Torchwood 2.12: Fragments

[selenay]

Firstly, I really like this episode and deliberately haven't seen any reactions yet to spoil my shiny episode love. Things I loved:

- Not a Toshiko episode, but some good Tosh stuff nonetheless.
- Nice to see a little of Jack's earliest backstory and the return of a plot device from an earlier episode. I wonder what that child actually is?
- This actually explains a lot about S1 Owen. He's damaged, heartbroken in the worst sense and determined not to feel again the kind of love and the kind of loss that he's experienced.
- The reason that Jack hired Tosh is because she's super-super smart. I like that.
- I don't buy the "I need a medic" line - that wasn't the only reason that Jack hired Owen.
- Jack was changed by the Doctor but the temptation to backslide was too great until he was shown that he would have to get involved with the world where he would spend the next hundred years. The explanation for why he joined Torchwood - and why Torchwood 3 survived the Cybermen and Daleks - works for me.
- Rhys love again. So when does Jack recruit him? ;-)
- Ianto backstory. Possibly the character who had the most backstory before this episode and who was the hardest to figure out despite it. This worked for me.
- And now I get why he ended up as the butler, too.
- That expression as he walked away from Jack, the torment in his face at the attraction he already obviously felt for the man conflicting with his love for Lisa, was perfect.

Character stuff is an area where Torchwood really seems to work best. There was no big sci-fi mystery to solve in this episode (we're leaving that for next week obviously) and the entire thing was about fleshing out these characters and giving us some insight into why they are there. I now have a bad feeling about next week (I am spoiler free!) so I am trying to ignore that.

Tosh's background is interesting. I had always vaguely assumed that Jack recruited her from some scientific research thing and she jumped at the chance of playing with the cool alien tech. Giving her this background instead is an interesting choice. Neither she or Owen were recruited the way that I thought they had been or for the motives that I'd assigned them. I wonder what it says about Tosh that she was blackmailed into stealing those plans and then almost ransomed her freedom in return for dedicating her life to Torchwood? Because that's what she's done: nobody leaves Torchwood. Not alive, anyway. Or at least that's how it used to be, but I wonder whether Jack is steadily changing that? He's allowed Rhys to continue knowing about Torchwood and something tells me that he would allow Gwen to take maternity leave if she asked him.

Hmm. Something to think about another day.

Getting back to Tosh. She's smart but her family was her weakness, her love for her mother was what gave the kidnappers power over her. Is it also her love for her mother that helps her to choose Torchwood? Jack wiped the kidnap from her mother's mind so there will never be that pain for her mother. At the same time, though, Jack is taking measures to keep Tosh away from her mother when she agrees to work for Torchwood. Is he trying to wean her away from the love that made her so vulnerable? Or is he trying to keep her mother from being used against her again: the daughter that barely even writes to her mother obviously can't love her enough to betray Torchwood to save her.

Owen's backstory is very interesting. We know from his story with Diane that he is capable of great love but at the same time he acts like an unpleasant pratt for most of the first series. The idea that his behaviour was due to the emotional damage of losing Katie and the desire never to become that attached again works. It doesn't make him any nicer in S1, but it explains him a bit. His transformation this series isn't about a new Owen, but rather rediscovering what he was before he lost Katie.

We know that Jack has been on Earth for at least a century, but it's never really been made obvious that he knew how long he would have to wait before re-finding the Doctor. Considering how carefully Torchwood would have been tracking the Doctor, there must have been so much temptation to track down one of the earlier Doctors. It makes sense that he had to wait, though, because he needed to meet up with the 'right' Doctor in all senses. Turning up before the Doctor first met him would have mucked up the timelines and as a time agent he would have known that.

I do like the idea that he joined Torchwood and then began subtly changing their direction away from alien tech for the Empire and towards helping humanity. I wonder when he officially split from Torchwood London? We know that it was before the Battle of Canary Wharf, but I kind of get the feeling that it was not long after he recruited Tosh and Owen. From what we saw, I am starting to think that he had a very long-term plan for Torchwood, much longer than I had thought.

We've known why Ianto joined Torchwood 3 since Cyberwoman. For me the interesting thing was seeing how he joined. There has always been a vague fanon that Ianto transferred over after the Battle of Canary Wharf and Lisa had been in the Torchwood basement pretty much from the day of the battle. Obviously Ianto is even more competent than we originally thought because he must have kept Lisa alive somewhere for a while without the Torchwood facilities. Hiding her there wasn't about keeping her alive because he could do that already; it was about finding a way to fix her.

Ianto's story was quite light and funny and I really did enjoy it, but there was an underlying sadness and darkness to it. I have seen comments (one might even call them complaints) that Ianto moved on too quickly after Lisa's death. There is certainly a hint of flirtation with Jack in the next episode and it's only another three episodes before *that* stopwatch scene. Here we get the information that there has always been something between Ianto and Jack, something that could have developed much faster (perhaps differently?) if Lisa had died in the battle instead of being kept alive. That tormented expression on Ianot's face after fun and romance of the scenes was beautifully done.

Could his attraction be a part of why he lashed out at Jack after Lisa's death? Is the guilt mixed up with everything else and, if so, is that what's going on in his head when Tosh can read his mind? That makes it an interesting question to consider how he worked past all of that to act on the attraction that was apparently there for as long as Jack and Ianto have known each other. And it makes the question of what they really feel and where this relationship is going more interesting as well.

After having a couple of strong episodes to herself, I was pleased that Gwen wasn't the focus of this week's episode. We still got a hint of Rhys being wonderful, though, so that makes me happy. And Rhys realised that Gwen could easily have been one of the injured: I wonder how that will play out?

The ending was great and, after such a character intensive episode, next week promises to be big bangs and spectacle. I'm rather looking forward to it :-)

Comments

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a great episode as well. We knew how Gwen had been bought into Torchwood, so obviously her involvement was light, but yeah to Rhys. It's certainly broadened the appeal of all the characters and it looks as if next weeks episode might very well be painful indeed.

[selenay]

That extra bit of understanding of the characters really does make them more likeable. I've been avoiding spoilers as much as possible, but the fact that we got such a good episode about the character backgrounds tells me that next week will be heartbreaking. Drat it.

[wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com]

This was nice to read. I was in too much pain last night and ended up going to bed at 8:45 :o( I must download this one. It sounds a fab one.

I love character eps as well. I never was too keen on the whole whizz bang thing in sci-fi, or the big bad guy of the week either.

Looking forward to seeing it.

[selenay]

Yeah, you should download this one when you get a chance :-) It was fab. I like a mix of big spectacle and character episodes in my sci-fi so this hit the spot and I have the nasty feeling that next week might break my heart. And then we have Doctor Who back to make it all better :-)