Torchwood 2x04

[ivyfic]

I'm going to ignore the whole Gwen-wants-to-come-clean-with-Rhys-despite-the-fact-that-she-cheated-on-him-and-is-still-lying-about-it because that way lies madness. (Gwen? When Rhys accuses you of sleeping with Jack? You don't get to be righteously indignant because you did, in fact, sleep with someone at work. And lie about it and confess to Rhys and then drug him. And you'd totally do Jack if he offered, don't lie. Maybe if I ignore the whole first season...) I'm also going to ignore the whole Jack pining over Gwen thing cause it really doesn't make sense to me. Like—why isn't Owen's history with Gwen coming out in this episode? Why is Jack who is canonically dating Ianto moping in his office over Gwen being engaged, which she's been for a while, and ignoring the fact that he's dating Ianto? I get he likes Gwen, but this is way more of an emotional display than is warranted. Seriously—there are more holes in emotional characterization than I can shake a stick at. I've already seen fic that puts all of this in a greater context where it makes sense, but I should not have to go through mental contortions as a viewer of a show for it to make sense. It really should make sense on its own.

Anyway.

So, Meat. And the award for overacting goes to.... I really think the scripts must be written in all caps with lots of exclamation points and maybe some elevens. (Jack: WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU MY FRIEND!!?!?!?!?!!!11!!!!)

Tosh: OMG IT BLINKED! It must be sentient!
Brilliant logic, Tosh. Gekkos blink when I talk to them, too. Clearly they are also sentient.

Owen—are you wearing a pink and red striped shirt??? Burn it! Burn it now! And shame on you for wearing such a hideous piece of clothing, especially since you're the closest thing to a straight character this show has.

My main problem with this episode though is, well, the premise. So a bunch of dudes find a giant mutant alien manatee—and decide to butcher it while it's still alive. Um. Even supposing they were butchers and looked at the thing and thought "free meat," wouldn't they try to kill it first? And even if you can hack this thing up forever, it seemed like they were only taking a very little of it. Is that enough to turn a profit? Is meat really that expensive? I imagine a slaughterhouse has to kill a lot of chickens to remain profitable, so even if this hunk of meat fell from the sky, it would take a lot of work to butcher it and forge documents and transport it and bribe people and I just don't believe this is a lucrative enterprise. Plus—what are they feeding it? Where is its waste going? And I'm sorry, but even if it's alien, when you have an open wound on a living creature, it would have all sorts of nastiness around it—infection, inflamation, puss… A wound like that would probably have granulation tissue growing to try to fill it in, which is what the body does to fill in sores. It would have been more believable if we'd seen a series of scars along its side where they'd hollowed out sections. You can't just mine a living creature like it's a coal mine, bodies don't work like that.

So, yeah. Mind-numbingly dumb criminals here. Why wasn't their first thought when they found this mutant manatee thing to try to take it on the road as an attraction, P.T. Barnum style? Or sell photos to the Enquirer? I don't think "free meat" is that logical a first reaction. It just seems the show-runners really really love talking about butchers and eating inappropriate things.

Comments

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

lol! very belated thoughts from me - just watched it yesterday, and i agree with all you say above, although, for me, i was just happy rhys finally got to yell at gwen, AND jack. the whole gwen/jack dynamic was very weird in this episode, as you mentioned, since they hadn't really developed that kind of jealousy (gwen looking at jack while kissing rhys? wtf?). the best part, though, was that rhys was better at gwen's job than gwen! she really messed up - thought he couldn't handle it, when it was in fact she who couldn't handle it. at least rhys can read a situation well enough to know when to keep his mouth shut and when to talk. and agreed on the whole meat thing - major plot holes with that :-P