#ok thts s1 done. ima do a separate post for s2

[jakowskis]

ok i need to talk about owen's mental state during ep12 (+ ep 13 ill do both in one)

so there we see owen described as 'a bit demented'. he's repeatedly referred to with similar wording throughout this script

'wired and dangerous', 'manic', 'unhinged.' and i love that little bit about owen pacing and almost laughing, and ianto watching him. (the wariness of ianto's gaze is implied). like owen is Not stable during this ep.

owen is a very obviously mentally ill character and i particularly am intrigued by the state of hysteria we see him reach at several points in canon. there's a perpetual very frantic, angry neuroticism to owen that's underdiscussed, imo. i don't remember where it was, maybe a commentary, but burn described owen as being full of nervous energy, and if you watch him closely, you can see it. he's always fidgeting, always shifting, always uncomfortable in his own skin. it's even in the damn audios; you can frequently hear the shift of his leather jacket against the chair/car seat he's in. idek how they do that. i said in another post i think he has adhd, but it's more than that, because it's not just restlessness. it's anger, and it's fear.

and then when he gets worked up, you really see it. sometimes it's not as bad - when he's first brought back in s2e7 he's practically buzzing, and martha finds it hard to reason with him. he also gets like that in at least two of the owen & andy audios, notably gooseberry. it's like a frenetic impulsive state where he doesn't know when to stop. considering all of these are within the context of his undead state / being brought back to life, i guess you could argue it has to do with that, but imo i think it's something he's capable of regardless, those were just... significant triggers, to say the least. the adrenaline rush, in that context, wouldn't help either. also pre-death, he's depressive as hell, so not much would get him pumped up like that.

sometimes it's destructive, like in this episode, and i think it's also worth noting i interpret owen as having BPD (honestly it's not even a headcanon atp like it's insane how borderline-coded he is. i can't believe they accidentally wrote him like that. he's literally a canonically borderline character as far as i'm concerned), and i think the threat of losing jack and tosh (after having just lost diane) triggered him so badly that there was just absolutely no reasoning with him in that moment. he's practically manic the whole episode because of it - and losing touch with reality during periods of intense stress is an occasional symptom, as well. but one of the primary, best known symptoms of bpd is "frantic efforts to avoid abandonment" - i'd say accidentally destroying the world to try to get back your boss, coworker, and girlfriend you knew for a week more than qualifies.

like i said. mentally ill character of all time. to me. and because idk if the show was entirely aware of it, or meant to do it at all really, it's not as ableist as it could be, surprisingly. in fact, owen's struggles with his mental health largely humanize him. but i have noticed people tend to like him better during his undead arc, where he's self-destructing, and not so much during this arc, where he's lashing out. both are peak 'owen being mentally ill' moments, but it's interesting how we can sympathize when it's inward-turning, but we're quick to condemn it when it hurts others. which is another reason, i've observed, that the fandom latched onto ianto's struggles with his mental health, but not owen's. but i digress.

anyway. so note the 'truly unhinged' wording because that crops up again in the episode 13 script during a key moment.

first off, i wanna draw a parallel.

i've always considered suzie and owen direct mirrors - jack's two second-in-commands; his two judases. and personality wise, even, they're not too dissimilar either. but i think it's really intriguing their reactions to shooting their captain are almost switched here, between the scripts and the final cut of the eps. no mention of owen crying is in the end of days script. more on that in a second, actually. in the episode itself, he's crying as he shoots him; in the draft, he's angry. conversely, with suzie, when she shoots jack in the episode she's decisive about it, and even when she approaches gwen, she's crying a bit, but i wouldn't call it 'falling apart'.

owen, on the other hand, seems like he's falling apart when he shoots jack. just intriguing to me, 'cause i imagine it was probably a choice made by the actors and the directors as they learned the characters. making owen more emotional (befitting the way owen's explosive emotions cause problems, like, ten times), and suzie a little less (befitting the way we later find out she's like a stone cold mastermind, albeit still a weepy one dhfkds). also, once again, torchwood inverting gender norms. owen's a bit of a crybaby on the show, but he's markedly more stoic in the scripts, particularly the chibnall ones. (notably, ghost machine and out of time are both written by women, and he cries openly in those, both in the scripts and episodes. he originally didn't cry in end of days except when jack hugs him - in the final cut, i think he cries.... at least four or five times? he spends that entire episode with tears in his eyes, lol.) i imagine that was largely a choice made by burn as he got to know the character. he was like 'hm this guy seems like he should be crying always hes just having a Time' fhdskjfds

perfect example:

it's totally different in the episode itself. there's not even an attempt to push it down. and frankly i wouldn't say owen has a cold hard exterior either, he has a.... hm. something else entirely. prickly exterior, maybe. he's not cold, he's sharp at the edges. big difference. yknow, owen was originally imagined as much more of a traditional flawed manly-man protag, so i wonder if this was elements of, like, beta owen. like originally he was meant to be like a big hunky laddish asshole with no capacity for emotion and out of time was gonna be like his first time experiencing love and pain. n then they cast burn who's physically small (i mention his size bc owen just looks so small all the time i wanna keep him in my pocket where hes safe) and looks pretty when he cries fdshfjdsjfd and they went. ok nvm owen is getting mental illness bombed + it's gonna be obvious he's already been through a Lot. also theres that 'scared little boy' thing again. they want me dead

we see that characterization elsewhere in the ep, too.

there's a callousness here that's not in the final ep. when owen scans jack he looks... hm... like he's done what he needed to do and it's over now, but i wouldn't classify it as indifference, exactly. it's more like when you've stopped crying after a rlly bad sob sesh and ur sitting there kinda shell-shocked and exhausted and empty. mixed in with some 'nevermind that; i have a mission' considering, yknow, the context of that scene.

here we have places where that scared little boy explicitly comes out

also ianto here. owie. that brokeback mountain ass clothes sniff got me when i first watched the ep fsdhfjdk im not immune. oww. owen n tosh watching was an interesting initial inclusion. again w the constant voyeurism of each other's relationships. chibnall esp seemed oriented towards that. do u think he'd support the torchwood polycule agenda.

alright, getting away from meta about owen a bit, just some more interesting notes from the ep

this whole little speech got in the episode - except 'all part of the game'. (and also him grinning, as opposed to the wry little half-smile he does.) i think that 'all part of the game' is utterly fascinating, because it paints torchwood (and jack's control over it) in a veeeery specific light that, personally, i find super intriguing. ahhh.

the scripts repeatedly mention jack being cold/emotionless and that was really important for me to see because i always saw jack as extremely callous in the show but i've never seen anyone really touch on it so i thought it was just me fhsdkfjd. and 'alien' is also djskfdsk, esp considering originally, not all fans knew if jack was actually human or not, which makes me wonder if the people working on the show weren't fully sure either. but even as a human, jack's always an alien in another sense - he's not like them. especially in that scene, when they're defying him. mmm i will think of it forever.

and one final last bit from ep12 that didn't fit in before...

i just loveeee how owen is characterized in episode 12. that's my fav ep for a reason (well, the owen & ianto half of it is). i'm most intrigued by owen when he's a wounded snarling animal, and ianto being pushed to his limit compelled me too, and i havent been the same since lolol #owento4eva

when i tell you this shit made me bark at my fucking screen,

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