Swansong

Not really! lol. But it probably is time to move on.

I think Jack and Gwen are also big proponents of the 'going it alone' trope in their own way. I don't think it's a coincidence that the three characters the show focuses most on are. Even when the consequences are terrible, particularly for other people, it's still framed as an attitude to admire and emulate. Is that what happens in this story? Jack and Gwen would actually show up for work though and not just skive off without explanation in the middle of an investigation. Bad Owen.

Lol! Actually I'm pretty sure that was the point being made. That Ianto's plan was to give Jack the impression he was a rentboy in the hopes that Jack would be enticed into having sex with him in the park and as a consequence give him a job. That's what's being refuted. Not whether Ianto may have dressed a particular way to look attractive.

I get your point although I probably should rewatch at least the rest of the first season episodes before commenting so maybe I'll revise this comment later, but oh well. I think part of my problem with him is that while he has his moments he doesn't come off as all that conscientious as a Doctor far too often for my liking. And depending on the episode's or even the scene's requirements he's either 'brilliant Doctor' or painted as so dumb about the rudimentary aspects of his job you wonder how he made it through medical school. S1 Owen, I agree, is way more trouble than he's worth and while they're all done things they should have been fired for, if not put in jail for, him killing Jack in EOD the way he does really crosses the line for me. S2 Owen I'd probably by and large keep though.

I think he mentioned weevils knowing Jack would get suspicious and look into him. That was part of the plan because at that point he's still relative calm about things. What he didn't expect was for Jack to be so negative about his Torchwood one affiliation. That likely wasn't something he factored in because even if Jack was sceptical he probably thought his skills and experience would win him over. That's why the fact that he chooses to wear the suit for their next meeting is very interesting to me because he seems to be aligning himself with Torchwood One despite knowing Jack's aversion. He even makes that comment about how TW One would have had the correct gear if they were the ones dealing with the dinosaur which seems like a dig at Jack about how he handle things.Obviously from a meta point Ianto wears tge suit because wearing suits is his signatureit's because Ianto wears suits, but it seems to be almost a challenge. Also what Indeed said.

Even if it was a nod to this cliche wouldn't it be more a subversion of the typical trend than an example of it? Because in fact as it turns out neither of these men are in the park looking for sex. They both have other motivations. Sex only becomes an issue later on in the segment. I thought it was funny because it's supposed to be a rough neighbourhood where kids are bold enough to steal a car right under people's noses, but then people just leave their doors open for anyone to walk through. That's kind of a tv cliche though. I guess Ianto grew up this particular neighbourhood and not just one similar to it?, but either I'm not sure you'd know it with the way they have him acting in the first episode. lol. I guess that's why he needs Gwen to teach him how to thieve later on.

We're supposed to believe Ianto doesn't know Jack can't die until the end of s1 even though that seems to be such an open secret even the government knows. But there's no real indication anyone really knows that Jack is actually from the 51st century and there's no real reason to think Jack expects Ianto to know this . At most they know he ran with the Doctor. I can buy that letting that bit of information slip happened because Jack seems to have let his guard down a bit with Ianto, but he doesn't seem bothered he let it slip either. In Day One Ianto says he thinks Jack used to be with the CIA, but he really knows his from the 51st century apparently. If you assume he's also sleeping with him at this point then that moment is actually kind of amusing.

He's pretty much the only one it's suggested didn't go to university even though he's clearly bright enough, presumably spent his time before joining Torchwood drifting from job to job, did a bit of petty theft and even before he joins Torchwood Cardiff is a pretty decent con man. That suggests someone who likely didn't have a lot of opportunities and grew up having to rely on their wits a lot more than Rhiannon's assertion that their father worked at Debenhams. In one of the books don't they say his father worked in the mines. I'm not sure it was really all that surprising where he came from. If anything surprised me it was how much of a negative they made him wanting more than to remain on an estate seem. Also, more of an aside They make him seem like he rarely visits and is kind of uncomfortable with his family, but either they just leave the door wide open on their rough estate or he has a key and feels comfortable enough to just use it and walk in at will? Not that it was a big thing, but it kind of amused me.

I'm from London and I don't see the significance of the rent boy outfit either. It's not as if he only wears the outfit in the park and I can't really see how what he wears is ultimately more significant than what he actually says and does. It just seems like a bit of an overfocus on something that's never really the point. Even when he has the opportunity to use sex as a last minute ditch effort when he's not really got anywhere with Jack he still doesn't which kind of defeats the purpose of playing rentboy.

That's my point. When she says Debenhams she says it as if we're supposed to automatically assume that the only people who work at Debenhams are lowly shop clerks. If someone only told me they worked at Apple or where-ever that wouldn't automatically tell me anything about what they actually do there. Yeah they could be on the design team, but they could also be in sales or HR or a receptionist.I thought it was weird they didn't just have her say shop clerk if that's what she meant.

I agree you could see him pushing him too hard because he worked as a Master Tailor and wanted to see his son succeed also or wasn't and wanted more for his son than he achieved, but I actually think the swing exchange works in a way the the Master tailor/he worked at Debenhams exchange doesn't in terms of exploring Ianto's relationship with his father even vaguely because I can see how "he pushed too hard" could have a double meaning of he pushed too hard on the swings/pushed me too hard all his life. But "he worked at Debenhams" doesn't really explain anything other than he worked at Debenhams. It's like saying he worked at a hospital. That could mean he was a janitor or security or worked in x-ray or a nurse or a doctor. It could mean he worked in the office or on the front desk, in billing, was head of a department, a manager etc. Do the writers really believe that the only people who work in Department stores are all automatically low-level staff or shop clerks so saying he worked at Debenhams automatically explains that? lol!

I definitely get that and I assume that's where they were going. Of course the way the whole exchange is written I do remember wondering when I watched it if they were really trying to suggest his father might have been abusive or trying to suggest that his father was extraordinarily bad at pushing swings. I felt like I was supposed to take from it that his father pushed Ianto too hard in life because that sounds more like RTD's speed, but the way it comes off it really did just sound like Ianto was annoyed about the incident because he believed his father was the type to push the swing too hard and Ianto's accident was the inevitable consequence of that.

A child might, but if it really was a one time accident and just one incident I think as an adult, especially one who had been through the experiences Ianto had, would understand that sometimes things happen even when we don't mean for it to (like for instance two people getting killed when we're trying to save our cybergirlfriend) and develop more nuance in their thinking. I assume he saw his father as abusive because of more than this one incident. He does suggest that by saying he was always too hard on him and I assume pushing him on the swing until he hurt himself was just another example of 'pushing him too hard' in Ianto's mind. Of course the way the whole exchange is written I do remember wondering when I watched it if they were really trying to suggest his father might have been abusive or trying to suggest that his father was extraordinarily bad at pushing swings. I tend to go either way.

This isn't a guys who like ABBA must be gay, so that explains why they don't fancy Gwen because they must be gay type of talk, is it? I'd like to think even the Torchwood books wouldn't be that lame to suggest that the only reason a guy couldn't possibly fancy Gwen is because they're gay. And worst have her be the one to suggest it. lol!

I don't know. This is the convo: MARY: Look at her though. She's huge. GWEN: She's perfectly normal, Mam. MARY: I thought you were being frugal. What are you feeding her, lard? GWEN: Yes, Mam. I'm feeding her lard. Keep telling her that, and by the time she's thirteen, she'll have a complete psychological complex. RHYS: Stop it now, you two. I get that sometimes people can get defensive even when people are being well-meaning, but it didn't sound like her mum was being well-meaning. Just critical.

Not sure. i think I thought that too because of HOTD, but I read that portion of the transcript and it never mentions why things are tense. Maybe one of the books or someone speculated it?

There was definitely some tensions there in the first episode and not just because the dad was sick. Her mum makes a comment about how big Anwen is getting and asks what she's been feeding her and Gwen gets defensive and replies if she keeps going on like that she'll give her a complex by the time she's thirteen. It did suggest a history between them that SB never did even with all the crazy Gwen dropped on them in that episode.

Here is the quote from the transcript: Ianto: You’re dead. Mr. Jones: Yes. Right. You never called, did you? Ianto: Sorry? Mr. Jones: I got that mobile specially. My first one. Made sure your mother gave you the number. They don’t allow them in hospitals, not normally, but they made an exception for me. I was waiting for an important call. So the mum was supposed to give him the number not the mobile.

The father mentions giving her a mobile so Ianto could talk to him when he was sick in hospital, but Ianto never used it.

Yeah she kind of gets forgotten. Not even an acknowledgement that a mother even ever existed. Although according to HOTD she was alive when their dad died so presumably still around when Ianto left home. So she died or ran off while he was in London? I think it's a case of different writers so different backstory. RTD seems to have a thing for dysfunctional families so that probably explains Ianto's family in COE although we only really knew two facts so it's not as if they had much to contradict. But I remember in SB Gwen's mum is shown as supportive and loving, but in MD she was constantly picking at Gwen and they seem to have a kind of fractious relationship. I never got the impression that Ianto saw Jack as a father figure either. He admired him sure, but I don't think he had any illusions about him and while I definitely think Ianto loved Jack, probably too much for his own good, I always thought his real loyalty was to Torchwood. I think he needed Torchwood more than he needed Jack.

Aww! That was pretty much one of the few moment of FOOTR I liked. I'm glad they never ruined that moment although as, you say, at least the discrepancy was already there. I actually liked the idea that Ianto got on well with his father and had nice memories of him although they don't exactly do much with that idea in this episode either and I was kind of disappointed that they went the abusive father route albeit rather confusingly.

It doesn't have to be an either /or and there could be more to the story, I presume there is, but it's not as if they ever planned to explore it in that way because they'd already killed him off at that point. So even if there is more to the story than 'he lied' it's not as if RTD ever intended the audience to be privy to what that story was. All we're left with is this doubt about him and a kind of bizarre doubt because it doesn't make much sense with what they suggested before. Because as Captanne says we know Ianto can lie, to protect himself and others and as part of his job, but this would suggest even more than they likely intended with this reveal in COE, that he was embarrassed by where he came from and wanted it to sound better, it would suggest he's some sort of pathological liar who lies to people even when they're likely to know it's a lie. Not that that's ever stopped Torchwood before. This is the show that wanted us to believe that Jack knew he was a fixed point in time in the 1920s in s4 when the whole point of his arc in s1 is that he has no idea what happened to him and has waited over a century to find the Doctor to get answers.

Well it suggests that there's another story and Ianto's may not be the truth? Certainly it raises doubt on the veracity of his story. I mean it's possible his father was a master tailor, but lost that job and became something else, that Rhiannon was lying just to wind Gwen up and any no. of interpretations, but it's not as if we're ever going to be privy to that because Ianto was killed off and if the show didn't expend much energy developing him when he was around they're hardly likely to do it now he's dead. I mean the show gives us some idea why there might be a discrepancy between Rhiannon thinking their dad injured Ianto by accident and Ianto thinking it was deliberate because his dad was always hard on him, but they give us no idea why there would be a discrepancy over what their dad does for a living when in normal circumstances that would be a fairly straight-forward thing to answer beyond the suggestion that one of them is lying.

Lol! So true. It's even worst than that since they keep telling us that TW agents die faster than fruitflies. But then again it never seems to matter whether they have five team members or two because it never seems to affect their ability to do the job, even if they lose there arguable most specialized skilled members.

We weren't given any reason to believe it was a lie in Something Borrowed. Or in Fragments or anywhere else in s2. Rhiannon is the reason for the doubt because she's the one who suggests there's some doubt about their father being a master tailor. It's got nothing to do with believing Gwen or Gwen's reaction. It's all to do with Rhiannon's comment. If you like it's Ianto's comment v. Rhiannon's comment.