Relationship Spotlight: Captain Jack Harkness & Ianto Jones (Torchwood)

I’ve talked before about my frustrations with Torchwood.  While I pretty much always come down on the side of enjoying it, it’s a show I sometimes seem to enjoy despite itself, and I only rarely feel it lives up to the potential of all it could be.  I feel much the same way about Jack and Ianto – I like them, and John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd consistently bring it, but I usually can’t shake the feeling that they could be a lot more (some Jack/Ianto-related spoilers.)

On the face of it, Jack and Ianto make for a solid quasi-odd-couple pairing.  Jack is a cheeky, swashbuckling former Time Agent with a mysterious past, while Ianto is a frequently-underestimated man of few words with hidden depths.  Looking at them, they’re both very different people, and we particularly see that playing out in season 2 on, once they’re romantic relationship is out in the open.  While Jack is never one to leave any innuendo unturned, Ianto is much more private, and he can grow noticeably shy when Jack is less-than-demure about their sex life.  Similarly, in the field, Ianto is more likely to strategize while Jack is more likely to throw himself into things – not that Ianto is never reckless and Jack is never thoughtful (and the fact that helps that Jack doesn’t stay dead when he dies gives him much more leeway to take chances,) but those are the general ways they tend.

They’re also a couple in which there are a few different power imbalances at play.  The biggest is Jack’s functional immortality, a condition Ianto doesn’t share.  Not only does Jack have more than a century’s worth of life experience on Ianto (including enough former boyfriends and girlfriends to probably make Ianto’s head spin,) Ianto additionally has to deal with knowing that, no matter how long he lives, Jack will far outlive him and pretty undoubtedly grow to forget him entirely in the end.  It’s something Jack seems to like to ignore in their relationship, but it definitely weighs on Ianto’s mind from time to time.  Then there’s Jack being Ianto’s boss (I’m sure Jack has always been an HR nightmare,) although once they get together, they both seem able to handle the overlap between their professional and personal relationships without any big issues.  There’s also the small matter of the fact that Ianto cajoled his way into Torchwood Cardiff in the first place so he could use their resources to keep his half-converted Cyber-girlfriend alive in the basement – oh, and when her programming took over and she laid siege to the Hub, Jack was the one who killed her.  Surprisingly, though, this development doesn’t seem to present any stumbling block to their starting a sexual relationship, at least not that we see.

This is my biggest struggle with Jack and Ianto, everything we don’t see with the two of them.  We only rarely see Ianto working up the courage to talk to Jack about his immortality concerns, their work/romantic relationship appears seamless, and we don’t even know how they got from Ianto raging at Jack over killing Lisa to arranging kinky rendezvous after hours.  Even apart from the extreme ends of that range, consider this:  Jack is the show’s male lead and Ianto is his main love interest, and we don’t even know how they got together.

While I pretty much always like what we get – Jack’s confident flirtations, Ianto’s subtle overtures, their private moments of emotional honesty – so much of this onscreen romance exists in tidbits, throwaway lines or reaction shots with few actual stories about their relationship.  This makes their rare scenes of more intense drama – tearful declarations and whatnot – feel kind of unearned, because so much of the building blocks for how they got there have been left unshown.  It’s an odd technique that I feel pretty much has to be rooted in homophobia/censorship (despite Torchwood being touted as a sexy sci-fi spin-off for the famously-omnisexual Captain Jack,) because otherwise why would you depict what ought to be your central romance in this way?

Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments: Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who / Torchwood)

Jack has two shows to contend with, so there’s a lot of potential for Big Damn Hero moments.  Of course, given Jack’s condition post-“The Parting of the Ways,” risks of derring do don’t carry quite the same risk, so I’ve got a mix of different stuff here in the interest of variety (spoilers.)

Disposing of the Bomb (Doctor Who:  Series 1, Episode 10 – “The Doctor Dances”)

Not that this post is entirely without “Jack sacrifices himself for…” moments, because he wasn’t always immortal.  This is a nice, lowkey scene that I just love.  Jack finds himself with a German bomb on his spaceship with no way to jettison or defuse it, having agreed to dispose of it for the Doctor and Rose.  After a (very) brief freakout, he takes a breath, accepts that there’s no way out, and calmly gets himself a drink.  Now that’s style!

Staring Down Daleks (Doctor Who:  Series 1, Episode 13 – “The Parting of the Ways”)

Okay, one more “Jack sacrifices himself for…” scene, but again, it’s not so much the fact of it as it is how he does it.  Jack has been leading the charge to engage the Daleks to buy the Doctor the time he needs, and he’s now the last man standing.  Backed into a corner with multiple Daleks coming at him, he empties every weapon he has before squaring his shoulders, looking them right in the eyestalks, and throwing off a cocky rejoinder as he’s about to be exterminated.

Realizing Mary’s Game (Torchwood:  Series 1, Episode 7 – “Greeks Bearing Gifts”)

Good last-minute save from Jack here.  Mary is about to make her escape – she wants to take Tosh with her, she’s prepared to kill Gwen to do it, and no one knows what to do.  Enter Captain Jack, who’s anticipated Mary and manages to totally play her, reprogramming her own transporter to use against her.  Not bad.

Removing the Engine Clamps (Doctor Who:  Series 3, Episode 11 – “Utopia”)

The rocket to Utopia can’t take off without removing the engine clamps, but thanks to sabotage, no one can enter the room where they’re being housed and live.  Naturally, Jack volunteers.  It’s not so much the inherent danger here – although, immortal or not, spending multiple minutes in a room flooded with radiation has to suck – as it is the larger scene.  As Jack removes the clamps and presumably feels the wildly-unpleasant effects of the radiation, he confronts the Doctor about why he was left on the Game Station, and the two men have a heart-to-heart about Jack’s immortality.  I like that, regardless of how he feels about the Doctor, Jack doesn’t let him off the hook for what he did.

Confronting PhiCorp (Torchwood:  Series 4, Episode 6 – “The Middle Men”)

A fairly simple one, but I like it.  Getting a private sitdown with a powerful executive by first flirting with his secretary, then priming her for a little “Hell hath no fury” and getting her to help with a con just feels like vintage Jack, and even though he doesn’t get too much useful information out of the whole thing, I still like to watch him pull it off.

A Few Notes on Omnisexuality in Doctor Who and Torchwood

One of Captain Jack Harkness’s most well-known traits is his 51^st-century “flexibility.”  More so than his temporal displacement, past as a time agent, or fixed-moment status, the top adjective affixed to Jack is “omnisexual.”  Which is fine – it sets Jack apart from most leading men on genre shows, and it serves as good commentary on the passage of time.  What once was unspeakably scandalous is, in Jack’s time, commonplace.  (One Torchwood relationship spoiler.)

I love Who’s handling of Jack’s sexuality, an ever-present trait that informs his character without overwhelming it.  His easy joie de vivre is a big part of his appeal, and while Rose is at first surprised by his interest in both men and woman and taken aback by the 51^st century’s “so many species, so little time” philosophy, his affable sexual openness soon becomes just part of who he is.  He loves/flirts inclusively and with relish – he cheerily celebrates beauty anywhere his near-inexhaustible radar finds it.  For me, the most encapsulating example of Jack’s orientation is in “Bad Wolf,” where he cops a feel off a lady robot.  Not a flesh-model-Cylon type played by an attractive thespian, not a blatantly non-human robot.  Jack is into that, and it’s fine; it’s Jack.

Also, it’s not stated outright, but I like the idea that Jack is non-monogamous and loving.  He’s in love with both Rose and the Doctor, and I’m pretty sure that in his ideal world, all three would be in a relationship with each other.  His affection for both of them doesn’t stop him flirting with anyone else, though, and I don’t think that lessens his feelings for either of them.  Simply put, he’s from 3,000 years in the future, and people don’t think like that anymore.  (That said, when in relationships with 21^st-century humans like Ianto, I don’t imagine he wanders.  My fanwank is that it would be like if a woman from 2015 stranded in the 1800s married a man there; she doesn’t view her ankles as an indecent part of her body, but out of respect for her husband’s perspective, she’s not going to go around showing them off.)

On Torchwood, Jack’s sexuality feels much simpler.  Partly, it’s that Jack is in a monogamous relationship for most of the show, which reduces his equal-opportunity flirting instincts.  There are a few signs of past relationships – info on a few women and an extended flashback with a man.  Other than that, we mainly get brief, cheeky mentions of old boyfriends, a bit of innuendo in random encounters, and a naughty joke about aliens.  Jack’s diverse cornucopia of attractions winnows down to basically bi, mostly emphasizing male partners.  At the start of the series, Jack’s colleagues don’t even know what his orientation is, gossiping about whether he’s gay or straight (only Tosh suggests a non-binary alternative) – since Rose knew Jack for, at most, a few hours before realizing, it’s weird that his team has worked with him for years and don’t know.

There’s not one scene of Jack flirting intel out of an alien informant or distracting an alien guard with his roguish charm, which, prior to watching Torchwood, is a big part of why I assumed it existed.  But really, there are only two times when Jack feels properly omnisexual here.  I love the scene in “Meat” where he flirts outrageously with Rhys’s secretary, who’s about 40 and a little heavy – no criticism of her, but in TV terms, it’s a fairly clear indication that Jack has wider sexual tastes than most.  And “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” with fellow 51^st-century boy Captain John Hart, is a strong dose of “finally!”  Much of it comes from John rather than Jack himself, but when the two former time agents are together, you see how novel their sensibilities are.  It’s tons of fun, and one of the few times it feels like Torchwood actually captures Jack’s orientation.

Favorite Characters: Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who / Torchwood)

 

*Disclaimer: Shortly after the Noel Clarke allegations were coming out, stories were reemerging about John Barrowman. I remember reading about some of them back when I was first getting into Doctor Who and Torchwood and, unfortunately, my reaction was the same as a lot of fans’: not exactly, “Oh John, that loveable prankster!” but not properly upset. While these allegations are obviously different than the ones against Clarke and seem to stem from a very different motivation, they still fall on the spectrum of unacceptable behavior/language/attitudes that fuel the wider landscape of rape culture. That’s not something that people should ever have to deal with in their workplace.*

 

 

Jack!  I may have some periodic issues with the good captain on Torchwood (as I do with most everything on Torchwood,) but the Jack we meet on Who is an utter delight and a fantastic addition to the series 1 TARDIS crew.  Any quibbles I have with Jack on Torchwood tend to vanish as soon as he returns to the mother show.  While I’ll touch on Torchwood a little in today’s post, it’s Who’s version of Jack that I really want to celebrate.

In hindsight, I suppose Jack fits Moffat’s cool-supporting-character template.  Like River and Vastra, he’s a techie badass with a come-hither attitude who’s comfortable with time-hopping, has an intriguing backstory (with hints of darkness) whose surface is barely scratched, and tends toward quippy dialogue and action poses.  (Come to think of it, if you take out the sci-fi bits, that fits Irene Adler pretty well, too.  Moffat definitely has a type.)  I don’t really tire of Jack on Who, though, while River and Vastra (and Irene) can sometimes be a little “too much” for me.  I’m not sure why that is.  Is it because Jack has had more writers behind him, evening out his larger-than-life edges?  Did he have the good fortune to arrive on the show before I started to experience intriguing sexy badass fatigue?  Is it because he’s male, or because Moffat’s penchant for writing these characters as female sometimes makes it feel like he only writes one kind of woman?

Whatever the reason, Jack completely works for me on Who.  A 51^st-century time agent turned conman, the Doctor and Rose meet him working a job in the middle of the London blitz.  He’s roguish, deceptively charming, and self-confident to the point of vain, and he first tries to pull a fast one over on our heroes and later willfully ignores his part in the bad stuff going down – not your typical companion, right?  However, Jack is more than he appears; his past isn’t all breezy heists and partying, and he steps up to the plate in the end.  Though Rose feels he’s earned his place on the TARDIS, the Doctor isn’t so quick to be sure.  When Jack makes the usual remark about the TARDIS being bigger on the inside, the Doctor tells him, “You’d better be.”

And really, he is.  When it comes down to it, Jack is all about life, and that’s what he brings to the show.  He’s more shoot-first than the Doctor likes, but he’s also brave and dedicated – he comes back for those left behind, and in the face of death, he squares his shoulders and orders a drink.  Traveling with the Doctor satisfies his adrenaline-junkie rush, and he throws himself wholeheartedly into his new, less destructive way of life.  He gushes over flashy alien tech, his default setting is take-charge, and he has the best “pursued by aliens while naked” stories.  His omnisexuality can be a bit of a joke (when he flashes that smile and introduces himself, you can practically hear the show saying, “Here we go again!”), but I think it’s ultimately affectionate.  Jack loves/desires/beds the same way he does everything:  with 100% commitment.

This is what I think Torchwood doesn’t get.  It’s true that, by the time we get to Torchwood, a lot more crap has happened to him, but it still feels like that show works too hard to make him a “dark brooding hero,” and the flirty cheekiness is just a perfunctory nod to continuity between angsty backstory and present-day “someone has to make the hard calls” moments.  If the show is saying that this is the natural progression of Jack’s experiences, then I’d say it’s a road it shouldn’t have gone down.  Dark brooding heroes are everywhere, and Jack is a more novel character without all that baggage, as evidenced by his reappearances on Who in series 3 and 4, which feel like returns to form and breaths of fresh air after the Drama! on Torchwood.