Tony’s just popping to
the gift shop.
Ever wondered what people
really think of you? Not what they tell you to your face, or what they say
because it’s socially acceptable, but the real, miniscule, unbidden, ungovernable
flashing impulse-thoughts you generate in people – friends, lovers, strangers –
every, single, day?
It’s the kind of question
about which there really should be a Greek myth, or a fairy story, and now,
thanks to Toby Whithouse, there is. Much is made in the story of the fact that
the gift of hearing the thoughts of everyone around you is ‘not like reading
their diary,’ but in point of fact, it is – if you’re going to read someone
else’s private thoughts, you have to be prepared for what you find, whatever
it might be.
Tosh isn’t ready, because
in all fairness to her, it’s not curiosity, or jealousy, or any dark motive
that pushes her to accept the gift given to her by ‘Mary,’ the scavenger of
alien knick-knacks who works her way into her life, her bed and her mind. Tosh
is simply lonely, in need of someone to tell about the things she does and the
things she thinks about all the incredible alien finds she encounters. She
takes the locket of ‘Philoctetes’ just to find some scrap of positivity, some
human thread of goodness in a world that too often seems too cold, too insular,
and too self-revolving to feel anything much at all.
The idea of an alien
befriending a lonely member of Torchwood in an attempt to get a piece of their
equipment back, and then pursuing a campaign of emotional manipulation against
them is powerful material, and it calls great performances from Toshiko actress
Naoko Mori, from Daniela Denby-Ashe as ‘Mary,’ and in fact from all the
Torchwood 3 crew, as they play themselves, while being aware of the thoughts
going through their heads at any moment, and playing those too, simultaneously.
As you’d expect from Toby
Whithouse, there’s a strong central sci-fi mystery at work here – bodies that
seem to be missing their hearts, going back hundreds of years, which give Owen
plenty to frown about, and which pay off the story at the end in a logical,
satisfying way. But really, the meat of the story is wound into two strands
with Tosh at their centre: how lonely people can become needy people, and go on
to be wound around the fingers of manipulative partners irrespective of their
intellect; and the idea of knowing what everyone is thinking – the combination
of banality and malice, the drudgery of the everyday with occasional flashes of
genuine human darkness that fills a human head on any given day.
Coming on the back of
Countycide, the whole Torchwood crew is raw when it comes to needing some sign
of human goodness and warmth, some moment of connection – as played out in the
fling between Gwen and Owen here. Tosh, looking for that redemption of the
human spirit, finds nothing but a dirty grey river of banality. Except with
‘Mary.’ Mary who, despite her defences, opens Tosh up to new experiences, to
pleasure, to the connection with someone that makes us glow. Denby-Ashe turns
in a truly mesmerising performance as the alien who gets under Tosh’s skin,
importantly being entirely bright, and comfortable and seductive in and of
herself, so Tosh doesn’t come off in this story looking desperate, or sad.
Denby-Ashe’s performance, matched with Whithouse’s writing, makes us understand
that were we in Tosh’s position, we too would be seduced by this stranger. We
wouldn’t lose our rational mind, wouldn’t change who we were, and yet at the
same time, the presence of someone like ‘Mary’ would be enough to make many of
us suggestible, biddable, might lead us step by step into her web.
This episode also gives us
that rare thing – a window into Tosh’s world. For most of the run of Torchwood,
she was the reliable one, the good girl, the computer whizz, the tech genius.
Greeks Bearing Gifts shows us different sides to Tosh’s personality – her need
to talk about Torchwood coming out when she’s drunk (a device re-used even as
recently as The Torchwood Archive from Big Finish); her life outside of work,
such as it is; her actual needs – most especially the need to find some thread
of simple goodness, of caring, both in humanity and throughout the universe.
That’s the need that, for instance, when she hears a potential murderer’s
thoughts, forces her to follow him and stop him before he can do the deed. But
it’s also the need that lets ‘Mary’ weave her web around her, manipulate her
emotions and her thoughts, to the point where Tosh crosses the line and lets
the woman she by then knows is an alien into the heart of Torchwood.
While Owen has his moments
in this story, working out the secret of the missing hearts, it’s Jack of
course who ultimately puts paid to Mary’s murderous spree through history.
There’s a lesson in there, but, unlike Tosh, you have to be willing to find it
and accept it for what it is. There probably is that thread of
goodness and hope in humanity, but it’s often overwhelmed by the needs of the
everyday. And Jack could stand the truth of humanity and the universe, whatever
it turned out to be. His unique perspective makes him a little less than human,
a little more actually in sync with Mary, using who and what he needs
throughout the course of his long life to do what he thinks is right,
irrespective of the cost. There’s something cold in that resolve, that ability,
that wasn’t in Jack when we first met him in Doctor Who. It’s the long
perspective of an immortal, a vampire, a god.
Tosh would never want that
strength, that power. Tosh, along with Ianto and Gwen, is still in touch with
her frailty, her emotions, her need for there to be some good in the universe,
some prospect for love, rather than only pain and emptiness. Those emotional
needs keep her human, but, like anyone who still can fall in love, they also make
her vulnerable.
Knowing that is not easy,
but ultimately, that’s the true gift of ‘Philoctetes’ – knowledge not only of
what other people are thinking, but knowledge of the self. As she reaches the
still very responsible decision at the end of Greeks Bearing Gifts to destroy
the pendant that could let her stop wars, stop murders, save the world one
person at a time, we know we’ve been let in to the person behind the genius, to
the beating heart of Toshiko Sato.
That’s a precious gift
indeed.
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