Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye I Die A Little

[masterofmidgets]

AKA Another Torchwood series 2 finale reaction post!

AS:LKSALKJSLKASLDKJSADJ WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! TOSH! ZOMBIE!OWEN! TOSH! ZOMBIE!OWEN NOOOOOOO I HATE YOU RTD WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?!?!?!?!? YOU FUCKING BASTARD HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO TOSH AND ZOMBIE!OWEN?!?!?!?

It's been quite awhile since I had this much of an emotional reaction to an event in a tv show - probably not since the last two episodes of Full Metal Alchemist. But Tosh and Owen's death scene was...ouch. Seriously, holy fuck that was intense. With Tosh being all noble and awesome and "of course I'm not bleeding out from a gunshot wound don't be ridiculous" and reassuring Owen and Owen being terrified and pissed and not completely OOC self-sacrificing because he wouldn't do that, but he's still so amazingly brave, and then at the end with "yeah I was a moron not to realize I've been madly in love with you since forever". Just...fuck. FUCK. And they NEVER ACTUALLY SAID THEY LOVED EACH OTHER AND THAT IS SO NOT FAIR EVEN IF THEY BOTH KNEW IT. I DON'T CARE. I WANT THEM BOTH TO BE RETCONNED ALIVE, LIKE YESTERDAY. YOU DID IT FOR GWEN'S IRRELEVANT (BUT AWESOME) BOYFRIEND, RTD, YOU CAN DO IT FOR TOSH AND OWEN. BUT YOU WON'T, SO FUCK YOU, YOU BASTARD. 

And just when I thought I was stopping crying, Tosh's little post-death video played, and...she is too awesome to die!!!! WHY DID YOU DO THIS HORRIBLE THING??!!!!

Okay, I think I've got myself again under control again. Sorry. So, other thoughts on Exit Wounds, not related to the death of certain characters.

Captain John is a sexy, sexy psychotic bastard. If it weren't for the FUCKING THOUSANDS OF DEATHS, this would have been a really funny episode. Watching him and Jack go at it is fantastic - like a gigantic sexy explosion of snark and hate and truly intense chemistry and just general awesome. Also, the scene where he tells Jack he loves him and then whips out the automatics and fills him with enough lead to sink a ship? Was really sad because I think in a fucked-up twisted way he does really, really love him, it's just that he's waaay too sociopathic to express it in a non-evil-bastard way. And also because shooting the object of your attraction=DOING IT WRONG.

Ianto is made of bad-ass. End of story. Like the rest of the series, this episode was good with the extremely subtle but definitely there Jack/Ianto, in this case Gwen being barely able to hold Ianto off from strangling John with his bare hands in the Hub, and him threatening to kill him, slowly, if they don't find Jack. Also, I know so many fans were petrified he was going to be killed off because we're so very unused to our ship being canon and keep waiting for the other shoe to fall. SO THANK YOU AT LEAST FOR NOT KILLING IANTO AND OUR SHIP, RTD. BUT I STILL HATE YOU. 

The actor who played Gray sucked to an amazing degree. I liked the idea of him bieng all screwed up and hating Jack and wanting to make him pay for everything that happened to him, but damn, kid, you have atrocious delivery and less emotional range than Keanu Reeves. Sorry, but you were just BAD. And he tried to make Gray all shouty-angry-villain, and personally I think it would have played much better as cold and bitter, possibly with a side of manical laughter. 

JB's acting, however, was unusually free of cheesiness - he goes over the top in a lot of the heavier dramatic scenes, but he pulled it off with flying colors here. I am so in love with him. The scene after he takes down Gray and then just sits there with his unconscious body hit me so hard. Before he knocked him out, Gray basically tells him that he hates him because all this hell he went through was Jack's fault, and sitting there, Jack says very softly "I know, Gray". And that one line? Completely, utterly, absolutely heart-breaking. He manages to get 2000 years (since we're now counting Jack's time spent in a hole in the ground) worth of grief and agonizing guilt into that one line. Amazing. 

I was also struck by the end, with the three of them in the Hub - it's so charged, and so painful, but Jack is right. It's awful and it's unfair, but they don't get to quit, they don't get to give up or break down, they barely get to grieve. Cardiff won't stop being in danger just because they're hurting; the aliens won't stop coming because they've lost part of their team, and there is no one who can take their place. That's...such a horrible prospect, really, to know you're going to keep going on because you aren't allowed to do otherwise. 

And that's one of the reasons I love Torchwood; it doesn't flinch away from the hard truths that are involved, but not so often addressed, in the genre.

Now I'm going to go watch some nice happy Doctor Who to help me through this season finale, thank you.