… because it’s the middle of the night and I simply cannot read any more articles for work and I cannot sleep and I’m somehow both hyper and down at the same time. I’m too stressed.
Anyway.
1. I keep thinking about what would happen if one were to use both resurrection gloves at the same time. Because that’s gotta be the way they were designed to be used, right? Maybe the one that brought Owen back makes one undead and then the one used on & by Suzie somehow makes them alive? Maybe a connection is established between the undeadness (undeath?) and the limited back-to-life status, i.e. the consequences of both gloves and then the patient (?) becomes truly alive again? Or maybe somehow the energy is drained from the undeadness and poured into the actual bringing back? And how does the knife play into it? Also, it’s entirely possible that all the side effects of using each of the gloves and the knife have to do with the fact that they might have always been used in the wrong way by Torchwood? Do they come from the same dimension as the weavils? How did Jack know exactly how long ago the first glove came through the rift? Did he watch it fall into the Bay all that time ago? So many questions. Any thoughts? I’m genuinely curious. If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m all ears.
Also, Life Knife? It kinda brings death and misery, so I would’ve gone with Strife Knife.
2. I’m not entirely sold on Jack’s kiss of life thing. I don’t think it’s anything other that Barrowman’s headcanon. If it works, why didn’t he try it on Owen, or Tosh? Or anyone other than Ianto? (Maybe he did, and I forgot about it. There are loads of episodes I’ve only seen once, so it’s entirely possible I don’t remember something.) Speaking of, I don’t think Ianto was anything other than unconscious when the cyberwoman threw him on the ground. For one thing, Jack tried slapping him awake, which you don’t do with dead(ish) people. (Well, you hopefully don’t. If you do, what the bloody hell is wrong with you?) I think he kissed him to keep him silent when he woke up, which is kinda exactly what happened. (And also because he’s not above using any chance to grope and otherwise inappropriately behave towards people, so that’s not surprising at all.)
3. If the Doctor hadn’t messed with Jack’s teleporter / vortex manipulator, Jack could’ve used it to teleport Ianto out of the Thames House. Thanks, Doc.
4. Gwen is a much better team leader than Jack. While she was leading the team, they seemed to be more of a unit. She wasn’t keeping secrets from them. They actually seemed happier. She made Ianto a field agent and made the point of asking him to do the clean-up instead of just expecting it. (I firmly believe that him becoming more confident between series 1 and 2 has to do with Gwen and her gentle leading and friendship.) Even Owen seemed to be less of a prat under her leadership. Maybe it’s because they actually chose her? Because Jack was made leader simply because there was no one else left, and his leading amounts to not letting anybody question his decisions and keeping secrets from his team. And looking the most impressive of the lot, but that’s beside the point.
5. That said, he’s the most forgiving boss I’ve ever come across (I’m sorry for that terrible rhyme). You almost unleash a cyberman on the world? Doesn’t matter, you’re totally forgiven. You bring a dangerous alien into the base? Doesn’t matter, you’re forgiven. (If I remember correctly, Tosh didn’t even get a reprimand for that one) You shoot your boss in the head, without knowing that he will come back? Doesn’t matter, you’re totally and completely forgiven. I guess when one lives forever, grudges seem pointless. Also, and now I’m depressing myself, Jack is so desperate for someone to accept him that he’s willing to forgive being killed if it means they won’t think he’s a freak. Also, what it is with Torchwood and shooting their boss in the head? Two out of five people did it. Huh.
6. I admit I have major problems with spatial orientation – I cannot read a map, and I never have any sense of where I am, and it’s so frustrating because in my mind, all the streets are always at a right angle to each other, even though I know it cannot possibly be true – but I can’t be the only one who cannot understand the layout of the hub, can I? I just don’t get it. It’s like Hogwarts.
7. When Ianto propositions Jack with a stopwatch, it foreshadows the fact that their time together will be measured in seconds, as far as the bigger picture it concerned. That is also depressing.
8. I think that they made Tosh and Own too young. They both look older than their alleged age, especially Owen (I don’t know how old the actors are, but I think they are quite a bit older than their characters), and they act it. I don’t understand why they felt the need to make them that young. It can’t have been for sympathy, because there’s not much difference in terms of a sense of waste between someone dying in their late twenties or in their early or mid thirties. It’s still too soon, and the audience would’ve got the point one way or another.
I’ll probably have quite a few more of these. I think about this stuff a lot.