Torchwood – Episode 9 – The Gathering

This was a somewhat appropriate, yet wholly inappropriate title, given the plot, which featured the Torchwood team finally all being under one roof, albeit very briefly, before scattering all over the globe again.  What was nice was that much of this episode did occur in Wales again – finally returning the show to its roots.

As has been the major flaw in this latest series of Torchwood, much of the episode was filler.  I’ve said before that this series has a great and interesting premise, with any number of possible avenues for exploration, all of which would make great series’ in their own right.  Sadly, RTD and the team haven’t gone down any of these avenues – they instead have turned into a cramped cul-de-sac, and spent nine weeks trying to perform a U-Turn. 

From the cliff-hanger last week, I was expecting one hell of an opening.  Jack shot, dying in the backseat of a car driven by dunderhead Esther.  Gwen deported with no way of controlling the events as they spiralled out of control around her.  Rex stuck with Shapiro, trying to explain how Esther and Jack escaped.  Oswald Danes trying to evade the police, and the vengeful wrath of Jilly.  Jilly being taken by The Families.  The Morphic field under Angelo’s bed was created using alien technology from the Torchwood hub.  So how did it start?

“Two Months Later”.

Seriously?!  There is little more annoying than a cliff-hanger that doesn’t deliver.  And this one really didn’t deliver.  Whilst we were filled in, via TV and radio news feeds, about ‘institutionalised murder’ and the like, it still felt like I’d been cheated.  I’d hoped for so much, and Torchwood delivered nothing.  Just more exposition.

The loose end involving Gwen’s father was finally tied up – he’s been kept in the basement.  In agony.  For months.  Maybe I’m heartless, but in a world where death has stopped and the only option is cremation, or incineration rather, surely that’s a better option?  If, because of the heart attack they suffered, they should rightly be dead, then that must be better than writhing around in pain, being pinned down by your nearest and dearest as a shifty rat from the council snoops around?  But all this is besides the point – it didn’t matter about Gwen’s father. It never mattered about Oswald Danes, as he has nothing to do with the Miracle or the Blessing either.  In fact, it has nothing to do with any of the earlier plot points and twists and turns that finally got us to this episode.  With only another hour of screen time, it’s surprising that about half of the episode was wasted on this minor occurrence.

In a world which has reached major economic depression – yet Gwen’s family still get their shopping delivered – and health crisis, it’s a small wonder Gwen manages most of what she does.  Whilst being watched by surely the most incompetent surveillance man ever, she manages to sneak off and do a bit of smash-and-grab akin to the London riots, to steal two pizza boxes worth of painkillers, sanitary towels and diomorphine.  What made the entire sequence even more laughable is that whilst raiding this chemist – which surely should have some better security in this age of unlimited life – she took her balaclava off.  Whilst a man was walking past outside!  Having ram-raided the shop and shot out the camera, why would she not just leave the mask on?  Of course, we as an audience needed to know it was Gwen...  but really, we could’ve just had her crying or muttering “bollocks!” (her latest slogan – I can see it catching on with the kids at school) and we’d have known it was her.  Meanwhile, the man paid to spy on her radios in that it’s fine – she just went to get pizza.  Did he not think to follow her?  What if she’d done a runner, and emigrated?  He’d have had egg all over his face then!

We then cut to Jack and Esther, who for some inexplicable reason are hiding in Scotland, muttering about a man who asks too many questions, and Esther’s solution that they’ll keep heading north.  Why?  What is the bloody point?  They’ve had two further months in which to work out the miracle, and yet they have achieved absolutely nothing.  Not one of them has achieved anything.  None of the team has come up with anything of any value.  At all.  It’s ridiculous.  They must be the most inept crime-fighting team since Inspector Gadget.  But at least Inspector Gadget had a neice who managed to help him save the day.  All this lot have is Rex.

Rex has somehow managed to climb back up the echelons of the CIA again, despite his evident involvement in the escape of the prisoners the week before.  With the mole still beating them at every turn, Rex hasn’t achieved anything either, per se – but at least he’s trying.  I never thought I’d say this, but Rex was actually the best thing about this episode.  By a mile.  He’s proactive, resourceful, and most of all, he’s thinking outside the box.  Basically, he’s become Torchwood, whilst the original Torchwood team sit around doing bugger all.  The only thing which I found annoying about Rex this week was simply that he didn’t realise that Charlotte was the mole.  She couldn’t look more guilty if she tried.

Oswald Danes, everybody’s favourite paedophile, has somehow now joined the Torchwood team too, through the most convoluted reasoning imaginable.  Despite his heinous crimes, and being the most wanted man in the world, he somehow managed to ‘sneak in’ to Britain.  Most specifically, Wales.  Just like Jack.  Again, a bit of a cop-out, but I’ll look past that.  What frustrated me was the ease with which Danes entered Gwen’s house, and, following a severe beating, the confidence with which he spoke.  If a paedophile touched my child, I sure as hell would have given him more than a few soft punches and a whack with a pan.  It turned out Danes had arrived with information that he would only impart to Jack – information which turned out to be a link between Jilly Kitzinger and the Families, via a name – ‘Harry Boscow’. 

Bill Pullman’s portrayal of Oswald Danes has grown more and more pantomime as the series has progressed, peaking with his dreadful dancing last week.  This week seemed marginally more restrained, as he gurned his way through exposition on the floor of Gwen’s family home.  The Harry Boscow lead turns out to be a spin doctor term, rather than the man it at first suggested.  Whilst the team discuss this, watching ‘Boscowed’ footage, Rhys finally makes himself useful – all series, he has been nothing but a hindrance, a big Welsh lump with little or nothing to do.  In this episode, he spots the connection between Shanghai and Buenos Aires – despite the geographical implausibility, he spots that they are exactly opposite each other.  Frankly, it was incredibly useful that he had been playing with a globe, or the team never would have gotten anywhere.  My issue with Danes is that what we saw on screen was his the making of this pariah – and his fall from such a height has been entirely off-screen during these unaired two months.  There’s only one possible reason for having included him in the series at all – which I’ll mention in a moment.

And so, it is this discovery that sees our merry band of fools split up and traverse the globe – Rex met up with Esther in Buenos Aires, whilst Jack and Gwen begrudgingly team up with Danes in Shanghai.  Also in Shanghai is Jilly – Jilly Kitzinger’s storyline has now almost come full circle – after two months of working mistranslating data, she finally gets the promotion she had been expecting, and is shuttled off to Shanghai, despite the closed borders, to see The Blessing.  Lauren Ambrose has been the most involved character from outside of the original Torchwood clique, as well as the most interesting, and her scene in which she approached the Blessing was brilliant, as she smiled to herself and muttered that it told her she was “right...!”

And yes, we finally got to see the Blessing.  Which is good.  And it looked like a gigantic vagina.  Which is bad.

This week’s episode was good, though.  I think.  I still can’t quite make my mind up – there are so many holes in the plot that it’s difficult to look beyond them, but underneath the tarnished veneer there is definitely some shining beacon.  The most depressing thing is that this episode was penned by John Fay – the man responsible for two episodes of Children of Earth – one cannot help but wonder where it all went wrong.  This series of Torchwood had ten episodes – which could have been cut to half that – in which to keep the action tumbling along.  However, with so much filler, and no killer, it has felt stilted at all times, with important plot points rushed through, and time wasted on MacGuffins left, right and centre.

All in all, it entertained, but there is still so much left undone, and unsaid.  Jack’s blood is drawn towards the Blessing, despite his protestations that it has nothing to do with it.  Danes is with them in Shanghai, so my guess is that he’ll ‘redeem’ himself by stepping into the Blessing, with Jack’s blood held in his hands, to bring it to an end.  And what exactly will happen when the Blessing ends?  Will the dead just drop in the streets where they stand?  Will Rex die?  What about Geraint Cooper, Gwen’s father? (Not that I really care about him either way)  Will the Soulless reappear?  Will there be another Miracle rally?  Will the Dead is Dead squad do anything exciting?  These last three points are several of the interesting ideas mentioned early on and unused since.  There are so many loose ends that it’s difficult to figure out whether the final episode can provide an adequate conclusion to them all – it’s only an hour, after all.  Added to this the fact that RTD penned the episode himself, with Jane Espenson, and it is likely to be quite the explosive finale to this tumultuous series which has sadly had more troughs than peaks.

Torchwood – Episode 8 – End of the Road

It’s a Miracle!  A Blessing! Torchwood has finally begun to get somewhere, 8 episodes into its 10 episode run.  And it was actually quite good.  Whilst I try, on these blogs, to be as impartial as I can, my Torchwood blogs have been filled with disdain as, other than episodes 5 and 7, they have for the most part been formulaic in their approach, looking at only the surface of the situation, and not delving into the nitty-gritty as I’d hoped they would.  This week, however, everything was ramped up a notch, and it made some pretty good television.

Nana Visitor’s character, Olivia Colasanti, last week promised “I can take you to the one man who knows how the Miracle began...  Angelo,” and that was the hook not only for Jack to go willingly, but for the audience to continue watching.  Much has been made of this new series not progressing, and reviewers, bloggers, and fan-sites on Facebook have been filled with riled viewers – myself included – claiming that for too long now, Macguffin after Macguffin have been dealt to us, with distractions thrown in for good measure, whilst the Torchwood team potter around, not actually achieving anything.  Terminology like “The Soulless” and “Dead is Dead!” have been bandied around, with nothing coming to any kind of conclusion.  Another of these phrases with was thrown out there was morphic field.

Jack first mentioned morphic fields back in episode 2, on the plane.  It was then touched upon in episode 3, and has since been forgotten about.  But finally, in this episode, we are informed that Captain Jack was right all along!  It is a morphic field that’s responsible, at least in part, for the Miracle.  The discovery of the morphic field below Angelo Collasanti’s bed provided the crux of this episode, allowing the team to get a better understanding of what they are dealing with – but only vaguely.  And this is where I start to pick holes – Jack has, until this series, never been so bloody useless.  Even in Children of Earth, Jack had some clue – it took a very brief flashback, and he knew exactly what he was dealing with.  Yet here, in Miracle Day, he continues to wander about aimlessly with little or no clue as to what he needs to do.  The best he can come up with is to take part of the morphic field... and leave.

Angelo’s granddaughter, Olivia, informed us that Angelo was the one man who knew how the Miracle began – which is a lie.  A gigantic plain-faced lie.  Olivia spouts some nice exposition about jellyfish, and their ability to regenerate eternally, tells Jack that Angelo was watching him for years, and points out the ‘families’ who we saw last week, and that every single person watching had figured out were responsible.  But that’s all.  She doesn’t mention morphic fields, or alien technology, or anything else.  And that, to me, feels like a massive cheat.  We all knew that it was the families, despite the teaser at the end of the last episode which suggested Angelo was really responsible.  By turning that on its head so soon, it feels like Torchwood is doing a great disservice to the fans who have so far invested eight hours into watching the new series.  Along with all of the other empty plots and dead ends, we’re now being lied to directly.

When Jack says his goodbyes to Angelo, it should be a sweet scene.  It should be.  Instead, it feels like Jack, as always, is simply a gloating gay guy boasting about his conquests.  The mention of Ianto made my skin crawl.  And then Angelo dies.  In a world where that should be impossible.  Watching Jack screaming at heart monitors and IV drips was verging on ludicrous.  Barrowman hammed it up to the best of his ability, but it was ultimately an unbelievable scene which came to nothing.  His tender kiss goodbye to the “old man” was the one gentle touch of this scene – and what seems to have ultimately led to Angelo’s death.  Following the reveal of the morphic field below his bed, my idea is that, by entering the morphic field, Jack returned to his immortal state whilst Angelo was able to resume his mortality and fritter away into the ether.  This would also help to explain Jack’s apparent absence in next week’s episode, going by the teaser trailer.  With the alpha plate in his pocket, will this increase his longevity again, ensuring that whilst he has sustained a life-threatening gunshot wound to the stomach, he will die, as he always does, before coming back to life?  Also, the guy in the balaclava shooting at the CCTV cameras next week...?  I reckon that’s Jack...

The guest cast list is impressive, as I’ve stated before, but it does at times hinder the progress of the story – enlisting Nana Visitor last week, Wayne Knight at the beginning and reappearing here, and now John De Lancie is like a who’s who in Sci-Fi.  But the characters are such pointless additions to the story that two of the three were killed off near the head of the episode – by killing off Visitor’s Olivia moments before Angelo died, it ensures that we will be getting nothing more in the way of information from the Colasantis.  Similarly, following the reveal that Knight’s Friedkin was a mole for the Families, whilst working for the CIA, you can’t help but think that they’d have kept a better eye on him, rather than letting him blow himself up like that.  Also, why did he wait until he was in the car?  He could have detonated the explosives in Colasanti’s bedroom and gotten rid of ‘those pesky meddling kids’...  I mean, the Torchwood team.

John De Lancie was something of a revelation though.  He clearly relished the role, and stole every scene he was in, with a gusto that was beyond impressive.  He was all bravado, shouting orders, decommissioning Torchwood and deporting Gwen at the click of his fingers.  I loved the deportation of Gwen most of all – simply because she annoyed him.  He threatened to do it, but was dissuaded, and then did it anyway – fantastic! 

The stand-out performance from De Lancie only further shows the weaknesses of our main cast, however.  Eve Myles’ Gwen did nothing but bluster, say “bollocks!” and cry.  A lot.  Myles, last week, was brilliant with a very under-stated performance – although again she did cry an awful lot.  In episode 8, though, she was redundant.  Sat in the wings for most of the story, and then bundled off by the CIA for being an annoying Welsh girl, seemed apt for this new side to the character that we were forced to endure for her thirty minutes of screen time.

Rex and Esther continue with the ‘dumb and dumber’ routine, although this week at least we got to see a slightly more human side to Rex – rather than the utter tool he has been for the last few weeks, we can now understand that his bravado is a mask to cover the fear he feels about his impending death, once the Miracle stops.  Esther, however, has become even more irritating and dislikeable.  She gave away the morphic field under the bed, and spent more time on the phone talking to her crazy sister...  and I just couldn’t have cared less.  The characterisation of Esther has been so generally sloppy that it’s difficult to give two hoots about her, or her sister, or her nieces. 

Speaking of ridiculous things, the negated space around the morphic field in Angelo’s house was a ridiculous waste of time – how could CIA operatives, watching Captain Jack and co under house arrest, not have noticed their muted gabbling, made even more conspicuous by Rex the Tool wandering away while Esther mouthed numbers at them?  While the three conversed within the null field, where sound could not escape, and chatted for about five minutes whilst making themselves “look busy” was beyond me, and truly did stretch my credulity to breaking point!  It was adding insult to injury that the two CIA men also didn’t notice – and then the Director of the CIA walked in, and also didn’t notice anything – and these people think they can solve the problems of Miracle Day without Torchwood?!

It was nice to see Bill Pullman and Lauren Ambrose return to the screens this week.  They have been a noticeable absence for the last two episodes, and I, for one, have sorely missed them.  Whilst they certainly haven’t been integral to the plot up to now, they have made a nice relief, and there have been some genuinely unsettling moments.  This episode was no different, as we first had to endure Oswald’s horrendous and bile-inducing dancing, and then he informed Jilly that he wants ‘a girl’.  When he looked her up and down, informing her that he wanted one of legal age, with red hair, my toes curled – as did Jilly’s, judging by the expression on her face.  Ambrose’s has been a restrained performance from the start, barely concealing her disgust at her ‘client’.  What did go some way to undermine this performance was that she willingly signed up to work for ‘The Families’ after she saw her intern, a CIA mole in reality, shot three times by the handsome stranger from the Miracle Rally.  Whilst I understand that she is eager to further herself in the world of PR, following a murderer, however gorgeous he may be, seems a little false to me.

Pullman’s performance was creepy, yet with a gentleness that, worryingly, made me feel for him.  Of course, I am not justifying his actions, but this man genuinely seems eager to find some redemption.  He is disgusting, and a criminal, but his conversation with the red-headed lady of the night was quite moving.  When he discovered that the government were putting through legislation to create a new category, Category Zero, which meant that criminals who should be dead would be cremated in the gigantic ovens first seen in episode 5, the rage was palpable, as he rooted through Jilly’s belongings before punching her square in the face.  What a guy.

Other side-plots involve the emergence of yet another mole in the CIA – conveniently, since their other mole died at the beginning of the episode – and more mystery surrounding a morphic field large enough to encapsulate the entire planet.  Added to this is the suggestion that Jack’s blood is somehow involved – an idea that I postulated upon last week, as I’m sure many fans did, but one which has been pooh-poohed by Jack himself.

So, with only two episodes, and still so much to discover about the Families responsible, the purpose of the alien technology recovered from the destroyed Torchwood hub in Children of Earth, and Gwen’s relocation to Wales for next week’s episode involving a mysterious man looking through cellars with a torch, searching for her father, we’re sure to have an action-packed penultimate episode.  I only hope it keeps up the momentum achieved by this week’s episode, and delivers some answers to the questions which it keeps throwing at us.  As Rhys said: “Where’s it all heading?”  Well, Rhys, we’ll soon see...

Torchwood – Episode 7 – Immortal Sins

This week’s episode saw the series return to its roots, of a fashion.  Whilst previous episodes in this, so far, average-at-best story have been very flashy, set-piece driven tosh, this instalment relied heavily on exposition.  And it was actually quite good.

Kudos must go to Jane Espenson for her script, which allowed a great deal of characterisation for Jack and Gwen, as well as new arrival Angelo.  Her background as script editor on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Battlestar Gallactica is evident in the scripts that she has provided so far for Torchwood.  Much like Buffy frequently managed to pull off convincingly, this latest episode used the convention of flashbacks to great effect. 

My biggest gripe about this latest episode is not much of a gripe, all told.  I was frustrated that, 6 episodes in, the plot made minimal movement towards the end-game.  Whilst, for the last few episodes, we have been led to believe that everything up to now has been lies, and red herrings, it would therefore be natural to expect that the final few episodes would begin to work towards coming to a conclusion.  Instead, it is a brave step that the series takes – a step back to 1927 and 1928, providing some character background that will fill some of the blanks eventually.  Having said that, there seemed to be a whole hour of exposition to lead up to the discovery that Angelo is somehow involved.  That’s an awfully long time to fill with little information of any use to the fans.  But it was still quite entertaining.

There has been an awful lot of fuss made on fan sites and blogs regarding the gay sex content of this episode.  Many claim that those complaining about it are homophobic, and that the gay sex is ‘what the show is about’.  Here, I couldn’t disagree more.  These fans claim the show has always been about sex, and that’s what makes Torchwood Torchwood.  Again, this is wrong.  The show was always about strong characterisation, alien technology, the rift running through Cardiff... hell, it’s always been about Cardiff!  The sex was never gratuitous, whether it be with man, woman or vegetable.  Yet here, the ‘sex talk’ scene went on for far too long, and the actual sex was needless.  It didn’t contribute to the storyline.  It didn’t add anything.  It was simply sex for the sake of sex, taking advantage of the fact that it was on after the watershed.  And no, I’m not homophobic – I’m homosexual.  And still, I didn’t appreciate it.  Fangirls everywhere probably damn-near exploded with glee at the sight of John Barrowman’s sagging rear end, but for me, it just made me cringe.  It was nice that Jack at least faintly acknowledged his omnisexual status in this episode, by admiring the Amy Winehouse look-a-like smoking on the balcony opposite, and talking to Gwen about children he may have.  But still, the show has moved away from its roots, not allowing Jack to screw anything and everything that moves.

Having said all that, the scenes in the flashbacks were well-handled and well-directed, and it was nice to see Jack at the forefront of the story again.  Whilst it is a little too neat for my liking, once again having Jack responsible for what’s happening (as in the superior Children of Earth storyline), the performance of Angelo Colasanti was brilliant, and added a much-needed touch of humanity.  His character was a welcoming well-rounded addition, as he coped with his faith and his carnal desires.  The references made to the Doctor were pleasing for the fan in me, and it was quite a sweet twist that we saw Jack so vulnerable, and so desperately craving the companionship that the Doctor uses as a tool to survive.  I’ve said before that I do not consider Jack to be the main character of Torchwood, preferring to see it as an interesting ensemble piece that simply rotates around his character.  Up until now, by emasculating him and reserving him to the background, a bit-player in the story, the show lost a great deal of its original appeal.  By bringing him back to the fore, as much as I hate to admit it, it has returned the heart of Torchwood to its rightful place.  Other references to the Doctor Who universe were the discussions about the Trickster’s Brigade, which again made me smile.

Angelo Colasanti, played with flair by Daniele Favilli, was a fascinating addition to the Torchwood universe.  His name literally translates as Angel Saint-Pourer, which again could add to the meaning of the Miracle in some way.  The flashbacks were particularly interesting in that, rather than focussing on the story but not giving us any red herrings, it allowed the series to move on – ironically, given that at least 45 minutes of the episode were all filler.  Whilst I am still waiting for some answers, which I had expected of a show with only three instalments left, it was pleasant that we weren’t force fed more false ends, focussing instead on exposition and character progression.

The scenes in the car between Jack and Gwen were first rate, albeit a little alarming –Whilst Gwen’s announcement that she would stand by and watch someone kill Jack to get her family back were fair considering the circumstances, Jack’s confession to Gwen that he would ‘rip the skin from your  scalp’ was a little extreme, but again, considering the circumstances, it is understandable – this is a man that has come to terms with eternal life, whether he likes it or not, and to have a murder forced upon him when he is so under-prepared for the idea of death would surely be quite a terrifying proposition.  Also, a little side note here – where the hell’s Gwen’s father, after they went to all that trouble to rescue him over the last two weeks?  It was refreshing, as I’ve said, not to rely too heavily on Rex and Esther this week.  Their characters haven’t, up until now, added a great deal to the proceedings, rather just adding more distractions from the main motivation of the plot. 

The religious iconography throughout the episode was a tad strange – at times, it seemed that the producers were trying to make Jack into the new Jesus;  the whipping and beating from his ‘followers’, the bathing of the feet, as well as the obvious Jack/Jesus trademark of rising from the dead.  I just hope and pray that the Miracle doesn’t turn out to be related to the blood that the fanatics began to collect into vials and jars as it poured from his wounds.  The scenes of torture were reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic epic The Passion of the Christ, and were horrifically graphic.

The ‘twist’ at the end was a little predictable, having focussed so much on Angelo throughout, but I am still expecting the trio of businessmen to play a more substantial part too – possibly ‘bankrolling’ Angelo’s scheme?  Their handshake, crossing wrists to create a triangle, was a clear link to the rotating triangle used in communications with the ‘bad guys’ from earlier in the series.  As such, it would be a slight red herring if they weren’t involved somehow.  A slight issue I have is that Angelo appeared late in the day – again reinforcing that Torchwood have been leading us down the garden path with every other detail up until now.

Another nice inclusion for the geek in me was the appearance of Nana Visitor, Kira from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  An excellent actress, she was slightly underused this week, but I’m sure we’ll see more of her next week.  My issue with Visitor as the voice of Angelo is that, after the newest members of Torchwood save the day, she informs Jack that he’ll come with her anyway – if that’s true (and it almost certainly is) then why bother going through the hassle of kidnapping Jack anyway?  Why not simply call him and ask him to come, or send the message to Gwen to pass on to him?  Also next week is the return of the ever brilliant Wayne Knight, of Third Rock from the Sun, as the shady CIA boss, and the appearance of the incredible John De Lancie, Q from Star Treks The Next Generation,DS9, and Voyager.  The three together next week will be fascinating to watch, and show that the show is finally beginning to return to its Sci-Fi roots.  Speaking of Sci-Fi, this week’s episode finally saw the appearance of an alien – hurrah!  Admittedly, the creature played no part in the overall story, but still it was a first for this Sci-Fi show, 7 episodes in.  Again, the geek in me did a little dance of joy when the creature appeared – it was the spitting image of the Goa’uld symbiote from Stargate: SG1. 

 

Another slight loophole in the story this week was the costume choices – specifically, the fact that Jack was wearing ‘that coat’ again.  Last week, I discussed the fact that the coat was now his ultimate pulling tool, relying on that to get his end away.  This week, despite it being an impossibility with regards to timeframes and continuity, he was wearing the World War II army surplus jacket, and once more managed to grab a man whilst wearing it.  If I remember correctly, he acquired the surplus jacket when he lived through the Second World War, which in 1927 he won’t have done yet.  Still, that’s picking holes in an otherwise very strong episode.

For the second week in a row, we had no sidelined story involving Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger, which I did miss somewhat – whilst they are not clearly adding anything to the plot, they do provide nice distractions, as both characters are excellent.  Judging from the ‘next time’ trailer at the end, both characters will be returning to the fore next week, with even more gut-churning scenes, one of which involves our paedophile ‘hero’ requesting a young girl, and smacking a prostitute – presumably because she’s too old for his tastes. 

So, next week we should find out more about The Blessing, The Miracle, Angelo, Oswald Danes...? I hope so.  I really, really do.