Mob Cat

Torchwood Episode 1x11 - "Combat"

Episode Grade: B-


This week, tacked in towards the end of the usual opening spiel, we get a tiny montage of Owen and Diane moments from last week, which consists of Owen saying "How are you doing this to me?" and Diane saying "Love... You're always at its mercy." It's about two seconds of footage, but still, continuity! Hurrah!

A Weevil runs down an alley, with Jack giving chase, and finds itself trapped in a dead end. Jack tells it "I hate to break this to you, but you're not my first", and he's in an unusually good mood, which probably means someone's going to run off to another dimension with his baby by the end of the episode. That's my gratuitous Whedon reference out of the way for today, let's get on with this. Jack tells the Weevil he has "anti-Weevil spray and hand clamps", and so it has no hope of getting away. In response, the Weevil jumps him and gives him a pretty nasty scratch across the chest, and Jack moans that "This always happens when I give them the day off", which is an obvious 'comic juxtaposition' segue if ever I have heard one.

And, yep, here's Gwen, at a restaurant with Rhys, and looking throughly bored out of her mind. Rhys starts off on a happy nostalgic story about a weekend in France, but breaks it off pretty quickly when he realises Gwen is paying no attention and demands to know why she's looking like she'd rather be somewhere else. Yeah, that's a no-brainer. Gwen gives him a "stop making a scene in public" look, which he quite justifiably ignores. He starts asking if it's something he's done wrong, but gets distracted when he sees Jack and the Weevil running across the road outside and is all "What the hell is that?" Gwen turns around and, man, how her face lights up when she sees Jack. Gwen, Rhys, one or the other of you needs to get a clue and end this charade of a relationship already. Jack tells Rhys it's nice to meet him and starts to drag Gwen away without even introducing himself, which Rhys doesn't take too well. Gwen tells him "This is Jack, my boss", ignoring his request for her to sit down until he yells "SIT THE FUCK DOWN!" There's an awkward pause, and Gwen quietly tells him to never speak to her like that again. Jack's all "Let's go, Gwen" and runs off without even the slightest doubt that she'll follow. That's pretty arrogant, but, well, he's not wrong. Rhys points out that she promised him this one night off, eyes pleading with her not to do this, but Gwen turns and goes after Jack without even so much as an apology. Rhys calls "If you go now, Gwen!" after her, but he can't even muster up an empty threat to tack on the end of that.

Jack apologises for interrupting, Gwen breezily dismisses it with a "Rhys'll get over it, he always does." Jack stops and gives her a serious look and reminds her that she promised she'd keep hold of her life outside of Torchwood, and see, how's about that for continuity. Jack still doesn't give Gwen time to actually let that sink in before they go running off after the Weevil again, and really, if he wants her to keep her promise, maybe Jack should stop pulling her out of any opportunity she has to so. They catch up with the Weevil in a carpark, only before they can grab it, a white van with some kinda blue logo pulls up and these guys in all black and balaclavas get out and shove the Weevil in the back of the van. Jack asks "Who the hell were they?", as if Gwen's going to know, because we need a more dramatic moment to lead us into the credits.

This one written by Noel Clarke, better known in these circles as Mickey the Idiot. His first foray into writing for the franchise could certainly use some improvement, but then, as I recall, the story was much the same with his acting.

Hub. Jack wants the crew to track down the white van guys, naturally, only he makes this request with far more words than are actually necessary. Naturally. Ianto, noting that it may not be connected, reports that Weevil attacks have been on the increase lately. Jack also reports that the Weevils are starting to develop an immunity to the spray. Tosh is all surprised, "They're mutating?", which Ianto suggests 'correcting' to "Evolving". OK, right, those are both the same thing, and that is pretty much how nature works, so I don't know what is so surprising. But hey, mutating, evolving, intelligent designing, whatever you want to call it, it's thematically significant, I don't doubt. Jack starts to give Tosh an order to do some technobabble, but she is way ahead of him on that one. Jack is also trying to get hold of Owen, but he's not answering his phone right now.

And neither is Rhys; Gwen babbles about how she has so many excuses but they are all lame, but this job is so hard, boo hoo. Rhys' hand hovers over the phone, like, oooh, he's about to pick up, but he's actually just waiting for Gwen to finish so he can press the "delete" button. I sure have never seen anything like that before.

Owen is busy going on a self-destructive emo rampage because he can't handle rejection, which is awfully trite and predictable of him. His phone is ringing, he just ignores it, barmaid attempts to be friendly and discover the root of his sorrows, he responds with monosyllabic grunts. You know, the usual. But tonight, Owen will be playing the role of reluctant anti-hero, and so the barmaid's goon of a boyfriend has to interrupt their scintillating conversation to demand that she stop chatting up punters so Owen can tell him he's being a childish dickhead and a fight can break out and la dee da. Owen gets the better of the big dumb ox in spite of his weasel-like stature, of course, because the guy is a big dumb ox. And, oh, what's the Meaning Of Life this week, Owen? "It's about using your opponents agression to your own ends." Righto. Owen's phone goes again, he doesn't answer it, again.

And in the Hub, paying no heed whatsoever to "show, don't tell", Gwen tells Tosh that Owen is still not answering his phone. Tosh suggests that maybe he's going on a self-destructive emo rampage because he can't handle rejection, only Gwen did not know anything went on between Owen and Diane and now there is jealousy so I guess Owen and Gwen weren't so done after all, maybe? I mean, I know I complained about their affair when it was exceedingly prominent, but I wasn't actually pulling for "have all future developments in this relationship happen entirely offscreen". Find the middle ground, guys. But hey, this is all just preparation for the ultimate offscreen relationship WTFness that we'll get into in the next couple of episodes, I suppose. So, Tosh thought Gwen knew Owen and Diane had a thing, Gwen did know, she just didn't know they had a thing thing, and, if anything, I am playing down the overuse of the word 'thing' in this coversation.

Down in the cells, there's a Weevil making total Wookiee moans, and Jack tells Ianto that Owen has been studying this one, and has reached the conclusion that it is weeping, because Weevils have minor telepathic abilities and somewhere, another Weevil is in pain. Jack whispers "What can you feel? What do you know?" at it, in a half-hearted attempt to make this scene poignant or something. Hell if I know.

Tosh has done her usual techno magic and tracked down the van, only the CCTV footage breaks up into static before they can see anything much happening, which everyone agrees is quite likely deliberate sabotage on the part of the white van ninjas. And Jack makes a crack about how he "knows it's a character flaw", but them not wanting to be seen makes him all the more eager to figure out what they're doing. Which is a good job, because it would be a pretty stupid show if he was all "Oh, these guys don't want to be discovered, maybe we should leave them alone."

So, Jack merrily trundles the Hyena alongside some docks, which I'm pretty sure is the same place where he kept killing Suzie, not that I can find any particular significance in that. CCTV eye view watches Jack and Tosh get out and look around for the white van, which is nowhere to be found.

Jack and Tosh have a look around a warehouse to see if the van ninjas left behind any clues since they left in such a hurry and Jack is, as usual, unable to not talk for more than five minutes, so he starts off on some nostalgic angst about how back in the good ol' days, they used to use these warehouses to store the bodies of dead soldiers. It's nice to reminisce! He broodily tells Tosh that "sometimes, you can know too much history", and if that is the case, it's nice of him to share this bad knowledge with her so she can know too much history too. They hear a crash and quickly draw their guns, (which you'd think would have been a pretty good idea as soon as they went in there) but there still doesn't seem to be anyone or anything in this place. Oh, except that dude lying on the floor. Jack and Tosh approach cautiously, and Jack asks the guy if he knows anything about the van ninjas, but the guy is unable to answer on account of he's had his throat ripped out. Jack identifies this as likely the mark of a Weevil attack, duh, and then the dude's phone goes off, and his ring tone is the fucking Crazy Frog, so any remorse you were feeling for his death can stop right there. Tosh asks "Is that his?" in surprise, Jack glares at her and snarks "You don't think I'd choose that ring tone?" Heh. Jack digs out the phone, Tosh tells him not to answer, which Jack ignores, because, seriously, that's the quickest way to shut the damn thing up. Distorted voice on the other end tells him to stay away from the van ninjas, Jack totally ignores this, claiming "selective deafness when talking to cowards or murderers". So, right, assuming she hasn't murdered anyone, is he calling Tosh a coward? Harsh, dude. The guy on the phone tells him again to stay away from things he doesn't understand, Jack tells him he understands perfectly, thanks, and also, he's going to hunt the guy down and make him pay for all the kidnapping and murder and shit. The guy hangs up, and Jack immediately calls Ianto and tells him to trace all calls to and from the phone in the last 24 hours.

Elsewhere, Owen's self-destructive emo rampage is interrupted by a call from Jack, he answers his phone with "This is Owen's voicemail, don't leave a message", but Jack knows it's obviously not his voicemail, and if he actually wanted to ignore it, he would have not answered, so he's just being a stroppy bitch. Jack tells him to get his arse back to the Hub, they've got Weevil-nappers to hunt.

Gwen looks through the dead guy's wallet and identifies him as one Dan Hodges, born 21/1/79, salesman for "Web Publishing Software", which is the most generic name ever, and from the looks of the photo in his wallet, the guy was married with a kid. Owen points out the wedding ring on the corpses finger and tells her "No shit, Sherlock". Again; stroppy bitch. He gets on with identifying cause of death; it was a Weevil. DUH. But also, there are other bruises that look more likely to have been inflicted by humans beforehand, isn't that odd. Ianto comes into to report no luck with the phone tracking, the van ninjas planned ahead for that and blocked and erased everything. So pretty much, the van ninjas totally anticipated Jack's investigation and just left the body to try to scare him away. Jack suggests that they're using the Weevils to get away with the perfect murder: no fingerprints or recognisable DNA evidence to connect anyone to the murder. Now see, Veronica, that sounds a whole lot simpler than faking a suicide, and I bet you'd still have got an A. Owen points out the fact that this is not going to make it easy for them to track down the ninjas, Gwen notes that someone ought to tell the Hodges' family that he's dead, everyone glances around at each other and then they all look pointedly at Gwen. Heh.

So, Gwen returns from this task to the Hyena, and Owen is there too, which doesn't appear to have any basis in logic as far as I can see. Gwen complains that telling people about dead loved ones was the worst part of being a police officer, and yet it's the part that she can't get away from. Owen totally blanks her, Gwen sarcastically thanks him for his kind words of support, Owen asks what the hell she wants him to say, and Gwen, in one of her usual remarkable displays of intelligence, decides that this is a good time to have a heart to heart with Owen about Diane. Not that there would ever be a good time for that, I guess. Owen tells her "I didn't want her to go, she went." with a quite deafeningly unspoken "Now leave it the hell alone" tacked on the end. Gwen looks at him seriously and asks "Why are we still doing this?" They stare at each other for a while and then Owen shrugs "Fine, let's not. I was getting bored of your fuck tricks anyway" and gets out of the van, Gwen cries "You can be such a wanker sometimes, do you know that, Owen?" as she drives off, and he shouts "I do, as a matter of fact!" after her. Ha! OK, the self awareness is making me hate him less. And also, right, Owen was there because Gwen wanted a quickie just before or after telling a woman her husband is dead. Classy; but also, I retract my complaint about Owen's presence in the van, because it did make sense after all, and I retract previous complaints about developments in their relationship happening off screen, because it turns out there weren't any developments in any direction until now. Good scene for raising my opinions! Well done!

Owen returns to the Hub, Jack bitches at him for taking so damn long and tells him that, in his absence, Tosh has had a great idea. Owen bitches "It had to happen soon or later," Gwen immediately snaps out "Ignore him, Tosh!" and she and Owen get into another playground argument. Tosh sensibly ignores them both, and explains that the van of ninjas went straight to the warehouse after kidnapping the Weevil, so they must have known it would be empty, which Gwen concludes must mean the ninjas either own the place or had previous contact with the estate agent. I'm not entirely sure I follow the logic there, but OK. Jack tells Owen he's "going into property", Owen's all "Why me?", Tosh points out that the van ninjas would recognise her and JAck from the warehouse, and Gwen from the car park, and Ianto is just the butler. OK, she doesn't actually mention that one. Anyway, point is, they're only sending Owen in as a last resort, which has just got to make him feel special.

And suddenly the show has turned into Hustle, and Owen's doing his best impression of Danny Blue, which is no great strecth for him. His fake business is the import and export of jellied eels, which is just awesome, frankly. The estate agent guy is called Mark Lynch, and he has similar Cockney Geezer credentials to Owen, so it turns out Owen would probably have been the right choice for this job even if he wasn't the only possibility. They blather some about Owen's cover story and then while Mark's not looking, Owen gets out a device that looks like it was probably made by the same aliens as that ol' multi-purpose Optimus Prime's belt buckle, and holds it against the back of Mark's laptop. In the Hub, Tosh exposits that this will allow her Apple MacGuffin to track all activity on Mark's laptop, which is mightily convenient. There's a lame attempt to build up tension as to whether Mark will catch Owen hacking is laptop, but Tosh radios to tell him he's clear just in the nick of time. Mark brings Owen some possible locations for the transfer of his jellied eel business, Owen complains that they all look like shitholes and asks about the warehouse on the docks, claiming he saw their sign outside it. Mark tells him they've pretty much already signed a deal on that one, which Tosh reports is a total lie. Mark suggests they meet up later once he's looked for some more possibilities, and they do a little macho posturing about the "gorgeous birds" Mark has answering his phones, and Mark makes the profound observation that "It's all bollocks, really". That's just too easy.

As soon as Owen leaves, Mark goes straight to his laptop and googles him, and in the Hub, Tosh tracks him and marvels at her own brilliance in setting up Owen's fake website. It's pretty obnoxious. Mark calls the number of the "sales director" listed on the site, which goes to Tosh's phone. She answers "Harper sale, Jenny Knox speaking", Mark claims a wrong number and hangs up. Ianto's found another probable Weevil attack victim at the hospital, Jack orders Tosh to keep monitoring Mark's movements, and Ianto to come with him to the hospital. Gwen offers to join them, but Jack tells her to go home, and adds that that's an order too when she starts to protest, reminding her again of her promise.

And so Gwen goes home, and Rhys is understandably snippy with her and tells her he's going out to a friend's Stag Night. Gwen hasn't heard anything about this guy getting married, Rhys claims the guy "thought he was missing out on an excuse for a piss-up, so he's have a 'singles stag do'", which is quite obviously total bollocks. Gwen asks when he'll be back, Rhys tells her doesn't know, Gwen sadly moans that she's home tonight, he snottily tells her he isn't. I find I can't really feel sorry for her over this, no matter how much of a sad face she pulls.

Weevil Victim #2 lies in his hospital bed and telss Jack "I've already made my statement to the police", which is a pretty damn clear indication of a guilty conscience if ever I have heard one. Jack tells him he knows what did this to him, and describes a Weevil, WV2 claims that he was mugged, "they had knives". Ianto asks how come the paramedics described his wounds as "bite marks", WV2 mumbles about them getting mixed up because they're overworked or some nonsense. He knows he's lying, Jack knows he's lying, I know he's lying, which makes this all rather tedious. Jack makes an appeal to the dude's conscience by telling him the Weevil will claim more victims if he keeps holding back, WV2 honestly actually says "I can't. They'll kill me." Dude, come on. Jack asks who will kill him, WV2 tells him "everyone" and that amazing enlightenment is apparently a good enough place to end the scene. I'd object, but stretching this scene out further certainly wouldn't improve matters, so whatever.

Torchwood Cells, Ianto tells Tosh what just happened in the previous scene just in case you dozed off for a second there, and Jack decides they only have option left; they're taking one of their pet Weevils (which Jack has named 'Janet', rather adorably) out for a walk.

So, Jack's put tracking devices on Janet and is planning to release her into the wild so the van ninjas can capture her, Tosh objects that Janet could kill a whole bunch of people before the ninjas get to her, but hey, acting irresponsibly with reckless disregard for human life is the Torchwood way! Plus, the plan is to follow close behind Janet in the Hyena, so they probably should be able to stop her from killing people. Except that monkey rather gets a wrench thrown in it when Janet starts ducking into alleyways that are far to narrow for the Hyena to fit into. She's a wily one.

Meanwhile, Owen and Mark are out drinking, as previously planned, and they just so happen to have chosen the same bar that Owen was drowning his sorrows in earlier, and the boyfriend goon shows up with a few of his mates to have another go at Owen, which is a fight Mark is all too willing to get into alongside Owen, despite Goon Boyfriend clarifying quite explicitly that his beef is with Owen only. And, presumably, this isn't a random coincidence, and Owen deliberately chose this bar in the hope that this would happen in a cunning attempt to appeal to the homoerotic testosterone-fuelled bullshit side of Mark's character. And since that is the onlyside Mark's character has, it works out pretty well for him.

Jack and Tosh are running after Janet when the ninjas show up to take her off their hands. Jack quickly pulls Tosh back to hide from them. Behind a chain-link fence, which is made of, like, 90% air. And anyway, the van ninjas have already seen Jack chasing after Weevils, and they know Tosh is working with him, so why even bother hiding? Tosh demands to know exactly where they stand on certain moral issues; "We would never deliberately put a human being through that! But Weevils are fair game, is that right?" She sure didn't get the whole "aliens are the enemy" part of the manifesto, did she? Total toaster lover, right there. Jack is all "I did what I had to" and runs back to the waiting Hyena, Tosh stands around looking conflicted.

Mark takes Owen back to his "gaffe", and takes his shirt off for no discernable reason other than the fact that some people only appreciate the incredible gayness when it's subtextual, which this show really hasn't done a great deal of, previously, but MAN, are they making up for that here. Also, so we can see the big scratches on his back, obviously from Weevil fights. Owen starts beating the crap out of Mark's punching bag, in a continued appeal to his only side. Mark asks him what his outlet is for his anger, Owen pretends not to know what he's talking about, Mark is, like, "Dude, you don't even live here and you already have people assaulting you as soon as you set foot in a bar." You know, I think maybe that right there is pretty obviously his outlet. Blah blah nihilistic macho posturing-cakes for far, far too long, plus a pretty out of place "something coming in the darkness" reference because, oh shit, we've only got a couple of episodes left and we've only mentioned that once so far which just isn't good enough for a running creepy message.

Oh, but this scene is awesome though; Gwen pours a couple of drinks, one for herself, one for Rhys, who has presumably just returned from the "singles stag do". Gwen sits awkwardly on the sofa, Rhys joins her, and they both take sips from their drinks to steel themselves for the conversation that they are about to have, which has been a long time coming, and it seems like it's fairly obvious what is going to happen here. Rhys starts first, but Gwen talks over him; "I need to tell you something." And, sounding almost bored, she confesses that she's been sleeping with someone from work, "he's a bit of a tosser actually, and it's all going to stop, but, uh..." Rhys tells her to shut up, and protests that she wouldn't do that. Gwen tells him "But I have", and Rhys is thrown and asks why she's telling him this, and Gwen stands up and starts pacing as she explains that she's ashamed of herself and she wants, no, needs him to forgive her. Oh, and also, she slipped Retcon in his drink, so he'd better hurry up and forgive her before it takes effect. Rhys calls her a selfish bitch as he collapses back onto the sofa, and Gwen grabs his head and starts slapping him around, demanding and pleading with him to forgive her as he drifts into unconsciousness. So yeah, quite aside from the awesome left hook out of nowhere of that reveal, because, man, I did not see that coming at all, there's some pretty great elegant symmetry going down here, because this sounds remarkably similar to the beginnings of Suzie's descent into madness, Retconning someone so you can get all your sins out without having to deal with the consequences. Now that's evolution for you.

Continuing the stunning level of attention put into ensuring that this storyline can in no way be considered original, Owen has gone snooping around Mark's gaffe under the cunning pretext of looking for a bathroom. Mark's helpfully signposted the door Owen needs to look behind by putting a big honking padlock on it, but it still takes him three tries before he gets the right one. And behind door number three, after a little pointless attempted suspense-building, Owen finds a battered Weevil chained up and snarling. Mark enters and Owen attempts to excuse himself with the quite reasonable "I couldn't resist a padlock", but Mark's not interested in his excuses, he just wants to know what Owen thinks of the Weevil. Owen gives a pretty convincingly shocked "What is it?", Mark tells him he doesn't have a clue, but presents a few theories; "scientific experiment gone wrong? Nuclear victim?" and, with a derisive snort, "one of the lads even reckons it's an alien". I see no particular reason why he finds that any less plausible than anything else, which makes this "haha, the truth is staring him in the face and he thinks it is stupid" thing just annoying. Mark's personal belief is that it's what humanity will have evolved to in a thousand years time, "when all we have left is our rage". Yeah, that's certainly a lot less retarded than "it's an alien". Owen muses that that's not exactly a comforting thought, and Mark suddenly orders him to punch it. Owen asks why, Mark tells him "that's what it's there for" and when Owen continues to hesitate, he starts beating the poor thing up himself. After a few seconds, Owen's had enough and yells at him to stop, saying "it's not exactly putting up a fight". Mark claims that "everybody needs a punching bag", and I'm sure if they'd met him, it'd have his face on it, and then asks Owen who he is, pointing out that "it'd be pretty stupid not to assume you're not connected to those two in the black SUV". I'd give him credit for not being a total moron there, except he fucked it up with a ridiculous double negative. He makes fun of the whole 'jellied eels' idea, Owen stops feigning ignorance and snits "I wasn't that bad," and Mark gives a delivery that makes "Pretty much you were" a lot more hilarious than it seems like it should be on paper. Mark goes on to complain about them fucking up his plans, although how they've done that at this point is totally unclear to me.

Owen asks about Dead Dan Hodges, Mark claims he's "not responsible for other people's life choices", and asks why they took the body themselves instead of going to the cops, giving Owen an unmissable opportunity to put on his "fuck tha police" hat once more and get back with the macho bullshit bonding once more. Mark asks again who he is, Owen shows him his gun (yes, absolutely like that, I'd say), which Mark disdainfully informs him is decidedly the wrong answer. So Owen pulls it out and throws it away with a shrug. Mark starts manhandling him and says these exact words; "Good boy. We're finally getting somewhere. Now you're just you. Stripping things back to the core." And, seriously, they're not going to start making out at any point in this episode? Are you sure this is Torchwood? Owen asks again why he killed Dan Hodges, Mark assures him that he didn't and not just in the sense of "technically, the Weevil did it". Owen asks Mark to tell him what did happen, then, and Mark's like, "Dude! Show, don't tell, remember? This episode is already bad enough!"

Hub. Gwen's brought pizza, but nobody is around to share it with her. Wow, that was a short scene.

Meanwhile, the members of the crew who aren't having an existential crisis, or are at least putting it on the back burner this week, have tracked down the tracer they put on Janet, only it's not so much attached to her anymore, but rather, a small piece of cloth that I guess was torn off her clothes. And hey, the fact that Weevils wear clothes? Kind of weird, thinking about it. Jack's pretty upset, because this means they have nothing; "no clue where they are, or what they're doing." He's sure displaying a lot of faith in Owen's abilities, there. Not that I blame him.

In Mark's car, Owen and Mark watch a bunch of guys (because self-destructive emo angst of this caliber is a purely masculine pursuit oh yes sir I can't believe they made Starbuck into a girl WTF IS THIS SHIT) slowly trickle into to an inconspicuous building, which is precisely as exciting as it sounds. That might be overcompensating on the 'show, don't tell' thing, guys. It's boring enough for Owen to say "screw this" and just head in after them.

Hub. Gwen eats, like, a single mouthful of pizza and then sits and cries alone, in the dark. SO FUCKIN' EMO. And then she gets a text, except not, because it's actually Dead Dan Hodges' phone going off (unlike his main ring tone, his text message tone is just a generic 'ping', so her confusion there isn't a reason to direct further ire her way). What is a reason for further ire, however, is the fact that Gwen takes frickin' ages to actually pick up the damn thing. The message just says "CF10 6BY", which is evidently the postcode of the secret meeting place Owen went to, and for a group that were supposed to be wowing us with their mad ninja organisational skillz earlier, it's pretty sloppy of them to send the message to a guy they know is dead and has been picked up by Torchwood. Gwen's happy for something to take her mind off her angst and springs into action, checking out the postcode and finding a place there owned by "Lynch-Frost", which is Mark's estate agent company, as well as a shout out to the creators of Twin Peaks, apparently. And then there's a funny little bit where Gwen starts to radio the news to Jack, then suddenly stops, along with the OMG Tension music, when she realises she's not actually wearing one of their Bluetooth headset things, and has to spend a moment rooting around the desk for it. Nice.

In the Hyena, Jack receives Gwen's call and bitches at her again for not being home when she's supposed to be. Gwen ignores this and tells him her discoveries, he says they'll pick her up on the way. Ianto realises out loud that "people get an alert by text message, and they head to a property", and Tosh further clarifies that it's "a property Mark Lynch knows is empty". Thanks, guys, I really had no idea what the hell was going on here until you explained that!

So, inside the secret meeting place, Muse's "Assassin" is blaring out and guys are beating the crap out of each other, which Mark explains is a "warm up". Owen asks who "these blokes" are, Mark tells him that, like Owen and Mark, they are "Ordinary blokes trying to find meaning in a world that doesn't have any." By beating the crap out of each other, and later Weevils, and keeping all of this secret from the outside world. Now, I've never actually seen (or read) Fight Club, but as I understand, if you take out the Weevils, this is basically the exact same story in every respect, no? Mark babbles some more about how terribly nihilistic he is, but lets skip ahead to the part where there's a guy in a cage with an unchained Weevil, with a timer counting up how long he lasts. Which, in this case, is about ten seconds before he calls the guards standing by outside to cattleprod the Weevil away and let him out. Mark, speaking quickly, yet still coherently enough to fit this exposition into approximately a tenth of a second, explains to Owen that it costs £1000 to enter the cage, and whoever lasts longest wins all the money for the night. Owen asks, once again, what happened to Dan Hodges, and, of course, what happened was he stood in the middle of the cage and just let the Weevil maul him before anyone could stop it. "And still you all come back," Owen sneers as he starts to walk away, disgusted. Mark calls "What else is there?" after him, Owen yells that more people will die, and it has to stop.

Mark chases him and asks him "How long are you going to keep hiding?" Seriously, has anything ever been more homoerotic than this? He pulls out his own weapon, now (again, it's totally like that), and orders Owen to get in the cage. Owen calmly tells him that he won't do it if Mark's going to point a gun at him, and coolly walks towards him, and Mark relents and puts his gun back in his trousers. Owen whispers back the "good boy" and strides purposefully towards the cage, taking off his jacket and asking what's the longest anyone has lasted in there. Mark tells him "That would be Dan Hodges", which is not actually answering the question, and then pulls Owen back to tell him to look into the Weevil's eyes, "It's like looking into the darkest recesses of your own soul" and OH MY GOD, would you just shut up with all the emo crap already. Seriously, even I have my limits.

So, Owen's locked in the cage with a Weevil, and they stare each other down, and then he glances quickly to Mark, who nods, and then he closes his eyes and starts, like, meditating or something. But then Jack bursts in and fires a shot into the air, which totally breaks Owen's concentration and he ends up on the floor with the Weevil ripping his throat out. And Gwen uselessly can't get the door open, even though it's just a basic bolt latch, so Jack has to shoot the Weevil in the arm to stop it killing Owen, and all the nihilists mill around chaotically. Jack wheels on Mark and yells that what happened to Owen is his fault, but Mark, looking shellshocked, blankly says "He did it to himself. He had no fear." Jack yells to the crowd that it's over now, and they'd better leave the Weevils alone, and while he's not paying attention, Mark locks himself in the cage. Jack asks him what the hell he's doing, Mark repeats "It's over now" to him, and Jack just shrugs and lets the Weevil kill him. Showing how far she's come, for better or worse, Gwen doesn't even bat an eyelid at this.

Later, Owen's patched up in hospital. Jack tosses him some grapes, Owen tells him "You shouldn't have. No, really, you shouldn't. I hate grapes." Jack tells him the doctors say he'll be allowed to leave soon, Owen blows that off to get to the real meat of the scene; "I didn't want saving." Jack disbelievingly asks if he wants an apology, Owen continues: "For a few seconds in that cage, I felt totally at peace. And then you blunder in. Do you always know best, Jack? Is that what you believe?" Jack squares his jaw and tells Owen he expects him back at work tomorrow, as usual, not actually dealing with the problem in any useful way.

Over on the TWoP thread, ceindreadh made an excellent observation about this scene, and I don't think I could say it any better, so I'll just quote; "Jack - in Owen's opinion - doesn't have enough faith in him to let him finish his undercover mission without bursting in. Owen had the Weevil situation under control until Jack distracted him (something I didn't pick up on until the second viewing, originally I was going with 'suicidal Owen didn't want to be rescued', then I realized it was 'in control Owen who didn't need to be rescued'.)"

Back at work, Owen goes down to the cells to confront the Weevils, and they snarl and growl at him, and after pausing for a moment, Owen puts a hand to his chest and snarls right back at them, and they shrink back into the corners of their cells, moaning. Owen smiles, content with the knowledge that he is the alpha male here.

Next time: "Out Of Time", but in reverse. Still awesome.