Torchwood Declassified (2006) s01e11 Episode Script

Weevil Fight Club

Combat is vicious, rough.
Very, very fast.
Pub fights, bar fights, instant things that happen.
It's a brawl, it's a mess, not sort of a considered Bodies on bodies, pushing and snarling, adrenaline wave, confrontation.
You gotta watch Combat.
MAN: Action.
-So, who are you, Owen? -Sorry? I want to know, who are you, Owen Harper? Is that who you are, a little kid hiding behind a gun? Owen, in Episode 1 1 , is in an incredibly dark place.
He's gone through this incredible sort of tidal wave of emotion with Diane in Episode 1 0.
His heart is completely broken.
The last image of the episode is the plane flying off with Diane, flying, and Owen just standing there, utterly heartbroken.
So, we join Combat with Owen already in a very, very screwed up state of mind.
He starts the episode, he's out in a bar, he's just drowning his sorrows.
You see, it's about using your opponent's aggression to your own ends.
And there's a lot of anger.
What does a man have to do to get some peace in this city? He's a lost boy, and rejected, and losing his relationships, and also, not liking himself very much, I think.
You know, a lot of self-hatred.
You can be such a wanker sometimes, Owen, do you know that? I do, as a matter of fact! DAVIES: One of the places you find Owen is friendless.
That's a dark place to be.
And I think it's true of a lot of the Torchwood team, they don't have someone to talk to.
Gwen might be having an affair with Owen, but she's still got Rhys to go home and talk to and have a laugh with and just watch telly and eat baked beans with.
If only he could go into work and say, ''Oh, I'm sad.
'' And his tragedy is that he can't, so he's having a drink, he pretends he's fine, he's brittle, he's brisk, he's burning up.
He's feeling like he's lacking purpose and lacking any kind of direction.
I'm in the wrong business.
He comes across a charismatic leader, who then says There's so much more, if you know where to look.
And it's this bizarre fight club.
You've got this face-punching, blood, broken nose, snot, broken-tooth extravaganza.
It's hard and hostile and brutal and urban and vicious.
And to see Owen entering into that world, becoming part of it and actually wanting to be part of it, shows what a dark path he's walking down now.
There's something about this sort of alpha male, testosterone-driven, ''what is life worth, what is it all about'', that actually was just really terrifying.
When you think about what they're actually saying, when they're actually talking about what is life worth, and how do you find your thrills in a life that seems to have taken everything from you.
Nice one, mate! Costs a grand to enter the cage.
Whoever stays in there the longest across the night takes home all the money.
You're next! It's the first time we've seen Owen in context of another kind of male figure, a peer, if you like, someone his own age.
There's Ianto, but Ianto has kinda got one foot in the shadows if you like.
His relationship with Jack is very much a kind of avuncular kind of relationship with him.
We haven't seen him in context of another alpha male.
So, it was a nice, kind of, simmering, testosterone kind of energy.
DAVIES: They meet each other practically as cop and criminal.
But what's interesting is how similar they are, how angry they both are, how attracted to the same darkness they both are.
And they are just gravitating closer and closer and closer.
MYLES: The fight club for Owen is the way to express himself, because he's on the edge.
He's on the edge of, you know, being prepared to die, and to sacrifice himself and to get the hell out of here.
Come on, then.
(SNARLING) One of the things we always want, in every episode of Torchwood, actually, is for it to feel real, especially for fight scenes to feel real.
I think there's a real skill to, you know, not having those artificial punches that go ''doosh'', like that.
You can see the stunt arranger at work.
Come on, then.
Let's get it out of the way.
Those moments of violence in real life, which are actually really shocking and really scary, if you see something like that, if you're close to a real fight in a street, it tends to be considerably more vicious than anything you see on television.
No need for you to get involved We wanted it to explode very quickly.
We didn't want to use slow motion or anything like that.
We wanted it to be quick and fluid and nasty.
I think the fights in the pub with Owen, in the bar, is I actually went and found that fight director and told him he was a genius, which I've never done before with a fight director 'cause you stay away from men like that.
It was great stuff.
MAN: And cut.
I have, like, a start point and an end point, and beyond that, I'll talk to Tom Lucy, our stunt coordinator, about the basic shape I want.
And then he'll throw in suggestions and options.
The actors also will throw in suggestions.
And really, it'll just be an accumulation of all those different elements.
And then I'm gonna give it ''Ah, ah'', and then I'm gonna go ''Bam''.
I've never been in a fight in my life, I've never hit anyone, apart from play fights and stuff, so, it's quite interesting to have to try and tap into that.
And, you know, the stunt guys are really good at helping you know how to punch properly, like 'Cause he's supposed to fight very, very well, like he knows how to fight.
It's quite exciting.
The child in me quite enjoys doing all the fighting and stuff like that, yeah.
ALL: Three, two, one, go! STOKES: I arrived on set when they were doing the scene of the crowds chanting from the balcony.
And I walked into that big room with all those people chanting, and it was the most terrifying thing that I'd seen filmed.
There was just something about a mob mentality when it turns and goes nasty, that is scarier than probably anything else.
When you have those big days where you have lots of extras, that's when I suppose you're more aware of working as a team.
And that's good, 'cause that takes the pressure off you to concentrate on other things.
What's the longest anyone's been in there? That'd be Dan Hodges.
One key shot that I knew I wanted was, we're looking beneath Owen, looking back up at the people in the balcony.
We kind of crammed all our 40 extras into that one shot and made it, hopefully, look like there were more.
(SNARLING) I remember a huge conversation being about the design of the cages.
What would the cages look like? What are these things? As well as, you know, how many Weevils, and in terms of what you can do, in terms of fighting.
You don't wanna punch a Weevil in the face when they've got a beautiful and complicated prosthetic mask on.
My job is to come in, do the fight scenes, wear this crazy looking mask, which is all made out of rubber.
It's nice and soft.
So when we're interacting with the actors, if we do clash at all, they won't get injured.
MAN: Action.
This is a very intense scene, that has Owen coming into Mark's fight club.
It's quite a simple move, I'm jammed up against the cage, and then I'm sort of brought back on to a crash mat, thankfully.
I've got kneepads, so, you know, it's fun of the job, really.
Let go! (SCREAMING) MAN: Cut, cut! Today they're going into the fight club with the Weevil.
We'll start with the script, but then it's the director's interpretation of what we're actually doing All of a sudden, this is the first time I've seen these injuries.
Now I've just gotta put the blows and the fights to the injuries that match them.
MAN: Action! The finale, where Torchwood come to the rescue, it was very, I think ''kick-block-scramble'' is the technical term we use in this trade.
It was very frenetic, where you're doing the most simple blocks, because, you know, the clock's against you.
But sometimes, you know, that produces your best work.
What I liked about this episode, there's a kind of King Kong element, there's a kind of sympathy for the Weevil.
The Weevils come out of this episode kind of on the good side, because we actually don't know that much about them.
Now, I have a little theory.
Maybe the fighting that we knew in Episode 1 , is actually a result of what has been going on in Combat, because Combat's been happening for a while.
So, the aggression of the Weevil in Episode 1 , ripping the guy's neck, he thought he was gonna be attacked, so he struck out.
Perhaps they're a calm race.
I think that would be so great, such class, if Owen was part-Weevil now.
It's a great kind of ticking clock to have there, about what, yeah, how does this Weevil bite? And the fact that he can growl at another Weevil, how will that reveal itself in future episodes? BARROWMAN: I mean, Burn's got fantastic teeth, and for him to (GROWLS) And just to maybe CGI some spikes, like that, just would be phenomenal.
We talked about that in the edit, about whether he's been influenced in any way.
And I think we'll have to wait and see.

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