Torchwood ep 3 Spoilers again: Owen

[beccaelizabeth]

I've been reading around comments, and unsurprisingly I find I read it at an angle to many people.
Someone said now we see Owen has a conscience.
And someone else said he wasn't such an arsehole, and in fact mentioned the word 'redemption'.
And... on neither point do I quite see that.

The device shared emotional experience. So he experienced what the girl was going through. Its a little bit like the guy was raping him at knife point.

Like Katrina yelled at the geeks, see how you like it.

So then he wants to hunt down the guy with the knife.

This does not indicate conscience. This indicates vengeance.

So he goes all vigilante, goes off on his own and finds the guy.
(With the very high tech phone book... which, lovely Joss style undercutting there, with the high tech vs worky, but also appropriate to DW, where the Doctor uses 3D glasses.)

Finds him, but finds out nothing about him. Reckons he knows the important stuff. Reckons in fact that he knows which Ed this is. And then has a talk with him. Scares him.

Toshiko looked him up and found the bastard was scared enough already. But Owen didn't do that kind of looking. Possibly because Jack told him to go home and Owen didn't want to be stopped.

That bit where Owen is talking to Edwin (soundalike?) you see their hands, fingers, tension in the fingers. Struck me as echo, as similar reaction.

And then Owen grabs Ed's knife. And threatens him with it. Which puts Ed in the position of victim. AND puts Owen in the position of aggressor again.

Owen doesn't go through with killing him. We don't know why. He could have, but he didn't. Was it because of the thing with multiple witnesses? Could be. So it isn't unequivocally not-a-bastard then.

Then Gwen gets the knife off him in time for the suicide-by-cop.

Which eliminates one of the doubts that could have been there - if Owen was still holding it, that scene could have gone the same way.

And then Owen works on trying to save the guy's life. Medical doctor.

Here's the thing - medical doctor's first impulse was to... what?
Get a knife out and threaten a guy?
That's from a different place than fixing people comes from.

So he reacts to the injury to try and save him, but... He has a lot of dark side to go with it.

Anger. Rage.
That isn't exactly new in him.

So, does this episode show his conscience? I don't think so - he doesn't react to something he personally did wrong, he reacts to a wrong done against him, that felt personal.

Does it show him not an arsehole?
Glimmers of not a murderer, but... He's got a lot of stuff going on and he didn't deal with it by bringing it to the team.


So the episode put him through stuff that is relevant to the Very Bad Thing he has done, but it doesn't put him out the other side to Redeemed, in my book.


I am Very Sleepy and not sure I remembering right or making sense yet.

Comments

[wave-zyxt.livejournal.com]

Makes perfect sense to me - been trying to work out the same sort of thoughts here (http://wave-zyxt.livejournal.com/2741.html) but you've actually put it an awful lot more clearly than I managed to! Do you mind if I add a link to your post?

[beccaelizabeth]

linking is what the web is for :-)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I didn't read it as Owen being redeemed, so much as him having anger at both Ed and himself and focussing it all on Ed as a way of dealing.

We need to see whether there's an ongoing change in his behaviour before we know how much of an effect ther's been on him.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*