The End is Where We Start From

"Exit Wounds" (Torchwood S2 E13) discussion.

Aiiiiieeee!

Okay, I knew it was coming.  I even knew pretty much whom it was coming to.  But still:

Aiiiieeee!

And yet, if they really had to kill off characters, that was a fairly satisfying way to do it.  Death with a purpose.  Heroic.  Saving the city, at least, if not actually the world.  As potential deaths for Owen go, relatively fast, and Owen's condition really was unsustainable long-term.  I was pretty sure this was coming all the way from his semi-resurrection.  And it was good to see Tosh be a hero.  I hate that it can't all be undone, but it's also good to have death be permanent now and then.  It's realistic.  And it certainly beats an incident with a toaster.

But still.

It's hard to think about anything else right now, so this may be a little scatterbrained.

Jack: I'm sorry, no way should he still be sane after 2000 years dying over and over again at what, five-minute intervals, of smothering to death in dirt.  Having him reappear in the morgue was incredibly clever, and I love any glimpse of the 1890s Torchwood, but he should not have been sane.

Captain John: I did appreciate him and his sexual banter (and sex appeal).  The episode certainly needed its few light moments.  "Suddenly you're anti-bondage?"  "Honestly, it's just sex, sex, sex with you people!"  Hah!  I was also really, really glad that this was not some idiotic personal beef about Jack not spending time with him.  That was shaping up to be seriously lame; I'm glad it wasn't for real.  And does he have a bit of a thing for the "eye candy" or what?  He seems to be noticing Ianto's physical charms a lot more than jealousy alone would account for.

Grey: Well, that's a better reason for a grudge that John had, and very effective revenge.  I suppose we should have seen this coming after the flashbacks earlier in the season, with the words "I am a gigantic loose end to be tied up later!" in big flashing letters over the character's head.

PC Andy and Rhys: likewise, hah.  "Brilliant secret.  I ask, you tell.  Well done."

Also amusing: Tosh and Ianto pulling an Indiana Jones moment on the Grim Reaper crew.  "Sorted."

Deleting Owen & Tosh from the computer: ouch, ouch, ouch.  I am reminded of how painful it is to go through my email address list, deleting dead people.  Tosh's farewell message was a wonderful little moment, as much for the viewers as for the team.  "It's okay, it really is."  Not so much, right now, but someday. 

I still can't believe Owen didn't notice, even though he said it.  That was just not how I read their early interactions at all.  Also confusing, Tosh "pretending to be a medic", which suggests that she actually isn't the same character the actress played in Dr. Who.  Guess that wasn't canon.

Team future: unbalanced now.  Needs a medic.  Needs a computer genius.  Unfortunately, not sure we need PC Andy, of whom I'd really like to see more.  I suppose having three characters with Things for Gwen as major characters would be a little ridiculous, though, no matter how entertaining the Rhys/Andy interactions are.  And actually, I'm not even 100% sure the series is going on, and I guess if it doesn't get renewed this is a reasonable endpoint.  But if it does go on, it's going to be interesting to try to integrate new characters into the team.  Captain John?  Martha Jones?

One last time:

Aiiiieeee!

Comments

[Jennifer Pelland]

Agreed on the "Jack shouldn't be sane" comment. Guh. What is it with these writers? They come up with scenarios that should be filled with juicy emotions and consequences, and they just fritter them away.

I found the entire A-plot of Grey's revenge to be really one-note and boring. Come on, can't we have something more nuanced than, "I suffered, and now you must suffer"? Again, they just frittered all sorts of dramatic possibilities away. But the entire Grey thread has bored me silly. Plus, I find it equally silly how they've written all the scenes with Jack's family so they don't actually mention his real name.

I don't know. I'm just not feeling optimistic for season three right now.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Well, I didn't intend "better reason for a grudge that John had" as high praise. I think the Grey plot beats out "I will blow up your city because you aren't boffing me anymore", but not by all that much.

Something else I thought of in regards to Owen's death: they didn't actually close that door completely. To the collection of Torchwood homages to other works of SF, we could add a Dr. Manhattan ripoff. I don't think they're actually going that way, but radiation is a traditional skiffy excuse for all sorts of silliness, and after all the Magic DNA early on, I don't trust 'em with anything sciencewise.

I'm not sure how I feel about another season. Owen was actually a favorite character of mine before he stopped being a jerk for no reason; in his case, adding motivation (and killing him) didn't actually improve him, just made him a stereotype. They can restock the team, but creating a new balance of likeable and annoying in the personalities is going to be tricky.

I feel sort of like I did after Buffy Season 5 - I could just stop here. In the case of Buffy, I actually did stop there and so far have not restarted. Curiosity may well drive me back when and if a third series starts up.

At some point in the next month or so I plan to watch the entire series again in the way I am accustomed to watching a series, which is to say in a marathon over a day or two. I'm not sure I like this whole week-by-week thing.

[Jennifer Barber]

Actually, I thought that conversation between Owen and Tosh nicely explained her appearance on Doctor Who--given the "space pig" mention, it seemed clear to me that that was the time she was impersonating a medic. I assumed that Owen was supposed to go examine the "alien", and Tosh went in his place even though it wasn't her field.

[Raven]

Owen was one of my favorite characters too...loss of Owen=low hopes for the future of the show.
However, I agree his character was unsustainable in un-dead form. Something needed to change, and killing him was probably the best way to handle it.
I have to admit, though, I was really expecting Rhys to die. No idea why. Maybe because his character seems to be regressing back to his belligerent anti-Torchwood ways of series one. Oh, well. He's still around and Owen is gone T.T

And what do you mean no series three?? I thought there was one planned. This is new.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Raven -
What I'd heard was that a third season was probable but not definite until they saw how the ratings were for the second season. I've since heard that they were good enough and there will indeed be a third season. I'm not sure how much that excites me just now, given the major changes that will result from all those deaths.