Torchwood, series 2

[rm]

Great use of music. Great use of pacing. Nice structure.

Jack, this is your fault, and YOU CAN'T EVEN LOOK OWEN IN THE EYE? I'm not impressed.

I thought Ianto was fascinating in this episode. He was radiating a lot of power and absolutely no one was going to get through him to make Jack's life any worse, no matter how distasteful he was finding the whole mess.

Also, what the fuck was with Owen's interaction with Ianto? I wasn't aware it was a competition either (although this supports one of my theories below, in the sense that the team is a bunch of children squabbling for daddyJack's affection).

I also feel like that conversation gave us one of the most interesting Jack/Ianto tidbits we've had yet. Owen notes that Ianto is shagging Jack and Ianto says, "it's not like that."

Well, what did he mean?

Options:
- it's not just sex.
- it is just sex.
- it's sex as the binding force between this weird mentoring relationship they have. Jack is always going to have to let go of everyone he loves. Therefore, isn't it easier on Jack to try to take on a parental or mentoring role in which the expectation of letting go is built in, as opposed to a more traditionally romantic role? Ianto is a powerful man, and he's learning to use that under Jack's leadership. Gwen might be the one who runs Torchwood while Jack is missing, but it's Ianto I envision running the place for decades if Jack was to drop out of the world for some huge swathe of time -- Gwen wants to do the right thing, Ianto is ready to shoulder the unacceptable burden because his brokenness is just more similar to Jack's. I'm not sure if I'm convinced of this (because I also like in-love Jack/Ianto), but I often think of a fellow I once met briefly who was in the gay BDSM scene and showed me around his home and talked both about his lover and his boy (a guy in his 20s, for the record) as he gave me and some friends a tour of his home. One of my friends, who has no shame about any questions ever, asked what that meant, boy and the man explained that one day he'd leave when he was ready to take on a different role/obligation. I really, really see some of that in Jack/Ianto.
- it's not happening that frequently.

Comments

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Torchwood team is totally a bunch of children squabbling for Daddy!Jack's affection. Which makes Jack/Ianto...incest? Hm.

I think Jack/Ianto is more than just sex, but I don't think it's something that can easily be defined in the usual romantic terms we have in our culture. Jack's casual about sex, but he's also naturally polyamorous and I think in general he tends to care easily about a lot of people. So sex for him is both casual and not casual in a sense. At least that's how I see it.

I really hated the way Jack dealt with Owen, because it was all his fault and he never really accepted that it was *wrong* what he did to him. He should have just let him die, and he refused to admit that. And he also refused to let Owen have the right to his angry feelings. How long did it take Jack to deal with being immortal (and a much better immortality than Owen's undeath, btw)? It took running away with the Doctor to be able to deal with that, yet Owen is supposed to deal with being undead just like that? Yeah, right.

Sorry to rant in your journal. I guess this ep brought up strong feelings in me.