2.08 A Love Supreme

Summary and spoilers

Somewhere out west, Alpha is back, wielding his knife to ‘sucker-slash’ an unwitting man.

In Echo’s isolation cell, she chooses to endure intense headaches rather than tell why she has returned. We see now that DeWitt suspects espionage, and her plan is to torture Echo for information. Her bigger plan is to get Ballard to talk by forcing him to watch Echo’s torture. When that doesn’t work, DeWitt tries jealousy: she sends Echo back into the field for a romantic engagement. Echo doesn’t need to be programmed; she just retrieves the required personality (this is a return engagement), rendering Topher obsolete.

The return engagement is short, as the client (Frank) has been killed by Alpha as a gift to Echo. Alpha has arranged a number of recent engagements, and has killed off a series of Echo’s former love-related clients. The latest client is blown up in full view of Boyd and Ballard, while Alpha stands by, making humorous and sick quips.

Ballard tracks down the final living love client, dumpy computer whiz Joel Miner (as seen in episode 1.6 - Man On The Street). Miner is taken back to the Dollhouse for safekeeping.

DeWitt is getting more brazen about confronting the Langton, Ballard, and Echo ‘cabal’. The cabal is getting more brazen about disobeying her.

Just after Topher clumsily assures Minor that he is safe from Alpha in the Dollhouse, Alpha breaks in and enters DeWitt’s office. He presents her with an envelope filled with photographs of…something. Just don’t assume like I did that they are snaps of his killings. Alpha activates a device that sets all the dolls as attack dogs against their handlers. Then he captures Joel Minor. But this is only a ruse for him to get the real lover of Echo, Ballard. That envelope mentioned earlier contained photos of Echo and Ballard from when they were co-habitating, and Alpha is convinved that Echo loves Ballard.

In his quest to discover what in Ballard’s brain caused him to be chosen by Echo, Alpha kills Ballard. Echo arrives too late to save Ballard, but not too late to beat the crap out of Alpha.

Comments

Boyd and Ballard explain to Topher that Echo has retained every personality that was ever implanted on her (including all the ones that Alpha dumped into her). A wipe pushes them back down, but they return. What’s more, Echo can re-surface them as needed.

Dollhouse Quotes

I don’t like seeing her in pain. I looked into her eyes and swore to protect her, same as you, before you. Today, protecting her means not reacting while DeWitt tortures her. So man up!"
- Boyd to Ballard

Topher: [to Boyd] Does she still trust you with her life? And is that because she’s programmed to, or just because you’re a swell guy with a trustworthy brow.
Echo: I’d like to think both.

"I am obsolete! This must be what old people feel like…and Blockbuster."
- Topher, after seeing the new improved Echo

Boyd: Alpha! Do not do this! There’s a part of you that knows this is wrong.
Alpha: There are many parts of me that know that this is wrong – none the care, and six… [laughs] that just find it funny.

"Well..Tally Ho then! In fact, what say we tally your ho’s. How many you got down there these days? A couple of hundred? More? Less?"
- Alpha to DeWitt

"Boyfriend’s dead. You want to snuggle? Too soon?"
- Alpha to Echo

2.07 Meet Jane Doe

Summary and spoilers

Echo is still loose and free, wandering about, attempting to eat apples from a dumpster in Texas. She needs money to buy food but doesn’t know how to get any. When she steals some food to help a starving Hispanic woman, a cop tries to arrest her. He gets a beating for his trouble. The Hispanic woman is arrested.

DeWitt keeps asking Boyd to find Ballard and Echo, but this exchange always seems to be taking place in DeWitt’s office. I think Boyd needs to look outside the Dollhouse, maybe get out into the world and start exploring America state by state.

Flash-forward three months later, and Echo is working as a nurse in a hospital, using knowledge gained from the many personalities she has housed. She has infiltrated the prison as part of her job, and is now treating Galena, the Hispanic woman who was jailed for stealing food. Galena is getting beaten in prison, and Echo plans to find out who is doing it.

Surprisingly, Echo is living with Ballard. Their idea of fun is to have Ballard hide and try to attack Echo. It’s all part of a training plan to re-enter the Dollhouse (and, I assume, liberate the dolls). Ballard is all business, but Echo is attracted to him, and isn’t afraid to tell him about it – and to make her move. The circle of intrigue is completed by the inside man – Boyd – who is also in on the plan. Of course, now Boyd’s nesting at the Dollhouse makes more sense: an inside man has to stay inside. The entire plan could crash if it not done expediently, as Echo’s headaches are increasing; she is deteriorating.

DeWitt, meanwhile, has been demoted to a more basic role of ‘doll pimp’. She is no longer in control of her house and can no longer protect the Dolls.

Echo has an impressive plan to break Galena out of the hospital. She injects her with an agent to slow her heartbeat dramatically, then blames the guards beatings for her death. Echo agrees to ‘dispose’ of the body at the hospital. The plan goes awry when it takes too long to get out and Galena resurrects. Echo then has to call on all of her embedded knowledge to beat up guards and pick a lock with the underwire from her bra. Ballard shows up to ensure that the women get away cleanly.

Topher has created a device that can remotely treat an active from with 50 yards. In his spare time, he has figured out Rossum’s bigger plan: to create a technology that can remotely program anyone – even if they do not have the Doll architecture. (You may recall that we had a glimpse of this future in Epitaph One). Topher has figured out how to do it. He shows the plans to DeWitt. She makes him promise never to show the plans to anyone. Then she steals them and gives them to Harding. She does it to get her house back – and it works.

Comments

Olivia Williams (Adele DeWitt) is strikingly effective in this episode. I love the way she played the role of the demoted one – and the way she immediately snapped back into ‘power bitch’ mode when the opportunity presented itself. It was a nice touch that while she was demoted, her posture drooped, her shoulders sagged, and she wore a pale shade of lipstick – but when she was back in control, she strutted like a Queen, and her signature lip gloss was back in place.

Ballard and Echo are back in the Dollhouse, and there is about to be a battle for control between DeWitt and Echo. It starts immediately, with DeWitt denying Echo her necessary treatment, and instead putting her in isolation to see how much more she can take.

Memorable Moments

After Echo propositions Ballard, in the next scene, Ballard removes his shirt and walks up to her – and they start fight training!

Dollhouse Quotes

Ballard: The Dollhouse made you fall in love over and over – you told me that.
Echo: They also made me aggressively sexual, and phenomenally creative in bed.
Ballard: Now that’s just cruel.

Harding: Well…this is a great occasion. Shall we celebrate?
DeWitt: There’s no smoking in my office.

Topher: You are the coldest bitch on this planet.
DeWitt: [slaps Topher] That is the last time you will ever speak to me like that – or at all until you are spoken to.

2.06 The Left Hand

Summary and spoilers

Bennett resumes her torture of Echo. When Echo asks why, Bennett responds with more neural treatments – but she also promises that when they get to the ‘why’, "…that’s when things get really bad." Bennett says Echo damaged her arm – she still wears it in a dark sling – and she makes Echo relive Bennett’s memory of the incident.

Cindy explains very carefully to Perrin how they took a spoiled brat with no ambition and no future – in fact, with a whole lot of ‘no’ except for his pedigree - and created a righteous, successful senator. She also takes the opportunity to tell him exactly how much she despises him.

Meanwhile, DeWitt and Topher have arrived. The plan is to examine Echo and, more importantly, do a brain scan of Perrin to get info on Rossum’s plan. Bennett drugs Echo, so Topher is unable to ascertain what she has been experiencing. Bennett’s boss tries to turn DeWitt away, but DeWitt manhandles him into submission.

Bennett lets Perrin and Echo go, then self-inflicts to make it look like she was bashed. Echo and Perrin takes turns cutting into their necks with a steak knife to remove their embedded GPS tags.

Working together in their web of mutual admiration, Topher and Bennett come up with a way to remotely put Perrin and Echo to sleep. With his eyes on the original prize, Topher manages to convince them that he needs Perrin’s brain map to do this. But Bennett is smarter – and more evil – than that. She discovers Topher’s hacking, then programs Perrin as an assassin to exact revenge on Echo (Echo as Caroline supposedly left Bennett trapped under a pillar during a raid).

Topher knocks Bennett out, then works with Topher/Victor to shut down Perrin before he kills Echo. They are too late to save Cindy; Perrin strangles her.

Perrin’s full purpose now becomes clear. He completely exonerates Rossum and implicates other, unrelated companies in his wife’s death and in a plot to vilify Rossum. Now Perrin can make laws specifically to protect Rossum.

Meanwhile, Madeline has been recaptured by Bennett’s ‘Dollhouse’, and she is about to undergo some Bennett-supervised ‘treatments’.

Echo is still out there, uncaptured, with DeWitt very interested in finding her and bringing her back.

Memorable Moments

Victor’s hilarious imitation of Topher

Dollhouse Quotes

"I can’t stand you – having to be your wife. Letting your touch me. Pretending that when it doesn’t disgust me, it doesn’t bore me. That has been…really hard."
- Cindy Perrin to Daniel Perrin, just before his treatment

Bennett: How do you work it – the disrupter?
Topher: How did you know it was called that?
Bennett: What else would you call it?

Topher 1: Dude, she has a dead arm.
Topher/Victor: Like dead, like in a sling with a glove?
Topher 1: Imagine John Cassavettes in The Fury as a hot chick.
Topher/Victor: Which you know I often have!

Bennett: You hacked into my system…stole Perrin’s brain map.
Topher: You tried to kill Echo.
Bennett: So we’re even?

Topher: Shut up and work.
Topher/Victor: I’m already working! I wouldn’t hold your breath on the shutting up.

2.05 The Public Eye

Summary and spoilers

Abetted by Senator Perrin, Madeline Costly (November/Mellie) is testifying that the Dollhouse stole three years of her life. Externally, Rossum is in major spin mode. Behind the scenes, Rossum will do whatever is takes to silence Madeline. DeWitt also wants to silence Madeline, but not using the same methods. The Dollhouse teams up to discover why Madeline is testifying against them. The first clue is Perrin’s too perfect wife Cindy, identified as an active by the observant Echo.

With Cindy a threat to go all sleeper mode and assassinate Madeline, and with Cindy and Madeline sharing a safe house, Ballard grabs a Topher-created Doll-disabling device and goes on a rescue mission.

Echo is also on a mission: to drug, seduce, and videotape Senator Perrin, and to deliver a message that he should back off. Perrin wakes up embarrassed but also aware that Echo is a Doll. He takes her to the safe house as well. They all gather as Ballard arrives. When activates his disrupter, Madeline and Echo collapse as expected. Somewhat unexpectedly, Cindy does not. She watches as Ballard is overpowered by two security agents. But most surprising: Perrin also collapses, marking him as the Doll and Cindy as his handler. Why would Rossum program Perrin to expose the Dollhouse?

Echo speeds away with Perrin. In her disrupted state, she flashes back and realizes she is a Doll, as does Perrin. Cindy tracks them down; a violent confrontation ensues, with Echo beating the bejesus out of Cindy. Echo takes Perrin back to the Dollhouse, but Cindy gets within range and uses the disrupter to stop them.

Ballard beats up his two would-be executioners and tracks Madeline to the airport. There, he confronts her with the story of how they knew each other during her Doll life. Ballard tries to convince her not to testify (since Rossum wants her to for some reason) but Madeline insists on making her own decision, even if it possibly a mistake.

Although I don’t fully understand the plan, Rossum will control Perrin, who will implicate the Dollhouse (just the one), make Perrin a hero, and control the damage.

Back at Dollhouse East, Bennett (Summer Glau) is sort the evil sibling of Topher. She programs actives but gives this task her own sadistic twist. After prepping Perrin for his mind-wipe, she visits Echo, addresses her as Caroline, expresses sarcastic joy at seeing her again, and then begins to torture her by performing what looks like an extremely painful treatment.

Comments

I’m not sure if this is Joss’s doing or because of network influence, but Dollhouse has certainly changed. In the first season, there were grayer areas of morality. The Dollhouse was bad. Rossum was bad. Maybe not all bad, but still bad. Now, however, Rossum is becoming the bad guy and the people in the Dollhouse are becoming white knights. This approach probably has more broad appeal, but I kind of preferred the darker, more generally negative first season. Except it’s not so simple. Rossum wants to stop Madeline because it threatens them. DeWitt wants to stop Madeline because it threatens DeWitt.

It’s shocking to find out that although Madeline was supposedly released from the Dollhouse, she still has what Ballard calls the Dollhouse ‘architecture’ in her head. If this is the case, one would surmise that she can still be controlled if required.

Ah…and Summer Glau is finally in the House as Bennett, a migraine sufferer who wants to share her pain with the actives that she reprograms. It’s kind of unclear exactly who she is and who she is so twisted, but her quirky character and screwed up facial expressions are a perverse joy to watch.

Memorable Moments

• Bennett torturing Echo; the episode ends as Bennett shuts off the security camera that was monitoring this transgression

Dollhouse Quotes

Ballard: So just how much danger is she in?
DeWitt: A former active once made a passing reference to us in his Blog. That was his last entry.
Ballard: So going before the United States Senate - that would be worse.
DeWitt: Considerably.

DeWitt: Any sympathy for Mr. Han would be misplaced. He was a serial rapist.
Ballard: I wasn’t thinking about him.

Ballard: What is it?
Topher: It’s the thing that if it doesn’t work exactly like it should won’t get me in trouble. I call it a disrupter. That’s not too Star Trek, is it? TOS? Hmm?

Bree/Echo: C’mon. I think I know where you can get some help.
Perrin: You want to take me to them? They’re all bad guys, Bree.
Bree/Echo: I think her bad guys are badder than my bad guys.

"I assumed we’d fill him with travel memories: a layover in Milwaukee; some turbulence; and something to explain any dehydration or disorientation: bad shrimp – or…or a film with a dog."
- Bennett

2.04 Belonging

Summary and spoilers

There’s a moral dilemma for DeWitt, and, surprisingly, for the normally conscience-challenged Topher as well. Nolan Kinnard, a high-ranking Rossum VP, has been stalking Pria (now Sierra) since she was a teen. When he rejected his lavishly staged advances (using all of the money and dolls available through his company), he did something truly evil. He drugged Pria into a state of schizophrenia, then convinced Topher and the Dollhouse to ‘save her’ and take her in. He then paid for her services as a lover. On a deeper, almost buried level, Sierra knows she is being violated, and she is able to relay that message via paintings to Echo, who passes it on to Topher. Topher investigates and discovers the client relationship. But when DeWitt tells Kinnard that he must stop, Kinnard threatens to remove DeWitt unless she has Sierra permanently implanted and given to him as a slave. DeWitt tasks Topher to do the imprint; on the surface, Topher agrees. But he implants Sierra with the awareness of what Kinnard has done. A violent confrontation ensues at Kinnard’s apartment, ending when Sierra stabs him to death.

Langton intercepts Pria’s call to Topher and goes into action. Kinnard’s body is disposed of completely, and his death is changed to look like a disappearance. Sierra returns to the house and asks Topher to remove her memories of the horrible events she endured and created, leaving Topher to deal with these secrets. Her mind wiped and her smile returned, Sierra renews her friendship with Victor – a friendship that is growing into love.

Comments

Halfway through the show, as I watched Sierra getting smacked around, I reflected on the robust and diverse performance of Dichen Lachman. She got to play four different characters: herself (Pria) before she was tampered with (when she was an Australian artist); Pria after she had been given drugs to split her personality (should I count this as two characters?); Sierra as Sierra; and Pria, with no memory of her experiences as ‘doll’ Pria, but with an awareness of the evil that had been done to her. And as I watched, I hoped this was not going to be the last time we see her on the show. Survive, Sierra, survive!

Conversely, Echo’s role is small but highly important. She has a great subtle conversation with Langton about just how aware she has become.

This episode was directed by Star Trek: Next Generation alumni Jonathan Frakes.

Dollhouse Quotes

"Look. This is a brain – a normal, boring brain – like your brain."
- Topher to Langton

 "Given that you’re a raping scumbag one tick short of a murderer – do you take sugar?"
- DeWitt to Kinnard

Langton: Echo – when did you learn how to lie?
Echo: Am I in trouble?
Langton: Not from me – but there are people who would be very upset if they knew what you were doing.
Echo: Reading?

"They even programmed me to think it was endearing how quick you were."
- Pria to Kinnard

2.03 Belle Chose

Summary and spoilers

A psychopath with a Crispin Glover hairstyle is playing with live dolls – women with fashion model looks that he has drugged heavily, then posed and dressed as living statues. When one tries to escape, he clubs – or croquets, more accurately - her to death. While looking for a quick replacement, he is hit by a vehicle. His name is Terry Carrens – and why does he end up being treated by Topher in the Dollhouse? It’s because his uncle Bradley is a valued client and a major Dollhouse shareholder. It turns out also that Bradley and the Carrens family knew – and covered up – many of his nephew’s indiscretions. DeWitt agrees to allow the comatose Terry to be questioned safely. This is done by dumping Terry’s mind into Victor and then assigning Ballard to do the FBI-style profiling. Ballard exposes Terry as a abductor, torturer, and killer, but soon after, the plan backfires when Bradley grabs Victor and escapes. As they drive away, Bradley thinks he can have a little chat with his nephew to find out the still-secret location of the surviving women, but Victor unceremoniously snaps Bradley’s head against the steering wheel and crashes the car.

Meanwhile, Echo has an ‘R’ (Romance) assignment as an amorous student of a college professor. As ditzy Kiki, she is outfitted as a sex kitten and sent in to play out a porn movie type fantasy: sexy girl gets an ‘F’ and wants to know what she can do to improve that grade.

With Victor now imprinted as a serial killer and poised to take in another abductee, DeWitt tasks Topher with finding a way to do a remote mind wipe. The attempted wipe knocks out the Actives monitoring system and transfers Terry’s diseased mind from Victor to Echo – turning her into the killer.  Echo quickly incapacitates the professor with a quick letter-opener to the neck. She returns to her captives and lashes out at them, but is able to stop herself just short of killing them by using her growing ability to become aware of her implant.

Victor receives Kiki and goes on a flamboyant dancing spree. Ballard, who was glad earlier to dump Kiki with Langton, is once again united with her when he retrieves Victor.

A full mind-wipe later, Echo appears back to normal in the Dollhouse, but the episode ends with her viewing the still comatose body of the real Terry Carrens as she exclaims, "Goodness gracious!" – a lingering Terry-ism.

Comments

Fox said there would be changes for season two. One of these possibly Fox-driven changes is to focus more on the relationship/love between two characters, rather than having a true Joss-style ensemble show. I just realized that this seems to be the case, and the two characters are, of course, Ballard and Echo. Although their relationship is now the anchor, the other roles are still important and substantial.

Enver Gjokaj (Victor) is brilliant as psychopath Terry Carrens.

The tension in this episode slowly builds. Victor is looking for another woman to abduct, and Echo is seducing the professor. The two separate stories seem strikingly unlinked, unless…Victor abducts Echo! Okay, it didn’t exactly happen like that…

Dollhouse Quotes

Ballard: Would you like a towel?
Echo: [naked after a shower] Yes, thank you. I’m wet.

DeWitt: Any progress on locating our troubled missing employee?
Langton: She’s not really missing, is she? She left.
DeWitt: Well, I call that missing.
Langton: I call that leaving.

Kiki: Don’t you just feel like dancin’?
Ballard: Not overly.

DeWitt: You’re quite certain of this [that Carrens is a serial killer]
Topher: Certain enough that I have serious ethical problems trying to wake him up.
Langton: Topher has ethical problems. Topher!
Topher: [laughs] Way to land it.

Kiki: Okay, so, I probably never should have taken this course to begin with, I figured it was Medieval Lit, not Advanced Evil – how hard could it be. So I skipped Intro to Evil, or whatever, but, how is it that I got an ‘F’ when this guy that we’re reading – Chauncey - can’t even spell?
Professor: It’s Chaucer. It’s Middle English.
Kiki: Right, like, Hobbits or something.
Professor: Yeah, as I said, my office is open if you’d…care to discuss it.
Kiki: Yeah, I’d care to discuss it. I’m like the Scarlet Lady with the ‘F’ on her chest.
Professor: ‘A’.
Kiki: If only!

2.02 Instinct

Summary and spoilers

In addition to programming Echo’s brain, Topher has also reprogrammed her body to produce a glandular reaction - in this case, allowing her to assume the role of a breast-feeding new mom. The possibilities, he says, are endless – and he can duplicate this basic concept for any active. Echo’s nightly feeds are going well, but not so much her marriage to a workaholic. Nate holds baby Jack like it has an infectious disease. He works late or stays locked in his home office to avoid baby – and wife – contact. Fortunately, Echo’s girlfriend Kelly (Sierra) is there to reassure her that things will work out. Echo resolves to be patient and give Nate his space, but this vow lasts for mere minutes. Soon, she is breaking into Nate’s office. She finds what appears to be proof of infidelity: photos of Nate and another woman. When she confronts Nate, he claims that the woman was a past lover who died. There are apologies all around, and Nate soothingly asks Echo to go to bed and rest. Later, Echo wakes up and hears Nate having an angry argument on the phone that ends with a promise to ‘get rid of the baby’.

The real story is that Nate has hired Echo to be the mother of his baby, to take the place of the wife who died in childbirth. Echo truly believes that she carried the child, birthed it, and nursed it. When she incorrectly suspects that Nate is up to no good, she flees with the child before Ballard can stop her. Echo eventually tells her story to the police. While at the station, she is confronted by Nate and Ballard. Echo is separated from the baby and dragged away screaming for her child.

DeWitt visits Mellie aka November aka Madeline, to check up on her and insist that she come in for her scheduled diagnostic. Madeline agrees. While receiving her diagnostic in Topher’s office, Echo is brought in kicking and screaming. The sight of Echo living through the pain of a ‘make-believe’ situation makes Madeline realize how tormented the life of an active can be.

Echo’s treatment does nothing to wipe her mind or relieve her pain; instead, she knocks out Topher and, with nothing functioning in her mind except the mothering instinct, heads for Nate and Jack. Echo is ready to take the baby at knifepoint, but Nate is able somehow to explain to her that she was hired to believe the baby was hers – but that it is not true. Enough of that message gets through, and Echo’s sentience about her role as an active allows her to give the baby back to Nate without being forced to do so.

Ballard offers to take down the Dollhouse without her help, and to have Topher fully wipe her mind and take away the pain, confusion and conflict of being aware of her role-playing, but Echo refuses, preferring to ‘stay awake’.

Comments

I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea for the Dollhouse to pursue Echo and the baby in that big hard-to-hide black van.

Is I just me, or is Topher looking more and more like Bruno this season?

Someone has leaked detailed and damning information about the Dollhouse to Senator Perrin, the politician who is intent on exposing the wrongs of the Rossum Corporation. We don’t find out who this person is, but Perrin knows (their name is in the report).

Memorable Moments

• Echo unexpectedly snapping out of Stepford wife mode after a treatment and knocking out Topher.

Dollhouse Quotes

"I don’t want to use the word ‘genius’, but I’d be okay if you wanted to."
- Topher (about himself)

DeWitt: For your own well-being, come and have your diagnostic. I won’t take no for an answer.
Madeline: No. [pause] I don’t imagine you will.

Madeline: Is it always like that?
Ballard: Like what?
Madeline: She really believed someone took her child, heart and soul.
Ballard: Like I said, it wasn’t real.
Madeline: But it was for her – all that emotion, all that pain.

Topher: Hello Echo. How are you feeling?
Echo: Did I fall asleep?
Topher: For a little while.
Echo: [punches Topher, knocking him out] Should I go now?

Ballard: Think we’re looking at a genius.
Topher: I’m not as comfy with you saying that as I thought I’d be.
Ballard: Think about it: you changed her on a glandular level. Maybe her body was stronger than her brain.

"I’m awake now; I don’t wanna go back to sleep."
- Echo (closing line)