This was a very intense, emotionally hard-hitting episode, that brought both Gwen and viewers face to face with one of the more painful truths of the sort of work Torchwood deals with: that some things can't be fixed. No matter what kind of skill and technology you have at your disposal, there are going to be certain times when there is simply nothing you can do -- certain types of pain that simply can't be avoided, or healed.
The only things that keep me from giving it a ten out of ten rating are a few small logical flaws -- the kind of thing that leave me wondering "But *why* --?" The two big ones are: First, why on earth didn't Jack just tell Gwen and Tosh what was going on in the first place? Granted that Jack's never been exactly a model of good communication, but in this instance there just seems to be absolutely no good reason for the secrecy. Keeping it secret from the outside world, sure, but from other Torchwood people? That just made no sense.
And second, once Jonah's mother had been to see him and it had all gone horribly wrong (hence the spoiler warning) -- and especially after Gwen's later visit to her when she says she was better off not knowing -- why on earth didn't Gwen or Jack give her RetCon? Normally the entire Torchwood team seems to be handing the stuff out like after-dinner mints to anyone outside Torchwood who's ever had the slightest contact with anything alien, so why in the one case where there seemed to be a really strong and compelling reason for it, not just because she "knew too much" but for compassionate reasons as well, did they not do it? I did see a comment by someone elsewhere that, whatever the reason, it was at least nice not to see RetCon used yet again as Torchwood's equivalent of the sonic screwdriver on Doctor Who -- that is, an all-purpose tool that fixes everything -- but in a way, having it used here, in a situation where it was clearly very necessary, might help to contextualize why they're so quick to resort to it at other times: because Jack and other longtime Torchwood people have probably run into situations like this all too often and are painfully aware of how much harm memories that people can't handle can do.
All in all, though, this was an excellent episode, even given those two flaws.
The only things that keep me from giving it a ten out of ten rating are a few small logical flaws -- the kind of thing that leave me wondering "But *why* --?" The two big ones are: First, why on earth didn't Jack just tell Gwen and Tosh what was going on in the first place? Granted that Jack's never been exactly a model of good communication, but in this instance there just seems to be absolutely no good reason for the secrecy. Keeping it secret from the outside world, sure, but from other Torchwood people? That just made no sense.
And second, once Jonah's mother had been to see him and it had all gone horribly wrong (hence the spoiler warning) -- and especially after Gwen's later visit to her when she says she was better off not knowing -- why on earth didn't Gwen or Jack give her RetCon? Normally the entire Torchwood team seems to be handing the stuff out like after-dinner mints to anyone outside Torchwood who's ever had the slightest contact with anything alien, so why in the one case where there seemed to be a really strong and compelling reason for it, not just because she "knew too much" but for compassionate reasons as well, did they not do it? I did see a comment by someone elsewhere that, whatever the reason, it was at least nice not to see RetCon used yet again as Torchwood's equivalent of the sonic screwdriver on Doctor Who -- that is, an all-purpose tool that fixes everything -- but in a way, having it used here, in a situation where it was clearly very necessary, might help to contextualize why they're so quick to resort to it at other times: because Jack and other longtime Torchwood people have probably run into situations like this all too often and are painfully aware of how much harm memories that people can't handle can do.
All in all, though, this was an excellent episode, even given those two flaws.
