Review of Torchwood’s Second Season Premiere

Those hints included a suggestive erotic interlude with a stopwatch that stopped time and a romantic kiss just before Jack disappeared in the season finale.

Shortly after the opening in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” Captain John (Marsters) lures Captain Jack (Barrowman) to a bar where the two first kiss passionately and then proceed to beat the living daylights out of each other. Obviously they still have issues to resolve. Even though Jack’s team hasn’t entirely forgiven his unexplained absence, they race to his side, worried that Captain John is an alien baddie intending their leader harm.

And it’s then that it becomes clear just how gay the second season promises to be as Ianto realizes Captain John and Captain Jack have a history themselves.

Captain John: We were partners.

Ianto: In what way?

Captain John: In every way. And then some.

Ianto’s expression darkens as he is most definitely not happy to learn of Jack's previous romantic relationship. And this is barely fifteen minutes into the episode. The scene gets even gayer as the two captains banter back and forth about who had been the “woman” during their five years spent trapped together in a time loop.

Captain Jack: It was like having a wife.

Captain John: You were the wife.

Captain Jack: No, you were the wife.

Captain John: Oh, but I was a good wife.

Not your standard romantic television repartee and Marsters delivers that last line as only he can: with a devilish sneer that makes it clear why men and women find him so damned sexy. And what could’ve been offensive in other hands comes off here as poking fun at the common misperception that in a gay relationship one partner plays the role of the wife.

John later delivers another risqué line when Jack is taking him to the secret Torchwood Institute headquarters.

Captain Jack: This is the entrance for tourists.

Captain John: I remember the last time you said that.

Gay-friendly banter is always welcome, of course, but with so much potential for gay storylines many viewers would no doubt like to see something more substantive. And they get it. Later in the episode, Jack brazenly flirts with Ianto by suggesting they use a copy machine to Xerox their body parts before finally asking him out on a date, which Ianto accepts.

Hopefully, gay fans have much to look forward to happening between these two, although given the previous banter and romantic kisses, I was surprised to learn the two haven’t actually yet gone on a date.