Torchwood - Exit Wounds, the Jack/Ianto story

[tencrush]

Okay, I have to admit, I was totally spoiled for this episode, I knew Jack was going to be buried for 2000 years, and I have to conclude that knowing this fact totally made me get my hopes up. I figured that there would be repercussions from the 2000 year thing. I didn't know what those repercussions might be, but I figured Jack/Ianto would either be OVER, or we'd get some sort of on-screen confirmation that this is more than a fuckbuddy thing for Jack. And yes, I KNOW what Jack said in TTLM, and I KNOW there's been lots of hints about how Jack feels about Ianto, but hints can only really carry a story for so long. So yes, personally, I was disappointed there wasn't much going on on the shipping front.

Ianto was very upset, that was blatantly obvious, about Jack being missing, that was played well and it was abundantly clear how happy he was to have Jack back. But, again, I didn't really see much from Jack about where he stands with Ianto. (Have you read the Captain's blog for Adrift, by the way? They seem to be SHOVING it down the Americans' throats, but that's half-canon, aimed at one specific audience, why just there? Why can't we be shown any clarity on screen, seriously?)

Sure, they're not majorly affectionate with each other, and I didn't expect Ianto to fall into Jack's arms like Gwen did, that would have been completely OOC. But I would have liked to have seen a scene akin to the Gwen/Rhys thing on the sofa, just to let us know whether these two crazy kids are still together. As an aside, I think that scene WAS probably filmed and cut, and I think those two crazy kids ARE still together. I just don't think, on the whole, the writing has done a great job of proving that to me throughout the season, and especially not in this episode. Sorry, dudes, but that was a bit fail.

Comments

[tencrush]

Yeah, I agree on the kissing quilt boy, that could have been dropped, like I said, all it needed was a couple second shot of Jack and Ianto TOGETHER, on their own without anyone else there, doing ANYTHING at all, just a hint that they've been alone at some point in time since Jack came back from 2000 years underground. That was all I really wanted to see and I'd have been satisfied, they don't snuggle, I don't expect them to, but I did expect them to be in a room together without Gwen.

I think we'll see a normal 13 episode run WITH Barrowman, I just don't think it'll be confirmed until after Who series 4 airs, because I think there's some weird connection being planned that we're not aware of. It could just be the fact that they're transferring Martha to TW, I don't really know.

You're right about the ensemble drama thing, though, I don't really think the current team of writers have the capacity, nor is there the leadership for them to pull that off successfully. They obviously started this thing as a vehicle for Barrowman, with the support of Eve Myles, and it's gone so far in a different direction that they really seem to have been scrambling around ever since to fix the fact that Barrowman doesn't have the skills to carry a show and Eve's character was made SO unlikeable by the Gwen/Owen thing and has been going downhill ever since. That and the fact that they absolutely bring out the worst in each other in terms of acting, they're usually painful to watch. I personally wouldn't want Marsters in the cast, but I reckon they ARE trying to get him as a regular guest because of the fanbase he drags along into anything he does.

Yeah, I think the Hoix was a weird choice of alien to revive, because I always figured the way it looked and acted and the way it was defeated was partly IN ELTON'S HEAD. SO I figured the Hoix's appearance was partly just a standard televisual sci-fi/fantasy monster that Elton had created in his head because he'd only really caught a glimpse and his cultural memory filled in the blanks of what he thought it might have looked like. In the way that I didn't really think there were two buckets involved, but that was just Elton's convoluted retelling of the elements that he had latched onto from what was going on in those few fleeting moments. I obviously romanticise and think about these things too much, because apparently a Hoix just looks like that. Damn, I wish they'd stop ruining these romantic notions of mine.