“Suzie Costello, She's Second-in-Command.”

[sariagray]

Written for and linked to Suzie's entry at womenlovefest

Ever since signing up, I’ve been trying to think of what to write. A week’s worth of posts, about Suzie Costello; a character in canon who is more mystery, more plot device, than woman. I’ve come up with bits and pieces of things I may or may not want to say about her. I’ve tried to consider what others would say, too. All to no avail.

And so I’m going to make this kickoff post about why I chose Suzie in the first place. Why did I choose Suzie? She’s hardly the most-hated woman of Torchwood fandom – she’s barely in the show to begin with. More often than not, she’s used as a delightful villain who manipulates the people around her. Which, well, is all we really know about her.

Suzie is used, even in canon, as a plot device. She is there to illustrate just how terrifying/dangerous/depressing working for Torchwood can be. She’s Gwen’s foil, really, the jaded employee driven mad by the wonders of the universe to Gwen’s innocent naivety. The aging stepmother queen to Gwen’s Snow White, if you will.

(Interestingly, John Hart is a very similar character, only he’s male. He’s Jack’s foil – the image in the Looking Glass of “What I might have been.” He’s manipulative, almost completely lacking in compassion, only appeared in two episodes – and yet, fandom loves him. I won’t get into my suspicions of the psychology behind the perceived difference, but I do find it very interesting. It says a lot about societal views of women, I think.)

We know almost nothing about Suzie Costello, really. We know that she worked for Jack, as his second. We know that he recruited her. We know that she had a father that was, in her mind, worth killing. We know that she slept with Owen. Everything else, even her interest in Emily Dickenson, is inference. (She only had one book, as far as I know, and used only the one poem and ISBN.)

In Everything Changes, I always found Suzie to be a sympathetic character, in that I got her level of madness. She used a piece of tech and was driven to distraction by both the device itself and a fervent, passionate desire to save the world. To me, the Suzie we saw then didn’t jive at all with the Suzie we saw in They Keep Killing Suzie (which, interestingly, is a totally weird title, as they only ever killed her once; prior to that, she killed herself. Unless the “they” involved is the writers).

In TKKS, there seems to be far too much premeditation involved. Over two years’ worth, according to her admission to Jack regarding her methods of retconning Max. That was before the glove, I’m presuming, because I can’t see Jack letting her focus so much energy on a piece of tech for such a long period of time. In just a few lines, Suzie jumps from a person altered by external forces that shouldn’t be messed with to a criminal mastermind. And we really don’t get to see anything in between.

It also sends in interesting message – maybe Torchwood doesn’t make people crazy. Maybe it just attracts people who are already on the brink. (We discover this to be relatively true throughout the series, all the way up through Fragments.) Or maybe it was just Suzie who was absolutely mad.

It’s difficult for a fan to pick and choose canon when the only bits we have to go on come from a mere two episodes, but my Suzie was always Everything Changes Suzie. Not because I’m against the idea of manipulating criminal masterminds, but because she’s who I met first. I fell in love with the lost, terrified woman who just wanted to do good so much that she became almost purely Machiavellian.

But this is just me, rambling. What I want to get to why I chose Suzie. The answer? Where Tosh is loved and Gwen is hated (generally speaking, of course), Suzie is ignored. And to be completely honest, she was the reason I finally relented and allowed myself to be sucked into Torchwood. I’d seen Indira Varma in Bones and then again in Rome. And I totally adored her. When I saw that she was in Torchwood (yeah, I know, I should’ve kept reading the IMDB page, right?), I got really excited! And then she killed herself! Boo! But then, I saw her name on the list of episodes on Netflix, and I hung in there! And then she died again! By that time, I was so completely entrenched in Torchwood, I couldn’t stop myself. The rest, I suppose is history.

As for Suzie herself, I absolutely love the sheer determination, the focus, and the cunning. I love women like her; brilliant and calculating, and a little bit broken inside. She's hurt, she's a real person with fears and hopes and dreams, and she's utterly manipulative. I can't tell if she's a sociopath (<- not a legitimate source of diagnosis) or not, but she certainly straddles the line and I love it. 

But mark my words, I’m doing Lisa next round.

In any case, as this is my first post of the week, I’d like to open this up and find out the opinions you all have on Suzie. Do you love her? Do you hate her? Do you even care beyond, “Hey, wasn’t she that dead body over which Ianto propositioned Jack with a stopwatch?” Why do you feel this way?

I’m curious. Like Suzie with the glove.

Comments

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

That's really awesome, that Suzie is to Gwen as John Hart is to Jack - what could have been, a great foil. It's interesting that Indira Varma brought you to Torchwood, because James Marsters brought me!

I do like Suzie as a character (as a person, well, she's Machiavellian!) But at the same time, in TKKS when she's huddled there wearing a scarf to hide her gunshot wound, I feel SO sorry for her. And then she kills her dad and I think "jerk"! And then I wonder what he did to her to make her so angry and maybe make her the way she is. Was she victimized?

There is such a complex play of emotions she displays, and to make me feel sorry for someone who's mostly shown doing bad things (including murder) is the sign of a really memorable character.

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

You make a really excellent point about that scene with Suzie and the scarf. It was at that point where I think I was getting mad at Jack for being so cruel, as it came before we found out the whole story.

I do tend to think that Suzie was abused by her father in some way, though I'm not positive which way that might be. And he looks so terrified when he wakes up and sees her, so I'm really interested in their relationship.

Speaking of, where Disney has a thing with mothers, Torchwood seems to have a thing with fathers. I'm not really sure what that's about. Either their dead, or absent, or (verbally/physically/mentally) abusive. The Electra complex versus the Oedipus complex? Or just...if you want to be a princess, have mommy issues, and if you want to be a Torchwood operative, have daddy issues. Me, I want to be a Torchwood princess.

At any rate, I agree with your point on Suzie's memorability. I just wish we got to see more of her!

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Yes, the dad thing is pretty interesting - Jack's father, and then Suzie's, and Ianto's (and I'm not 100% certain what happened to his mom) and Gwen's dad now. But then there's Tosh's mom and Owen's, but their dads are apparently absent, too. Parent issues, maybe!

If I ever meet RTD, I'll ask him about his parents. LOL.

[coldwater1010.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly neutral on Suzie. I don't love her or hate her. (I know scandal).She's probably one of those characters whose more interesting for me in fanfic than she was on the show which is pity because she clearly had a lot of potential and there are moments in TKKS when you get to see that.I do remember thinking when I first watched the pilot that if she hadn't been played by Indira Varma her death would have been even more meh than it ultimately was for me because we didn't exactly get to know her. (I always compare it to Helen's death on Spooks because I'm guessing that was the model). But as you said she was mostly a plot device to show the horrors of Torchwood and to give Gwen an in. Her speech though was why s1 despite it's many failings will always be the season where this show was its most interesting to me; that whole idea of the job as both potentially brilliant and psychologically and emotionally, as well as physically destructive was intriguing, we get hints of that throughout s1, but I'm not sure it ever went anywhere all that interesting in the end. But the idea of her feeling a need to join that group just so she'd have someone to talk to and then retconning them really stayed with me because it's just so sad and disturbing. It actually made me feel for her.

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

There is no scandal to neutrality. Honestly, sometimes I wish this fandom had more of it, really!

that whole idea of the job as both potentially brilliant and psychologically and emotionally, as well as physically destructive

Sounds like show business! I wonder if the whole series is a metaphor. ;) But I agree re: Pilgrim. If that was really the case, and she wasn't lying, of course!

[beesandbrews.livejournal.com]

I've always had a soft spot for Suzie. I love the potential of her. When I've had the opportunity to write her, I've enjoyed it.

I don't think she was broken before she joined Torchwood. Damaged perhaps. As bright as Tosh, but with a different set of coping mechanisms. I've always wondered what made her set up her own exit strategy.

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

The potential for Suzie is really vast, as we don't have a lot of facts to work with, but a good deal of relative speculation based on her actions.

I've always wondered what made her set up her own exit strategy.

I wonder that, as well!

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

I only have two seconds to comment, but quickly!

I've always thought of Suzie from EC first, as opposed to TKKS, because I haven't really though about TKKS Suzie all that much, whereas EC Suzie is so perfect in so many ways. I love how you outline her as a foil for Gwen, because she is in so many ways.

Ah! More thoughts when I have time!

But isn't Indira Varma amazing?? I watched a Hulu movie just for her! I almost wish we'd gets some pre-Gwen flashbacks or something, just so we could see more of her. Or a radio play!

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

I think of her the same way (obv.), so I'm glad I'm not alone.

She really is amazing! And I look forward to more of your thoughts!

[cleverthylacine]

1) I love Indira Varma liek whoa.

2) I always wanted to know MORE about Suzie.

3) I don't think Suzie is more sociopathic than the rest of Torchwood, but I've always been frustrated that nearly everyone on Torchwood either totally lacks the ability to discriminate right from wrong or loses it shortly after they join. I'm not a Torchwood fan, but I wanted to be because I loved Jack on DW.

4) I admire Suzie for being so honest, toward the end, about how fucked up and amoral and self-absorbed Torchwood people become. I wish that I'd believed it the first time I watched. I'd have been less disappointed by the deterioration of the other characters--RTD did give us that warning!

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting!

I agree, there tends to be a fine line that each of the characters has to walk in terms of "right" and "wrong." I think the possibility of Suzie's pathology, though, stems more from TKKS rather than the first episode. We realize that her actions are purely for her own benefit, rather than a misguided notion of how to save the world. I think that's what sets her apart, at any rate, from the other characters in terms of amoral behavior.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

Indira Varma was awesome and really, really underused. I always wished they'd brought her back in the show proper (not CoE or MD) and given us a look at what she was like pre-series.

For me, I loved "Everything Changes" Suzie - brilliant, obsessive, Machiavellian without being completely over the top, and tragic, in her own way. TKKS seemed to be more about the writers having an excuse to use such a meta title and tweak the fans, since her characterization is all over the place in it. I kind of just ignore TKKS, to be honest.

My view of Suzie is mainly colored by a late-night, cracktastic discussion with carla_scribbles wherein we decided if there were going to be Time Lords popping up everywhere, Suzie being the Rani would be really, really fun. A deadpan-snarking mad scientist? She just hid in plain sight!

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see more of her, too. In Everything Changes, she's much more broken and confused and "last resort," so it's really hard to reconcile that with TKKS. And, in that first episode, you can see that she seems to get along with the team well enough. There's a whole lot of comfort there among them, and camaraderie. It would be great to see that expanded upon!

[welsh-scotsman.livejournal.com]

i loved suzie. i thought she was truly amazing. granted, i haven't ever and probably will never see everything changes so i don't have anything to compare it with, but to see her in tkks was amazing. especially the way her plan worked out. that is true talent and conniving and it was just brilliant. you can really see why jack would hire her.

i loved her speech about life is all and i think, despite everything, she really wanted to live and that was such a recurring motif in s1 and contrasted against jack, was very powerful. i loved how understated her cahracter was. like with john hart, he was so over the top that he was brilliant, but suzie's understated manner was so brilliant too and i realy felt that all she really wanted to do was live.

interesting thought about suzie being the oppostie to gwen in the first ep. probably a lot in that ;)

i used a tosh icon because i dont have a suzie icon and it was either that or janto ;) at least tosh is the right gender ;)

[hab318princess.livejournal.com]

are you aware that one of the latest books also has her as one of the main protagonists? ... I can't remember the name now but yeah, she escapes (alive) once again

I've not read all of it yet (too busy catching up with my flist) but it adds layers to her again - though her main aim is once again: to be alive