Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts

I'm not quite sure what to think on this episode. On the one hand, it has a powerful message: if we had the power of telepathy, we wouldn't so much like the world we're living in. Everyone always says, oh, I wish I had the power to read people's thoughts--Torchwood takes it a step forward and really examines it, says, what if this wasn't such a good thing? It's just like with the episode "Small Worlds"-- what if fairies weren't happy and dancing and cute? On the other hand, I think it was pulled off a bit awkwardly. It was clunky. They were trying too hard with the sexual bit again, with Gwen and Owen. Talking about things I don't want to know, and the audience probably doesn't either.

I do love Jack more and more each episode. He's so much darker, but he's fiercer, too--he protects his friends at all costs, he's there to pick them up after they fall, and he's there to give them tough love rather than platitudes. It's like he's trying to make them better people. I'm hoping he'll give Gwen and Owen the same serious, deep treatment he's already given Tosh and Ianto. In some way he's been giving it to Gwen since the first episode, like when he made her say the words, "Brought a person back to life." But Owen certainly needs...something. I do like him and Gwen, but he's rather a git. And Gwen and the affair...I don't know what to think of that. It's kind of like how I'm totally cool with the Rose/Jack/Nine threesome thing. I don't mind it and I feel like I should.

Maybe that's the point. We are supposed like Gwen, she's our link into the world of Torchwood (sometimes to a fault when the writers try too hard, ie the end of Countrycide). And she is pretty likeable. And then she goes and has this affair, but it's after she's been severely traumatized, when she can't talk about it with her boyfriend. Maybe she could just go...you know...TALK to Owen or Jack, but I think she needed to feel that human connection. She needed to be grounded, and Owen was the only one who could do that for her. It's a situation most of us will never, ever be in--she's not having an affair because she's bored, because Owen was more interesting than Rhys. She's having an affair because she's been deeply affected by this new, terrifying world that she can't talk about--although how long the affair lasts vs. how long she needs that connection is the difference between a normal affair and what she originally needed. She asks herself in the episode, is it a thing when you do it two times? Probably.

We'll see how this progresses. I read somewhere she tells Rhys and then retcons him, so she will feel guilty in the future. I don't know. I feel like I should dislike her for doing this, but another part of me wonders what I'd do in her situation.

Also, I've never even had one guy, much less two at the same time. So...