In Arizona, a singing cult encounters trouble from at least one local when they visit town for supplies. One of their members has scrawled ‘Save me’ on a piece of paper.
A senator asks DeWitt for an active to infiltrate the cult. DeWitt is initially appalled, as this would mean putting an active to work for a federal agency, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). The senator insists that only an active can get in undetected in this situation.
Ballard convinces a woman named Lumis – with super clearance – to run Echo’s photo through her databases. Some time later, Lumis tells Ballard she has found nothing, but that she will leave it live to see if any more hits occur.
Dominic expresses misgivings about Echo’s dependability, but Dewitt is not going to heed him. She checks on Echo’s preparation, which consists of surgery to make her a blind camera. She will not see anything, but her eyes will be lenses sending signals back to the feds. Saunders expresses minor misgivings about the risks, but these risks area deemed within acceptable levels by DeWitt. Topher just find the whole situation fun and amusing.
The ‘Save me’ note has granted the ATF just 48 hours to infiltrate the cult compound and find further reason to pursue the case. Langton drives Echo to the compound. She infiltrates with ease, but their leader, Jonas Sparrow, warns his second in command that she may not be who she says she is, and if she is not, she should be eliminated.
Topher observes that Victor is aroused by Sierra in the shower. This was not supposed to happen, at least according to him, but when he tells Saunders, she says she is not surprised. Victor has had the same memory – a gigolo – implanted eight times, and she had warned in many (unread) reports that this could cause residual effects. Saunders tasks Topher to look through three months of shower scenes to find more ‘man reactions’.
Jonas questions and examines Echo. He is momentarily convinced that she believes her story is true, and he allowed her to stay, although it is obvious from his gun-pointing that he could change his mind at any time. The ATF is excited and appalled to see that Echo’s interrogation takes place in a room filled from top to bottom with high-tech automatic weapons.
Mellie arrives at Ballard’s office with his medication, a huge platter of manicotti, and a mystery package. Lumis confirms that the writing on the package is the same as that which accompanied the photo of Echo that Ballard has already received. Inside, there is a DVD with the movie of Echo at college saying goodbye to her friends and making jokes about venereal disease.
Topher and Saunders have determined that the source of Victor’s arousal is not residual memories, but Sierra – he is attracted to her only.
The arsenal has enabled the ATF to invade the compound – all they are waiting on is the warrant from the judge. Langton strongly objects and wants to extract Echo safely first, but Lilly, the ATF leader, is more interested in getting his man – he has pursued him for years. Langton calls Dominic to request a forced extraction. Dominic is wrong man to ask – he denies the request, probably seeing it as an easy way to eliminate Echo and the problems she creates in his eyes.
Even as Echo is being initiated and fully accepted into the cult, ATF agents are stalking the perimeter, ready to invade. Floodlights are tripped, and the invasion is stalled, but Jonas now accuses Echo of bringing this on. He starts slapping her around, but suddenly, just as the feedback images to the ATF end, Echo regains her sight, and stops Jonas’ next slap. Now even Jonas believes he has witnessed a miracle, and, for all intents and purposes, he has. He reads this as a sign to set them aflame, believing only the unrighteous will perish.
Outside, Lilly says he will treat Echo no differently than the other cult members. Langton wants to try to identify the person on the inside who wrote ‘Save me’ but Lilly is not interested in his ideas. TV vans show up at an inopportune time and feed back images of the cult members being shepherded from building to building. Ballard watches the report on television and sees Echo.
Langton does some poking around in town and discovers video footage proving that Lilly wrote the ‘Save me’ note and planted it in the convenience store. He confronts Lilly and basically writes his own terms for rescuing Echo – that or let everyone know about Lilly’s penmanship.
In a final scene filled with twists and turns, Langton creeps outside the building, just about to rescue Echo. Inside, Echo knocks out Jonas and saves everyone by urging them to leave the building. Jonas comes to and is just about to shoot Echo when Dominic shows up masquerading as an ATF agent, shoots Jonas, then knocks out Echo and disappears. Langton shows up just in time to extract her.
Ballard shows up the next day, pumping Lilly for information, but gets nothing.
DeWitt has discovered that Dominic was in Arizona last night. She asks why. He says he was protecting her interests, but she seems more threatened by this than assured. She threatens him subtly as well to let him know that he had better stay in line.
There are great similarities between the Arizona cult and the Dollhouse cult.
I expressed some disappointment in Eliza Dushku’s abilities when she played a slick wise-cracking safecracker in Gray Hour, but here, as a blind religious woman who wants in to a cult, she is excellent. And as Echo goes, so goes the episode. It is very solid, filled with conflict both internal and external to the Dollhouse.
Observant viewers will notice that after Echo’s wipe, her words are the same as always, but they are delivered with a slight difference in tone. Something is there to indicate past memories and awareness. But it is so subtle as to be unnoticed, even by her and certainly by Topher and Saunders, both of whom seem suspicious but clueless.
I think it’s a little out of line that a doctor (Dr. Saunders) would ask Echo for her opinion on her own vision, giving that a wiped doll might not really have the perspective to answer that question meaningfully. Perhaps an eye test would be a more accurate gauge?
DeWitt: You don’t like Echo, do you, Mr. Dominic.
Dominic: It’s not that I don’t like her – it’s – sometimes I worry you do.
"I gotta go. Something…came up."
- Topher, abruptly ending his phone call when he sees Victor is ‘aroused’ by Sierra
Dr. Saunders: Victor had an erection?
Topher: I prefer ‘man reaction’.
DeWitt: So tell me, Mr. Dominic, how was Arizona? I understand it’s a dry heat. You requisitioned a company jet last night.
Dominic: Echo was glitching on a government job. I thought I should be on site in case measures were called for.
DeWitt: I see.
Dominic: As always, just trying to protect your interests.
DeWitt: I’m touched.
Dominic: If I may – Echo has been exhibiting the same signs that Alpha did before his composite event. Now if you’re not willing to send her to the attic –
DeWitt: Don’t gamble on what I’d be willing to do, Mr. Dominic. Take the stairs.
Dr. Saunders: Echo, how’s your vision? Can you see okay?
Echo: (Looking down at Dollhouse level 1 and seeing Dominic) I see perfectly.
Echo is a mid-wife at a mountaintop mansion, delivering a baby for a young couple. The birth appears to spark memories of her birth.
Back at the dollhouse, Topher is excited that Echo, Sierra and Victor are eating together at the same table like Bison. He tells Langton that this is not caused by memories, but rather by an instinctual herd or school survival instinct.
DeWitt has a new client – a man hiring Echo as an escort for his son’s bachelor party, or at least it seems. When the party turns sour and she is getting roughed around, she flees and is taken in by the hotel security guard. He offers her a lump-sum payment from the hotel if she will sign a paper agreeing that she will forget the incident and not litigate. Her response? She knocks the guy out. She wasn’t roughed up – it was all a ruse so she could get past security and facilitate a break-in for the same guys who made believe they were roughing her up. With Echo’s assuming the persona of ‘Taffy’, and expert in explosives and safe-cracking, they break into a vault filled with rare and priceless art treasures. All is going smoothly when, suddenly, one member of the team, the art-expert ‘professor’, steals what they came for and locks them in the vault. Echo still has everything under control; she says she can get them out. She phones Langton and asks him to catch the professor, but as she completes the call, a high-pitched sound emanates from the phone, and, suddenly, she is wiped and back to a blank state.
Langton is able to trap the professor and recapture the priceless Parthenon tile that was the focus of the crime, but he is unable to help Echo. DeWitt enlists Sierra, also encoded as Taffy, to attempt a rescue. With time running out, Sierra give Echo phone instructions, but Echo doesn’t follow them to the letter, and alarms go off in the vault. As guards approach, one of her fellow thieves wants to shoot his way out, and wants Echo to do the firing, but Echo manages to avoid that, and instead escapes with the other thief.
Ballard has spent this episode recovering from his gunshot wound and harboring Anton Lubov (Victor) who broke into his apartment and appealed for protection. Ballard initially says he will protect him, but instead, he basically tells everyone he can that Anton is the snitch, then releases him into the world to be killed. I don’t think Ballard is that cruel – he probably does suspect that Lubov is somehow linked to the Dollhouse and is playing him.
DeWitt ups Topher’s security level so she can tell him that Alpha is still alive. She confirms Topher’s fear that Alpha was the one that performed the remote wipe.
The episode ends as a clean slate Echo recreates something slightly resembling a Picasso painting of her face in the mist-covered mirror of her apre-shower.
Eliza Dushku does a wonderful job of portraying the innocent, serene side of Echo, but, at least so far, she’s not quite as good as making a character like Taffy seem completely believable. There’s an element to her portrayal that comes across as too lightweight. All the lines are there – it’s just the way she delivers them. Her multi-personality role on this show is the gig of a lifetime, and it is also extremely challenging for any actor – I just hope she has the versatility to grow into it and make it work.
Other than this, the episode is fantastic – the pacing, tension, and production values are all top-notch again.
A worrying sign for the future of the show are the viewer numbers. For this episode, they are down to 3.5 million, which is well below the 5 million that FOX seems to want to keep a show running. There are other factors involved – like the general low ratings for sci-fi shows like this, and the premiere this week of Watchmen – but anyone with a love of the show and a knowledge of the previous behavior of FOX would be plenty worried at the moment. The show’s future is not helped by my perception from reading blog and forum entries that indicate many people are only lukewarm about it, and are watching in allegiance to Joss and in the hopes that will improve. The latest rumor is that FOX released the reins around episode six, so expect things to liven up then.
I don’t understand how Echo could assume that if she fleed a sexual assault in a hotel, that she could be assured that the hotel security guard would let her inside his office, yet this is the whole key to facilitating the crime. And I have no idea how she was able to escape from the vault just by using the cover of one smoke bomb.
"You drop it, I shoot you. Then you don’t get paid, or breathe."
- Langton to the professor
Professor: You shot me!
Langton: Barely.
Someone is trying to kill Rayna, a high-profile female pop singer. Echo is imprinted as a background singer to get near Rayna, protect her, and perhaps even take a bullet for her. Dr. Saunders is concerned; she had recommended that Echo only have a romantic engagement for her next assignment, but Topher doesn’t care; besides, they are sending in Sierra as backup.
Rayna is a diva who freaks out if she smells someone sucking on a mint, but she takes to Echo and befriends her, much to the disgust of the other, competing background singers. Echo pays her back by naturally being on the alert. She intercepts paparazzi, but the real killer is lurking nearby, having infiltrated the venue with crutches and smuggled in a sniper rifle.
Ballard meets with Lubov who becomes just another in the long line of people who want to convince him that the Dollhouse is an urban myth like "…alligators in the sewers." Later, Lubov gives Ballard a lead that sends him to the basement of an abandoned hotel, where he is ambushed by Borodin’s men.
In a stunning turn of events, Lubov awakens in Topher chair and Topher addresses him as ‘Victor’ – he’s just another doll.
But the biggest twist of all is that Rayna not only has been communicating with the obsessed, gun-toting fan, but she knows he is going to kill her, and she wants him to, so she can be free of her life. Sierra is sent in masquerading as Rayna’s number one fan, but when the sniper can’t get Rayna, he kidnaps Sierra instead. Echo deviates from her programming and uses Rayna as bait to protect and rescue Sierra. She’s got the whole thing under control, despite Laurence’s misgivings about her back at the house; she not only rescues Audra/Sierra, but she subdues the psycho and renews Rayna’s will to live!
As mentioned, Laurence is not happy. First, he confronts Topher and accuses him of being really bad at his job. Then he recommends that Echo be placed somewhere called ‘the attic’ as he believes she is a liability. But DeWitt defends her.
In the final scene, Sierra and Echo pass each other in the house. Sierra smiles and walks over toward Echo, but Echo shakes her head no. Sierra picks up on this and just keeps walking, simulating the zombie state that apparently is becoming more and more of an act.
There’s a great analogy between Rayna’s perception of her life as a factory-created singer with no personality of her own, destined only to fulfill others fantasies and needs.
Everything is tied up too beautifully and somewhat unbelievably by that clever Echo, although there are no obvious plot holes there – just an amazing happy ending.
This episode got a slightly poorer rating in some internet polls; also, I believe it rated lower in viewer numbers. People are going to start wondering, worrying, and speculating over the long-term future of Dollhouse, but I still think its high production values and strong basic concept could see it renewed beyond its initial run.
Þ Echo hitting Rayna with a chair
Dr Saunders: You shouldn’t have taken the arrow out – you could have bled to death. And a broadhead arrow does more damage coming out.
Boyd Langton: I’ll remember that the next time I’m being bowhunted.
Lubov: I’m a friend of Paul
Mellie: Really.
Lubov: An old friend from Navy. A friend from Old Navy; I did retail before; he would buy slacks.
"Friends help each other out."
- Echo to the unconscious Rayna (repeated line)
