Swansong

In Risk Assessment Agnes just knows Ianto is with Jack, but it's not a because of a he's Jack's type scenario. It's because Agnes apparently can't see Ianto having any worth except as a sex toy for Jack. And apparently neither can the writer. I think being Jack's type is certainly better than the position that book takes. I agree that it's likely just extremely lazy writing than Jack actually having a type. We're obviously supposed to believe that Jack's type extends far and wide. I'm not even sure I agree with Tosh that they have to be gorgeous enough. I assume Ianto's Jack's type because he's breathing and willing.

The way they're relationship (and Ianto) was written in Risk Assessment made me cringe and I think that was supposed to be one of the more positive ones, but there was no suggestion there is anyone else in the relationship. In The Undertaker's Gift Jack is having sex dreams about Gwen and obsessed with her eyes (or maybe that's just the writer) is kind of a dick to Ianto some scenes and, I guess, affectionate in others and the worst employer ever throughout. 'In The Silence' I don't remember all that well, but there's a Detective he has a past relationship with or something (can't remember if it was sexual or just work) and they may have been flirting. Can't remember much about the book to be honest.

I don't know.They don't like Ianto or his relationship with Jack and so the idea of Jack cheating on him and Ianto sulking and crying in the corner over it fills them with glee? Jack's reputation is that he'll sleep with anything that moves and I suppose if he's monogamous that contradicts that for them? Although this only seems to apply to Ianto. They don't seem to have the same issue with the idea of Jack being faithful to say Gwen if they'd ever hooked up. They just want to see Jack make out and sleep with other people and again monogamy, especially in his relationship with Ianto, crimps that?The other is that Jack represents a polyamorous ideal and for some people that's very important, but if he's in a monogamous relationship then he's not being true to that. Only silly fangirls would believe Jack could be monogamous especially with Ianto? What Itsmeyousee says. I'm sure there are a number of reasons. He does make out with Real Jack during his time with Ianto, but whether that's cheating or not depends on whether you think they're in a relationship or not at that point. I have no trouble buying Jack cheats. I also have no trouble buying he can be monogamous in some relationships because to be honest it's not just with Ianto. There's no indication he's with anyone else while he's with Angelo either and apparently managed ok for five years with just Captain Hart (granted his options were limited, but it didn't apparently turn him off John as a partner afterwards). Lucia seems to have a fair number of complaints against him, but interestingly infidelity is never put forward as one of them. And as you say there's nothing that really indicates he's sleeping around or that Ianto and Jack have an open relationship and it's not as if it would be all that hard to suggest that even if you didn't want to actually show Jack actually sleeping around. He likes to tell stories or they could show him going to the pub or a bar and picking someone up or suggesting something to one of the many guest characters that showed up and let us use our imaginations, but they don't. It's not as if they were wedded to us seeing Jack and Ianto as some great love (until they killed Ianto off) so clearly that's not what was stopping them. That's the part that amuses me. Jack is supposed to be so gorgeous and charismatic and so sexy he can make straight men gay, but when he can't have Gwen his only option is to settle for a guy he's not really all that in to.

It's more than that. Jack seems capable of showing remorse and regret for his actions and once he realizes his mistake tries to rectify it even risking his own life. I agree with Itsmeyousee in that we see those qualities he credits the Doctor for pretty much from the get go. John is pretty much the opposite of that. He doesn't even show all that much remorse over killing someone he claims to love. I feel like Exit Wounds probably does a better job of creating that 'mirror' than KKBB does because in KKBB John doesn't just come off as someone capable of doing bad things given the circumstances. He comes across as a psychopath.

Well I was talking from the show's point of view not my own. lol. Gwen asks Jack if he would have shot her if she'd stood with Ianto and he says, 'but you didn't' twice pretty emphatically. The implication seems to be that Jack has complete faith that she would never betray or go against him like that except, you know, for the times she does. They seem to be wanting to establish Gwen's loyalty to Jack (possibly as opposed his other team members) although why he'd be so sure of the loyalty of someone he hasn't known that long when this is the second time he's been blind-sided by someone he thought he knew I don't know. Maybe Jack just doesn't like dealing in hypotheticals. Certainly Gwen's loyalty to Rhys seems to wax and wane from episode to episode and even scene to scene, but I'm oddly not all that sympathetic towards Rhys and his Wife Swap woes, though. Has the guy never been acquainted with dvr or the timer? lol

He doesn't kill Jack because of Gray, though. He kills him because he gets angry when Jack rejects him. I don't know if they had Exit Wounds planned out when they wrote KKBB, but Hart's reasons for being there don't seem to have anything to do with Gray. Plus I can't really see the Gray we meet in Exit Wounds wanting Hart to kill Jack before Jack knows how much he hates him and how much he wants him to suffer. He clearly doesn't just want Jack to die he wants him to suffer for what he believes he did to him. And if Hart is only doing Gray bidding and is being controlled by Gray why tell him that Jack can't die because presumably by that point he gets how psychotic Gray is and how badly he wants revenge on Jack. In Exit Wounds Hart presumably wants to protect Jack as much as he can and Gray obviously gets that info from Hart after his first visit because Hart doesn't know before then. I can buy someone like Hart would rationalize his killing Jack as 'different' because he did it out of love and Jack hurt him by not wanting him anymore while still believing he can take the moral high ground with someone like Gray because he's crazy and wants revenge, but I still got whiplash from Hart's personality turn around.

I think Gwen is just serving as confidant because she knows "the secret" so I agree it could be anyone. I don't think there's supposed to be anything romantic in it. I don't think it's like their scene at the end of TKKS. I think this moment is supposed to be more about Jack than them although I do think we're supposed to take how loyal Gwen is, but other than what she knows he doesn't really reveal much.

I would add Angelo to that list. Doesn't he basically shack up with him minutes after meeting him? Wasn't he pretty keen for Jack/Gwen to happen back then? But who really knows. I get the feeling a lot of that depended on the writer of the episode and JB has always struck me as an actor who goes with whatever the script/director demands. He never struck me as the type for much improvisation, but I don't really follow him so I don't know much about his acting style. I've never really subscribed to the idea that Jack was with Ianto because he couldn't be with Gwen. I have huge issues with the writing for them, but I never really bought that theory. For one there was nothing stopping them being together especially in s2 except his pretty arbitrary barriers. And to be honest I never found Jack so noble that if his desire was so strong that he'd keep sending her back to Rhys instead of just giving in. I mean this is a guy who snogged a colleague while he was unconscious. lol. Plus even if I bought it not hooking up with Gwen didn't mean he had to hook up with Ianto. And I never bought the idea that sleeping with an employee, who seems to fall pretty hard and isn't always predictable, whether you have feelings for them or not, was the easy option. I don't even really buy into the idea that he was planning to ask Gwen out until he found out she was engaged in KKBB. I think it was just a moment for him. A weird moment because I'm not sure how he expects her to respond after a declaration like that. But she gives him an in and he backs off. I tend to agree with the idea that Jack gets off on the feeling of falling for someone and the high of romance. I do think he has genuine feelings for Gwen, but I think ultimately it served his own ends and convenience not to pursue things. My issue with Jack and Gwen wasn't that they had feelings for each other, but that the show couldn't seem to show them having feelings for each other without dumping on their other relationships. That just made me think they were both arseholes. I agree. He lost me when he murdered Jack. I found nothing romantic or forgivable about that even though the show routinely treats it as no big thing I guess because it's guy on guy and Jack's immortal so it doesn't really count? I agree they could have done more with the Time Agency and Jack's past though. I thought it was silly that they just dropped the fact that he left the agency because they stole his memories. I guess because Torchwood, the organisation and the show, treat messing with someone's memories as no big thing maybe they didn't think it was a story worth exploring anymore. I agree with whoever said that they should have separated Jack's return and had Captain John's arrival and had that be its own episode. I think the problem for me is while I can buy Jack did bad things in his past the Jack we meet in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, which isn't that long after he left the Time Agency, doesn't really gel with the Jack I assume was partners with Captain John. John seems like a psychopath, but Jack at his worst never came close to being that for me. I feel like we're supposed to assume Jack and Captain John were very similar once upon a time and I just can't see it.

Lol! I'd say it's probably too early in the show for Jack to be all that in love with Gwen or even in love with her at all, but this is Torchwood where Gwen is apparently so wonderful people only have to be in her presence a second to just know that so maybe they are trying to suggest that or maybe it's supposed to be kind of ironic? in that she will become the person he ever loved that much. But I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt and assume they're not really that lame and assume because it's cyberwoman and this all ties back to Dr. Who and those other special snowflakes, Rose and the Doctor, that he's supposed to be thinking of them? But then again Jack is a man who's lived a long time who seems to fall in love at the drop of a cute face so presumably there have been a few people he's loved that much. I definitely don't think they mean Ianto, not least because I don't think they ever intended Ianto to be a potential love, let alone a great one for Jack until they decided to kill him off ("think of the angst, people, think of the angst. It'll be fantastic") although, I suppose the scene and its framing (and Ianto's initial question) does take on an unintended irony for the couple depending on how seriously you take Jack bargaining for Ianto's life in Day 4 of COE and The House of The Dead in that Ianto does apparently become someone Jack 'loves that much' albeit unintentionally.

So the guys from the 51st come off as less progressive about gender roles than the guys from the backwards 21st century lol?

Heh one of things that pretty much guaranteed that I'd never take Jack seriously is in Boomtown, I think, when he does the 'Whatever' sign to Mickey and I thought wait they still do 'whatever' in the 51st century? lol Cos he certainly didn't learn that as part of his cover in the 1940s. It really brought home that no matter how much the show tries to imagine future worlds and what progression would look like the writers' imaginations are still very much hampered by their 20th/21st century roots. Even the music the Doctor likes is 80s or 90s pop. lol.

The thing is they have had women on the show, Gwen and Tosh and Vera, who have had what would be considered just sex or a fling and I was going to say that they have shown women in one off purely sexual relationships, but now that I think about it feelings were also shown as a real component of those relationships too. It wasn't Owen using Gwen while really having feeling for someone else or Rex and Vera meeting up to have a hook up like Jack and Brad even though the two scenes are lumped together. Owen was shown as caring for Gwen despite how he supposedly treats women at that point. We even have that cringe-inducing scene in GBG where Mary makes him chose between saving Gwen or Tosh and of course he chooses Gwen. The same is true for Tosh and Tommy, although there is Tosh and Adam, he's using Tosh, but he's also supposed to be evil, and Rex is shown as caring alot about Vera. So I definitely think there's a weird double standard and I guess that extends to Jack and the stories he tells and relationships he has with men. I've always thought that despite being from the future Jack doesn't come off as all that different than most 20th century blokes in actions which makes sense since he's being written by blokes from the 20th century lol. He can't talk honestly and openly about how he feels, men can do casual sex, no strings attached sex, but women will invariably want some sort of commitment and monogamy no matter the period so I can have a casual, mostly about sex, possibly open, albeit long term relationship with a bloke, but not a woman. Then there's that exchange between John and Jack about who was the wife in their relationship with the wife clearly being the lesser since neither wants to own to being the wife and besides that why are there even still such gender distinctions as wife and husband if labels no longer matter in the future? And even if living in the 20th century etc. has dulled Jack's 51st century values why is John the same way? So, other than having sex with whom ever you want including aliens and poodles and casual sex being the norm, most other societal norms and gender distinctions don't actually change all that much between now and the 51st century?

I do think the Doctor is very important to all the companions, I'm not really arguing against that, but also for the most part I think Jack cares about his friends and if he believed they needed his help he'd try and be there if he could. I don't think that's specifically unique to the Doctor. And particularly in this case Torchwood couldn't do anything in what was a pretty huge crisis, before the Doctor showed up they all thought everything was lost, and he and everyone else believed the Doctor was their best bet so finding him would help them solve the crisis. The more important thing for me is the moment the crisis was over he came home. And I think Jack leaving to help the Doctor in these circumstances is something Ianto, at least the one we meet in s1 and s2, would understand and be ok with as long as Jack still wanted to come home when it's over. I don't think Ianto's fears are over the fact that Jack might want to go and help the Doctor if he needed help. I think if it was just about that he'd be fine. I think his fear is that he can't imagine why Jack would want to stick around with them (him) when there are more exciting things and people out there that Jack potentially has access to. But I don't think it's really about that for Jack at least not at that point.

I suspect the reason why we never really saw Jack with a woman in the first 2 seasons except as a past love was because Gwen was supposed to be the significant woman in Jack's life on-screen at that point. So they probably thought they were showing him in a romantic relationship with a woman albeit one where they never really kissed or had sex. They did get to swoon over each other and make eyes at each other and make romantic declarations to one another so I guess it counts if not exactly the way fans of the couple would have wanted. I think the reason why we never saw Jack so much as flirt with a woman in MD, though, was probably because of all the accusations after COE that they were degaying the show. So I tend to agree with Indeed that with all the backlash over making Jack too gay in MD if the show ever comes back we'll likely only see him with women until there's a backlash against that too. lol. And yep they could have made Angelo an Angela or even made Brad a woman. Either one would have shown that Jack didn't just lean towards men, but maybe they weren't comfortable with the idea of Jack only being interested in a woman solely for sex. We've seen and heard about that when it comes to guys, but I can't remember if that's ever happened with a woman. They all seem to be love stories in one form or another.

Whatever Ianto's feelings about Jack and the Doctor in Stolen Earth Jack thought Ianto and Gwen were worried that he wouldn't come back once he met up with the Doctor, but didn't get that wasn't really their concern because he didn't know what they knew, that the daleks were coming for them. They thought they would be dead by the time Jack got back so I don't think jealousy or concern Jack would stay with the Doctor was the issue there. I don't think it was inevitable that Jack would run off with the Doctor though because really he never did after s1. He had the opportunity to run off with the Doctor but chose instead to come back to Torchwood. Even in Stolen Earth he ran off to deal with a threat and when it was over came right back to Torchwood. That's not to say I don't think he had fun or didn't enjoy meeting up with the Doctor and the rest of the companions. I just don't think his goal was to run off with the Doctor. If anything Jack was pretty true to his word on this issue, that he'd decided his place was with his team and Torchwood. I have to assume that whatever he felt he got from Torchwood and his team was actually more important to him than what he felt he got by travelling with the Doctor otherwise it makes no sense to me beyond the obvious meta reasons of course that he was given the opportunity to travel with the Doctor, but instead chose something else because really Jack did chose his team over The Doctor. I tend to believe that when Jack left in EOD he wasn't thinking of coming back. I don't think he just ran off to get answers because really if all he'd wanted to know was what happened to him he didn't have to leave Cardiff to do that just meet up with the Doctor. I think he was planning a permanent exit and only re-evaluated later. I tend to agree with itsmeyousee, though, that Ianto's insecurities weren't specifically about the Doctor or really any one thing. I just think he wasn't sure of his significance to Jack and didn't expect the relationship to go the distance and figured sooner or later Jack would move on to someone else which probably wasn't all that an unreasonable fear to have with someone like Jack. I don't have any particular love for COE, but it is the closest we ever come on screen to Ianto articulating his view of the relationship and, while I suspect there's some fudging because he probably doesn't want to be having this conversation with his sister, it does suggest he doesn't feel all that secure that there is even much of a real relationship there. Or maybe he just didn't want to acknowledge there might be a real relationship there so he wouldn't feel as blindsided when it went south because he clearly expected it to end one way or another.

Martha's close relationship is with Jack, not Ianto. But he's not the one she's quizzing. The fact that she's close to Jack doesn't mean she automatically has the same relationship with Ianto. He's a stranger to her. The only reason we're not supposed to find it weird or presumptuous that she would feel entitled to quiz him on his sex life with Jack the moment she meets him is because Jack is often treated as fair game and so presumably if you're involved with him you apparently forfeit the right to keep your sex life private even from relative strangers also. The kiss seems to happen on the same basis. Jack sleeps with everyone and everything therefore if you want to snog him he's fair game. So she snogs him because everyone else has even though in this instance her logic is faulty because the 'everyone' is really only Ianto. If I'm supposed to be ok with the fact that she feels entitled to quiz Ianto about his sex life two minutes after meeting him I can't really find the energy to get bent out of shape that she feels entitled to snog Jack because she's 'curious'. At least they have an actual relationship and while I don't necessarily think Jack thinks of her in that way, I don't think he'd mind kissing her either. I find the moment weird because of the way it's framed and because of JB's lol reaction, but it's kind of par for the course with Torchwood. I don't think Ianto's lack of jealousy with Martha has anything to do with her friendship with Jack. It's because for reasons that don't make any sense to me he's never jealous of any of the women in Jack's life no matter how he acts with them or how physically close they are to him. Just the men no matter how distant they are from Jack and how zero of a threat they are to his relationship. I'm glad he isn't jealous, but I don't think it says anything specific about his relationship with Martha and how he views her.

Lol! Yeah. I didn't get that either. Even on Doctor Who despite his reputation she didn't exactly see him kissing a bunch of people and she has a conversation with Gwen where Gwen admits nothing's happened between her and Jack and there's no indication she believes he's fooled around with either Tosh or Owen so her assertion makes no sense. I'm sure, despite J.B's weird face and the awkward kiss, Jack wouldn't actually mind kissing Martha, but the way they frame it is so dumb. But I suppose that ties in with the idea that because Ianto is in a relationship with Jack that means everyone, including relative strangers to him, feel entitled to know the intimate details of his sex life.

I liked that too. I was watching GBG a few weeks ago and it really struck me how differently Jack and Ianto handled their relationship on the job compared to Gwen and Owen. Owen and Gwen come off as very immature and disruptive, but Jack and Ianto seem to make a point of not letting the fact that they're involved affect how they behave on the job.

I think if CJH and the coat sniffing are anything to go by Ianto was already pretty into Jack before he found out he was immortal so I'm not sure how much that factored into him wanting to be with Jack. And it wasn't as if Ianto didn't have to go through watching Jack die. I imagine watching someone you care about dying over and over, sometimes in pretty horrific ways, and never being entirely sure that this might be the time he doesn't come back would be kind of awful in its own way to having them die permanently. Plus Ianto seemed, weirdly to me especially after he admits in COE he doesn't even feel confident enough in the relationship to even call it a relationship, very conscious of how Jack being immortal meant that after a time he'd eventually be forgotten and that seemed to bother him a lot. Not to mention as Ianto himself pointed out there are other ways to leave a person besides death and he seemed just as conscious of that fact where Jack was concerned. I think for Ianto the very fact that Jack was immortal made the idea of him leaving Ianto for something or someone else eventually even more of a likely reality not less of one regardless of how long the relationship lasted..

One of the things that struck me about her second Jack/ Ianto meta was how little Ianto actually features in it. It really is all about Jack. I felt that unfortunately really summed up how the show handled their relationship. I thought the idea that time defines their relationship was an interesting one, but found myself disagreeing that on the show it defined their relationship. I feel like it should have defined their relationship, but like a lot of things really doesn't. Realistically Ianto only has a finite amount of time while Jack has forever, but that's something that's only touched on very briefly and then only rather superficially.

I'm willing to make judgments especially in this case because he's not the only one affected. There are other team members who presumably have to pick up the slack when they lose 2/5ths of their personnel and if he doesn't care about his own well-being he should at least act like he gives a crap about theirs. The show makes a big deal about how tragic it is for Jack that he keeps losing people and how sad we should feel for him, but if that's how his thought process works, unless it directly affects him he can't comprehend the potential impact, might explain why I'm rarely interested in his angst. Jack not wanting to be vulnerable in front of the team is in character, but I agree that doesn't mean the show couldn't have shown he being vulnerable and affected by what he went through and having to adjust to a new order coming home. But I think they'd have to consider that the things they put Jack through actually had a real impact on him to begin with. I think they enjoy putting him through the ringer precisely because his immortality and ability to reset allows them to put him physically through the ringer without having to worry about him changing too much. I thought Jack's reappearance in KKBB was very him, but it really cut the team off at the knees. We're supposed to be seeing a team that managed to rally and work together despite his disappearance and the first scene that shows that basically has Jack having to come to the rescue. lol. The stuff with the team being mad at him works if you ignore all their actions in EOD, but if you can't it ends up making them seem kind of self-absorbed and obnoxious. And I agree about the scene with Gwen. If I buy this moment losing Rhys and literally having his blood on her hands has a really minimal impact on Gwen. And the fact all those people died in part because she was supposedly so desperate to get Rhys back she was willing to risk destroying the world to do it also didn't weigh that much in the end. There are surely better ways they could have shown her still having feelings for him and wanting to know what happened to him without making her seem quite so shallow and self-absorbed.

I'm the same. I've seem in him in a bunch of stuff, mostly playing baddies, and I still think of him as Jim from Neighbours. lol. I agree it was stupid and lazy. I don't think they handled showing her in charge all that well in KKBB either so I guess it was par for the course. But it's not as if they had to make her be the one in charge so you'd figure since they were so determined to make it so they wouldn't still insist on making her seem like such a novice.

it's more the cliche that because he's suddenly geeky he has to wear glasses. Especially since we never see Owen glasses except in this one instance.

Apparently not.

Maybe they're his glasses and he normally wears contacts? lol Because if you're suddenly rendered geek it's a legal requirement, punishable by geek credentials revocation, that you wear glasses even if you never did before.