Directed by James Contner
"We make choices. I'm well aware that there are forces beyond our control, but even in the face of those forces, we make choices. And then we live with them. And then we die with them."
We open on the flashback from the pilot with DeWitt and Caroline. "I'm going to make you an offer." Caroline wants to be left alone. "My offer is this: your life for your life. I get five years; you get the rest. You'll be free." Caroline mentions the Rossum Corporation, asks why they picked her. DeWitt says Caroline picked them, and we'll see the start of that play out in the episode. DeWitt makes mention of the fact that she's been "dancing" with Caroline for almost two years! Cool. Lots of story stuff can fit into that beyond what we learn here. DeWitt pours her some tea? or sake, it looks really clear. Num, sake... And repeats her line: Nothing is what it appears to be.
Now we're entering a university laboratory with a tall, black dude named Sam and an unnamed, preppy, white girl and their coffee. They come upon Owen, pasty white boy with only boxers on. He's talking to jars of flies like he's Alice in Chains (whoa, like, later Echo is Alice and she's in chains too; righteous, man). Anyway, he's high as a kite and freeing the flies from their captivity. "Fly, be free.""Fly, fly." Funny.
The girl grad student(?) touches him to try and get his attention. He freaks and runs to the window and starts banging his head on it. Sam tries to stop him. The girl starts laughing, and soon Sam smiles and joins in. Freaking stoners. Owen bangs his forehead against the window until both break, and the camera pulls back to show the window is in the Rossum Building, overlooking the campus of what turns out to be Freemont College.
Cut to a vial of vile yellow liquid. Held up for DeWitt's perusal by Clive Ambrose, co-chairman (and later we learn) the face of Rossum Corp. He's telling DeWitt about the problem at Freemont as Topher comes in. Apparently the yellow stuff is an experimental memory drug, and a vial is missing. They think it's being distributed on campus, resulting in the high students and the suicide in the lab.
There's exposition about how the drug breaks down inhibitions in the hypocampus in order to break through to repressed memories. Topher geeks out about drugs and their varying effects on individual body chemistries, then stops himself finally. We find out there's no antidote yet and they don't know how it's spreading around the campus. Ambrose wants an army of Actives to secure the campus and Topher to find an antidote. Apparently the Dolls are immune to the drug because their memories are wiped instead of repressed or something. I don't get it, but it's a different process at work according to Topher.
Ambrose seems to be able to call the shots on this, and DeWitt quickly acquiesces to him. Echo is out on assignment, and she tells Topher to keep her out of this one.
Cut to Echo as Alice, repeating the first engagement we saw in the pilot with Matt. We only saw the end of their time before; now we see towards the beginning, when Matt is teaching her some new things to do today, including riding a red motorcycle. Dude, really? You don't want any variation?
Meanwhile, Ballard is cooking breakfast for him and Mellie. She enters the kitchen and they talkcute a bit, before she tells him not to go all clingy because it's his fault she was attacked. Then they talk about Hearn, the Russian thug, and it becomes clear that Ballard is still very much on the case and suspicious of who Hearn really is. Mellie gets scared/mad about it, and says that far from trying to protect her, he's endangering her again because of his obsession -- though not in so many words. I wonder where her imprint came from because she's just perfect for the job. I guess that's the point, but still. Mellie walks out.
Black vans come to Freemont campus and black suited Actives pour out of them to start searching the grid. Victor is sexy, in-charge guy. His name is Tom. Mr.D brings up Sierra, who is Dr. Gawa from the CDC. It turns out that Topher made Victor an NSA agent (I wonder if he knows Casey) who outranks Mr.D in his role as Rossum Security, which pisses Mr.D off. Good.
Alice is tying up Matt and getting ready to video their tryst when she sees the news report of a death at Freemont. When she sees the Rossum Building, she flashes back to something from Caroline's past. She leaves Matt tied to the bed and takes off. I bet he gets a discount.
Credits.
We come back to a Caroline flashback. She's in bed with her boyfriend, Leo, talking about going to an antiwar protest.
Then we're at the DH with Topher. He's got November (Mellie) in the chair, preparing to inject her with the drug and see what happens in her brain. She's immune, so he should be able to see what the drug tries to do without harming her in the process, I guess. DeWitt is with him and bitching about Ambrose. She's not as happy to follow his directions as she seemed, but she says, "Rossum Corporation is why we exist, and I believe in the work we're funding." So Rossum does R&D for DH, and DeWitt and Ambrose are probably peers. She says Ambrose only has his job because he can't do hers. Topher thinks she's oversharing. I like these two together.
Alice drives her red bike up to Freemont and wanders around the Rossum building looking spacy. Tom finds her and thinks shes infected. He sends her off to containment. Boyd is on campus, not knowing if Echo is off-task or if this is a new part of the client's fantasy. He calls DeWitt and she freaks a bit about Echo being there, tells him to pull her out now. Boyd is approached by an infected student acting all acid-trippy. He comes in contact with her hand. It's about to get awesome.
Alice meets Dr. Gawa, who wants to give her a sedative shot. She flashes back on Leo with a video camera saying, "What do they need babies for?" She refuses the shot and Dr. G goes to get something less needly, thinking that's her problem. Alice is trying to figure out why the hell she had to come here and what Rossum means to her. Sam is in containment, just coming down off the drug, and they talk. He says it's probably Rossum who infected people, using them as guinea pigs. She needs to get in to Rossum. "I have to save him," thinking of Leo. Sam wants evidence to use against Rossum (he says). They bail to go break in.
Sam is Caroline's mirror this episode. Without knowing it, just in trying to finish what he started, he says all the right things to keep Alice on track of her memories. She wasn't infected when she came to the college, so she's remembering on her own.
As Sam and Alice are trying to get away, Boyd comes up to Echo and asks if she wants her treatment. Alice thinks a moment and then says no. They leave. Boyd gets hilarious. "Hey. Wow. Didn't maintain control of that situation." And starts laughing as she leaves.
I love this episode. I don't care that the drug is just like the drug in Star Trek TNG, which was a reprise of Star Trek TOS, which is remniscent of the magic drug Ethan uses in Buffy's Band Candy. I just care what they do with that plot point. And every time, it's beautifully funny. I wouldn't care if every TV show on the planet used that drug to be funny and show different sides to their characters, as long as they did it well. And Dollhouse did it excellently.
We come back on an insert of a magazine ad. The Rossum Corporation. "Because minds matter." With Clive and a bunch of smiling children. Caroline is talking to Leo and two other friends about the evil that Rossum does. She's into animal rights and knows they're experimenting on animals on campus. This seems to be after she graduated because she says she spent four years in the shadow of that building. Now she's an activist who wants to break into the lab and get footage of the lab monkeys to put online to shame the company.
Tom enters the lab where his team are taking prints and photos, doing the CSI thing. Now Mr.D gets funny, sitting there playing with his gun. "Now you're experts. Four hours ago you were discussing your love for apple sauce." Tom is talking about how the situation seems contained -- jinx -- when he notices Mr.D being all funny and paranoid and then pulling his gun on Tom. Then he's all, "Oh, man, this is so heavy." Tom gets the gun from him without a fight and calls DeWitt.
She realizes that the drug hasn't been sold around campus, but it's spreading. Topher agrees, "There's no way Dom would consciously try and have fun." They figure out it must be spreading through touch (and Topher touches DeWitt as he says that). But they also realize that Echo's deal is different and going to be a whole nother problem. They both start to more noticably succomb to the pretty colors until they get the munchies. It's damn funny.
Sam and Alice get back to his crappy room and try to figure out how to get to the lab. Alice is still having the worst case of deja vu ever.
Topher is talking about his "phalanx of machines that go ping." Ha! And he's telling Tom he needs to send the Rossum security people home. "You Dolls -- by which, of course, I mean NSA/CDC folks -- are safe as houses. Because of the government. They do things." It's not that funny on paper, but watching Topher try to hold it together while Adele is jumping up and down on a trampoline saying, "Say hi from me" is all kinds of awesome. He says anybody else is susceptible and yes, "I'm fairly sure," as we pull back and see he's taken his pants off.
His call with lofty Secret Agent Victor is interrupted by Boyd, who's worked it all out. He demonstrates his new knowledge by playing Chopin on the piano for Adele and Topher from his location in the containment area. They listen euphorically. (And it's called Fantaisie-Impromptu, which just seems perfect.)
Alice and Sam look for the way into Rossum that Alice is remembering. They pass an infected prof, Professor Janack, who recognizes Caroline, but I doubt she'll remember her in the morning.
Topher and Adele are eating his inappropriate starches and getting philosophical. "We make choices. I'm well aware that there are forces beyond our control, but even in the face of those forces, we make choices. And then we live with them. And then we die with them." Adele is convinced Echo went to Freemont to let Caroline punish her. November sways in the doorway, upset that yet more people are all about Echo. Actually, she's having a flashback/delirium where she's talking to Paul, asking if he's thinking of Caroline while he's on her. Topher and Adele are like, whoa. Isn't she immune? Topher says she's not tripping; she's glitching, remembering. So I maintain, not immune. Then November flashes back to Hearn attacking her and the 3 flowers. She starts saying the trigger words to turn herself into Ninja Mellie.
Another bit of the Caroline story. She's found a way into the lab with building blueprints. Leo starts to spook a bit, realizing that this is really going to happen. But he's with her.
Alice and Sam retrace Caroline and Leo's steps. They make it into the building and separate as they're trying to sneak past a guard. Mr.D lurches up out of nowhere to confront Echo. He very cutely apologizes for trying to burn her to death. "Who does that?" Alice is confused and doesn't know what he's talking about, but as Sam comes back for her, she tells Mr.D she forgives him. "You don't mean it. You still hate me. I can see it in your eyes, right? You just keep looking at me with them." And he goes on to say how there's more to him than the guns and orders and all that, that's just the job, before beginning to wax rhapsodic about his suit. Gorram it, now I kind of love Mr.D. Do I have any characters left to love to hate? Great scene all around.
Sam and Alice make it through the security. Meanwhile another security guy is freaking out and waving his gun around. As Dr. G finds Mr.D, Tom disarms the other one, then calls for everyone to turn in their guns. Sierra starts to glitch, remembering Hearn's abuse. Tom comes towards her, she freaks and grabs the guard's gun, telling him to stay away. Then Victor starts to glitch. Ooh, backstory. He flashes back on himself in an army(?) uniform in some house, trying to comfort a screaming woman. As Tom is trying to disarm Dr. G, Victor tells the woman they have to get out of there. She runs right into an explosion that kills her. In the real world, Mr.D is still loving his suit.
Adele and Topher are hiding from November who didn't finish her trigger. They check on her. She's lying on the floor saying, "He dumped the stock. He ran out of options." Hmmm. They get her into the chair while Topher figures that the only way the drug could affect her is if it broke down blah blah protease blah. Anyway, upshot is it won't last long. From that, they figure that the guy who killed himself must have had an extreme dose for that type of reaction, more than he would have taken on his own. Murder.
Well, I wonder who did it. Sam and Alice enter the lab. Sam goes straight for the fridge to find the missing vial of drug hidden in a blood sample or something. Alice is still trying to figure out why she's there, and Sam doctors up a handkerchief chloroform-style to take her out, saying he's really sorry.
Caroline and Leo sneak into the lab and start videoing. Leo sees stuff on the computer about human experiments. I'm guessing they see Dollhouse related research. Then a guard finds them and they run.
Alice and Sam talk a bit. She figures how he killed Owen; he says he just needed him out of the way and didn't mean for him to die. He and Owen were going to sell the memory drug to a Rossum competitor for a lot of money but Owen got cold feet. Kind of like Leo did, although he followed through. Still it's a nice parallel. Alice keeps flashing back to her and Leo running out. She tells Sam (and Caroline), "Just because you didn't mean it doesn't mean you didn't kill him. You're responsible."
Sam leaves and Alice/Caroline follows, continually flashing back on her and Leo running and Leo getting shot. She tackles Sam on the grass outside, and we get a final flashback on Leo in Sam's position, dying on the lawn. Sam pushes her off and stands, only to get downed by Boyd, who has come to his senses. Now, when he asks if Echo wants a treatment, she says yes. She's ready to forget this again, I think.
At some point after Leo dies, Caroline is in the hospital as Adele arrives. Rossum security or somebody called her because Caroline fit the profile. But Caroline pulls a Faith and escapes out the window. Thus beginning her two-year "dance" with the Dollhouse? Adele is impressed.
D&D walk the house, both uncomfortable about the whole stoner incident. She gives him back his gun and tells him to get over it. He's not being a dick about Echo now. We'll see if that lasts. For Everything a Reason by Carina Round starts up as Adele checks Echo on the monitors.
And continues over Mellie leaving her apartment, bags packed. Ballard comes out to say goodbye, telling her it's better if he doesn't know where she is, but reminding her she can find him. Aw. She comments that "Debbie" might crash at her place once in a while. I don't know if that's setting up another Active or not. She leaves.
And we bookend the episode back in Adele's office. Only this time it's Sam, not Caroline. "I'm someone who can give you what you want." What's that? "A new life; a better life." She offers him money to help his mother. Five years of a stipend for her, and then he'll have enough money to support her. "I'm going to make you an offer." Is the DH getting less evil or is it just me?
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