Review: Torchwood S2 11 Adrift
Now that's the way I like Torchwood -- strong, hot, and dark.
Chris Chibnall turns in his best and most intricate plot yet, and maybe the most Torchwood intricate plot so far, in the vein of Things Are Not What They Seem. In the process of a procedural investigation/coverup story we learn a lot about different characters in the series and see some relationships strengthen or crumble.
We start with Gwen and Andy. Andy wants to talk about a strange missing persons case, Gwen wants to talk about why Andy wasn't at her wedding. Seems like Andy is still nursing a crush on Gwen -- well that makes him a member of a fairly large cult club. Seems like Jack went right by the missing persons case later that night.
A bit of investigating by Tosh, Gwen, and Andy turns up that there are lots more missing persons in Cardiff than anywhere else, and that their disappearances seem to be connected to an inverted Rift spike. Is the Rift eating them? Kudos to first-time Torchwood director Mark Everest for nailing the scene at the support group and the one where Gwen assembles the clues in the interrogation room. IMDB says he's directed nothing but 20 years of documentaries, but those shots and others are worthy of a feature film.
Gwen calls a meeting and wants Torchwood to "do something". Jack is sympathetic, but points out there is nothing practical that Torchwood do. Doing anything would jeopardize security, cause a panic, and not stop a single person from falling in. Gwen pleads, while Ianto and possibly Owen shoot Significant Looks at Jack, but Jack doesn't back down. Realistically, he can't. There's nothing behind him but a wall.
(On second viewing it's even clearer Owen knows. As a doctor, his services might well be required, but when did he find out? After Dian? Before Jack left? What provisions had Jack made to keep the place going after his long-anticipated leave-taking with the Doctor?)
Everyone leaves, Gwen goes and argues with Rhys, then comes back to the Hub to argue some more with Jack. That turns out to be a bad idea, as Jack and Ianto were availing themselves of the empty Hub for some hot and randy playtime. You know all the kinky things you wondered if they did in the Hub while no one else was there? Apparently they do them.
Undaunted, Gwen goes on arguing.
Gwen. Dearest Gwen. I realize that the Complete Book of Employee Relations For Dummies doesn't include coitus interruptus on it's list of "Times When You Shouldn't Approach Your Boss With an Unpopular Idea". Do you know why? They figure it's frikkin' obvious!
And so close to the payoff too. Those boys are so high on endorphins it's a wonder their feet touch the ground. Tsk, tsk. Of course Jack was going to be grumpy.
I love how Jack's dismissal of Gwen and summoning of Ianto (while disrobing, mind you) ends with the same line that Captain John ends his summons to Jack in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, "Work to do." Apparently it's Time Agent code for "Sex now". That does give us some idea of the Time Agent definition of "work.
But let's get the chronology straight. An hour ago Jack and Ianto were playing naked hide and seek. An hour after that they were half-dressed with their shirts nearby and disrobing again. Why did they put their clothes on? Lunch break? And an hour after that Ianto is dressed and making coffee while Jack yells for him. Why?
The boys are clearly having fun, but I wonder if all the sex is Jack's avoidance mechanism for dealing with his own helplessness in the face of the Rift. He's certainly using it as an avoidance mechanism for dealing with Gwen.
But while Jack is playing hardball with Gwen, Ianto slips Gwen some evidence in the form of a technical McGuffin behind Jack's back. I found myself agreeing with Ianto here for three reasons. First, Gwen is Torchwood's terrier, she's going to keep at that trail until she finds something, it's best to go on and give it to her. That way she'll get through it sooner and throw less of a fit at the end. Second, her pestering is putting a strain on Jack, removing her reason to pester takes the strain off Jack, and keeping the strain off Jack is both Ianto's professional and personal concern. Third, if she kept poking, what other secrets might she have stumbled on?
(It's also obvious Ianto knew approximately when Gwen would call to ask about the device and knew he had to do something to keep Jack occupied and out of the way while he talked to her privately. The mind happily boggles at what he might have done.)
Gwen doesn't know what to do with the technical McGuffin, which Andy recognizes as a handheld GPS and pulls up the map of a local island. He secures a boat for their trip out to it, and Gwen repays him by dissing him and leaving him on the shore. This proves to be the final crack in Gwen and Andy's crumbling friendship. I'm not really sure who to blame here: Gwen, Andy, Torchwood, or if it turned out there wasn't much between them in the first place. I tend toward the last one.
But Gwen doesn't want Andy in the middle of what she suspects is Torchwood business, and she's right. The island houses a sanitarium Jack has set up for victims the Rift has stolen and brought back, too damaged by their wanderings to return to their homes. Torchwood wasn't doing anything for the victims but sticking them in cells, so Jack established this place. From the way he says it, it's not clear if Torchwood is picking up the tab or if Jack's paying for it out of his own pocket.
Gwen wants to let the families know, Jack axes the idea. Gwen tries to press the idea home, unknowingly calling up memories of Grey, and Jack agrees to let missing boy's mother know he's there, forty years older and terribly injured.
It would be easy to call Jack a bastard, but he has a point. What else can they do without compromising security? As far as the families go, security needs have to be considered first. You couldn't tell all the families without the secret leaking out. I'm not happy about that either, but there you go. The whole security issue needs to be rethought.
Jonah and Nikki's meeting is rocky, especially because Gwen didn't bother to do her homework and find out that Jonah is now only lucid for a few hours of the day. Nikki can't handle it, and lashes out at Gwen.
Now speaking as a mother who's had a child in die in ICU, I thought Nikki's reaction was pretty hopeful. No woman who does all she has already done for her missing son is going to back down now. Sure, she needs time to adjust, but she's a fighter. She'll be back there by the end of the month, tops. As she folded up her son's belongings and wept I want to tell Nikki "it gets better from here" but she's not ready to hear that yet. She's still dealing with the ashes of her dreams.
Still, she's going to have an easier time facing Jonah again than she will facing the support group she's created again. Now she knows, and she knows she can't tell, but she still has to face their needs. That's going to be a special kind of hell right there.
The funny thing is, Nikki, Ianto, Owen, and Tosh are now in a position to form their own support group: People Who Have Lost Loved Ones to Extraordinary Means and Know It. Now that would be an interesting meeting.
All in all, Ruth Jones does a wonderful job of portraying Nikki. Kudos to her.
With the exception of a few really ropey moments in The End of Days, I've loved everything Chibnall has written for Torchwood. Yes, I even loved Day One; it was the purest War of the Worlds homage I've ever seen. ("Huh?" you say. They're both stories where aliens treat Earth the way Westerners treat Third World nations. In War of the Worlds Earth = Tasmania. In Day One Earth = Thailand.) But this was the first time I thought we saw him run on all cylinders, and he did a wonderful job.