d think to ask why someone was being kept in a locked cell before trying to set up a happy reunion with the family. Saying that Jonah’s mother really needed to work out what she wanted, first saying that all she wanted was to know what happened to him and then when she did saying she’d rather have lived not knowing but having hope. Yeah right, because you were doing such a good job of moving on with your life before you found out what had happened to him.
Incidentally I liked the whole bit between Rhys and Gwen discussing their life and marriage and children. I’ve often wondered quite what one is supposed to do when one decides they want to leave Torchwood and be normal again. From the episode in series one where Owen is nearly given the boot it’s revealed they get grabbed in a dark alley and retconned to oblivion so they don’t remember their time at Torchwood, that’ll be a hard one to sort out won’t it?
Anywho, not a great episode but not a bad one either. At least it swished out the horrible taste of “From out of the rain”.
I agree with everything you said. I think this was the episode with minimum cast, a la last year’s Random Shoes, though Jack was in it a lot more than I would’ve expected for that.
I don’t see that we needed to have Ianto and Jack’s tryst, it didn’t add much to the story, though I suppose someone could argue if it had been heterosexual it probably wouldn’t even have been noticed.
All Gareth David-Lloyd nakedness is necessary. That is all.
What he said.
ahem
This one gets two thumbs up from me. The only thing I didn’t like (and it’s a character thing, not a writing thing) was Rhys’s outburst. I’m normally on Rhys’s side when he argues with Gwen, but I wasn’t agreeing with him this time. He knows she’s got an extremely difficult, extremely isolating job – what did he expect? Even if she were a regular police officer, she’d occasionally be more focused on the job than on her husband, and Torchwood is so much more demanding than the police force.
Still, it’s nice to have someone call Gwen on her shit once in a while.
No, no, no. All Gareth David-Lloyd nakedness together with John Barrowman nakedness, in a mad hot sex scene, is necessary.
That is all.
I feel like I’m not part of the crowd.
I don’t want any John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, or Burn Gorman nakedness. And in fact, I don’t want any Eve Myles or Naoko Mori nakedness either. I want my nakedness confined to porn, and my Torchwood to stick with Science Fiction. I can’t see the need for such a crossover, so I wish it would stay out.
I’m not thrilled with the Jack/Ianto thing either. Those two don’t have an interesting relationship, they just fuck in the office. How unimportant. And unprofessional.
Explore their relationship or let it go. As much as I’d like to see some guy-guy action, I’m mostly just embarrassed by those two.
Otherwise it was a pretty good ep. I enjoyed Rhys & Gwen and her old cop buddy Andy.
“How’s Rhys? (Other than hungry)”
Too many unanswered questions though. How and why does time send these missing people back and how does Torchwood find them when it does?
It’s funny how Torchwood seems to be the worst kept secret in history. “Bloody Torchwood.” How many people have said that?
I made that point in the thread dedicated to S2.01, even old grandmas seem to know about them. The writers also seemed to change their minds about Torchwood, changing them from the MIB into something else part way through the show. In the pilot Gwen was retconned for even knowing about Torchwood, but Andy hasn’t been and he knows more now than she did then.
I also agree that it would be nice if Ianto and Jack’s relationship would be developed rather than just wheeled out for sex reference and boy on boy kissing occasionally.
They know Torchwood exists. They don’t know what it is they do.
If that’s the case then why did old grandma at the start of 2.01 make the instant link between seeing an alien and the people following it to be Torchwood?
Make that a third. (Although if they really wanted to wheel it out for boy on boy kissing, just in a while…)
Hopefully, it’ll be tied to this season’s Ianto’s finally growing a pair.
I think that could be interpreted as she just saw the car racing around with the big “Torchwood” prnted on the side. Maybe.
Though I suppose that’s tenuous.
IIRC the SUV has the T logo on the side, it doesn’t say Torchwood.
Oh, and something that I’ve been thinking about for a while - Cardiff is really a dangerous city to live in isn’t it? The levels of murder, explosions, disappearances and generally weird shit should mark it out as not the best place to live in the UK.
This candid shot of the Torchwood vehicle shows the name, which is moulded into the fender panel.
It makes sense I guess everyone’s heard of Torchwood and they’re used to seeing them screaming around town breaking speed limits and endangering little old ladies trying to cross the street. The reason Gwen got retconned wasn’t because she knew about Torchwood, but rather she found out for a fact, they deal with real aliens and time travel, etc.
Even Andy thinks they’re into cool spooky stuff, but doesn’t know the real deal. I think he’d make a cute addition to the team, but he doesn’t really have any unique skills to bring that Gwen doesn’t already have covered.
