The Wonders I've Seen

Merry Xmas Everybody

2007-12-31T05:51:00.000Z

...And a happy new year. Yep, I'm still alive. I'm moving on over to Wordpress, where you might just find a couple of brand spanking new recaps. More to come soon. Really. I mean it this time.

Holy Frelling Dren.

2007-07-18T19:41:00.000+01:00

There will be new Farscape. THERE WILL BE NEW FARSCAPE.

I'm too ecstatic right at the moment to consider the details of it all, but I expect to remain cautiously optimistic that this could herald the return of more new Farscape further down the line.

NEW. FARSCAPE. It's been nearly five years since the series was cancelled. And there will be new Farscape.

Today is a good day.

Gender Bombs

2007-07-08T01:16:00.000+01:00

Sugar Rush 2x03 - "Cock And Bull Stories"

Episode grade: B+

Previously: Saint is pretty awesome! And Sugar is still wasting away in prison, sigh.

Now, Kim is hanging around the Munch Box, playing with a whip and grinning mischeviously. That is certainly a good way to get my attention focused on this episode right away. KimVo proudly proclaims "It's been 48 hours, and I still haven't fucked it up yet." Kim should totally get one of those "[37] days since employee death" signs. "[02] days since I last sabotaged my own happiness for some stupid reason." Or just "[2] days", because she really would never need the second digit. "I'd already negotiated the most difficult question of any new relationship," KimVo continues; said question turns out to be, apparently, "lesbian outhouse or multiplex?" Right. Kim chose the worng answer, because the film they ended up seeing was reportedly awful, but that really doesn't make it the wrong answer as far as I can see. KimVo slightly awkwardly exposits that she and Saint haven't slept together yet, like DUH, that is obviously going to happen onscreen. Or, like, just to the side of the screen or onscreen but really, really blurry, or whatever way they decide to make it tasteful. You know, as this show goes, anyway. Kim's rather apprehensive about that subject right now, because "satisfying the girl who works in a sex shop was a frightening prospect." And she's been invited to Saint's place (which turns out to be right above the Munch Box) for lunch, "whatever that means." Kim whips her own hand rather too hard and winces in pain, but Saint's too busy serving a customer to see. Nonetheless, KimVo expresses concern about her inexperience with any of the crap that Saint sells, and we get a little Kim Fantasy Theatre for old times' sake; Saint's all decked up in crazy bordello gear and babbles something about black cherries and clit pumps and whatever, Kim looks positively terrified.

Record scratch back to reality; Saint, all decked up in normal people clothes, asks if she wants tuna or ham in her sandwiches; Kim picks tuna. (Hee hee. Subtle.) Kim makes a fairly lame attempt at small talk; "So, it must be convenient living here. You don't have far to go." Saint agrees and jokes that it's also handy because she can pop upstairs for a quickie with any customers that happen to take her fancy. Kim nervously says "That wass a joke, right?", Saint quite rightly chuckles "God, you're paranoid", and then suddenly affects a face of grim seriousness and says "Maybe." Kim rabbits in the headlights some more.

Later, Kim's perched on the very edge of the sofa, ready to bolt at the slightest movement, next to Saint, who is taking a relaxed sip from a gigantic mug of tea. Seriously, it's bigger than her head. I WANT ONE. Kim suddenly blurts out "So, how d'you want to do this?" Saint gives her an eyebrow raise and grins because our Kimmy is just so damn cute when she's completely out of her element like this. Kim realises off Saint's grin that she's fucking up here, but also realises that Saint doesn't mind. Saint kindly tells her they don't have to do anything except sit there and watch TV, if she's not ready, and so that's what they do, Kim resting her head on Saint's chest adorably. Awwwwwwww. And then she slowly reaches out and brushes her hand against Saint's knee, traces it across to Saint's hand and brings that up to her own face. And then slowly, achingly slowly, glacially slowly, they turn, and kiss, and we've got the ethereal music going and all, and it's so intimate and so wonderful.

I'm going to skip ahead a little here, because I just want to keep watching this next sequence forever, and if I attempt to recap the details, I probably will. Plus there's no way I can formulate the words to do it justice, you know? So we'll just go with this; They make love. It is the best possible description of what is happening right here. "That wasn't half as scary as I thought it was going to be", Kim admits, and the two of them bask in the afterglow.

Ballymeade. Kim's come along to boast, really, but only in body language. Sugar's looking thoroughly miserable, Kim assures her, as usual, that she'll be fine, "I thought you'd be pleased to be getting out of here!" Oh, she is? That is good news! Because two episodes was about the limit for the interesting storyline prospects of Sugar in jail, really. "You don't have a fat arse, you don't have a heroin habit," Kim continues, because of course she remembers every detail of that night. Sugar complains that, on the other hand, her tits have totally given up the ghost due to lack of attention and pokes dejectedly at them in demonstration. Kim breezily tells her she's just got to chuck herself back out there, take it one day at a time, take the good with the bad, hope springs eternal, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and everything will work out fine in the end, so just chill. Sugar finally notices Kim's blinding luminosity and yells "You've had a shag, haven't you?" Kim instinctively denies it, Sugar declares her to be extremely obvious and suddenly grabs her hand, demanding to smell her fingers. Um. Kim jerks away and then relents and stops trying to hide the glow. Sugar, a little bit too casually, asks "What's this one like then, you serious about her?" Kim, a lot more convincingly than usual, lies that she is just "picking them up, moving on." I know you don't want to hurt Sugar's feelings and all, Kim, which of course it would, even if she'd never admit it, and plus you are something of a pathological liar, but that's not really going to fly once Sugar is out of prison and totally able to observe with her own eyes that you are totally crazy about this Saint chick.

Anyway, now we are flashing back to some more post-coital serenity. Kim absently traces her finger over Saint's tattoos and asks her how many people she's had up here. "Only you," Saint says earnestly. "Or 365." Kim's all faux-haughtily "Oh, so it's like that then", and then Saint admits that neither is true, "but at the moment? Only you." And if you have read this and you have read this, then you can probably imagine the expression on my face right now. It is, in fact, remarkably similar to the one that Kim is sporting right now. Saint adds "I don't do this all the time, you know", Kim replies that she certainly doesn't, "Only twice, in fact." "Anna and...?" Aw, shit, I was getting tto caught up in the moment, and totally failed to realise that Kim hasn't even STARTED on that whole minefield yet. I'm worried. Don't let me down, Kim! Kim says "Oh, nobody you know." OK, that's fair enough, I guess. "Sugar," Kim continues, and then sort of shrugs her face and LIES "Don't really see her any more." She's definitely getting better at lying; there is a little telltale twitching and looking away, but that could easily be taken as simple nostalgia for her first time. Also, it looks like we're well on the way to setting that counter back to [0], guys!

Speaking of conversational minefields, let's head on back to Ballymeade and see what those two crazy kids are up to now! Smoking. Tut tut. Also, Sugar puts on her full bravado about how wonderful it is that Kim is "getting [her] end away", because it stops her mooning after Sugar so much and they can still totally be BFFs. Which Sugar is in dire need of, given that Kim is the only person who has ever visited her for her entire 18 month sentence. Kim brushes that off with a dismissive "That's not true", and Sugar doesn't even bother to argue, but, I mean, what if it is? Put yourself in Sugar's shoes there; that is going to affect you. Sugar, as lightly, casually as she can manage, tells Kim that as she clearly enjoys seeing so much of Sugar while she's in the slammer, she won't mind seeing more of her once she's out. Kim agrees without a moment's hesitation, obviously, and Sugar, tacitly acting like Kim hass already agreed to it, asks "So, can I stay then?"

So many masks being worn all over the place; Sugar's got the one she almost never takes off, and then this much more awkward one right here trying to pretend that Kim hasn't become the whole world to her. Kim's got her quiet desperation to keep Sugar and the past well away from Saint and the future. She doesn't realise it on a conscious level, but Kim really, really isn't happy about Sugar being released. Saint's got all her little teasing jokes with Kim and... well, we don't know her well enough to know what else. Right now, she could just as well be Beth, who never stayed around long enough for the cracks to show, but from the words "Sarah Jane Potts" written in the opening credits we know that Saint's in for the long haul, and something is going to give, very soon.

"So, can I stay then?" So many masks being shed right now, while Kim and Sugar stare into each other's eyes, daring the other to look away. Sugar ups the ante; "I haven't got anywhere else to go, Kizz", and that is enough to make Kim fold. "You know, that might be a bit difficult," she admits. Sugar quite ludicrously asks if Nathan is the cause of this difficulty, like he'd ever take enough of a hardline stance to cause a difficulty in this scenario. Also, we're getting close to the halfway point of this episode, and Stella and Nathan have not appeared yet, and I only just noticed. That is how much I am watching this show for their storylines. Kim shakes her head, and Sugar laughs "You then?" Kim just stares, unable to come up with the words. It's exactly like the time she finally came out to Sugar. Another staring contest ensues, and Sugar folds first this time; "It's alright, uh, Karen's getting out this week too, I can just kip with her." Kim smiles thankfully.

And heeeeeere's Nathan with the ironic juxtaposition! "So, does Sugar have any special dietary requirements?" Does she like tuna or ham, is what he is really asking. Matt deadpans "She only eats cock" and Stella giggles. Go away, Matt, you're ruining the subtlety. Kim complains that she hasn't actually agreed to let Sugar stay, but there's a telling "yet" on the end of that sentence. Nathan asks if she doesn't think it's a bit harsh, "dumping her when she needs you the most". Kim tells him that she's not dumping, she's just "taking a back seat for a while." Nathan's all "Does she have anywhere else to go?", Kim rants that it's Sugar's own fault that she's in prison and storms out. "If only she could have stayed in there another couple of months," KimVo sighs, so I guess I was way off the mark with that whole "doesn't realise it on a conscious level" thing. Huh.

CC! You set the fire in me! Kim watches Saint doing her DJ thang and rockin' her signature beret. Anna appears to once again personify Kim's paranoia. Dammit, I could have sworn we were shot of her already. Grrrr. So, she tries to make Kim worry that Saint is actually something of a ham fan, with the usual "Oh, I'm sorry, I'd have thought she'd have told you by now" bullshit, to which Kim fantastically responds "I think she was too busy telling me she wanted to fuck me." Hell yeah! Anna stalks off into the shadows, and this time it's the last we'll see of her, OK. I'm sure of it. Outside, Saint tells Kim she has an early start tomorrow, "but I'll give you a call, yeah?" They kiss, and Saint wishes her sweet dreams. "Never been sweeter," KimVo grins. Right on!

Next morning, Kim's walking down the street, carrying two cups of coffee, being obnoxiously cheerful to random strangers. I don't remember the last time we saw her this happy, so of course everything's about to come crashing down very soon, just like it always does. But first Kim's got to spread the happiness around as much as she can. She's so selfless like that. So, Sugar is indeed going to be staying at Kim's, and we all know that's going to be crazy awesome. And as soon as Kim has announced her relentment, Sugar's mask of bravado comes straight back on and she's making demands, because this means she's in charge of the situation again; "You'll pick me up, in a car that is, and I'm not going down on you, alright?" KimVo gives herself the appropriate deathblow as she enters the house above the Munch Box; "I'd found the perfect girlfriend." So of course, the door is opened by some sweaty dude in a white t-shirt. He and Kim stare in confusion, Saint appears, equally sweaty, and in the process of either removing or putting on a jumper. She and Sweaty Dude share a significant glance, then burst into a fit of giggles. Kim does not share their mirth.

Later, we've got Nouvelle Vague, who have their music all over this show, doing their version of the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen In Love?", which is really quite an amazing cover. Kim's down at the pier, throwing balls at tin cans with extreme prejudice, while KimVo announces that she is "sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why they were both semi-naked [that's... really stretching the truth, honestly], soaking wet, giggling like idiots." Which you apparently didn't try, y'know, actually asking for. Honestly, Kim, sometimes I think you kind of deserve all the shit that routinely gets heaped all over you. "Surely I hadn't found myself another Sugar," KimVo moans, as stupid Anna's stupid words echo in her mind. Back at the Upper Munch Box, Saint introduces Sweaty Dude as Mark, and he explains that he was "just fixing the boiler", to which Saint playfully hits him and says "Yeah, right!", adds "he's an old friend" and starts giggling again. OK, even if Kim's totally got the wrong end of the stick, you're being kind of cruel to her here. Don't tell me you haven't noticed that stony expression on her face.

On the beach now, Saint comes over to smooth things over with Kim, finally, while Mark goes off to get get drinks for Kim and "Sarah". Saint asks what the problem is, exactly, and Kim, realising it all sounds pretty stupid and petty while she's saying it, but careening onwards to the end of the sentence anyway explains; "I didn't know you had an ex. Well, no, I assumed you would have an ex, but I thought maybe he would be a she. I didn't know you were called Sarah, either." Saint apologises for not telling Kim what was going on earlier, but tells her she and Mark were never serious, and they haven't seen each other in ages, "but I didn't know who else to call". To fix your boiler? Try the Yellow Pages, dear. Yeah, there's something decidedly suspicious about that, I must admit. Also, as Kim observes on his return; Mark has the same dotted swastika tattoo as Saint. "'Never serious', my arse", are Kimvo's words, and I think that sums it up pretty well.

"So, Kim, you're a student?" says Mark on his return, trying to warm up the icy chill in the air. Kim tries hard to mask her anger and disdain as she responds "And you're a plumber." Mark corrects her; he's actually an architect, and asks which university she's at. Saint corrects him; "Actually, Kim's still doing her A levels". Mark's all "Oh, that's when I met Sarah, at sixth form college!" and the two of them start bantering about The Good Old Days, until Saint notices Kim's discomfort. In her crazy obsessive jealous fantasy world, Kim throws her coke in Mark's face; in the real world, she asks him to pass her a straw, while KimVo hilariously rants "He was a proper adult, with a proper job, and a proper penis. Let's face it, I couldn't compete." Let's not be hasty, now. Kim and Mark shake hands and affirm that it was nice meeting each other, though KimVo does not share the sentiment. Saint tells Kim "I'll see you later", Kim gets all upset because she thought she was supposed to have a monopoly on Saint's time today, Saint says "I can't just drag him all the way out here and then desert him!" And, once again; if you had to "drag him all the way out here", then... well, the guy's got to have some seriously impressive skills at fixing boilers, that's all I'm saying. Saint assures Kim that she'll get Saint all to herself later and then departs. KimVo worries about "how long it would be before she missed men. How long it would be before she missed..."

"COCK!" Sugar continues, still in ol' Ballymeade, of course. "That's what it comes down to, isn't it? Plus, this whole lesbian thing's not really natural. Even cavemen know that if you wanna get a fire going? You need a stick, and a hole." You know, I'm pretty sure that rubbing two sticks together is supposed to be just as effective, actually. "I mean, I suppose it's alright to experiment, like I did with you, and you did with Tom, but you can't swing both ways forever, you've gotta land somewhere." So, why are we assuming that Saint hasn't already landed the same way as Kim, exactly? "And trust me, once you've had a nice, hard cock, there's no way you want to stick your lips around a load of fish. Fish, with toilet paper stuck to it. Eugggh." I don't think there's really much I can say to all that.

"Talking of being mad for cock, Stella was meeting our new neighbours." Oh, how I've missed those glorious segues. So, new neighbour is a fitness instructor named Ted (and his wife, and who knows what the hell her name is, but she doesn't have a proper penis, so why would we care?). Stella flirts away, Nathan looks on, trying to trust, but probably not succeeding.

"Some women just can't help themselves," KimV(em)o continues, "sometimes life seems to give you everything just so it can take it away again." KIM! Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself; either accept the explanation Saint has given you, and be happy, or don't, explain why not, and demand a better one. It's not that hard, c'mon. There's a knock at the door, Kim says "Hi, dad", and, on his questioning, explains that she knew it was him because no one else knocks. I like that. They both lie to each other that they are totally fine and have not a care in the world, and then Kim roundaboutly asks for his advice, which he gives; "In the end, love is about sticking your neck on the line, knowing that it's probably going to get chopped off." Well, that is pretty much exactly the answer I would expect out of Nathan.

"So there I was. Sticking my neck on the line again." Saint and Kim are sharing another tender moment in bed; Saint gives Kim a present. Aaaand... it's a strap-on. Well, that's a fantastically stupid way of reaffirming Kim's penis envy.

Meanwhile, back at Manse Daniels, Nathan passive-agressives "The new neighbours seem nice, don't they?" Stella disinterestedly says "Yeah, I suppose," Nathan belabours the point as much as possible before finally coming right out and saying "You were kind of flirting with him. Do you have to do that?" Stella assures him, dripping with fake sincerity, that she is "with you, and only you, OK? You're just going to have to trust me." Nathan sighs and sticks his neck on the line, again.

Kim yawns and stretches in Saint's bed, and then hears the door closing and gets out of bed. "You'd better be making me breakfast, and you'd better be bringing it back to bed," she says, having apparently put all the doubts out of her head again, so of course it turns out to be Mark who just walked in. He explains that he came back to check the boiler, Kim hysterically rants "There's nothing wrong with the bloody boiler! Hey, would I be standing here in my underwear if I was cold?" Mark, at this, fully takes in the fact that Kim is indeed standing there in her underwear, looking... not cold. Awkward. She asks how he got in; he has his own set of keys. Naturally.

So, Kim storms into the Munch Box, where Saint is idly flicking through a book, and informs her that "this isn't funny any more." Saint denies Kim's accusations that she is still sleeping with Mark, which sends Kim off on a totally insane tirade. "You're not a lesbian at all! You're addicted to cock! And this is all just one big cover up for the customers. 'Oh, of course I'm gay, you bunch of sad, dried up old queers!'" She grabs a huge rubber cock for emphasis. "'Please buy my dildos!'" Saint just glances over at a couple of sad, dried up old queers who have been in the shop the whole time, and do not look particularly impressed; Kim gives an embarrassed "Hi, there" and storms outside, where she gets funny looks on account of the fact that she is still holding her emphatic dildo.

Ever fallen in love with someone, ever fallen in love, in love with someone, ever fallen in love? In love with someone you shouldn't've fallen in love with? Manse Daniels. Nathan appears to be helping Matt with some maths homework. Kim marches in, slams the cock down on the table in front of them, yells "Don't ask!" and stomps upstairs. Matt inspects it curiously for a while and then asks "Is it supposed to be that big?" Nathan mutters "Hope not, Matt. Hope not." then gets back to what he was doing. Hee.

Kim sits in her room, dejectedly. There's a knock at the door, and she yells "No, I don't want to explain to you how to use it, and no, you can't use it on Stella." It... doesn't seem like the kind of thing that require a great deal of explanation, as far as I can see. But, anyway, Saint asks "Who's Stella?", for it is she who is at the door. Jump forward in time what can't be more than a few seconds, for some unknown reason; Saint is now sitting on Kim's bed beside her. Kim admits that she might have said a few things that were slightly out of order, and yes, that includes the part where she accused Saint of pretending to be a lesbian. "He's clearly still in love with you," Kim pouts, which is pretty much one of those "I cannot comprehend other people believing something different to what I believe" things, because he really, really isn't. Saint tells Kim that there's plenty of stuff she doesn't know about, either, and they both agree that they are having a good time together and Kim really ought to stop worrying.

But then it's time for one of the things Saint doesn't know about to rear it's ugly head; a parole officer or whatever is here to confirm things about the living arrangements with Sugar; "I understand she'll be sharing a room with you, Kim?" Saint overhears, and quite reasonably objects to Kim's massive hypocrisy vis á vis exes and how much they are allowed to continue to be a part of one's life, and doesn't bother to stick around to hear an explanation. Not that Kim has anything much to say in her defence, of course.

Ballymeade. I don't really know why that wasn't the end of the episode right there, it would make far more sense from a storytelling perspective, the way I see it. But any way, Sugar is excited at the prospect of being out on the town once more, Kim does not even vaguely try to display enthusiasm or even pay attention to Sugar. Sugar figures that the whole "Picking them up and moving on" thing was pretty much a barefaced lie, and gently broaches this topic. Well, for Sugar, anyway. Kim admits that that is not so much the case, Sugar points out that if Saint cares so much about who will be in Kim's bedroom, it means that... well, she cares. That's gotta be something.

Sugar packs up her stuff to get out of jail (finally), including photographs, of which Kim appears to be present in every single one (aw, yeah). "Sugar had finally served her time," KimVo concludes, "but my punishment was just beginning." Is this going to be kinky? I get the feeling this is going to be kinky. "Repeat after me: 'I am a hypocritical cow'". Saint's god the riding crop out. It is going to be kinky. Kim repeats, and Saint goes on "'who must learn to trust her girlfriend'". Kim, sounding rather pleased with herself, repeats that last word in a questioning tone. Saint immediately wheels around and glares at her; Kim hurriedly agrees that she will indeed do that thing, very much so, ma'am, and then asks if the trust is reciperocated. Saint just reminds her that she is letting Sugar stay in Kim's room, which leads Kim to recall an important thing she was supposed to be doing right about now. Saint asks if she has to go; Kim, who we can now see is handcuffed to the chair she is sitting on, points out that she is fairly incapable of doing so right now, and they both giggle.

Cut to Sugar, standing outside the prison in the cold, cursing Kim's name. And that's a wrap.

Jane She Got Excavated

2007-06-28T22:09:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I added post labels! I'm sure that has improved this blog tremendously. I'm probably going to do something about that lame-ass side bar soon because right now it's pretty worthless.
Look! ------------>

Also, I have hopped on a bandwagon and will be writing about every song ever recorded by the band Marillion, and you will find all of that here.

You might think it's stupid to commit myself to writing a post every day given my hopeless ability to stick to schedule here, and that this will slow me down on writing recaps even more, but... I have my own theory. We'll see how it goes.

Play That Funky Music, White Boy

2007-06-26T00:39:00.000+01:00

Skins 1x03 - "Jal"

Episode Grade: C

Previously, Sid's in love with Michelle, which is a terrible shame, because Michelle's in love with Tony. And that's a terrible shame because Tony is mostly in love with Tony. And Sid and Tony are good friends. Really good friends, if you catch my drift. So, it's more of a real love triangle instead of a love V-shape like most of them tend to be. And I'm sure most of those could probably be solved if people would accept the threesome as a valid long-term relationship plan, but alas, most humans just haven't progressed to that Cylon level. Also previously, Sid was and still is being hunted with extreme prejudice by a man who managed to stand out as being the most irritating thing in an episode that involved Tony yakking on the phone for a few hours and Harry Enfield using "James Blunt" as rhyming slang.

We Plink Plink Plink! Plink! Plink! our way into a close up of Jal's eyes, and an offscreen voice tells her "No repeats. Don't get ahead." Jal starts playing her clarinet, and we zoom out to see this in case we do not know what a clarinet sounds like and have quite reasonably forgetten that she was also playing the clarinet when we first saw her, being as it was part of the Tony Is A Smug Git montage. She is soon joined in both sound and vision by the rest of the orchestra, who are, unlike her, an absolute shambles. The music teacher who is attempting to conduct the rabble yells "No, mezzo. Fucking mezzo, for fuck's sake!" See, because she is sort of posh, and using fancy musical terms, and yet she is swearing at the same time. It's a humourous juxtaposition indeed. I'm sure it will be a lot more humourous if we repeat it five or six times in the next ten seconds. Anyway, Jal tries her hardest to hold it all together for the rest of the orchestra, or maybe just block out the distraction of their uselessness, but either way, she's fighting a losing battle. According to her myspace, Jal likes the correlation between maths and music – Pythagorean triples – "my friend Cassie knows what I mean". Oh, mmm. Maths and music, science and art. Truth and beauty. It's a fine dichotomy indeed, and I love that she has the sense to realise that Cassie gets it. That Cassie gets things at all, outside of her own crazy little wild world. Cassie and Jal are probably the most intelligent of our kids, in their own ways; she might be the clarinet player, but Jal's clearly the maths/science/truth to Cassie's music/art/beauty. OK, Tony's levels of skill at manipulating clearly require a pretty keen mind too. He probably falls more on Cassie's end of the scale; there is a certain artistry to what he does, even if it is about as far removed from beauty as you can possibly get. It's possible I may be moving off point a little bit here, so let's get back to what's actually going down on screen.

Right, some time during all of that, the rest of the orchestra managed to slip away, leaving Jal alone with the music teacher, who is being encouraging about Jal's ability to win the competition she's entering. A camp Welsh chap enters to delicately raise the point that he's noticed the swearing during the orchestra's practice is a little excessive, and during this conversation they helpfully name each other as Doug and Claire. I'll leave you to fill in the obvious joke about filling in which is which. It's a really crappy joke, by the way, I hope you are ashamed of yourself. Claire promises to have a word with the orchestra about the swearing, which Jal finds highly amusing. Some exposition is clumsily delivered about Jal being a Young Musician Of The Year finalist, Doug ensures again that Claire will deal with the swearing and leaves, and Claire and Jal go back to rehearsing. "Yeaaahhh, fuck my donkey, that's good!" Claire declares of Jal's performance. Oh, Skins. If you stopped trying so hard to be down with the kids, you'd be a lot more down with the kids, I swear.

Elsewhere (and, as it turns out in a second, elsewhen), Tony and Michelle are making out on a couch. Slow pan across to show that Jal is on the same couch, attempting to distract herself from them with the TV. Tony's sister Effy is also hanging around, being her usual ineffable self. She's in more episodes than I remember her being in. It doesn't take long for Jal to decide she's had enough, and she flatly asks Michelle is she must "suck Tony's face off" in her every waking hour. Tony nauseatingly shrugs "She loves me", Jal exasperatedly reminds Michelle that they are supposed to be shopping, which according to her myspace, is not something Jal enjoys doing either, though I'm guessing it's the lesser of two evils in this particular case. Tony and Michelle do some irritating whispering and giggling, Tony feigns interest in the shopping for a moment so that Michelle can explain that Jal needs to buy a dress for her competition, which they will get right onto just as soon as they've gone upstairs and inserted tab A into slot B. By which I mean THE SEX. Jal disbelievingly asks "Jesus, are they really gonna...?", Effy answers her with a nod and an obscene gesture, Jal says "Fuck this" and walks out.

Or, she would, if Sid wasn't standing right in the doorway about to knock. He looks confused, as per usual, and asks if Tony's in. Jal says nothing and lets him hear the moans from upstairs by way of an answer. Sid says he'll wait until Tony's done, and steps aside to let her past, but Jal's too intrigued and/or disgusted by Sid's pitiful life to just leave now, and asks if he really spends his entire life hanging out with Tony. Sid shrugs "Pretty much, yeah." "And Michelle!" he realises, after some thought on the matter, which gets an eyeroll from Jal, after which she decides that Sid will have to do for someone to go shopping with her right now, since Michelle is all tied up. Sid gets mildly affronted that she assumes she can just drag him along without giving him any say in it, and at her lack of enthusiasm in doing so, but of course goes along anyway.

In a changing booth, Jal appraises herself in the mirror and comes to the conclusion of "Fucking hell." Outside, Sid fiddles with a rack of bikini bottoms and puts up a gigantic neon sign above his head saying "I HAVE NEVER KNOWN THE TOUCH OF A WOMAN". Jal drags him into the booth to zip up her dress, Sid does so as awkwardly as possible and comments "Looks... nice." Jal rolls her eyes and disagrees; "I can't breathe properly, look." Sid does as she requests, for a second, then relises where this requires him to look and quickly stops in case she notices. And then looks again, and there is pretty much a repeated cycle of all that throughout the scene, with Jal totally ignoring it. It's kind of funny. Jal asks how she's supposed to play clarinet when she can't breathe properly, Sid asks why she can't just where "normal stuff", Jal exasperatedly tells him "It's the Young Musician Of The Year!" Sid feigns interest in that, which just earns him some more eyerolling and condescension, and all the while Jal is sending his "Oh God, Where Do I Put My Eyes?" cycle into overdrive by taking off the dress to try on a nice shiny blue one. She asks Sid to zip her up again, Sid hesitates because the zip on this one goes way lower than the other, or, as he puts it, "it's in your arse, Jal." This, of course, earns him yet more exasperation, because 'exasperatedly' is Jal's Personal Adverb, and Sid gets on and does it. Or at least, he attempts to get on and do it, but somehow manages to be inept enough to get his finger caught in the zipper. Which cause him to cry out in pain, and Jal to say things like "Oh Christ, let me get hold of it", which means it's time for the Hilarious Misunderstanding Wherein People Who Do Not Have The Full Picture Think That There Are Sexy Shennanigans Going On When Really There Are Not, which I'm sure we all saw coming, certainly when Jal dragged Sid into the booth, if not earlier. They do manage to squeeze a little humour out of this dry, dry well though; Sid leaves to hand the first dress to a shop worker and a passing shopper tells him "You're disgusting", and Sid sniffs him armpits in confusion, assuming her disgust was a result of him forgetting to apply deoderant. Yeah, I did say "little", OK? Commercials!

Sid cheerfully sings to himself as they take an escalator down to the shopping centre's exit, which seems a little off considering all the misery that we know is being heaped on him right now, but I guess we're supposed to be focusing on Jal's pain at the moment. "It's just not right," she complains. Sid tells her it's just a dress, Jal snickers "You really know how to talk to a girl, Sid," and Sid's incongruent cheeriness makes him hilariously ask "Do I?" as if there was even the slightest chance she was being sincere. Jal moves onto the topic of Michelle and Sid's other gigantic neon sign regarding his infatuation with her, which puts a bit of a damper on Sid's mood, because it's yet another person who is able to notice the gigantic neon signs above his head, shattering his wild illusiory world a little bit more. Jal asks him honestly how he thinks this Michelle thing is ever going to work; Sid's plan involves copious amounts of alcohol, natch, and also the phrase "she goes crazy when she realises my tongue's double jointed", which will be leading me to copious amounts of alcohol right about now. Anyway, this epic fantasy gets our first smile of the evening out of Jal, and those things are pretty hard to come by, so I guess the boy done good. He suddenly declares "I want a cookie!" pointing in a random direction and happening upon a Starbucks, inevitably. I'd assume from the uncharacteristic happiness and sudden desire for food that he was stoned, but he's already indebted by three waterlogged ounces, even Sid wouldn't be stupid enough to buy even more at this point, right? Sid buys himself a chocolate chip cookie with gusto. (That's modifying 'buys himself', not 'chocolate chip cookie', obviously. Although requesting gusto as a condiment would be a pretty excellent thing to do, thinking about it.) Jal is amused by his enthusiasm for his purchase and says "There's more to life than sex, eh?" Sid nods sagely and agrees "You and me both", which gets Jal scoffs at in surprise, but if even Sid can see it, she's clearly about as obvious as he is. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Later, Jal's at home, preparing once more for clarinet rehearsal, this time with the added burden of the dress she bought in the previous scene. In the end, she opted for a pretty drab brown one, apparently, which I guess is a nice safe, sensible option, as befits a nice, safe, sensible character like her. She only manages to get a few bars into her practice before she's interrupted by an overpowering thumping noise coming through the walls. Jal let's out an irritated sigh and goes to sort this out, it's her brothers and their nerdy white friend, who are, to a man, like Kenneth without the sense of self-awareness and irony. They're doing practice of their own with their rapping and phat beats and what have you, and... well, they certainly need it. Jal pulls the plug on their equipment, Lead Brother yells "Oi, ba'ers! Why you messin' my flow, you get me?!" Jal, enunciating each word very carefully, tells him "I'm trying to do some fucking practice". LB's all "Who's stoppin' ya?" and Other Brother backs up his sentiment. Nerdy White Friend tries to get in on the action, and absolutely everybody finds it highly embarrassing; Jal, her brother, me, all four actors, I don't doubt, everybody. Jal slaps him on the back of the head a couple of times, he appeals to the brothers for assistance but just gets another slap from OB, who tells him not to call their sister whatever it was he called her. I don't know what the hell anyone is talking about right now; this is why I never recapped Shameless, every scene would just be like "Frank and Fiona yell some shit, and Steve nods sagely even though he has just as little clue as me as to what anyone is talking about. Debs is fucking awesome some more, I think." Anyway, OB tells Jal they've got some "seeeeeeeeerious balls goin' down", and would like to demonstrate, but NWF is just not in the mood to beatbox any more because he's still sulking about everybody slapping him. LB give him some reassuring words and they do the fist high-five thing which is basically the MANLY TESTOSTERONE GRRR equivalent of an emo hug. [Yes, this is indeed one of those gratuitous and pointless "HEY CHECK OUT THIS SHOW I JUST STARTED WATCHING" links I always do when I start watching a new show. Shut up.] And so the demonstration of mad skillz is back on. Jal is highly unappreciative, and storms off downstairs to tell on them to daddy.

Daddy, by the way, is one Ronnie Fazer who is, in the world of Skins, a pretty big name rap artist/producer, apparently. Anyway, on her way to a meeting with the esteemed Mr. Fazer, Jal runs into a ridiculously tall dude who is in some unspecific employment under Ronnie, I guess having something to with the bar he's standing in the doorway to. He compliments Jal's dress, or 'compliments', anyway; "I like it, it's... brown." For some totally nonsensical reason, Jal insists that the brown dress she is wearing is actually green, and will continue to do so throughout the episode, even though it is browner than a PS3 game, and everybody else tells her so. I don't know if this is supposed to make some cunning subtextual point about how Jal is extremely stubborn about things, or if it's just supposed to be funny or what, but... the dress is brown. This simple, unalienable fact makes the whole running gag or whatever it is just utterly fail.

So! Jal and her COMPLETELY BROWN dress go to see Ronnie, who is thankfully not an absolute caricature like most of the dads in this show, because I've had quite enough of that from the brothers, thanks. What that means thematically, of course, is that Jal is mature enough to actually see her dad as a real human being, unlike most of the kids. Good for her, I guess. Anyway, Ronnie's entertaining guests, including a young woman sprawled out on the arm of his chair, which Jal looks fairly disgusted by, because there are some things that no one of her age (or a lot older, probably) would be totally comfortable with. Jal registers her complaint, Ronnie tells her the boys need practice too, his friends laugh and agree that they really, really need practice. "Because those pussies are bad, and I mean fuckin' BAD." Subtly put, there. Ronnie defends his boys by pointing out that he didn't sound great either, "way back when". The woman on Ronnie's arm nervously tells him that she and Jal haven't been introduced yet, Ronnie does so (her name's Alicia), Jal gives her some major cold shoulder. Alicia attempts to shake off the awkwardness by announcing that Ronnie's going to be remixing one of her tracks later, Jal snarks "Has he shown you his special slider yet?", which Ronnie's pals just love. Alicia is either completely oblivious or chooses to ignore this in the hope of defrosting the atmosphere a little, as futile as it may be. Jal reminds Ronnie that her competition is this weekend, "not that you care", and storms off upstairs, as per her usual routine for moving from one room to another. Ronnie grumbles about "rooty-tooty music" and "dancing for Whitey", but it's pretty clear that his heart is not in it and he really does want his daughter to succeed. Ronnie's pals giggle some more about Jal's "serious attitude" and then randomly decide to throw an anvil at me; "She's looking more like her mother every day." Ow. Ronnie just stares moodily into space.

Upstairs, Jal gives Michelle a call, and I'd say it's pretty easy to establish the jist of the conversation from just her side, which goes like this; "'Chelle? Yeah. No, I bought one. Green [WHATEVER.]. Fucking horrible, of course. You don't sound very sorry. What's that noise? Is he...? Yeah, ring me back when you aren't actually being penetrated, OK?" And then she says "It's just you and me" to her clarinet, which is a sad state of affairs indeed. Jal needs to hang out with Maxxie more, I think they'd get along damn well, and they're both kind of lonely souls a lot of the time, but it seems like they only know each other in sort of a 'friend of a friend' kind of way. It's a damn shame. Jal's clarinet practice is once again interrupted by her brothers' intrusive pounding, so she heads out into a room labelled "STUDIO NO ENTRY", but Ronnie and Alicia are in there and I imagine it's probably quite difficult to play the clarinet whilst vomitting. Jal and Ronnie share a Significant Look, while Alicia's totally get into Ronnie's mix of her track, which features the lines "In my dreams/You're not what you seem/Pour sweet cream/On my strawberries". Awesome. Ronnie tells her "Needs work" and hands her a glass of wine.

Next morning, the Fazer family is gathered for breakfast, and Alicia is there too, wearing (I presume) one of Ronnie's shirts, so there is quite a lot of tension in the air. The brothers slurp the milk from their cereal with quite ludicrous volume, and goddamn, outside of scouse drug dealers with ridiculous moustaches, there are not many sounds more irritating than that. Jal just glares, which I think gets the point across far more effectively. Alicia makes another futile attempt to connect by saying "I hear you guys are musicians too?". The brothers respond, of course, by overplaying the lingo so she doesn't understand a word they say, and Jal smiles quietly to herself even though she hates that shit. And then Alicia commits a horrible faux pas by suggesting that Jal could maybe play her "flute" on one of Alicia's tracks. Oh, poor, sweet, stupid Alicia. Jal responds in the same way as the brothers, and she's pretty good at it, for all that. The brothers are impressed, Ronnie is not, and slaps them both upside the head and WAVES A STERN FINGER at Jal. And, OK, the kids are all upset that Ronnie appears to be replacing their mother so soon, because they are not ready for that, yadda yadda yadda. NEXT SCENE!

Mad Twatter. NEXT SCENE!

...Naw, just kidding. I'm sure I'd get through these a lot faster if I did that, but I guess that would get old pretty fast. So, actually, Jal is back at school to practice with Claire accompanying on piano. No oppressive drum 'n' bass to interrupt here, thankfully. But there is a camp Welsh fellow, bringing news that "the Director" wishes to see Jal right now. So Jal gets on to do that, Doug lags behind in order to unexpectedly declare his love for Claire, and oh boy, that sure did take me by surprise and astound and amaze me or some shit. Whatever.

So, right, Director. She's got the typical prim librarian look and mannerisms. Ah, joy, another caricature, I do so love those. Doug enters a little after Jal and hastily adjusts his tie, and explains "it's a little hot in here." Really, what was the point of that? So, the Director says "We're just delighted that we've produced such a talented pupil", Jal hastens to point out that "we" had fuck all to do with that, other than Claire, which the Director ignores in favour of blathering about how it's a particularly great acheivement considering Jal's "background", by which she means skin colour, and even goes so far as to refer to it as a "handicap". Ugh. Anyway, she wants Jal to do TV interviews bigging up the school and all the wonders it's done her under the I'm Not Racist, Some Of My Best Friends Are Black campaign and the If They Can Say Nigger So Can I It's A Fucking Double Standard Is What It Is initiative. Jal gives this all her "If you thought Alicia got it bad, baby, you ain't seen nothing yet" glare, but then Doug brings a little needed levity to the proceedings by listing all the interviews she has to do, which includes "Channel 4, they're ironic, OK?" which is some pretty fabulous meta what with the upcoming episode written by Simon Amstell. Anyway, Jal basically tells them to go fuck themselves, of course, but their heads are too far up their arses to hear.

But I guess Jal agreed to do the interviews in the end, and just completely ignored the "checklist of things to think when she loses" (not a paraphrase, by the way), because we now get to see her on some anonymous news channel, answering every single question with a moody "No." "So, if you win, will we see you in the charts?" "No." "Right. And... your family, they must be very proud of you?" "No." OK, that is pretty awesome. We're in Michelle's room now; 'Chelle and Jal watching Jal on TV, and I think it's pretty damn doubtful that that would actually get to broadcast like that, but whatever. Michelle sort-of-not-exactly-jokingly asks Jal is she has to be "so fucking sulky" all the time, Jal claims that she isn't. LIAR! They watch a bit more of the news ("Will you take a lucky mascot on stage with you?" "No." "So, tell me a bit about the clarinet, it's a kind of flute thing, isn't it?" "No. It's a single reed woodwind instrument." OK, this interview should absolutely be fired based on that last question. It's a kind of flute thing, isn't it?! Get out.) and then Michelle moves onto to despairing over Jal's choice of BROWN BROWN IT'S FUCKING BROWN dress, and squeezes out the fact that it is ridiculously cheap, or it would be, were it green, but seeing as how it is TOTALLY BROWN, £14 is probably a pretty reasonable price. Michelle throws the dress on the floor, Jal complains that she paid good money for that, Michelle eyerollingly tells her "You did not!" and goes to her wardrobe to find her some more suitable attire. And so the sprucing up of this ugly duckling into a beautiful swan is afoot, and oh, how wonderful it is that makeup and a slinky black dress can transform Jal into a routine vision of conventional attractiveness as perceived in today's modern culture. Rah rah rah. Jal doesn't look particularly enthused by the prospect either, at least. Commercials!

So, the lads are all outside this club, making an incredibly lame attempt to convince the bouncer that they are all over 21, complete with stupid moustaches drawn onto IDs. Not even Tony's mad manipulative skillz can make up for Chris and Sid in this case, and things are about to get ugly when Jal appears from inside, (because of course it is Ronnie's club) and says it's all OK, they're with her. Cue the boys all foaming at the mouth because Jal! Has breasts! And once inside, nobody will stop staring at them. Jal frustratedly reminds Maxxie that he is supposed to be gay, he's sighs "Yeah..." and continues staring, and then eventually his brain catches up and he's jerks his eyes away, embarrassed. Hmm. Jal turns next to Anwar and reminds him that his Muslim upbringing tells him to respect women's bodies, he points out, quite reasonably, I think, that he is certainly doing exactly that. Jal gets bored with it all a little later than me and exits in the direction of the toilets, Tony tells Michelle "Nice work," and wanders off to some unspecified location without making any mention of the equally nice work Michelle performed on herself, much to her consternation. On her way to the bathroom, Jal is accosted by some swanky geezer who appreciates her fancy get-up with a little more panache, and this sets her heart all aflutter. From the shadows, Ronnie glares at all this.

Later, Chris, Maxxie and Anwar have all disappeared somewhere, leaving Sid and Michelle alone. She's intently watching Tony, who is clearly flirting with Abigail, and angrily asks Sid what the fuck Tony is doing. Sid, also fairly angrily, tells her "I don't know, they're talking. Just talking." And in an actual surprising turn of events, Michelle notes his town, and tells him straight up, with the edge totally gone from her voice, "I know you fancy me." Hooray! No irritating stringing along of that plot then, right? Right? Uh. Anyway, Sid makes this hilarious strangled "Hey?" noise, Michelle tells him "I love you" which momentarily gets his hopes up because Sid is kind of an idiot sometimes. Well, most of the time. Michelle finishes that thought "but more like a..." Sid interrupts to tell her to please not say brother, but she was already saying it, so she does. It's a conversation you and I and everybody has seen so very, very many times before, but it's pretty nicely played, and also after Michelle gives him a chaste kiss on the lips, Sid pauses for a moment and then suggests that they could be "like, a Welsh brother and sister", which is pretty awesome, I think. Michelle tells him he's funny and then goes off to interrupt Tony and Abigail, which is awesome because she has to just sit there looking incredibly awkward while they make out in front of her. Hee.

It's also awesome because Cassie only talks to Sid when he is alone, and now he is. So, she has a pint for Sid already purchased to swoop in with just as soon as Michelle went away, which he grumblingly thanks her for, because he is in a serious brood mode what with all his lame false hopes having been dashed to pieces just a few scant seconds ago. He downs a whole lot of his pint, thanks Cassie again because he "need[s] to be drunk", and then... walks away. Shit! Not awesome! Abort! Abort! ...Damn. Cassie's heartbroken response is of course, well, heartbreaking. Sid, you fool!

Jal's brothers and their Nerdy White Friend are on stage, and one of them drops his microphone and breaks it, and they are awful again, and yet we have to watch them for a damn long time. Why? Eventually it all breaks down into Oasis-style infighting and horrible feedback and the crowd all boo them, and then somebody spots Ronnie and they all start chanting "Fazer! Fazer! Fazer!" even though hey already have two Fazers on stage right there. Ronnie is not going to perform for them, so instead they get a generic DJ set, and so we watch them all dance. I really cannot comprehend what the point of any of this is. There is no advancement of plot, there is no insight being given into any characters, there is no witty or interesting or even dull dialogue. It's just... young people dancing in a club look like this. I actually already knew that, thanks, Skins. Can we get onto some kind of plot or character development now? Even if it involves Mad Twatter? I won't complain, honestly. Well, OK, maybe a little. Well, a lot. Oh hey, wait, Tony's kissing Abigail! And Jal saw it! DEVELOPMENT!

Later. Sid is chilling on a sofa, feeling sorry for himself. Jal comes to join him and rests her head on his shoulder, he asks what she's doing, she explains that she is comforting him. Sid delusionally asks "What about?" even hough he already knows that she knows and all that. Oh lordy, give it up already, Sid. Anyway, once Sid is done lamenting the fact that everybody in the world knows he loves Michelle, he takes another gander at Jal's magically enticing dress and asks just how comforting she is feeling, exactly. Jal begins repeating Michelle's "I love you but..." spiel, Sid tells her not to fucking start, and I'll tell you who might have actually been feeling comforting if you'd had a brain in your head five minutes ago, Sid. Idiot. And then the swanky geezer from earlier shows up and offers to make good on his earlier promise to buy a drink for Jal. She points out that the bar is closed, he explains that a friend of his has a club just up the road that they could go to, and invites Sid along too, in an attempt to not seem totally skeevy. It doesn't work, as far as I'm concerned, but Jal and Sid are totally fine with it. Idiots. Seriously, I do not get why Jal at least does not pick up on the exceedingly bad vibe this guy is giving. Makes no sense.

The camera watches them wander down the road from a distance to emphasise the cold darkness of the night or some such, and Sid finally finds that tiny organ rattling around in his skull when the dude starts to lead them into a secluded alley and tries to call a halt, but it's a little too late for that. Turns out this guy is one of Twat's flunkies, so let's skip past the irritating speech and cut to the part where Mad takes Sid's credit card and demands the PIN, which Sid freely hands over in the hope of not getting the shit beaten out of him. Unfortunately, Mad decides that this isn't enough and sets his goons to ransacking Jal's bag. Sid makes a fairly valiant, if extremely stuttery, attempt to demand that Jal is left out of it, since this all has nothing to do with her, but of course it falls on deaf ears. Anyway, Jal doesn't have a credit card, but she is carrying her clarinet around with her. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. The daughter of Ronnie Fazer, artiste/producer extraordinaire, has no credit card. And carries her extremely expensive clarinet around in clubs, just in case she ever feels the need to whip out a sonata on a moment's notice. Whatever, Skins. So, Mad plays a jaunty tune on the clarinet and then smahses it to pieces, because THAT is the kind of GUY he is. The possible involvement of someone remotely as irritating as this man in your life is a pretty compelling reason to never take drugs, I must say. Deed now done, Mad and his goons fuck off into the darkness, Jal shreiks at them, her buffoon brothers arrive to give Sid the shit-kicking he inexplicably has not already received, erroneously perceiving him to be to object of Jal's ire right here, and basically everything is really, really shitty for everybody right now. Except Tony, the smarmy bastard. And I guess Chris doesn't have it too bad right now either.

Later, Jal is on the phone, telling Claire "I'm sorry, I should never have been carrying it." That is a good point. That is a really fucking excellent point. I'm so glad you addressed that one so thoroughly. Jal then says "Yeah" a couple of times, and then there is a sudden and extremely jarring cut to Claire, in bed, calling someone a "Welsh studmonkey". OK, I'm pretty sure that was an error in this recording of the episode. But, really, I don't think we've missed anything remotely important, and this episode is not inducing near enough thrills for me to bother finding out. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks yourself which as much wit and originality as the writers acheived on this day, honestly. Commercials. We're onto the last leg now.

Camera focuses on Jal with the background all blurred so we can't tell where she is, while her brothers (plus Nerdy White Friend, of course) make a whole lot of noise about the violence they plan to inflict upon Twat and his goons, so I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone when we zoom out to discover that they are all in hospital beds with, like comic-book levels of casts all over every part of their bodies. They make excuses for their absolute failure to deliver a richly deserved beating to Twat, Jal says she's sorry and tells them "I didn't mean you to do that", but of course they were all too ready to take up arms in defence of their sister because deep down these crazy kids all love each other, aww. Jal gives them sincere thanks for their totally useless 'help' and asks if there's anything she can do for them. They all think on it a while, then OB requests a kiss from Michelle, which the others both jump on also, but dude, first come, first served, finders keepers, losers weepers and all that.

And, OK, this next bit is actually pretty sweet. Ronnie's in his studio, totally unaware that Jal is watching from the room next door. He gets a phone call from one or other of his sons and tells him "I know you took a beating, but your sister's grateful. I know it. You did good. ...Yeah, I'll come down again in an hour. I love you too. I love you all. Even that [stupid, or something that sounds fairly similar and probably has much the same meaning] white boy." And then, right there, he starts laying down some impromptu rhymes, and it's pretty awesome, he's got a real Maxi Jazz style going down.

I'm inspired
I'm offline
A renegade
Disturbing the peace while I'm spitting a serenade
All this tension, miscomprehension
I'm in informed, on the level and might mention
That when I scream, it's just passion
I ain't angry at culture, I ain't angry at fashion

...and so on. I'm not going to transcribe it all, because there's a lot, and it does rather trail off at the end. Jal watches the whole thing with a smile slowly spreading across her face as she and Ronnie both remember what it is that made him such a big name in the first place, and she realises that he really does love her, even if he sucks at showing it, and it works pretty well right here. And then Ronnie finishes and Jal flicks on the light; he bitches at her for watching him when he's in his private place, she yells "Don't you talk to me through glass!", and his face softens and he comes outside to talk to her. And then they ruin it all rather by having Jal exclaim "It's not my fault! It's not my fault I look like her!" Jeeeesus, would it really have been so hard to bring that point across without beating me over the head with it? Who do you think you are, Chris Chibnall? Bah. So, Jal tells Ronnie to stop wasting his talent, he churlishly tells her to go tidy her room.

Except, not so churlishly, because there is a brand new shiny clarinet sitting on Jal's bed. Because, by the way, daddy loves her under all that gruff exterior. Had you noticed? And so there's just enough time left for the orchestra build-up to Jal's big solo at the big competition (though not Jal's actual solo; much like last week, we cut out just before the inanimate object that is the focus of our central character's life meets their mouth) to play over a wonderful scene of Ronnie and a goon of his own driving up next to Twat on a deserted street and dragging him kicking and screaming into the car, never to be seen again. It's a seriously lame cop-out to Sid's whole mortal peril storyline, but I don't care because I never! Have! To watch! This! Twat! Again! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

I Believe In Symmetry

2007-06-13T16:49:00.000+01:00

Sugar Rush 2x02 - "One Way Or Another"

Episode Grade: B

KimVo gives us the lowdown on what happened last time, in case you missed it: "while Sugar was in the slammer, I had a run-in with an older woman, who initiated me in all things lesbian. Psycho bitch. But that's OK, because I met this girl..." And credits.

Return to... more KimVo giving the lowdown on what happened last time. "The way I see it, there are two types of women; manipulative bitches..." At which point we transition from scenes from the previous episode to new footage and discover that this is in fact not KimVo, but Actual Kim, reading out an essay in college. She continues "...and those of us stupid enough to be taken in by them. The fact is, feminism got it wrong. It's women who are the bastards, not men", the rest of the class give her strange looks and the professor incredulously asks if she actually even read the book that essay was supposed to be about. As Kim returns to her seat, she accidentally knocks her pile of books and stuff on the floor, and among that pile is the napkin with Saint's number written on in lipstick. The girl sitting next to Kim hands it to her and gawks quite openly at her, and let's take a moment to marvel at how horrible this girl's sweater is. Oh my. She is also wearing thick glasses, so this is all pretty clearly an attempt to make someone who is actually probably pretty good looking appear hideous, in the finest TV tradition. They have pretty much gone way overboard with it, I must say. Except her hair, which looks exactly like Kim's has done in the past, I think; this is by no means an accident.

Anyway, that's rather a lot of words for someone who is only on screen for, like, two seconds in ths scene, so let's move on; flashback to Saint giving Kim her number. Again. But, you know, that scene is obviously going to be weighing on Kim's mind pretty heavily, and since we are sort of watching from inside her head, I san't complain too much. KimVo informs us that it's been ten hours since then, and we get another flashback to a few seconds, possibly minutes after Kim bumped into Saint, and she has already caved to her desire to call that lipstick number. Going from 'reasonably casual' to 'extremely desperate' in five seconds: "Hi, this is Kim. I know we only just spoke, but I thought, there's no point in beating around the bush, and all that. So... I just was wondering if you wanted to meet on Friday. That's the day after tomorrow. Yeah. Friday. Um... Give me a call. Bye." Oh, Kim.

Back to the present; Kim's leaving college, KimVo frets that it's been "nine hours and eighteen minutes" since she made that call, and she's still heard nothing back. "Call me paranoid," KimVo muses, (and I'm afraid I must cop to that request; Kim, you're paranoid.) "But if you want to talk to someone, you'll find a way." She's fortunately interrupted from all this paranoia by the NEEEEEEEERD girl running up behind her all butt-monkey Tom-like. NEEEEEEEERD introduces herself, with much off-putting nervous laughter, as Melissa, and manages to simultaneously bray like a donkey and... "joke", I guess, "You probably don't recognise me without the desk!" which is as impressive as it is terrifying. Kim gives her a blank stare as she babbles on and on about how interestin', yet terrible and wrong Kim's speech was and how opinionated Melissa is about Chaucer and Hardy and so on and so forth, and Kim eventually interrupts to give a bemused "Maybe some other time," and leaves Melissa staring wistfully after her.

KimVo unnecessarily tells us that, of the two types of women, she tends to be the type that falls for the manipulative bitches. I think anyone could figure that out by watching any arbitrary ten second segment of the show. She is, of course, segueing us into a visit to Sugar, who makes a big and not remotely convincing show of being terribly distraught tightly embracing Kim as she enters, which is a poorly orchestrated attempt to hide the transfer of a bag of marijuana from Kim's cleavage to her own from the guards. I guess they're hoping the guards might just think they're giving each other some good old fashioned fondlin', given the regularity of Kim's visits and what they were doing when they first got arrested. Transaction complete, Sugar immediately reverts to the usual tough girl persona, Kim settles down to update her on the Saint situation. Well, that made all the consipicuous fondling many times more conspicuous. Sugar tells Kim she's going to come off as a desperate nutcase and makes her vow not to call Saint again, which she reluctantly does. Sugar takes a long critical look down her own top, just in case they hadn't made the drug smuggling obvious enough to the guards yet, and tells Kim "It's a bit small, I did ask for a quarter." Kim evasively explains "As you said, I need to chill", and Sugar gapes at the audacity of this.

Kim sits on a seafront bench, uh, chilling, and KimVo, not chilled, worries that Sugar is right and Saint will think she is a "fucking nutter". She bemoans her vow not to call so more and then decides that no one said anything about texting, and gets out her phone. She gets as far as typing "Soz for fucking nut" before Melissa appears out of nowhere and startles her into accidentally pressing 'Send'. Wacky, wacky hijinks. Melissa babbles about whatever books she is carrying and how difficult it will be to get it all into an essay by next class, Kim's eye glaze over and she vaguely asks "Essay...?" Olivia's giving good "chilled" here. By the way, I think she is a good actress. Just in case I hadn't mentioned that. Melissa reminds Kim of the details of their essay and invites her over to her place to work on it, to which invitation Kim does not RSVP, or at least not yet.

Meanwhile, Nathan's telling the sex therapist about how he and Stella walked in on Kim being a naughty, naughty girl. Stella complains that she doesn't see what this has to do with anything, the therapist clichés "How did that make you feel?" It made Nathan feel small and threatened and pathetic. That is certainly a big change from the status quo. The therapist explains to Stella that she is making Nathan feel inadequate, and thus rendering him unable to satisfy her appetites, which makes her put more pressure on him in a "negative feedback loop that basically leaves him impotent and destroys your sex lives." She then asks Nathan frankly when the last time he took a really good look at his penis was, and suggests that maybe it is not so small, it just looks that way when compared to Stella's gargantuan vagina. This is the kind of work that you have to take pride in. The varying levels of freak-outedness on Stella and Nathan's faces throughout all this are pretty awesome, by the way.

Outside, Nathan's all upset about something, Stella tries to assure him that, given the circumstances, it's really not a big deal that he couldn't get an erection. In hushed tones, Nathan moans "I was under the national average!", Stella continues attempting to persuade him that he's making a big deal out of something totally insignificant. So to speak. And then she starts pawing at his crotch right there in public and insisting that if they can just "coax out Mr. Perky", everything will be right as rain. Look, if I have to hear that, you do too. Nathan complains that she's not listened to a word he's said, and Stella retorts that she's really getting bored of his unwillingness to jump back into bed with her after her massive betrayal of trust and undermining of everything they'd worked for in 15 years of marriage. And so the negative feedback loop continues! I've got some negative feedback for you vis á vis Stella and Nathan's storyline, but I guess I'll save it for later in the season when the writers' inability to find something believable and/or interesting for them to do really becomes obvious. Aside from that sentence, of course.

In her room, Kim's doing her essay, so I guess she didn't take Melissa up on her invitation. Shocker! Stella stomps past and announces that Kim is lucky to be a lesbian, which Kim raises an eyebrow at, and KimVo informs us that the homework is really a front for continuing to obssess some more about Saint. She stares forlornly at the "Soz for fucking nut" sitting in her outbox and insists to herself that she isn't going to call or text again, because she doesn't want to "come off as a Melissa". Really though, Kim, I don't think an explanatory message for the first one (or at least a resend of what you were originally planning to say) would cause any more damage than has already been done. Anyway, Kim notices her CC flyer and hatches a Cunning Plan.

CC. KimVo reassures us/herself that stalking really isn't her style, despite quite some evidence to suggest otherwise. While she's busy totally not stalking Saint, honest, she runs into Anna, who bitchily taunts Kim about being on her own again and introduces her newest victim, Etty, who looks a lot like Beth, and oh man, I get sad just thinking about her. She's a little younger, as of course she would be, given Anna's creepy predelictions. And not as hot, of course, because, man, who is. Anyway, Anna tells Etty that Kim is "an old friend", to which Kim snarks "Comparitively." Ha! That's my girl. Anna, obviously worried that conversation will continue along those lines, sends Etty off to buy a bottle of champagne, and then tells Kim to stop following her, it's over. Kim looks moodily in Saint's direction, and KimVo declares that "Anna was right, I was behaving like a prat." I'll take the second half, at least. Kim's outside, doing the classic lean over the edge of the pier, staring into the vast depths of the ocean and reflecting on the meaning of life and what have you. KimVo stupidly Murphys herself asking "Could life get any shittier?", and so she recieves both a literal and a figurative answer, as a fucking seagull craps on her shoulder, and Saint sends her a text saying simply "Can't do Friday. Soz". That's a little excessive, universe!

Of course, we head immediately to Ballymeade for Kim to get in some good moaning about the sorry state of her life to the convicted felon. Sugar overshadows her pain by telling Kim that her release date might get put back, thanks to their decidely conspicuous drug smuggling operation earlier. So she's off to see the guvna tomorrow, and she doesn't know what the hell she's going to do, but she's sure she'll think of something. But, that's enough about Sugar's problems, Kim is of course the priority here. Sugar asks how many times she called Saint, Kim proudly tells her it was just the once, but Sugar's wise to her tricks and asks about texts as well. Kim admits to one of those and then grudgingly confesses to an attempt to bump into Saint last night as well. Sugar despairs of Kim's sanity but decides to make a good go of schooling her in the ways of Not Being A Damn Stalker anyway because, hey, it's not like she has anything better to do. So, lesson 1: "Make yourself unavailable. Get a girlfriend." Wait, but isn't that the end goal of this exercise in the first place? Oh, a fake one. Yeah, that's sure to go well. Kim scoffs at Sugar's suggestion of Melissa as the prime candidate for this role...

...And cut to Melissa appearing at Kim's door. Well, it's not like Kim could have inherited any proverbial balls from Nathan. Melissa burbles "I had to go back, I forgot my thesaurus!" God, she's annoying. I know that's sort of the point, but... God, she's annoying. Flashback to Ballymeade, Kim continues trying to convince Sugar that this is a terrible idea, noting that if the point is to make Saint think she's not desperate, associating herself in any way with Melissa is a pretty horrible way of going about it. Harsh but true. Also, Melissa is totally not going to agree to go out on a school night. Sugar ignores the first point, but tells Kim the second is easy, just invite Melissa to her place for "study", get her wasted and Bob's your uncle. "You should know, Kizza, it's always the good girls that are desperate to be shown a good time." Heh. She should know indeed. And that's apparently all it takes to persuade Kim to go through with it, because, as she so succinctly told us in the beggining of the episode, there are two types of people; the manipulative and the manipulated. Dominant and submissive. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. That's all manner of bullshit, of course, but it works for Kim, so she's let herself be manipulated into acting as a manipulator. Fun times for all.

So, Melissa's over at her place now, and Kim tries her hardest, but an offer of a drink gets "Water would be lovely, I don't do caffeine after six." Oh dear. She gives up on that front and tries another approach; picking up a red folder and holding it in front of Melissa's face, she muses "Red is really your colour, you should wear it more often. Melissa looks confused while Kim roots through her cupboards and finds a nice slinky red dress. I think it may well be the same thing Sugar got her into back in the day, it's certainly remniscent of it, because Kim is being the Sugar to Melissa's Kim here, and it's all a wonderful representation of how far our Kimmy has come since those days. Which she certainly has, if not necessarily in the right direction. Melissa's still pretty doubtful, so Kim resorts to flattery and further callbacks to season one, and eventually gets Melissa into it.

Meanwhile, Kim is, as her VO puts it, "not the only one trying to get [her] own way", because Stella's looking to a different early episode for her inspiration and slipping Viagra into Nathan's wine. That'll end well.

Melissa's now into the dress, and Kim is surprised by just how much of an improvement this is, but I am not, because the is the way of the TV. Kim breezes that she'd better hurry up and get herself ready, Melissa is all "Ready for what?" but Kim is into her stride and reaching the level of unstoppable force. There's certainly no way Melissa is remotely prepared to resist, anyway.

Downstairs, Nathan is confused by his sudden erection, of course, Stella comes down in a nightgown to flirtily make herself a cold drink and make it worse. Things are about to get heavy when Kim and Melissa appear, Kim is not even fazed by her parents shennanigans any more, even when Nathan hastily covers his crotch with a book, which has the effect of making his erection infinitely more conspicuous than it was. And not just because he's under the national average. Ho ho. Anyway, Kim just quickly introduces Melissa, says she's heading out, and leaves them to get on with it. Which they do, "Mr. Perky's back in town" and all that. Ugh.

CC. KimVo says "I know what you're thinking, this is horrible", Melissa totally disagrees; "This is amazing!" Kim oozes a lot more confidence than I am used to seeing from her and acquires herself a nice straw hat while she's getting drinks for herself and Melissa, but belies the confidence a little with the frequency of her glances in Saint's direction. Saint is, as ever, too absorbed in her DJing to actually notice at the moment. Kim and Melissa dance, and meanwhile, Stella and Nathan fuck. A whole lot. Hoo boy.

Back at the CC, Kim's starting to get irritated by Melissa's "joined at the hip"-ness in conjunction to Kim, and shoots some more worried glances Saint's way. Saint remains completely oblivious to it all. KimVo declares that the time to make her move is upon us, and tells Melissa she's getting another drink. Melissa is too busy dancing like a spaz to even notice Kim leave, so so much for "joined at the hip", eh, KimVo? Back in the good old ForniKitchen... oh, wait, they've moved to the ForniStaircase. That one doesn't work so well. Anyway, Nathan has discovered that now that Mr. Perky is back, he doesn't intend on leaving again any time soon, thanks to Stella's ingenious Viagra plan. Well, I say 'plan'...

CC, again. Saint's at the bar now, and says hi to Kim when she appears, Kim does a pretty poor job of feigning surprise at seeing Saint (Olivia is doing a great job of doing a poor job of it though, of course. Have I oraised her yet this episode?) Saint apologises again for not being able to make Friday, and adds "I was hoping we could fix up another time, but it looks like someone beat me to it." Kim tries her hardest not to look devastated by these words. "She seems sweet," Saint adds, supressing a smile, which will make perfect sense soon enough. "Sorry. Guess I'm just bitter 'cause I missed out again." Saint ducks out of there now lest she burst out laughing, and Melissa immediately takes her place and tells Kim "No coke with the vodka. The caffeine! I'll never sleep!" Jeeee-sus. Would someone get her out of my show already? I'd be so grateful. Kim is despairing of life, as is her wont, but then she spots Anna! Standing right next to her, and yet not a sardonic comment in sight. I mean, not that you can see sardonic comments, but you know. Anyway, long (and kind of stupid) story short, Anna takes Melissa off of Kim's hands for us. The good news is, we'll never see either of those two again after this episode, and Kim can now go to Saint for tea and sympathy, thus creating a much happier Kim. These are all good things.

Outside, KimVo muses that it may have been mean of her to throw Melissa on the sword like that. Flashforward to Melissa stumbling into class late the next morning, looking extremely dishevelled. "OK, very mean," KimVo continues, but, of course, concludes "It was totally worth it." Saint appears next to Kim to note that Anna stealing her girlfriend after everything else is "pretty rough", and tell her to come along to wherever it is she's wandering.

Back at the Daniels household, Stella has now admitted to her crime, and Nathan is of course mad at her again for totally breaching his BLT. Sigh. At Ballymead, meanwhile, a fellow inmate tells Sugar to watch out, because the guvna is hanging out in her cell. In response, Sugar pulls her knickers down from under her skirt, hands them to her friend and grins a cocky grin, earning her a fairly impressed "You filthy cow." KimVo reminds again that there are two types of women, top and bottom. North and south. Chaotic evil and lawful good. And then we get to actually see Sugar seduce the guvna, which is a little unnecessary, really, but I guess that, considering her titular status (...don't even go there), Sugar is barely in the episodes as it is right now, which just reiterates the fact that, fun as her master guru act is, they really need to get her out of prison as soon as possible. But anyway, Sugar wants to know why the guvna thinks she'd do drugs when the guvna is watching, "And I know you're... watching me." The guvna is decidedly flustered, and I do not blame her, because watching Sugar uncross her legs like that was pretty much worth the price of admission.

Over to Kim's college again; Kim starts to apologise to Melissa and suggests they go for coffee, but before she can finish that thought, Melissa is apologising to her and saying "Let's just be friends, yeah?" Irony of ironies. Anyway, now that all of those many things are out of the way, we can get to the totally awesome ending. Yay!

Back to last night, Kim and Saint sit on a wall looking out to sea and drinking from glass bottles. Saint asks Kim where she met Melissa, the time for manipulation is done, so Kim answers honestly. Saint is for some reason surprised that she met her at college, and I really can't figure out why, she must have surmised by now that Kim is that young, and I can't think of any other reason for it. Saint comments that Melissa really doesn't seem like Kim's type, Kim pathetically attempts to deny this fact by listing all the things they have in common, which is exactly "literature." Saint rolls her eyes a little and then says these words right here; "You know, she could never have been your girlfriend." And then they kiss, which is all very sweet and tender and wonderful, of course, but let's just reiterate the main point here; Saint knew what Kim was doing the entire time. Saint saw the crazy hoops Kim finds it necessary to build herself and then jump through just in order to get herself into a relationship with someone who has basically stated unequivocally that they want to be in a relationship with her. And Saint found these things hilarious and endearing, and even played along for a while just for the sheer hell of it. That is awesome.

Food For Thought

2007-06-10T02:19:00.000+01:00

Skins 1x02 - "Cassie"

Episode Grade: A-

Previously: Sid was going to lose his virginity, but he didn't. He might lose his balls, though. And we met Tony, which turned out to be an all together unpleasant experience. We met the rest of the kids too, but not in so much detail. Today, we're meeting Cassie. Wow!

Opening credits! Plink plink plink. Plink. Plink.

Cassie blinks herself awake, and we slowly zoom out to reveal more of the scene around her as she inspects it all herself, looking confused. She's lying on a sofa, which appears to have had some tuna spilled and/or vomitted on it. Her hand is covered in something white and gooey and generally gross looking, which is of course, not what it looks like. Well, unless someone's produced enough to fill a saucepan. There's also some dude lying on the sofa with her, top to tail. I don't think he's one of our kids, but I can't get a particularly clear view. Cassie stands, she's wearing mismatched undies and socks. According to her myspace, Cassie collects love heart sweets: "you can change the messages if you scratch them, you just need a pin." She also loves Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and wishes she could meet a boy like Joel Barisch. So, socially awkward, wears a hat all the time... That's a toughie. Cassie pulls on a shiny dress. The whole room is covered in food, all up the walls, all over the furniture, and all over Chris, who is lying face down on another sofa, with "I LIKE BOYS" written on his back, and an accompanying arrow pointing south. You just can't beat the classics, eh. Chris rolls over in his sleep, and Cassie wows at him. From the corner, Jal sleepily chuckles and notes that the rumours aren't true, "they're not all the same size at action stations". Cassie agrees and says "poor Chris", and covers him up and then, here's the kicker, bunches up the covers to form the illusion of a huge cock. I make no apologies for loving Cassie any more, that's just so weirdly sweet, OK?

Cassie drifts out through the halls, shoes in one hand, bag in the other, past a curtain made of spaghetti and into the kitchen. I've got to say, they've done a pretty fine job of giving the place the trashed, morning after party, before parents return look. Outside, Anwar's fully dressed and praying, Cassie watches through the window for a while, then puts her bag and shoes in the sink and goes to the fridge for some water. She notes that the 13th of whatever month it is has been urgently circled in red with the words "MUM HOME" with a look of mild concern. She goes out to ask Anwar the date, he confirms that it is the 13th, and she asks dreamily (which, by the way, is to Cassie as 'smugly' is to Tony, if you hadn't already guessed) if he thinks maybe she should remind Michelle of the significance of that date. Anwar gently admonishes her, "I'm trying to pray to my God here, Cass", and she stares like she's seeing him for the first time and wows. "Is He listening?" she asks with genuine curiosity. Anwar says he hopes not, since that would mean He'd have been paying attention to everything Anwar was doing last night. Heh. Cassie suggests he pray quietly and drifts off in search of Michelle.

She finds her in her room, obviously, in bed with Tony, obviously, and Sid lying at their feet like a dog. Obviously. Cassie gently nudges Michelle awake, and she moans "Fuck off, Tone". Cassie corrects her identification, and Michelle mumbles "Crazy bitch," which Cassie quite hilariously accepts as recognition with no kind of offended or surprised reaction. Michelle continues "Never fucking eat", which is frankly pretty unnecessary on any level, and Cassie is all "Very good, but let's move onto my point now, OK?" Michelle groans "tomorrow" at her, Cassie tries to persuade her that her mother returns on the 13th, which is today, but Michelle groggily insists "Tomorrow!" So Cassie shrugs and turns to the mirror to apply some make up. She pauses long enough to remove the "VIRGIN" post-it from Sid's forehead and replace it with a lipstick mark, and then heads outside to enjoy the fireworks from a safe distance.

There she's greeted with a "Hello, Cassandra" by Michelle's mother, who's pulling a suitcase out of her car. Cassie wows and responds in kind with a "Hi, Anna" and then stalls on her new husband's name; he grumpily reminds her it's Malcolm. Cassie cheerily asks how they're honeymoon was, Anna shares some happy memories for a while and then heaps the dramatic irony on thick by mentioning an important meeting later today and asking if Cassie's been helping to clear up. Cassie agreeably says "Oh wow, totally", and there's a little more banter about how Cassie is "looking much better than the last time Anna saw her", and Cassie calls Malcolm "Martin", and he asks if they can hurry up and go inside because he wants "some fucking Coco Pops" and makes fun of Cassie because he's a small-minded prick. And then Cassie steps back as Anna heads in to light the blue touch paper. Or, wait, I think she is the blue touch paper in this analogy. Whatever, Cassie's certainly making pretty light patterns in the air with her sparkler right now.

From Anwar's kneeled vantage point, we here a bloodcurdling shriek and Michelle gamely tries to insist "Mum, I didn't know", and then Maxxie (who I have by now figured out was actually the one on the sofa with Cassie) and Jal hop out the window, soon followed by Chris, and then Sid and Tony, and they all tear off down the street in their various states of undress.

Meanwhile, Cassie's taking a bus home, and all around her, people are eating, eating, eating. Like, every single other person on the bus appears to be stuffing their face. Oh lordy. Cassie finds a post-it somewhere about her person with nothing but "EAT!" written on it, and sticks it to the window. The toddler sitting opposite her watches all this and, with the pure innocence of youth, offers her the chocolate digestive that's melting into her hand. Now, regardless of eating disorders, you wouldn't take that, but shit, that hurts. Commercials! Take a drink every time you hear the phrase "government legislation".

I need a breather, OK; anorexia nervosa scares me like little else in this world, and the reasons for that are not something I'm going to go into in any great detail, but I'm clearly not going to avoid any reference to them either, or I'd have avoided recapping this show like the plague. I don't want to let things get too heavy though, so, a joke:

A man with an orange head walks into a McDonalds and stands in line. The girl behind the counter is perplexed by the hue of his cranium, but says nothing as she takes his order (a double cheeseburger, naturally). Just as he is turning to go, though, curiosity gets the better of her and she calls him back; "Excuse me sir, but I couldn't help noticing that you have an orange head. Why is that?"

"Well," the man with the orange head explains, "a couple of weeks ago, I was rooting through the junk in my attic, when I found a dusty old lamp. I rubbed it with a cloth, to try to clean the dust off, and a genie came out and granted me three wishes. For my first wish, I wished for world peace, and it happened, and it's great. For my second wish, I wished to cure all disease, and it happened, and it's great. For my third wish, I wished for an orange head. I'm slightly regretting that one now."

Now, you might think that has absolutely nothing to do with this episode, but if you think about it, I bet Cassie would totally disagree, and she is, after all, the topic of the episode, so I think she should know, right? Anyway, let's get on with it. Cassie arrives home, and home has a nice orange VW Hippy Wagon parked outside, which is our first alarm bell. Inside, there's a pretty hideous painting of a naked woman who appears to have only one breast on the wall, and the sounds of adult giggling from further inside. Not far enough inside, as it turns out; Cassie enters the kitchen and finds her parents just about to start going at it on the kitchen counter. Cassie just stands and stares until her mum notices and even then they're pretty casual about slowly disengaging. Her dad (who's played by Neil Morrissey; a few steps up from Harry Enfield, just as he was on Men Behaving Badly) asks if she's had breakfast, Cassie lies with the effortlessness that only comes with a whole lot of practice "Oh yeah! Michelle does, like, crazy bacon, egg and sausage sandwiches. They're mad." Neil Morrissey cheerfully (which is his Personal Adverb, of course) tells her that's great and heads off down the hall saying he's going to have a shower, with a wildly unnecessary crotch pat. OK, ew. Mama Cass, meanwhile, is attending to Cassie's baby brother Reuben; Cassie offers to take over and specifically mentions feeding him; associating the idea of food with herself like it's no big deal, so nobody notices that it really really is. She's a smart one; that's what makes it so terrifying. Mama Cass breezily thanks her and heads off to join Neil Morrissey. Cassie mentions as Mama Cass leaves (with an unspoken, but nonetheless pointed, "In case you were interested") that it's her last day at the clinic; "They'll sign me off if I've gained a half-kilo". Mama Cass supportively asks if she has, Cassie claims to have "totally, for sure" done so.

Cassie gets on with feeding and changing Reuben, but attention is undeniably drawn away from this by the painting behind them, which covers the entire wall and depicts the same naked, psychotically smiling woman as before, only now she has all breasts present and accounted for, and is holding a baby with umbilical cord still attached, and from the context it is clear that this is a painting done by Neil Morrissey, of Mama Cass and Reuben. Yeah, anorexia nervosa has nothing on this painting. Ye gods. Cassie turns on a musical mobile above Reuben's crib in a hopeless effort to drown out her parents' moans from upstairs, and then takes out an ecstacy pill from her bag. She's momentarily distracted by a text from an unknown number, saying simply "EAT!", and then washes down the pill with something from one of those double-handled juice cups for babies. And then she smiles melancholically, looks upwards, and watches the mobile spin and the world fade away. She's always doing that, taking symbols of youth and innocence, and combining them with the exact opposite. It's so sad. Horrific paintings aside, it seems like her parents would seem just awesome to have when she was a kid, but now she's supposed to be growing up, and they've never really shown her how. So she keeps clinging to the childhood that she can never really get back, because it's the only thing she really knows how to do.

Later, Neil Morrissey is painting yet another paean to his lord Cthulu. Cassie is unfazed by the sight of her mother posing naked, because, as established, this is a fairly usual occurence in her household. Plus, Cassie is never fazed by anything that isn't edible. If you are thinking what I think you are thinking right now; NO. JUST DON'T. Cassie tells Neil Morrissey that her taxi's here, he has no idea what she is talking about, because her parents are crazy hippies and pay no attention to her, which is why she is so fucked up. Now, it cannot ever be boiled down to something as simplistic as that, and you are stupid if you think it can. But since I don't think the show or anyone else was saying that, this is not actual criticism, I'm just enjoying the sound of my own voice. Ho hum. Cassie reminds Neil Morrissey that they send a taxi every week "to make sure I go", and he is momentarily overjoyed with the "fact" that Cassie is soon to be cured of all her ills, and then immediately returns all his concentration to his painting. Cassie looks a little upset for a moment, then silently walks away.

In her taxi, Cassie is sticking weights in her knickers to cheat on her mass test. Dayum. Now, it seems a little odd that she'd be doing that now rather than just before leaving the house, but maybe she's trying to limit the time she has to stand up with them in there in case of wardrobe malfunction. One the one hand, if that was true, I would have thought the skirt she's wearing would be a pretty uncharacteristically bad choice of attire, but then, on the other hand, I guess anything tight fitting enough to contribute significant support would probably give rise to extremely suspicious bulges. Either way, I am putting far too much thought into this. Her kindly old taxi driver, Alan, watches this and asks if she's "got enough room back there", which strikes me as slightly odd, somehow. Cassie says "You won't tell on me, will you, Alan?" She already knows the answer, or she certainly would've put the weights all about herself earlier; "You know me, kid. See no, hear no, speak no." There are a lot of things I love about this episode, but I think the camaraderie between Alan and Cassie is the thing I love the most (aside from The Plinks, of course). Cassie explains that she won't have to keep going back if she's half a kilo up, Alan, without a hint of accusation, asks if she knows what she's doing; she says "Oh totally", of course. Alan catches her of guard by telling her plainly "I'm going to miss you, Tiny". Cassie gives a "hadn't thought about that" wow and responds in kind. Alan, again like it's no big deal either way, asks if she's going to start eating this time. Cassie, of course, says she totally will, and flashes him her accomplished disarming smile, which he immediately calls her out for. Cassie promises not to pull that one on him again and sincerely tells him she loves him, which he reciprocates. Aw, man. And then things get a little "Attempt To Tip The Scales" weird; Alan asks if she wants him to change the music, and the nice sedate mood music that they've been playing throughout the scene is flicked off and replaced by some dude yelling "Go, bitch, get out the way, get out the way, bitch, get out the way", which Alan incongruously declares as his "new favourite". It's perfectly possible that that mood music actually was playing on the radio, and that Alan switched to CD or whatever, but that still gives the whole thing a slightly unsettling atmosphere. We're seeing the world through Cassie's eyes, and those eyes don't quite see the same world as anyone else. It becomes more noticable as the episode wears on, of course, because these things tend to; you never want to show all your cards at once.

Lending credence to my point, the yelling dude carries on yelling until well after Cassie's out of the taxi, and all the way through her mass test. Cassie heads to the corridor outside, where another girl is preparing for her own test by chugging down an entire two litre bottle of water. Cassie watches in admiration and does some quick maths in her head to tell Watergirl just exactly how much weight she's giving herself. Unfortunately for Watergirl, the clinic people keep her waiting out there for too long to actually retain all the water, and she goes desperately rushing off in search of a toilet. Tough break, I guess.

Cassie heads on to the office of the head clinic lady, who just so happens to be the mother of Abigail (the posh girl whose house they all wrecked last week), which is revealed by an overly conveniently coincidental phonecall about promises being broken and carpets being damaged. Still, it's always nice to see my old pal Continuity, although I can't help but feel he might have been put to better use answering the question of whether Chris and the polish girl ever got out of the car. This phone call also involves the line "I am not an expletive bitch!", hilariously. That and "Have you taken your medication? Well, take it now! NOW!" Hey there, Foreshadowing! Mrs. Posh hangs up, and, with a little too much forced smiling and making big shows of having to check her papers to remember Cassie's name, she ticks all the boxes to give Cassie her freedom. While she's doing so, she rattles off a totally emotionless rendition of a speech she knows by rote about how the clinic is Cassie's friend and she should look upon it as a sanctuary of goodness and hugs and puppies, and all the while, Cassie is watching a guy charging around the fields outside in nothing but a straight-jacket and being tackled and then dragged around by his penis by orderlies. Ironic Juxtaposition too! The gang is out in full force tonight! Now, this is either a pretty shittily written attempt at getting a cheap laugh at the expense of any regard to realism, or this is showing the clinic as Cassie sees it, as a sinister organisation that takes away your freedom under a crude mask of kindess. First time through, it's obviously the former, and I'm still not sure I really want to keep watching this show, with the benefit of hindsight, it at least seems completely reasonable to interpret it as the second, and this is actually rather brilliant. Once Mrs. Posh has finished her spiel, Cassie says "Thank you" to Mrs. Posh (who is actually called Dr. Stock, so I apologise for not giving the correct title, Dr. Posh), because Daddy might be a crazy hippy who's too busy tiling on the roof and fixing waterproof to really pay attention to her, but he sure didn't bring her up with bad manners. And then she kisses her on the cheek, because that is just our girl's way. Dr. Stock is totally frozen in confusion at this, and remains so even after Cassie leaves the room, so I take it I am to believe that as a genuine reaction.

I guess group therapy was another requirement of Cassie's course, because she's sitting in a circle with a bunch of people and being applauded. She wows and thanks everyone for their help, and I guess she likes the therapist here a little better, because his praise actually seems kind of genuine. Although he is still a little abrupt on moving onto the next member of the group, "Madison". Wait a second.... Aw, shit, and it was all going so well. It's Mad Twatter. Ugh, let's gloss over the stupid ranting; he's mad because he hasn't got his money from Sid. We already knew this. It's bad enough you feel the need to stick him in scenes that advance the plot in some way, please don't go filling out time with his pointless bollocks. Oh, he's got some kind of photo ID card of Sid's, so now Cassie knows about this, which I guess is something of a development. Eh. Commercials.

Cafeteria. Sid gets himself his lunch, which is basically a plate piled high with chips, plus some pilchards for reasons of tokenism, which goes along with a funny little bit where the dinner lady is contractually obliged to dress as a pilchard and explain their health benefits for reasons of Jamie Oliver being a pillock. He walks over to sit with the boys (minus Tony, plus new character Kenneth) who all laugh at him because he's still got Cassie's lipstick mark on his head from this morning. Kenneth, by the way, is black, and plays this up ridiculously with urban street lingo that I tend to find pretty impenetrable ("bear shit on his forehead an' ting!" is all I can make any sense of in this scene) before suddenly slipping into an almost Chris Eubank-esque accent. This is all he ever does; he's completely one note, but damn it if it isn't hilarious every time anyway. Thankfully, they do just about keep him on the right side of 'overused' throughout the season. Chris quite excellently asks "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" after his babble in this scene. Heh. Anyway, Sid gets irritated by their mockery and goes to take an empty seat instead.

Cassie appears with just an apple in hand and asks if she can sit with him; Sid is cool with that. She notices the lipstick too and just asks if he's been home today, which obviously he hasn't. They converse a little about how wrong everything went at Michelle's and her mum called the police and Sid starts off about how "Tony had to go and ju-jitsu Mr. Michelle". Cassie observantly notes "You love Tony", Sid is all "Wuh?" so Cassie repeats herself and adds "You always talk about him." Sid obliviously says "Do I?", Cassie sweetly tells him "It's cool you have someone to look up to" and then weirds him out a little with over-enthusiasm about how fun the food fight last night was, "just, like throwing it! Everywhere!" There's even a double wow in there, so you can tell she's really excited about it. Then she suddenly notices just how much food Sid's grabbed himself and notes that he must be hungry, which in turn causes him to notice how little she has, and that she is not even eating that. Cassie distracts him and/or succumbs to OCD by arranging his chips into neat rows and columns, and insists again that she's "totally better". But Sid, despite being oblivious to so many things, entirely sees through this one. It's weird how that works sometimes. He curiously asks how she does it, Cassie feigns ignorance of what he's talking about, Sid admonishes this with a little harshness and then softens again as he clarifies; "I mean, you never eat anything. I mean, your parents must notice or something." Cassie looks him square in the eye; "I like you, Sid," she says, "So I'm going to show you." How deep the rabbit hole goes. I don't know if I'm ready for this.

OK, Cassie pulls one of Sid's plates (turns out the chips 'n' pilchards weren't actually his entire lunch... he's a growing boy and all that) over to her side of the table and grabs a knife and fork, and the performance begins. Hannah Murray puts so much into this, and it's seriously mesmerising in an awful sort of way. Without ever pausing to breathe, or let Sid point out that no food is actually entering her mouth at any point, this; "You have to do a lot of talking. I'm good at talking. You do that a lot when you're cutting things up, and then: questions." She raises a forkful of food to her mouth and then stops just before it reaches; "Where's your student card? Your ID, have you got it?" Sid says no, he's lost it, and before he has time to dwell on that, she's off again. "Change the subject. This is great! I love these sausages. You should try one! Go on, delicious, mmm." She forks it over to his plate, and Sid starts to get the idea; "Hang on, you didn't..." Cassie doesn't let him finish that thought; "You're not quite sure what I'm on about, but I keep distracting you. Then I up the ante; yum, I love this stuff! Really delicious." She grabs Sid's plate and steals a few chips. "You're really sure that I want some more. I'll keep waving it at you until you stop looking at me." And then another forkful to the mouth, and pause; "Where'd you lose it? Your ID? I mean, they won't let you use the library, will they?" While Sid's pondering that one, Cassie checks her watch and says "God, I've got to go!" and scrapes her food onto another plate, putting the now empty one on top to disguise how much is still there. "So full. Gotta dash." And, scene.

Cassie returns to the table for a critique; Sid is impressed, for which Cassie cheerfully thanks him. "But aren't you kind of... lying to everyone?" Sid says, under his breath so she might not hear it, like he can't quite decide if he should take the red pill or the blue pill. Cassie insists again that she's "so better", and adds that she got discharged from the clinic by way of proof. Sid, even more mumbly, says that seems "a bit fucked up", which is certainly no overstatement. Cassie doesn't hear this one, and asks him to repeat so he looks at her straight and says again "That seems a bit fucked up." Cassie's totally taken aback, and wows while she tries to think of something to say to that. It takes her a while. "But you see," she starts and then laughs, because she's really not sure which pill to take either, and girl's got some experience on that front. "It's like, nobody's fucking business." The smile is wider and more strained than ever before, it hurts so much. Her and me. "And it's not like anybody cares, so..." she trails off, Sid looks up and hesitantly says "I... care." And for a couple of seconds they stare into each others eyes, awkwardly connecting but not knowing what the fuck to do with it, and I'm just about ready to put my crazy Harry Potter-referencing shipper hat on again, but then fucking Tony has to show up and ruin the moment. Wanker. Things go well at first, with Sid giving pretty clear "piss off" signals to him, but then he points out the lipstick on Sid's forehead, and Sid is totally distracted into trying to figure out how it got there. Cassie opens her mouth as if to own up to it, but the foul essence of Tony in the air is overpowering and the connection is severed, so she settles for knocking a plate full of gravy or something onto his lap and sarcastically saying "Wow, Tony, it looks like you've pissed yourself." Excellent! Kenneth goes crazy laughing at that one, which gives Cassie a quick window to bring Sid's attention back on her while Tony goes to deal with him for that. "I'm a bad person," she giggles, but it's just not enough. Tony leaves to go clean himself up, and tells his lapdog to come along. Sid apologetically tells Cassie he's got to go, she snarkily says "Sure you have." He pushes his plate of chips forward and tells her to finish it off for him, which, really, is only going to make things worse. Just as Sid's about to go, she decides to repay him for his pre-Tony efforts and tells him that Mad has his ID card. After Sid's gone, Cassie takes a look back at the plate of neatly arranged chips, only they're not in rank and file any more; they've been arranged to spell out "EAT". Her expression as she looks back at Sid again is pretty inscrutable.

Tony attempts to dry out his trousers under a hand dryer in a bathroom in which Angie is just finished taking a shower. The camera spends an exceedingly gratuitously long time watching Angie strut around in the nude before either of them notice each other's presence, at which point she quite calmly points out that the room is for female staff, and Tony fulfills neither of those criteria. He lamely excuses himself by saying the dryer in the boys' room is broken, although he does at least have the good grace to look pretty embarrassed. Sid barges into the room at this point (God knows how he knew Tony was there; I'm thinking some kind of homing device because he wouldn't want to stay apart for too long, I'd imagine), tosses off a casual "Hi, Angie" before launching to a tirade about how much shit he is in before his brain catches up with his eyes and he stops mid-sentence to go "Ohhhhhhhhhh, fuck" and stare at Angie. And then his brain catches up again and he hurriedly turns away and starts cleaning his glasses. And then Chris wanders in as well to tell them how hilarious the cafteria antics were. There's at least a small enough time-gap for him to have conceivably followed Sid in. Anyway, he gets in his double-take and then hurriedly bustles the boys out of there because heaven forbid anyone else look at Angie. Although Tony's wearing no trousers, so I think it's safe to assume Sid's not a worry on that front. Now that they've already left, Angie stops being dumbsruck and yells "For fuck's sake, fuck off" unnecessarily, then looks down at herself and grins "Still got it." Heh.

Having successfully got Sid and Tony the hell away from naked Angie (and drawn the stares of every person in the school by loudly shoving Tony, still trouserless, out of a feamle staff bathroom), Chris goes back inside under the pretence of... no, he wants to see Angie naked. There is no pretence.

Meanwhile, Cassie's drifting along an upper walkway, high above the level of the rest of the student body. Take that in whatever sense you will; I can think of at least three just off the top of my head. And when I say drifting, I really mean it; they appear to have filmed this segment by dragging her along on a trolley below the line of the camera or something. Copuled with the breezy music, it's a nice effect, if not all together original. Cassie walks her fingers along the bannister for a time, then presses her face against a window to watch the floor below, where Sid's chatting with Tony. "Look up if you like me", she chants, but Sid does not; instead she gets the ironic attentions of the least attractive people possible, Dirty Old Man, Fat Chick and The Fonz. "Bugger," Cassie declares, and walks away sadly.

Sid's chilling out in the psychology classroom. Or rather, paranoiding out. The lipstick mark is still there, which, if I were Cassie, I would take as a more important sign than my own lack of telekinesis. Telekinesis of the mind, I mean. Not in a redundant way; like psychically influencing someone else's thoughts and emotions, I don't know if there is another word for that. But anyway, whatever you want to call it, Cassie does not have it and this fact is making her miserable, because she is a glass half-empty type. And I've successfully distracted myself enough to have only just realised that Cassie is not even in this scene, so I should probably get back to some kind of point. OK, Sid is paranoiding out. Angie walks in, the door shutting noise makes Sid jump because he thinks it's Mad come to collect his collaterals, Sid's lurkiness makes Angie jump, because she's just kind of a jumpy person. I just noticed that they don't show us at all what happens in between Chris walking back into the bathroom and Angie actually putting some damn clothes on and coming into her classroom; this fact does not, however, make me jump. The awkward levels go through the roof with Sid apologising for entering the showers, explaining that he is in something of a crisis and Angie, I don't know, assuming this is some kind of crisis of masturbation or something? And extremely awkwardly telling him "Well, sometimes adult bodies can be a bit overwhelming..." Yeah, psychology teacher sure was the right profession for you, Angie! Sid irritatedly dismisses this with a "For Christ's sake, Angie, I don't care about your tits. I care about my balls." OK, he doesn't actually say that second part, which is actually somewhat surprising given Sid's knack for saying absolutely the worst possible thing in about nine out of every ten situations. He just straightforwardly explains the actual crisis (albeit lacking some of the details initially), and I think we can put this stupidly over-emphasised shower scene behind us at last. Angie tries to give him advice about managing his debts (GOVERMENT LEGISLATION IS HERE TO HELP. Take a drink for that one too.) and suggests calmly asking Mad to reschedule payments, Sid explains the rest of the details and why every one of Angie's increasingly desparate plans won't work, eventually leading her to agree with Sid that he is totally fucked. Sid hilariously tells her that she's taken a whole lot of weight off his mind.

Chris wanders in at this point, and Angie tries her best to put on her Teacher Voice, saying "You've come to apologise, right?" Chris looks confused for a second, then remembers what is going on and starts apologising for what he saw, going into great detail as to what exactly that was until Angie flusteredly interrupts. Sid leaves, and thus Angie is now in a private conversation with Chris and barely even tries to pretend she isn't loving his attention. But this is still not actually going anywhere much as of yet, so it's not all that interesting, so let's gloss over into the commercials. Have you had an accident at work?

Classroom. Cassie watches her phone vibrate its way across the table, and then looks behind her shoulder to see Sid press a few buttons on his and then close it up. She opens up her phone; it's another "EAT!" message, of course. Meanwhile, Sid's bitching at Tony for being so relaxed about the situation, but it's not Tony's balls on the line, so why the hell would he care? If you pay really close attention here, you might notice Sid's phone magically transport itself from his hand to the table when the camera cuts from one view to another. It may well be an accidental continuity error, but I think it's pretty excellent anyway. Anyway, while Tony tells Sid that he's calm because he is "confident in [his] ability to improvise", in the background, their idiot of a history teacher, Tom, is explaining how he'll be away for the next few days, so they'll have a supply teacher, who turns out to be one Mr. Twatter. Like that guy would ever, ever pass the background checks to be allowed anywhere near any kind of school. Come on. Cassie gives Sid a freaked out look that's due to both the text and Mad's appearance in equal parts, Mad does more of his Twattery that I shall not be recapping unless it moves the plot forward in any way beyond his presence as supply teacher, which it does not.

Outside, Anwar and Jal walk along to the bench where Sid is sitting and repeating "Oh God" to himself over and over and ask what's going on with him; Maxxie and Michelle, who have apparently been there a while, explain it to them, and Michelle puts a comforting arm around Sid's shoulders, which he's too paralyzed with fear to even notice, so you can tell this is serious. Anwar lightly taps Sid on the face with his palm in an attempt to snap him out of it, which doesn't work at all, so Tony full on slaps him and takes charge all "Sid is our friend and we are going to solve this". Maxxie and Jal encouragingly agree that they are all there for him, and they are thinking of the answer to his problem right now, but then there's an awkward silence while everyone tries and fails to come up with anything at all, and they all mumble that they have classes to get to, leaving Sid to "Oh God" to himself some more. Jal tells them to hold up, "We can't just leave him like this". Tony promises that they are going to give this serious thought, Jal is still decidedly unconvinced but soon realises that there's really not a whole lot she can actually do right now, and tells Sid with as much positivity as she can muster that they'll get back to him, then leaves with the others.

Alone now, Sid calls up his mum and, voice a few octaves higher than it ought to be, tells her to please ring him back as soon as possible. A way away, Cassie sees Sid with his phone out and gets another "EAT!", at which she strides purposefully towards him and asks if he's OK. Sid tells her that he is not, as such, of course, Cassie apologises for that and then tells him "It's, like, totally kind what you're doing, but it won't make any difference." Sid is confused, she tells him she's talking about the messages, Sid slightly pissily tells her he has problems of his own to deal with right now and points out that a) he hasn't been sending her messages, and b) no one else has either, there are no messages on her phone. Cassie looks perplexedly at it and discovers that that is indeed the case, and says in a small voice "I thought you liked me..." It's quiet enough that Sid doesn't hear, and Cassie tells him not to worry about it and heads back into her shell, because Sid's problems are clearly more important to him than hers right now. Now, in this case, it's actually true, but Cassie goes on believing that, or rather, letting it be an excuse not to open up, in far more situations than she really should do.

And then she runs off down the street, trying again to find a way to get away from life, just for now, and The Sleepy Jackson's "This Day" comes on the soundtrack. Check out the lyrics; I wrote all of this recap without remembering this song was coming up, and it is nice to see that I am somewhere in the vicinity of the same page as the writers as far as Cassie goes, if the use of this song is any indication. Cassie leans against a lamp post to catch her breath, to let everything overwhelm her for a second, and then she makes her way home. She walks and stands in the kitchen doorway, watches as, in slow motion, Neil Morrissey cracks open a bottle of champaigne and Mama Cass feeds Reuben, and the three of them celebrate the wonders of the world, not noticing Cassie stand there. Never noticing that Cassie isn't inside their world of frivoloty and happiness. Cassie runs upstairs to her room and pulls out a drawer from under her bed that's stocked full of choclate bars and things, in case of emergency. She grabs one, turns it over in her hands a few times, but just can't will herself to open it. She looks through her bag and finds the card that Dr. Stock gave her when she left the clinic, then gets out her phone. "Hello? Yes, it's Cassie. I think I need to see you again."

The music fades, as we move over to a cafe, cars zooming by in the night. Cassie's put on a hoodie to protect her from the cold and make her look as tiny as possible. A waitress delivers something to her table, and Alan the taxi driver appears and kindly asks Cassie what's up. "I'm having a few probs," she tells him, and he calmly assures her he's listening. "There's somebody I like. I thought he was sending me a message; texts and things, but... he wasn't." What was the message? "EAT." Which, by the way, is also written on a big blue neon sign behind Cassie's head right now, awesomely. Cassie asks if it was really Alan that sent the messages, already knowing it wasn't. "I don't tell you what to do, Cassie, I'm just a taxi driver." And anyway, there's no way he could have done the thing with the chips. Cassie continues asking questions she already knows the answer to, deep down; "So, like, who's telling me to eat?" Alan just asks who wants her to eat, and Cassie thinks about it and silently reaches understanding, and looks at the gigantic burger in front of her. That thing is bigger than her head, I swear. But, you know, not really; Cassie's reality is shaped by her perceptions of it, to an abnormally high degree. Cassie tries to back out by saying she has no knife and fork, Alan tells her he doesn't need them. She tries the same distraction tactics she demonstrated so ably to Sid earlier, and asks how his day was. "Fine," he says emphatically, and continues to stare at the burger. Cassie tries again, asking if he has any more cool tunes, Alan doesn't even answer that one, just nods at the burger, pauses for significance, and tells her again that he loves her. Cassie reciprocates and finally accepts that she can't push this away any more and lifts the burger up again to take a bite. We cut away right before teeth meet bread, because nobody gets to see that but Alan, if he even really exists, which is not something I am wholly convinced about.

And that's the end of that chapter; come back next time to meet Jal.

The Smarm Before The Storm

2007-05-30T00:21:00.001+01:00

It has been a while, hasn't it? I hope things will be a little more frequent from now, but I am making no promises because I inevitably jinx myself into breaking them when I do.

Skins 1x01 - "Tony"

Episode grade: C+

So, Skins! From the makers of Shameless (which I love, a lot), plus one episode, I think, by Simon Amstell (who I love, a lot). And I think some other people, who I am less acquainted with. Ways in which it is similar to Shameless; people will tell you it is nothing like real life, and that these characters are total caricatures. And in a sense, they're right, I think. Because while I firmly believe that there are real people out there in the world who are every bit as fucked up as Cassie, and Frank Gallagher, and everyone else; it's exceedingly unlikely that you'd find this large a group of them in the same place at the same time. If they hail from outside your sphere of experience, these people will, obviously, be totally alien to you, and if you need to tell yourself that no one is really like that to feel comfortable with yourself, that's OK. You're probably wrong, but let's just pretend.

Ways in which it is not similar to Shameless; most of these people talk in accents not dissimilar from my own, and so I generally know what the hell they are talking about most all of the time. Where Shameless is about family life, and the wonderful and fucked up things that members of a family do to each other, and themselves, and everyone around them, Skins is about teenage life, and the wonderful and fucked up things that teenagers do to each other, and themselves, and everyone around them. Which is really another way that they are similar. Which is not a knock, because replace the variables with whatever, and that's what all stories are about; people, and the way people relate to each other. The people might never eat anything and say "Wow" a whole lot, they might be exceedingly remniscent of Ozzy Osbourne in every damn way, they might have giant prosphetic penises all over their face. They're still people. Shall we begin?

Opening credits! So jolly and full of life! There's this jaunty tune, and we see flashes of all the characters (am I supposed to refer to them as "the skins" or what? I can never quite decide. Naw, that sounds lame, let's just go with "the kids". Because hey, I'm pretty sure every single one of the eight main characters is played by someone younger than me, which is really pretty odd right now) and it ends in these five plinked glockenspiel notes that just put me in a great damn mood like you would not believe. I love Cassie, and Sid, and Jal, and maybe even Tony eventually, but mostly I love those five glockenspiel plinks.

Every episode is named for the character it focuses on (which may have been a totally unofficial fan-invented thing, the wikipedians are having a big furore about this, of course, but either way it works for me); this one is called Tony, so we'll start with him. He's in his double bed, the bedcovers have a headless naked man and a headless naked woman lying side by side so that two people in that bed could take the place of the heads like those things in carnivals where you stick your head through the hole and people throw sponges at you. I could say something trite like "That tells you everything you need to know about Tony", but really, nothing tells you everything you need to know about Tony, because you don't want to know about Tony.

But if you insist, it starts like this; Tony gets out of bed, flicks on a song that I believe is by someone named "Chingy" and is called "Right Thurr", and starts doing some stretches, lifting some weights, admiring himself in the mirror. According to his myspace, Tony's favourite philosopher is David Hume, his favourite medieval king is Charlemagne and his favourite Primal Scream album is Vanishing Point. That tells you... something else you now know about Tony. He's also played by the kid from About A Boy, to which I'm sure I'd make well-placed amusing references if I could distinguish the plot of any Hugh Grant film I've seen from any other in my mind. Outside, a teenage girl walks by, dressed like I'm sure no parent would want to see their teenage daughter dressed (Well, Stella probably wouldn't care. You know what I mean.), and mascara spiders around her eyes. This is Tony's sister, Effy, and we've got a long time to wait before we get to know anything about her. Tony's watch sounds an alarm, which he takes as a cue to go to his window and watch his neighbour getting changed. Down outside, Effy rolls her eyes at this and, after a little irritated gesticulating, manages to attract Tony's attention her way. He nods, cranks up the volume on his iPod (TWAT!) to max, and gives Effy the 'OK' sign. Defying the whole "opposites attract" thing, this obnoxiously loud music draws Tony's dad into the room. Tony's dad is played by Harry Enfield, and so right away you know he's going to be every bit as loud and obnoxious as Tony is smug, and by that I mean a mighty shitload. I said earlier that maybe they're not caricatures, but I was only talking about the kids when I said that; most of their parents are wholly and deliberately massive caricatures (and played by fairly recognisable comedians, which is a decidely interesting approach. Whether or not it works in another matter entirely, but it's certainly interesting). While Tony pretends that the volume control on his iPod is busted, Effy sneaks into her room to pretend she's been there all night, and Harry Enfield yells and yells, and the only particularly significant part of what he is yelling, lost among the torrent of expletives if you're not paying close attention, is "EVERY FUCKING MORNING!". But that's not going to be significant until a long, long time later, by which time you'll have long forgotten it even if you were playing close attention, so it's really just yelling, yelling yelling. Shut up forever, Harry Enfield.

Later, in case you didn't already get the dynamics of the family from that little snippet, Tony sits in the toilet reading some Sartre, while Harry Enfield is trying to get in there. Harry Enfield swears at him, Tony quietly climbs out the window, shimmies down the drainpipe and, after a sly smile at the neighbour he was watching earlier, walks back into his house through the front door. Tony and his mother, Andrea, have a boring conversation about breakfast, Harry Enfield comes down, still swearing at Tony, and stares accusingly when he realises Tony is not actually in the bathroom. Tony smugly claims that the lock is broken, and in future, I'm not going to bother with the adverb, because 'smugly' is how Tony does every damn thing in his life. Harry Enfield swings at being down with the kids and misses completely by saying "You take me for a right James Blunt, don't you." Quite aside from the try-hard nature of it all, it appears to be wildly out of the only character he's displayed thus far for him to not just go ahead and say 'cunt' anyway. Andrea asks Harry Enfield if he must swear all the time, Harry Enfield responds by saying "Bollocking fucking shit" or whatever, and man, I do not know how I ever made it through the start of this episode without foreknowledge that it will get better later. Beyond the obvious fact that it really couldn't get much worse, I mean.

Tony finally leaves his stupid house, not that things are going to improve any right away, because now we get a horrendously overlong sequence of Tony calling up all his friends and being an unbearable little shit for hours on end. Look, I can see how pilot episodes are probably hard to make; introducing all your characters and themes and telling a coherent and interesting story and all, it's a lot to fit in, sure, but there have got to be better ways to go about it than this.

First on Tony's call list is Sid, who has dirty plates and clothes scattered around his room and moans and refuses to wake up yet when his phone goes off. Sid always wears a pair of emo specs and a beanie hat, and... is by far the character I can relate to the most in this show (though not because of those things), which is maybe why I thought this episode ought to have been called "Sid". But this recap is, superficially, at least, not actually about me, so let's move on. Tony tells Sid's voicemail that he is "a lazy turd" and that they have plans "concerning [Sid's] cock". Oh, how risqué. Tony's second call, to Chris, also just gets voicemail, so he tries Jal, who actually answers despite being in the middle of clarinet practice. He tells her to go to Sid's house and wake him up, she objects on the grounds that he lives half a mile away, Tony cuts her off because he has another call coming through. It's his girlfiend, Michelle, or 'Nips', as he calls her. Because, he tells her, "I've seen a lot of nipples in my time and believe me, yours are hilarious". And also, he's "nominated" her to "help out" with the epic quest to pop Sid's cherry. The number of times so far I've wanted to punch Tony is reaching double figures. The number of minutes elapsed in the episode is not. That is not a good score.

And then Chris calls him, and Chris is too busy having sex with an ex of Tony's to go wake Sid up, or I think that is what they said. I'm kind of running on autopilot for now. Leave a message. Right, somehow Tony accidentally tells Jal instead of Chris that Sid needs to get laid before he turns eighteen or he can't be Tony's friend any more. And Michelle agrees to help Sid out. Tony calls Anwar, who is a Muslim, and in the middle of prayers when he gets the call. Tony calls Sid's dad and tells him Sid has an exam that morning so he'll yell at Sid and wake him up, Anwar bitches at Tony for making his uncle want to stone him to death and says he can't help out with Sid's virginity because he's going with Chris to Maxxie's big gay night out, on the extremely fuzzy logic that there'll be plenty of horny women there with no one else to turn to. Maxxie gives Tony much the same story, except that, being the gay one, he's less with the 'horny, desperate women' and more with the 'taking the lads on a journey of discovery'. And tap dancing. I mean, that he is tap dancing right now, not that he wants to take the lads on a journey of discovery and tap dancing, though I'm sure that would be tremendously fun. Maxxie is quite astoundingly pretty, I must say. Tony gets back to Sid, who's got bored and started masturbating in the interim. I'm possibly wishing I hadn't made that confession regarding my ability to relate to him earlier, but apparently not enough to go back and erase it. Tony tells him to meet in the café and also that "Tonight, Mr. Happy is getting the keys to the furry city." Sid actually relays this message, verbatim and aloud, to his penis. I know this show is not overly concerned with maintaining realism, but that really is just fucking stupid. And if you've made it this far, reward yourself with a refreshing beverage of your choice, you deserve it.

You know why I hadn't given up by this point, originally? Those glockenspiel plinks. It's got to be. Hold on while I rewind, I need a refresher. Plink plink plink, plink, plink! Ah yeah. Anyway, Sid meets Tony in the café as per instructions, and apologises, saying he's "crap in the mornings". Tony tells him he's always crap, "no exercise, rubbish food and too much caffeine." Sid good naturedly tells him to fuck off, and confirms that the test Tony told Sid's dad about was just a ruse to get him out of bed, adding "Fucker." He sighs and tells Tony "This better be good", Tony grins. "Trust me, Sid. Tonight, we go to a party, and you finally pop the cherry. You finally get the V.I.P. tour of Netherland, You finally..." Sid tells him to fuck off, again, "...Not 'finally'." Tony glares and tells him "It's embarrassing", Sid objects that it's perfectly normal for "someone of 16" (in case you were wondering on the ages), Tony flatly repeats "It's embarrassing," and Sid, embarrassed, says "...Shit. Alright, how?" How do you not hate Tony, really. I mean, further in it becomes pretty clear that that is what we are meant to do, so, why this opening? Who thought it would be good idea to take the least likeable character they have created, the least likeable character anyone has created, and spend the first ten minutes of the first episode on nothing but the smug bastard talking, talking, talking? I don't get it. I am confused and alienated. Tony's Mensa-worthy plan is "Get a girl catastrophically spliffed up, and in her confused state, she comes to believe, however momentarily, that you are attractive enough to shag." And here is another that bugs me; maybe (in fact, probably) it's a regional thing and they're perfectly correct, but I've always been given to understand that the word 'spliff' refers to a, shall we say, enhanced cigarette, rather than the substance contained therein, as it is constantly used on this show. Whether this is a writer error or not, it's still annoying to me, because I am frightened of change.

Anyway! Sid, baked bean juice dribbling down his chin, asks which lucky lady has been selected for this thankless task, Tony is deliberately elusive and just says "I think you're going to like this", and Sid sees Michelle walking towards the café outside and immediately jumps to the conclusion and/or dares to hope that she's the one, because Sid is desperately in love with Michelle. That's a plot point. Make a note. So, Sid starts gushing praise at Tony for this, Tony attempts to correct him, but, despite being Tony, cannot get a word in edgewise, so he settles for the old "picture paints a thousand words" adage and starts making out with Michelle right there. Sid watches them and grimaces for a while and then, after a few minutes in which they show no signs of coming up for air, interrupts with "Are we getting me laid, or shall I just start filming and take it back for private time?" Woah woah! Ha! Tony acknowledges this display of wit by actually showing something other than disdain for his supposed 'friend', and asks Michelle "Who's stupid enough to fuck Sid?" Michelle suggests Cassie, Sid nixes this because "She's still in hospital", but Michelle tells him that they've let her out, "She's just not allowed near knives." Sid eventually shrugs "She'll do," Michelle tries to talk a little more enthusiasm into him by reporting that "Cassie's great in the sack. As long as she's not hungry." So, in case you hadn't noticed, Cassie is A BIT OFF, MENTALLY SPEAKING. I know it's subtle, but there are a few hints if you know where to look. Christ, and this is before we've even met her. Anyway, Sid wants to know who says Cassie is good in bed, Michelle and Tony, in unison, say "Everyone." Come on though, Sid would not ask that, Sid would assume Michelle was talking from personal experiences and keep that mental image around for later use. I'm just sayin'. Tony announces that they'll need "a lot of drugs" and gives Sid the address of his dealer, since he has "choir practice" and "tai chi" and thus no free time to get them himself. This is not actually a lie, shockingly. Now, no one who had met Cassie would actually be under the impression that you'd need a particularly sizable quantity of 'spliff' to get her into a confused state, but of course Tony is going to want plenty for himself, and be thoroughly willing to take advantage of Sid to affect that outcome. OK. Also, the dealer is called "Mad Twatter", which Sid skeptically asks Tony about, but he's too busy being fondled to pay attention to Sid any more, so Sid rolls his eyes and leaves.

And now, Tony sings. He's in this posh all-girls school for his choir practice, and they're all pointing and giggling at the sight of him. He has a beautiful singing voice, of course, and that has a power. A power to make all the two dimensional adults of the world of Skins say things like "Oooh, he's such a lovely boy" and blind them to the true horror of Tony. The sound he makes is graceful, wonderful, but when Tony is singing, that is when he is at his absolute worst. When he is at his most smug, most certain that he is better than everybody else in the world, and that he knows exactly how to get anything he wants out of any of them. OK, maybe I can kind of see where they're coming from on this; the bigger they are, the harder they fall and all that, but even knowing the fall is coming (Which is not a spoiler, because no one creates a character as hideous as Tony without the intention of giving them a comeuppance somewhere down the line. If you hated the world that much, you just wouldn't stick around long enough to write that story.) doesn't make this opening any less unpleasant to watch. I don't like Tony, by the way, in case you were wondering. While Tony's singing is going on, we get to watch Sid flicking through all the hundreds of pictures of Michelle he has saved on his phone, in case you hadn't yet picked up on the fact that he has a thing for her. There's at least a bit of humour injected into it by the old guy on the seat behind him looking at the pictures over Sid's shoulder and smiling contentedly to himself. Relatively speaking, anyway.

Tony finishes up, the teacher accompanying him on piano, looking quite flustered, tells him "That was lovely, Anthony," (YOU SEE?!) "I'm sure we'd love to have you in the chamber choir." The girls all titter, because they would indeed, a particularly vapid example of them strays from the pack to tell him "My fruhnds think you're reahlly cool, yah?" Tony has a little trouble translating from Posh to English, so she has to repeat "fruhnds" before he gets it. This is Abigail, who blinks far too much, and if you pause any frame in which she appears, you will see more teeth than you can count, for which I must give kudos to Georgina Moffat because that level of commitment to your acting has got to be actually physically painful. She asks Tony if he's still coming to her pahteh tonight, "it would be so safe if you did" and bleats about her parents being away on holiday and whatever, "so we're going to go absolutely wiuhld on drum and bass." She adds "After 8:30, because Miriam has to get back from her cello recital. And bring some fruhnds." Tony amiably says it sounds great fun, and he will, and his phone takes this opportune moment to start ringing, giving him an excuse to get out of there. It's Michelle, and apparently she hasn't yet persuaded Cassie to come along. Tony tells her to hurry it along, and then says "Alright, safe, I'm going to psychology and then I'll come jump you, yeah?" And as he says this, he walks past a doddering old professor, who is duly outraged and asks Tony what his business is here. Tony says he's here for an interview, Dr. Dodder refuses to accept this on the grounds that it is an all girls school, Tony clarifies that the chamber choir are looking for male parts (*snicker*), and addresses Dr. Dodder as "man", which gets his gander up even further. "My name is Mr. Griffiths and I'm the head of French here and addressed as sir! Do they even teach you French in that technical college you attend?" (The words "technical college" said with the appropriate sneer). Tony says they do, and he addresses his teacher as "Pierre", and all the girls snigger and Our Hero gets one up on the crusty old stupidhead grown-up, who actually literally calls Tony a "common little oik" at this point. Yeah, I've always felt that edgy teen "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" dramas need more plotlines ripped from Dennis The Menace.

Outside, he calls up Sid to ask if he's found Mad Twatter's residence yet; Sid is opposite a house with a car parked outside with the number plate "MD TW4T", so it's probably safe to assume he has. Sid has a little trepidation about going in, Tony rolls his eyes and tells him to get on with it. Sid steels himself and knocks on the door, at which point his phone rings again. He tells Tony to fuck off already, as a woman in lingerie answers the door and asks if he's her 2:30. So, of course, it's actually his mother on the phone. The prostitute at the door hurries him inside because "the neighbours are right bitchy with the digital cameras", Sid hurriedly tells his mum he'll call back later and hangs up. The prostitute shouts "Alicia! Little geek guy here, is he yours?" up the stairs, and another comes down. Sid, looking more confused than usual, says "hi", Alicia says "You're here for my accidental threesome, yeah?"

Back to Tony, a scruffy looking Welsh guy in the street tries to sell him a Big Issue, Tony amiably replies "Get a fucking job, Kenny" and then asks how his holiday was. Kenny tells him it was crap, "Four star means nothing these days" and then goes straight back to attempting to sell his magazines to passersby. Tony continues on towards the gang, sans Sid and Michelle. Jal says "Here he comes, cock of the year" and Maxxie wonders who's going to tell him they won't be able to attend Abigail's wiuhld pahteh. The others shush him as Tony gets closer, and Anwar asks what he was doing in the posh birds' school, Tony answers "Broadening my horizons", Chris refutes this, saying "those girls do not do fickety-fick with town scum like you", Tony jokes that maybe that has been Chris's experience, but "I say this world extends way beyond this little field of dreams we're dancing in, and I want to see that world." Jal and Anwar grin, Chris gives an awesome look of confusion and asks what the fuck he's talking about. Jal explains that he's quoting, "It's a literary reference," Chris says "What, you mean like Shakespeare and shit?", Jal tells him it's actually from the show that launched a thousand recaps, Dawson's Creek (which my dad has apparently got into lately, hilariously enough. Well, it is to me.) Chris says "Whatever, I don't know what that is" then immediately contradicts this by ranting about how they're all braindead if they can't think of better things to entertain themselves with than TV. Jal asks for suggestions, Chris considers for a while and comes up with "pills." Jal asks is that's all, Chris says "No!" and then pauses for a while before coming up with "shagging". Tony smirks "Cultural", and Jal nods her agreement with a sarcastic "Oh yeah". Hee. I actually really like this scene, all the bantering feels way more natural than anything else has so far, and I can actually see reasons why these people would be friends with Tony here. Jal teases Chris, saying he won't get anywhere with option #2 with the minute size of his penis. Everyone laughs, Anwar tells him he shouldn't have got it out, Chris complains "It was strip poker for fuck's sake, what did you want me to do?", Anwar points out that he wasn't even playing. Chris calls them all a bunch of pussies, which I'd say pretty effectively tells the story of what went on that night without actually, y'know, telling the story, which is pretty deft. "Anyway, enough of that," Chris continues, "We've got to get going, cuz we've got psychology, and we don't want to miss Angie, now do we?" Hey, is that a plot point introduced with something resembling subtlety too? Awesome! As they're getting up, Tony verifies that they are all coming to the pahteh, Maxxie (this is the first thing he's said since Tony got there, you'll note) reminds him about the big gay night out. Tony tries to persuade them with the allure of large quantities of spliff, but Chris tells him they're not in any great need of it, "the town's awash, it's like someone planted up Lithuania or something". Tony swears, because that means the ounce Sid is currently getting hold of will be way more than they need, and tries to call him. But, of course, Sid turned his phone off when his mum called, so Tony can't get through, and now the inevitable wacky hijinks will ensue.

House Of Twat, the prostitute that isn't Alicia sings "Stickwitu" to herself and paints her toenails, then looks at her watch and tells Sid "I've got to walk in on 'em by mistake now. D'you wanna coke or summin'?" Heh. Sid looks exceedingly uncomfortable, of course, and nervously asks if she thinks he'll be long. She says "Not once I burst in all flummoxed up, he won't", Sid clarifies that he meant Mad, and then asks if that's his real name. With a large air of forboding, she says "Oh yeah", and Sid fidgets nervously for a while and stands up, saying he'll come back later, but the prostitute pushes him back down and assures him it'll be fine, "Just don't stare. He doesn't like people staring. He's sensitive, y'know? Just don't stare at it." Sid nods in agreement, then realises what she said and asks what 'it' is, but she's already gone upstairs to yell "Hello? I've unexpectedly come home by accident!"

College, Tony leaves Sid a message to tell him the plan is aborted because nobody is coming to the pahteh, and to tell him to pick up his messages, and that he is an "absolute and utter lower colon". He snaps his phone shut and sighs. Cut across to Sid's phone, jiggling about in his shaking hands, while quite unreasonably loud moans come from upstairs. Sid says "Fuck this" to himself and gets up to leave, again, but there's a short scouser with an utterly ludicrous handlebar moustache standing in the doorway. Sid stares at him, he threateningly asks Sid if he's staring, Sid continues to stare and say he isn't, and then asks "so, you're Mad?" Mad confirms that he is indeed "Madison Twatter, PHD. You got a problem?" Sid assures him he doesn't have a problem (although personally, I am already thoroughly tired of his schtickzophrenia), and says "you're a doctor then?" Mad asks who said that, Sid reminds him of "the PHD thing", Mad says "Yeah, you could say that. You could say, um. Pretty. Huge. Dick." You certainly are! He heartilly laughs at his own joke then suddenly threateningly asks Sid which it is, "Doctor, or pretty huge dick?" Sid nervously suggests "Both?", to which Mad grins and tells Sid he likes him. Then, fuck it, I can't be bothered with detail any more. Mad continues to be an irritating psycho, Sid gets to the point; he wants an ounce of spliff, only "someone" said he could get it free now and pay later, which just sounds like an awful idea both ways, you nonce, Tony. Also, Mad grabs Sid's balls to check they exist, because they're his "collateral" if he fails to pay Mad back within 48 hours for the three ounces he gets thrust upon him. OK.

College. Jal reads out her essay, about the five stages of grief, and in the background, someone is crying. Once Jal finishes, we get to see who; it's their teacher, Angie. Now, I have repeatedly had to check imdb and wikipedia and all of them to convince myself that I don't actually recognise her from anything else, because she is seriously goddamn familiar, and I wish I knew why. Anyway, Chris cheerily says "No more sports science teachers, Angie. Eh, it doesn't matter how big his dick is...", at which point Jal interrupts to tell him to shut up, and then Angie, still crying, tells the class they're all so lovely, and their coursework deadline is next week, "If that's OK. It's important for my department's score." Everyone files out uncertainly, leaving her crying, Chris stays behind to offer to say the offending sports science teacher "touched [him] up in the shower", which Angie seems amenable to, but Jal drags Chris out of there before the conversation can proceed.

In the corridor, Sid finds Tony and asks if he managed to rope Cassie in. Tony says he did, but before Sid can enthuse too much about that, Tony also tells him he's a tit for not checking his messages. Sid gets out his phone and turns it on, it gives 'new message' beeps again and again and again. Sid stares for while and then looks at Tony and innocently deadpans "Problem?"

Meanwhile, Angie, with a pile of books in her hands, has finished crying and leans against the wall outside her classroom and sighs. Chris, who has apparently managed to get Jal off his tail somehow, approaches and asks if she's OK, then offers to carry the books for her. Angie, sounding kind of exhausted but not actually at all annoyed at this, tells him he may indeed carry her books, "but you don't have to do it every day, Chris." Chris grins and says "I do", and then grabs her phone, which has started ringing, from on top of the books and answers it. Angie tries to get him to stop, but with the books in her hands, it's ineffectual at best, so in the end she just lets him get on with it. I shall too, because this is fairly awesome: "Angie's phone. Look, stop ringing her, you wanker, or you'll have me to deal with. Yeah, Chris Miles here. Angie's friend. She's got a lot of friends, you know what I'm saying, you tosser? ...Right. Yeah, no, yeah, I'll have the coursework in by Thursday. Are you saying I can have an extension? Yeah. Yeah. ...And don't ring her again. Bellend." Angie can't help but smile, but then there's an awkward pause and she worries, "I'm not sure you're supposed to..." but then smiles and thanks him and hands him her books. He tells her "The pleasure was all mine", and starts to walk away, obviously knowing exactly where Angie needs the books taking without asking. She appreciatively watches his back as he goes for a while, then mentally slaps herself and follows.

Pahteh time! Oh man, finally. Chris and Angie are kind of cute, admittedly, but man it feels like it's taken forever to get here. Of course, you don't know when I started writing this recap; maybe it actually has. Tony and Sid approach, Sid wows at the size of Abigail's mansion, Tony tells him that this is the place, "And we have to sell an ounce of dope." Thank you for finally at least acknowledging that there might be words other than 'spliff' for it, even if that may actually be correct. Sid tries to tell him it's actually three ounces, but Tony is not going to let himself be interrupted right now; "What I reckon is, we tell 'em it's, like, I dunno, Mongolian hallucenogenic, right? There all so dim, they might just buy it." Sid tries again to tell Tony, this time he's interrupted by the arrival of Michelle and Cassie. Oh wow, Cassie. Cassie is, like, totally... wow. I believe the word 'spacy' (or is it 'spacey'? No, that's just Kevin, right?) was invented solely for her. Wow. I love her, I can't help it. She just... wow. Tony and Michelle proceed making out, and Sid looks a little disgusted, Cassie stares unblinkingly at Sid. Michelle eventually disengages to ask where everyone else is, Tony tells her they're not coming, "and Sid's got to sell or he's in shit with his dealer". Sid objects to the wording there; "MY dealer?!", Michelle hurriedly dissolves tension by presenting Cassie to them, in case Sid hadn't noticed her crazy staring. "Cassie, you remember Sid, right?" she asks. Cassie grins, "Yeah, wow, lovely. ...no. But, I like that you're funny-looking. It's cute, like, wow, man." Look, I understand perfectly if that bugs the crap out of you, I don't understand in the slightest why it doesn't do the same to me, honestly, but nonetheless, I just find Cassie absolutely adorable. Tony asks Cassie how her treatment's going, she says "Oh, it's cool. I wear a white dress, and now I can eat yoghurt, cup-a-soup aaaand hazelnuts now. I'm not sick if they let me play with cats. [I am not at all certain that sentence is right, but most of the actual words are wholly irrelevant, you know? She's like a Hybrid. She transcends language; I understand her in spite of the words, not because of them.] Yeah, it's like... hazy days, you know?" No one does. But Tony nods sagely and says "Well, that's encouraging" anyway, which is quite sweet of him even if he is being a sarcastic bastard. You may have picked this up a while ago, but I am going to get quite weird, recapping this show, and particularly Cassie. Episode two is her episode, so... I don't know. Just giving you a heads up. Like, wow.

Back to the show; Cassie is extremely touched by Tony's words, and tackle-hugs him. Actually, you know what, this is why I love Cassie; she is immune to the Power of Tony. Sincere, insincere, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to her, and Tony does not understand this. He doesn't understand her, and without understanding, he doesn't have control, and I think Tony loves Cassie for this too. And the fact that we share this love of Cassie will heal the rift between us, and that's how I'll be able to not hate Tony, somewhere down the line, but like all good things, that will only come through waiting. Michelle finds this all very sweet until Cassie starts kissing Tony, at which she gently pulls her away and aims her at Sid instead, "Sid's going to be looking after you tonight." Cassie wows, of course, and then again when Tony tells her that Sid has a whole bag of drugs. "And I bet you won't even make me eat anything." Cassie has an eating disorder, OK, but next episode is called "Cassie", and that is the time to freak the fuck out about that. Sid looks to Tony and Michelle for guidance, because he's a little out of his depth, as ever, and manages to work out that "No" is the correct answer there. Cassie says "Thank you" and hugs him too, Sid awkwardly pats her on the back a little and Tony announces that it's time to go in and shift that ounce, at which point Sid finally manages to tell him it's actually three. Tony gives him a nice look of horror and disappointment.

Abigail opens the door and happily greets Tony, "And these must be your fruhnds". Michelle hilariously also cannot comprehend that word, but Tony introduces everyone to Abigail before there is time to dwell on that. Abigail announces that this is "super", Cassie says "Wow, you're lovely" and gives her the requisite tacklehug, Abigail declares this to be "super" also, though in a slightly more confused and frightened manner. I tell you what though, I could watch Cassie and Abigail just sitting in a room, calling everything "super" and "lovely" for hours on end. I can't tell you how awesome that would be. Cassie eagerly jumps up and down like a child asking "Where's the kitchen? I wanna see the kitchen!" Abigail hesitantly points her towards it and tells the others to come in, then suddenly stops them and says "Shoes! It's just that mummy had this carpet imported from Iran, and we have to be so, so cahfull with the pile." She grimaces a little at the holey socks that are revealed when Sid follows this instruction, but soldiers on and offers them some rum punch; "I'm afraid we're getting rather giggly on it, isn't that safe?" Tony agreeably says "Mmm, we love rum punch, don't we, 'Chelle?" Michelle gives him an "Are you fucking kidding me?" look but accepts the punch with a forced smile and a "Super!" (Hee!) on Tony's nudge.

Abigail leads them into the next room and introduces her fruhnds, "Sara, Josh, Sara, Maddie, Felicia [I think. It actually sounded like 'Blistia', but nobody has ever been called Blistia, I hope.], Hugo, Sebastian, Sara, Sam and Sara." It's an obvious joke, and on an unrelated note, either Hugo or Sebastian appears to be female, but goddammit, it's funny anyway. Also funny; Abigail asks Sid what his name was, again, and on being reminded, asks "Is that Polish or something?" Which is actually a cunning (as far as Abigail goes, anyway) segue into introducing Danuta, who is Polish, and I guess an exchange student or something. "She doesn't speak English," Abigail explains, "But you can just speak to her in French or Italian." While Sid looks a little bemused at this prospect, Abigail tells Danuta (in subtitled Italian) "This is Sid. He goes to a school where you don't even have to pay. Isn't that lovely?" Danuta laughs at the size of Sid's hands, and suggests that this indicates that he also has a small penis, which of course Abigail just translates to "She likes you." Tony brings the conversation to a point, at last, and asks Abigail if she and her friends would like "a little something." Abigail is confused, so Tony makes smoking gestures and says "You know, get a bit squiffy", and Abigail is all "Ohhh, yah, that would be so safe, you know." Sid breathes a sigh of relief, but then tenses right the hell up again when Abigail mentions that they can't smoke in the house, because "the silk wallpaper's just arrived from Rome, and mummy's awfully particular about odours, and we simply musn't or she'll go wiuhld". And then just to add insult to injury, they get to hear "This is M.C. Hugo on the decks, and we're going to have a tremendous time, yah? So let's shizzle on this dizzle, and pahteh dowwwwn!" Can't unhear that. The posh kids get their embarrasing-dad-at-a-wedding dances on, and after rolling her eyes at all this, Michelle decides to take off her coat and show them how it should be done, which Tony joins in with soon after. Sid watches Michelle and her short, clingy dress for a good long while, looking forlorn, then gets fed up of that and heads off to find Cassie.

Who is still in the kitchen, piling all the food tins into little symmetrical towers, because I guess she also has OCD. Sid says "Hi", Cassie says "Oh, hi! This is so so wicked! They've got such cool food. Look at it all. ...wow." Whew, that was a long time without a 'wow'. I was getting worried. Sid doesn't understand, at all, so he just lets her get on with it and vaguely mumbles "Cool..." when she finishes up and declares "I don't feel sick any more." She goes on to ask "Are you going to fuck me later?" by way of making small talk, Sid is rather taken aback that Michelle actually told her this part, but it's all wow cool lovely as far as Cassie is concerned. Sid decides not to pursue the matter right now and remembers that he has "all this fucking weed", and offers Cassie "a spliff". Hooray, familiar terminology! Cassie quietly tells him "You can't. It makes you hungry." Sid obliviously tells her he doesn't mind, Cassie stares at the floor sadly and says "I do." Sid, not knowing what the hell else to do, says "Sorry" and gives her an awkward peck on the cheek. Lucky for him, that is exactly the right thing to do, because the smile that Cassie smiles now, oh man. These two. Look, what I've got on my screen right now, they're both leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at each other and smiling shyly and I just want to take this picture and draw pink hearts around it. I want to write sappy awful fanfiction about them, and times like these, these recaps might veer dangerously close to doing so. I AM A CYNICAL AND JADED MAN AND SHOULD NOT BE HAVING THESE THOUGHTS. Nonetheless, I am typing the following sentences. What have you done to me, Skins?! OK, so Sid's got a clear Harry Potter thing going on with the glasses (and the hair, if he didn't hide it all the time), and Cassie is Luna Lovegood to the point that not getting Hannah Murray to play her in the last three films would be the biggest mistake those guys could possibly make (and man have they made a lot of those), and JK if those two are not together by the end of Book 7 I will hurt you. Yes, I realise they have already cast the part, and Hannah Murray is probably just a little too old anyway, and I'm sure Ms. Lynch will do an absolutely fine job. Some vestigial remnant of my point still stands. Possibly. There is probably also just a little vicarious living going on here because in addition to being a jaded, cynical man, I am also a sad and lonely emo kid.

Let's quickly move along. Big Gay Night Out! Which, as it turns out, not so big. There's precisely two blokes there, besides our kids. Maxxie looks so disappointed, aw. He tries to persuade Chris and Anwar that it's usually a lot better than this, but they're fairly doubtful. Chris starts to head off to find the pahteh, which Maxxie really isn't in the mood for, so Chris tells him "It's posh kids! All the boys are gay!" Heh. Anwar asks if the girls are gay too, Chris is like "Sure, why not?" and they all accept the fact that whoever is or is not gay, it will probably be more fun than they are having right now.

Five hours, four buses and two bottles of vodka later, they've found their way to Abigail's mansion, where, judging by the front garden, mummy is going to go absolutely wiuhld when she gets back. Inside, Chris pockets a few phones and wallets that have just been left on the table and shakes his head, declaring this "careless". Anwar sniffs at a not entirely empty champagne glass and then shrugs and downs it. They find their way to M.C. Hugo's Shizzled Dizzle room and Chris spots Tony, takes off his hat, scarf and shirt and yells "Changed our minds man, the monkey man's here!" And all the Big Gay Night Outers rush to embrace Tony and Michelle.

Outside, some idiot cameraman is standing behind a hedge, so we've just got audio right now. You'd think someone would've caught that before it went to broadcast. Fortunately, we don't really need visuals right now; There's springs rhythmically squeaking, and someone female is breathing heavily, peppered with occasional "wow"s. The cameraman finally finds his way to where he's supposed to be, and as I'm sure we all realised, Cassie is on a trampoline. I guess a minor error like that wasn't even worth correcting. Cassie falls down and just lies there, Sid, who is not letting the entirity of his three ounces go ununsed, even if no one else appears to want any, asks if she's OK. Cassie tells him to get up on the trampoline with him, "You've got to got to bounce, wooo!" Sid gives his joint an uncertain look, and then throws it away.

Inside, Chris grabs Abigail and starts dancing with her, she is horrified by his muddy shoes and cries "Take them off! Take them off!" which Chris misinterprets as a request for him to drop his shorts. One of the posh boys tries to pull Chris away, Tony lays him out with a pretty killer right hook. All the posh kids stand around looking horrified, and then Danuta lets out a hearty laugh declares that "at last, the real men have arrived!", pulls off her shirt and starts making out with Chris.

Outside, Sid is jumping on the trampoline while Cassie lies there, he stumbles and ends up straddling her to avoid actually falling on her. Cassie leans up and kisses him, but then says "It's no good though, is it Sid?" Sid asks "What is?" as a formality to hold up the pretence that this -logue is dia. Cassie explains "You fancy me," which Sid contemplates for a second and then agrees with, "But you really love Michelle." Sid lies back and laments the fact that it shows. Yeah, it always shows, and everybody sees it. And everybody except you always knows that everybody else knows too, Sid. You would too if you'd just admit it to yourself. But hey, if it's all a big secret, then maybe things'll be different when you finally find the time to tell her, which of course you never will, because you know damn well that she already knows and nothing will change except you won't be able to hold onto to this stupid false hope any more. Because maybe, this time, it's different, and she actually doesn't know and everything will change.

So, were where we? Right, Sid loves Michelle, and Cassie knows that Sid loves Michelle, and Michelle knows that Sid loves Michelle, which is all a great tragedy as far as Sid is concerned. Cassie continues to lay out the intricacies of this wildly precedented scenario; "[Michelle] says that Tony doesn't love her properly, but you do. And it's too fucked up because she like, totally loves him and just thinks you're sweet." Sid bemoans his sweetness, Cassie takes his hand and tries to assure him that everything will be fine, Sid asks what she'd do "if everything was just so fucked up, and you didn't know what to do?" "I'd stop eating until they took me to hospital," she answers, matter-of-factly. So hilarously delivered, and yet so very sad. And then she giggles and wows at how lovely the clouds are, and tells Sid he can fuck her now, if he wants, but he'll have to be quick, because she took a whole bunch of pills. And then she passes out. Sid shakes her and says "Oh, fuck", which is, of course, not a massively effective solution.

Inside, the kids are continuing to trash the place, Michelle is the first to see Sid carrying Cassie in, Tony declares that it's time to go, and they all gather their shoes and head outside, Danuta following. Chris grins and says "Good party," Sid asks if they could please hurry along "in case Cassie's, like, dying or something". Michelle says the city hospital has an all-night walk-in, "that's where I normally take her," Tony complains that that's miles away. Danuta makes kissy faces at Chris, Maxxie (Eyyyeaih, they've bloodied up his pretty face! Why couldn't it be Tony?) laughs "I think she likes you". Chris, in the loud, slow way of ignorant English speakers talking to foreigners everywhere, tells her "We have no bus or taxi. WE ARE STUCK." She smiles and dangles a set of keys, saying "Ve steal car, then make fook, English boy, yes?" Chris looks at the others and gives a hilarious nod; "Yes."

Cue Tony driving like an absolute loon while Chris and Danuta make out in the backseat and everyone else yells bloody murder at him. Tony panickingly tells the others to get Cassie inside quick, Anwar asks what they're supposed to tell the hospital. Tony says "I don't know, improvise. Go on! We've got to stash the car." At which point Cassie sits up and blinks groggily and giggles. "Oh, I had such a lovely dream. Wow." Tony rolls his eyes. Maxxie looks pissed at her too, even though his bloodied face had nothing to do with her passing out and, in fact, he probably would've ended up with worse if she hadn't. Maybe he's just annoyed at the world in general.

Tony stops the car alongside a lake or canal or something, Anwar goes running out to take a piss against a tree, Cassie leans out the window to watch the beauty of the world go by. Tony tells Sid to "get it out [Dirty!], we'll at least have a couple of spliffs before you're taken out and de-bollocked." Again with the familiar terminology. I swear all that nonsense earlier was part of the ongoing effort to drive me crazy in the first half of this episode. Which... I made a lengthy comparison involving Harry Potter characters a little while back; I think there is a lesson to be learned here, writers. Sid frets about the coming de-bollocking and sarcastically thanks Tony for his supportive words, Tony tells him to relax, because they'll find a way to sell it tomorrow. For he is Tony, and there is nothing he cannot do. Apropos of nothing, as ever, Cassie says "I like boats. They go places." Woah... deep, ma... Yeah, even I'm not going to try to defend that one. Tony notices that Anwar's been a while and asks if he's OK, Anwar tells him to shut up, because evidently he has shy bladder, and yells at everyone not to look. Even Cassie has enough grounding in reality to know that that is a signal for everyone in the car to immediately bore holes into Anwar's back with their eyes. Sid asks "Who's got skins?" (TITLE! Drink.) Tony roots around his coat pockets, but can't find them, and when Michelle groans that he's forgotten them, he jinxes the hell out of everybody by saying "We've had all our bad luck for today." Fucking IDIOT. Sid for some reason knows that Tony put the skins in his back pocket and gets him to turn around so Sid can fumble for them, and I may be overly enamoured of Sid + Cassie, but this is the very definition of HoYay. Frankly, that's the only explanation I can find for why Sid would ever consider this wanker to be his best friend. Anyway, in the midst of all this feeling around in back pockets, either Sid or Tony's elbow nudges the handbrake off, which in turn send the car careening into the canal. Ruh roh!

Anwar runs over to the edge and stands around looking ineffectualy worried, lots of bubbles surface, eventually followed by Michelle, then Cassie, then Sid, then Tony, then Maxxie. Thank God everybody's OK! Tony says "I think that could have gone a lot worse, don't you?". Sid laments the fact that he's lost all his dope, and ergo his balls as well, very soon. Cassie cheerily says "At least we've got our health! That's the important thing!"

Time for an iconic credits shot of everyone walking down the street in their soaking wet clothes, set to some indie-pop! Anwar appears to be as soaked as everybody else, oddly. I guess maybe he fell in trying to help them out? Why not. Also, every one of the boys is wearing more than one layer (except Anwar, who has a jumper tied around his waist), and not one of them has thought to give anything over to Michelle, who has got to be fucking freezing in that dress, so they are all jerks.

In the canal, Sid's bag o' dope floats to the surface. And, next morning, in her house, Tony's naked neighbour goes to her window, and looks a little upset that he is not there to watch her. In her bed, her husband complains that "anybody would think you wanted the neighbours to see you!" I guess they have this discussion every morning.

Tony's room. Tony and Sid lie in his bed, shirtless. Can't see if they are anything else-less. Tony' on the male side of his nude bed cover, Sid's on the female side. In case the dynamic of their relationship wasn't obvious already. Sid has a nagging doubt on his mind; "Chris and the Polish girl, they got out of the car at the hospital right?" Tony says "yeah", but does not sound remotely sure of himself. They both try to convince themselves that this is indeed the case. I don't mean to spoil anything, but... I don't remember if this "cliffhanger" is even mentioned in any future episode. And finally: "You still a virgin, then?" "Yep." Because it only counts if it's with a woman.

CC (You Set The Fire In Me)

2007-04-16T13:37:00.000+01:00

Sugar Rush 2x01 - "Just Visiting"

Episode Grade: A-

This recap written with the recently acquired knowledge that Sugar Rush will not be returning for a third season. Because, according to a Channel 4 spokeswoman, "We felt the girls' story had run its course." This is clearly absolute bull, but what can you do, eh? Me, I'm going to... probably take longer than I otherwise would've to get the second season recaps done, because now I have no reason to get them all done before summer comes around. That'll show 'em!

In the first of many similarities to the pilot, no opening KimVo previouslies or anything, just straight into the credits. Which are identical to how they were in the first season, except someone called Sarah Jane Potts has been unceremoniously added, whoever that is. OK, so I'm not actually going to pretend I haven't already seen this whole season. I know who she is. She's pretty cool. We'll get to that later.

Anyway, following the credits, KimVo gets on with the business of telling the newbies what's what; "It's 18 months since I hot-wired a car, stole my mum's credit card and had hot lesbian sex with my best friend Sugar." Another pilot callback; Kim's back on her waltzer, making out with a couple of girls. "Things are going great. Really great. ...Yeah right." Fake out! She's still with her toothbrush, only by this time, it's a little worn out, and keeps cutting out on her. She beats it on the desk to get it started again, then settles back into her waltzer reverie, only to be interrupted by Stella coming in. "I was just wondering if you had any spare batteries." Kim says nothing, allowing Stella to hear the hum of vibrating plastic. Uncomfortable pause. I've missed those, you know. "...That you weren't using." Ha! Stella teases her a little then leaves to go buy some new batteries.

ForniKicthen. Nathan's doing tai chi or something, KimVo comments about how she's not the only sexually frustrated one; Stella and Nathan are back together (which I'd imagine was catalysed by Kim's brush with the law), but Nathan's holding out on her. Matt walks in for the sole purpose of showing us his new full-on goth look. Eyeliner, black lipstick, spiked collar, the works. He and Kim trade insults for a bit, then he leaves. Kim and Nathan have a pretty hilarious and perfectly delivered conversation, Kim's going out, to see "a mate", which puts Nathan in full on babble mode; "Um, so, when you say 'mate' you mean... not in the reproductive sense. I mean, obviously not, because that would be impossible." Said mate is, of course, Sugar, because as previously established, Kim doesn't actually have any other friends, bar ex-butt monkey Tom, who no longer exists. I'm going to go with "He's moved away from Brighton for some reason" to explain away that, it's both simple and plausible.

And, as KimVo explains, since the law apparently rather frowns upon stabbing people with broken bottles, and she had previous, and called the judge "a shit for brains wanker with a microscopic dick", Sugar is currently residing in Ballymead Young Offenders Institute. "Still, at least she had me, her loyal friend, to visit. Every week." Oh, Kim. Kim sits down, and Sugar, of course, gets right down to complaining; her thoroughly absent mother hasn't been visiting. "Not that I'm bothered, I just want my iPod back." Oh, and also, the person who actually does visit her doesn't even listen, because she's too busy admiring one of the other prisoners, Kim. Kim claims that of course she's listening, Sugar asks her to prove it; "What did I just say then?" "Bitch." Ha! "And?" "Fuck. Twatface." Ha ha! "FAT face, I said. 'Fuck her, fat faced bitch." Ha ha ha! Awesome. I love this show, have I mentioned that? Sugar rolls her eyes at Kim's libido, Kim gets all intense whispery telling her to keep it down, someone might hear that she's a lesbian! And wouldn't that be terrible! Sugar ignores her, of course. "The last thing I need is some fanny fiddler mooning over me." Kim indignantly claims that she is doing nothing of the sort, Sugar asks her, then, who's the last person she slept with. Winner. "Look, you better not be waiting for me," Sugar tells her. She really doesn't mean it, but that's another thing we'll be getting to later. Right now, it's been 18 months. Kim needs to get a damn life already.

But that is, of course, easier said than done. "It's just not that easy to find someone you like who finds you equally attractive," KimVo laments. Which, slightly oddly, segues us to Stella and Nathan getting sex therapy, because they might have decided to get back together for the sake of the kids, put Nathan still has quite reasonable trust issues. Is she saying they don't like each other or that they don't find each other attractive? Anyway, like everything on this show, sex therapy is hilariously awkward. The therapist gets them to hold hands, which they cautiously do, and asks how it feels, Nathan hesitantly says it's "good", the therapist politely but chidingly points out to Stella that she is "rubbing the back of [her] hand against Nathan's penis", which Stella proudly agrees that she is indeed doing. The therapist just says "B.T.T." Stella stares at her like she is speaking in tongues, but Nathan has been doing his homework; "Boundaries, Trust and Togetherness. No touching beyond the agreed zones". He gently pushes Stella's hand away. "This week," the therapist announces, "Kissing." Stella attempts to display enthusiasm and says "Ooh, where?" Therapist raises an eyebrow and says "On the lips", Stella looks bored as hell again. KimVo quips that it's a shame for Stella that the sex therapy is "all therapy, no sex." I want to know how someone becomes a sex therapist. How do you decide that what you want to do with your life is talk about BLTs and tell complete strangers how they should be approaching sex after infidelity? That is just not something I can make sense of.

Back to Kim, she gets up from the bench she's been sitting on, watching passersby in the vain hope that one of them will come up to her all "Hey, I'm a hot lesbian, you're a hot lesbian, let's have a long and happy life together." And, you know, it's a shame that kind of thing doesn't happen more often, really, isn't it? Anyway, Kim's concession towards self-actualisation, however minute, pays off immediately, because she bumps into a nice looking lady wearing a rather stylish red beret, whom we shall later learn is called 'Saint', causing her to drop her bag and spill the contents everywhere. Kim goggles at the fact that said contents are nothing but nothing but vibrators, and once she has finally managed to get over this fact, she breathes out an apology. Saint good-naturedly tells her "It was really nice to bump into you" and carries on where she was going, Kim stands totally still for a few minutes to process what just happened and then follows her to her shop, the "Munch Box", which is "Brighton's only licensed women's sex shop", according to the sign on the window. I don't know, "only"? In Brighton? Seems odd to me, but maybe it's totally accurate. KimVo, in awe and slightly terrified, says to herself "So... I could just go in there and ask her out". She manages the first part no problem, and the place appears deserted. Saint hears the door and calls out "I'll be with you in a sec" from the back room, Kim stares around with dinnerplate eyes for a while. Saint appears behind her and says "Hello, again", which startles Kim and makes her knock something off a shelf as she turns around. Saint walks behind the counter, laughing silently to herself at Kim's obvious out-of-her-depth-ness, but not in a mean way, if you know what I mean. She asks if there's anything she can do for Kim, Kim attempts to complete the second part of her mission, but totally chokes and can't get out the words, and instead just freezes, rabbit-in-headlights style, before grabbing the first thing that comes to hand and buying it.

"Vibrating love eggs," Saint says, slightly questioningly, as she rings it up. Then follows a montage of Kim buying various sex shop paraphernalia on various days before Saint tells her "Alternatively, you could just give yourself the night off and get out for a change." She gets out a flyer for a place called "The CC", and asks if Kim knows it. Kim says "Sure!" but Saint has obviously noticed Kim's total inability to admit she doesn't know something these past few days and tells her where it is anyway. "I'll be there from ten, say your with Saint."

And Kim's natural impulse is to immediately go tell Sugar about this momentous occurrence, of course. Sugar scoffs when Kim admits that nothing has happened beyond Saint asking her out, and give her a fairly dubious look when she shows the flyer, telling Kim she's never heard of the place. Which is, obviously, because the patronage of The CC is decidedly lacking in Y chromosomes. Let's hope it has a fire exit!

CC. Kim does the 'omg overwhelmed' thing that we've seen so much of in this episode for a while and then finds Saint, who tells Kim she's glad she made it, and suggests she goes and gets herself a drink, and Saint will find her soon. I imagine I could have worded that sentence in something that closer resembled English if I tried. Kim is in her happy place, and would be totally compliant with most things Saint could tell her at this point, so naturally she's eager to go ahead with this innocuous request. Until, that is, she notices Saint greeting a bunch of other people in the exact same way, before getting up on the stage and heading behind the DJ booth. Come on, you had to realise things were going far too well so far. Kim looks a little mopey, but KimVo is surprisingly and excellently upbeat; "OK, so maybe a 'date' had been a slightly overpositive reading of the situation. Still, that's cool. At least it had got me out." My girl is all grown up! OK, her face is really not reflecting the positive tone of her voiceover. Cheer up, Kim's face! Anna Wilson-Jones (Jo from Hex) takes the seat next to her and offers to buy her a drink. Wait, didn't Thelma catch Jo writing erotic fanfiction about herself and Cassie one time? I'm pretty sure I remember that happening. Do I want to know why, in two out of the two shows I have seen her in, Anna Wilson-Jones plays a character lusting after barely-legal college girls? Kim initially refuses the drink but smiles and takes it after a minimum of pushing. Anna introduces herself as Anna, Kim introduces herself as Kim. That was easy! Anna notes that she hasn't seen Kim around before, Kim lies that she just got back from "journalism" "work stuff" in London, Anna says "I thought I'd have noticed someone as hot as you." That direct an approach is so completely alien to Kim's way of thinking, I don't know if her brain can even handle it. It has apparently registered, because her face lights up and she does that gleeful shoulder jiggle thing. I'm sure you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I can't think of a better way to describe it.

Daniels Family Living Room. Stella and Nathan are practising the week's designated task, and it appears to be going quite well until Stella starts trying to take Nathan's shirt off. He stops her and cautiously asks "Are we allowed?". Stella gives an incredulous "Nathan?", but he points out that there's not really much point in the sex therapy if they aren't going to follow the rules. Stella wholly agrees with the first half, at least. Nathan declares that BTT is his BFF and chastely kisses Stella as she stares daggers at him.

Back at the CC, Anna tells Kim she's having some friends back to her place, and Kim is welcome to join. Kim is looking a little tipsy, and she has acquired a lollipop from... Anna, I'd imagine. Didn't you pay attention in school, Kim? Don't take sweets from strangers! Kim gives a quick glance over to Saint, who does not happen to be looking her way for this particular second, so Kim shouts "I'll get my coat!" at Anna, and they leave. At which point Saint does look over, and gives the scene a :( face. Aww.

Anna's Place, decidedly lacking in the friends she claimed would be there. In addition to the lollipop, she also appears to have a supply of sherbert (which she is inhaling through her nose, crazy lady). Maybe she owns a sweet shop! She puts some sherbert on a spoon and pretends to give it to Kim, but then takes it away at the last second and eats it herself. That was a mean trick! And then she gets down on her knees to... ooh, make sure Kim's belt is doing its job correctly? Yeah, let's put the camera way out of focus and move over to the Brighton skyline here, shall we? Yeah.

Morning after. Kim comes downstairs looking quite hung over. Anna offers her coffee, asks if she wants breakfast and suggests she takes the day off work, the last of which causes Kim to groan "Oh god, my essay" which she, far too late, amends to "article". Anna, not looking remotely surprised or disappointed or anything like that, asks Kim how old she is and says "I think I'd better take you home".

...Where she gets Kim to put on her school uniform and sets to making sure she doesn't forget her essay again. And we promptly segue over to Stella and Nathan, walking along a street, carrying bags of shopping and arguing about the therapy. Stella frustratedly yells "I've had it up to here with therapy speak. I don't want therapy, I want sex!" To which Nathan responds "Define sex," which just does not feel like a natural line, and has clearly been shoehorned in there so that Stella can say "That, Nathan. That's sex" when they inevitably walk in on their teenage daughter dressed in school uniform and being spanked by a woman far closer to their own age than Kim's. Which reaches about a 8.5 on the Awkward Scale.

This is followed by an equally awkward family dinner where Nathan and Kim both do some expert avoiding of each others' gazes, a skill they have clearly spent years honing down to a fine art. Stella cheerfully asks Kim if she has anything fun planned for tomorrow, because she is enjoying the fact that this event has livened up her day immeasurably, which is disturbing on quite a few levels. Ah, Stella, how I have missed your unsurpassed commitment to irresponsibility. I think.

Ballymead. Kim gushes to Sugar about how amazing it all was (before her parents walked in, obviously) and Nathan was way overreacting throwing Anna out. Sugar asks what exactly Kim expected, "he'd just walked in on his daughter being taken advantage of by some filthy old perv!" Kim objects to this wording, of course, Sugar is all "You can't possibly be that naive! [You have met Kim, yes?]" and inquires about "that Saint chick you were banging on about". Kim mumbles out lame excuses about that and claims that "with Anna, it's different, it's real!" OK, so, really. You can't possibly be that naive. Sugar pretty much laughs in her face about this, Kim whines at the fact that Sugar was making fun of her for not getting any, but now she has, Sugar is still making fun of her, which is just a grossly unjust state of affairs, and decides that this is obviously jealousy at work. Now, she may be more than a little correct, but that is still a terrible, terrible conclusion to jump to. They both give each other lame parting shots ("I've got to go. I'm seeing Anna tonight." "Well you piss off back to her then. I've got macramé to finish.") and storm out in opposite directions.

Kim's room. Kim comes in to find Stella lying on her bed, probably drunk, inspecting all the stuff Kim bought from the Munch Box in her hopelessly Kimmish attempts to ask Saint out. Disturbing on far more levels, and it's only going to get worse; "Kim, darling. Look, it's not your father's fault. There are things that he doesn't understand, like passions, desires, needs. You know, if you ever need to talk to anyone, then I am very open minded." Kim tells her to get the hell out, Stella does so, "hiding" the love eggs in her hand in a way that just draws more attention to them. So, so many levels.

CC, again. Kim perkily makes her way towards Anna at the bar, but runs into Saint on the way. Saint attempts to start an apology/explanation for the other night, but Kim interrupts to tell her not to worry about it, "I had a brilliant night. I met Anna. Thanks for the invite", kisses her on the cheek and continues on her way. Saint watches her go with a look of resigned melancholy, because she knows as well as I do where this is head, and it is just not going to be fun.

OK. Kim gives Anna a hug from behind and says "Hi", Anna gives her a decidedly lukewarm "Hey" and then a more enthusiastic one to another girl standing there, lollipop in hand. Anna says it's time to get going and, as close to kindly as she can get in the situation, tells Kim it was nice seeing her again, with a whispered "You were sweet, I had a nice time" as they leave. Kim looks dejected and heads for a different exit.

Back home, Nathan is reading a book called "Games For All The Family To Play", Stella is drinking wine, of course, and attempting once more to find Nathan's absent libido. They're interrupted from their leisurely pursuits when they hear Kim coming in, Nathan looks concerned, Stella brightly says "You're home early, darling! Just a quickie, was it?" Oh my god, could everybody in the world please right now make a promise that they will never, ever say that to their children, under any circumstances? That would do a lot to put my mind at ease.

Kim's room. Kim is crying. You know how I get when that happens. Nathan comes in under the pretence of bringing laundry, Kim sets her jaw and stares at the opposite wall. Nathan sits down to attempt the appropriate reconciliation speech, and gets as far as "About yesterday, I think I might have overreacted a bit. You're my daughter. And a lesbian. And obviously, that means you like to do things with women" before Kim cracks and starts with the crying again, and Nathan gives a hilarious little "Oh." And they hug, and man, is it sweet, and Nathan awkwardly adds that he's ironed Kim's school uniform, "In case you need it for... you know..." Let's get the obligatory out of the way, because the last time I recapped her was all of a couple of months ago; Olivia Hallinan is just brilliant in this scene. So teenage, so vulnerable, it's just impossible not to feel bad for her. BUT! I must also mention that Richard Lumsden does a particularly good job here too, it's pretty typical bumbling Nathan stuff on paper, but, I don't know, he gives it something special. Now that we have that out of the way, I do feel kind of cheated that we didn't actually get to see Nathan throw Anna out, because it was a fairly central part of the plot here, and we never get to see Nathan be anything other than soft and accommodating, which I assume he cannot have been while doing that.

And now for the other touching reconciliation scene; Ballymead. Sugar tells Kim she wasn't expecting to see her today, they banter a little about the macramé to fill time while they prepare themselves for the heavy stuff. Sugar asks "How's Anna?" but doesn't even wait for an answer before she starts on with "I was out of order the other day..." Kim interrupts to tell Sugar what happened, and that she was totally right about Anna, "She was a bitch." And then Sugar tells Kim that she was totally right too, in her own very roundabout way "I know I've been off with you. Maybe I was a bit [with thumb and forefinger squeezing gesture to emphasise] jealous. NOT because I fancy you, so put your tongue away." Hey, Lenora Crichlow is awesome too, by the way. Kim and Sugar are of course the heart and soul of the show, and this is one of their finest moments so far, look; "But because you've suddenly got this life, and you're all I've fucking got." Kim reflexively shakes her head and says "That's not true", but you know as well as I do that it absolutely is, Kim. Sugar's mum has moved to Hull with Carl, whoever the hell that is, and I still love the fact that we have never, ever seen her, and we never will. Even if those cocksuckers hadn't "felt that the girls' story had run its course", I'm betting we wouldn't have done. "I hate this place, Kizza." She's, like, at least as heartbreaking here as that horrible, wonderful scene where she tells Kim about the guy she stabbed. "I really hate it. All I'm thinkin' is when I'm gonna get out, and then... it's not gonna be better." Kim takes her hand (this is all totally affecting, but I still can't shake the urge to yell "NO TOUCHING!") and assures her it will be, and this time she might actually be right. Sugar does the usual frown to upside down in 0.5 seconds moaning "I need to get out of here" with a rapid crescendo into "I NEED SOME COCK!" which gets stares from everybody in the room, and the girls break down into a giggling fit.

Kim leaves with a new positive outlook and spring in her step, and KimVo (Hey, you've been unusually quiet today!) informs us that everybody wants to be pinned to the wall and swept of their feet (these are her exact words), but "given a choice between sex and friendship..." Cut to Nathan polishing a table, Stella walks in, and oh lord, she is wearing a school uniform. In fact, specifically Kim's school uniform; white shirt and black skirt may be totally generic, but that is Kim's exact red and black striped tie. "Sir, I forgot to do my homework. You're not going to spank me, are you?" Somebody involved with this scene is in desperate need of therapy. In fact, quite possibly everybody involved with this scene. Back to KimVo: "...then friendship would win hands down." Back at Ballymead, Kim finishes giggling and assures Sugar again that she's going to be fine, "I'm always here for you. And no one is ever going to get in the way of that." Sugar jokes "Unless you find someone else to spank you in detention, you filthy cow!" and they break into cute playfighting.

And, outside, Kim runs into Saint again. Literally, I mean. Again. Once, that's just clumsy, but twice? There's got to be magnetism at work there. Anyway, Saint drops her hot dog (yeah, that's not symbolic at all), Kim's eyes go wide with surprise when she realises who it is, Saint gives her a friendly smile and says "It seems like we can't meet without one of us messing things up. Listen, I'm sorry about Anna, I should have warned you." Kim self-depreciates "I can't help making a twat out of myself", Saint says "Me neither", which Kim scoffs at. And then Saint says: "I tried to pull you and you didn't even notice." EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! I have nothing else to say to that. Just eeeeeee. Kim admits that she was confused by the mixed signals and says that if she'd realised, she never would have gone with "Psycho Bitch", Saint suggests they try to get it right next time and writes her number on a tissue in lipstick to give to Kim. I'm about ready to start doubling the number of characters on this show I love unconditionally, but we'll wait for next episode to pass official judgement on that (Having already seen it, I know what that judgement is, of course, but you can stay in suspense.) Pretty sublime feel good ending though.

Defy? No! Sad.

2007-04-08T05:20:00.000+01:00

Torchwood Episode 1x13 - "End Of Days"

Episode grade: D

Previously: Bilis was a creepy old fucker, Ianto shot Owen in the back, and Owen decided to end the world for shits and giggles. Tool.

Start with a pan across various images of Cardiff, of course. It's still Welsh. Into Gwen's apartment, she watches Rhys lying there, smiling fondly. He mumbles that it's rude to stare, she giggles and tells him she was trying to make him get her a cup of tea via telepathy. They share some banter and, I mean, it is cute, but there is always this undercurrent that they are just putting on a show, pretending everything is OK between them because maybe if they pretend hard enough, it actually will be. It's just delaying the inevitable. Rhys gets out of bed, naked, to do her bidding. Rhys's Arse Unleashed! Again! And then Gwen's phone goes, Rhys calls out "Don't answer it!", Gwen doesn't even hesitate to ignore him now. It's Jack, of course, and all he says is "You watching the news?"

Because if she was, she'd know there's scenes of chaos going on, of course; people are being sucked through time all over the place, UFOs over the Taj Mahal, civil war soldiers in the centre of London. And I just noticed the headline scrolling bar at the bottom includes "Beatles on the roof of Abbey Road studios", awesome. Some people are claiming it's wacky terrorists, some people are claiming it's all an elaborate bluff, some religious nutsos are getting it right and being all "JUDGEMENT DAY IS UPON US!" but they do that every time it snows or whatever.

Credits! Written by Chibnall, again, so of course it doesn't pass muster. It's just a wild mess of plot points pulled out of a hat and thrown into the crazy script-writing blender. (The blender also mixes a fabulous metaphor!) Original title reported as "Apocalypse". This one is slightly better, what with the whole Time Kompression thing going on, but it's still an annoyingly generic season finale title.

Hub, the whole team gathered. Ianto's quoting from the Bible, because "Christian mythology" was one of the things that was pulled out of the hat. Owen reflexively bitches at him, Jack decides to put on daddy's stylin' leather jacket and be all "You people love anything that denies the randomness of existence", and complains that the FBI and the CIA and any other three letter acronym you care to think of have been calling him up and asking if it's his fault. Well, since Jack was the one who chose frickin' Owen as his second in command when Suzie went crazy, let's go ahead and say "Yes." Tosh (who still has her hand bandaged, nice touch), does some of her computer mojo and makes a map of the world appear with all roads leading to Cardiff. I'm no Riftodontist, but I can't see that it proves anything beyond "You can draw a straight line to Wales from any point on this map!" Jack informs them all that the Riftmouth is splintering, sending shockwaves all around the world, and IT'S ALL OWEN'S FAULT. Owen gives a shocked "Wha..?" and then gets all offended and sulks "If it wasn't for me, you'd still be stuck in the past making out with yourself!" That's so Baltar. "Gaius, did you betray the entire human race?" "How dare you accuse me of that thing that I did? I SAVED YOU FROM CANCER!!" And then Owen asks "Are we going to sit around crying into our lattes or are we going to do something about it?" Jack is cool with that, but when he suggests rounding up all the soldiers and the Beatles that are out of time, Owen starts yelling "Then what are you going to do? YOU CAN'T CONTROL TIME! THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO!" Because that is so much more helpful than crying into your latte, Owen. Shut up.

Jack notices that morale is not exactly high among his staff and half-heartedly attempts to be inspirational; "This is not the end of the world. I'm certain of that." Ianto gets an instant message from the hospital saying 'lol 2 many ppl dieing', Owen says he'll go check it out. Jack sends Tosh to go with him, Owen complains that he doesn't want to get cooties or whatever, but it falls on deaf ears. And then Gwen starts bitching at Jack for picking on Owen "in public". Well, I think that says it all, right there. Jack tells her that "All our actions have consequences", she complains that "All your staff have feelings, too. Even Owen", Jack retorts "Well, you would know". Meow! Gwen repeats Owen's Gaiusing, but gets interrupted by a phonecall. It's Andy, her old police partner; he's got a Roman soldier and he didn't know who else to call.

So, over to the police station. The Roman is yelling in Latin and charging at his cell door, Jack is ridiculously condescending to Andy because he does not immediately accept the idea that this guy is an actual Roman soldier, from Roman times without being just a little bit surprised by that fact. Gwen slightly less condescendingly confirms that Jack is telling the truth, Andy calls them "Mulder and Scully" and asks, assuming he does believe them ("which I don't, because it's bollocks"), how he is supposed to handle a prisoner from 2000 years ago. Jack tells him not to worry, he and Gwen are going to take the roman off his hand and inexplicably turns back into Happy Fun Jack momentarily, all "Under normal circumstances, an exuberant Roman soldier would be my idea of a perfect morning" and ducks into the cell to tranq the bastard. Outside, Gwen attempts to reassure Andy that the world is not totally fucked, but he's well and truly got her number; "I've seen you use that smile on a lot of people. The one you use to reassure people when deep down you know everything's gone to shit". Rhys has been seeing a whole lot of it lately, I'd wager.

Owen and Tosh at the hospital, wearing those kickin' white contamination suits. Long story (and really, I mean LONG.) short; it's the Black Death! Rad. And Owen is the only one smart enough to figure this out. Well, on the show; I got it about five seconds into the scene, which is not a boast, because man is it goddamn obvious. Owen takes a moment to start being a little self-aware and moans about how it's all his fault, then goes into Dr. Harper mode (hurrah) and starts ordering the hospital staff around. One of them finally cottons onto the fact that they are dealing with the plague here, and starts freaking, and yelling at Tosh and Owen for not magically fixing everything straight away, because that is, apparently, what Torchwood are supposed to do. Owen is surprisingly restrained in his response, and man, if there was ever a time when I wouldn't hold his being an offensive little shit against him, this would be the time. But all he does is tell them they could have any disease in history popping through their doors, ending with the winningly inspirational "Are you scared yet? Because fuck knows I am!" Tosh drops back to add "Call us if things get worse", to which the hospital guy responds "How much worse can they get?" Tosh has nothing to say to that, so she just walks out to catch up with Owen.

But Owen is nowhere to be found, and then the soundtrack goes whoosh, and an older Japanese woman is standing there, and everything but her and Tosh are moving in slow motion. Tosh identifies the woman as her mother, of course, and, in subtitled Japanese, she relays the usual "something coming in the darkness" message to Tosh. Tosh asks what is coming, but visions of dead (I am guessing) relatives are, as a rule, even worse than Jack at giving straight answers, so Ma Sato just tells Tosh "If there is no other way, you'll have to do it" before vanishing. Now, I know that, again, as a rule, visions of dead relatives are supposed to give cryptic warnings that only make sense immediately after the moment the warning would actually be useful, but still, even within those parameters, THAT WAS A FUCKING USELESS MESSAGE. And now that Mama Sato has vanished, of course, it's time for Owen to suddenly find Tosh and tell her to get a move on.

Back over to the police station, Jack's doing some kind of scan on the unconscious Roman. Gwen asks if they can't use the Manipulator to send all the out-of-timers back home, since it got Jack and Tosh back and all. Yeah, that's also what caused this whole mess in the first place. I don't think the Manipulator has an undo button, Gwen. But maybe it does and Bilis is just hiding it in his microwave. Jack tells her there's a world of difference between "taking control of time" and "bringing two people back from the past" which... makes as much sense as anything else in this storyline. Gwen rolls her eyes at his "Besides, look at the damage that Owen caused", because she is a moron. Jack, by way of a 'trust me on this', asks if he's ever let her down. Have you ever not, Jack? Gwen starts to walk away, but stops dead when someone starts calling her name from a cell next to her. It's Bilis! And he's talking all telepathical-like! He tells Gwen he's sorry, so sorry, then Jack call her over again, and when she looks back, Bilis has vanished.

And now we're down in the cells at the Hub, and apparently the walk there from the police station was not long enough for Gwen to finish relaying the information "Bilis appeared, said sorry, disappeared" to Jack, because he is just now asking the obvious questions like "You're sure it was the same guy?" and "'Sorry'? That's all he said?" Or maybe Jack just asked a bunch of really inane questions first, I don't know. Ianto leads a Weevil into an empty cell and reports that the Weevils are going crazy all over the place. Out of his thoroughly leashed arse, Jack pulls the theory that the Weevils are time-sensitive and so it's clearly the Riftmouth exploding that has them all on edge, and states this as if he didn't just make it up right there. But this means he's blaming Owen for another thing, so I'll let him off for it. Ianto also tells Jack that all their cells are full, so he'll have to open up some cells further down, which have never been used since Ianto started working there. Jack gives him the go ahead and then he and Gwen leave to go see if they can't wrangle up some more info on Bilis. Which means Ianto's left down there all alone, so... yep, there's Lisa! Dressed in normal human clothes, and not the cyberkini, thank God. Unfortunately, we do get a quick flashback for people who missed "Cyberwoman" which gives a one-two punch of the cyberkini AND Ianto's ridiculous scrunched up crying face. At least put a warning before you go throwing that out, come on! Ianto asks what she's doing there and then declares "this isn't happening". Lisa paces robotically towards him and tells him "There's only one way to stop this before things get worse. People will die, Ianto. Thousands of people. Unless you open the rift." Now, I was under the distinct impression that opening the rift is exactly what Owen did in the first place to start all this shit. I really don't know why I'm still trying to make sense of any of this. So, Ianto slowly blinks, and when he opens his eyes, Lisa has vanished, and then he puts his hands on his hips and looks around the room doing this hilarious little "Well I never!" huff.

Upstairs, Owen's returned for another round of his favourite game of all; "Bitch At Jack For Not Adequately Cleaning Up My Mess". Jack asks if Owen has any better suggestions, but all he has is "I suggest you lead us." What the hell is that, seriously. That's just ridiculous on a level that my brain can't really cope with. I can't even paraphrase that in a way that brings out it's inherent stupidity in order to make fun of it, because, hey look, Owen's already done a much better job on that than I ever could! Let's just rewind and check the exact lines there:

Owen: Only consolation is it's treatable these days, but what happens when the next carrier comes through, Jack? Someone carrying smallpox or ebola or something from the future we don't even know about, what do we do then?
Jack: Yeah, well, it's not going to do us any good standing around speculating.
Owen: We need to be prepared! We're helpless! All we're doing here is putting sticking plasters on gaping wounds.
Jack: What do you suggest?
Owen: I suggest you lead us. And tell us what the instructions are.

Yeah, I... yeah. And then he goes on to assume he is speaking for the rest of the crew, as if that weren't enough already. It's not like it's even hard to come up with helpful suggestions, just grab, like, the Ghost Machine or whatever, declare it to be "the weapon of a god", and suddenly it will be able to beat the crap out of the Riftmouth! Problem solved! Well, Owen almost manages to stumble upon an actual point somewhere in his ranting, irrelevant as it may be; "You keep all the secrets, now's the time to tell us a few." And so Jack lets them into a little 'secret' that I'm pretty sure he's been telling them since the start of the episode; there is no solution to this, the world is screwed and it's all Owen's fault. "The first thing you learned when you joined Torchwood was don't mess with the Rift[mouth]!" Policy has clearly changed since then, because the first thing Gwen learned when she joined was "Jack can't die!" Owen again whines that he only disobeyed that order to get Jack back, and quite aside from the fact that that's completely not true, because he actually did it to get Diane, how is it that he is still having to ask Jack if he should have just left him in the past. Note the total lack of mention of the fact that Tosh was trapped in the past too. The HoYay is just through the roof on this one. Because with all that text getting in the way, the subtext has precious opportunities to make itself known, so when it finds one, it has to bite down hard and not let go. IFYAKNAWAHMEN. Owen abruptly changes tack again to asking Jack "Who the fuck are you, anyway?" because the Internet doesn't think he exists, and the Internet knows all, of course. Owen decides that if Jack doesn't exist, there's no reason for him to follow Jack's orders. So, got any helpful suggestions now, Owen? Now that you've point-blank refused to follow your one and only "suggestion" thus far? Jack tells him to get out, if he's going to continue wilfully disobeying orders, and Owen gets totally offended, because when you quit your job and tell your boss to shove it, you should be totally allowed to hang around the premises starting pointless arguments, I guess. Gwen attempts to intervene at this point, saying they need to stick together, and, I get the sentiment; the more help they have saving the world, the better, but this is Owen we're talking about, and he actually provides a negative amount of help. But Jack's having none of it; "If I can't rely on you, if I don't have your complete trust, you don't belong here." He directs this to the rest of the group, too, and they spend approximately half an hour giving each other uncertain glances, which I'd say is a pretty clear sign that you do indeed not have their complete trust, Jack, even if they aren't going to make as much of a show of their mutiny as Owen.

The dreary, interminable silence is finally broken by Owen angstily reminding everyone that you don't just leave Torchwood; at some point in the next 24 hours, Jack's going to find a way to slip Owen some Retcon. Oh, boo hoo, thanks to you, the world's on the verge of ending anyway, so what's it even matter at this point? And so Owen walks out and leaves and exits and departs and FOR FUCK'S SAKE HOW LONG DOES THIS SCENE NEED TO GO ON FOR?

And now Gwen and Jack, both not looking at each other, find their way to Bilis' clock shop (but of course!), "A Stitch In Time". Which is quite clever, you know, because it's like, not a stitch in time as in one delivered with good punctuality, but as in a stitch literally in the fabric of time (and space). Which, for the longest time, is how I interpreted the wording of the proverb, which always used to confuse the heck out of me, let me tell you. Anyway, Bilis doesn't appear to be around, though his shop is open, so Jack and Gwen feel free to start speculating on how Bilis earns his living; clearly, going into the past and finding clocks for cheap and then selling them in the present as antiques. Bilis takes their idle speculation as his cue to suddenly appear behind them in his usual creepy manner and tell them he has to make a living somehow. They ask him what's the deal with his being in two times at once, only Gwen, because she is an idiot, words this as "How is it possible to be in two timezones at once." Dude, any idiot can do that, just stand on the border between, say, Spain and Portugal, and hey presto! Two timezones. Anyway, Bilis "explains" this, and by that I mean he tells them what they already knew; "I can step across eras like you'd walk into another room." He spins some sob story about how it's a huge curse because he can see the whole of history, but he doesn't fit in anywhere, and leaves a lingering pause for a moment to give Gwen and Jack time to eat this up, as if they need it, then continues by telling them they're going to have to open up the Riftmouth so it can suck everything back in. Jack tells him no way; "It's too dangerous", but Gwen, having as little understanding of how the Riftmouth works as me, is a lot more receptive to Bilis's suggestions, and asks if they can do that. Jack's all "opening the rift will put thousands of lives at risk!" and Bilis is all "if you don't open the rift, things will keep falling through time, and thousands of lives will be at risk!" I wish someone could make any of this make even a little bit of sense to me. Jack pulls a gun on Bilis. OK, people pointing guns at each other, that I understand. Good. Jack wants to take Bilis back to the Hub, but Bilis is not down with that so he casually pops out of time. Jack tells Gwen to do a temporal scan and runs around frantically trying to track down Bilis. OK, the guy can go ANYWHERE IN HISTORY. I think at this point you're taking futility to a whole new level, Jack.

While Jack's off gallivanting outside, Bilis pops back in to have a private chat with Gwen which is all kinds of creepy, even for Bilis, all "Do you want to know? Then take my hands", and then suddenly jerking them away when she hesitantly tries to do so, saying "Only if you're sure." Gwen decides that she is sure, so Bilis grabs her hands and does his soul-staring thing, and then we get a shaky-camera'd Gwen-eye view of her walking into her apartment and discovering Rhys's lifeless body on the floor. Which is what Bilis was apologising about earlier; it's a vision of the future.

Gwen goes bursting out to save Rhys, but when she arrives at home, Rhys is fine, because "future", not "present", Gwen. She lets out some severely psychotic laughter and yells "YOU'RE CLEANING THE OVEN!" WOW, she is so completely unhinged these days. Which has actually been gradually seeping in for a while; since "They Keep Killing Suzie", I think. And you know what, that actually makes sense, because clearly Suzie did some fucked up stuff to her then, and that's actually been pretty consistently characterised since then, think on her weird twitchiness in "Out Of Time" and then crazy Retconning of Rhys in "Combat". And, as a logical corollary to this theory of an actual character arc, for real, I'm going to pass "Random Shoes" off as a weird Retcon hallucination of Gwen's. How's that for fanwank! Now, obviously, this is all bollocks, but this Torchwood in my head is clearly a lot better than the Torchwood that is happening on my screen (I have to assume the same is true of Chibnall), so, hey, why don't you join me?

Wow, where were we? Right, "YOU'RE CLEANING THE OVEN!" Rhys is possibly on psychotropics too, because he cheerfully agrees, but then Gwen grabs his arm and hysterically tells him they have to get out of there now. Rhys is like "Can't I at least finish cleaning this oven?", but Gwen is just not willing to take that risk, so she tazers Rhys into unconsciousness. Wow. I have to assume she has shown plenty of warning signs, Rhys; this is why you should certainly have ditched her before now.

And, time to catch up with Owen. Can you guess what he's doing? 4 words, rhymes with 'Elf instructive nemo downstage'? And he's all alone, (like, there doesn't even appear to be anyone behind the bar, huh?) so it's time for his ghost visit, and of course his ghost is Diane, and anyone want to tell me why Tosh didn't get Mary? Yeah, yeah, she was "evil" and all (Yeah, I still have a weird thing about Mary not being evil. I think I probably should watch "Greeks Bearing Gifts" again so I can well and true be left wondering what the hell I was thinking on all that.), that didn't stop Lisa, right? And just like the other two, she wants Diane to open the Rift. OK, actually, Diane has fairly logical reasons for wanting Owen to open the Riftmouth; she's lost in time, fair enough. Lisa appealed to Ianto's general need to help people, fair enough. What the hell would Mary say to convince Tosh? I can't think of anything. I mean, not that it would be possible to come up with something worse than "If there's no other way, you'll have to do it", but I guess I'm glad they didn't saddle her with that.

And over to the Hub again, Gwen's locked Rhys up in one of the cells. Well, of course she has; she doesn't love him or need him any more and she damn well knows it, but she is also not at all ready to let go, so what else is there to do? You can lie to him and lie to yourself and pretend that everything's fine, and then Retcon him when you need to take a moment out from all the lying, but you just can't keep doing those things for ever, so what are you going to do? What has Torchwood taught you to do? Stick him in a box. Lock him away where nothing bad can get in, that'll keep him safe. That'll keep him preserved, just in case you need him later. Rhys wakes up, and Gwen apologetically explains that she had to do this, because he wasn't safe. Rhys is as hysterical as you'd expect anyone to be if their girlfriend tazered them without warning and they woke up in a dingy cell. Well, anyone but Logan Echolls, maybe; he's got to be used to those kinds of things by now. Gwen tries to soothe him, tells him she loves him, she's just trying to take care of him and everything will be alright. And... then she just leaves him there to go back to work. Nice.

Upstairs, she asks Tosh to stick CCTV of the cells up on the screens, Tosh says "No problem", and everyone's being totally comforting, because of course they all understand her completely lunatic desires; she learned it from them. Since Day One, what they've been doing is teaching Gwen to forget to be human; teaching her to be Suzie. Tosh can't understand how Bilis could show her that vision, because it's not like Bilis can do anything else they don't understand, right? And it's not like they have, in their vaults, a machine that can do exactly that, right? Also, how is nobody making the obvious connection Gwen's vision with their own? These people are serious morons oftentimes. OK, so, mostly I mean Ianto here; Tosh is the only other one who had a vision to connect, and hers was so retarded that I feel I can discount. I am totally not just being biased because I like Tosh better. No way. They take a moment to feel sympathetic for Gwen, as she describes how real the vision felt (again, machine in the vaults that does exactly that!), and then Jack tells them they still have work to do. Cue lights cutting out and alarms sounding. Security breach! Jack tells them all not to panic; cue Gwen charging downstairs yelling "RHYYYS!!!"

Look, you can't just stick Rhys in a box to keep him safe; you're not going to seal it up well enough, and the bad things will find a way through. Or you'll seal it up too tight, and it'll keep the bad things out fine, but it'll also keep out the good things, like love, and oxygen. The end result is much the same either way. You can't lock him away from the world and only take him out in the moments when you need him, because that's not the way it works. You don't get to pick and choose you moments, because if you're doing that, you're talking about taking control of time, and in the end, you'll find that all that happens is that you're the one who's locked away from the world. And then you summon some giant demon for no reason whatsoever, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Down in the cells, Rhys's door opens of its own accord, and he cautiously steps out. Bilis is crouching at the other end of the corridor, Rhys asks him if he works there, dropping Gwen's name, and while he's saying this, Bilis calmly walks up to him, pulls out a weird twisty knife and stabs him in the stomach. Rhys's eyes go wide with shock, Bilis pulls it out and then stabs again, twisting it upwards. Dying Rhys's eye view of Bilis casually walking away, wiping the blood from the knife with a handkerchief and then popping out of time again, at which point the lights come back on, the alarms stop, and, aside from Rhys dying on the floor, of course, there's no evidence that anything unusual happened at all. And obviously, literally no time basses between this happening and Gwen and Jack bursting in there, and Gwen breaks down quite impressively. In between assaulting Jack, and the floor, and the walls, she screams "We can bring him back! We can bring him back!", but Jack shakes his head. "There's nothing we can do."

Later, they've got Rhys's body laid out on the medical table, Jack cleaning the blood from Gwen's hand while she sits and stares catatonically. She realises she'll have to tell Rhys's family, Ianto kindly says "We'll deal with it", but Gwen remembers the porter from the day she joins, so she knows what "deal with it" really means and she is having none of it, venomously telling him "You won't 'deal with him', Ianto." Tosh offers a paltry "I'm so sorry," Gwen giggles in a way that is really reminding me of Donnie Darko under hypnosis and says "You never even met him" and then demands that they bring him back. Ianto reminds her that they destroyed the Risen Mitten, so Gwen starts mumbling that there's got to be something else or "There's something wrong with time so uh we can we can go back and to the moment to the very moment... well it's got to be there's got to be something you can do otherwise WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF YOU?!" And then she gets in another good assault on Jack's chest, and he just calmly takes it, waits until she's let it all out and puts his arms around her, tells her he's sorry. Aw, man. And Owen's back! Tosh is overjoyed to see him, he ignores her, of course, but to be fair, the bloody corpse of Gwen's boyfriend is lying there and that is not something you see every day. He tries to get in on the hug with Jack and Gwen, she shrieks "Don't you touch me!" and walks away. Owen turns on Jack and self-righteously demands to know how many more have to suffer. "I'm going to fix this," he declares, "I'm opening the Rift[mouth]!" Jack looks to Ianto and says "Make sure you stop him," Ianto reflexively starts after Owen, but then pauses, turns back and grits out a "No" and then continues up the stairs. Tosh apologetically tells Jack "We're going to help him" and follows, Gwen steps away from Rhys's body and babbles about how Bilis said it would work and Owen's right and she's going to help too.

Main Hub, Owen's frantically typing away at the keyboard, Ianto tells him to enter Emergency Protocol One which is intriguing, and by that I mean makes no actual sense, of course. Also makes no sense; Gwen tells Owen to get out the way so she can type whatever gibberish needs typing. What? If anyone, Tosh should be the one doing that, I can't imagine how Gwen thinks she has more idea what she's doing than Owen, Owen has no real reason to trust that she is really on his side and isn't going to deliberately fuck it up. It's stupid in so many ways!

Over in the med bay, Jack grabs a gun that is for some reason just lying at his feet all of a sudden and strides in there, points it at them and tells Gwen to step away from the computer. Tosh, looking horrified, asks him what the hell he's doing, Gwen sadly walks up to him and says "Come on, Jack." And then Jack says the following words, and if anybody could shed some light on what possible reason Chibnall could have for putting these words into his mouth, it would be much appreciated, I've got to say; "You're a united front now. Toshiko, the poor girl who'll screw any passing alien that gives her a pendant. Owen, so strong he gets in a cage with a Weevil, desperate to be mauled. Ianto, hiding his cyber girlfriend in the basement. Your three comrades here pumped bullets into him, remember?" What the fuck? Yes, they remember, and I do too, and, you know, it's nice that you do as well, Chibnall, but what the fuck? That is not human speech. Gwen sobs "I've got to get Rhys back", but really she's upset because Jack forgot her, so he obliges now; "Yeah, because you're so in love with Rhys that you spend half your time in Owen's bed." Gwen socks him one in the face, causing him to drop his gun, which Owen quickly grabs and yells "We're relieving you of command, Captain! We're opening that rift and getting back what we lost!" Just in case the ghost visit and all his crying and yelling and self-destructive emo rampaging about it in the last two episode wasn't enough to explain what is going on here; Owen wants to get Diane back. While we're at it, I'll just remind you of everyone else's motivations too; Gwen wants to get Rhys back. Ianto just generally has a need to help people, I think, but it's kind of murky. Tosh has no motivation beyond a need to make Jack stand alone, because only Captain Jack Harkness has the courage and the strength and the valour and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to know what is right and he must bear his cross alone.

The computer tells Gwen that retina scans of all Torchwood personnel are required in order to activate, she says "Shit!", Owen roars "STAY DOWN!!" at Jack, who taunts him about the size of his balls, so Owen shoots him in the head a couple of times. Everyone is all shocked, and then Owen says "I'm sick of people doubting me!" You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry! And then everyone stands around looking shocked for a while, except Jack, who just lies there, even though we already know that a bullet to the head does not keep him down for this long. And then they all scan their eyes, and Gwen hesitates, but then looks over at Rhys's body and steels herself and pushes the button. And in the cells, the Weevils and the Roman are going crazy, and everywhere the alarms are going crazy, and Jack finally gets his lazy arse up and grabs Gwen's arm, and melodramatically asks "What have you done?", of course. And then there's a prolonged sequence of the building collapsing, and Rhys's body pops out of time, and the crew all find there way to an alleyway.

Hold on to your hats, because things are about to go really off the rails. And, in case you hadn't noticed, I've been pretty unenthused by this episode so far anyway. Rhys's death has been the only particularly engaging event so far, I think; it was predictable, I said back in the very first recap, I think, that Rhys was obviously going to leave Gwen or die by the end of the season, but really, these people needed some major punishment for their massive bag o' hubris, and since none of the others have... anyone at all outside of Torchwood, that we've seen, it had to happen to Rhys, I don't have a problem with that. And Eve Myles did a pretty damn awesome job of portraying whatever scraps of sanity Gwen had left fluttering away in the breeze, which is what made all the aftermath scenes awesome. Wondering how they could fuck that up too? Let's find out!

The crew are all in this alley, and Bilis is standing there, and he chants "From out of the darkness, he is come!" Gwen demands an explanation of this from the others, but none is forthcoming, which is a shame, because I'd like one too. Bilis continues "Son of the great Beast, cast out before time, chained in rock and imprisoned beneath the Rift[mouth]. ALL HAIL ABADON, THE GREAT DEVOURER, COME TO FEAST ON LIFE." And there's this hundred foot demon thing, that looks quite a lot like Actual, Literal Satan, except not as well animated, and he stomps and roars through Cardiff and it really is just not a convincing effect at all. Bilis adds "The whole world shall die beneath his shadow" to save some more on the animation costs; now they don't have to show Abadon devouring anyone at all, just have a shadow fall over them, and then they die! Masterstroke. And this happens for a while, and it really is laughably stupid. And then Bilis says "I look upon you, my god, and know my work is done!" And then Gwen demands that Jack tell her what to do, and Owen and Tosh and Ianto have all been replaced by cardboard cut-outs, I think. Jack tells Gwen, "just you" he says, to get him to an open space. And so Gwen drives the Hyena to the middle of a field, and Jack gets out and Gwen asks him what his plan is; "If Abadon is the bringer of death, let's see how he does with me. If he feeds on life, then I'm an all you can eat buffet." Gwen tells him to wait and weakly cries "Jack" after him, but Jack will not wait. And Abadon's shadow falls on him, and Barrowman does some truly horrific overacting with the screaming and the wailing, and of course Jack he thrusts his arms outwards, because, hey, if you rearrange the letters of "Captain Jack Harkness", you get "Christ"! And some other letters that I can't be bothered to attempt to rearrange into a semi-coherent sentence. So, anyway, Abadon goes away and the world is saved. Sure, why not. But it appears that this isn't the "drinking with your buddies" kind of death for Jack, either, because he is not getting up. Gwen weeps over his body for a while, who the hell knows what the others are doing.

Gwen goes home and Rhys is alive again, and doesn't remember any of it. But Gwen remembers because A WIZARD DID IT. Gwen kisses him long and hard, and then tells him to go to bed, get some sleep, she'll be back for him. Yeah, Rhys is alive again. Which means Gwen won't have learned any lessons here, and the hubris is just going to continue to build up. Hooray!

Everybody's hangin' down by the Wall O' Corpses, Jack's laid out ready to be stuck in, but no one's done it yet. Gwen asks if Owen (Now leader of Torchwood, everybody!) is certain, he is; "He's ice cold. No vital signs." Gwen points out that Jack survived a bullet to the head, twice even, and tells them all that when she first joined, he said he couldn't die. Owen tells her he was wrong, but Gwen isn't going to give up that easily, because suddenly she is "the heart of Torchwood" again, so she is going to sit there and she is going to wait for Jack to wake up. The others shrug and leave her to it, Gwen fades into various different places to indicate time passing. Rhys has got to be getting pretty impatient back home!

Upstairs, the others watch her on the monitors, and Owen wonders aloud how long she's going to do this. Ianto goes into Jack's office and cries into Jack's coat. Back down at the Wall O' Corpses, Tosh has come for a visit and says "It's been days". Gwen robotically tells her "I believe in him", Doubting Toshiko tells her to let him go, and leaves. And Gwen takes Jack's hand, holds it against her cheek, and kisses him on the lips, and then starts to walk away. But before she's made it more than ten steps, she hears Jack's voice behind her, and what He says is "Thank you." And Gwen stops, and smiles and runs back.

Upstairs, Gwen and Jack walk in, and she is refusing to let go of his hand, which is probably quite sweet but damned if I can tell right now. Tosh is the first to see him, and she runs over and hugs him. Ianto then does the same, and Jack kisses him passionately, because, yeah, they have indeed had a totally offscreen affair. And then Owen walks in and sees Jack, and he just slowly walks towards him, looking on the verge of weeping for his sins, and before he can say anything, Jack tells him "I forgive you", and I fucking hate Owen and it still pisses me off that he's being so completely emasculated here. And Jack takes him in his arms, and Owen does weep for his sins.

In Jack's office, Gwen asks what's happened to the Riftmouth now, Jack tells her "It closed up when Abadon was destroyed. But it's going to be more volatile than ever" and HOW ARE THOSE TWO THINGS NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE? How is it that everything they say makes the whole Riftmouth plot even more nonsensical? Gwen tells Jack that they all saw visions of people they loved, and asks what Jack saw. Jack didn't get a vision, because I guess Satan learned the first time around that there is no point trying to tempt Christ. Except there is, because the next thing Gwen asks is if there's anything that would have tempted Jack, and he says "The right sort of doctor", so I guess Bilis was just stupid to not go after Jack too, not that it made any difference anyway. And Jack walks out of his office, I guess to go hang out on a rooftop and angst some more, only his hand in a jar is all glowing and twitching and bubbling, and then there's this VWORP VWORP noise, and we pan over to Gwen coming to investigate the noise, but Jack has already vanished. And Tosh and Ianto and Owen come in through the front door, and they've brought coffee. Gwen asks if they saw Jack on their way in, of course they did not. He's ascended to the happiest place he could imagine, duh, that's what he does after rising from the dead a few days after dying to save the world. And the last shot of the season is Gwen, Tosh, Ianto and Owen looking lost and confused.

April Fool! The last shot of the season is, of course, a nice bit of Cardiff!porn.

So, yeah. Ianto and Jack, I can see that he could have transferred his devotion from Lisa to Jack after he'd got over blaming Jack for her death and realised she died long before they all pumped her full of lead, because it does seem that Ianto needs to devote himself to someone, I could buy that happening, but something that important to 40% of the major characters on the series should have got more than, like, one minute of screentime, total, across the whole thirteen episodes. And I could maybe forgive that, a little, if Rhys hadn't have been brought back to life without any consequences at all. If Tosh hadn't been tempted to the dark side by one tautological sentence from someone we have never seen before. If there had been explanation whatsoever of how, exactly, everyone but Jack was in the wrong opening the Riftmouth when it seemed to me like they saved the world pretty well by doing that. If the Riftmouth, in general, made any fucking sense. If any one of those things had happened, I would be a little more forgiving of the others, but they didn't and so I am not, and so I submit to you that "End Of Days" SUCKED BALLS.

Torchwood will return in 2008, apparently. Let's hope the year off gives them time to improve the writing, because it has the potential to be awesome, it occasionally WAS awesome, but I found approximately 50% of the episodes ("Combat" could go either way) to be big disappointments, and that is just not a good score.

A Nap 'n' Heartsick Jacks

2007-03-30T04:47:00.000+01:00

Haha, I really should just stop saying anything about my update schedule. Also, One Big Eyeball tomorrow to cover two weeks, because why the hell not?

Torchwood Episode 1x12 - "Captain Jack Harkness"

Episode Grade: A-

Again, the opening has a tiny snippet of previouslies to remind us that Diane left Owen, and there was angst, and he was a little bit eaten by a Weevil while out on a nihilistic self-destructive emo rampage. Why this is more important to know than anything else that has happened previously, I couldn't possibly say.

Hey, I actually haven't seen this part yet, ever, because the first time I watched the episode, I turned the TV on a little late and missed the first few minutes. I'd forgotten that. I'm sure that will create a totally fascinating altered slant on my recap, dude. OK. The Symmetric Hyena pulls up outside some kinda theatre or something, and Jack and Tosh get out. Tosh is dressed up all smart, because it's her grandfather's 88th birthday, as she explains to Jack once she finishes a phone conversation in Japanese. So, apparently, for the duration of her turning up to work, learning about this assignment and getting in the Hub and being driven here by Jack, Tosh has been on the phone, hence why she has not already explained this to Jack. Or maybe she actually got changed in the Hyena on the way here, as a result of something said in the phone conversation. I don't know. I am pretty much making an absurdly mountainous molehill out of this harmless bit of exposition, I know. So, Tosh adds a little more info about her Japanese heratige, which becomes a lot more important to her character in these last two episodes than the not at all it has previously been. I mean, there was the implication that her parents would not approve of her lesbianic dalliances in "Greeks Bearing Gifts", but otherwise, we've heard nothing of it. But then, other than that episode, we've not learned very much about Tosh in general, so that works for me. "OK, down to business", Jack says, and there's a sudden weird whoosh-zoom for some reason and they enter the theatre, which is in fact a dance hall, apparently. So, business here is, as Tosh exposits, the place has been abandoned for years, but people keep hearing 40s music coming from the building. Hey, just like the music that we're hearing right now! They follow the sound, which dissipates with a quickness, and Jack waxes nostalgic about life back in the day, unsurprisingly, and starts dancing with Tosh, telling her about how "the girls would look into their partners' eyes, smile softly and say..." He gives Tosh a twirl, and she completes his thought with "Jack, mind my laptop!" Jack tells her he was thinking more along to lines of "And how long before you head off for war?" Tosh has no time for his idle banter and just gets on with waving her Geiger meter or whatever, and suddenly the music kicks back up again, coming from back where they came from. Jack and Tosh follow it, again, and hey, there's some "Bad Wolf" graffiti on the wall behind them. Cute.

Turns out Jack and Tosh aren't just hearing the music, they can now see the dance hall exactly as it would have been back in the 40s. Tosh marvels at how real it all looks, Jack's wristwatch tells him that all the people dancing around them are not ghosts, "It's a simple temporal shift. Hahaha, and it's BEAUTIFUL!" Tosh worriedly tells him they should get out, quickly, which Jack acquiesces to, although he obviously doesn't want to. On the way out, someone tells them "Do call again", and it is the creepiest old guy ever to have creeped, like you would not believe. He's like The Gentlemen, or Scorpius, but without all the alien makeup, and oh god the eyes, and this is not even mentioning the voice, which is exactly the voice of The Butler, as in "The Butler did it!". You know what I mean. Dude is creepy, is my point. And, in case you were wondering, I'm not getting this riled up over a bit part, this guy is a major character, which you can tell right here from the way the camera lingers on him scowling after Jack and Tosh as they exit.

Outside, it's still the 40s, and Tosh freaks a little and is all "Where's the [Symmetric Hyena]? Has it been stolen?" because being stuck sixty years ago is a fairly daunting prospect that one would not handle with immediate grace and aplomb, and denial would probably be the initial reaction, yes. Unless, of course, one is one Cpt. Jack Harkness, because 'been there, done that', and besides, he has been stuck in the past for the entire duration of this series anyway. So, Jack just gets this Oz-like "Huh." look and informs Tosh that the Hyena hasn't been stolen, "We have," which is a credits segue if ever I have heard one.

Yep! Credits. This episode is the one all the TWoPpers squeed all over, like, even moreso than "They Keep Killing Suzie", but I already got all that out of the way with the other time travel one, so I won't be quite so full of hyperbolic love, although I certainly did not hate this one. I've been really wavering on my grading for it, mostly because I gave "Ghost Machine" an A- when it clearly deserved a B+ and I'm pretty sure I like this one quite a lot better. Now, I could go back and edit the post and pretend that I gave "Ghost Machine" a B+ all along, and it's not like I've never edited out mistakes in old posts before, but I JUST DON'T KNOW IF MY CONSCIENCE COULD HANDLE IT. Whatever, the grades reflect my approximate opinion of the episode at the time of writing and future events in the series might completely warp those opinions, and clearly I overthink these gradings far, far too much (though this is not actually the cause of my massive delays. Honestly.) Both this one and "Out Of Time" were written by Cath Tregenna, and I think we can all agree that if she took over Chibnall's job, the world would be a much better place full of unicorns ejaculating rainbows and so on and so forth. Let's go!

In the Hub, Owen, who's sleeping on the couch there, for some reason, is woken by an alarm. Ianto informs him that the source of the alarm is Tosh's magical Riftmouth monitoring program, which is picking up some Funky Shit going down, like, say, two members of the Torchwood crew being pulled back in time a few decades, and Ianto notes that it's been picking up more and more Funky Shit lately. Owen's pissed off, because he's out of the loop, and also probably because he's just been woken up, and also probably because that is a pretty normal state for him anyway. Ianto points out that maybe if he wasn't so busy going on self-destructive emo rampages all the time, he'd be more in the loop. Ianto tries to call Tosh, since she'd have a much better understanding of her program, but while the Torchwood phones may be able to get perfect signal underground, even they can't make a call to sixty years in the past. Meanwhile (well, not, but you know...), back in the 40s, Tosh is discovering the same thing, and Jack suggests they get back into the dancehall, since that's where they were when they crossed over. Meanmeanwhile-ish, Ianto sends Gwen over to the dancehall to look for Jack and Tosh.

Dancehall, 1941. Tosh is worrying that they might be stuck here, Jack not particularly convincingly assures her that they'll find a way back, and tries to keep the mood light by joking that, on the bright side, Tosh has "a hell of an excuse not to go to [her] party". This does little to calm Tosh, whose freakout is starting to draw stares. Jack pulls off his Bluetooth headset and tells Tosh they need to try to look like they fit in, and it's pretty lucky that Tosh was supposed to have that party, because her clothes are far less anachronistic than they'd usually be. Tosh points out that this will be easier said than done for her when every other person in the building is white. Jack tells her "Don't worry, you're with the captain," and leads her into the main hall.

Hub, 2008. Owen takes a look through the readouts from the Riftmouth monitor and has a little angst when he's looking at the readout from the day Diane & co. got pulled through it. Apparently the equation for unexpected time travel is "sin ax dx - 1/4 - (sin[2b])/16 x 1/4 = x". Now, I don't expect them to work out the actual equations for time travel, but come on. If you can't come up with more than a couple of sine waves, it'd probably be best for all concerned if you avoided showing it. OK, so the brief view of it on the screen right here, you could probably get away with, since only obsessive compulsive nerds who are pausing to check every detail (hello!) would notice, but when it becomes a fairly major plot point of the episode, you really ought to at least come up with some convincingly complex nonsense. Anyway. Ianto more states than asks "You were in love with [Diane], weren't you", and Owen pointedly ignores that more statement than question, but then does say that if Tosh has figured out a way to open the Riftmouth, he might be able to get her back. Ianto objects; "Jack would never allow it, opening the Rift could devastate the city!" Owen sneers a little at this and carries on with whatever the hell it is he was doing.

Dancehall, 1941. While Jack's buying them drinks, some dude comes up to flirt with Tosh, which is fortuitous timing, since Jack discovers he doesn't actually have any usuable money, and this guy offers to pay for the drinks, "on one condition", which he shows, not tells; a dance with Tosh. Jack's entertained by it all until he overhears a woman, disgusted, demanding to know "Why's George dancing with a Jap?" and it occurs to him that maybe Tosh's fears were pretty well founded.

"Meanwhile", in 2008, Gwen's discovered the Hyena, and figures that Jack and Tosh have to be around somewhere. She goes inside and calls out for them, and then starts to hear the music...

...And back in 1941, Jack seems to hear someone calling his name. He goes over to try to cut into George and Tosh's dance, and George gets all up in his face and agressively tells Jack that he's "only borrowing her", and, I mean, in the guy's defense, he did just buy Jack's drinks for him. Jack cheerfully suggests that George "could always dance with me, if [he'd] like", and George gives him a good shove. Jack shoves him right back and says "OK, I'll lead, you follow", which, particularly considering his background, is showing an alarmingly poor grasp of the concept of time, and also, way to not draw attention to yourself there, champ. Tosh insistently attempts to remind Jack that "we're supposed to be bleding in!" which is just not going to sound good to random passersby who are already exceedingly suspicious of her. Jack pretty much ignores her, but in his defense, George did just sock him one in the face. Things are about to get ugly, but it's prevented when a charming American captain steps in and orders George to stand down, apologising to Jack because the men always get a little heated on the last night before OTU. He demands an apology from George, too, and when George sulks "I was only dancing", the Captain tells him that "I think it was your fist in his face that he didn't like, not your foxtrot." Jack smiles appreciatively at that, and George grits out an childish insincere "s'ry", and then another to Tosh, on the Captain's demand. A couple of George's pals lead him away to get drinks, and the Captain follows Jack and Tosh to introduce himself; he and Jack both start to say "I'm Captain..." at the same time, and Jack tells the other to go first; "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, 133rd squadron", is what he says. Man, it would've been awkward if the other Jack had said "You go first". Moreso than it is anyway, I mean. Also, even though he goes by a (different) fake name for the rest of the episode, I'm going to keep referring to our angsty Torchwood Jack as Jack, and the new, actual Captain Jack Harkness can just be The Captain, in a hopeless attempt to stop this all from getting horribly confusing. They've done this deliberately to make things hard for me, I'm sure of it. There's all kinds of weird zooms all over the place and the creepy old guy tells the Jacks and Tosh to please look towards him as he holds up an old-fashioned camera and shoots. I say 'old-fashioned', but apparently this camera is actually from a few years after this part of this episode is supposed to be set. That's a clue rather than a fuckup on the part of the props department, though.

Hub, 2008. Owen and Ianto are researching the Dancehall, Owen discovers that it opened in 1932, closed in 1989 and is due to be demolished in a week. Ianto's discovered something rather more interesting; the photo we just saw taken.

...And back in 1941, the camera flashes. The creepy old guy hands his camera to someone else and joins the group, saying he insists on one more, for the record. Jack tries to take this interruption as the perfect chance to duck out of talking to The Captain, but he's too wily for that, and Jack's forced to introduce himself, which he does as "Captain James Harper, 71st". The Captain offers to buy Jack a drink, but he wants to get the hell away from there as fast as possible and tells The Captain that he and Tosh are kind of busy right now.

Out in the corridor, Tosh naturally wants to know why the hell that guy has Jack's name, Jack says nothing and Tosh yells at him that she's "lost enough without [Jack] holding back on [her]." Jack softens at this and admits that Jack Harkness is not his real name, and he took it from The Captain, adding "I didn't realise he was so hot!", so I guess the question of Jack's sexuality is not such a mystery among the rest of the crew any more? Tosh chides him for being so frivolous when she's still totally freaking out, he tells her "I know too much" and "Trust me, you don't want to know" and all the usual nonsense that really would not fly with me at this point. Jack asks what Tosh has that might be useful on her laptop, which she's been carrying around in its bag this whole time, Tosh tells him she has half of the magic Rift equations, but the other half are back at the base.

And the camera swings around to face the other way down the corridor, and we're back in 2008 with Gwen, which is a nice little effect. Gwen radios to Owen and Ianto that she heard music earlier and decides that maybe if she can hear 1941, maybe 1941 can hear her and calls out Tosh and Jack's names. In 1941, Tosh does hear her, but is not at all convinced that she is not just going crazy.

At the Hub, Owen is discovering that they only have half of the magical cheat codes for the Riftmouth, Ianto realises that the other half must be on Tosh's laptop "which she never goes anywhere without", apparently, even though I can't remember ever seeing her carrying it before this episode. And really, why would she keep half of the cheat codes on her laptop and half of them on the Hub computers, and not all the cheat codes on both? They're supposed to have totally state of the art hardware, I think they should have enough hard drive space to handle a few lines of text. Which means the central conflict of the episode doesn't even begin to make any logical sense, and I can certainly get past that and enjoy it well enough if there's emotional resonance, which there is here, but it really wouldn't have taken much thought to come up with something slightly better than this for Tosh to have to Day Of The Tentacle through time to get them back to the future.

Anyway. In 1941, Jack and Tosh duck into a deserted office, and Tosh's laptop actually says out loud "Your battery is low." Tosh scribbles down the cheat codes onto paper as fast as she can, which is hindered by the fact that her screen has a large "WARNING BATTERY LOW" message flashing on and off in front of them. Jack takes a look around the office, which belongs to one "Bilis Manger", who is the creepy old guy with the camera, and with a name that weird, you know the first thing I'm going to do is check for anagrams. 'Grim Lesbian' wins, no contest. Tosh starts to technobabble incessantly about what she needs to do with the cheat codes, even though what she needs to do is stick them in a box for Gwen to find in the future and nothing more, but she's interrupted by the Smiling Bear himself appearing in the doorway and politely inquiring of Jack and Tosh who they are and what exactly they're doing in his office. Jack almost forgets that he's not Jack Harkness here and makes it pretty obvious they're being totally shifty, but Tosh is too busy wigging about the camera, because she's just realised it's anachronistic too. When she asks about this, Bilis accusingly points out her laptop and asks where he got it. Tosh tells him London, Bilis stares at the clock and says "They're coming for us" and generally acts as creepy as possible until Jack and Tosh leave, at which point he gets a folder labelled "Torchwood" out of his desk drawer.

In 2008, Gwen radios to the Hub to say that she can't find anything much in the dance hall, and most of the doors are locked, and suddenly Bilis is creepily standing behind her and asks if he can help, introducing himself as "the caretaker". Gwen thanks him and asks if he could kindly unlock the place for her, "I think some of my friends got locked in." And she doesn't have any crystals to buy them out! Man, I love it when that happens. Enjoy your five seconds in the dome, bitches! But I digress.

Tosh is worried about Pearl Harbour, Jack points out that it hasn't happened yet, but Tosh clarifies that she's worried what will happen if they get stuck here, and it does happen. Jack sincerely promises that he'll keep her safe, and it's a nice tender moment, which really, we need more of between the crew. I know they're all emotionally crippled fuckups and all, but everything would work so much better if, underneath it all, there was some kind of team spirit binding them together, or at least some indication of why anyone would actually want to do this job even though it invariably turns you into the kind of person who will slip amnesia pills into someone's drink and think nothing of it. Tosh wants to know what is the deal with the fact that Jack has very obviously been to 1941 before, Jack doesn't really explain anything, as per usual. Well, OK, he does explain that it was convenient for him to take The Captain's name since the dude is gonna die tomorrow. Tosh interrupts George and The Captain and the rest of the boys in their drinking and storytelling to ask which one of them is the best navigator, Geroge singles out a Tim, whom Tosh takes to one side to discuss navigation, I suppose, while Jack joins the drinking.

In 2008, Bilis asks Gwen what her friends were doing in the dance hall in the first place, Gwen claims it was a silly dare, "Someone said it was haunted", which is pretty well in keeping with her traditional twelve year old mindset. Bilis says she looks worried, and says he'll go make her some tea, which, as we know, is the stuff for world-saving, alright.

In 1941, Tim shyly talks navigation/flirts with Tosh, while the boys want to hear some war stories from Jack. He continues his tradition of never giving a straight answer to anything and just says "let's just say the enemy comes in many guises." George gives The Captain a little hero worship, The Captain responds with all 'I don't like to brag' false modesty. The Captain goes to buy another round of drinks, and a blonde woman approaches and apologises for interrupting his "night with the men". The Captain tells her it's OK, and looks uncomfortable enough, and with enough glances towards Jack, that even my extremely rudimentary gaydar is picking up a signal.

2008. Bilis leads Gwen into his office and sinisterly (well, that goes without saying, but I mean even more than usual) asks Gwen if anyone is expecting her, and suggests she give them a call before they worry that she's lost too. Bilis goes out to put the kettle on, and Gwen radios to Ianto that she hasn't found anything, but since Bilis hasn't bothered giving different names to anyone, their conversation quickly moves to suspicion of him. Owen runs over and tells Gwen to stay with Bilis and wait for backup, Ianto counters that she should get the hell out of there, and they have a little heated argument about that. Gwen turns off her headset and backs slowly out of the office.

1941. The "Why is George dancing with a Jap?" chick from earlier (Audrey, apparently) gets all up in Tosh's face and accuses her of being a spy, some well-meaning guy in the back counters that she can't be, "The Chinese are on our side!" Heh. Tosh helpfully, if not all that sensibly, clarifies that she's Japanese, actually. Audrey wants to know what Tosh has in her laptop bag and starts getting grabby, things are once again about to get really damn ugly, but Jack finally comes up with a save; Yeah, Tosh is totally a spy, but she is spying for us, and the shit in the bag is TOP SECRET, OK. Fair enough. The Captain proposes a toast to Tosh for all the good work she's doing, Tosh, rather desperate to get away from people, tells Jack she needs to get hold of Bilis' camera to get a photograph of the Riftmouth cheat codes to the boys in the future Hub and they depart to do that. Except The Captain isn't letting Jack out of his sights that easily, so Tosh goes on alone. Jack and The Captain start in on some small talk, and The Captain's blonde hanger-on appears out of nowhere to do some cock-blocking.

Tosh enters Bilis' office again and takes a picture of her cheat codes, and Bilis creeps in behind her and sends chills up every spine in a ten mile radius saying "Starting to be a habit". Tosh quickly hides her photograph and tries to pretend she was just fascinated by his amazing camera and had to try it for herself, Bilis gives a knowing laugh and says "This little beauty is not unusual and rare," *cue stare DIRECTLY INTO TOSH'S SOUL* "not unlike yourself." Yeeeeesh. You know what; whatever else you do, bring back Bilis for season 2. Having an actual recurring villain would do a lot to tie the episodes together, and Bilis is awesome. This is my number one request for Season 2. I may have had other number one requests for Season 2 at other times, but right now that stare is boring a hole into my brain and I must obey. Everybody loves Hypnotoad. Tosh, in her rapid hurry to get away, is going to forget her original copy of the cheat codes until Bilis calls her back and hands them too her, saying "I can think of much better things to photograph than numbers".

2008, Hub. Owen's decided that ripping random shit out of the floor is the best way to get Diane back. Something about a "Rift[mouth, DAMMIT people] Manipulator". Is that the skateboard thing from "Boom Town"? I don't think Jack should have that. Not in a "can't be trusted" way, I just mean I'm pretty sure there's no way he'd be physically able to be in possession of it following the events of that (and maybe other?) episode(s), although it's been a while since I've seen them, and I'm not even sure if that's what we're talking about anyway. Ianto thinks that would be too dangerous even if they had all the cheat codes. n00b.

At the dancehall, Gwen hears disconcerting clown laughter behind her, and calls out for Jack, but he (or anyone else) are nowhere to be seen. Well, anyone else except a couple of 40s extras doing a waltz or two-step foxtrot or whatever behind her, but Gwen fails to spot them either.

Back at the Hub, Ianto continues trying to persuade Owen it's too risky, and points out the pretty blatant fact that he is doing this to get Diane back, not help his teammates, and, newsflash; Diane chose to leave you, loser. Owen retorts that this is unlike Lisa who stuck around to try to kill them all, which has no actual relevance to the argument at hand, but it's not like he has anything rational to draw from. Ianto gives up on trying to talk sense into him, Owen gives up on fiddling with wires because the Manipulator is not working. Ianto has a moment of hope here, but no, Owen's noticed a piece missing, and he's going to go look for it. Ianto suggests that maybe he should go home instead, Owen sneers "You don't have any power over me!" at him but then relents and agrees to play it his way, "safe and boring."

'41. The Captain asks Jack what his next missions is, Jack finds a valid excuse to not answer a question, glancing at Blonde Hanger-On and saying "Careless talk costs lives", and BHO assumes this is a hint that she is not wanted. Jack half-heartedly attempts to get her to stay, and The Captain gets up to awkwardly see her off. And clearly Jack is even more not himself than we all thought, because despite the big flashing pink triangular neon signs above The Captain's head, and urges him to go after BHO, because "anything could happen tomorrow." The Captain scoffs at this, it's just a routine training excersize, Jack tells him that that's when they get you, "when you least expect it. But not when I least expect it, because I'm from the future, and I know that YOU ARE GOING TO DIE TOMORROW. So go have some sex first." That may have been mostly paraphrasing. The Captain heeds Jack's urging, downs his whisky to help him cope with the thought of kissing a girl, and goes to give BHO a proper goodbye. She holds him close and whispers "I love you", and he stares in horror and goes to snarl at Jack that "That just made it twenty times worse. Now she thinks she's in love with me." And Jack is still not getting it!

Jack follows The Captain down into a more secluded part of the building, so I guess his subconscious is still firing on all cylinders, and tells The Captain that it's not his fault that BHO fell for him, even though it pretty much is. The Captain starts yelling at him that he can't go telling his men about the real horrors of war, in order for Jack to get some more retroactive emo from back before we ever met him. He watched his best friend get tortured and killed! And it was all his fault because he persuaded his friend to join up in the first place! I'm thinking it's not going to be very long at all before the various hints of Jack's past life we have been given so far become completely irreconcilable into one story, which you'd think would be pretty easy to avoid when time travel is involved, but man...

Outside, Tosh is looking for somewhere to stash her photograph so that it can be found sixty years down the line by the rest of the team. And apparently, as well as her laptop, Tosh always keeps a supply of shrinkwrap with her. I... guess you never know when that will come in handy? Hmm.

At the Hub, Ianto's monitoring CCTV around the dancehall and finding no sign of Bilis leaving the place, Owen puts his jacket on and tells Ianto he's going to go check out Bilis's office, because clearly the dude knows something about the Riftmouth.

Outside the dancehall, Gwen ponders aloud what Jack and Tosh would do to try to help them, and then follows Bilis to a rsuted up old cupboard with the padlock on the floor, and there's some weird jump cutting, and I don't really know what is going on, but she finds Tosh's photograph, anyway. I think Bilis lead her to it? I don't know. Anyway, Ianto tells her they still don't have enough cheat codes, and we jump back to the past to see why; Tosh missed s200ome from the top of the sheet in her hurried photographing. We watch her sturring what she did manage to get into the cupboard, which is not so rusty back then, obviously, and then an air raid siren goes off! And all the doors are locked and she can't get back inside and a bomb falls right there! Did Tosh just die sixty years ago? Shit!

Oh, wait, no, I guess she got inside after all. That was an odd fake-out. Everybody in the dancehall is pancking and running around, Bilis and The Captain attempt to maintain order and get everybody down to the bomb shelter while Jack runs around in search of Tosh and quite unnecessarily tells her "This way!", like she can't follow the stampede of panicked dancehall patrons.

2008. Ianto radios to Gwen to be careful, because Bilis is still around somewhere, even though I thought he just helped her? Cannot make sense of that, I tell you. Meanwhile, Owen throws shit around in Bilis's office until he finds a safe hidden under a tablecloth.

1941, bomb shelter. Tim The Navigation Expert tells Audrey The Racist (But Back Then They Didn't Know Any Better) "The thing is, you could be the last girl I ever kiss", and she just shrugs, like, 'Good point' and gets on with it. Ah, simpler times. In less flavour-adding stories, Tosh reminds Jack for the umpteenth time that she needs to get the cheat codes back to the future, back Jack is too busy sharing a Significant Glance with The Captain, and it looks like maybe someone has finally given Cupid some Eye Drops! Tosh finds herself an airtight coffee jar, and pours its contents on the floor. Excuse me, Missy, don't you know there's a war on? Then she somehow slashes open her palm on its decidedly non-sharp edge. Because pencil will fade over time, but blood lasts forever! I'm no bloodistician, but I don't think that's actually true. Whatever, she writes the rest of the cheat codes in blood, seals them in the coffee jar and puts it in the safe, where no one but Owen would be wont to look.

Oh, wait, no, the safe is empty in the future, so I suppose Bilis was wont to look. And then all the clocks in Bilis's office start going off at once! Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day... And, logically, this leads Owen to the conclusion that the missing piece of the Manipulator is attached to the pendulum in the grandfather clock. Obviously. He heads off back to the Hub, but runs into Gwen on the way and puts on his best "I'm just going... to stalk... Lenny and Karl... and have some... lunch..." voice to tell her that he didn't find anything, and he is going to go back to the Hub now. Gwen doesn't notice anything suspicious, because everyone on the Torchwood crew acts incredibly suspiciously 24/7, I think.

Back in the bomb shelter, The Captain walks up to Jack and tells him "Of course I'm scared", and Jack appears to be thinking "Dammit, Harkness, he's just talking about the war! It's perfectly innocent!" I think maybe he is spotting the signs but is worried he is just hoping they are there because he has not been getting any lately? Except he has, but hey, I don't know that yet. What? Oh, and Tosh totally didn't stick the coffe jar in the safe, apparently I just totally made that up. Surprise!

2008, dancehall. Gwen's looking around the basement (where the bomb shelter would've been, natch) for clues now, and she is still hearing flashes of 1941. That's all.

1941. Tosh returns from the... back room? And tells Jack that she's finished chrono-mailing cheat codes now. Tim The Navigation Expert (who I think is not actually the one making out with Audrey right now. Look, they all have the same haircut, OK? How am I supposed to tell?) is concerned about the huge gash on her hand, Tosh claims "I slipped", Tim leads her away to his first-aid kit. George (he's more cockney, so I can tell him apart) wants to buy a drink for The Captain, but that port is closed to anyone not named "Captain Jack Harkness" right now, kid. Jack smiles, so I think he is correctly reading the correct signs at last.

2008, dancehall basement. Gwen finds the coffee jar, and somehow manages to avoid giving herself tetanus picking it up. She radios to the Hub to tell Ianto the final cheat code, and also register her concern that Tosh has written it in blood and also included a "Tell my family I love them" message at the bottom.

Hub. Owen arrives, Ianto copies down the cheat code from Gwen and apparently "cos" is Welsh for "integral", because Ianto has no trouble correctly interpreting her apparent error. Also that integral should be followed by a 'dx'. I'm just sayin'. Owen tells her this is wrong, they need at least three more numbers. But Bilis has scratched out the end of it, the wily coyote. Why he'd do that and not just destroy the note, I have no idea. Let's just go with it.

1941. Jack and The Captain share a private drink up on a balcony, and The Captain asks Jack why he told him to kiss BHO goodbye. Jack tells him to grab the bull by the horns and live each day as if it's his last and so on and so forth, and "Go to your woman and lose yourself in her". JACK YOU FRIGGIN MAROON THAT IS NOT WHAT HE WANTS. The Captain tries sending out one more signal; "Is Toshiko your woman?" but still Jack isn't receiving. Uh, you know what I mean.

Owen is all "Screw the missing numbers, I'm getting the woman who left me after a week back, universe be damned!" and shoves the missing piece into the Manipulator, but it still isn't working, so he opts again for the tried and tested "throw shit around until you find something useful" method. Ianto protests some more that he can't open "the safe", Owen tells him he can do whatever he wants, "I'm second in command!" Fucking WHAT?! No! Tosh! Tosh is second in command! Jack, what the hell were you thinking? As well as the cheat codes, Owen has totally been reading a walkthrough, because he immediately knows which page to turn to in Jack's diary to find the combination to the safe. I swear most of the completely illogical stuff in this episode was just not there the first time I watched it. Owen sorts through boxes containing the Life Knife and the Ghost Machine (or, as it should be dubbed to continue the theme, the Spectre Reflector) before he finds the right one, and this is purely inserted into the episode so that it can contain references to every previous episode. Except "Random Shoes", because that had nothing to do with anything. Or "Small Worlds", for the exact same reason. Anyway, what he is actually looking for is blueprints for the Manipulator.

Back in 1941, The Captain has finally decided that he's got to make the move, and when Jack reminds him that "this could be [his] last chance", The Captain says "That's why I came back" and nervously takes hold of Jack's hand, and, see, this is why I like this episode even though none of it actually makes sense, because this is a damn sweet moment. And I'm sure after that recap, you'd prefer it if I never used that word again, but hey, brace yourself. Anyway, Audrey and the guy who is not Tim or George wander in and break the spell, telling them "We need Lovers' Corner if you don't mind, boys". The Captain breaks of quickly and is all "we were just discussing strategies". Jack gives him a sly grin and says they'll go somewhere else, but the moment is lost and The Captain, afraid, tells Jack he's told him everything he needs to know.

2008, Hub. The boys are fighting over the blueprints, and Ianto's doing his strangled yelling again, but Gareth David-Lloyd's acting is markedly improved over "Cyberwoman" here, and Owen and Ianto play surprisingly well off each other when they're yelling, even when what they're yelling doesn't actually make sense, like "It's a trap! Bilis wanted you to find it! To incite total chaos and destruction!" So, Bilis somehow stole a piece from the Manipulator and hid it in a grandfather clock, because he wanted Owen to find something totally unrelated that he would also need to work the machine? What? But then they give up on the yelling and just starting beating the crap out of each other, which is a lot more fun. Owen wins pretty easily, and that is one thing that actually does make sense. Well done!

1941. Jack looks longingly after The Captain, and sadly explains to Tosh exactly how he's going to die tomorrow (as a hero, saving his men. But of course.) The Captain looks longingly back, but is still scared to do anything about it. And the time jumps are happening more frequently now, so I'll stop changing paragraph for each one; Owen is about to start up the Manipulator when Ianto pulls a gun on him and tells him to stop or he'll shoot. And back in the past, Jack's finally going to actually answer some of Tosh's questions about who he is, but it's not actually anything we don't know. I'll transcribe a little for the emo, though:

Tosh: How did you end up at Torchwood?
Jack: Someone saved my life. Brought me back from death. And ever since then, it's been like... they're keeping me for something, and I don't know what it is. ...I'm sorry for dragging you into this.
Tosh: It was my choice!
Jack, seriously: I'll look after you. (He starts to cry. EMO!) But there's nothing I can do for him!

But, dude, "they've been keeping me for something"? THAT IS A MOMENT! THAT IS OUT OF TIME! THEY HAVE STUCK HIM IN THE WALL! HE IS JUST A BOX IN A CAGE! Also, "It was my choice!" and that whole little bit was really quite awesome. Tosh is awesome! My number one request for Season 2 is more Tosh!

In the Hub, Owen is now taunting Ianto about how he is not important, he is just a tea boy, and also Jack's "part-time shag". When did this happen? When did Owen find out? WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED? I know that weird scene with the stopwatch ties in pretty well with all the 'moment' nonsense, but still, come on, guys. You can't have your major characters start a sexual relationship and also find out about each others' sexual relationships entirely off-screen! That ain't right! Especially when there are clearly some pretty major issues you would think they would have to work through before engaging in such extracurricular activities. And then Owen and Ianto stare each other down for a while, and then Owen tells him that the Riftmouth ate his lover and his Captain, so if he dies here, it will all be in the line of duty. And he goes to start the Manipulator pumping, and Ianto shoots him in the back (My number one request for Season 2 is MORE SHOOTING OWEN!), and Owen manages to push through the pain and start it going anyway. Time Kompression!

And, back in the past, the music is getting romantic, and Jack and The Captain's eyes meet across the room, and because of the Time Kompression, reality is starting to fall away a little to make this moment perfect; The Captain loses his fear and, right in front of everyone, walks over to Jack and takes his hand and leads him onto the dancefloor, and they start to dance. George is confused, and asks what he is doing, but everyone else starts to gather around in a circle, and watch this timeless moment, and smile. There's no one on the dance floor but Captain Jack Harkness and Captain Jack Harkness, and nobody is saying anything, or doing anything but watching, and smiling. And they dance, and then everything turns bright, And Tosh runs into the light and shouts to Jack that they have to go, "We need you, Jack!". Jack nods and tells The Captain he has to go, and The Captain understands. It's his duty. Jack starts to follow Tosh, but then pauses, and he doesn't say this out loud, but he needs a moment. Any chance could be your last, and that is why you come back. And Jack does, and while the musicians keep playing, and everyone else keeps watching, and smiling, he kisses Jack, and Jack kisses him. This kiss, the world fell apart for this perfect moment. Or maybe the moment had enough leverage to tear the world apart; if it's alien it's ours, if it's ours it's alien and it's all the same in the end and what I am saying is that if you want to taste my kisses in the night then JUMP.

And then the crowd fades away, and The Captain stands to attention and salutes, and he fades away too. And Jack and Tosh walk though the door and come home, and Gwen is there to greet them with hugs, hooray! And inside the dancehall, Bilis smirks an evil smirk, for he is an evil man. An evil, camp man. See you next week, Bilis!

At the Hub, a little later, Owen is stitching up his own wound and bitching at Ianto about how the world didn't end after all so he was right. Well, hey, give it time. Or, you know, don't, because time exists even less than it used to, now. Tosh has no time for these petty squabbles about who caused the apocalypse, which is why I love her, and she says "I know it was wartime, but it was beautiful." Jack agrees, of course, and then heads into his office with a face full of emo foreboding. Owen wants to go after him, but Tosh says she'll go; if you weren't around in the war, you wouldn't understand, laddie. Tosh tells Jack that "He would have been proud that you took his name", and they raise a toast to Captain Jack.

Next time: Owen was wrong! Raise your hand if you're not surprised. I thought so.

My One Big Eyeball, week of 12/03/07

2007-03-21T15:25:00.000Z

That's one a week assuming a frickin' powercut doesn't lose me half a recap and irritate the hell out of me, of course. Anyway.

Battlestar Galactica 3x18 - The Son Also Rises
Episode Grade: B-

Written by Michael Angeli, which is notable because he also wrote "The Woman King". (And, seriously, read that recap, it's loving hilarious. The only thing I love more than Jacob loving an episode and going crazy drawing imaginary lines between everything is Jacob completely hating everything about an episode, up to and including the chip Michael Angeli inside his head, who is a horrible person in every way that a person can be horrible. The thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck, and all that.)

So, right. 41,399 souls in the fleet, which is one less than last week, which means at least one baby has been born since Kara died, since somebody else dies before the credits. That somebody is Baltar's lawyer, which is cool because his replacement, Romo Lampkin (AKA Badger), is rather excellent. He manipulates anyone and everyone, especially Lee, and wears sunglasses inside so nobody can tell what he is thinking, even though they probably couldn't anyway, and steals random shit all the time. So now it looks like Gaius might actually have a fighting chance in this trial, somehow.

So, Romo Lampkin, plus some of the Kara death fallout (the birthday card with the moustache got to me way more than anything last week did), do a fine job of making up for the bad parts of the episode, where for the second time running, Michael Angeli turns somebody into a serial killer for no reason whatsoever, only this time it's not some doctor we've never seen before, it's Kelly, who has hung around the background all the time and never really done anything significant. And that can break a man, I guess. So he starts bombing lawyers (which is totally OK, because lawyers are soulless, right? Don't you hate pants?). Oh, Michael Angeli.

Next week is part one of the season finale, so Baltar's trial might actually finally happen! Oh, my heart is all a-flutter.

Lost 3x12 - Par Avion
Episode Grade: A

Yeah, as "Flashes Before Your Eyes" already proved; it may have jumped 100 Dharma-branded sharks already, but that doesn't mean Lost can't occasionally be totally awesome.

So, Claire flashbacks this week, which have a long-standing tradition (well, OK, there have been two prior to this) of being A-grade episodes. In these, we learn that when she was younger, Claire was a goth, and was seriously hot. Oh, and DADDY ISSUES, of course; Jack's daddy is her daddy, which they basically told us already. Yeah, OK, we still don't particularly learn anything, but Claire was HOT. And, y'know, they can still be enjoyable to watch without teaching us much of anything. Also, she crashed her car into a truck and put her mother into a coma, which is something we didn't already know, I suppose.

Now, last week, when I said that Locke, Kate & Sayid were the least annoying characters they had left, I was forgetting Claire. Which I think is understandable since she has not actually appeared in any episodes for about a year, I don't think. But, well, she's a sweet girl, there's not really much else to her, and they give her just about the right proportion of appearances to make that not boring. OK.

So, she hatches a kooky plan to get off the island by catching a bird and strapping a note to its leg. Wait, I thought we agreed that trying to get off the island makes you a bad person, DENTIST. Anyway, Jin and Sun help out, but then Desmond and Charlie deliberately sabotage it because somehow this will cause yet another Charlie Is Going To Die to come to pass. Plus Desmond knows that he'll be able to catch a bird himself later. So, Claire gets mad at them for being weird, and for sabotaging her cunning plan, but then Desmond comes clean about the whole "I am psychic, and Charlie Is Going To Die" thing, and Claire is forgiving and Claire and Charlie are somehow capable of being really sweet again, in spite of "Fire + Water"? Dude.

So! Locke, Kate, Sayid and Danielle, plus prisoner Mikhal, the Russian fella from last week, continue their search for Otherville, and come upon a perimeter of pylons. While Kate and Sayid talk about shoe shopping or whatever, Locke gets bored and shoves Mikhal into the perimeter, which totally fries his brain like the hands of blue. Sayid yells at him about this plus blowing up the cabin last week, Locke does his best to remind us of the times when we have suspected him of being an Other, and then they cut down a tree and climb over the perimeter and find Otherville. And Jack! He is running towards them, looking like he's trying to escape, but actually, he's just playing some AMERICAN FOOTBALL (rah rah rugby soccer blah blah what) with Tom! And looking way happier than Jack ever does! Totally one of the best OMGWTFBBQ endings they have yet pulled.

All in all, can't wait for Claire's season four episode! Provided the ratings don't dwindle so much that the show gets cancelled before then, of course.

Scrubs 6x13 - My Scrubs
Episode Grade: A-

Ah man, what an appropriate title! Because this totally was my Scrubs, the one I've been missing since approximately the end of last season (though, on reflection, I'd lump the last three episodes of that in with the downturn of this season). Many, many hilarious moments, and a whole lot of continuity porn, eee. Still a little bit of wildly uncomfortable Family Guy stuff with the massage parlour trip with Kelso at the start, but it quickly picked up with a lot of jokes that, I think, started out like the not-really-funny stuff that's been going on all season, but found their way to funny again by bringing them onto a further level. No finer example than the caveman thoughtful voiceover fantasy sequence within a fantasy sequence.

That plus "And so in the end, I knew that what Elliot said about the way things were had forever changed the way we all thought about them." Hee hee! Just make sure it's not a one off, you guys! Please?

My One Big Eyeball, week of 05/03/07

2007-03-13T18:33:00.001Z

Battlestar Galactica 3x17 - Maelstrom
Episode Grade: B

Starbuck runs around for an hour or so going crazy and seeing imaginary vipers and talking to Leoben and her horrible dead mother, and then dies. There's all this mythological symolical stuff going down with the Eye of Jupiter and Kara Thrace And Her Special Destiny playing their greatest hits, but frankly I don't have any particular clue what is going on. It's reasonably enjoyable to watch anyway, hence the B rating. That's all.

Desperate Housewives 3x16 - My Husband, The Pig
Episode Grade: B+

Bree's suddenly off to visit her parents before her and Orson go off on their long awaited honeymoon, and we only see the back of "Bree"s head during the opening montage that explains this. Isn't that odd. Also, for no apparent reason, Rex has taken over the voiceovers from Mary Alice, and appears to think that because this is his first episode doing that, it must be the first episode of the series, and so he explains a bunch of shit we already know. So weird.

Anyway, some smug annoying old guy sets his sights on Gabby, and is really annyoning, and also this is clearly the exact same storyline as the last one they lumped Gabby with, only this guy is too old instead of too young. Sigh.

Austin writes Julie a magical, amazing letter that makes her completely forgive him for cheating on her with Danielle somehow, and naturally we don't get to see the contents of the letter, because there is nothing that letter could say that would make that happen. But, unfortunately, Austin got Danielle pregnant and, given that her parental figures right now are Bree and Orson, that's just not going to fly. So, Danielle's off to "history camp" or "english camp" or something like that and the baby will be adopted by 'an appropriate family', and Austin will just have to leave town and never come back. Oh, how sad. (I do not care for Austin.)

Ian wins some ridiculously contrived poker game that doesn't bear even a vague resemblance to logical, and the net result of this is that Mike is not allowed to tell Susan about the engagement ring he was going to give her before some Orson-shaped bastard ran him down.

And, easily taking home the best storylines of the episode award, part the first; Lynette and Tom's ninth wedding anniversary! Lynnete just wants to have a nice hot bath and early night, Tom wants to do something overblown and special, wacky crossed wires lead to Lynette waiting around in the freezing cold for hours, but in the end she realises that, disaster or no, they have to keep doing these special things and keep the romance going, because if they're just going to fall into routine, then what is the point, and oh man it's so sweet and awesome.

Best storylines of the episode part the second; Edie has a son! Edie! has a son! His name is Travers (blah) and he is eight, and his dad dumped him on Edie without warning and she totally leaves him home alone to go out and get drunk. And Carlos spots him playing in the road, on his own, quite late, and interrupts his date with some crzzy grrl from the intertrons to make sure poor Travers does not get deaded. And he is mad at Edie, of course, but in the morning she tells him about how she knows she makes a terrible parent, which is why she let Travers' dad have custody; she is a good enough parent to know that she is not a good parent. Naturally. And Carlos softens and offers to babysit if she needs it, and man, I know how this show works by now; I give it two episodes before Carlos and Edie have sex.

Heroes 1x18 - Parasite
Episode Grade: A-

Well, let's see... Claire's off on the run with The Haitian, and is being all petulant teenager about it and tries to ditch him at the airport to go running off to her uncle Peter (although she does not actually know the uncle part, they just met that one time when he was stopping Sylar from eating her brain. That kind of thing would stick with you, though, I guess.) Anyway, she reaches Peter's appartment, but he's not there to greet her, his mother is, and also The Haitian, who apparently works for her. INTRIGUING.

Meanwhile, Mr' Bennet's incredible sacrifice last week is made all the sadder by the fact that his loss of those sweet memories is all for nothing, because thanks to having let his wife in on the big secret and the fact that the Company have a shapeshifter (or possibly illusionist, since the whole screen goes all wobbly when she shifts) on staff, they catch onto his mutiny anyway. Damn, that sucks. But, dude, I did not think they'd go there that soon. Serious breakneck pace going on here.

Also, after chatting with Peter, Hiro and Niki (who has temporarily wrested control of her body back from Jessica, who is supposed to be killing him), Nathan goes in with an FBI wire to finally meet the elusive Linderman. Who is a kindly old man. Naturally. Since Jessica killed the FBI agents that were going to hear the recording, the wire plan is out, so Nathan instead pulls a gun Niki gave him, at which Linderman tells him he shan't be having any pot pie then (seriously, this happens), and also, Linderman totally knows all about the Heroes, and Nathan is not going to kill him. And he's right, of course.

And also, Hiro finally, finally gets his sword, and reunites with Ando, and then skips ahead to the future, where the bomb has destroyed New York already. Shit. And Mohinder is not as stupid as we all thought, because he's cottoned onto Sylar already, but, what with the telekinesis and all, his efforts to stop Sylar rank among the more futile things the world has ever seen. With his mad power absorption skillz, Peter, who comes along to visit Mohinder, should have more of a chance, although Sylar has the element of surprise, which he uses to start opening up Peter's head and in the process destroying his emo haircut, and that is the cliffhanger on which we leave for six fuckin' weeks, dagnabbit. It was OK when Lost went away for ages, but this show is far too awesome for me to wait that long! And, dude, only three shows not on hiatus, in two of which I have succumbed to the terrible disease of It Were Better In The Olden Days? Next week is going to be so sparse!

Lost 3x11 - Enter 77
Episode Grade: B+

Let's get the lame out of the way first; flashbacks do the usual recycling of flashback plotlines and teach us nothing new about Sayid, and man, they really ought to do away with the flashbacks entirely now. Apart from "Flashes Before Your Eyes", which didn't use the traditional structure at all, I don't think there's been a single flashback yet this season that has served any purpose whatsoever.

In other recycled plotline news, Sawyer is pissed that everybody has felt free to take from his stash in his absence, just like he was last season! And after another five minute trek into the jungle, Hurley finds yet more shit that no one else has discovered, nonsensically; a ping pong table, plus bats. So, Sawyer challenges the rest of the lostaways to a game of table tennis to win back his stuff, Hurley takes up the challenge and wins, and now he is not allowed to use nicknames for a week. Except that he's apparently still allowed to call Hugo 'Hurley'.

But those, particularly the table tennis, take up a thankfully small percentage of the episode, which is otherwise pretty cool; Sayid, Locke, Kate and Danielle, who are undoubtedly among the least annoying characters we have left (provided that Kate is nowhere near Jack or Sawyer), are off on a trek to rescue Jack (or Alex, in Danielle's case), and I think and hope this might be a multi-episode trek where we'll get many scenes of just these four. In this one, they find a Russian guy with a house, who claims to be a Dharma scientist, but is really an Other, and Sayid figures it out because he's smart/trusts no one, ever. The house is another Dharma station, used to contact the outside world, but to do so, one must win a game of chess against the computer. Naturally.

Well, Locke can't resist a good button pushing/symbolism excersize, to the point where he totally ignores the prisoner he's supposed to be watching in order to play chess. He wins the game, and Dr Something Related To Candles appears on the screen, telling him to press various number combinations in order to attempt various methods of communication, none of which work. And then he's told that, if the station has been compromised by "the hostiles", he should enter 77 (hence the title), and so he does, and, once everyone is safely outside, the house explodes and Locke has destroyed yet another source of food and shelter for the lostaways. They've got to be getting tired of that.

Scrubs 6x12 - My Fishbowl
Episode Grade: B-

OK, the Janitor and his fishbowl was so very awesome, but otherwise, this felt way more like a Family Guy episode than Scrubs, with all the approx. 50% of jokes falling completely flat and characters being ludicrously outside of the way any human being would actually act. Now, I don't hate Family Guy, by any means, but it's not what I was expecting to watch, you know?

Also, WHY IS DOCTOR COX NOT BALD?! Seriously though, it's pretty obvious that last week's "episode" was shown out of order, hence the magical disappearing/appearing hair, but, you know, I remember a continuity issue last season with episodes shown out of order that involved... JD shaving his head. So, do they just happen to pick the head shaving episodes to shuffle around, or is it just that I only notice the episodes are in the wrong order when people shave their heads? ANSWERS ON A POSTCARD.

I really do not have much to say about this show beyond BETTER IN OLDEN DAYS plus HAIRLOSS, do I? Writing about sitcoms is invariably harder than serious shit, y'know. But, like, this show used to mix the two, and still tries to; it just totally fails these days. This week, long standing patient Private Dancer is discharged, but finds that his injuries leave him unfit to return to the army and so thinks he has nothing to live for, and apparently the hospital are perfectly willing to let this obviously suicidal young man go out into the world without any kind of psychiatric assessment or anything? Now, I won't claim to know... anything about hospitals that I have not learned by watching Scrubs, actually, but I'm pretty sure that strains the barriers of suspension of disbelief.

Failed Again!

2007-03-11T20:08:00.000Z

So, seeing as how I've given up entirely on the concept of 'schedule' as far as Torchwood recaps go, they're not the only things you'll be getting. I'm going to try for at least one recap a week, but they could be Torchwood or they could be Hex or they could be Sugar Rush or they could be Skins or possibly something else entirely. I'm sure the surprise will be highly enticing.
One thing I do plan to do is actually keep up to its schedule once the third season of Sugar Rush comes around in the summer, but until then, it'll all be potluck. Enjoy!

Hex Episode 2x01 - "Cursed"

Episode grade: C-

Previously: This show pretty much just sucked, but thanks solely and completely to the talents of Jemima Rooper, I was able to convince myself that maybe it didn't, for a while. (That might occasionally happen again; that Jemima is a talented girl.) Somehow, it got a second season of thirteen whole episodes, in spite of the previously stated sucking, and also the fact that, hilariously, like, half the cast decided to quit in the interim. So, remember Thelma's new girlfriend, Pippi, or Peggy, or whatever? The show would like you not to. She's just gone, with no explanation for her disappearance, or indeed any indication that she ever existed in the first place. Troy and Gemma, you are allowed to remember, and there is a single line explaining their sudden disappearance, but otherwise, they are not heard from or mentioned ever again, and are swiftly replaced by Troy 2.0 and Gemma 2.0 (Actual names Tom and Alex, the latter of which I don't think I learned until, like, the second from last episode, so she will always be Gemma 2.0 to me. Tom I might start calling by his actual name at some point, we'll see how it goes.). There might be some others I've not thought of, and also, this is just the ones that haven't agreed to at least make a couple of appearances to let their characters leave the show somewhat organically. And, given that one of those characters is CASSIE who is actually supposed to be THE main character, they kind of had to make some sudden changes to the direction of the entire show. So, the first few episodes are a transition period to Hex 2.0, and the transition period kind of sucks, but all in all, I do think I prefer Hex 2.0 to Hex 1.0. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, let's get to the start of the frantic retooling of every single plan they had for the overreaching story arc.

Also previously: Cassie got knocked up, and an Evil Christian doctor who was supposed to abort the devil child chose instead to remove it by caesarean without Cassie's knowledge or consent, which totally sent the world to Hell, which is where it already was, so actually, nothing much has changed, I guess. Straight into credits after that, which are cunningly disguised as being identical to season one credits right at the moment, although some of the names have changed. Laura Pyper's just been tacked on the end of the list with the non-important people, like Ella's not going to become the replacement main character once Christina Cole buggers off.

London, 1849. A blonde girl who pretty much looks like Cassie levitates a vase, in front of a crowd of stunned onlookers. She may be a McBain, but all the nonsense about the McBains that bored the crap out of me in the first couple of episodes of season one turns out to serve no purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, thanks to Christina Cole's departure, so that was all a waste of time, really, wasn't it. A dude in the back watches intensely, and I think it's Azazeal, but I'm kind of thrown by the crazy huge sideburns and top hat. There are, like, pigmy tribes living in those sideburns. He tips his hat to, I don't know, the freak show organiser or whatever. I don't really know what's going on here.

Later, the girl is lying in bed. Azazeal, sans top hat now, and it definitely is him, walks in and kisses her and then leaves. I have seen the entire series now, but it's been a while since I saw this episode so right at the moment I could not possibly hope to tell you what the point of any of this is, but I do wish someone would actually say something. Azazeal wanders around, and like throws some keys or something at some guy and then goes outside, where the peasants are milling and oh, right, now I see the point of all this; this girl with dark red hair and psychotic eyes is following Azazeal and glaring at him, and the point of this is so we're all like "woah" when she shows up in the present day scenes later. Right, so, this is Ella, although they probably won't tell us that for hours, because, as you may recall, this show is kind of horrible about actually telling the audience the names of its characters. And then I just name them after Buffy characters because Joss Whedon is literally God, and all of that. I'm gonna try to cut down on that a little, so from now, David will be "David" and not "Rupert", and Jo will be "Jo" and not "Jenny". Back to what's going on right now; Ella is delightfully unhinged, which is what makes her far more interesting as a main character than Cassie, and because she is so wonderfully crazy, she slits the girl's throat. You know, the one who is Cassie, but not. Ella's hair is actually black, and also curly, in the past, but I couldn't see that before, because she was wearing a hood. But any other time we see her (including any other flashbacks, as far as I recall), it's red, and straight.

Right. The gasp of the throat slit girl segues us to Cassie also gasping, because Thelma has just thrown water at her to wake her up. Cassie bitches, Thelma is cute, it's all eerily familiar. OK, right, Cassie's been having bad dreams (the most recent of which I think is supposed to be the flashback we just saw) and her solution to this problem is apparently "Don't sleep", which is akin to "pull out before you finish" as far as effective solutions to problems go. She complains at Thelma for letting her fall asleep, Thelma tells her she'll go crazy, Cassie's all "Cool with me!" Then she takes some pills and wanders out into the corridor. Outside, a stone gargoyle on the roof cocks its head, Cassie hears the noise of this and is slightly wigged and oh God, I'd forgotten how slow moving this damn show is sometimes. Cassie stops, and waits around for the next creepy thing to happen, and eventually, it does; there's something moving outside the window. Oooooooooh-er.
Cassie ducks into a kitchen, which is sensible, because the kitchen is probably the closest thing to an armoury in this or, indeed, most other buildings. For some reason, there's a plate of mousse on the table, which Cassie decides to dig into, but she's shocked to be distracted from it by the door slowly creaking open, and, man, is her short term memory really that bad? She levitates a baking tray at the intruder, and then grabs a ladle to beat it with, but of course, the intruder is no kind of demon, it's just Felix. You know, the dumb guy who babbled incessantly about Aliens back in whatever lame episode. I'm not going to look it up. Cassie apologises for attacking him, saying "I thought you were someone else", and instead of asking, like, "Who were you planning to assault with kitchen utensils?", Felix just accepts this and tells her he was after some hot milk. Cassie cheerfully tells him she'd better leave him to it, he watches her leave with a clear look of longing.

Next day, Cassie's getting stuff out of her locker and describing the thing she saw outside the window to Thelma; "It was hideous. So hideous I almost felt sorry for it." Thelma giggles and asks Cassie if she's sure she isn't talking about Felix. Poor Felix. I'm not saying I feel sorry for him, that's just his full name, like Boone, God's Friggin' Gift To Humanity. Cassie and Thelma throw around the exposition ball some; that critter that was not Poor Felix was a Nephilim, remember, and that means that Cassie's son is not dead like he should be, remember. Thelma asks if Cassie plans to claim child benefits. Heh. Cassie said she plans instead to opt for finding, torturing and killing Azazeal. Well, one out of three ain't bad, supposedly.

In class, Leon, Roxanne and Gemma 2.0 are quickly providing the explanation for Troy and Gemma's disappearance so we can get on with the business of forgetting about them completely, and man, it's funny to see Leon acting like such a dick when I'm now so used to the new version of Leon, who is actually pretty OK. More on that story later. So, apparently Troy thought Cassie's baby was his and left the country, and Gemma followed. Now that is an airtight story. Cassie is looking glum, I guess because Troy has left, but man, that was pretty much her fault anyway. Thelma asks her "If there was something you'd always wanted to do, but never could, and then you found a way, but the way was morally dubious, what would you do?" I have no idea what she's talking about. Cassie goes with "I'm not going to sleep with you, Thelma," but apparently that is not it. OH! Wait, I do remember. Go for it, Thelma. Jo comes in, swigging from a bottle of water and looking generally haggard and forgetting what Shakespeare play it is they're supposed to be covering now, and everyone looks concerned and/or amused.

Cassie takes a trip to the hospital, Evil Christian Dr. Condescencion sees her in the waiting room and tries to flee, but Cassie catches up with him. He tries to claim that he's very busy, she tells him he's been avoiding her, and she wants to know what he did with her baby. Dr. Codescencion is all condescendingly "If you're having doubts now, I'm afraid it's too late", and tells the receptionist to call security. Cassie gives up on getting anything from him and leaves, and hegoes into his office, where Ella is waiting. This'd be the point where we're supposed to go "woah". Let's all take a moment to do that. Woah.

OK. Cafeteria, Cassie's complaining to Thelma about how the not so good doctor "can't just going around saving people's babies", Thelma points out the inherent hilarity in bitching about people saving babies, Cassie resolves to go back to the hospital and beat the truth out of the doctor, or something. On her way to her table, Poor Felix accosts Cassie to say "Hi" and invade her personal space, Cassie apologises again for attacking him with kitchen utensils, and Poor Felix just stands there grinning until Cassie gives up on attempting to communicate with him. Thelma walks past and gives Poor Felix a disdainful look up and down, hee. Cassie sits down at a table with David and Jo, which, I know she apparently has no friends who aren't dead, but that doesn't seem like her. She doesn't acknowledge them at all, and vice versa, and we pan over to their conversation, where Jo is totally absent. David reminds her about the governor's meeting next week that she's supposed to have written a report for. Jo has not done anything of the sort, and David jokes that she spent "too much time at the Christmas sales". Jo tells him "I know you think you're charming, but actually, you're just a sexist pig" and storms out, and maybe if she actually did her damn job, she'd have more ground to stand on there.

Hospital. Thelma complains that the nurses' uniforms are lot less PVC than various clothing outlets had led her to believe, and see, this kind of thing is why she's the one that gets me through the less than stellar episodes of this show, and God knows there are more than a few of those. Cassie tells her that most people come here to die, Thelma points out that dead people have desires too, and yeah it's another "By the way, Thelma is a lesbian! And a ghost! She's a lesbian ghost!" scene, but at least they managed to get through this one without using either of the actual words. Inside, Thelma holds Cassie back and points out that finding out for sure that her son is still alive will be a totally life changing event, and maybe she should think twice before going through with it. Like, Cassie pretty much knows already, but as long as she doesn't have concrete proof, they can pretend that nothing has really changed from the good ol' days when they had not a care in the world. Apart from Thelma being dead, of course. Cassie asks if while they're at it, they can pretend that she's "an international popstar and dating Brad Pitt", and while they're busy doing that, I'm going to pretend we've already done the part where it turns out that Cassie's son is alive, because we all know he is already, and no matter how cute Thelma is playing with random hospital equipment, this is hella tedious. And then Cassie finds Dr. Condescension's bloody corpse. Hooray!

Later, Thelma sneaks back into the hospital, steals the sleeping security guard's food, and heads into the morgue. She pulls corpses out of their drawers, shaking her head at an old woman and a fireman, before she settles on an attractive young blonde woman, and starts taking off her dress. It's really not nearly as gross as it appears to be right now, though, so I can carry on loving Thelma, thankfully, because man, I don't know how I'd get through this show if that stopped happening.

Cassie's asleep in the common room, and dreaming of Azazeal, and then herself, naked. We can't actually see her face, so it probably isn't really Christina Cole, but they sure do love to show Cassie naked, in spite of the fact that I'm guessing the whole Nipples Without Warning incident may have had something to do with Ms. Cole's early departure. Anyway, Dream Cassie is breastfeeding Li'l Lucifer, only she is lactating blood instead of milk. Cassie is woken by Poor Felix, who continues to be obviously lusting after Cassie and incredibly socially awkward. Fuck that shit, right. I get the point. Poor Felix wants to know what's wrong, "Is it Thelma?" Cassie stupidly is all "No, Thelma's fine, she's being really good at the moment", and there's awkward silence and then Poor Felix rambles about how he had trouble letting go of his mother when she died too. Cassie thanks him for his help as he goes, though it had nothing whatsoever to do with her actual troubles, because she's so friggin' NICE. Yawn.

Back in the morgue, the security guard wakes up, finds his cake missing, and discovers Thelma's clothes discarded on the floor. Somehow he instantly knows to open the door immediately to the right of the clothes to discover the body of the same girl Thelma did, only she is now naked. With lipstick smeared all around her mouth. It's not what it looks like! OK, uh, Thelma had a little trouble getting the top off her? And the lipstick got kind of smudged in the process of doing so? Let's go with that.

Right, see, because Thelma was just stealing the dead girl's clothes so she could wear them because she was fed up of resembling a Final Fantasy character what with the never changing of the clothes. Well, not that her original outfit was anything near the level of ludicrousness required to join those fabled ranks. I mean, the big red flower was a little much, but it's hardly a spandex one-piece with short shorts plus matching gigantic leather boots and bracelets and bizzare outer thigh coverings and tiny bronze wings. They really outdid themselves on that one, and I could not previously have imagined that to be possible. Anyway, Hex. Right, Thelma's got herself a brand new look, and Cassie tells her she looks amazing and she is not wrong. Cassie also asks where she got the clothes, of course, and Thelma is all "you don't want to know" and Cassie realises that this is the morally dubious thing she was talking about earlier. Thanks for clearing that up, guys! Thelma explains that, in addition to being able to walk through car doors, but not other kinds of doors or walls as far as we know, and also being able to touch anything except actual living people, I think, she can only wear dead people's clothes. Yeah, that makes the exact opposite of sense. OK, Cassie is kind of grossed out that Thelma is stealing dead people's clothes and, hey, she didn't even see the lipstick!

A little later, Thelma's making one of her regular vending machine stops when she spots Jo looking incredibly shifty and walking hurriedly down the corridor. Thelma follows her, of course, because maybe she'll get to read some more of Jo's erotic fiction, and Jo takes a large wad of cash out of safe, and then suddenly is driving, and Thelma has done her car door trick again. Well, come on, it's not like any of the rest of her ghost powers would keep you amused for long. Jo hands over the money to a Scandinavian looking dude, and by that I mean he is tall and strong and blonde and blue-eyed/pure and healthy, very wealthy/SWEEEEEEDEEEEEEEEEEN! Mostly just the first part. In return, he hands her a SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE. Could this be a drug deal going down?! THAT WOULD SURE EXPLAIN THE TOTAL SHAKES THAT JO SEEMS TO HAVE ALL THE TIME NOW!!! It's not a drug deal, but here's a boring anecdote from my life that tangentially related, skip to the next paragraph if you don't care. So, the other day, my housemates and I went on a three hour drive, for Krispy Kreme donuts and nothing else (TOTALLY WORTH IT. FOR REALZ.) some of which we sold on at a meager profit, which, due to being unable to find our various customers' actual houses, we did out of the back of the car, with the two front seaters getting out to open up the boot/make sure there was no surreptitious stealings, while me and t'other back seater handled calculation of cost for whatever weight (or number, if you prefer) of donuts they wanted and receiving/counting of money, respectively. And we all observed how much this resembled a theoretical drug deal, and how simple it would be to replace the donuts with crack and we would totally not get caught in the slightest, and laughs were had by all. So, that's my boring story. I hope you have a more interesting life than me!

Anyway, it turns out the SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE is actually baby formula, for Azazeal and Li'l Lucifer. Stunner. And also, Li'l Lucifer is still growing way faster than normal children, just like he did in Cassie's uterus, because we don't want to have to wait through, like, fifteen seasons of this crap before we can get on with the teenage Antichrist storyline now do we.

Thelma flees the scene, running into loud, clattering rubbish bins and tripping over her feet and crying out and just generally trying as hard as possible to alert Azazeal to her presence, and, surprise! It works. But all he does is glare at her. Come on, you could at least have said something totally unremarkable in a really threatening tone, like, "Lovely weather today, isn't it, THELMA." You're not even trying here.

Meanwhile, Cassie swims, hears something whispering her name, and is yet again suddenly surprised by the appearance of Poor Felix. This is getting ridiculous. Poor Felix has sleeping pills for Cassie, Cassie spots a Nephilim and follows it and inadvertantly walks in on Poor Felix in the shower and blah blah embarrassment cakes.

Cassie gets home, and Thelma's sitting on the bed crying. Cassie asks her what's wrong, and Thelma tearfully tells her "I got mud on my new clothes!" Aww, Thelma! Cassie acts all appropriately maternal, and Thelma eventually confesses that this may not be the only thing that was bothering her and tells Cassie about Azazeal and the baby but not Jo, oddly enough.

Cassie decides to go confront Azazeal, because that's always worked out so well for her in the past. He tells her that she'll soon come to realise that she wanted to keep the baby as much as he did, and that's just stupid. Sure, she'll realise she did want the baby after all, that's conceivable, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't go out of her way to manipulate people into stealing foetuses that they are supposed to be killin', you know? Cassie tells Azazeal that he is arrogant and has no respect for her, and his slicked back hair is lame. Azazeal just smirks, and Cassie complains that she hasn't slept for days and there is a weird bad special effects demon stalking her. Azazeal names said demon as Barracuda or something that sounded vaguely like that and tells her he's an archangel blah blah mythology cakes. Cassie asks when the other 199 bad special effect demons might be making an appearance, Azazeal just says "All in good time", and brings over Li'l Lucifer for her to hold, telling her he has inflicted the poor child with the name of Malachi, like we needed any more proof that he's evil. (No offense to any Malachis out there, like. At least it's not Eugene.) Azazeal wants them to be a proper family, Cassie tells him to suck it and leaves, but not without a drawn out pained glance back at her 'proper family'.

Cassie walks through the gardens of the college, lost in her thoughts and Poor Felix approaches once again, although it's not a total jumping out from behind her thing, for once. Cassie asks him if all men are bastards, he tells her that they are, actually, "something to do with the genetic makeup. I don't consider myself to be particularly male. I'm more like a hybrid. I mean, I still produce milk." Cassie smiles and tells him that whatever he is (DISTURBING is the answer), Poor Felix is an improvement on most of the guys Cassie has met, and Poor Felix lights up like the proverbial extremely socially awkward and seemingly slightly mentally handicapped kid in a candy store. Cassie remains totally obvlivious to the huge crush Poor Felix is quite obviously developing.

Cassie hangs out with Thelma in some generic spot on the school grounds, Thelma quite rightly makes fun of Malachi's name. Then they provide some exposition about how it is not surprising that he is growing up so ludicrously fast, because that inevitably happens to every baby on every TV show that has ever existed. Except the ones where they just don't grow up at all. Cassie and Thelma start to walk away, and we pan over to a sleek black car pulling into the drive, out of which hops Ella. Hi!

David leads Ella through the cafeteria and tells her thrilling stories about the works of art the school occasionally has to sell to buy new computers, and everybody stares at the new girl, because she is the new girl, and also she is wearing a crazy badass leather trenchcoat. Thelma loudly proclaims Ella's hotness, Ella looks straight at her and gives her a wink. Cassie and Thelma share confused looks.

In their room, Thelma asks Cassie if she thinks Ella's a "Nephrilim", assuming that, being female, she'll be more dangerous; "brains and brawn, lethal combination". Then her train of thought merrily derails and she asks what Cassie is planning to do about Malachi. Cassie tells her to stop asking questions and gets all indignant that Thelma is attempting to engage her in conversation, because she is too tired to deal with such trifling matters as the most important friendship in her life right now, OK?

Outside, there's lightning, and christmas lights, and disco lights, and a general theme of light. Leon asks Troy 2.0 if he's ready for "a night of hardcore drugs and kinky sex". Troy 2.0 complains that Leon said they were just going for a few quiet drinks, Leon quips that "It always starts out that way", Troy 2.0 looks distinctly uncomfortable.

And inside, Leon and Roxanne and Gemma 2.0 get him to drink to the point of vomitting, and laugh at how lame he is, since apparently it didn't take too much. There's a little more exposition about the whole deal with Troy 2.0; he's replacing the original Troy in a very real sense, seeing as how he's Leon's new roommate, and Leon is mad at Troy 1.0 for leaving him, and is taking it out on Troy 2.0, since that's the closest thing he has now, I think is the gist of it. Not even the slightest hint that we're doing anything but pretending that Gemma 2.0 has been there the whole time, however. Cassie shoots dissaproving glares at them all from her place on the sidelines. And from his place on the other sidelines, Poor Felix throws some smiles and waves and OMG OMG SHE IS LOOKING AT ME CASSIE AND POOR FELIX 4EVA IDSTF!!!! looks in her direction, which Cassie acknowledges with a friendly smile and a drink raise. Ella strides into the party, and Thelma is immediately back on the subject of thinking about her, naturally. Cassie jokes that they'd better hope she does not have a Lasso of Truth if they want Thelma to keep any secrets from her, Thelma gives a cute "YOU SHALL PAY" smirk. Ella goes over and introduces herself to the Horsemen of Apocalame with a bottle of absinthe, which wins her Roxy's approval. Leon incongruously does not apparently know what absinthe is, which Ella thinks is cute, I guess, because she starts flirting with him and then apologises to Roxy for not making sure that Roxy had not already staked a claim on Leon. Roxy's all "God no," and notes that "he's a little inexperienced, if you know what I mean", and I can't imagine that anyone could possibly not know what she means. Ella apparently has no problems with this revelation either.

Cassie walks outside and finds Poor Felix smoking, and is surprised because she didn't think he did that. Poor Felix tells her that indeed he doesn't, but shrugs that "I was bored." And also "contemplating the quantum universe". Cassie tells him he'll make a great old man, Poor Felix gets disheartened and then hopeful and then disheartened and then hopeful at further conversation that I can't be bothered with. The gist of it is, as the gist of roughly half of this stupid episode has been, that Poor Felix lurves Cassie, but she does not feel the same way. Can we just get to the scene where she rips his metaphorical heart out and then a Nephilim rips his actual heart out already? Oops, spoiler.

Thelma walks the halls of the party, people ducking to one side to let her past even though they cannot see or feel or observe her presence in any way, and finds Ella. Ella asks if she's always as rude as she was earlier and snorts a little coke and asks if Thelma wants any or if she plans to just stand there gawping all day. Thelma eventually stutters out a "No, thank you" and leaves.

And right, Poor Felix asks Cassie out, she says no, and then he dies and I sure did not see this coming at all, and I am so very saddened by his shocking and pointless death. And then the Nephilim that killed him stalks around for approximately eight hours and then stradlles Cassie. Oh, isn't that spooky. Aren't you just going 'brrrrr'. No? Me neither. And then Ella appears and poses for a while, and for fuck's sake, could this scene be any more stupidly drawn out. Net result, Ella telepathically stranglectrocutes the Nephilim with Christmas lights, and tells it "This is one party you're going to wish you'd missed" and, not that I think anyone could have done much with that line, but that was a pretty horrible delivery. Ella smiles in satisfaction at a job well done, until she sees Cassie crying over poor, poor Poor Felix. Thelma checks that Cassie is OK, Ella assures her that Cassie was not in any danger, Thelma bitches that the thing probably looked pretty vicious from where Poor Felix was standing. Ella agrees, but explains that Cassie was in no danger, because the thing was actually sent to protect her, since she's the mother of Azazeal's child and all, and obviously it percieved Poor Felix as a threat. Thelma asks Ella if she is not Nephilim, then, and takes her word for it when she says she isn't, for no particular reason that I can see. And Ella tells Cassie and Thelma they should get out of there, "This party's lost it's appeal", and you know, maybe I just hate the way she says 'party'. And the fact that those are both truly horrendous lines. But really, when she says 'party' she sounds completely Australian, despite not doing so at any other point, ever, as far as I recall. That's kind of weird.

Next day, Cassie and Thelma watch the police cars pulling up, again, and Thelma tells Cassie about various theories floating around the school as to how Poor Felix died, and assures her that it wasn't her fault, at which point Ella comes in to tell Cassie that, actually, it totally was her fault. And also give some clue who the hell she is; Azazeal been trying to get a girl knocked up for centuries, but Ella's always been there to kill them before he had the chance, until now. Not that she actually mentions the "killing them" part. Thelma angrily asks if Ella could be a little less patronising, please, Ella retorts "Could your friend keep her knickers on?" Cassie doesn't care for petty squabbles, she just wants to know how to make sure no more Poor Felixes turn up dead, because you've got to assume the school has a fairly limited supply. Ella says of course she knows how to stop it, and starts walking out so she can dramatically turn around and dramatically intone that they have to dramatically kill Cassie's child. OK, a) DUH. and b) it's not like Cassie didn't already try to that in the episode prior to this one, so no, I'm afraid that ending does not rate even a single "dun", let alone all three. Suck it, Hex.

My One Big Eyeball, week of 26/02/07

2007-03-02T18:35:00.000Z

Battlestar Galactica 3x16 - Dirty Hands
Episode Grade: A

41,400 souls in the fleet. That's two more than last week.

More filler, of course, but it's damn good filler. The miners strike, and Chief Tyrol gradually gets persuaded to lead them in this by watching kids working in terrible conditions with no current hope of ever doing anything else with their lives. Oh, and also Gaius, who has, in his imprisonment, been busy writing Mein Kampf and/or The Communist Manifesto to forment unrest and make himself out to be some kind of hero of the people which, despite all prior evidence belying this suggestion, seems to somehow be working. And Gaius's posh "Caprican" (English) accent is apparently totally put on and really he's a poor farmer from Aerolon (Yorkshire) and Lords of Kobol, that scene between Baltar and Tyrol was CRAZY AWESOME.

Admiral Adama and President Roslin (BTW, I watched Donnie Darko again the other day, and she's Donnie's mother! How have I not noticed this before?) are not too happy about the miners' strike, and Adama breaks it off by telling Tyrol he's gonna line his wife up against the wall and have her shot (just like the Cylons did on New Caprica! Isn't that an odd coincidence.) if he doesn't call off the strike, but once again, the promise of a Cally shooting is not delivered, because Tyrol does back down, and because he does, Adama and Roslin agree to listen to his demands, I guess. They're kind of odd that way.

Two weeks until Baltar's trial, right? I wouldn't be bothered either way about it, except I really do want me some more Caprica Six, and she's the key witness. I am so very excited to see how that plays out. But first Starbuck's gonna die or something, apparently. This show is just laugh a minute, I tell you.

Heroes 1x17 - Company Man
Episode Grade: A+

Have I mentioned that I really love this show? Because I do. I know this is a giant cliché and shit, but Lost? ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? Now, normally I gloss over the plot points I consider less important, but since there were none of those, you get this gigantic essay, OK? OK.

Right, so, Mr. Bennet is the titular Company Man, and instead of darting about between many (at most, extremely loosely connected) stories, we focus solely on the goings on in his life this week, including flashbacks with a nice little nod to Lost's traditional eye close-ups. Between these flashbacks and the present day stuff, we learn... a whole heck of a lot, actually. But not Bennet's first name. Or any name at all for The Haitian, and I still hate calling him that. 15 years ago, Bennet's boss, who is probably either the mysterious Linderman or an underling of his (although this is pure speculation on my part), appointed Bennet "Head Of Primatech Paper" and assigned him to work with invisible Claude, since apparently they always assign one regular Company Man with one Heroic Company Man. And what they work together doing is tracking down Heroes to be experimented on.

Anyway, a year later, the whole shebang with Claire's biological mother went down, and Hiro's dad (who is exactly this awesome), apparently also a bigwig in the Linderman group, ordered Bennet to be Claire's surrogate father, and to hand her over to the Company the second any superpower manifested. And then, some more years later, Claude betrayed the Company by hiding a Hero from them, and Bennet was ordered to drive him out to somewhere secluded and shoot him. Bennet does so, Claude reveals that he was invisible in the office when they gave this order, but he got in the car anyway, since he thinks Bennet is a better man than the Company do, plus Bennet's blatantly going to start harbouring a Hero himself as soon as Claire's powers manifest. But Bennet shoots Claude anyway, and Claude, riddled with bulletholes, turns invisible and falls over the edge of a bridge, and I guess we'll be finding out how the hell he survived that in a later flashback episode.

In present day land, Matt and Ted (but not Hana, apparently. Coulda sworn she went with them last week, but I am wrong, wrong, wrong.) have come to Bennet's house to find out the truth about their powers/seek vengeance. Bennet continues to pretend he knows nothing, but while he can manage to keep his thoughts from revealing that he's lying, he can't do the same with Claire's. Ted gets extremely trigger-happy, and is about to shoot Sandra (Mrs. Bennet) to prove they ain't messing around, so Bennet mentally orders Matt to shoot Claire first, since she'll survive, and Bennet and Matt take Claire's apparently dead body upstairs and Bennet promises to tell her everything soon, but right now she needs to stay put so Ted thinks she's dead. Claire's understandably sceptical of his promise, but Matt tells her he's not lying. Matt and Bennet go to the Primatech Paper office, claiming to Ted that they're getting the proof he wants, though he figures this for a lie when Claire ignores Bennet's orders and tries to rescue her mom and brother. Matt and Bennet get back with the "proof", and convince Ted that they're not lying, Matt just shot clear so they wouldn't have a death on their hands, and then Possible Linderman shows up and shoots Ted and everything gets even more crazy.

So, Ted's spewing radiation all over the place and losing control, Bennet has a sedative to give him, which Claire handles, what with the regeneration and all, and Claire walking out of the rubble into the embrace of her father, skin totally blackened but rapidly recovering is a beautiful enough image for me to not question the fact that enough remnants of her cheerleader uniform mysteriously survive to cover her dignity. And then I remember Possible Linderman and the fact that all evidence points to Bennet having given Claire up to the Company.

But then, awesomely, it turns out that Bennet and The Haitian concocted a story before calling Possible Linderman in, whereby The Haitian's been keeping Claire's power secret from Bennet and turning her against him, and Bennet's only just discovered this, and takes The Haitian to the same bridge that Claude "died", only The Haitian overpowered him and shot him in the gut and escaped with Claire. So, while they're setting up this scene, Claire and Bennet share a seriously tearful goodbye, and then there's a flashback to Bennet getting his trademark horned-rim glasses and using his hereditary poor eyesight as a segue into telling Claire she's adopted, like I wasn't already crying.

And then The Haitian does his thing to, I guess, wipe any memory from Bennet's mind that this story is anything but the truth. And, not that it makes it any less heartbreaking that he'll forget his daughter's love, but I'm sure it is safer for him to not know, especially since his new Heroic partner is a mind-reader. Ted, having proven himself to be seriously dangerous, probably won't be receiving quite the same cushy treatment as Matt.

And that's that. Seriously, just so damn good. I can't think of maybe four episodes of anything, ever, that I'd say were better than this one, and as I think should be pretty clear by now, I watch quite a lot of TV.

Lost 3x10 - Tricia Tanaka Is Dead
Episode Grade: B-

Total filler, but vaguely entertainingly so. And no Jack and t'Others. That's about the best we can hope for any more. And yet I just can't stop watching, unlike thousands of Americans. ("Shake the Bunny" is, of course, the Lost version of "Jump the Shark", named for Benry's shaking of a bunny back in "Every Man For Himself", although personally, I think it was a different moment in that same episode where I really lost my faith; Kate can escape the Others' cage, but CHOOSES NOT TO FOR SOME STUPID REASON. That was just too much.)

So, in flashbacks, Asian reporter Tricia Tanaka is killed while reporting on Hurley's lottery win (and honestly, how much airtime can one local network fill with the story of "Area Man Wins Lottery"?) by Hurley's Curse Which Only Shows Up When Hurley Is Having Flashbacks, hence the title. But actually, Hurley's Curse probably killed Libby, I guess, and may well be responsible for Charlie's Gonna Die, Oh Yeah, so it's actually been getting a reasonable degree of play "lately". I say "lately" because it's actually been, what, two years since we spent any amount of time whatsoever with any of the original cast bar the Kate/Jack/Sawyer triangular black hole. Anyway, it's pretty much the exact same flashback as Hurley's first one, but with Daddy Issues shoehorned in, because everybody's gotta have Daddy Issues. I'm sure Joss Whedon approves.

On the island, Kate and Sawyer return to the main Lostaway camp, Charlie mopes because Desmond told him he's gonna die, Sun will no longer speak to Jin in Korean because that way he'll learn English faster. Hurley finds a rusted up ol' Hippy Wagon about five minutes walk away from the beach, beggaring belief once again that nobody has found this before. Hurley decides that this van needs to be fixed to make food taste good again, and enlists the help of Charlie, Sawyer and Jin to get it going again. Hurley and Charlie take the van down on a suicide run into some rocks on the illogical basis that it'll either kill them or break their respective curses, and, hey presto, it... well, doesn't kill them, anyway.

Also, Kate goes looking for Danielle (YAY!) to go help her rescue Jack, because hey there's this teenage girl called Alex who is probably your estranged daughter, and I guess you'd like to reunite, huh, Danielle? (YAY!!) Plus, Sayid and Locke tag along (YAY!!!).

So, it's all very fillery, and there's the requisite Lost total lack of anything resembling logic, but there some cute stuff like Sawyer's anger at the scotch stolen from him by Charlie, Des and Hurley being totally defused by Hurley's unrestrained joy at seeing him alive to make it bearable fluff. Aw.

Scrubs 6x11 - My Night To Remember
Episode Grade: F

Hey, let's take a bunch of clips of old episodes and string them together in a way that takes them out of any context in which they might be funny and/or poignant! And be sure to throw in a reference to "cheesy clip shows in sitcoms that have run out of ideas", because acknowledging that we're peddling excrement makes it perfectly OK to do so, right?

And, it's not like I need any more than "cheesy clip show" to accuse this of being a waste of an episode, but as few as 13 episodes ago, Scrubs did basically another clip show, albiet with a somewhat fresh take on it, and they used the "analgesic" joke in that one, too. So they're recycling their own recycling. So lame.

Also, Dr. Cox is now bald for some reason. What?

Veronica Mars 3x15 - Papa's Cabin
Episode Grade: B-

Paradigm shift! It gives me a really weird feeling throughout. See, because Sherriff Lamb died last week, and Keith has, temporarily at least, taken over as Sherriff, which majorly changes the dynamics, and then Veronica spends most of the episode working with Landry's T.A., Tim, in an effort to prove Landry's innocence in the O' Dell murder case, which throws out increasingly blatant flashing neon signs saying "TIM IS THE REAL KILLER" until we reach the point where Landry is charged for the murder and Tim takes over his Criminology class and spends the first class basically explaining in detail exactly how he killed Dean O' Dell and framed Landry for it. As far as motivation goes, we get a reasonable explanation for his framing Landry in a recording of a phone conversation where Landry tells a potential employer calling for a reference that Tim is pretty useless, really, but there's no explanation for his willingness to kill Dean O' Dell to affect that outcome beyond a throwaway "Everyone hated Dean O'Dell" from Tim, which frankly is not exactly a detailed enough motivation for a seven episode arc, as far as I'm concerned.

So, while I appreciate the change from "Veronica gets herself in mortal peril and Keith/Logan/Parker bails her out" for a resolution to a major arc, this was still kind of a let down for what is, apparently, the last multi-episode mystery we're going to get, even if the show does somehow manage to cling to life for another season.

In other news, Parker and Logan are totally hot for each other, but are worried they'll be breaking the friend code with Veronica if they act on, so Logan asks for her permission to ask Parker out, and Veronica gives the OK without any apparent angst whatsoever, although she was rather distracted by murder-solvin' at the time. Still, it's looking increasingly likely that if we don't get a fourth season, the show's going to end with Logan and Veronica apart and not crying into their pillows about this fact at all, which would be hilariously awesome as far as I'm concerned.

My One Big Eyeball, week of 19/02/07

2007-02-24T20:24:00.000Z

Yeah, it's back.

Battlestar Galactica 3x15 - A Day In The Life
Episode Grade: B

Man, the first half of this season was so incredible that it's pretty understandable that people are going to have violent reactions when they start putting out episodes that are just OK ("The Woman King" was straight up awful though, I agree). OK, Baltar's trial is the big endgame for the season, which means we're treading water until that happens. I want to see more of Caprica's adventures on Galactica as much as the next guy, don't get me wrong, but apparently we've got three more episodes of filler to sit through first, and if you don't just accept that fact and deal with them on their own merits, you're going to go crazy.

So, turns out Baltar and Caprica are not as special as they like to think, because Adama's got an ex in his head that talks to him too, but only on his wedding anniversary, and that's a little stupid, really. On the other hand, Adama/Roslin flirting goes into even more overdrive than that time when they got stoned on New Caprica, which is awesome in any language. And while they'rre doing that, they also decide that Apollo's going to be the offical Cutter Through Lawyer Bullshit for Baltar's trial, because as we know, Lee's always had a big interest in law which totally didn't come out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, Tyrol and Cally spend some quality time together in one of those nice out of nowhere life threatening situations that this show always does so well, when they're doing some routine maintenance and suddenly the ship's automatic systems go crazy and trap them in a room because there's a tiny pinprick of a hull breach in there. And there's no time or way to get them out except firing them out of the ship and catching them in Athena's Raptor, and man, you know, I love people floating out in space and being caught in spaceships, like that bit with Squall and Rinoa in Final Fantasy VIII, and the Farscape season one finale. There's something intensely beautiful about that image. That plus the whole deal that Jacob pointed out with the elegant symmetry with the Collaborators airlocking make this part a really fantastic moment in an otherwise fairly average episode.

And Hotdog has an STD!

Desperate Housewives 3x15 - The Little Things You Do Together
Episode Grade: A-

It's totally the season finale, except that there's still seven or so episode to go. Huh? Oh, right, because Marcia Cross is taking time off, so they had to rush things, except it doesn't actually feel rushed, it just feels awesome. I really think they've done a fantastic job this season; I was extremely weary about it at the start, when Orson seemed to be a George rehash that couldn't possibly go anywhere good, and slowly but surely, they've completely turned that on it's head, and Orson is actually totally a good guy and absolutely perfect for Bree, and I love them for totally punking me like that. I mean, there's still the tiny matter of DELIBERATELY DRIVING A CAR INTO MIKE, and maybe they should deal with that a little, but knowing them, they probably won't, but still. Orson's crazy mother was a truly great villain, which is always good.

Meanwhile, in storylines that will have to carry the rest of the season in Bree's absence and I can't imagine how that will possibly go well, the Scavos finally open their pizzeria, which gives a perfect opportunity for the whole neighbourhood to get together, and yet there's nex to no interactions between all the housewives, which is a real shame, because everybody knows those are great. Ian rushes a proposal to Susan before Mike starts remember thaty he loves her, and while he is nearly as perfect for Susan as Orson for Bree, they're pretty boring, truth be told. And Zach also proposes to Gabby, which gets a resounding "no way in hell", naturally, and that's not particularly interesting either. I'm really not optimistic about the rest of the season. But 90% of this episode is the culmination of the Orson story, which is great, so this one's the best since "Bang".

Heroes 1x16 - Unexpected
Episode Grade: A

Heroes is still completely freaking cool to a ridiculous, and no one can take that away from me. NO ONE! Since I last said anything about it, man, everything happened. Peter saved the cheerleader, saved the world, and also CHRIS ECCLESTONE fantastic!ally joined the cast as an invisible dude named Claude who beats Peter about the head whenever deserved, which is often. And far too much else to go into.

So, this week, Hiro teamed up with some kind of Sin City-esque misanthropist bounty hunter or something, who taught him the important lesson that other people will only let you down and it's better to work alone, man. So Hiro told Ando to go back to Japan and got on a bus (driven by Stan Lee! Man, you know, I can't wait for the next season of Who Wants To Be A Superhero?) to somewhere by himself, so I'm sure there'll be a joyous reunion in store for those two crazy kids a week or two down the line.

Also, Matt, AKA Thought Police teamed up with the other Heroes with obvious superhero names; Ted Sprague, AKA Radioactive Man, and a new one, Hana Gittelman, AKA Wireless, who can connect to the internet WITH HER BRAIN. And they are all mad at Mr. Bennet for kidnapping them and making them forget what the hell happened, so they go to his house to confront him. At the same time, Claire's mad at him too for making Mrs. Bennet forget so much that her brain is melting, and she is maybe going to team up with them.

And last week, Sylar teamed up with Mohinder to track down other Heroes and eat their brains, only Mohinder doesn't know about the second part, so he's somewhat surprised when the woman with super-hearing they catch up with turns up dead the next day. Mohinder decides that this makes their mission more important, because they have to warn these people about Sylar! But, come on, Sylar can't eat too many brains before Mohinder starts getting suspicious of the fact that every Hero they track down dies soon after. It's gonna be pretty funny while it lasts though.

Finally, Peter continues to team up with Claude in an effort to learn to control his powers and not explode New York, and then also saves Claude from being captured by Mr. Bennet and his Primatech Paper crew. Bennet gives Isaac a gun in case Peter turns up at his place and tells him to shoot the Peter, save the world, but when Peter actually does show up, he gets all invisible and telekinetic on Isaac's ass and Isaac shoots Simone by mistake. Oops!

Lost 3x09 - Stranger In A Strange Land
Episode grade: F

So, you may recall that before Lost took a giant hiatus, I was getting majorly tired of it, and stated that they had two episodes to convince me to keep watching. Well, the first of those was "Not In Portland", which was pretty much "I Do" Part 2, and sucked about as much, but it had a cool Clockwork Orange ripoff and... Man, I'm sure there was something else I liked about it, but hell if I can remember now. But then, in "Flashes Before Your Eyes", the bastards went ahead and pulled their actual best episode ever, for real, totally out of nowhere. It was kind of a wacky hybrid of The Butterfly Effect and Eternal Sunshine and all those kind of films, and I totally love that shit, plus there was a bunch of the kind of cool stuff that you used to be able to expect from this show, dude in red shoes having a house falling on him, crazy dream world (or not) version of Charlie telling people to "stay off the drugs", just awesome.

And thanks to that, I didn't give up, and I actually bothered to watch this utter crapfest. And, I mean, I hated it to like a "Random Shoes" level even before I learned that the promo monkeys advertised it as "answering three of Lost's biggest mysteries". So, what were those three mysteries? Well, #1: How did Jack get his tattoos? Yeah, that's sure been weighing heavy on my mind in those sleepless nights. #2: Uh... No, I've got nothing. But like, even if we ignore the ridiculous empty promise, and ask the simple question of what happened in this episode that served any useful purpose? I've got nothing. OH, WAIT! Karl kind of reminded me of River Tam, and that plus his association with Alex, that's a new character I can actually feel something for, which I guess had to happen eventually with how many of them Alcatraz has been spewing out. Juliet who? Sherriff wha?

Nonetheless, I'll watch again next week, because I think I've ascertained that I still like the show as much as Season 2 when they keep away from the Others' camp, which has just been an absolutely fruitless endeavour from start to finish (get Alex and the cameras the hell away from them ASAP, yo), and it seems like they're going to alternate between the two on a weekly basis for the moment. So next week might actually be somewhat tolerable.

Scrubs 6x10 - My Theraputic Month
Episode Grade: B

And, joining Lost in the "totally sucking this year" camp, Scrubs. Only, Lost had two pretty good seasons with clear signs that it was on the brink of collapsing under its own weight any time soon, wheras Scrubs had five near-perfect seasons with absolutely no signs that anything was going to change, then all of a sudden season six came along and everyone but the Janitor seemed to totally forget how to be funny OR poignant, both which they'd always been great at before. But after nine episodes, including a freakin' musical, this season is finally starting to look like Scrubs again. It's not dizzyingly hilarious, but at least I actually laughed a few times, and this one actually seemed like it would be worth watching again. Here's hoping the upwardly mobileness continues for the rest of the season.

Yeah, I can't write so much about Scrubs when it's just funny with no particular story going on, as this one was.

Veronica Mars 3x14 - Mars, Bars
Episode Grade: B+

And finally. I hadn't yet got into this show back in the old One Big Eyeballs, so let's have a little background. Veronica Mars is a college student (as of the start of this season) and also a private investigator. Once upon a time, she floated like a butterfly without a care in the world, but then someone roofied and raped her (only not really! (but then, surprise! actually it was really)) and her best friend was murdered and it turned out life kind of sucked. The first season was pretty damn perfect, especially towards the end when the big mysteries of "Who killed Lilly Kane?" and "Who raped Veronica?" were solved (well, the second on until they decided to totally rewrite history at the end of the second season, anyway), but getting the right mix of clues and red herrings to a big mystery over the course of twenty two episodes is a pretty tricky business, and doing it effectively proved beyond them second time around. And while all that was going on, not enough people were actually watching the show for it to avoid cancellation, except somehow it did anyway, but it's totally living on borrowed time and everybody knows it. So, in an attempt to make it more accessible, and also maybe to lose the problems season two had, this season doesn't have one big mystery that will play out over the course of the entire season, but three smaller mysteries, of which we're now nearing the end of the second.

And furthering the extreme likelihood of it's cancellation this season, a lot of fans are hating it and giving up, especially after this episode, because they are of the insane shipper variety who hate anything that doesn't involve lots of hot steamy sex between Logan and Veronica (nauseatingly referred to as LoVe, which is the ultimate in irritating name-smushing), and they keep NOT HAVING SEX this year, dagnabbit. And Veronica is probablyly going to get together with this new guy, Piz who seems pretty shifty to me and they have NO CHEMISTRY and WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR FANS WHEN THEY SHOW YOU NOTHING BUT LOVE, ROB THOMAS??? Also, maybe some people have valid reasons. But, come on, how anyone can think they have no chemistry after seeing this video here is completely beyond me.

So, Dean O' Dell was murdered back at the start of the current season arc, and all evidence seems to point to either Professor Landry or his wife, so I'm betting it wasn't actually either of them. But really, I haven't been particular engaged with this mystery like I was with the Lily Kane murder, or the bus crash, or the rapes or any of them, but that doesn't matter because the Mysteries of the Week have been uniformly excellent while that one's been going, so I still love this season, and I could definitely deal with the entirely standalone episodes that may well happen if season four somehow miraculously comes into being.

The MotW this week is actually the second part of a two week mystery, and it turns out the guy killed himself, which seemed pretty obvious to me as soon as they revealed his debillitating illness, so I think this is probably my least favourite episode of season 3.2. While Veronica and Keith are taking way longer than they ought to to figure that one out, Logan sheds his emo coocoon at last and goes on a Valentine's Day scavenger hunt with Mac and Parker and Bronson, and oh, the wacky, wacky hijinks. It definitely has nothing on last week's Logan subplot as far as awesome cuteness goes, I'm afraid.

And then Lamb dies the most anticlimactic main character death I have ever seen. This development has some people wailing and moaning and making up insane conspiracy stories about how Rob Thomas sold his soul at some point after season one and he just did this to futher destroy the hopes and dreams of the fans, but those of us possessing of some sanity, once our brains finally manage to process what in the hell just happened, love it.

Mob Cat

2007-02-14T15:49:00.000Z

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.

Emo Outfit

2007-02-03T19:27:00.000Z

Torchwood Episode 1x10 - "Out Of Time"

Episode Grade: A+

Everything comes down to moments. The most basic of machines, the lever, is all about moments, life is all about moments (and it sure as fuck isn't all about random shoes), this episode is all about moments. It's an odd one, because most of the plot elements you'd expect just plain aren't there. There's no particular antagonist, there's no particular goal that anyone's trying to reach, there's just a series of moments. It's one of the more beautiful things I've ever seen.

The moment the episode starts, there's a flash of white light. An old-fashioned biplane (specifically, a 1946 de Havilland Dragon Rapide, apparently. Don't you love the internet? I love the internet.) flies across the sky. She's called the Sky Gypsy. It's a fairly appropriate name, I think. Jack, Gwen and Owen stand ready her as she lands. I don't know why Tosh isn't there, but I'm sure there's a perfectly adequate explanation, and we don't need to go into it, hmm? The pilot gets out and apologises for the unplanned landing, "we just hit some remarkable turbulence". Jack introduces himself, she does likewise; "Diane Holmes, pilot." Diane's passengers get out behind her, one of whom is an older gentleman I do not recognise, though something about him is saying "a younger Cavill" to me. I think it must be the hat, because he doesn't really look much like Dean Stockwell. The other is Olivia Hallinan, about whom I have gushed at great length already, so let's take that as read. Olivia asks how long they'll be delayed, as her uncle's expecting her. Jack asks when they left, Diane tells him "about half an hour ago", Jack clarifies, in his usual unnecessarily intense way, that he wants a date and a year; December 16th, 1953. And that's the plot setup. Moments to follow. In a moment. (Sorry.)

And credits. This episode written by Catherine Tregenna, who also wrote "Captain Jack Harkness", which is a definite mirror to this one. She's got a clear flair for emo, and you know how I love that.

The passenger of the Sky Gypsy follow Gwen and Owen into the Hub, Jack takes the rear and tells them they have nothing to be scared of, which is always a disconcerting thing to hear. He also tells them "the least you know about us, the better" which has got to be even more worrying, and also, 'the least you know'? Is that some crazy American sentence construction, or is Jack just weird? Both crews introduce themselves, Owen as "Dr. Owen Harper" which is, if you recall, when he is at his least obnoxious. Olivia is called 'Emma Louise Cowell' here, the other guy's name is John Ellis. There's Christmas lights up the stairs, and that might be a nice little touch, but it's possible that they're part of the normal Hub decoration and they've always been there and I've just never noticed before. While Owen leads them into the conference room, Gwen remarks to Jack "At least it wasn't a spaceship full of aliens." Oh, Gwen. Haven't you got past that stage by now?

Conference Room. John incredulously asks how they could possibly have travelled fifty years in half an hour, Jack explains that they fell through a "transcendental portal". Emma's all "who in the what now?", Jack dumbs it down for her; "a door in time and space." And come on, would it have killed you to have him say "magic door"? That would have been so rad. John's still sceptical, so Jack hands over to Tosh (for no reason other than that she's barely in this episode), who gives them more proof than could conceivably be fabricated, so unless John thinks the moon landing was a... oh, wait. Diane asks the obvious next question; "How do we get back?", Jack doesn't waste any words at all in answering; "You don't." Diane asks what'll happen to them, then [future], John says "Never mind about us, what happened to everyone else? Our families? [past]" Emma just stands with tears in her eyes, looking stunned. [present does not fit this nearly as well as the other two, but whatever. present]

Gwen walks around the Hub with Emma, and reads from her files; "Your father died in 1959, he was 48." Emma sombrely notes that he always said he'd die young. Gwen adds that Emma's mother lived to 81, and puts an arm around her, saying "I know this is hard, but is there anyone else?" Emma shakes her head as they move offscreen and we pan over to John, who's telling Tosh details of his son, Alan, while Jack looks on. Tosh can't find anything, "the archives in the 50s weren't that well documented", Jack promises John they'll keep looking and tells him to get some sleep for now. Pan over to Owen, who's talking to Diane. Owen asks if she had a boyfriend, Diane takes a drag from a cigarette and tells him "Not really. I never stayed in one place long enough."

Gwen takes Diane and Emma into the house or whatever it may be in which they'll be staying, Gwen apologises for it being so basic. Diane shrugs it off; "not when you've slept in barracks", and they all wander in and start unpacking. Oh man, everyone looks so sad! This episode is so melancholy! It's going to make me cry, I just know it.

John gets a room of his own, of course, which Jack takes him to. John comments wistfully about some business he was supposed to attend to "tomorrow", Jack asks him more about it, in a pretty clear attempt to get his mind away from things. John gets out a radio and tries to tune it, Jack gives him a hand and manages to get it straight to Classic FM or something so we don't get any 'OMG what is this noise' to dance music scene or whatever going down here. John also gives Jack a camera containing photographs of his family and tells him not to worry; "I'll look after the ladies".

Back in the girls' room, Emma hears some giggling from next door or downstairs or somewhere and asks who else is here. "Couple of young girls," Gwen answers. I really don't know what the deal is with not getting the Sky Gypsy crew a place to themselves is, but let's just go with it. Gwen compliments Emma's dress and does the same as Jack, asking about unimportant details to take their minds off it all; "What were you in Dublin for?" "Auntie Nora's ill," Emma explains, "And Uncle Finn can't manage the children by himself. It'll be good practice for when I have children of my own, mum says." The 'taking her mind off it' tactic is not exactly going swimmingly here, though; "She'll know I'm missing by now." [aha! present!] And Olivia is, of course, doing some great holding back tears, which means I'm doing the same. And we're only five minutes in. So emo. Gwen, as kindly as possible, remind Emma that 50 years have passed, so, I mean, Nora will certainly know she's missing by now. Emma clutches a teddy bear to her chest and wonders what everyone will have thought happened to her. Gwen tells her that official reports said the plane went down in the sea, and Emma can hold back the tears no longer. I'm still going strong for now, but I doubt I'll make it to the end.

Back at the Hub, the next day, Jack hands out passports and tells the refugees they've set up bank accounts for each of them, but for now they'll be giving them a daily allowance so they can get used to the new economic situation and suchlike. They've each been assigned fake names, and their reactions, like many little things throughout the episode, completely inform the way each of their stories ultimately turn out, but not such a way that you feel like you're being beaten over the head with it at all; Diane is pretty nonplussed, Emma enjoys the novelty of it, John is angry that Jack would think he wouldn't want (or rather, need) to keep his own name; "For God's sake, man, it's all we have left! It's my son's name. It's the name above my shop." John throws his fake passport down and storms out, Jack and Diane watch and look apologetic. And melancholy. Always melancholy.

Now it's time for some culture shock which will try to pretend it's funny for a little while just because they don't want the melancholy to be completely overpowering, even though it inevitably will be. For no reason other than him having nothing else to do in the episode, Ianto's the one taking the refugees to a supermarket. Ianto suggests £25 for food, £20 for luxuries. Emma's shocked; "My dad only made £10 a week!" and everyone looks around at the shiny new world in wonder and/or fear. They're actually stopped in their tracks by the automatic door, and Diane asks "How did it do that?" so Ianto starts to explain the mechanics behind it, but Diane cuts him short and goes running into the shop, because she's seen bananas. Ianto, with fabulous exasperation, sighs "Of course, bananas are far more interesting." Hee hee! See, that's the Ianto I used to enjoy before "Cyberwoman" happened. And jolly Christmas music starts up and everyone runs around marvelling at all that the new world has to offer; Diane marvels at widescreen TVs and DVDs, Emma runs around grabbing all the junk food she can find while Ianto keeps a running total of her funds and points out that she'll destroy her teeth, John is aghast at the half naked women adorning the magazine covers ("There's children around!" "She's a children's TV presenter."), and, my favourite, Diane holds up a packet of cigarettes and asks Ianto what the "Smoking Kills" label is all about. She has such an awesomely baffled expression there. This scene is hardly original, for sure, but it is kind of necessary in this story, because we'd all be like "MAN, these people are jaded" if they didn't have it, and Ianto provides some nice commentary throughout to keep it from being irritating.

Done with shopping now, Ianto drops John off at the Millenium Stadium, looking concerned, but powerless. John tells the girls to stick together, "I'll be back in time for supper", and, as soon as Ianto's driven out of sight, he turns around and walks away from the stadium. He makes his way to a house, which is all boarded up now, and asks a passerby if he happens to know a man named Alan Ellis who used to live there. The passerby does not, and John stands and looks melancholy some more.

In the kitchen of their house, Emma's pouring the contents of some teabags into a teapot, and Diane's lounging against the countertop. Diane says she's going to go check on the plane later and asks if Emma wants to come along, Emma tells her she's planning to watch a DVD. Diane wonders out loud what work she'll be able to get in aviation, Emma remarks that she'll have to find a husband. Enter the two girls that are also staying there, and man can I not make sense of that, because it's such a weird excuse for the awkward scene that will follow, and it's not like it would be difficult to find an excuse for that awkwardness. I don't know. The girls introduce themselves as Alicia and Jade (It's really nice the way everyone keeps saying their names as quickly as possible, and I assume they are doing this as a personal service to make my job easier) and start making themselves some tea, in the background, Diane's mouth actually hangs open as she notes that they just chuck the teabags straight in there and she gives a great 'Check this shit OUT.' nod to Emma. It's the little moments that make the episode, you know. Diane excuses herself and heads upstairs, Alicia tells Emma her shoes are "lush", Emma intuits from tone of voice that this is a compliment, and thanks her accordingly.

Hangar, somewhere. Owen takes Diane to see the Sky Gypsy, he face lights up as she says "Hello, old girl. Did you miss me?" Owen tells he's been reading up on her and is impressed by some of the wonderful feats of piloting she achieved back in the day and asks how she got into it. "Ferried planes during the war. Of course, when it was over, we were supposed to go back to being dutiful wives and daughters. But I got a taste for it. No pig-headed man was going to tell me what to do." Owen, being the pig-headedest of pig-headed men, tries to feign annoyance, or something, but he remains far too impressed for it to fly. Diane babbles some obsolete techno about the plane and asks Owen hungrily (and I seriously mean that. We're talking like the wolf. Bad Wolf, no doubt.) "Can I take her out?" Owen has bad news; her lisence isn't valid anymore. Diane takes the news with a dashing "Bugger." Dude, she's even more Ace Rimmer than Jack used to be. Owen jokingly suggests this makes him "another pig headed man telling [her] what to do", Diane flirts that he'd better make it up to her by teaching her all about the new world.

If there's one thing that hasn't changed in fifty years, it's manly bonding about sports over a pint. John's telling Jack about the F.A. cup final of whichever year Bolton lost 4-3, and how amazing it was to have it broadcast live in his own living room. "I charged the lads a shilling each to come and watch it." Jack laughs, "Ever the business man, eh?" and then there's a slight awkward pause. John starts lighting his pipe and notes Jack's American accent, and asks how he ended up here. He's moved away from his own history, but he's still working in the past tense, of course. Jack tries to fob him off with "it's a long story" and "kind of complicated" and all the usual clichés, but John's like "I've just been thrown fifty years into the future, you cannot phase me any further." Jack admits that he also fell through time, but gives no further details. That is, of course, still more than he's told any of the team he's been working with for the past so many months. Well, he did tell Gwen about his immortality back when she joined the team. I guess if you've just met Jack, and you want to know anything about him, it's now or never. John and Jack raise their glasses in a toast to falling through time, I guess, and the barman tells John he's not allowed to smoke here. John blows out his match resignedly.

OK, awkward time. Emma, Alicia and Jade are hanging up christmas decorations, Emma asks the others what their plans are for Christmas Eve, "We could go carol singing!" The girls can't hold in their laughter, though they do at least try to be nice about it. Jade (or maybe Alicia, they're not wildly distinguishable) tells Emma "Sorry, love, I'll be getting hammered." Emma's confused of course, and asks where their families are. Jade tells her they don't have families, they grew up in care and Emma attempts to make a connection by saying "I don't have anyone either" and now she's going to start crying again, isn't she? Alicia is entirely perplexed by the crazy secluded posh chick; "They didn't leave you a house or anything?" and it pretty much dawns on Emma right there that she's got nothing, and she says so. Alicia sympathetically asks if she was close with her parents. She was. Alicia and Jade share a look and then Jade, with much ceremony, offers Emma a can of cider, and, damn, either everyone who has ever appeared on Sugar Rush is freakishly tall, or these girls are really short. Or Emma's lush shoes are crazy high heels, maybe. Anyway, Emma gives the cider a try, and seems to actually enjoy it, I think, and all three start to laugh. Emma is well up for embracing her new life.

Back at the pub, John's saying morosely that it must have been an awful Christmas for his family, thinking he'd drowned, and then tells Jack desperately to track down his son, "He's all I've got left". Jack watches him leave, looking worried.

Elsewhere, Owen's taking Diane out for dinner. Owen takes his seat, Diane stays standing, because she's waiting for him to pull out her chair. Owen laughs at the fact that she expects "equality and chivalry", but humours her anyway, with a vaguely sarcastic "Your chair, ma'am." He also lights her cigarette for her, and the first thing she wants to know is "What other strides have women made?" Owen being the one track mind that he is, the first thing he comes out with is "You don't have to have sex to have kids any more." Diane does not believe him, "I wasn't born yesterday", which gives Owen a pretty obvious segue to "For a bird who's going on 90, you look pretty hot." Who ever said romance was dead?

Back at the house, Emma's clearly had a few more drinks, and I guess they've watched whatever musical it was that she bought on DVD, because she asks the others what they're favourite song was. Alicia offers "It's hard to say..." and Emma gets up and starts singing her favourite and dancing, and there is much merriment to be had. At least until John walks in and starts yelling at her for causing a scene. Alicia and Jade really do not know what to make of this, and just sit and suddenly find the wall exceedingly interesting.

At the restaurant, Owen gives Diane her coat and asks where she wants to go next. Diane leaves it up to him, and he suggests that she could come back to his place, and read up about herself on the net. Diane doesn't say anything and Owen starts worrying that he's being to forward (because that's always been such a concern for him before) and babbles about how he's not chatting her up and blah blah, and eventually Diane interrupts to ask "Got any scotch?"

At the house, Emma's called Gwen in to attempt to break up tension, which she is her usual fantastic job of. John accusingly tells Gwen that Emma was drinking, Emma claims she only had half a glass, which I doubt is true since she was drinking from a CAN. John tells her they're not supposed to draw attention to themselves, not realising that she'd clearly be drawing at least as much attention by not doing it. John promises Gwen there's no need to worry further, "I won't let her out of my sight again", and tells Emma to sit down and eat her dinner. Emma insolently declares that she doesn't like liver, because whatever time period you pull them from, teenagers are still teenagers. John tells her to be grateful for what she's given, and she sneers at him and says "Only my dad gets to talk to me like that. And I'm never going to see him again. Or my mum. Or my best friend. Or my dog!" And suddenly her voice is going up a few hundred decibels, like YOWZA, and she shrieks "And I miss them! AND I HATE THIS FILTHY, STINKING PLACE!" and storms upstairs. And we have door slamming. John rolls his eyes and sighs "I never had this sort of trouble with my son."

Owen's Swingin' Bachelor Pad. Owen hurriedly sweeps magazines and shit under the couch as Diane comes out of the bathroom and asks, if he doesn't have a girlfriens, what is with all the beauty products? Owen tells her they're his, "real men can moisturise too, you know", Diane gives him a "Whatever, Joan" look, but goes with it. Owen notes the fact that she's lighting another cigarette and tells her she smokes too much, she gives another quick look to the "Smoking Kills" label and shrugs "So I gather", then non-sequiturs "Amelia Earhart." What? "She disappeared in 1932." Oh, I see. Apparently you're off by three years there, I'm afraid. I mean, I don't care about minor historical inaccuracies when there are much greater inaccuracies like 'there is a big secret and also not secret alien hunting organisation directly underneath the millenium building in Cardiff' to deal with, but I guess some people do. Diane sighs some more about the "whole new world", Owen tries to convince her she'll get used to it and fit in just fine, Diane looks away, clearly not believing it. It's pretty clear that she didn't fit in just fine in 1953 either. I don't think she's wired to fit in fine anywhere she goes. She's a drifter. Diane turns and looks into Owen's eyes and tells him "I'm glad you haven't got a girlfriend". "Me too," Owen breathes. Heh. I cannot remotely comprehend the fact that he appears to be completely irresistable to women even without his magic date rape spray, but for the moment, let's just accept it and move on.

Over to Gwen watching Emma asleep on the couch (Emma is at Gwen's place because I guess she refused to stay in the same house an John? Sure.) and looking concerned. And here's a point they've just reminded me of with the juxtaposition of "Owen has no girlfriend" and Gwen; is their affair over now? I mean, clearly, Owen would not have referred to Gwen as his girlfriend in any case, but we haven't heard anything about their fling since "Greeks Bearing Gifts" and you'd think Gwen would have something to say about Owen and Diane later in this episode. But then, considering how much emphasis they put on it, it doesn't seem plausible that they'd end it completely off screen. Anyway! Gwen flicks off the light and leaves.

Owen and Diane, post-coitus now, so I guess I can be thankful they skipped that part, even if I still have to deal with Owen's naked chest here. Owen appraises her performance; "I take it that wasn't your first time", Diane tells him she had a lover, who was married, which suited her, since she didn't have to bother with all the cooking and cleaning malarkey. Owen chuckles that he always thought the 50s were sexually repressed, Diane chides him; "You didn't invent it, you know." Owen asks if they can go again, Diane shrugs that she doesn't not see why not. "We could have an affair," Owen mutters, mostly to himself, "we could be fuck buddies." I love how he is totally confused by how this is going, because Diane is way away from all preconceptions he has about her. Diane asks him what a fuck buddy is; 2a friend you have casual sex with." Diane smirks at the foolishness of the modern age; "There's nothing casual about what we just did." Like, word. "Both parties should give it 100% concetration." And Owen is certainly doing that right now, so I guess I jumped the gun rather on being thankful that they skipped that part, but it's OK, because of this: "When you take off together, it's the next best thing to flying." I love that so much. That is a pretty fine example of the ol' 'turning clichés around' thing if ever I have seen one. Like, you say something is "better than sex", that is dumb and predictable and trite and all that, but that is taking it to the next level, to the point where you're reverential about something that it's not that it's "better than sex", but rather that "sex is almost as good". I don't know, I just find that really awesome. Don't mind me. Regular service will resume in just a moment.

Oh, and it's this one. Haha! So, a little backstory, in case you don't know this part; in the classic "viewing figures just went up" scene in Doctor Who, Captain Jack's buttocks were originally planned to be on full display, but since that show is For The Kiddies, they got cropped out. And when this show was announced as being the sexy, no holds barred spinoff featuring Jack, everyone was all anticipatory about Jack's buttocks and related aritcles finally getting their due display and the TWoP Torchwood thread was subtitled "Captain Jack's Arse Unleashed" and all that. And instead, what we get is a show where not only is Jack's arse thoroughly leashed at all times, but also, in any given scene, Jack is wearing at least five more layers than everyone else in the room combined. And, making the following far more hilarious than it would otherwise be, to add insult to injury, what they get instead is Rhys's arse unleashed. All in aid of a little moment of comedy wherein Emma wakes up to the sight of Rhys's own De Havilland Dragon Rapide. But, as it so often is, the real point here is that Gwen is an idiot, because apparently she didn't think it necessary to tell her boyfriend about the teenage girl who was sleeping on their couch. And also, she explains it to Rhys with the claim that Emma is a relative of hers, who was staying with a friend in Cardiff but came to Gwen after they had a big row. "And she doesn't really want to go back home, so I thought maybe she could stay with us." There's part of the truth in her wacky story, but it's completely the wrong part. Rhys gives Gwen a serious "Why the hell do I put up with you?" stare, but, seemingly intuitevly knowing she is entirely innocent in all this, gives in to letting Emma stay for Christmas. Gwen cheerily introduces Rhys to Emma and explains away Emma's out of time shock about their cohabitation to Rhys with "Emma's parents are very religious." After Rhys leaves, Gwen gets ridiculously into Emma's personal space and stage whispers how she couldn't tell Rhys Emma's parents are dead, because she keeps many, many secrets from him and she just kinds of trails off into bizarre twitching motions at the side of Emma's head. Emma is understandably perturbed. Stay off the Retcon, Gwen.

At the Hub, Gwen's ranting to Jack about how she couldn't leave Emma with John and Diane, "they're complete strangers", and you know, I really hadn't picked up on that before, and I just assumed they were at least casual acquaintances, but that really didn't make a whole lot of sense. Now I know. Huh. Owen slyly covers Diane's unknown (to the others) location last night with "I think she was at a B&B" and quickly changes the subject before they can unravel that tangled web of lies. Not that he needed to, because Tosh interrupts to tell Jack she's tracked down John's son Alan.

Oh, shit. Yeah, this is the scene that will break me. A nurse leads John in to meet Alan, who is now considerably older than John. Nurse tells John "I'm not sure how much use he'll be to you" and explains John's cover story to Alan; he's a nephew on Alan's father's side, trying to track down his family. Alan looks at her blankly and asks "Is Sally coming?" And, oh, John's face is so crushed. And the mournful piano and strings that have been pretty much ubiquitous in this episode are going into overdrive now, and really, I cannot blame them. Nurse tells John that Sally is Alan's wife, who passed away a while ago, and, on John's questioning, briefly explains Alzheimer's, and also tells John that Alan never had any children, so there was no one to look after him. And, while John's face is pretty much just a solid mask of pain, just for a moment, there's an almost imperceptible flicker of less pain when she tells him Alan had a wife, and there is a definite shift to more pain at the news that he never had children. Mark Lewis Jones is really hitting this scene way out of the park (he's playing cricket, not baseball, OK?) John sheds a tear, and so do I, and really, who wouldn't?

I guess Jack got the photographs from John's camera developed for him, because John's showing them to Alan now. Alan complains that they took his clothes, Nurse explains that they're probably in the wash and leaves to look so John can have a moment alone with Alan.

And I guess they decided this bit was a little too heavy to put it all in one chunk, so we get a brief interval of lightness with Owen and Diane at the hangar again, or maybe a different one. Owen's tracked down a plane of the same model as the first one Diane ever flew, and she is full of nostalgic glee and greets her old friend enthusistically. Owen promises to get her back behind the throttle as soon as possible, and she sincerely thanks him with a kiss which is a lot less intimate than she is being with the plane. I'm not joking at all; this girl loves her planes more than most people will ever love anything or anyone in their lives.

And crashing back down to Earth, John's telling Alan about the same cup final as he told Jack earlier and as he gets more and more into the telling of it, Alan looks him in the eyes, which is the first time we've seen him do that, and he starts to smile, and says "Blackpool won!" And, just for a moment, the joy is overwhelming. John tells Alan who he really is, but Alan's already drifted away again, and John is full-on crying now. Nurse comes back and asks if everything's alright, John tells her that Alan just remembered who won the F.A. Cup final when he was a boy, Nurse nods and explains that he sometimes remembers little snippets from his childhood. Moments, suspended out of time. Just moments, nothing more. All he has left is a few orphaned moments that don't fit together, and if you can't fit the pieces together into the whole, they don't really have any meaning any more, and what could be sadder than that?

Back at the Hub, Jack's telling Tosh that he knows John's world is falling apart, but he doesn't know what he can do about it; "there's no puzzle to solve, no enemy to fight." Just a lost soul, out of time. Jack throws his hands up in frustration.

At the hangar, Owen's trying to get Diane a flying lesson, I guess, but they're fully booked for a while, and the guy won't let Diane up on her own without a lisence, and won't take Owen's bribes to bump one of today's customers down the line so Diane can take their place. Diane tells him to just forget it and take the earliest date they have. Owen apologises and says he should have phoned ahead, as if that would have made a difference. Unless he thinks he should have booked before the Sky Gypsy even appeared through the Riftmouth, just in case he had a need for a flying lesson? Yeah, there is such a thing as being too hard on yourself, you know. Diane holds back tears and chides herself for being so silly, "it's just I was really looking forward to..." It's heartbreak, and nothing but, this episode. And see also; "looking forward". Yeah.

Meanwhile, Gwen and Rhys have taken Emma out to a club and then left her to her own devices, which is not exactly the first thing I would do, though she copes pretty fine. She's a little uncomfortable looking, for sure, but she knuckles down and gets on with the business of fitting in with the dancing as best she can. A guy comes up to dance with her in pretty short order, because while she may be supremely awkward looking, she's still totally smokin' hot. Emma gives him a smile and gets into it a little more. Gwen's a little worried about Emma, but Rhys assures her she'll be fine. Gwen gives him a big sloppy kiss and he's all "what was that for?" because clearly Gwen does not do that often these days. "For putting up with me," Gwen answers, and Rhys quite rightly tells her he deserves a lot more than that for it.

A little later, Gwen finds Emma and her guy making out on the seats and pulls him off of her and Rhys drags him away and tells him to go back to his friends. Gwen's giving off total parental vibe here, so Emma's immediately on the defensive; "I wasn't going to let him do anything!" Gwen tells her she might not have had a choice, and, I don't know, clearly Emma is a fish out of water here (which is why you shouldn't have taken her to the club in the first place, GWEN), but this is kind of an overreaction. And, yeah, Rhys has got my back.

Gwen's taken Emma home now, and is explaining the birds and the bees, or how the bees are a lot more promiscuous than they used to be, or something. And she has some women's magazine with an article entitled "10 STEAM IT UP SEX MOVES TO DRIVE HIM WILD". Emma declares it disgusting. I'm sure Kim would agree. I am just saying that so I can segue into this; I love seeing (good) actors playing different roles, seeing the differences and similarities in the ways they play them; the only reason I can stand to watch Stargate SG-1 at all is Browder and Black's migration to it after Farscape went down, one of the reasons I love this season of Battlestar Galactica especially is seeing actors playing different characters on the same show; I love the subtle nuances Grace Park puts in to differentiate Boomer from Athena and either of them from any other less developed Eights that show up. That's what acting is, I know, but I just wanted to say it is very cool. Hooray for good actors! So, where were we? Ah, Gwen wants Emma to know that people are more sexually aware these days, attitudes have changed, so on and so forth. In the spirit of sexual awareness, Emma asks Gwen how many men she's slept with, Gwen does a bit of a spit take with her coffee and says "a few", and she's doing that bizarre twitching again. She is seriously weirding me out in this episode. Emma asks, with scholarly interest, if Gwen was in love with all of them. Gwen says no and tells Emma that if you feel like doing it, sex is totally cool, like, so I'm not a slut, yeah? She's being highly unnecessarily defensive, is what I'm saying. So, naturally, Emma asks if, in the event she is with a guy and they're getting on OK and he wants to have sex, she should dive right in? Gwen tells her that's not what she's saying at all, even though it totally was five seconds ago, and Emma asks what she is saying then. Gwen gives a clear look of "I don't have a fucking clue what I'm saying", and eventually settles on "Sex... is nothing to be ashamed of. And as for you, well, your first time should be with someone special!" Emma asks if Gwen wishes she'd waited for Rhys for her first time, "he's your special someone, isn't he?" Ha! Gwen vaguely says "Yes, yes, I suppose...", and Emma continues "Sex with him is better than with all the others, right?" Ah, what a wonderful giant redwood of doubt is growing here. In conclusion, Emma decides, she'll wait for Mr. Right; "I'm not the kind of girl who sleeps around." There's no malice intended there, and I don't think she even realises how that comes across to Gwen, but Gwen is pretty shaken by this whole awkward conversation. I mean, literally shaken, like, her arm is actually shaking quite heavily. She's showing some serious signs of withdrawal symptoms, I'm telling you. What is that all about?

Owen's Swingin' Bachelor Pad. Diane's figuring out how to work the World Wide Tubes on Owen's laptop and complains it appears that flying these days consists of sitting on your arse pressing buttons, and where is the thrill in that? But, you know, sex is headed the same way, so flying is still better. Owen attempts to take her mind off things by giving her a present, which is a shiny new red dress. Not bad, Dr. Harper. Not bad.

Back at Gwen's, Emma's gone out to get herself a job with some fashion designer or something, I guess, and thanks to the whole cyclical nature of fashion and retro chic and all that, her clothes are pretty down with the times, and so they offered her a job. Presumably there was slightly more to the application than "Do you dress like a blind hobo? Y/N", but anyway, Gwen's happy for her and gives her a hug, and starts musing that they're going to need to find her a flat somewhere in town. Except, not so much with the 'in town' bit, as Emma continues that the job is in their new branch in London. Emma's way excited because she's always dreamt of working in the big city, and babbles excitedly for a while while Gwen looks upset and mumbles things like "London's a big city..." and "There's no rush..." Oh, but they grow up so fast, don't they?

In the fake souvenir shop that hides the Hub, John tells Jack he's going to find himself a job and get his driver's lisence and so on and thanks Jack for all his help. Once Jack's gone back down to the Hub, John gets a pretty empty look on his face and grabs a bunch of keys from behind the counter. Ianto walks out just after he's grabbed them and John covers pretty well by claiming he was looking for a bus timetable to aid him in his job search. Ianto hands him one with a smile and wishes him luck. John gives a weak smile in return. This is not a man with hope for the future.

Owen drives Diane, now wearing her new dress, out to a secluded carpark and tells her to bear with him while he goes to get something out of the boot. Diane waits, beaming with excitement. This is a woman with nothing but hope for the future.

Gwen's place. Rhys is waiting on the sofa for Gwen to return, looking exceedingly pissed off. Ooh boy, but this has been a long time coming. Gwen barely notices that he is refusing to even look at her, because she is, now and forever, completely oblivious to his existence when she doesn't need him. "Your mum rang," Rhys tells her, "Funny thing, she has no idea who Emma is!" Gwen's all "No way! Mum's losing her marbles!" for half a second before it occurs to her that that will never work, ever. She's an idiot, you know. Like, could she not have just said "She's a girl from work and she is going through a rough patch right now, and I know this is a lot to ask, but she possibly stay with us for a few days while she gets back on her feet." What was the need for the ridiculous, easily falsifiable whenever her mother felt like a chat, "Oh, she's my cousin" claim. Gwen, you fool. Rhys yells at her some more and demands to know who the hell "Pollyanna" really is. Gwen just stares at him with quavering lip, and he figures out it's to do with her damn work. Gwen gives the following explanation; "She was lost." That's is the full extent of her explanation. I'm sure that's a real comfort. She sincerely tells Rhys she's sorry, he gets right to the heart of the matter; "What worries me is how easy it seems to be for you to lie to me." Emma tries to step in and claim it's her fault and she'll leave by tomorrow, and Gwen yells "She's 18 years old, I couldn't turn my back on her!" as Rhys storms out. So I guess she didn't listen to a word he just said. How unusual.

A little later, Gwen's attempting to explain herself to Emma; "It's like there's two separate worlds; Torchwood and real life." And Emma truns and gives her a piercing look and says "That's why you've got to let me go." Ooh, well played. This is a girl with real hope. For the present, or at least the very near future.

Car Par O' Love. Owen's poured a couple of glasses of champagne and offers one to Diane, saying "I, uh... couldn't help noticing you standing out here in that beautiful dress." Diane runs with it; "This beautiful dress is a gift from my lover." "Then he is a fool to let you go out in it alone." Aw, I like that. See, this is why I don't hate this storyline like I ought to; I can actually buy Diane seeing something in Owen, the way he is around her. And then they get some good ol' swing, or bebop or something (any music invented before The Beatles? I have no idea what I'm talking about.) going, and dance. It's fairly remniscent of this scene, only in a dingy Cardiff carpark instead of on a spaceship hovering above London during the Blitz. I'll let you decide for yourself which of those is a more romantic situation. Mind you, for a dingy Cardiff car park, this one is holding its own pretty well, moon shining bright in the sky, like a big pizza pie and all that jazz, or bossa nova, or whatever. Owen gives Diane his coat, because I guess it's probably cold out, it being December, and also Wales. Diane says "Let's go home", and so they do, and again with the sexings. And then Owen's phone goes off, except now we've moved across to the Hub, and both the music and the phone are still going, so I guess it's actually Jack's phone. Oh, right, Ianto's discovered that John nicked his car keys, and is now not responding to calls.

They've got a tracer on Ianto's car, naturally, so it's pretty easy for Jack to track him down; "He's gone home." Back to the past; he has no home in the present. But the past isn't there any more, so really he has no home to go to. Jack follows his tracker and finds John trying to suffocate himself inside the car. Jack, in his usual dramatic way (though it's well deserved in this case), declares that John can't just throw it away like that, "Not without trying!" John tells him he doesn't understand, "I'm not as strong as you." Jack tries to tell him he does and explains that he was "born in the future, lived in your past", and John demands to know why he's "speaking in bloody riddles" and trying to keep him there when he has nothing left. Jack tries to persuade him that he can still do this, still find a job, start a family, but John already did that, "years ago. When I was meant to." John Ellis died when the Sky Gypsy was lost at sea in 1953. He doesn't have the strength to become someone new.

Owen and Diane are still making love, and there is not much left to the imagination here. I am watching Owen thrusting, repeatedly, and yet I am still giving this episode an A+, because they are making love and that is not something I thought we would see Owen do.

Garage of No Return. Jack tells John he's not going to leave him there. John tells him they'll wait then, "and the sun will rise. We'll have breakfast. Take a walk." Jack happily agrees, thinking he's getting through to him, but John carries on; "And I'll suffer it all and smile and wag my tail. And then, as soon as your back is turned, I'll make sure I do it properly." Jack tells him he won't get reunited; "It just goes black." John asks how he knows, Jack explains that he died once. And Suzie said the same thing, and I am perfectly happy to pretend that "Random Shoes" didn't happen, as we seem to be doing here. John asks again "Who are you?" and Jack tells him he's "a man. Like you, out of his time. Alone and scared." John asks how he copes; Jack shrugs that he has no choice. John points out that Jack may not have a choice, but he does. "Let me go with some dignity." Jack whispers "Are you scared?" and Barrowman is often pretty hammy with the heavy stuff, but he plays this whole scene perfectly.

Post-coitus, once more, Diane tells Owen he's being awfully quiet. And he pauses, trying to find the words, and says "I don't think I can do this any more." And I'm like, "Oh Owen, you dick." But then he goes on that he's been with many women and "done the fuck buddies thing", and this is not that. "All I see is you. All I can think about is what you're wearing, what you're thinking, what you're... What your face looks like when you come." And now I'm like "Oh, Owen. You dick", you know? "It's been, what, a week? And yet, I feel like, when I'm not with you... erm..." Honest to God, I thought he was going to start reciting "...Baby One More Time" right there. But no; "When I'm not with you, I lose focus. How have you done this to me? I'm scared. I'm fucking scared." Diane is rather moved by it all, and tells him "I love you too", and they kiss.

Let's pause for a second; "It's been, what, a week?" See, in actual, real world time, it's been 42 minutes and 45 seconds to the end of that scene. And that's counting the introductory spiel and opening credits, so we can knock a little time off that and make it 40 minutes. A week, in 40 minutes. Time has to rush by pretty quickly in TV shows, and if you don't handle it carefully, it'll seem ridiculous (except with, like, 24, which has its own entirely separate set of 'ridiculous'), but right here, considering they've got basically three different stories going at once here, it's quite extroardinary that they've managed to get them all across in such a short space of time without any one of them come across as rushed. That takes some pretty careful choosing of exactly which moments to show us, and where to leave us to fill in the blanks.

Jack sits in the car with John and holds his hadn as he slowly runs out of air and drifts out of consciousness. And lets go. Diane tells a sleeping Owen that "the thing about love is you're always at its mercy." Jack takes John's lifeless hand, again, and cries. Gwen (who, in a possible nod to the second season of Sugar Rush, is wearing a beret.) takes Emma into the airport, tells her not to talk to strangers, call her as soon as she arrives, always wear clean underwear, and so on. And lets go. Owen wakes to find a note on the pillow next to him, and reads it, though we don't get a cheesy Diane voiceover reading it out to us. They actually keep this one private, and I like that. Owen does not let go.

At the airport, Gwen has a moment of hesitance, and tells Emma she doesn't have to go. But, and this is the closest we come to cliché, I think, "If I don't, I'll always wonder what it's like." Gwen pulls her in for a tight hug, and finally hands her the ticket and really lets go. I hope we see her again some time, but I'll understand if we don't.

At the hangar, Diane's getting back into the Sky Gypsy when Owen's car pulls up and he gets out, telling her he can't let her do this, it's madness. Diane tells him if she listened to people who told her that, she'd never have achieved the things she did, back in the day. Owen tells her she belongs here, with him, but they both know that's not true. Diane tells him the weather conditions are the same as the day they took that fateful flight, "the Rift's going to open again, I can feel it!" Owen thinks she's trying to get home, which he tells her is impossible, but that's not it at all, she wants to go into the unknown. Into the future. Owen, in desparation, says he'll come with her, but that's not going to happen either. In the end, he's reduced to just begging her not to go, and, in case the role reversal wasn't already abundantly clear, she takes her flight scarf and drapes it around his neck before taking off and leaving him with these words; "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for brekfast." OK, so, not really. What she actually says is "What memories I'm taking with me," and that is pretty good too.

And then we get a montage of all the moments that led us here, in each of the three stories, and Diane says "When you take off together, it's the next best thing to flying" again, because, man, that is a great line. And the moment we leave with is, of course, the same as the one we came in with; the Sky Gypsy flying into the future.

Next time: Weevils!

Oh, Modern Ass

2007-02-01T20:29:00.000Z

Yep, I'm finally done. "Out Of Time" recap should be done by the end of the week too, because I've been working on that one intermittently whenever the suckitude got too bad, so it's pretty near finished already. And then there's only three to go! Ooh, isn't it exciting.

Torchwood Episode 1x09 - "Random Shoes"

Episode Grade: F

Yeah, sometimes there are bad episodes. Farscape had The Meagerly Awaited Return Of Fuckin' Maldis in "Picture If You Will", Battlestar Galactica had Apollo's Two Never-Seen-Before-Or-After-This-Episode Girlfriends Plus A Bunch Of Adolescent Bullshit in "Black Market", Buffy had the entire seventh season, and endless other examples. It happens. They can't all be winners. But here's the thing, they usually, no, always have the occasional redeeming feature. Maybe a funny line or two here and there, or some really great acting in spite of the script, something to salvage whatever mess is going on. I've never before seen an episode that fails on every conceivable level. (Because I never watched Charmed.) It's truly a sight to behold.

So, there's this guy called Eugene, right? Eugene. Isn't that an awful name? I mean, when I picture a 'Eugene', I go straight to the geek stereotype. Now, maybe that's just because the only Eugenes I have ever encountered are "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" (who has no identifying features beyond a need to be careful with that axe), the guy from Big Brother, and the one in this episode (both of whom have the exact same annoying nasal voice appropriate to said stereotype), but really, how many great Eugenes have there been throughout history? None. None at all. (Can you imagine if kids had to study "Great Eugenes Throughout History" in school? You could call it, like, 'Eugenics' or something. Wouldn't that be awful?)

...I think this episode is so bad, it's made me retroactively have hated the name 'Eugene' for my entire life, honestly.

Anyway, this guy is called Eugene, and has this annoying nasal voice, with a total London accent, despite having supposedly lived in Wales his entire life with his family, all of whom have completely Welsh accents, and no explanation for that is ever offered in this episode, either. Whatever.

He's lying in the road, because he's just been hit by a car and died. And in any sane and decent world, this would make him shut up. But in the hell we inhabit for the next 50 odd minutes, he instead gets to talk and talk and NEVER STOP TALKING. And what he'd like to begin by saying is this; "The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. [ONLY IN A VACUUM, FUCKWIT. MUUUUUUUUUUUH.] Pain travels through the body at 350 feet per second. Even a sneeze can reach a hundred miles per hour." THANKS, USBOURNE JUNIOR ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE. "And as for life? Well, that just bloody whizzes by." Zoom down on Eugene, lying in the road. He gets unsteadily to his feet and wanders past some police cars (with a RANDOM shot of his SHOES, like WOAH MAN) and shouts "Gwen! Jack! Tosh! The guys on the road just let me through, so..." See, what we have here is a Torchwood fanboy, IN AN EPISODE OF TORCHWOOD! And through his eyes, we can look in on our intrepid crew from an outsiders perspective, which will shed exciting new light on everything. Isn't that clever? If you're thinking this sounds awfully familiar, I think it's obvious you're going crazy, and should seek help. (But, in all seriousness, that episode, for all that I hated its execution, the 'outsider perspective' idea was sound there, where there's a forty year history to delve into. On a show with a rich history of EIGHT EPISODES, it's fucking stupid. If, indeed, that's what they were trying for here. I can't actually tell what they were trying for here, because see above re: failure on every conceivable level.)

The Torchwood crew ignore Eugene totally, because they cannot hear him, because he is dead, and they are here to inspect his rapidly cooling corpse. Hi, Eugene's rapidly cooling corpse! I hate you and all that you stand for! Eugene's ghost is all "Uh, that looks a lot like me", which is I suppose is probably supposed to be funny. Tosh remarks that he "couldn't even cross the road without messing it up", which sounds like it really ought to have been an Owen line to me, and Gwen suggests that "maybe he really did have something important". Because, apparently, Eugene's been following them around for a while, and, you know, maybe they could have shown this in at least one of the preceeding episodes, and then we'd be all "oh, that nerd that always follows them around is dead, bummer" instead of "who the hell is this guy?" Tosh thinks it was probably just an accident, Jack notes that Eugene has red paint under his fingernails, so the car that hit him must be red, Eugene finally pays attention to what's going on and repeatedly asks no one in particular "Am I dead?"

Credits. This episode written by one Jacquetta May, who was presumably hired to make Chibnall's efforts look good in comparison. Initial intelligence gave the title of this one as "Invisible Eugene", and I can't really decide which of the two options is a more appropriately lame title.

Back to where we returned, and Eugene's phone starts ringing. Tosh answers it, then immediately realises that she is not the one with people skills, and hands it over to Gwen, who says "Hi, Mrs. Jones. Somethings happened, we need to talk to you." And after that all too brief respite, we go back to Eugene with the annoying nasal voiceover news. "I'm dead but I'm not dead. Am I a ghost? Or a ZOMBIE? OH GOD." Because it's a well known fact that zombies are invisible and intagible and all that malarkey. Shut UP. The Torchwood crew pack up and leave, and Eugene hops into the Hyena with them. He notices his lack of reflection and freaks out a little more, and per Jack's request, Gwen takes a look at his phone for weird messages or anything; "Just some pictures of random shoes." That one, I can cope with, but each and every future mention of 'random shoes' in this episode makes me want to beat myself to death with my own svered leg or something. EVOL (Eugene Voice Over, Like.) remarks that whatever the hell is going on, "I'm somewhere I've always wanted to be", and Eugene stares lustfully at Gwen. The Hyena departs.

EVOL: "Let's back up a bit. I mean, every story's got a beginning." You know what else stories should have? An intersting and coherent plot, maybe a central character who isn't an unimaginably stupid dullard, and above all, SOME KIND OF POINT. Whatever, this 'story', such as it is, begins with a young Eugene in requisite horrible grey school uniform, at "the final of the inter-school maths competition, 1992." Young Eugene looks exceedingly miserable, as schoolchildren are wont to do in any situation that requires them to wear such horribly itchy sweaters. So, Young Eugene and his team failed to win his school the magnificent honour of the "SOUTH WALES INTERSCHOOL MATHS CHALLENGE" and his father, who TOOK THE DAY OFF WORK TO SEE HIM because THAT'S HOW IMPORTANT THE SOUTH WALES INTERSCHOOL MATHS CHALLENGE IS, was horribly disappointed in him because they lost by a totally unrespectable 42 to 34 and it was ALL HIS FAULT and WHAT A FAIlURE HE IS, I'M SURE HE WAS SCARRED FOR LIFE BY THIS EVENT AND FOOD WOULD NEVER TASTE GOOD AGAIN. And everybody blamed Eugene, which is demonstrated by one of the other kids on the team muttering "useless" under his breath as he walks past Eugene. HOW HARSH. Evol continues that "it must have been what happened afterwards that started this whole thing off" and if that is the case, why did you bother telling us that part? NOBODY CARES THAT YOU GOT A MATHS QUESTION WRONG WHEN YOU WERE 12. GOD. I am seriously abusing the capslock key here, I know, but honestly, can you blame me?

Eugene's maths teacher, Professor Squashedface (seriously, his face occupies, like, 10% of the front of his head. It's so weird.) comes in and asks him if he'd like to "take a proper look" at his "collection". Yeah. Oh, and also, he sounds like Mr. Bean. Eugene says no, Professor Squashedface says "I play golf!", and even Eugene is like "That's just fucking FANTASTIC." Professor Squashedface continues his thrilling tale; he was playing golf one day, and this thing, which he thought was a golf ball, fell out of the sky, so he picked it up and put it in his pocket. What the hell? Way to ruin someone else's game there, Professor DICKface. But anyway, he took a closer look at it later, and it turned out it wasn't a golf ball, it is, in fact, a paperweight, or a large marble, or possibly a glass eye. Squashedface reverentially marvels at the fact that it just fell out of the sky and then tells Eugene he can have it, so I guess it can't have been all that amazing after all. Eugene's dad barges into the room at this point and angrily asks where the hell Eugene has been. Squashedface gives him a pointed "Good evening", and Dad settles down a little and tells Eugene to "come on". Squashed face asks Eugene on his way out if he has everything, Eugene stares at the Magic Eye and says he has.

At Eugene's house, while he continues to stare at the Eye, his parents are yelling at each other about something or other which is pretty unintelligible since they're both yelling at once. EVOL explains: "Dad was mad at me for losing the final." Because what we are expected to believe here, you see, is that Eugene honestly believes that his parents separated because Eugene did not win the South Wales Interschool Maths Challenge. That's a pretty huge stretch even for Eugene at whatever young age he is in these flashbacks (I guessed at twelve, but as usual, I am no good at these things), and we're supposed to believe that he's gone through his entire life without ever questioning this belief. The flashbacks have been dated at 1992, and various time stamps in Doctor Who episodes mean the present day stuff in this one is occuring in 2007 at the earliest, so even if I've overestimated his flashback age a little, he's got to be at least 25 at the time of his death. So, yeah, he's 25, and he still thinks his dad left because he wasn't good enough at maths. That is what we are dealing with here. OK.

EVOL continues that at least he still had the Eye, and if it fell out of the sky, "it probably... no. NO. Almost certainly... belonged to an alien." David Bowie's "Starman", which is far too good a song to deserve any association with this horrible episode, starts up as Young Eugene watches through a window where his father is leaving. EVOL babbles endlessly on and on about whatever shit is coming into his head, and I just can't be bothered. Believe me when I say it isn't important. It's probably something to do with aliens. Eventually he shuts up and there's some welcome relief as they just let David Bowie soundtrack the Magic Eye whizzing around through space for a while.

And we're back to the present day, and EVOL tells us "My dad never came back". I GUESS YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER AT MATHS THEN, EH, FUCKTARD? And as Eugene became older, he became a geek, AS IF HE WASN'T ALREADY. And then he discovered Torchwood and became obsessed with Gwen, but alas, he was just too bumbling and awkward and she never noticed him. Oh, isn't that sad.

Gwen breaks the news to Mrs. Jones, Eugene's mother, who gives some clear Denial and Depression in the usual five stages, and one positive thing I will say about this mess is that Mrs. Jones gives some pretty good distraught. While Eugene watches Owen and Ianto sift through all his not-actually-alien junk upstairs, Gwen sits down for a talk with Eugene's younger brother, Terry, who is playing the part of me in this episode by a) not giving a damn about Eugene, and b) thinking Eugene is a moron (though in his case it's because Eugene let himself get run over, rather than the multitude of other available reasons). Gwen asks after Terry & Eugene's dad, Terry disinterestedly informs her that he "works for a big corporation in America". Owen calls her upstairs to look at Eugene's junk for some reason, despite the fact that he thinks it has no worth whatsoever. Gwen notices something that might possibly be an empty stand for the Eye, and somehow figures out that there is something missing from Eugene's collection. She asks Mrs. Jones about it, but she's too busy on Anger; "Why didn't they stop? They killed my boy and just... drove on!"

Cut to the Torchwood crew leaving Eugene's house, and Mrs. Jones breaks up yet more at the sight of the box of Eugene's stuff that Gwen is taking with her. Gwen gives her a vaguely sympathetic "I am sorry, Mrs. Jones," and carries right on going. That's real great, Gwen. "Sorry your son died and all, I'll just be taking everything you have left to remember him by." Eugene follows and apologises to his mum too, not that she can hear him. "But we've got the best team ever working on this!" he adds, enthusiastically. Wait, but isn't Face still busy contributing a vastly insignificant positive side to the one thing on TV even worse than this episode? Well, not by the time I actually get round to posting this, no doubt. And, anyway, he means Torchwood. Haha. Yeah, "Torchwood are the best team in the world" is possibly even more stupid than "My dad left because I failed at maths." Oh, wait, "Torchwood, and me." Modest, Eugene. Modest. "See, I think there's been some mistake," Eugene continues. Yeah, it's called this episode. Too easy? Eh.

And that's one less scene to get through! Hub. Eugene goggles at how amazing the set is, and, you know, it's pretty cool, I guess. Yeah, hand in a jar, I know. Shut up, Eugene. Shut up forever. Gwen wants to know what the hell Eugene was doing standing in the road, Owen takes the right approach and doesn't care. The rest of the crew have taken an even better approach and stayed the hell away from anything and everything relating to this episode. Owen and Gwen have some of their patented annoying banter, which is at least slightly preferable to Eugene's prattling. Not that that's actually stopped. Right, Owen DOUBLE DARES Gwen to do the autopsy on Eugene because otherwise SHE FANCIES HIM! GWEN AND EUGENE SITTING IN A TREE! I swear, this is honestly what is actually happening on my screen. Eugene faints at the sight of his own body being cut open, which has the double bonus of mutilating his corpse AND shutting him up! Awesome! Ianto enters and gives some pretty compelling evidence that Eugene's death was just your basic car accident; the guy driving the car admits to hitting him and drove off because, quote, "I thought he'd be OK." So, this falls entirely outside Torchwood's sphere of interest, case closed, episode done, right? Please? And, oh dear, Owen is saying the same thing. That's twice in this scene I've agreed with him. This episode is messing with the natural order of things!

And now we have Antony And The Johnsons' "Hope There's Someone" playing. I can't imagine any reason anyone would think that would be appropriate to this scene. Mostly because I just can't imagine any scene of anything that that would be an appropriate soundtrack for. Basically, I just don't get Antony And The Johnsons. But right now they're awesome, because the song is occupying time that would probably be otherwised occupied by Eugene talking. You sure deserved that Mercury prize after all, I guess! Also, Eugene watches Mrs. Jones crying. I'm really moved, I'm sure.

At the hub, everyone else wants to get on with, you know, their jobs, but for no actual reason, Gwen Bloody Cooper has a feeling that something more is going on with Eugene, and so we must endure the rest of the episode. THANKS, GWEN. I HATE YOU. Owen is an obnoxious cunt to her about it, as usual, but frankly, I think it's deserved. Jack tells them to break it up, Gwen says "Just forget about it. I have." Oh, how I wish I could believe you.

Lame plot contrivance #4815162342; Eugene had a DVD rented when he died, and for some reason Owen has put it up on the Hub TVs. He tells Gwen he was going to take it back, but she can do it if she likes. Gwen acts real shifty and steals some evidence or something and, in an exceedingly obvious "I AM LYING" voice, tells Owen "I'm going to go for some lunch." Even though he just handed her a perfectly good excuse for whatever it is she's just about to get up to; Is "OK, I'll return the video now" really that hard to say, Gwen?

The heinous crime Gwen is really commiting that she so expertly covered up with her 'lunch' lie is... Going to a café? So she wasn't lying? Oh, but she asks the waiter if he knows when the video store across the road will be open. So, right, Owen told Gwen to return the video, she took the video and said "OK, I'm just going to... get... some lunch." and then went to return the video, but the video store was closed, so she went to get lunch. Right. Am I watching Family Guy all of a sudden? Really, what the hell is going on? The waiter does not know when it will be open; "He's a law unto himself", so Gwen orders ham, egg and chips which Eugene notes is EXACTLY WHAT HE ALWAYS ORDERS. It's FATE! Gwen looks again at Eugene's phone and the fucking random shoes. Eugene can't remember whose shoes they are, and realises he can't really remember anything much about his death and then tells Gwen to phone Gary. And "phone Gary becomes a ghostly echo" and Gwen does so, apparently without registering that anyone is telling her to. She gets voicemail and leaves Gary a message saying "Hi, my name is Gwen Cooper. I have some very bad news for you." Yeah, you hear that, you're going to think it's a prank.

Gwen enters the video store, which apparently has opened in the time it took her to eat her lunch, and gives the guy behind the counter the DVD and tells him it's on behalf of Eugene, who is dead. He hits on her in a most sleazy manner and tells her he remembers Eugene, "sweet guy", but he cannot give a discount on the late return fine just because the guy is dead. He also says that Eugene "had loser written through him like Brighton in a stick of rock" and maybe he commited suicide because he couldn't take his failure. But honestly, when it's a failure in something as big as the South Wales Interschool Maths Challenge, who could blame him?

EVOL is highly shaken by Random Offensive Video Store Clerk's words and gives lame excuses for his failure of a life; "I was waiting for the alien to come collect his eye and change my life!" "The dog ate my worth as a human being!" Gwen's off to visit Eugene's workplace, and apparently Eugene wasn't unsympathetic enough already, because it turns out that, before running into oncoming traffic, he was a telemarketer. Gwen takes a look around and spots a pair of the Random Shoes from Eugene's phone and somehow ascertains that their owner must be Gary. She introduces herself and asks if he saw Eugene the day he died, Gary distractedly says no as someone gives him the card they've been handing round for all Eugene's coworkers to sign. He yells at someone for writing "Good luck on your new job" on it, Gwen gets accosted by a Linda or Lynda, leaving Gary to wander off again, and who the hell knows why anything that is happening is happening at this point. Linda is going out with her boss, Craig, who, according to her, kept Eugene on out of the goodness of his heart, because Eugene was as bad at his job as he was at everything else in his life. Gwen asks L(i/y)nda if she wants to meet for a chat at lunchtime, despite the fact that lunchtime very clearly passed by two scenes ago, and then gets Gary's cubicle number from her. Gary's not in his cubicle, so Gwen just steals a leaflet saying "Black Holes and the Uncertainty Principle" from his desk (one of which she also found in Eugene's room), and fobs Owen off when he calls up asking where the hell she is.

OK, so L(i/y)nda is having a liquid lunch, apparently. Exposition ho! So, right, one day Eugene came in looking depressed and L(i/Y)nda was also depressed because she wanted to go to Australia but she couldn't afford it and Eugene told her she MUST go to Australia and he promised to get her the money for it. Which he would do, of course, by selling hisy MAgic Eye on Ebay. And he brought it into work to show L(i/y)nda and some other assorted coworkers for some reason, and they were all, like, "That's a fuckin' paperweight, dude", but Eugene still believed the truth was out there. But, to everyone surprise, Eugene (whose Ebay username is 'ejones'. Yeah, as if he wouldn't need to tack some numbers on the end of that.) got a bid of £2.50 in Birmingham, and then the bids just rocketed up to £3,000, and then one day it suddenly jumped to £15,000 and then, a few seconds later, £15,005.50. L(i/y)nda does not who who any of the bids came from, and Gwen bids her adieu, because she has a phonecall from Mrs. Jones, who has something Gwen needs to see.

Which turns out to be Absent Dad's home video of the frigging South Wales Interschool Maths Challenge. Mrs. Jones tells Gwen the riveting story of how Eugene acquired the Magic Eye, which would be boring even if we hadn't already seen it in excruciating detail at the start of the episode. Terry shoots his mouth of about Eugene some more, God bless him. Mrs. Jones admonishes him a little, and Gwen moves on to wondering if Absent Dad knows about Eugene's death. Mrs. Jones robotically recites her line about how he "works for a big corporation in America", Terry tells her to stop spouting that shit, he works in a garage just up the road! And now Eugene remembers why he sold the eye, I guess because it turns out his whole life was a lie? Or perhaps he shot a man in Reno 'cause they cancelled Firefly. (Yeah, I just wanted to fit as many outside references into an irrelevant sentence as I could manage. With this episode, I have to make my own fun.)

And Gwen goes to see Eugene's dad, but as she's about to get out of her car, Eugene calls out "Don't, Gwen, I don't want anything to with him!" And Gwen stops and says "It's OK," still without apparently being consciously aware of Eugene's presence. As this episode goes, it's a vaguely intriguing mystery first time around, but since it never gets even a half-hearted attempt an explanation, it can fuck off, too.

At the Hub, Jack gets on Gwen's case for having her phone turned off and being generally unreachable in case of emergencies. Gwen's like, "Eugene needed me!" and Jack's all "What the hell, the guy is dead." Jack exits, saying "I've got work to do" with an unspoken, pointed "And so do you." Gwen sits and bites her nails for a while, Eugene rants that she can't just give up now. Just as Jack's getting to the door, Gwen calls out to him and explains that Eugene had "an alien eye", which he sold on ebay. Jack uses his mystical psychic voodo to immediately determine that it is "a Dogon Sixth eye" and, I mean, clearly I don't know as much as Jack about alien life in the Whoniverse, but it strikes me as a mite implausible that he can correctly identify exactly what the thing is from the words "an alien eye". Just a tad. Gwen asks what one of those is, Jack explains that it "lets you see what's behind you. Kind of puts things in perspective." Uh huh. Eugene gushingly tells Gwen she's brilliant, "and I'm brilliant too." No, and HELL NO. Gwen gets out the "Black Holes and the Uncertainty Principle" leaflet and smiles, so I guess that is the next stop on this thrilling investigation.

Eugene rambles irritatingly in Gwen's passenger seat for a while, and hell with that.

OK, so I guess this black holes thing is a museum exhibit or something like that. Fair enough. Gwen looks around the place for a while and spots Gary, who makes a break for it when she comes over to say 'hi'. Gwen gives the worst attempt at chasing in the history of forever, but it's ok, because Gary changes his mind and comes to talk to her anyway, saying "I'm not proud of what I did."

Then they get instantly transported to a different room for the rest of the conversation for no apparent reason. So, Gary was the one (or one of the ones; he slips up and says 'we' at one point, then stupidly makes a point of correcting himself to 'I', just in case Gwen hadn't already picked up on that.) bidding on the Eye, which he did in an attempt to cheer Eugene up, but then actual genuine bidders started appearing, and he became the fucker who artificially inflates the cost of his friend's ebay auctions. In flashbacks, Eugene tells Gary that he was starting to lose faith in the existence of aliens, but the high bidding has changed all that, and now he thinks the alien has come back to claim what is rightfully his, "He couldn't contact me any other way!" Gary looks a little sick for feeding Eugene's delusions and sceptically asks "So he chose Ebay?" Eugene's response; "Cyberspace! I mean, even an online auction has a certain elegant symmetry." OK, first of all, anyone who uses 'cyberspace' in this day and age when there are so many better words to choose from is an idiot. Secondly, "an online auction has a certain elegant symmetry"? What the fuck are you talking about? Back to present day, Gary tells Gwen that when the bid suddenly jumped to £15,000 he started to think maybe Eugene was right; "I wouldn't spend that kind of money unless it was my own personal private body part or something." Gwen suspiciously says "I thought it was £15,005.50?" Because no one would ever round that amount down to the nearest thousand. Gary's like, "Whatever", as any sane person would be to that question. Eugene remembers that he got an email from the winning bidder telling him to come to a restaurant to deliver the Eye. Gwen asks if maybe the exchange was supposed to take place somewhere on the A48, that presumably being where Eugene was run over. Gary shrugs "Or not. Eugene was very secretive. Could have been in Splot." "Splot," Gwen repeats. Come on already, it's not that funny. Gwen takes another look at the Random Shoes, and notices that one of the pairs look suspiciously like Gary's shoes and asks him a) why would Eugene take a picture of his shoes, and b) whose are the others? Gary tells her "They're just random shoes, I should think." GRAAAAAGH CRUSH KILL DESTROY. It occurs to Gary that he is maybe looking a little suspicious right about, so he gives Gwen puppy dog eyes and says "I miss him.", which she eats right up, of course. That one totally works in court when you're accused of murder, too. Trust me.

Gwen's in a hotel room now for some reason. She can't possibly go home until she's figured out this mystery? I don't know. Eugene hangs around babbling, of course, and after getting vague memories of a place that had something to do with happiness, he comes to the realisation that he doesn't actually want Gwen to figure it all out, because then it would end, and following her around as she figures things out is far more exciting than anything else in his useless life ever was. I'm sure this monologue would be terribly moving if I cared the slightest bit about his character, but I do not. Which is really the problem here; I got no emotional connection. Plot holes and all that be damned; you either feel a thing or you don't. And I'm sorry, "Random Shoes", but I don't. Focusing an episode on a minor character or one who's never even been seen before is always going to be a risk, because presumably if you're watching the show, you've got that connection with at least some of the main characters, but a minor character is going to be something of a wild card on that front. It can be a risk that pays off (though I'm sure many people would violently disagree with my choice of example, which is kind of my point), or it can go horribly wrong. And it really doesn't help that the only one of the major characters they've chosen to feature is Gwen, who is undoubtedly my second least favourite of the main characters at this particular moment. If it had been Tosh doing the investigature, maybe I'd have actually somewhat liked this episode, in spite of Eugene's prattling. So, what's going on? Right, Eugene loves Gwen, and is being a total stalker really. Gwen maybe hears Eugene saying "I love you", and gets up and looks out the window, which brings her to the point where she'd be almost kissing Eugene, were he actually tangible. And then she goes to sleep. Fill in your own joke about this episode sending me to sleep, I'm too tired. Goodnight!

Next day, Gwen's alarm goes off, and she actually does look like she's just woken up, which is a fairly rare thing on TV. Eugene's been lying there watching her sleep, in his stalkerish way, and for some reason he says "I thought we were on holiday."

Gwen goes out for a drive and happens upon a "Happy Cook" in a motorway service station. I can't imagine what real life chain of roadside restaurants that could be a thinly disguised version of, can you? Anyway, the Happy Cook logo, which is basically a red Pac Man in a chef's hat, matches a logo she found at some point earlier in the episode, I don't remember or care when. Point is, it links the place to Eugene, so Gwen stops by. While Eugene tries desperately to remember what happened the last time he came here, Gwen notices a waitress is wearing another pair of the Random Shoes and remarks "I've been looking for a pair of shoes like that for ages." Ho ho. Eugene finally realises that when he came to meet the alien, what he found instead where his "mates"; Gary and the skeevy prick from the video store.

So, flashback time again. Eugene, whispering for some reason, tells his 'friends' that it's good to see them, but he's meeting the alien, and he doesn't want a crowd. Record Store Prick (let's call him Lenny) is like, "it's us", which Eugene interprets as "we're your friends, we want to be part of this" until Lenny clarifies that "we're the alien". Eugene is hella confused, Lenny explains exactly what Gary explained to Gwen earlier, which is really not interesting enough to be worth hearing a second time. It wasn't really worth hearing the first time, truth be told. Only we get the end of it now; Gary and Lenny weren't responsible for the £15,000 bid, but Lenny couldn't resist raising the bid a tiny bit more, and apparently the extra £5.50 was too much for the genuine bidder. Eugene is pretty angry, naturally, and asks Lenny if he has the £15,005.50 on him. Lenny shrugs that he has £34, and Gary tries to persuade Eugene that that's a very reasonable offer which is pretty goddamn stupid. Eugene gets out his phone and says he's calling a cab, Lenny tries to grab the phone from him, and then the waitress arrives with their meals and Eugene takes pictures of her, Gary and Lenny's shoes for no apparent reason. That is the solution to the big mystery of the Random Shoes; Eugene did it for NO FUCKING REASON. I think maybe he is supposed to be doing it accidentally while trying to call a cab, or his phone just goes off in the struggle with Lenny, but if either of those are the case, it is an incredibly poorly acted scene, because Eugene is quite clearly taking the pictures deliberately. So, yeah. What the hell is that? Eugene asks why the hell Lenny even wants the Eye, if it's such a joke to him, and then, displaying far more intelligence than he has at any other point, realises that Lenny is planning to resell it online, since he knows there's an alien out there willing to "pay anything" for it. Actually, he's clearly only willing to pay £15,000, Eugene, but pretty reasonable otherwise. Well, OK, so also; the guy is not an alien, as Lenny explains; "Mr. c. Blackstaff is a collector of alien artifacts and Nazi memorobilia. And also Beanie Babies." I assume that last is supposed to be funny; it's not. "If he's willing to pay £15,000..." Lenny continues, darkly, and the unspoken end of his sentence appears to be "...then I am willing to assault my so-called "friend" in order to have the Eye for myself and win that money."

Back in present day land, the waitress with the Random Shoes is telling Gwen this story, but thankfully we don't actually have to hear a description of what we just saw, because when we join her, she's telling Gwen how Lenny jumped Eugene; "now they're inconveniencing customers!" In flashback land, EVOL announces that he didn't know what the hell the Eye actually was any more, but he sure as hell wasn't letting it go for £34 and a banana milkshake. And so he swallowed it. And he gets all blurry, momentarily, And Lenny starts trying to give him the Heimlich manouver while Gary forcefeeds him the milkshake. Because that's what friends are for. But Eugene breaks free, and runs out the door. And the waitress just gets to this end of her story, when who should walk in the doory but Lenny and Gary! "That is so weird!" the waitress comments. You say 'weird', I say 'stupidly contrived'... Gwen is all of a sudden hiding in the corner somehow, and, after Eugene gives Lenny's real name as 'Josh' and starts yelling at him and Gary, who ignore him, of course, Josh starts telling the waitress that there are people, specifically a woman, who might be investigating what happened last week, and it might be in her best interest to stay quiet. I'm pretty sure you can't just loudly threaten a waitress in a crowded restaurant like that without one of the customers maybe intervening or calling the police or at least looking up from their meals. But anyway, Gary tells Josh to shut up, because he's spotted Gwen. Josh tries to make a break for it, but Gary trips him up because he is feeling guilt about it all and he misses Eugene.

Gary finishes the story; He and Josh tried to chase Eugene, but they were too slow to catch him, and he got to the other side of the road and they lost him behind all the cars. OK. Gwen accepts this and leaves them, and, while Eugene looks out the window and gives an annoying speech about "all those lives whizzing by in a frenzy of burgers and chips, bank holidays, burst tires" blah blah fucking blah. DEEP, MAN. Gwen calls up Eugene's dad and tells him she has some bad news. And Eugene remembers that he ran across to another road and EVOL, with an incredibly grating smug tone of "I am making a Deep And Significant Point About Life", says "smell of banana milkshake, a slight nausea because I wasn't that fit. All the stuff! That tells you! YOU'RE ALIVE!" And then he got hit by a car. Isn't that ironic. Hell, I don't even know any more.

And now, much like it's predecessor, the logical endpoint of the episode is followed by a whole bunch more endings that become increasingly absurd and awful as they go on. EVOL continues his self-satisfied Important Lesson About Life; he should be angry about Gary and Josh screwing him over like that, but instead he is thankful because when he swallowed the Eye, he got the chance to Learn An Important Lesson About Life. We're at Eugene's funeral now, and about ten people have turned up; Gwen, Gary, Josh, L(i/y)nda and I guess a bunch of his relatives. Eugene tells Gary he's going to miss him, and tells Gwen he wishes he could thank her and forgives his dad for not being "Superman or even an alien," and instead being just an ordinary bloke, and that particular Important Lesson About Life has already been done so very much better, so again I say SHUT UP. Mrs. Jones stands up to speak, but all she can do is cry, and then Eugene's dad gets up to say his piece; "Eugene was... He was a good boy. But somehow, things went wrong. I wasn't there. I wish I could have been there to see him, before..." And then, honest to God, he starts singing "Danny Boy". SERIOUSLY. HE BREAKS INTO "DANNY BOY". HALFWAY THROUGH A SENTENCE. THIS REALLY HAPPENS. And yet, it still can't beat the worst eulogy ever.

In the cemetary outside, Eugene's fretting to Gwen that he thinks he's going to have to go soon, and babbles some more irrelevant mathematical/scientific trivia, as all geeks are wont to do. Some bearded guy has apparently dug into Eugene's corpse to find the Eye for Gwen, and gives it to her. Wait, but why the hell didn't Gwen find it when she was doing the autopsy earlier? Oh, whatever. Only five minutes to go!

EVOL wonders why he's still here, if it was the Eye that's doing it. Gwen wonders the same, so apparently she does sense his presence? Maybe? I don't care. Gwen's hanging out across the street from Eugene's house, the Symmetric Hyena pulls up and Gwen gives the Eye to Jack, who is duly impressed. Gwen asks Jack to give her five minutes so she can go talk to Eugene's family, and also stand in the road ready to hit by a car herself. EVOL recites yet more trivia, and then spots the car about to hit Gwen and does a slo-mo dash towards her yelling "GWEEEEEEEEEEN!" and throws her to the ground, to safety. Three minutes! Just three minutes to go! All the funeral goers and the Torchwood crew gasp and stare at the suddenly visible Eugene. And he thanks Gwen for everything, and she thanks him for saving her life, and he kisses her and says goodbye and floats up to heaven with nary a word to his grieving family. No seriously, I am not making this up, or hallucinating or anything. And Gwen looks up to the sky and begs him not to go, but apparently his parents don't care that much.

And there's just time for another self-important EVOL speech before we can leave this horror behind us and never speak of it again. Here we go; "The average life is full of near misses and absolute hits. Of great love and small disasters. It's made up of banana milkshakes and loft insulation and random shoes. It's dead ordinary and truly, truly, amazing. What you've got to realise is it's all here, now, so breathe deep and swallow it whole. Because, take it from me, life just whizzes by, and then, all of a sudden, it's..." Well, you've succesfully made me vow to never, ever use the word 'random' in anything other than its strict mathematical definition. Good work.

Next week: Just to make the dip in quality even more pronounced, the two best episodes of the season go either side of this one. Also, I'll make my own self-important declarations about what life is really about, because I'm a giant hypocrite. You gotta do what you gotta do.