Quick Take: Torchwood, "Miracle Day: The Gathering"
Jilly's right, and the world is so very wrong.
Review: Torchwood, "Miracle Day: The Gathering"
(S0409) Let me introduce you to a man, a man by the name of John Fay. Why was Torchwood: Children of Earth so damn good? Two out of five episodes were written by, that's right, John Fay. And why was this week's episode of Torchwood so structured, so moving, and so satisfying? Again, John Fay.
I'd like to tell you about a woman as well, a woman as integral to this week's orgasm of narrative as John Fay. Her name: Lucy Statton Meredith, formerly known as Jilly Kitzinger.
Jilly started the season as a simple publicist for PhiCorp. Particularly good at her job, yes, but showing any sign of cosmic talent? No. Really, Jilly seemed to be at the right place at the right time to find Oswald Danes, didn't she? Just lucky, I guess.
But as the season progressed, Jilly proved herself very capable of managing the unhinged martyr and pop icon. Apparently, her performance was so good that the powers that be noticed. Even as Oswald fled into the night, Jilly was getting promoted by the Families, leaving us to wonder whether meeting Oswald Danes was really luck after all.
Is it possible that whatever the Blessing is (aside from a sentient hole that goes right through the center of the planet, which, by the way—OMG), and however the Blessing provides the Families with their power, that these two important pieces of the dramatic puzzle were lead together on Miracle Day?
Like Jilly's told in this week's episode, she is a genius storyteller and the Families want her skill. Would not the storytellers already in their employ be capable of leading Jilly into perhaps the most profound internship of her life as the narrator of Oswald Danes rise and fall? Was such an example of her sheer creative power not perhaps necessary before she came face to face with the Blessing? Was such an experience as the guiding influence to the modern day Jesus quite possibly the only way to stave off insanity when faced with the end of reason that is the Blessing?
When Jilly stares deep into the abyss, deep into the crevice which so many before her could not bear to live with the knowledge of, she laughs, her particular revelation that, "I'm right!" confirming to us that Jilly is in fact the storyteller the Families think she is and that her induction, while a marked danger for Captain Jack and his team, is an overwhelming and inexcludable win for the Families and their goals—whatever those goals may be.
How much of the narrative this far has been guided by the Families' other storytellers? The godlike power to create a Miracle and to cover the tracks that lead to it indicates that just about anything we've witnessed so far can be the design of these Blessed individuals. Was perhaps our protagonists' entire journey, full of pain and loss, all guided by the Families? Is Jack's inevitable progress to the Blessing itself perhaps not their fear, but their desire?
Finally, what will the Families' greatest storyteller, Jilly Kitzinger, do now that she's been brought into the fold?
I can't wait until next week to find out.
Kitzinger, not Kissinger
PhiCorp, not PhiCore!
You're very right. Clearly I should've been more careful.
"Exactly what the doctor ordered" is that in reference to a Doctor who crossover with this? I didn't see it mentioned in the article, but I could have missed it.
I definitely am referencing the Doctor, though I was speaking of the prescription I wrote in last week's article for what needed to happen this week in order for viewers to remain satisfied with the few weeks that the show floundered this season.