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You're assuming that the weevil is male - in fact, that both weevils are male, because aren't there now two Weevils in the Torchwood basement, revealed through selective cutting becasue they can only afford one weevil head? That RTD bit in the first episode apart (and some very odd signals with Mark), there's no evidence that Owen isn't an ironed-on hetero.
However. I think it's certainly always tempting to see producers of a show that you basically don't like as doing something in the worst possible way - and my immediate response was indeed "Oh, for fuck's sake, Owen's got some deeper insight into violencethat allows him to understand t3h weevil". And the problem is, of course, that the characterisation on Torchwood is so patchy that it might be decided that that's what happened, or indeed that none of this, really, has happened. BUT Flyboy seems to be making sense, and I'm liking the way that some of the arcs that just seemed nonsensical earlier in the series are to some extent coalescing - just as expected them to forget totally about the something in the dark, which at least is getting referenced.
So, Owen's character arc. He starts off as a thoroughly unlikeable rohypnol monkey, but a fairly happy-go-lucky one. Then his lover, Suzie (the very thought gives me chills. She. Is. Too. Great) is revealed as a murderer and kills herself. New girl arrives, and pretty soon he is attempting to predate on her sexually.
However, in the gap between one and t'other (the sexy predation thing seems to start around "Cyberwoman" - which makes me think that possibly each writer was given a "move the arc of the characters along to" sheet and given freedom to work out how, thus at times making a hash of it), he is confronted by the memory of a self-assured, oily bloke who pushes Owenness that bit further, into rape and murder. Since he doesn't have much in the way of interiority, he processes this by deciding to find and confront Blake, rather than by confronting or addressing what it might actually say about him. Blake dies. I think this is one of several points where Owen thinks he has achieved redemption/purification and totally fucking hasn't. The next one of those is his queasily aggressive courting of Gwen, which, one assumes, works only because his use of Owhypnol has left a sort of musk around him (this is also my explanation for Suzie, incidentally - he was totally drugging her). Nevertheless, he is forming a kind of unit with Gwen, although one defined by exclusion (his thoughts in Greeks Bearing Gifts)... and then his dead ex-lover comes back to life and hammers home his sheer cluelessness - because he lacks the ability to self-examine, he totally failed to notice anyhing off about Suzie, despite being in some form of relationship with her.
So, rather scalded by this, he throws himself into trying to develop another dimension - by throwing himself, inevitably, at another woman, and then rather unusually (as he observes himself) falling in love with her. There's a "Persuaders" guest-star "You see, I loved her" stupidity about this, admittedly, but I think that Owen's emotionally arrested cretinousness helps out - he doesn't really know how to have an emotionally honest relationship, having apparently learned everything he knows about ladies by alternative viewings of Press Gang and hardcore porn, so he doesn't really know how to go about falling in love, and just does it at a mad rush of saying "I am IN LOVE" a lot. Diane recognises this as unhelpful, and responds to his desperate "Don't leave me - we can get married!" appeals by pissing off. His adolescent tilt at emotional validity is not enough to keep her in the present day.
So, when Gwen raises the emotional ante, he responds by shutting her out. Likewise, when the girl at the bar starts chatting him up, he doesn't try to chat her up. A relationship with emotional commitment has done nothing for him but to make sexual relationships without emotional commitments seem as repulsive to him as (when he is involved) they are to the viewer. His attempt to become a more human human being has failed, and he doesn't have a path to retreat along.
So, his tale is another one of traditional Torchwood incompetence here - accidentally falling in with the baddies rather than attempting to stop what they are doing - like Toshiko, somebody is playing on his weaknesses - in this case, his new-found realisation that his entire schtick - sarky date rapist - has been revealed as unsatisfactory, and his attempt to move his own character arc has led to rejection of both the attempt and his previous persona as a big piece of shit. So, unlike Toshiko, he has a very clear path - Mark is the bad guy, he should hold him at gunpoint and then call in backup. There's no moral or ethical ambiguity - he is not being tricked, he's not having an affair with Mark - but what Mark is saying - that his character construction so far is worthless (for successful estate agent read "happy-go-lucky shagmonster) - is sufficiently convincing for him to put down his gun and to go with him. Arguably this is deep cover, but it's also futility. So, is he expecting the weevil to kill him or does he genuinely want to fight the weevil and in doing so substitute rage and the company of men for love and the conpany of women? Possibly the latter, since at the end of the episode, as Joe D-I-Y says above, he's shown as basically being a weevil - a creature who doesn't really have anything but frustrated rage.
Obviously, there are a couple of problems here, mainly that the arc has to go somewhere - either redemption or destruction, really - and neither is necessarily likely. We've already had one Torchwood member turn out evil, although admittedly recycling plot elements hasn't exactly been the end of the world before now.
However, yes - I think that is there is an interesting thing about Owen, it is that he is being portrayed as simultaneously formally admirable - great flat, one-liners, lots of sexy sex, gets to shag the notional POV character - but is also, if you stop for a breath, basicall not just a wanker, but a wanker who is unpleasant and who does unpleasant things. Dipping into the EU, incidentally, it does turn out that he was facing disciplinary proceedings - here. Maybe struck off, maybe recruited by Torchwood and the issue disappeared.
(Incidentally, I think we may assume that Owen was orginally written to be played by an actor who was a) much more conventionally good-looking and b) Welsh - hence the name. I think some of the incredulity might be as a result of Burn Gorman being.. umm... not conventionally attractive?) |
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