Gwen is so concentrated and intense, running after the guy. I can totally buy her as a cop.
“I lost him.” “You got it.” So, the alien is the jacket? Oh, an alien device
in the jacket! Um. Should you really just push random buttons on an alien device?
Time stopped? Back in time (‘cuz that looks like a WWII era kid)? Alternate universe? Huh. So, she thinks it’s a ghost? Well, that would fit with the “I’m lost” stuff he was saying.
She could feel what the kid was feeling? Oh, that would be so sad and hard – feeling what he was but not able to help him.
Heee! Jack all “just pushed the button like this, eh?”, them all “don’t!!!”, and then “as
if”.
Guy is still alive, so not a ghost. Maybe this isn’t the guy?
Heee! “This is Owen. He’s trainin’.” And “Owen will give you a hand”.
He tells his story. Ah, yes, evacuated to the country in the war. Then at the station he wandered away . . . “totally lost, no one knows me”. That was the moment she saw. And then he lost all his family and ended up staying here.
I like how Gwen phrased that “was what I saw just a bit of him, just hanging around?” – ‘cuz that’s what it looked like to me too.
Possible troubles with the boyfriend, eh? Each of them getting a bit intense about the “are you going to be in or out” and “don’t know” stuff. Secret squirrel? And then he’s all “well, I’m not stayin’ in, you do what you want”.
The kid who had the device was just a general run of the mill petty crook type – must have just lucked into it then.
Heh! Bernie Harris, the Scarlet Pimpernel of Splot. Splot? Made fancy sounding by saying “splo”? So, it’s like subsidized housing or something, right?
Jack is
not happy with them, is he? They really do need to find out what’s up with this kid and what he knows and how he got his hands on it.
Heh. Everyone in town seems to have a lousy opinion of the kid.
And Jack is
really not happy that they didn’t find him. “Re-create the event.” Well, are we sure that’s the best idea? Although, frankly, I can’t think of another better idea . . .
Oh, and now Owen pushes the buttons . . . Lizzie and Ed, looks like ‘60’s or so, they’re all greaser/mod looking . . . I’m in agreement with you there, Lizzie, I think Ed is a bad bad guy. Eeep. Yes. Bad guy indeed. Oh, and Owen! Because you don’t just see it, you feel what they’re feeling, so he was feeling what Lizzie was. “She was so scared!” Oh, they’ve got me actually feeling for Owen!
Interesting to see the dynamics with the group and the two issues – Lizzie’s murder back in the day and the current time alien machine. Owen wants to look into the murder, which is natural because he
felt it. Gwen is wondering about the whole thing, why is this happening, what’s the connection between the two people they saw, where do they come from, says it’s like “being haunted”, which is also natural because she’s a cop but she also
felt the kid’s memories. And Jack and Tosh are totally into the device, because they are all scientific and so on, and also because they haven’t experienced it directly.
Hmmmm. It’s a quantum transducer (which Toshiko
totally covets), which turns emotion into energy. Jack sees that Owen wants to pursue this, but thinks there’s no point. And Owen’s all “since when did we care about court”. Ouch! But also true, I’m thinking. Again, we’re seeing the difference between someone who knows about the device intellectually and someone who’s felt it.
Oh my. Sexy gun practice. My.
And they both look like they’re having a very . . . .very . . . nice time. Mmmmm. I liked that scene. Subtle, well, um, no not subtle at all, but . . . nothing actually done or said that was not strictly accurate for learning to shoot a gun, and yet entirely double entendre-ish. Plus, it had the funny bit about spiders in the bath and was all bookended with angstyness (all the “hope you never have to use them” stuff and then the oh so lovely “when do you get to go home/where do you sleep” “I don’t” “Doesn’t it get lonely at night” stuff). Plus, her pulling back and remembering / reminding about her own relationship reminds us of the previous issues we saw with her and the BF. Plus plus, it gives me all sorts of other questions now, like was the not sleeping bit meant literally – now that he can’t die, does he also not sleep? Because that . . . well that would be disturbing.
And then, whoa! She’s doing exactly what they were all doing before – taking the artifact home with her. Damn. So, she’s being seduced by the possibilities too. Ah, reliving the happy moments of their past as a couple. There was a danger in doing that, and I don’t just mean the danger of starting to use alien technology for personal gain. What if you’d tapped into bad emotions? Maybe ones you didn’t know about or had forgotten? And then he comes home and they’re all wonderful and sweet together. “I don’t mind you working the extra hours as long as you still want to come home to me.” “I do. You’re here and you’re gorgeous.” Awwww.
Also, I can’t remember now if they ever really used the device inside Torchwood itself or not. Because I think there’d be some . . . interesting emotional vibes there. Not ones that would be good to relive, I’m thinking.
And while Gwen was wallowing in her own past, Owen is wallowing in Lizzie’s past. Ah, Ed was questioned and released. No evidence, eh? And Owen with the drinking and the looking for Ed? Going vigilante on us?
Oh, my. Owen is very successfully scary, threatening the old guy. “I know what happened under the bridge that night . . . . there you are, just living your life, free as a bird . . . “ My!!
Huh. And there’s Bernie. Chase, chase, chase! Heeee! Love the woman sitting in her back yard, so blasé and just doing the little head tilt to say “he went thata way”.
Heh. Questioning Bernie at the pub. They like doing business at a bar, don’t they? “Well, it’s worth knowing we’re probably the only people you can tell.” Heh!
So, he just found it, among a bunch of discarded stuff that him and a buddy lifted from some old guy’s stash? Who was the old guy and where did he get it? Oh, and the kid used it too. Saw the murder . . . saw a girl . . . “I knew it was her baby wrapped up dead . . . I realized I knew her, she was old . . . “. Oh, Bernie. Saw and felt all that and your reaction was to blackmail her, eh?
“You don’t want the other half, then?” Well, Bernie you little devious, not-too-bright small timer, you.
Snaps together . . . what does it do now, I wonder? “We’ll be taking this” “I robbed that” “ I know” “And you’re gonna rob it offa me” “So call the cops” Heh!!
Huh. So, with the other half, he saw himself die? In that street, looking just like now . . . so, the one half shows past emotion and the other half shows, like, future emotion? Maybe hunts it down so the person using the device can capture it as it happens?
Aaaaand of course, Gwen uses it. Sees herself. (Can you only see yourself, or is that just the next emotional thing that will happen there?) “Owen had a knife, I couldn’t stop him”. Well. That doesn’t sound good.
Yay for Gwen telling Jack all about it! I prefer it when teams actually talk to each other and don’t hide everything important to blow up later! Jack reminder her that it’s always “possible futures”. Heh. Suggesting she tell Bernie, “he might want to know that . . . you’ve certainly found it a comfort”.
Ed is freaking out. Ah, Tosh has his medical records and what not. So, he’s been a hermity paranoid guy. Gee, I wonder why? Ah!! Bernie tried to blackmail the old guy too! Duh! I should have put that together right away. I mean, he mentioned blackmail right at the same time he said he’d also seen the murder. And Owen spotted him right by the old guy’s place. Glad that Owen is helping Jack with figuring it out and they all know about what Owen did and so on.
“Some things you’re just better off not knowing.” Yeah, when it comes to possible futures, you might be right.
Gwen at Bernie’s (um, is that really safe?) while he and Ed have their dueling paranoid moments. Um. Which aren’t really paranoid, since in both cases someone really is out to get them, so, um. Never mind.
Ed “saw it in their faces” ah, that does happen. People know, even when there wasn’t enough evidence to do anything about it. Of course, sometime people know and they’re completely wrong. “Bitch, you’re all the same.” Ah, well, and we’re surprised that he thinks that way?
There’s the knife! Bernie saved! Owen wants to, but doesn’t kill him! And then, of course, when she’s all relieved and “we changed things” Ed throws himself at her and the knife. Ah, Gwen. Remember how it was
your hands that were all bloody in the future glimpse? I keep having Buffy comparisons and this made me think of Cassie and the future she kept knowing and that really did happen no matter what Buffy did.
“He wanted to die.” “I screwed up, but I didn’t kill him.” “No, I did.” “He killed himself.”
“The problem with the future, you can’t just watch it. . . It’s not meant for us, all these ghosts . . . we’d be lost.” And so they lock up another item, which I think is probably a good idea.
Sun coming up on a new day. All those ghosts. We can’t touch them. Just got to learn to live with that.
So, another strong theme of isolation, not being able to touch, relationships versus work, Jack set apart from the others, etc.