Excuse me. Have you seen a blowfish driving a sports car?

An amazing start to the second season of Torchwood! Captain John is a welcome unhinged addition to the character rotation of the sub-franchise; I always forget how incredible his introduction is. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang gives showcase strong characterisation and utilisation of the ensemble main cast, plus sewing the seeds for a lot of things to come later in the season.

It's a fun episode all-around with some very memorable scenes and needle drops.

A solid enough story bolstered heavily by some incredible performances. Eve Myles in particular is a standout. The entire aftermath of Rhys' death and how she plays Gwen in that situation is truly heartbreaking.

I think the growth of the main Torchwood team as a true ensemble cast grows throughout the series and really culminates here, especially with both audience and characters' relationship with Owen, which was needed to set up the second series. And Janto. Janto's always nice. 

A nice way to tie in to series three of Doctor Who at the end there, as well.

I support women's wrong <3

But seriously, Suzie is such an amazing character. I wish more of the episode was a functional character study with her in it rather than the formulaic mystery. There's so much to say about They Keep Killing Suzie and blame and human nature and, ugh, this is why I love Torchwood.

Why did we need the transphobic speech? I know it was 2006 but really?

That aside, pretty solid story and I love that Tosh got to have an on-screen girlfriend, no matter how badly it may have ended.

In my heart of hearts, this episode deserves the lowest possible rating, but I'm being overly generous because of the appearance of Jodie Whittaker as Thirteen and the subsequent Thirteen/Yaz relationship mention. In other words, what a pile of rubbish.

I may come back and edit this review to go more into depth but, for now, I'll just say that so many things in 'The Reality War' are not only generally bad writing but actively propping up misogynistic and hetero-normative narratives, as well as having negative implications beyond that**. While I don't think these are the explicit intentions of the writer, it's something that's hard not to think about once you notice it. Varada Sethu and Ncuti Gatwa deserved so much better than this ending to their season, as did the characters they were portraying.

Bringing back Billie Piper the play the Doctor*, especially after doing the same with David Tennant, is an awful decision, as talented as she is, and will likely lead to the death of the show if the next year doesn't bring some major changes to the direction of the show and the (hopeful) departure of RTD** as showrunner. I'm seeing dedicated fans and casual watchers in my life alike considering stopping watching new episodes as a direct result of this regeneration. I won't... but can't say it didn't cross my mind.

I love a good bit of nostalgia-bait but bringing back Susan, the Rani, and then Omega in quick succession with barely any care given is just a bit much, innit?

*There was the notable omission of "as the Doctor" in the credits so that will probably be relevant but, as of writing, we saw Fifteen regenerate into that face so I will assume she is playing the next Doctor

**This is not meant to be any sort of attack on RTD as a person but I am not a fan of the creative direction he's taking the show in, or the more recent episodes that he's been the primary writer for.