I don't really have a lot of patience for the whole "Woe for the modern man, who has no acceptable outlet to beat the shit out of other people" line of thought. So I spent a lot of the episode rolling my eyes.

Edit: Oh, and as I recall, this ep was written by Noel...Clarke? I forget his full name, but the guy who played Mickey on Doctor Who.

Still, the whole episode is worth it for the Gwen/Rhys scene. You really see how much Torchwood has changed her.

I don't really have a lot of patience for the whole "Woe for the modern man, who has no acceptable outlet to beat the shit out of other people" line of thought. So I spent a lot of the episode rolling my eyes.

Oh see - I thought the episode was showing that to be a bunch of horseshit, so we were definitely reading it different ways.

Among other things, I got the feeling that Owen can handle himself in a fight, and will occasionally lose it if pushed, but basically didn't buy into the ethos at all. I don't think he got in the cage to fight. No matter what the end of the episode means, I don't think fighting the weevil was what he had in mind.

Now that I think about it, I think that Owen was going to pull the same routine in the cage that he did in the last scene, show his dominance over the weevil to further invalidate the fight-club mentality. Only, just as he was preparing, Jack et al barged in and blew it, leaving him vulnerable instead!

Does that make any kind of sense?

Owen is complicated and broken in not-easy-to-love ways, and Gorham works it for all its worth.

I didn't watch in real time, having gone to bed at 7PM, but I've seen the episode via somewhat illegal yet ethical means and look forward to revisiting it and seeing how I feel about it this time through.

Does that make any kind of sense?

Completey. He might also have gone in hoping to die, but since he told Jack he didn't want to be "saved" (as opposed to didn't want to live), I think you take's more likely. I'm just curious how sure he was the routine was going to work, and where the surety came from.

Well, we do know from what's been said by the other characters, that he's spent a fair amount of time studying the one captive at Torchwood. I'm thinking that is was the same one that he faced in the ring.

See, I'm pretty well convinced that Owen bought into it, at least partly. Diane just left him, and he's not used to that. He slept with her, he admitted to being in love with her, he practically begged her not to leave, and she left anyway, almost without a regret.

I think the alpha male message is something that would appeal to him already, and when you add in the fact that he's just been so badly hurt, I think he was both a) ready to die and b) ready to beat the shit out of something.

Eh. I was not impressed. I still don't like Owen and I still don't like Gwen. How fucking cowardly and pathetic is it to confess, then give someone an amnesia pill. If he was really going to forgive her, he wouldn't have needed it, I think. she had clearly planned it, it's not even like she thought "I'll confess, and if it goes badly, I'll drug him". She never intended Rhys to really know.

She never intended Rhys to really know.

That's why it's brilliant. She knew he'd be hurt and angry. She wanted the catharsis of confessing without having to deal with the consequences. I mean, I totally agree that it makes her less likeable. But to me, it makes her more interesting.

Why does that make her interesting? To me, it just makes her manipulative and cowardly.