Torchwood 2x13 "Exit Wounds"

[kerravonsen]

A rather fitting title, that.

I'm actually rather glad I got spoiled for who was going to die in this, because that made it easier to bear. Poor Tosh. Poor Owen.
So typical of her not to say that she was dying, and so typical of him to be screaming in outrage at his immanent death.
Mind you, I got a bit irritated at Tosh's goodbye message, because it was exactly the kind of thing that someone would say to the Doctor, not Jack! No fair.
But I did like how they retconed Tosh's appearance in "Aliens of London" as her covering for a hung-over Owen. So glad to have that explained at last. (Though why Tornchwood Cardiff would have been called in when Torchwood London was closer doesn't make sense... oh well.)

I liked the twist that Hart wasn't actually psycho, it was Grey who was psycho. I did wonder, at the end of last episide, what might have happened to him over all those years, since he was obviously no longer the child who had been lost.
So, we never find out who those howling aliens were, and the Sleeper plot has gone to sleep again. Oh well.

I also liked the twist that Jack was found by early!Torchwood and he'd been in the vaults all this time. Gee that early!Torchwood woman is creepy. Still. Creepy isn't quite the word, though, but I'm not sure what is the right word.

Go Rhys! Being all encouraging and that. I also liked the snarky quips between him and Andy at the police station.

"The end is where we start from." I like that line.

Nigglings
When did Hart find Grey, and when did Grey turn on Hart? Before or after "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang"? Because it doesn't actually make sense.
On the one hand, he had to have found Grey before then, because he told Jack "I've found Grey".
On the other hand, it seemed obvious that Hart was working on his own, for money, in KKBB. No bonded bomb at that time. He was really looking for the diamond and didn't know it was a booby trap. And he was psycho enough to kill Jack by pushing him off the building...
The other question, which I didn't ask at the time, was, how did Hart know that Jack was in Cardiff at that time? Did he arrive after the trail of the diamond, and then scan for alien tech and recognise Jack's wristcomp? That seems the most likely.
If that was the case, then Hart could have gone off, back to Grey, mentioned to Grey that he'd found Jack, and then Grey went all psycho on him.
But it's still inconsistent characterisation, really. It niggles at me.

Funny, though, I was more pleased to find that Hart was under duress than not. Is it because I like redemption, or is it because I find psycho megalomaniacs boring?
Well, I definitely find megalomaniacs boring. (The Master was more interesting when he was insane, than when he was shouty. Also more interesting when he was a Gentleman than when he was shouty, too.)

Speculation
So, looks like Torchwood has some vacancies next year. If it gets renewed, that is, which I assume it will. Actually, no point in speculating, really, since it would highly depend on who they ask and who is available. Freema (Martha) is an obvious candidate to replace Owen, but that doesn't mean that it will happen.
One thing's for sure, whoever they get, the character dynamics will change.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

When did Hart find Grey, and when did Grey turn on Hart? Before or after "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang"?

My interpretation was that Hart found Grey, and realised he was very badly damaged, but not that he was a crazed and cunning psychopath; he imprisoned Grey somewhere, telling him that it was to protect him, but actually planning to use him as a pawn in his private game with Jack; he found Jack in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and waited until leaving to drop his bombshell; he went back to retrieve Grey, whom he still saw as a damaged child, only to find that Grey had been using the time to work out how to turn the tables and force Hart to implement his plan.

I thought Grey was badly underwritten, and might have been better served by a two-parter in which he initially appeared to be the longlost little brother overjoyed by the reunion with Jack (and Jack could have decided to give up Torchwood to devote himself to caring for his brother and trying to bring him back to something like normality). His true colours would emerge only in the cliff-hanger at the end of the first half, at which point we'd realise that he'd spent most of the episode sowing seeds of destruction around Cardiff.

As it is, I think there's a lot of scope for fanfiction about what happened between Hart and Grey, perhaps exploring whether Grey might have been redeemable if he'd been rescued by someone willing to care for him rather than deceive/exploit him, or whether he was irretrievably damaged (which could bring in echoes of Adrift, and what to do with someone past curing).

[kerravonsen]

Yeah, Grey was very 2D.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Though everyone's assuming that Owen is dead - or perhaps I should say an ex-zombie - we don't actually know that for a fact. I wouldn't rule out a miraculous survival.

Unfortunately there's no such out possible for Toshiko, with whom I fell in love.

[kerravonsen]

Actually, I'd be rather annoyed if Owen got a miraculous survival and Tosh didn't. And the Torchwood folks seemed certain he was dead, they were doing all the "final entry" stuff for both Tosh and Owen. Owen's dead.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

But the Torchwood folks have been wrong before (though admirttedly far less frequently in series 2 than in series 1, when they plumbed remarkable depths of incompetence). We saw Tosh die, but we haven't actually seen Owen cease to be. Agreed, it's odds against his return. If I was a betting man. I'd want odds of at least 5-1.