Torchwood #8 (spoilers)

[ewx]

"I've only got one thing to say to you... Macbeth!"

The worry about the effects of repeated Retcon use reminded me of the MIB character worrying about the long-term effects of the flashing memory eraser widget.

There's a some bad cause/effect analysis: the Detective Swanson blaming Torchwood for the killers (she does turn out to be basically right but she certainly doesn't have anything like evidence), Jack/Owen blaming the glove for Suzie going off the rails (when in fact everyone in Torchwood was way off the rails to start with). Gwen has an arguably better point about Jack's responsibility though.

How many bodies do Torchwood have on ice?

Welcome back Suzie. Maybe you could go out with Jack, he's dead too. I'm sure he won't mind that you shot him, nobody seems to care all that much that you were evil last time you were breathing. Oh, and you hate your father for some unstated reason, is that connected to why you turned bad?

As for being desparate to get back because there's something there in the dark: she wouldn't have known that before dying and carrying out the plan to come back. Just being desparate to be alive again because, well, it's got to be better than being dead, would have made perfect sense, and she could still gasp out some backplot with her last breath.

The glove wearer ultimately dying recalls Laura Rosen's healing/punishment machine from Babylon 5 (though it's an obvious likely property for such gadgets). It's good to see that, despite its numerous other faults, Torchwood is prepared to deal with the consequences of keeping the gadget of the week around, though two weeks in succession where it's destroyed may suggest an excess of enthusiasm for clearing the decks.

WTF was that with Jack and Ianto? I mean, there's an obvious interpretation, but ... a stopwatch?

Comments

[karen2205]

Breathplay?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Relatedly, and given the Welsh connection, I'm reminded of the competitive toking in Twin Town...

[imc.livejournal.com]

"If it was words that triggered the lockdown, it must be numbers that would release it" — surely that's something that only a SF character would say. I didn't note the ISBN down, but someone who did has reported that it belongs to the Oxford Book of Quotations rather than the book that the actors had in their hands when they read it out.

The whole elaborate plan to get resurrected didn't quite make sense to me because a slightly easier way of going about it would have been not to commit suicide in the first place. I suppose the plan could have been hatched before the thought of suicide entered her head (to be activated in case she was killed for some reason), but why would someone who's so intent on staying alive suddenly kill herself anyway? And how long had they had the glove for? She clearly knew a lot more about it than she was letting on.

I've no idea what a stopwatch would be for either.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

You're right, I can't see the difference between being dead and being kept in a cell somewhere until Max goes nuts, apart from the presumably greater unpleasantness of being dead and the risk that TW fail to resurrect her.

But then, she is mad...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

You're right about the the cause/effect problems.

But with Swanson it does sort of make sense: "Torchwood" scrawled on the wall in blood isn't conclusive evidence, but it's certainly suggestive. And she may have valid hints that Torchwood are reckless megalomaniacs :)

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is why they didn't get that nice Detective Swanson to put out an alert on the vehicle with Gwen and Suzie in while she was reading Emily Dickinson down the 'phone...

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

I think it's a case of, "Don't let them see our dirty laundry."

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with the cause and effect. Suzie had a plan for what to do if she got caught and (as seemed likely) killed, and she already knew from the interviews they had done of murder victims that there wasn't very much of an afterlife.

Having been revived she then had an added reason for very definitely not wanting to die again.

BTW. If I were Torchwood, and I got hold of the sort of tech they do, I think I'd have a standard procedure of acquire, study, destroy. Then all I've got to keep is the materials impossible to produce on Earth, and I've got much less to worry about.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'd keep it all and use it at every opportunity. I think I'm a perfect candidate for the team as it currently stands.

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

Nah, you're not utterly unlikeable enough for that.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I could find a way to have fun correcting that.

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

I could easily dislike or hate you for some percieved slight. But it would be quite a challenge to persuade me that you were a pitiful, vapid waste of existance.

The Torchwood team OTOH...

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

I notice that the Torchwood production team have been taking continuity lessons from their equivalents on X-Men 3. I suppose that the scene on the dock had to be done in daylight so that the blood would show up...