Directed by Felix Enriquez Alcala
"Freedom has to be earned."
Another episode that reads one way the first time through but looks a little different the second time.
We start with Ballard opening his door to Echo, with another message from inside the DH. Apparently the inside man thinks Ballard needs something from him, that something being Echo's bod. Men. Yeah, in your dreams, which it is. "Save me Paul." As he and Echo start making out, Mellie appears. Ballard is all, "I know this is confusing for all of us," which cracks me up. "I'm sorry; I have a thing she needs." That what he said. Mellie says Caroline isn't real and is dead. Ballard looks down to see he's macking on a corpse, albeit a pretty one. Then Mellie's head starts to bleed and she says, "How did they know what we shared?" Ballard wakes with that thought echoing (see what I did there?) in his head.
At the DH, sleeping pods open to reveal Echo, Victor, Sierra, November and a new guy, Mike. They arise as Adele looks down on them. Then we VO transition into a DH staff meeting about the problems they've been having with Actives lately. She mentions Echo going off-mission, Victor's man reaction, all the glitches that happened because of the drug last episode. The house is out of balance.
So they're upgrading electrical and security feeds, which is causing periodic interruptions of service, as the utilities would say, and they're requiring all employees to turn in reports at the ends of all shifts that list anything unusual they notice about the Dolls and Actives. Mr.D says to not get too attached and to think of them as pets instead of children. Doc Saunders is not feeling that. But Mr.D is kind of awesome here. "If your child starts talking for the first time, you feel proud. If your dog does, you freak the hell out." He's worried about having another Alpha. Boyd's concerned about the actual Alpha, which Adele says is off-topic, but knowing Boyd, I wouldn't be surprised if he started his own investigation eventually.
Topher wants to refine his scrubbing process in some way nobody else understands but Adele approves. He also wants to mess with their sleep meds, but Doc disagrees about whether that's safe. Boyd isn't happy about turning all Hitler youth and informing on his Active so she's sent to the Attic. But Adele says they need to stick together for the safety of the house. "A tide is rising. Until we learn how to turn it back, we pile up the sand bags together. Unless anyone here thinks they have a better idea." Then we cut out.
Echo is brushing her hair and remembering Ballard's words to her in Man on the Street. They're on each other's minds. Sierra is still freaking a bit whenever she passes the place that Hearn raped her, having flashbacks to it. Victor watches her to see she makes it to bed. After the pods close, Echo is dreaming of supposedly wiped imprints and a snowy, barren mountain. A voice says, "Caroline, wake up." She wakes and freaks out that's she's in a test tube.
Credits.
I like that we're given just enough information to make (wrong) guesses about what's happening, but as soon as it gets implausible, we're given more information to make it make sense again, until we get to the end and it's just a little different than we thought. Topher did talk about messing with their meds while sleeping, and Doc Saunders argued about whether that was safe. Now we see them waking up different. Obviously, something went wrong.
Echo cuts herself getting out of the coffin. Victor is next out, then Mike. They help Sierra and November. Mike thinks they've been abducted by aliens. Victor thinks they're prisoners. Echo thinks they're lab rats. Sierra offers up that they're being held by a deranged millionaire serial killer. November's trying not to hyperventilate but wondering if they're supposed to be here. None of them remember who they are or how they got here. Victor instinctively stands up for Sierra and thinks he knows her. Echo thinks she's supposed to go to the mountains where it's safe. November has lost something. Mike is worried about sex with the aliens.
Then they see Dolls walking past the glass walls and freak out. The lights flicker on and the door opens. Sierra is out of there, Victor close behind. Mike wants to see the aliens. November is scared but Echo won't leave the room without her.
They mingle with the Dolls and try to act Doll-like. An attendant greets them all by name and Victor recognizes the military code. We also see a blonde girl who is Tango. They come out into the DH main floor and look around uneasily. Topher is up top, looking down through his window at them. Does he notice that they're not acting normal? November again offers the idea that "Maybe something bad happened to us, and they're helping us heal." Victor's okay with that idea until Tango walks by saying how much she likes banana pancakes. "We're all going to die," he says. Heh.
Quick snippet of Ballard tearing his place to pieces to find the DH bug.
Then we're at breakfast and Tango is still on about the banana pancakes. Mike is not blending in well and Echo tries to help. Then an attendant sees the bandage on Echo's hand and takes her to see Doc Saunders. Echo OMGs at Doc's scars. Doc warns her that there's cameras everywhere and says she's not Echo's friend in here. It looks to us like she doesn't want to inform on Echo acting weird and get her sent to the Attic. Or maybe she's the inside man and that's why she's not raising an alarm. Then Mike gets taken away screaming to Topher's lab for a treatment as the others watch.
The dream team heads to the showers. November has no problem with coed nudity, but Victor is running down the play list for the Mets while trying not to steal glances at Sierra. They see Mike go into the sauna and follow. He's a pod person again, even saying, "I like sleeping in the pods." This freaks them out enough to want out now.
And it's at this point, where it's more and more unbelievable that someone hasn't noticed something odd going on, that we find out that Adele knows exactly what's happening. Mr.D tells her four Actives are preparing to escape, and she says they're right on schedule. Mr.D wants to give their people more warning since they're expecting an exercise to happen later on, but Adele says they should always be prepared and that the Actives need real obstacles. "Freedom has to be earned." The second time through I could see that Doc's behavior of acting like a prisoner and warning Echo and Mike's unsubtle abduction and removal to the chair were all part of the plan to give the Actives those real obstacles and reasons to run. Now at this point it all looks like an exercise for DH security.
Victor lures a handler/security type into the sauna and suffocates him into unconsciousness with a towel, stealing his pass card, telling a couple of Dolls that the man is just really tired. Victor is awesome in pretty much any persona. He and Sierra use the card to get out, leaving it behind for Echo and November to follow. They head into the backstage area of the DH, and it's much less zen and more ugly industrial.
Echo is watching Tango's handler ask her if she wants a treatment when November tells her it's time. They head out to meet up with Sierra and Victor. Victor's trying to make small talk, sounding slightly New Yorker to my untrained ears. He says he remembers Sierra, and he thinks something bad happened to her. Echo and November show up and they move out.
They pass by a room where the handler's store their weapons. Boyd is talking to Sophie as they lock up their guns. Sophie warns Boyd about getting too attached to Echo. "Even a good dog needs to be put down sometimes." Yuck. As they pass by, Sierra gets a look at an armed man and remembers that men with guns came to take her away. She remembers the man who put her here.
Echo figures out they must be underground because they have yet to find a window. Then they have to duck into another room filled with racks of clothing with their names on them. Be funny if this was the real costumer's room for the show. They start suiting up. Victor finds some crazy looking gigolo pants (for Miss Lonelyhearts maybe?). Ha, but also ew. He's ready to go now. November finds a baby carriage and remembers she has a daughter named Katie she needs to find. Then Tango's handler comes in and they hide. Victor and Sierra have sparkage.
They run to the elevator wearing street clothes now, and they make it to the car garage. Sierra is thinking they need to call the police or FBI. November says maybe this is the FBI. Bitter much, Mellie? Victor doesn't want to trust anybody until they know what's happening. Echo's just worried about all the people they left behind.
They hide as an Active dressed as an army guy and his female handler return to the DH. "You wear the uniform, you gotta push it all down, bury it. Never happened right? The good guys lost one today. I had to watch a man die. And I'm just supposed to make it disappear?" Which is apt for Caroline, kind of sad and metaphorically relevant, but also kind of ridiculous and funny because we know it's not real and his handler is just along for the work day, hardly paying him any attention as he babbles on according to his imprint. Very Catch-22-ish, maybe because of the absurdity of that little slice of drama.
Victor runs out to look for keys. Echo is a problem solver. She helps Sierra to remember that the man who put her here is named Nolan and tells November that she'll remember her daughter's location. Echo remembers a mountain house where it's safe. Hope it's not the midwife thing; that would be random. Victor finds the keys and they grab a car, then duck as Tango and her handler come out of the elevator. She's dressed like a Moulin Rouge hooker and speaking French, which her handler doesn't understand.
Mr.D and Adele have been watching the dream team and call security about their impending escape. Adele turns away from the monitor just as Echo changes her mind and gets out of the car. She's going back in to help the others. Says she needs to "try and make a difference," which is what Caroline told Adele in the first episode.
The others leave and Echo tries to bust into the arms locker. Sophie interrupts her and they fight. The fight's cool; not sure if I like the way it's shot or not, but the ending is effective. Echo trips Sophie up with a fire extinguisher and bitch goes down hard. Echo first tries to wipe up the blood from her face, then remembers her mission and goes for the weapons, scoring herself a pistol.
Ballard finds a fishy electronics expert who looks at the futuristic DH bug and tells him he's basically screwed.
Victor is driving around while Sierra tries to remember where the guy is who put her in the DH. November suddenly says she remembers where her daughter is, remembers her whole life even. She leaves them.
Adele finally notices Echo's back in the building; she's been riffling through papers in Doc Saunders' office. Adele says she should have known. This is Caroline without the memories and this is what Caroline would do. She's willing to let her go about it until Echo knocks out the power and D&D spook. Adele checks in with Topher for his bird's eye view of things. He's not liking the darkness, but has a cool flourescent green tube to light his way. He's about to have more to be scared of than the dark though, because Echo is out for his blood.
Echo holds the gun on Topher and questions him about what he does. He's very afraid but seems to answer her honestly, telling her he programs people by hacking into the brain. He won't tell her how long she's been there. She wants to see the chair.
Now we see where Sierra's deranged millionaire idea came from. Sierra and Victor call on Nolan, who calls her Priya. That's probably her real name. His fantasy seems to be to have her even though she wouldn't do him, so I think he'd probably hire her under her real name. Anyway, he's an asshole who pulled a lot of strings and spent a lot of money to get her into the DH after she refused his advances. Now he hires her out whenever he wants to feel like he can own anything he wants. He tells Priya that she doesn't even exist anymore. Victor knocks him around a bit, and Sierra spits at him that she'll be back before they run away from his security. Jerkoff thinks this will make having her all the sweeter. Should have killed him, Vic.
We briefly see November walking past a church with a bunch of Catholic school kids playing in front of it. Then we're back with Echo and Topher and the chair. "We're good people, nice people. We help people become better people by giving them what they need." And I think he believes it. I mean, I don't think he concerns himself with the morals of his job overly much, but I do think he believes this. And he tells her that she volunteered, which she would know if she had her memories, but she doesn't. He says she'll get them back when she leaves, along with a bunch of money.
And we get the penultimate piece of the episode puzzle here too, when Topher tells Echo they're running a test on her. Not on DH security or anything like that, but on the four Actives themselves. (Mike was totally a plant to up the stakes.) He says the mountain she's seeing isn't from him, but it's what she needs.
Sierra and Victor are still running from (I assume) Nolan's security since they actually shoot at them. I don't think DH guys would do that even if they were trying to miss.
Echo puts Topher in the chair, and it's not unpoetic. He says you can't imprint a fully functioning brain; that's why the Dolls are Dolls. He almost gets wiped, but Adele shows up to save the day. Echo does shoot the chair though, which doesn't please Topher. Adele tells Echo that she wanted to forget. "I eased your suffering." Echo doesn't believe it. "Taking away basic human rights, free will? My right to feel, choose, remember?" "You couldn't live with the consequences of your own actions, and you no longer have to." The Dollhouse is totally the French Foreign Legion. People go there to forget. Fascinating. I might have turned evil now because that makes sense to me. I think this episode is making me change sides. But Echo just shoots up another computer.
Victor and Sierra are in hiding. Victor describes being a Doll like someone in Supernatural described being possessed. You see it happening but can't do anything. Victor saw what was happening to Sierra with Hearn, but he couldn't stop it. Sierra remembers Hearn and asks why she trusted him. Then she remembers Victor waiting to make sure she got to her pod all right. As they hear pursuit closing in, she wonders whether it's worse to be shot or taken back to the DH. "Feels like dying either way." It's no French Foreign Legion for Priya. Okay, I haven't completely changed sides.
Victor and Sierra kiss. November cries at the grave of her daughter. And Lonely Ghosts by O+S starts up as Echo forces Adele to free the captives. "The devil that you know is better than the one you don't." Dolls walk out into the light, Echo still holding Adele at gunpoint. Doc Saunders leads the way. "We stay because we don't know where else to go." As soon as Echo sees the sky, she collapses. Victor and Sierra fall asleep together; November sleeps with her daughter. Security comes to pick them all up and bring them home. "We can never move on."
And we come back to the staff meeting, right where we left it, for the last piece to fall into place. "A tide is rising, and until we learn how to turn it back, we pile up the sand bags together. Unless anyone here has a better idea." Doc says, "We give them what they need. Closure." She thinks the affected Actives have open loops that they need to close to get a sense of resolve. "Let the tide come in." So that was the plan from the start, to let these four go on a self-guided journey. Return them to who they were, but without the memories, and let them work through whatever issues they had. Fill their needs so they can return to being blissfully ignorant Dolls.
Boyd asks Doc if the tide has turned. They were programmed to fall asleep if they felt closure, so they should be fixed. November had to mourn her daughter. We don't know yet how that relates to her comments last week about him running out of options and dumping stock. Sierra had to face up to Nolan since Hearn wasn't available to confront. Victor is in love with Sierra and just needed to express that, to get the girl. And Echo needed to free those in cages. But we still don't know what the mountain house is about, so while she got that closure for Caroline, I think there are more things she needs to do. I'm not too worried about her being all Barbie again.
Boyd would have been proud to see her lead them out, even if it was all a game. He basically accuses Doc of playing God with the Dolls, just as Echo accused Topher. She tells him she didn't enjoy it, but she needs to protect all of them from the Attic and the "world of terror and chaos that would have destroyed them." The world that Echo was leading them to. This is Jasmine versus free will in Angel.
The dream team go to bed again, angst-free for now as the pod lids close and the songs fades out.
Then a quick coda of Ballard getting a new message on his machine from Echo! She found his file while she was searching the Dollhouse and called him for help. This echoes (sorry) his dream where Caroline asks him to save her. She tells him the DH is somewhere underground. Please find us. Dun dun dah!
Wow. Better and better and better.
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