A thought occurs to me as this episode opens:
It just can’t be a good idea to take flash photos of aliens/faeries/unknown creatures at night in a woods.
Just sayin’.
Of course, it’s easy to say that as the viewer of a sci-fi show where the main characters battle the bad alien of the week; I guess not so much when you’re some old lady who believes in faeries.
Oh, and by the way, I know this woman’s old and all, but doesn’t she have a digital camera???
The most interesting aspect to this episode, I thought, was that we begin to learn more about Captain Jack.
In fact, at that first flashback, I immediately said to myself, “That looks like World War I!” The doughboy uniforms from WWI have a very particular look; WWII uniforms were, somehow, less formal-looking, if that makes any sense.
I, of course, assumed I was wrong later in the episode, when Gwen finds the photo of Jack’s “father” on Estelle’s mantel. They were in love before the war, were separated because of it and never saw one another again. Jack just happened to look her up a few years back, once he could safely pretend he was his son.
Then, later, when he confesses to Gwen that he first experienced these “faeries” back during World War I, I remembered something: Didn’t he get thrown way back in time at some point? (Yes, he did.) So he’s really old, and we really don’t have any clue. Is he from WWII? Is he from the future? Why is he immortal?
Makes me realize, though, that Captain Jack and The Doctor have a lot in common – The Doctor is immortal, so is Jack, albeit reluctantly so. They can’t stand to see their loved ones age and die. So after the war, Jack never got in touch with Estelle again, because he couldn’t bear to see her fade away (plus, it would kind of blow his cover for him to never get a day older) – but he does truly love her, because all these years later, he’s tracked her down and helps take care of her.
It’s no wonder Captain Jack doesn’t sleep much, though (which he mentioned to Gwen in the second or third ep of the series) – he’s experienced so many things, that he’s gotta find it hard not to have it all race through his brain at sleep time.
And so, this nightmare, with the rose petals. And then a petal on his desk. And then the pedophile guy puking up petals.
I have to admit, at very first, I thought the little girl standing outside the school was Estelle’s granddaughter, and Estelle wasn’t picking her up because she was dead. But it just turns out her stepfather’s kind of a jerk and forgot to pick her up.
But no worries, because the faeries will protect her from the evil pedophile man. When he stopped Jasmine, though, I did think out loud, what child isn’t aware they shouldn’t get in a car with a stranger? Especially when the stranger gets the facts wrong about who was supposed to pick her up?
Now, we meet Estelle for real, and she’s lecturing about faeries. She believes they’re beautiful and wonderful and happy and friendly and loving. Jack doesn’t think so.
This being Torchwood, Jack’s right. But, still, the faeries are going after this bad guy, so it doesn’t seem all bad, no?
Jasmine is utterly creepy throughout the whole episode, though. She’s been convinced by the faeries that she needs to be with them. She is a chose one.
No one can hurt me.
Did shivers run down your spine right now?
Now we learn the woods behind Jasmine’s house have somehow managed to stay undeveloped, for the most part, since, well, forever. Even the Romans steered clear.
It does always bother me, though, on shows like this when a character has seen so many weird things and yet still, AGAIN, doubts the supernatural/alienness of what he or she is seeing. And thus Gwen thinks a circle of stones is perfectly natural and normal and couldn’t be supernatural?
I have to admit, though, this is where things got weird to me – why did the faeries go after Estelle? Because she took their photos? I never got a clear answer to that. She believes they’re good and loving. Wouldn’t leaving her alone help perpetuate that belief and cover their tracks?
But, no, they have to go after the old lady’s kittycat, and she has to protect Moses. (By the way, when Gwen first met Moses earlier in the episode, I just knew that cat would some how be a harbinger of some sort of doom.)
And, then, even though her kitty was making weird growly noises, WHY DID ESTELLE GO OUTSIDE? Of course, it doesn’t seem as if it would have made any difference, can’t these faeries get in anywhere they want, anyhow? Was her mystical New Age-y stuff keeping them out?
Then the faeries smash up Gwen’s apartment and leave a mini-stone circle in the middle of her floor, just in case she wasn’t sure who trashed the place.
OK, I got a little lost here, too, where the faeries are children going back eons, “from the lost lands.” Of course, it’s terribly obvious Jasmine is the next chosen one. Is it because she’s an outcast? I’d suppose the creatures seek out the children who are a bit off, a bit outcast, a bit out of the mainstream, because it’s bound to be easier to convince them to join the ranks of the faeries.
And now Jasmine can see the old-growth forest, and because the chosen ones, the faeries, can move backward and forward in time at will, we discover at the very end, with Gwen, that Jasmine has indeed moved back in time.
In a photo of a young girl with faeries that was supposedly legitimate, but debunked by the girl later in life as having been posed and fake, is one particular fairy, Gwen notices. She enlarges the section of photo. And again. And again.
It’s Jasmine.
By the way: Roy, you don’t put frozen meat patties on the barbecue grill. You thaw them first. You’re welcome. Oh, wait, you’re dead. Nevermind.