Torchwood Episode 208 Recap: “A Day in the Death”

Gwen starts giving everybody else orders, telling Ianto to find out what Parker’s purchased for his collection, and Tosh to get a plan of the house, and I start wondering who died (besides Owen) and put her in charge. I mean, Jack is right there, but he’s just sitting around quietly, like he’s so preoccupied by thoughts of Ianto dressed up as a Xerox repairman he can’t be bothered to do his own job.

I know we’ve been over this many times, but it’s worth repeating — the show can’t have it all ways when it comes to Gwen. If she’s meant to provide the newbie Everywoman perspective, fine. But if she’s there to observe and learn and react, then she can’t also really be in charge, can she? It would be like making Xander head of the Scoobies. Worse, it would be like Dawn.

Cut to “Rooftop Confessions: Part Two.” Owen spouts suicide statistics, leading Roofie to call him a “suicide geek.” Heh. I must admit I’m starting to like her. For someone so clearly depressed, she’s got a lot of spunk, although she’s also chainsmoking like an FBI hostage negotiator.

Owen tells her he’s actually a doctor. Not just any doctor, but a “bloody brilliant doctor.” Although not brilliant enough to tell her to quit with the smoking, since those things can kill you, albeit not on the accelerated time frame she’s apparently pushing for.

Cut to Martha reassuring Owen he’s a brilliant doctor but reminding him he needs their help. Throughout this pep talk, he’s nonchalantly tossing a scalpel in the air like a kid playing Jacks, and just like Mom always warned would happen if you played Jacks with a sharp weapon of some sort, slices his hand open.

We get a revolting close-up of Martha stitching up his hand, as she explains his wound will never heal so will always have to be re-stitched. And this is all it takes for Owen to launch in to another self-pity soliloquy about can’t feel this blah blah can’t feel anything blah blah go away I’ll do it myself.

Back up on the Roof, Roofie criticizes Owen for pushing away someone who was clearly trying to help him. Owen charmingly calls her a “pain in the ass” and asks if some guy dumped her. “No, actually,” she says, “he died.” Part of me wonders if this really happened, or if she just made it up to make Owen feel like crap and shut him up for a few minutes.

Roofie tells Owen that just because they’re both thinking of jumping doesn’t mean they share anything. So Owen decides to save her the pain of going splat on the pavement by boring her to death with more of his own story …

Flashback, back to the Hub. Owen asks Jack to give him something to do. Jack tells him to go home, watch TV, and “chill.” And for those of us too dim to get how clever that is, Owen announces, “I’m dead. I’m permanently chilled.” Then in keeping with this week’s theme of beating dead horses until they’re even deader, he points out the irony, lost on no one, that Jack gets to live forever while he gets to die forever.

Next we see Owen at home trying to watch TV. The most fascinating thing for me about this whole episode is this tantalizing glimpse inside Owen’s apartment, which completely defies expectations. There’s been some minor effort to mess up the set a bit to convey he’s some sort of single-guy slob, but there are also all these touches I found rather feminine. This is interesting given how Tosh’s apartment seems so swinging bachelor-pad-ish, like they’ve each got these hidden sides that contrast their exterior personas.

After studying Owen’s place carefully a few times, I was finally able to put my finger on why it feels a bit girly to me — it’s the exact same attic-loft-like apartment that Lindsay Wagner had in the original Bionic Woman series. Which explains so much. Owen’s pretty much got all the complaints of a bionic woman … suddenly indestructible, feeling less than human, worries about job prospects/sex life/attractiveness.