Torchwood: Captain Jack's kisses...

[fajrdrako]

I was thinking about Captain Jack's kissing. Nice topic, yeah - it was a train of thought from the discussion of Captain Jack's sexuality begun on torch_wood by becky_h. While other characters, to name no names, get nice shagging scenes in Torchwood, Captain Jack gets to kiss.

And what nice kisses they are. Thanks largely to the talents of John Barrowman, those kisses are amazing. I wonder... is it because I like Captain Jack so much that I find his onscreen kisses memorable, or it something intrinsic to those kisses themselves? Something special about them? Why to I remember all Jack's kisses so well, and Owen's make no impression on me at all?

I was thinking of the scene in "Countricide" where Gwen asks the last person each of them snogged, and Jack said, "Including alien life-forms?" That's an interesting answer on several counts.

It evades the question. Jack is adept at not answering questions - often by silence, sometimes by changing a subject. In this case, he answers in a peculiarly Jack-like way; by raising a scenario that to anyone else seems a joke, or an outrageous, improbable idea, but which to Jack himself is plausible and normal. Most of us may not believe that aliens exist; the Torchwood team doesn't seem to have had much alien contact except with Weevils, or through transmitted messages; but Jack has known many and can take them for granted. So there's a contrast here of point of view. To the others he seems like a jokester, a visionary, or a tale-spinner. But it's simply a different worldview, the perspective of an intergalactic traveller and time agent that they don't share. Good characterization all around.

We don't know for sure who the last person was that Jack kissed. The last person we saw him kiss was Ianto in "Cyberwoman", but he doesn't say so and neither does Ianto. (Ah, shared and interwoven secrets already!) The last person we (and they) saw him kiss before that was Carys, in "Day One", and she was, in fact, an alien life form. I'm not counting Gwen here - she kissed him, but he didn't kiss her back.

And before that, the last person we saw him kiss was the Doctor in "The Parting of the Ways" - another alien life form of a quite different calibre.

Just a little reminder of Doctor Who/Torchwood continuity.

Jack's most significant kiss in Torchwood must also be the most highlighted - kissing the other Captain Jack. It's the thematic climax of that episode, and the climax of their relationship. All they get. And so powerful on both levels.

In both Doctor Who and Torchwood, kisses are powerful symbols and vehicles of resurrection and healing. In "The Parting of the Ways", Jack kisses the Doctor and Rose when he leaves them, believing he will not survive. The Doctor saves Rose from death by kissing her. Jack kisses Carys to give her some of his life-energy - in a golden glow. Jack's kissing Ianto in "Cyberwoman" clearly has healing intent, though that probably wasn't its only motivation. And of course at the end of "End of Days", Gwen brings Jack back from death with a kiss.

When Jack kisses Ianto at the end of "End of Days", after Gwen's kiss has revived him, it's an affirmation of life, which to Jack means love. A public statement of love, since the others don't seem to have known before this that Jack and Ianto had a romantic relationship.

I wonder who Captain Jack will kiss next.