(Meta) 2x05 Adam

[lullabelle]

Mini-meta about memory displacement in episode 2x05 Adam. I'm pretty sure this all sounded smarter in my head.

I make some points about Jack and Ianto's relationship here that were made, better, by someone else first. For a good, detailed play-by-play of the Jack/Ianto relationship in Adam check out nikki4noo's awesome picspam post here.

Okay, so Adam is a creepy alien thingymajigger who constitutes his existence by feeding himself into other peoples' memories via touch. You think, therefore he is. When he feeds himself in, he displaces your genuine memories to make room for himself.




Hi, I'm Adam, and I'm funny-looking.

I spent a long time trying to suss out the exact changes that happened in the group. I think I've finally put my finger on it. (I had a total AHA! moment at work, and everyone looked at me funny, and I was too embarrassed to even explain my geektastic epiphany.)

But here's what I figured: I don't think Adam displaces your memories, per se. He does, but that's more of a side effect. He displaces people. Specifically, people who are most important to you.

Gwen is the obvious one. When Adam feeds himself in, Gwen loses her memory of Rhys. She's the only team member that the rest of the team recognizes as something being wrong with, since her alteration isn't internalized (in the cases of Owen and Tosh) or balanced by a corresponding change in the person who was forgotten (Jack and Ianto). Gwen is a little different in that she's forgotten Rhys entirely, whereas the rest of the team forget the true natures of their interpersonal relationships. Gwen, like Jack, changes very little in terms of her core personality -- this shows that she's independent, and I like the fact that her identity does not hinge on her relationship with Rhys. In this instance, she comes off as the person the writers want us to think she is.

Tosh forgets her love for Owen. She becomes more confidant, dresses more provocatively, and has a relationship with Adam. She's actually kind of mean.


Mean Tosh.

Owen forgets the person most important to him -- Owen. He loses his self-confidence, his swagger, becomes nerdy, prudish, and pines after Tosh. He becomes a different person -- there is virtually nothing left of the Owen we know and love to shoot.


Nerdy Owen.

There's also a kind of role reversal between Tosh and Owen, but I prefer to think of it as incidental, because if you look at them as a simple personality switch, it's pretty ugly. For one, it's obviously exaggerated, which may be purposeful, but if it is then it's not funny enough to not suck. Owen is spectacularly pathetic, and Tosh is, again, mean. There's one difference between altered!Tosh and original flavor Owen that irks me. Owen is a shameless womanizer. He sleep around. A lot. And will probably tell you about it. It's a point of pride for him. Don't get me wrong -- this is totally dysfunctional. But Tosh, through Adam's manipulation, is in a relationship with Adam, which is something Tosh, in her unaltered state, desperately wants -- a relationship, albeit with Owen. Adam is her point of pride. This isn't so much a change in her desires as much as it is Tosh attaining something she's always wanted. The idea that a relationship is tantamount to happiness and confidence is a female stereotype that makes me tetchy, and my major issue with Tosh as a character. The fact that it is so very Tosh seems to validate her pining -- that if she COULD land Owen, this is what could happen. Which, uh, no. I'd be less irritated if she was sleeping around.

Jack is much the same as usual, but if you look closely he is much more closed off with Ianto, arms crossed etc., than he usually is when speaking to him. No outrageous flirting. Not even any double entendres. The romantic reading of this is that Ianto was erased from Jack's memory because he was the person most important to him. The slightly more cynical explanation is that Ianto was erased from Jack's memory as his lover as a byproduct of Adam replacing him as Jack's confidante.


Ianto is crying. (Must be Tuesday.)

Ianto is more outgoing, seems like a more equal member of the team. He flirts with Tosh and Gwen.


Ianto having a conversation with a team member who is not Jack, off mission, and with no one pointing a weapon at him.

I think his shock at reading his own diary is better explained by a discovery (the fact that he's sleeping with his -- very male -- boss) rather than the realization that something's missing (Adam).


Here are two of shocked!Ianto, because he's lickable.

When Adam finds that Ianto has figured him out, he fills him with false memories of killing girls in back alleys. By inserting himself as Ianto's accomplice he's making himself indispensable to Ianto (keep your friends close and your enemies closer) and edging Jack even further out. Of course, this is where Adam goes too far, and he gets literally retconned out of existence (just like Spidey and Mary-Jane's marriage, not that I'm bitter).

But, yes. I believe Adam removed the person most important to each of these characters from their lives. Are the writers really this clever, or am I reading way too far into this?

Comments

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When the ep starts, Adam goes to her and implants the anniversary memory, so it's possible they weren't together before then.

Hm, you're right. Poop. I think you might have deflated my righteous indignation. (It's cool, I forgive you.) :D