Written By: Catherine Treganna
Directed By: Colin Teague
Air Date: 6th February, 2008
Summary: Rhys proves exactly why he's too good for Gwen, and the Jack/Gwen shippers have a field day (while presumably the Jack/Ianto ones start cutting their wrists).
In a rather incongruous shift out of the dramatic and gloomy pre-titles “You're Watching Torchwood In Case You Listen To The Announcer And Still Thought We Were On Masterchef” moment, Rhys is gleefully driving along singing with a broad grin on his face to an obnoxious radio jingle. I suppose I shouldn't judge. I drive along singing away to JPop. The phone rings, and he proves all those road safety campaigns reached at least one person by pulling over before he answers it.
Someone called Ruth is on the end, and she's calling to tell him about an accident. Worried look on his face, and an oddly cut shot of the steering column, and Rhys speeds his way to the accident. Turns out that it's one of the lorries he manages, though the police stop him from getting too far. The driver's been killed, though I'm sure you'll all be glad to know in advance that we're not going to suffer through a repeat of last year's Random Shoes.
The police officer takes down some details of the dead man, Leyton, and Rhys says that he needs to arrange to move the lorry. The police officer doesn't look happy as he says it's not possible: Torchwood want to have a look at the contents. From his expression, he might as well have said that they all have to stick around for invasive bowel exams. Or that they'd rather have that instead.
The WoodMobile pulls up, and out steps Team Ominous, and, rather understandably, Rhys is a little shocked to see Gwen there, dressed in a rather tight little leather jacket number. Oh, and apparently it's a bit of a shock to see her representing a covert non-police organisation too.
Owen and Jack head inside the lorry which is on its side with its doors open, with extremely large packages of open raw meat strewn around. Gwen takes a step in and immediately starts coughing, almost retching. These massive packages of meat, the size of your average desktop PC, don't have any bones, just meat. So, they might have a really really big cow on the lose, but apparently no one's reported any yet, they'll hold off on that as 'explanation B' and take the meat back to the Hub.
Someone's having a big barbeque tonight!
Rhys skulks around the side of the lorry, watching as Gwen orders the police around, telling them in no uncertain terms that they're taking the meat away. Ianto is also on the scene, though, I notice, has managed to avoid going anywhere near the extremely stinky mystery meat, and is instead apparently looking at the signage to figure out where the lorry comes from, which I'm sure justifies whatever his pay may be (although, he probably does the payroll, so he might be on more money than any of them). It's from Harwood's, at which convenient point Gwen walks past, and notes that that's Rhys' firm.
Owen comes out of the lorry with a burger sized portion, and the team hops back into the WoodMobile and scoots off. Rhys tries to follow, but the police don't let him follow. Curses! Foiled!
Owen, back at the hub, pokes the meat and pronounces that he doesn't know what it is, but he knows what it isn't: it's not any known animal. Presumably his pay isn't performance related. But he does notice the fake vet stamp that pronounces the meat fit for human consumption.
Jack yells to Tosh to investigate the haulage firm, and she and Ianto, who are standing by the computers with a cup of coffee each, turn and give him a brief look for interrupting their break. Gwen's rather freaked that they're investigating Rhys' firm, but you'd think she'd know by now that this is how it works in TorchwoodLand. Jack asks her if she wants to “stand down” casually, which she immediately rejects.
Ianto hands her a coffee, and they all listen to the Harwood's jingle, which makes them all giggle, though Ianto pronounces it “catchy”. He'll probably be walking around the office for the next week, humming it to annoy people.
While they bandy about the idea of the firm being in on it, Gwen is quick to leap to Rhys' defence in spite of the fact that no one's actually accused him of anything.
“He's the most honest man I know,” she says.
The two men in the room pointedly don't say anything, both briefly focused on their cups of coffee, and Tosh makes the eminently sensible request of Rhys' phone number. Something seems to occur to Ianto as this is mentioned, and he puts his mug down and walks off, while Gwen pulls the number out of her phone.
A woman, who I think is the aforementioned Ruth, answers the phone with a breathy “Harwoods Haulage, how may I help you?” A look of dread comes over her face and she turns to Rhys, covering the mouthpiece. “It's the police,” she says, with the same voice people use when saying “VAT Inspector”.
Rhys answers the phone with a forced-cheery “Hello,” and doing an appalling job of hiding the fact that he's nervous. Tosh peppers him with questions about the van, the driver, the contents and destination. Ianto's standing in the corner, scrawling all the information down on a notepad. Rhys gets more and more angry and upset as he realises that they don't have any records of a contact number for the client they picked the meat up from, or any actual information at all, like an address.
Ianto tears the sheet of paper he was writing off and hands it to Jack, who hands it to Tosh. Gwen has her back turned, so she can't immediately tell the kids off for passing notes in class. Tosh asks when the driver left the base, and on the answer, Ianto starts poking a computer with CCTV on it, and Jack looks at a pocket watch.
...
How long has he had that thing?
I digress. Sorry. Shiny thing.
Tosh puts the phone down on Rhys in short order, and Rhys is more than a little cross that there's no information, and now it looks like he's hiding something from the police.
“Got him!” Ianto's standing over the CCTV footage, sounding like he should be at a football match yelling, “Go on, my son,” and waves a finger at the screen when the footage shows the same lorry coming back forty minutes later. He figures they're looking at something within a ten mile radius. In the autopsy bay, Owen gives the slab of meat a squinty-eyed look, and yells for Jack.
They all want him today.
Apparently it's definitely alien meat. Tosh points out that if it was in the processing plant, it's going into the food, and so people have been eating it for months. Apparently it's good to eat, says Owen.
Ianto jogs up to say that the pizza's arrived, and he ordered Owen's usual. Meat feast.
Oh Ianto. Those hidden depths are hidden depths of completely winding your coworkers up, aren't they?
Dans le Hub, Owen picks off the meat from his pizza, while Gwen paces, and they all scarf down pizza. Ianto has a napkin tucked into his collar, to protect the front of his outfit, ignoring it with the general air of someone who doesn't really care what other people think, and if there's any pizza sauce on this tie, there will be trouble. They've vaguely figured out where the meat's coming from, and Jack's all set to give orders when Gwen gets a text from Rhys, asking to see her.
“I have to slip home and check on Rhys first,” she says.
Good idea, says Jack, and tells her to find out how much he knows.
Gwen grimaces slightly. “That's not what I meant,” she says, before sliding out. Jack gets the “oops” look on his face of a man who's just realised he said exactly the wrong thing. Tosh and Owen stare at him incredulously, and Ianto turns away in a wordless statement of “You're on your own there, mate,” and sidles off screen. Jack tosses his pizza crust down in annoyance.
Rhys is sitting in his and Gwen's flat, waiting for her with a blank expression. Gwen walks in, and immediately picks up on the tension because she says “Hiya!” in a bright voice about half an octave higher than her usual speech.
“I got your message,” she says, cheerily, “Are you alright?”
Bad day, Rhys says. There was an accident and a driver was killed. Gwen asks who it was, and he tells her it was Leyton.
“Were you close?” Gwen asks, awkwardly.
“For god's sake, Gwen,” Rhys says, incredulously, “You met him! Small, dark hair, played five a side with me.”
Rhys' friends haven't exactly been the top of Gwen's priorities for a year or so now. She can't remember him, and Rhys tells her how he's heard the police took the meat, and asks her if she knows anything about that. Studiously blank expression on her face, she professes ignorance. How is she supposed to know? She doesn't deal with traffic accidents.
“Must be something dodgy going on though,” he says, mentioning the police calling and asking.
“Well if there was, you weren't to know,” Gwen says quickly, and you can practically see her wanting to shake him and demand to tell her if he does know something.
“No, of course not,” agrees Rhys, after an awkwardly long pause.
Rhys comments it was hardly worth coming back home, really. And she says that of course it was: to see him. They kiss briefly, and she urges him to go have a pint “with Dav”. The moment she walks out the door, he grabs his keys, and follows.
Follows her all the way to the water fountain, in fact. He watches her step up to the fountain, and then is rather shocked to see a certain man, our Jack, appear from nowhere. She tells Jack that Rhys has no idea what's going on. Jack smiles and extends his arm for her to loop hers through.
“Care to accompany me to the slaughterhouse?” he asks, in a faux-upperclass toff accent.
Gwen grins and sticks her arm through his. “Ever eaten alien meat?” she asks Jack, as they walk off.
“Yeah,” Jack says.
“What was it like?”
“He seemed to enjoy it,” Jack tells her, in a completely predictable joke that we saw coming a mile off and still made me laugh at the cheesiness of it. It makes Gwen laugh as well.
Rhys looks on in horror.
Onto the roads! Rhys is trailing the WoodMobile, and Team Innuendo fail to spot that they're being followed by an amateur. Ianto and Owen are already on site at the slaughterhouse, and direct the WoodMobile into land. They turn so quickly that Rhys loses sight of them, and he parks the first place he thinks of.
Ianto and Owen stalk around the building, checking entrances and trying to figure out how many people are there, while Rhys watches them, looking slightly horrified at whatever it is that Gwen's involved in. He tries calling Gwen, who just turns her phone off. Owen can read a heat signature across the entire building. A lot of meat.
Jack calls for a surprisingly non-lethal approach, saying they're going in with stun guns and rounding them all up for questioning. Out of the car they hop, and start to creep around. Before they get around the front they spot someone, and Gwen, horrified, identifies them as Rhys.
Owen and Ianto are getting down to the business of breaking and entering. Ianto asks if Owen brought the alarm deactivator. However, unlike a boy scout, Owen is crap at packing and being prepared, and just shoots the lock instead, promptly scaring the crap out of Ianto who whirls at the sound.
“Well, that's one way of doing it,” he says, mentally doing the sums to figure out why they paid for R&D on an 'alarm deactivator' when those funds could clearly have been better spent on a new espresso machine for the tourist office.
Rhys is still wandering around, messing with his phone, when a car pulls up with a large blue bird painted on the hood, rather resembling the traditional depictions of a phoenix, a bird said to regenerate when injured, and thus practically immortal (foreshadowing, anyone?). Some extremely unpleasant looking men get out and tell him not to bother running. They walk off with him.
From Jack and Gwen's perspective, it does unfortunately look like Rhys is going along willingly. Owen and Ianto have just bust open the door, and doing their Charlie's Angels thing with the guns and dramatic poses, when Jack calls them to tell them to abort. Gwen's convinced there's something wrong for Rhys to be there, and starts to chase after him.
Jack grabs her arm before she can get too far, though, and pushes her against the wall, pinning her there. She says she has to get him out, but Jack urges her to think about it, and reminds her that she can't go in alone. She has to do what he says. They'll wait til he emerges.
Rhys, meanwhile this emotional crisis is happening, is getting escorted through hallways lit by flickering fluorescent light. He can hear terrible moaning coming from somewhere. A man complains that they should have 'waited for the ketamine' before doing anything.
Ketamine, for those not in the know, is an anaesthetic used in in both human and veterinary medicine. Humans also use it as an illicit drug but I somehow doubt that's what these boys are up to, what with the big slabs of meat, bloody clothing and hands, and the profusion of butchers knives around the place.
Ugh. I think I'm becoming a vegetarian.
They want to know who sent Rhys, and demonstrating that he has his own braincell that Torchwood will never get their hands on, he proceeds to blag himself out of the situation admirably, saying he actually came to get a job working for them, since their old driver's dead. They ask what he knows about the meat. He claims to have been told it was repackaged old meat. The men smirk and lead him out of the room.
They take him down hallways flooded with blood to see a large and difficult to photograph CGI monster. All we can see is undulating skin. We don't know what it is, and neither do the men. But we can see a man in the background hacking chunks out of the creature's still-living body. Rhys does what any sane individual would do: he throws up.
He's led out, and Gwen and Jack witness a cordial handshake and a grin taking place between Rhys and the men. Jack hauls Gwen away from the site with a grim expression.
Back in Casa del Rhys & Gwen, Rhys is pacing back and forth, swigging from a bottle of beer. Gwen storms in and demands to know what he was doing at the warehouse, and he throws the question back in her face, telling her that she lied to him and how she obviously thinks he's an idiot. Aww. Poor Rhys. Don't worry. Fandom still loves you.
He tells her he followed her and demands to know, vis a vis “that tall bloke in the coat... you fucking him or what?” Gwen's head snaps up, eyes wide and furious, and that's the look she gets right before she tries to destroy the world. She tries to explain she was trying to protect him, and though while she's trying to stay calm in the face of Rhys' yelling, she eventually snaps and starts screaming back at him herself. They trade screaming insults in the hurtful way that only people who really know each other well can. Finally, she caves, and she yells at him that she hunts aliens.
“Piss off,” he spits at her.
She's so obviously relieved at being able to tell him though, that her honesty seems to convince him.
“Aliens?” He says. “In Cardiff?”
“Have you never seen something so mad, so extraordinary that just for one second you think that there might be more up there?” she asks.
“Prove it,” he challenges.
In the Hub, Team Sobriety is apparently stocking up on dutch courage. Tosh has a glass of wine, and Owen and Ianto are drinking beer from the bottle. Ianto is staring at Jack until the Captain turns around, at which point he glances away and comments that it's a bit unprecedented, a fiancé finding out.
“Mainly because we're all sad and single,” jokes Tosh, flatly.
Ianto looks like he's trying not to spit out his beer in laughter.
“Uh, speak for yourself,” Owen says, spinning on a nearby chair, “I am better off without all that kinda hassle.”
Jack's now the one staring at Ianto when his attention is focussed on the others. Tosh nervously suggests that they should look for people who know what they do. Owen points out, with exasperation, that there's only them that know.
Yes, I believe that was what she was trying to say.
Tosh looks annoyed that Owen has so comprehensively failed to figure out what she was saying, throwing a wordless 'typical' into the air with a jerk of her head. Ianto glances over to meet Jack's gaze, before glancing away again quickly and swigging at the beer. And for my friend who asked, no it's not Grolsch, it's a fake no-name brand. They're not allowed to advertise like that on the Beeb. ;D
Gwen brings Rhys to the lift by the fountain, and explains vaguely that it's an invisible lift and to hurry up and get on it already. It sinks into the ground with a jerk, and Rhys is more than a little swept away by the sight of the Hub for the first time, though he does seem to believe that the overhead sweep of the Pterodactyl, our as yet not officially named featherless friend (although I still hold out hope that the name Myfanwy will actually make its way on screen eventually, so I can stop calling it the 'pterodactyl' in all these damned reviews), is actually real.
Jack steps up to shake Rhys' hand, Gwen introduces them all, while giggling and laughing, clearly thrilled to get to finally show off where she works and the cool things she gets to do. For Rhys' benefit, Owen repeats Torchwood's mission statement (the secret corporate whore that he is, he apparently has it memorised).
Apparently Owen is what it takes to freak Rhys out, as he steps close to Gwen.
“Are you sure they're not some sort of weird cult?” he says, looking worried.
No they're not. Their fanbase on the other hand...
They pick Rhys' brains for information, and figure out that it's one single creature, rather than several, was probably an ocean going creature that fell through the Rift, and that it's continually growing, so it wasn't always the massive size it was that allows the criminals to harvest its meat. Rhys points out its still growing.
Jack turns to him. “It's not dead?” he asks, pointedly. No, Rhys says. Owen figures out that it's eternally replenishing.
Tosh seems excited. “If we understood how it worked, we could feed the world,” she enthuses.
“We could release a single,” Ianto adds, looking absolutely serious.
Hell, I'd buy it. Or at least download the MP3.
Jack takes the opportunity to say they need to get in there and sort it out which, by the way, “Mr. Caveman” they could have done already if Rhys hadn't waltzed in and screwed it up bigtime. Gwen waves at him behind Rhys' head to try and get him to omgshutup but Jack is too busy laying into Rhys and telling him that he was an idiot, and Gwen can take care of herself.
“Well, if you'd stopped and asked me instead of showing off around the place-” Rhys starts, walking straight up to Jack with a bit of a swagger.
“Do I show off?” Jack aims the question to Ianto, who nods.
“Just a bit,” he confirms.
Rhys explains how he blagged his way out of the situation, rather than cocking things up and he's got them a way inside, and if Jack doesn't like it, he can stuff it, he finishes, with his nose milimeters away from Jack's.
Jack glances towards Gwen. “You know, this is quite homoerotic.”
Gwen apparently doesn't see the appeal of a threesome in which Jack is involved, so she quickly intervenes. Jack calls a Team meeting, including Rhys which would... actually be everyone who's already in the room. I'm not entirely sure why they all had to move to the conference room, but apparently they do, so let's just roll with it.
It's planning time. Rhys gives them info about what's where, and Gwen tries to talk him out of it, losing her cool briefly when she realises he's not taking it seriously, and how he doesn't seem to realise the danger he's in. Owen's in favour of storming in waving guns, though Jack says he wants to avoid a bloodbath. Good point, admits Owen, and shuts up. Jack overrides Gwen, saying that they're using Rhys as a way in, end of discussion. The rest of the team pointedly avoid looking at Gwen and Rhys as they air their relationship issues in a mission briefing.
So! Tosh attempts to get things back on track. They go in, stun people and “put the creature out of its misery.”
“No,” Jack says, “we're going to save it.”
The team couldn't looks more shocked if Owen had suddenly taken all his clothes off and danced the macarena on the tabletop.
“Stabilise it,” he continues, “Wait for the Rift to open and send it back.”
“Guess who'll have to look after it in the meantime,” Ianto mutters, into the bottom of his coffee cup, which I'm starting to think it surgically welded onto his hand this episode.
The Team are confused as to why they want to save it. And Jack's answer boils down to: why not? They can be nice people once in a while, right? He shuts up the team when they argue, and orders them to do this.
As they walk out Gwen says “so you do have a heart,” which Jack returns with a stoic look.
I think he's staring straight at his heart, girl.
Rhys glowers suspiciously, over the rim of yet another cup.
I just realised I'm eight pages into this review and we're only half way through. Gah. Either I need to speed up, or I need to learn how to talk less.
Owen apparently made a mockup of what the alien should look like, which he shows to Tosh when she brings him a sandwich. She tries to be nice, and make conversation, though Owen continually blows her off without realising. Tosh then decides to throw subtlety to the winds and asks him to join her for a game of pool sometimes, and Owen says he'll check with the others, and they can have a team tournament.
He wanders off, oblivious, and Tosh folds her arm. What does a girl have to do?
Gwen and Rhys are having their heart to heart. She offers him the chance to back out, and he says he's not abandoning her to all these sexy young men. She laughs and kisses him, but even as she does so, her eyes flick up so that she's staring, challengingly, at Jack, who looks up from his book (“Scavengers In Space”) and stares back briefly before turning quickly and walking away.
You wouldn't think that a man born three thousand years ahead of the time where he's current residing, who's travelled through time both with and without a box, who's immortal and living in an underground lair with a dinosaur as a pet, would need to read science fiction, but he's just revealed himself as a complete geek. Aww.
Jack and Rhys arrive at Harwood's, dropped off by the WoodMobile, and Ruth hands Rhys a coffee and his favourite Danish. Jack then proceeds to lay on the flirting hardcore in one of the silliest most obviously innuendo-laiden conversations we've seen in a while, culminating in what seems to be him goosing the woman as she walks past and winking at her. There are so many fangirls who would kill to be in that position, I'm sure.
Rhys is completely oblivious, panicking about signing a van and getting this phone call from the men chopping up the alien. He gets the call, and he and Jack head off in the Harwood Van'O'Mystery, and he takes the opportunity to demand to know why Jack picked Gwen. Jack points out that Gwen picked them.
Rhys seems sort of resigned to his fiancée's work life now. He sighs.
“I just wish you'd been uglier,” he tells Jack, who looks briefly insulted before he gets the joke and laughs. “Hey,” he adds, “You're not gay by any chance are ya?”
Oh, that is just such a loaded question when it comes to Jack that we should probably be grateful that's where the camera cut away. They pick up the rest of Team Sneak, and they all hide in the back of the van. Rhys drives them to the slaughterhouse, distracts the men there, and when he goes to let them out... they've already left the van. Aww. They barely need him.
Ianto and Owen are first into the House of Horrors. I'm not sure why Owen's insisting on holding a stun gun like it fires bullets. Pointing it at someone's not going to do any good when you have to jam it into their side to make it work. Which, you know, puts you at an incredible tactical disadvantage. Can't Torchwood, like, fork out for some tranquiliser guns or something else with a bit of range?
Tosh, Gwen and Jack have found the alien whale, and quickly realise it's sentient. They're horrified that this creature's being cut up while still alive. Owen takes out one of the men in the nearby rooms and makes the discovery that they're armed. And Team Funtimes are carrying Fischer Price tazers.
Ianto manages to take out another guy, but is spotted by a man in a luminous jacket, who reports there are people in the building. The criminals show a nouse of common sense, and realise Rhys led them here, hitting him and dragging Rhys out of his van and into the building. They find Ianto, hold him at gunpoint, and demand to know how many others there are.
“Just us,” Ianto says, and is quickly tied up alongside Rhys. Owen spots them and reports the situation, and, in with the creature, Jack has to grab Gwen again and physically stop her from chasing down the men responsible.
Turns out he needn't have bothered, since the men haul Ianto and Rhys into the alien manatee's room, and demands that others show themselves. Gwen, immediately and much to Jack's chagrin, steps out and surrenders her weapon. The main thug orders them up against the wall, shoving Rhys towards Gwen, and just as Ianto is slowly walking away, Tosh and Jack are spotted, and he grabs Ianto, forcing him back again.
Ianto just wears a 'crap, nearly got away, dammit' expression on his face, and Jack steps out when they're ordered to do so, now that they've been spotted with a gun to Ianto's head. Tosh follows, and drops her gun when Jack does. Jack appeals to the one member of the gang that seems to feel any sympathy for the creature, a guy with thick glasses, who has spent most of his time up to this point worrying about anaesthetics. When Jack points out the creature's from another galaxy, he's horrified.
While Jack distracts them, Ianto grimaces, and works his hands slowly out of the knots of rope they've got wrapped around his hands. It's only now that he's being addressed that I realise the thug's name is Dale. Gwen tells him he can walk away, but Dale isn't receptive. He switches his aim from Ianto to Gwen, and Rhys leaps in front of her to protect her. Ianto gets his hands free and grabs Dale's arm, but not fast enough to stop him from shooting Rhys.
Jack yells, “No!” but Ianto and Dale are already struggling, and the rounds from the gun are being discharged into the alien, who moans and thrashes like...
Er... I don't think I'm going to complete that analogy. It can't possibly end well.
The underling criminals flee, now that the alien's moving. Tosh and Jack duck out of the way of snapping restraint cables, and Ianto does a fairly good job at putting up a fight, until Dale gets a good hit in and he lies there stunned. Fortunately, he's out of bullets, and flees, Jack screaming at Ianto to chase him.
Ianto, still seeing stars, struggles upright, the words “You fucking chase him, you unreasonable bastard” no doubt not too far from his lips.
Jack calls for Owen, saying Rhys has been shot and they need the sedative for the creature now, plzkthnx. Owen, sounding remarkably unhurried, says he's on it. He's jumped by the guy with the glasses, but Ianto appears out of nowhere and stuns him. He says that the creature's out of control, and that they have to help the others.
“Change of plan,” whispers Owen, grabbing a needle large enough to give any belonephobe nightmares for a month.
Dale and brother are trying to make off with the cash, at least until Ianto shows up, alone, stuns the brother, before turning to Dale, kicking the gun out of his hands.
“Pray they survive,” he says, and puts the stun gun to Dale's forehead. Dale slumps into unconsciousness, and Ianto turns and briskly walks away.
Brr. Did it just get cold in here?
Owen has arrived where the alien is thrashing and it more than a little shocked by its surprise. He fills the needle with liquid from the bottle he's carrying and edges towards the alien. “I'm sorry,” he says, and slams the needle home.
The alien thrashes around even more, and Jack yells that Owen's making it worse. Still, Owen fills the needle again, and injects the creature a second time. It screams out, then thuds to the ground, and falls stiller, moaning.
“What did you do?” Jack asks, horror in his voice.
“Mercy killing,” Owen gasps.
Jack moves to the creature, putting his hand on the creature's hide, while Owen goes to see to Rhys. He gets the bleeding stopped, and goes up to the creature, whispering, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.” Tosh comes up behind him and does what she wasn't brave enough to do earlier in the episode: she puts her hand on his shoulder, and he grabs it, tightly.
The creature's eyes shut, and it goes completely still and silent.
Back at the Hub, to the tender strains of a piano theme, Owen is patching up Rhys' shoulder while Gwen stands over him, looking worried. The rest of the team are standing up on the walkway around the autopsy bay, looking on. Jack reports that the criminals have all been retconned, defending that they couldn't exactly prosecute them, and that the creature is dead, incinerated.
“Nothing left,” Rhys muses, “It was never there.”
Jack calls Gwen into his office, telling her Rhys has to forget, and hands her a small white pill from a box on his desk. She asks to be able to give it to him at home. Once they get out of the Hub, Rhys wants to go for ice cream, however. He's clearly thrilled by his newfound knowledge. He knows he'll never look at the sky without thinking of all the worlds and planets in the sky, all the strange things which he got to be a part of.
Gwen sits silently, only speaking to point out he's spilled his ice cream on his chin.
Rhys is still clearly enthralled, he wants to know about everything she's ever seen, talking about making a scrapbook of aliens (“No,” says Gwen, “Because you won't be keeping one.”).
He was worried about Jack, he says, “He's handsome, engimatic, saves the world and all that. But it's me you come home to at the end of it all.”
“And I always will,” Gwen says, quietly.
Gwen races back into the Hub, yelling that she's not going to drug Rhys. She has to, they tell her. It's the rules.
“We understand how you feel,” Jack says.
“No you don't,” Gwen says, looking faintly sick of hearing this from him, “You all think it's cold and lonely out there, but it isn't for me, because I have him.”
And what happened to the quiet 'no one else will have me?' hrm? I think it took Gwen seeing how Rhys would react when faced with all this insane danger to realise what she has. And that's someone who'll love her, and what she does, even though she lied about it.
Jack is staring at Gwen silently, while, behind him, Ianto has his eyes firmly fixed on the floor and doesn't look up.
“He did it because of me,” she says, defending his actions in helping them today, “Because he loves me. I won't take that away from him. I won't.”
Ianto does look up now. They're all staring at her.
“And if that means I have to quit,” she says, throwing her arms out, “Or you retcon me or whatever then fine!”
Jack throws the water bottle he was drinking from at Ianto, and strides up to Gwen, ending up scant inches from her. “You really think you could go back to your old life before Torchwood?”
Gwen stared at him for a long long moment. “I wouldn't know anything different.”
“I would,” Jack says, his voice sounding heavy and emotion-ridden.
Gwen stares at him, waiting for his decision. He can have her, or he can have the rules.
“Give Rhys my love,” he says, “And I will see you tomorrow.”
Gwen doesn't even wait. She turns and runs out of the Hub without so much as a backwards glance. Tosh looks at Jack curiously, and as Jack turns and walks back into his office, he grabs the water bottle out of Ianto's hands with a tug. Ianto's not looking at him. In fact, Ianto rather looks like someone's just elbows him in the stomach.
Jack throws himself into his office chair, hitting a monitor keyboard as he goes. It displays CCTV of outside the Hub where Gwen and Rhys kiss, not knowing that Jack is watching. Inside the Hub, Jack takes a very shaky deep breath, and stares off into space, looking almost... frightened?
You know that shrieking sound you can hear? That's the sound of a thousand Jack/Ianto fans going to war with the Jack/Gwen set. I feel like I should be investing in a flak jacket and protective headgear.
Anyway, just so that I don't turn this review into an essay into shipperdom, I'll leave that thorny issue for a moment, and turn to the real reason I love this episode. Rhys! Yaaay! It's a rather curious matter about how Rhys is thought of with rather fond affection by most of fandom, and I've yet to see anyone go off on a particularly vicious hateful rant regarding Rhys and how he's getting in the way of the OTP of choice. Partly, that's because Gwen obviously didn't think too much of him at one point, since she was having an affair, but I think it's mostly because Rhys is just... well... he's a nice guy.
Rhys is the stable and secure boyfriend. He loves Gwen dearly, is always there for her, doesn't ask questions about her strange job, and is there to provide a grounding, with his requests to record "Wife Swap", telling Gwen excitedly about his job and promotions (because it's normal and safe, and normal people can excitedly talk about their job), and just being there when she needs him. Gwen, by contrast, can't be said to offer the same, and Rhys has obviously already realised that, or they wouldn't have had such a big blowout row.
Incidentally, I loved that scene. It was chaotic, painful, and I felt bad for both of them, and the fact that the best of Gwen's intentions had led them to that point. Yes, Gwen has lied, but her clear relief when she tells him the truth, breathing out a huge sigh as if she's been holding the words inside her for months, almost made me feel sorry for her. Yes, she lied, but then she had to. I could forgive her for that more than her telling Rhys things and then drugging him to make him forget because she didn't have the courage to stick to her honest. I spent the scene with Rhys gleefully going on about aliens, while eating an ice cream, with my hands over my mouth going, "Oh Rhys..." convinced that she was about to retcon him. But she didn't. Because I think that was when she realised that she loves him enough not to do that to him.
Although... staring at your boss while having a passionate kiss with your fiancé. Those aren't mixed messages at all.
Anyway. I promised I wouldn't get into the shippiness yet, so let's keep focussing on Rhys. He is, as Gwen says, braver than all of them. They signed up for Torchwood, knowing what it represented, but he sort of fell into it. He had enough brains about him to blag his way out of a potentially lethal situation when he was caught snooping around the warehouse after Gwen. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do in the first place, but we can forgive him a little blindness where Gwen is concerned, given how obviously he does love her.
Gwen said in KKBB that he's the only one who'd have her. I don't think this is so bad, and, at the end of this episode, I think maybe she doesn't think it's so bad either. She can't bring herself to wipe his memories, taking away his joy at discovering the greater universe out there, or the newfound confidant she has.
Her ultimatum to Jack at the end was not, I think, a request to bend the rules. It was a statement that right now, if he forced her to chose between Rhys and Torchwood or, more to the point, between Rhys and Jack, Jack would lose.
She told Jack in KKBB that no one else would have her, daring him, I think, to say anything differently. He didn't then. But now, when she says 'make the choice... do you want me or not?' he choses to have her stay with him, because I don't think he can bring himself to let her go. His shaken expression at the very end is, I think, his realisation that he doesn't want to lose her.
Ok, ok, so I suppose I have to touch on it. The shipper debate. Ho hum. I'm ruthlessly sticking to my 'neutral' position in the debate, not least of which because I don't want to pick sides, but also because I honestly don't think that the show is, as yet, going to chose sides either.
With Jack, I think Gwen brings out his passion. He has to practically throw himself in her path to stop her, to match her strong emotions with some of his own. For the first time, we see him embracing Gwen's philosophy that they should be trying to help. This is more than a little surprising to the rest of the team, given that they were operating on the assumption that they had to put the creature out of its misery (which, of course, Owen later acts upon). Jack tries to follow Gwen's lessons in Humanity and, frankly, fails. Gwen steps out immediately to protect Rhys when threatened, whereas Jack wouldn't do that for Ianto or for her, and only reveals himself when they're spotted. He doesn't do anything to stop Owen when it's clear that he's not helping the alien to recover, though, really, it should have been obvious what he was doing.
Gwen brings out an emotional response in Jack. The only time we've seen him reacting with a moment of unguarded emotion in his voice was to Ianto in Cyberwoman, when it's revealed that Ianto has betrayed them all and probably about to be the reason for their own imminent deaths. Every time we've seen a moment of emotion between Jack and Ianto, it's been one-sided. Ianto was the one who reached out to kiss Jack, Ianto was the one having a hard time looking at Jack without glancing away again. Yes, Jack is the one that asked Ianto out in KKBB, but the fact is that Jack keeps any feelings he may (or may not) have about Ianto very well hidden, whereas he can't help but react strongly to Gwen. Significant looks do not a burning relationship make (although Ianto's grin when Tosh brings up the subject of in-house relationships probably speaks volumes).
I can't help but thinking that, unless something changes, Ianto is being set up for heartbreak. And given that apparently he's got a carefully hidden coldly ruthless streak, I think his prediction that he'll one day watch Jack suffer may just come to fruition.
Perhaps I'm being unfair, since Jack did asked Ianto out in the first place, but it was awkward and unsure, spoken by someone who wasn't certain as to whether he was about to be rejected or not. Ianto seems to involve the side of the Jack that thinks, that's secretive; Ianto clearly knows some things about Jack, though Jack failed to expand on his knowledge, and Ianto didn't pursue it. Gwen on the other hand, doesn't lend herself to provoking thoughtfulness in Jack. She provokes his passion, his emotions, and I think he realises he's been lacking that for some time. The ego versus the id, so to speak.
Gwen speaks to his Humanity, his passion, and Ianto speaks to his quiet side, the side that has secrets to hide. And, given that Ianto is hiding his light under a bushel, perhaps Ianto's more like Jack than we previously thought.
Case in point: regarding Ianto's rather chilling little moment with the stun gun and a guy's forehead: some people are calling it badass, I call it frightening. Why is there this perception that when a character shows such an aptitude for physical violence and clear threats, it's cool? Surely, it's far more chilling to suddenly realise that a character that we care about and who we've previously had no idea is capable of such casual violence, is actually someone who might take away a Human life without a shred of remorse? Although, may I say, this is the first actual evidence of those 'hidden depths' that I think we've ever seen - this is what we like: showing, not telling.
So, you have to wonder, if perhaps he would have killed Owen last year, while Owen was standing over the manipulator, ready to use it.
By the way, if you're wondering why I spend so much time dissecting the Jack/Gwen/Ianto dynamic, it's because I tend to spend all week debating it via email and I have a lot of material to regurgitate.
And what about the other ship du jour, Tosh/Owen? I still say that they would be best as each others friends, though that's not the way the writers seem to be trying to take it.
Owen's an idiot. He clearly has decided to honestly write off all attempts at any sort of relationship for now, and Tosh at least reacts with vague and unspoken annoyance at his cluelessness rather than getting all distraught. I think the writers clearly have them on course for some sort of relationship later on, which does present me with slight exasperation. They're as bad as fanficcers. It's not always about the sex, you know?
Please to be looking up the word 'platonic' in the dictionary, thankyouverymuch.
Next Week: We find out who Grey is. Except we already know. Because they just told us. DAMMIT! STOP SPOILING THESE THINGS IN THE PREVIEWS!!
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