Dollhouse 1x04 Gray Hour

I'm not broken.

We open in a really remote mountain cabin where Echo is acting as a midwife to a couple who I assume have reason not to bring in a real one. I'm trying not to imagine the many colorful scenarios that could lay behind this because it's a short teaser-like scene. After a lame lesbian joke we get to what's significant. Echo says, "All this scary painful stuff you won't even remember." "I want to forget. I want to forget." Amen, sister. But seriously, part of the point of all this is that we all do sometimes want to forget. How high a price are we willing to pay to forget who we are?

The baby pops out and then we go into the memory wipe, flashing through images of the baby and the mother wanting to forget, accompanied by that lovely, gross noise. Echo completes her treatment routines.

In the cafeteria, Echo's eating what looks like a stuffed yellow bell pepper. Yum. Sierra joins her at the table at Echo's invitation and they exchange bland small talk. Sierra says at one point, "I try to be my best." That's what the Echo in Jenny's drug hallucination said that led her to the arrow she crammed in his neck. I think it must be part of the Dollhouse philosophy, along with exercise and eating right and massage and tai chi, because it's doubtful Sierra heard it from Echo. That's interesting.

"Are you your best," Echo asks. "I'm not sure how to know that." "I think if you always try, that's best. Right?" she asks as the camera pans to Victor, also at their table. "Every day is a chance to be better," he replies. Yeah, all that sounds like meditation affirmations or something. But they are talking together socially, even if they're parroting what they've been told. That's interesting too. At least they're not talking about the weather, so they go beyond my small talk capabilities.

CreepyChris agrees that it's interesting. He's been noticing the three of them eat together at the same table every day. He tells Boyd that they're not remembering each other, they're just grouping, flocking, herding and other animal things. This goes "deeper than memory, into instinctual survival patterns." "They're not bison, Topher." "They're a little bit bison." Heh.

Madam is hitting up a client for more money for special circumstances. She's telling him that of course it's all confidential, and only the computers know the details of your arrangement. Total BS. I want to see one of the clients at the "confessional," inputting the details of his wishes, with the entire Dollhouse staff listening to it as they prep.

Before he can comment, Madam's phone rings. It's obviously one of her bosses, a senior partner, if you will. And we don't hear his end but he's calling about Ballard, seeing if the Victor operation is going smoothly. She's not as cool with her boss as with a client, but tries to reassure him that Ballard needs closure, which is something the DH is good at. He hangs up on her before she's done. Classic.

The client is up for the extra money, saying this is not for him but a gift. And the audience heads blindly into the mission with the Active, not knowing what the mission is. Which is cute considering that that's the way it's supposed to be for everyone but the Active. And good because we spend the next several minutes assessing and reassessing the job as it turns from one thing into another and another. It's kind of awesome.

Echo is Taffy, dressed like a slut--I mean, escort-type girl. She's primping in the mirror, it seems, adjusting the bra just right and sticking lipstick in her high-heeled, leather boots. "Blue skies," she says when she's satisfied. Then she struts out to make out enthusiastically with one dude while another two watch or try not to alternately. They talk about how his uncle hired her to entertain at his bachelor party. Just to keep them straight in my head, I'll give them spoilery nicknames. The "bachelor" is Bomber. So he must be the guy getting the Active as a gift, right? The other two are Prof and Tech Guy.

All this is happening in a fancy hotel where they like people to be slightly tasteful in public, so a security guy asks them to stop being tacky and go up to their suite with some free champagne. They giggle and head up. Cut to Taffy with a cut lip and disordered clothing, running down the hall and calling for help. So did the client call for some rape fantasy or did something go wrong again? Bomber and Tech Guy weave out after her, in no big hurry, shirts hanging open (thank you). Taffy finds that same security guard and he says he'll help her.

The guard takes her through the kitchen and into his secure office and closes the door behind him. So scenario number 3 passes through my mind. Maybe he's the client and has a rescue fantasy and rest was just set-up. Or he's a pervy jerk who's going to try and work this to his advantage. (I would have scowly babies too if I ever had them.) It turns out that it's hotel policy to hush up these unpleasant incidents -- brrrr -- by paying off the victim and getting her to sign a release. Taffy just wants out of there, but he's offering $10,000. She wavers, declines, then knocks the guy out cold. Whoa!

She's sticks in an earpiece and says she's in. Her "assailants" are on the way to her now. It was all a set-up; none of it about prostitution at all. Well done, show.

Credits.

We're back and in the middle of a kickass heist movie. Taffy's the team leader calling the shots. Tech Guy's a worrier. He worries that she didn't kill the guard, but Taffy half throttles him and says she learned the hard way not to second guess a client because she likes to get paid. She exposits to us all about the Gray Hour, when the security is down next door so they'll be able to break in unnoticed. Prof asks a stupid question and she replies, "That's 6 seconds we can't get back." It's all snappy and fun. Bomber blows their way through the wall to a vault door in the next building.

Taffy is the safe cracker, and she starts making love to the vault door while the others wonder why if she's all that they've never heard of her. She's all, you've heard of Bonnie and Clyde and they're dead. "When this is over, feel free to forget I exist." She goes down on the vault door and it opens up for her. Wouldn't you?

They're in a storage facility for controversial, counterfeit, or stolen works of art. Prof is there for the I.D. Bomber asks, "What are we taking out of here, huh?" "The Parthenon." "Isn't that kinda big?" Ha.

Now we're at Ballard's house. He comes in favoring his bullet wound, carrying the Alpha envelope (he must take that everywhere with him) and some prescription drugs. He finally notices he's not alone and pulls his gun on Victor, who's freaking out that he's a marked man for talking to the FBI. He wants protection; Ballard wants to know why he set him up to die. Victor says it was a tip from a man with a Georgian accent. "Russia, Georgia, not Sweethome." Ballard puts down his gun all, it's Alabama dumbass. Victor begs for witness protection, and Ballard tells him to stay here and he'll see what he can do. 

Back in the vault, they're actually looking for a missing Elgin marble, not the whole Parthenon. Tech Guy's acting like an ass, all worrying about the guards and getting in Taffy's grill. Bomber's trying to get into Taffy's pants, and the Prof decides to steal the marble for himself. As he's running for it, he stabs Tech Guy with a sword and closes the vault door behind him. Oops.

Taffy calls Boyd to set him on Prof. Boyd says he'll finish the job. Then the call is interrupted by a burst of static, and Taffy drops the phone and her face goes blank. "Did I fall asleep?" Uh-oh.

CreepyChris is talking to one of his assistants/trainees/grad students? (Ivy) about some dumb errand he wants her to run when they see Echo's vitals implode. He freaks and tries to call her but she's not answering.

Echo is sitting in the vault mumbling "should I go now" over and over and underwhelming her fellow thieves. Bomb guys turns from charming to asshole in 5 seconds flat, slapping her in his frustration. Meanwhile, outside the building, Boyd takes back the art and shoots Prof in the leg to keep him from taking off.

CreepyChris explains the problem to Madam and Mr.D. She chides him for trying to call an Active in the field without her permission -- focus Madam. They replay the phone call and figure out what happened. Echo's been remote wiped, and CreepyChris can't fix it or do that himself. He's big into the "it's not my fault" of it. He compares the wipe to birth, saying it's traumatic when it's not happening in the comfort of the Dollhouse. "Right now Echo is experiencing extreme sensory overload, and that could lead to a coma state, or it could turn her into Carrie at the prom. Either way we have to help her. She can't help herself." Aww. Okay, from here on out I'll call him Topher, and he's no longer my favorite character to hate. I think I'll switch to Mr.D.

In the vault, Bomber is trying to get through to Taffy, not realizing she's no longer in there. He gets her to say that she's Taffy and can get them out. "I try to be my best." Tech Guy says, "Taffy's gone, man. She's not coming back."

Cut to Sierra in the chair already dressed in leather. Taffy 2.0 is up and running.

Echo is looking around at the art while Tech Guy bleeds and Bomber runs around trying to figure out what to do. Looking at a Picasso or Picasso-like painting, she says, "This one's broken." Tech guy laughs, "Yeah? Look who's talking." Echo feels her face. "On the inside," he clarifies. Echo says, "She makes me feel funny." Tech Guy has stopped worrying and gotten philosophical instead. He talks to her about art. "That's what art's for, to show us who we are. This one is saying how we start off whole, and somewhere along the line the pieces start to slide. We get broken." Bomber is not into that idea. "You can either get broken, or you can be the one doing the breaking."

Taffy 2.0 is upset her Parthenon job went to someone else, but she learned early on not to second guess a client, so fine. But she finishes with a disgruntled, "But I learned how to lap dance." Ha! Madam and Mr.D are good at playing to the Active personas as real people. They start to strategize.

Meanwhile, Topher is still freaking out about the remote wipe. Ivy is wearing flower-patterned, lacy nylons, high heels, and a party dress under her lab coat. What's with that? She listens as Topher rants about the artistry of the wipe. "This isn't a lone gunman. This is a conspiracy." Talking about the level of detail and breaking through their firewalls, etc. It made me wonder if Ivy was going to be the inside man or something, but then I'm naturally suspicious.

Boyd is watching over Prof and waiting for Taffy when Topher calls to see if Echo was acting okay earlier. Boyd wasn't told what was happening. He calls Madam to bitch about it, and she says there's nothing he can do but prepare for an unhappy outcome. Yeah, I'm sure he'll get right on that. Or...he'll go interrogate Prof for ways into the vault. Which is at least as good as Taffy 2.0's plan of calling Echo when Echo ain't taking no calls. But there's no time for anything else.

Echo sits with Tech Guy looking at a landscape painting of mountains. "I like sky." "Yeah, the blue kind. You mentioned." Ha again. Echo doesn't remember her name. "When I'm there, my name is something else." Tech Guy now goes beyond philosophical to nihilistic. He has a suicide kit because he doesn't want to go to prison. Prison is "a place with no sky." "When bad guys get caught, we don't get to see sky." The Dollhouse is full of light, but is there sky? I don't think they can see outside. Echo asks, "Am I a bad guy?" "You're a talking cucumber." Echo doesn't like that. Bomber doesn't like Tech Guy's way out. He takes his needle away and rescinds the no kill order, arming for a fight.

Topher talks about a programmer in Tokyo, Takahashi, who wants his job. But he's a hack. "Only one person I know who could achieve a remote wipe. And he's dead." Okay, why on earth would they give Alpha the knowledge of the imprinting process? Seriously.

Taffy 2.0 is trying to call Echo because she wants to talk her through some complicated way of opening the vault door without setting off the alarms, but Echo is not answering and the Gray Hour is over. Echo says, "I don't like this room anymore. Where are the better rooms?" Echo outside the Dollhouse is hilarious. That line reading was perfect.

She finally finds her phone and answers it. They've still got some time as all the security stuff goes online one at a time, so Taffy 2.0 talks her through her plan. It turns out that the cleavage adjusting and lipstick in the boot thing were less lascivious than it seemed earlier. She was stashing tools of the trade on her person for emergencies. I don't understand the whole trick with the door, but the upshot is that Echo followed directions very well, but no longer had the hands of a safecracker so it didn't work. Alarms go off, lights go off, and it all turns a pretty blue in the vault. Bomber kills the phone in frustration.

Back in the Dollhouse, Taffy 2.0 goes for her treatment. C'est la vie. Mr.D's going to put Boyd on standby in case he needs to take Echo out before she's captured, but Madam tells him to send somebody else, thinking that Boyd won't be able to do it. Topher asks about Echo as Sierra comes in with Mr.D, not even changing clothes before getting back on the chair. That confused me at first, but I guess it's to ward off any cognitive dissonance she would get if she "woke up" in different clothing than she was wearing when she went in.

Tech Guy is giving Echo pointers on how to avoid being shot by the guards, but Bomber sticks a gun in her hand and tells her to shoot the bad guys, be broken or do the breaking, etc. She's all, so we're not the bad guys? Poor Echo, it's all very confusing. When the door opens, Bomber decides to have her start shooting first, so the guards can aim at her while he shoots them I suppose, so he threatens to shoot her if she doesn't start firing.

Echo sees the suicide needle on the floor nearby, grabs it, and shoves it in his neck, just like Jenny did with the arrow to the Middleman, when she was trying to be her best. He falls out in the open and starts shooting, and the guards outside the door shoot back. Echo goes right back to Tech Guy to try to help him. He throws a smoke grenade type thing and tells her to run for it. Aww.

Boyd's on the way to the hotel security office. Echo comes out of the vault supporting Tech Guy. "He's broken. Can we fix him?" Aww. "I'm not broken," she says to Boyd. He agrees, "No, you're not."

Back with Ballard. His place is in West Hollywood, where "two guys in an idling car isn't news" he informs a worried Victor. Turns out though, that Ballard didn't find a new identity for him, he actually dropped a dime on him all over town. (I just realized I've been calling him Victor forever, and his persona has always been Anton Lubov. Oh, well. Retroactive spoiler alert.) Ballard's upping the stakes. He tells Anton that he can get a lot of information from a dead body, like whether it was killed by Russians or not. He either suspects he's being played by Victor or by Victor's bosses, or he's just in a pissy mood, I don't know for sure.

Victor is feeling betrayed. "Put on your mean face, act tough, but you'll care, Agent Ballard. That's your problem." And he's out.

Echo goes back in the chair, unremembering everything that happened after the remote wipe. It seems painful. Madam is telling Mr.D that "Michaelangelo believed his sculptures already existed inside the marble, waiting to be formed." Then she tells him to hand over the art and Prof to the client right away. Topher reports that Echo is fresh as a daisy or whatever, no memory of what happened in the vault. He says it had to be Alpha right? She has him sign a paper to up his security clearance and agrees. He's using the "gifts we gave him." Again, I'm intrigued. Did he move beyond regular Active to some sort of Dollhouse employee? 

In the Dollhouse, Echo walks, swims, and sits on the bottom of the pool in solitude for a while as Sia sings "I Go to Sleep." She showers, exchanges smiles with Sierra, and looks at herself through a misty mirror. She traces over it a few lines that seem to shape the cubist face she saw before that was broken, then quickly wipes it out.

More, more, more.

Dollhouse 1x03 Stage Fright

Were you raised in a lab?

We begin with a woman in the dark, haloed with a spotlight on her head, behind bars.  Then some poppy music begins, Superstar by Kimberly Cole, sung by Jaime Lee Kirchner who plays Rayna Reynolds.  Rayna steps out of the cage and puts on a show.  They went whole hog with the choreography and all.

Then one of the backup singers gets set on fire from the stage flash pot pyrotechnics and the show stops.  As everyone freaks, we pan over to the Crazed Fan who obviously did it.  So this week won't be a mystery story, I guess.

In the House, Sierra and Echo are both running on treadmills (if running on treadmills made me look the way they do, I'd totally do it).  They have a moment after the workout where Sierra gets the dizzies and Echo steadies her. "I didn't want you to get hurt."  "Friends help each other out."  "Yes, they do."  There's a trainer in the background watching them, someone always is, and Echo seems to notice.  A sense that they're doing something wrong over the scene.  Seriously, what does the blank slate consist of?  I don't know that children think things like friends help each other out; they're generally way too selfish and have to be taught those ideas.

We next visit Boyd and Dr. Saunders as she mildly tells him off for yanking out a broadhead arrow.  He wants to be certified so Echo doesn't get stuck with anyone else on assignment.  She seems to care about her patients, and her and Boyd bond a bit over Echo being in danger from Alpha.  Doc says, "Do keep a close eye.  Someone else is watching."  Boyd replies, "Someone always is." Seems to me they're talking about the Dollhouse authorities more than Alpha with that.

Cutiepie Victor in a hoodie goes to Ballard's place and freaks out his neighbor, although anyone in the world would look more menacing in a hoodie than him. The two people in Paul's life meet, and we're left to wonder if either is what they seem.  Good line delivery on a good line:  I'm an old friend from Navy, er, friend from Old Navy.  I did retail before...he would buy slacks.  Awesome.  Jed and Marissa have some really good dialogue throughout.  Anyway, he leaves Ballard a message to come talk, not at work.

Madam is cheek kissing friends with Rayna's business manager, Biz.  Great name.  He tells her that Rayna's had a couple strange accidents and needs protection, but her stalker seems to get by regular bodyguards.  So he wants a Doll to be her friend and undercover protector.  He brought a few fan letters and a really disturbing pop-up box with Rayna's face all over it.  If I make one for Joss would I be his number one fan?  Anyway, thanks to the burning woman incident, the entourage does have an opening for a backup singer.

Cut to Echo, or Jordan actually, singing a spiritual-like song about freedom for her audition that Rayna likes.  Biz's doing, no doubt.  He also plays reverse psychology, saying exactly what he needs to say to get Rayna to hire Jordan. She joins Jordan in a duet and it's really pretty. Jordan's cutely excited to get the gig.

Credits.

CreepyChris is doing whatever he does as Doc Saunders storms in waving a report about Echo.  "I had her flagged for romantic or altruistic engagements only.  Does anybody read this?"  Okay, I want to know what the altruistic engagements are.  In fact, I want the company handbook.  CC brags some about his imprint on Echo.  It's a combo of persona (struggling singer getting her first break) and parameter (must protect Rayna at all times).  The persona is what she knows; the parameter is unconscious.  Okay, it is kind of fascinating, even if he's still creepy.  He notices that Doc Saunders is less formal about Boyd and wonders if they're buddies now.  "Of course you are. You both disapprove of everything.  You're gonna get married and have scowly babies." Heh. Then Sierra comes in with her lamo handler, Hearn.  She's going in as backup.

At rehearsal Jordan's getting fitted for costumes and learning her lines, mostly oohs and ahhs according to the other backup singers.  She asks if Rayna is diva or deevah.  "She's the real deal. She's earning it." Lot of stuff this week about reality versus persona.  Then Rayna has a mini tantrum and Biz takes her off to something else.  She takes Jordan with her.  So the plan is working to make her a non-bodyguard bodyguard.

At a pool party on top of a downtown building, Ballard catches up with Victor -- he said not to come to his work, dude! And they have a good conversation.  Victor is an interesting character who seems to have a lot going on under the surface of immigrant punk playboy who's working for the Borodins.  (And, spoiler alert, he gets even more interesting pretty soon.)  He tells Ballard he thinks Dollhouse is a myth.  "I've heard this song; it's not my favorite."  Cute.  And Victor brags that he looked up Ballard and found out he was a loser.  This line I don't get: Nicest version of Fired the BI has.  I get the initial play, but not how it makes sense.  Anyway, he mentions Van Dynes and Illinois Gun Club as cases that Ballard supposedly screwed up.  He's on the Dollhouse beat because it's a lie and he can't mess it up.  Given what we do see about Ballard in this episode and others, I think he has a reality versus perception thing going on with him too.

He's also delightfully cynical.  When Victor says the technology that made a monkey tango isn't going to be used to wipe out people's personalities and give them new ones, Ballard disagrees. "We come up with anything new, the first thing we do is destroy, manipulate, control. It's human nature." I think he could have scowly babies too.  Victor seems to agree, and to me he seems to like Ballard.  At least, the two have a good chemistry together. But even before the big reveal, we don't know how much of what Victor is doing is for real.  He does say he wishes Dollhouse were real. "I could sign up. Wipe all of my terrible burdens away...I start over, I want to be Doris freaking Day." So adorable.

Jordan's doing her unconscious security job while Boyd is waiting for Sierra and Hearn to join the party.  CC tells him he won't like Hearn.  Boyd is nervous for Echo's stage debut.  They gossip about Rayna long enough to get to the point where Topher can say, "You think you know someone," and we see Victor! in the chair.  One of the few spoilers I had was knowing that Gjokaj was cast as a Doll, so I've been wondering how it would play out.  I thought he could be a Doll on assignment, or he could have been recruited later because of Ballard using him to ask questions about it.  And then they just now floated the possibility he would volunteer for it.  It's all great. And now that we know he's been a Doll, we still don't know all there is to know. Is he there strictly to deal with Ballard? Did Madam bait the Borodins? Or was he hired by the Borodins and just happened to get noticed by Ballard and then retasked? Or was he placed among the Russians without their knowledge because of some business between the Dollhouse and them? Who knows? Also, since it seemed that he liked Ballard, was that part of the imprint to forge more of a bond between them or an unforeseen thing? I love this storyline.

Moving on finally. We get quick-moving, intercut scenes of the audience coming to the show, Crazed Fan entering on crutches, Jordan and Rayna all buddy-buddy backstage, Sierra joining them as Rayna's number one fan contest winner from Australia, and Crazed Fan putting together a rifle out of his crutches and leaving it in a high-up room across from the stage.  He must be doing the killing thing later. We don't see this show, just the after party where Rayna and Jordan and Sierra talk about how cool it is to be a star and then Jordan totally tosses a paparazzi dude over a railing. Crazed Fan is in the house and takes note. Sierra's persona, Audra, is kind of geeky, awkward and virginal seeming. Kind of a weird number one fan type for a pop star, but probably just seems that way because it's more realistic.

Victor sends Ballard to an abandoned hotel basement where he heard third-hand that people might have been kept there. Says he only called because Ballard "inspire(s) terrible pity. Watch your back." The warning doesn't do him much good when he's jumped by 3 Russian goons trying to teach him to leave the Borodins alone. When they ask why he wants to mess with them, he's honest. "Actually, I didn't." They try to beat him up, and he's winning against all three until one shoots him. But then he rallies, uses one as a shield against further bullets and beats the crap out of them while wounded.  Badass. Who would win, him or Boyd? As he's passing out he calls 911, not the FBI. Ouch. He really can't count on his compatriots coming fast enough to save him, I guess.

Hearn comes back to the van after a 40 minute coffee break to give Boyd a hard time for trying to figure out who's after Rayna. His idea of being a handler is just watching the Active and pulling her out when the job's done. When Boyd asks about the previous Sierra, Hearn just says, "She got the job done." So I'm guessing death in the LOD. Wonder if that happens a lot.

Now we're back in Rayna's dressing room and about to figure out what's really going on here. Rayna's all excited about the upcoming show being the best night of her life. She gets into an argument with Jordan when Jordan notices she has more letters from Crazed Fan and seems to be corresponding with him. "You want him to shoot you."  "I'm not crazy. I just want to be free," she says as she climbs into her cage and it heads to the stage. Nice twist to have the target conspiring with her assassin.

The concert. Another scene that intercuts with Jordan looking for Biz, Rayna singing, security working the audience, Audra watching from stage right, and Crazed Fan getting into position. Crazed Rayna is singing a song about a stalker who needs to "make your move."  Then she starts talking to the audience about her special fan, taunting him to do it. When it doesn't happen, she ups the stakes by bringing Audra onstage, calling her her number one fan.

Meanwhile, Jordan finds Biz, argues with security, knees one dude in the stomach and hops on stage to shine a spotlight all over. She finds Crazed Fan just in time to blind him so his first shot goes wide, then she tackles Rayna and the second shot misses her too -- possibly hitting another backup singer, it's not clear -- before chaos ensues and regular security makes itself useful.

We quickly check in with Ballard in the ambulance as he's arresting.  Then we're back with Rayna and Jordan, with Rayna all pissy about not giving her fans a finish. Jordan doesn't think her fans want to see her die. "Did they grow you in a lab? You know anything about people? They'd love to see me die." Maybe Ballard could have his scowly babies with her. "I got to be happy; I got to be grateful. I got to be rebellious, but just enough to give me cred so people know I'm not a factory girl. But I am. I don't exist. I'm not a real person. I'm everybody's fantasy." I really like that they tie these assignments in to the main philosophical ideas of the Dollhouse. When you have a character who has no memory and is different every week, you need these consistent questions to draw the audience in and keep them interested. There's almost no throwaway dialogue in any of these episodes. It's very dense.

Rayna talks about how she doesn't feel anything, and it would be a rush of freedom to just suddenly die. Jordan thinks she's either on drugs or needs to be. "You don't like your life, change it." Rayna fires her, and Jordan is happy to go. Persona.

Audra, trying to get back inside, gets grabbed by Crazed Fan. He makes a video or streams one live to Rayna. Jordan sees it when she comes back for her stuff, hears there's trouble, and instinctively goes to find out what's happening. Parameter. 

The last line on the feed: You have my number; call me. Ha. Biz finally gets it and backhands Rayna, like apparently he's wanted to for a long time. I don't really like him, even though he's fairly benign. (I do wonder if we'll ever see the twins he apparently recreates with from the Dollhouse, but I digress.) Jordan tells him that "Getting what you want may not be the best thing for a person." She's working it out in her head, getting to the solution we'll see her implement later. He asks if being fired makes a difference to her in terms of Rayna. "No. I don't know why." And she looks at the video of Sierra. "I have to help her." Her actions from here on out can be read two different ways, or maybe they're an amalgam of both. Does she know which her she's helping?

We catch up with Madam and Mr.D in her office. Apparently this was Sierra's backup function. Mr.D figured she would draw the attention of Crazed Fan away from Rayna. Hearn and a team are just waiting for the order to go in and end this.

While they're waiting, Audra, completely clueless that she's not Audra and she's got backup, is crazy scared. Crazed Fan makes her sing Superstar and joins in, giving us another, less pretty, duet.

Rayna is in front of a mirror in the dark, practicing dance moves for the next show. Jordan tells her that she can help Audra, and that will help her to feel something. And she could be talking about herself, her Echo self, who was happy to help Sierra when she stumbled in the Dollhouse. Who felt something then, in a place where you're not supposed to feel anything. Then Jordan nails Rayna with a metal folding chair and reprises Echo's line: Friends help each other out. And again, she's helping who?

So the DWAT team busts in and finds Audra and Crazed Fan gone, and a message on the answering machine from Jordan, offering to trade Rayna for Audra. Cut to super pissed Mr.D throttling CreepyChris, who gets pissed and says Mr.D's in HIS house and one of them is a genius and one is a security guard. Then he admits that Echo's actions are a bit off.

Up on the catwalk, Jordan and Crazed Fan meet up. Rayna's bound and gagged and Crazed Fan has a gun on Audra. Boyd's looking around down by the stage and hears Rayna scream as Jordan removes her gag. He takes a position on another catwalk and points his gun at the group. Madam won't give the order yet. Jordan does some good Eleanor Penn style negotiating with Crazed Fan and Rayna, breaking their bond and confusing them both, and Rayna makes it clear she's having second thoughts about the whole rush of dying thing. Then Jordan pushes her off the catwalk. She's on a rope and ends up hanging over the stage. Freaks everyone out.

Then Jordan proceeds to kick Crazed Fan's ass, steal his gun, and pistol whip him into unconsciousness. Badass. Then she helps Audra up, and steadies her as she wavers. Rayna's all, "Please don't let me die. I want to live." And Jordan pulls her up.  That was well-staged and unexpected. And Jordan helped both her friends. But she and Audra are the two that walk off together and share a moment. Hearn and Boyd come for them and Hearn's all snotty. "That's all I need, you rubbing off on her." (Too easy, too easy, back away slowly.)

Jordan wants to kick his ass before her treatment, and Boyd seems willing to consider it. He's impressed with her badass self. Not so Mr.D. He thinks Echo's a risk and should be put in the attic. I really don't want to see this attic place. It's going to be like the Wolfram and Hart travel agency basement in Dead End all over again, I just know it. (By that, of course, I mean I really do want to see it.)

Madam doesn't think Echo went off-mission. She stopped the threat against Rayna's life posed by both Crazed Fan and Rayna, so good on her. Boyd is talking with Doc Saunders about the same thing. She "did even better" than the mission parameter. And the mission persona?? He's impressed with her ability to think outside the pieces of identity imprinted on her to create a new approach. She's special. Doc says being special around here is not such a good thing. "Sometimes the best thing to hope for is good enough." Boyd doesn't think Madam would do anything to her best Active, but Doc reminds him that Alpha was the best once too.

Rayna in the dark, haloed with a spotlight on her head, no longer behind bars, is singing about freedom. Jordan's voice takes over the song as Ballard's nosy neighbor tries to see him in the hospital and is stopped by agents at the door. Ballard is lying in the hospital bed looking as blank as a doll, and it's incredibly sad for some reason, considering he survived. The song continues as Echo walks through the Dollhouse. Her eyes are alert, and she watches everything with the same security consciousness her Jordan persona had. She sees Boyd and Doc Saunders watching from above, as someone always is, and passes Hearn talking to two other handler/security types. He shoots her a look. Sierra sees her friend and heads towards her. Echo gives her a firm "no" head shake and Sierra keeps walking. Echo watches the watchers.

Whew. Good episode. I think Echo is not Caroline, but she is someone. And she knows she's being watched. And she has some sense of danger. I can't wait to see how this continues to play out.

Magpie Viewing

Okay, so falling way behind on the idea of recapping Dollhouse.  Life has been intervening with unpleasantness in the form of expensive car trouble, stress-inducing rescheduling, and now a (fairly minor) cold.  But I intend to get back to it soon because I'm enjoying my attempts at this form of writing, and I find that I am an even more insightful viewer when I watch through this lens.

On another note, the end of BSG keeps making me flash on the end of the book Passage by Connie Willis.  And it's creeping me the hell out.  The Galactica is out there in the big black, just slowly dying, lights going out, hull bursting, everything shutting down.  And I don't think I'd feel it so strongly if that book hadn't left its imprint on me but good.  It's so sad and beautiful.

30 Rock this week made me laugh hysterically; funniest it's been for me in weeks.  I'm not a traditional slapstick fan, but if physical comedy ever does strike me as funny, it strikes hard. Like Spaceman and Bear Jenna and the table or Buffy and Spike and the flamethrower in Him.  I don't know why it's so funny, but awesome.

Also, Wicked IS AWESOME!  I remember reading the book when it first came out and being, unlike everyone else, underimpressed.  I suspect I had my own ideas of how the story should go and the author had the gall to do something different; I really don't remember.  Just remember thinking that it was probably a new idea for fiction readers, but for a genre fan it was just okay.

I don't know if I'd see it differently if I reread it.  I know the Musical is its own entity and different from the book.  In any case, I love love love the musical.  I expected I'd enjoy it, but I had no idea how affecting it would be.  I think I have Winnie Holzman to thank for that, and I really need to finish making my way through My So-Called Life.  I just remember, during the last duet between Glinda and Elphaba, thinking that the whole story is really about this incredibly complex friendship between these two women.  And how often is that ever given primacy and importance in stage and screen?  I mean, there's more women protaganists now, but so many times the most important relationships they have are with men, usually romantically.  And it seems to me that a lot of women's friendships are still played more for laughs or as a side story or as proof that there's nothing more "interesting" in that particular character's life than gossiping with girlfriends.  

I don't know; maybe I'm overlooking something or maybe I don't watch enough Lifetime -- that sort of women's drama doesn't appeal -- but it really struck me as amazing that this whole big Broadway hit play was about these two women's stories.  And it was obviously about a lot of other things that I also loved.  The whole people's perception versus individual perception versus truth, how being what people think you are instead of who you are never gets you anywhere, and on and on.  I just wish it were in a format that I could watch over and over without paying a fortune.  I did get the soundtrack and found a copy of the script online, so I'll have to make due with geeking out over that instead.

That's it for my entertainment thoughts of the week, those of any substance anyway.  Guess I'll go rewatch Dollhouse 3 now.

Dollhouse 1x02 The Target

Prove you're not just an Echo.

We start out 3 months ago at the Dollhouse.  For the flashbacks, the lighting is blown out and super shiny so everything looks different and we can tell it from current day, but also gets light flares around the edges that are reminiscent of the imprint memories, just hot instead of cold.  Cool.  

There's a problem in the D-house and Dolls are being sent to bed without a shower, throwing them off their whole engrained routine.  They're going to wake up cranky.  Or they would if they could hold a thought for more than a minute.  Scared dolls sealed up in their coffins as Mr.D and his Dollhouse Weapons and Tactics team deploy through the place past bloody bodies.  CreepyChris has got blood on him too but isn't injured, and wants a gun.  Do not give that guy a gun.  He'd be all, this is my ART as he made bloody pictures out of bullet holes.

So Alpha, operative numero uno -- I'm assuming the very first Doll, not a reuse of the designation -- composited, which means he accessed imprinted memories that should have been erased.  This either caused him to go nuts and go on a killing spree, or just gave him the abilities he needed to make his point to the Dhouse at large. 

Mr.D and DWAT surround the shower facilities and find many dead Dolls and Echo, alive and splattered with blood.

Credits.  I like these more and more every time I see/hear them.

Dhouse, present day, dolls waking up out of their coffins as Madam vos about the Tabula Rasa operation they've got going on to the Middleman, aka not Richard Connell, aka the client.  Over Echo and Boyd leaving the DollVan, "your heart's desire made flesh."  Then talk about how once the engagement is over, they're wiped clean, and showing Echo waking up in the creepy chair with CreepyChris.  

And we're in the office with Madam and MM.  He calls it all a neat trick, and Madam says, "tricks are illusions constructed to deceive."  I thought tricks were what whores do for money (tm G.O.B.)  "We offer truth."  This from the same woman who said, "Nothing is what it appears to be."  Methinks she offers different truths to clients than to Actives.  

They finish making their arrangements, which include an extra fee for more than average risks to the Active involved in his needs.  And Madam mentions her employers, meaning she's either working for someone else or pretending to be.  Please let it be Holland Manners!

Cut to "Jenny" and "Richard" white water rafting and climbing cliffs to Get Out by the Vines. Her personality this time is Adventure Girl.  Boyd is camped in the DollVan with a red shirt, er, driver who is not named because what's the point.  Boyd is coordinating with Topher at the Dhouse, who adds talking while eating to the list of annoying things he does.  They discuss whether Echo's adrenaline is in the mission parameters or not, and Topher annoys Boyd enough that he hangs up on him after asking him to retask a satellite to boost his Echo monitor.

Now we're at the house from last week, where Miss Penn saved Davina from the kidnappers. Agent Ballard is there to check it out and annoy the other FBI investigators.  Rolo Badger is one of them and he flips Ballard shit about the Dollhouse, while they talk over what seemed to have happened and we get some happily brief flashbacks to Ghost.  Ballard apparently talked to Davina, who told him a pretty lady saved her.  Agent Badger is filling in for a significant portion of forum posters this episode by scoffing over the Dollhouse being a "full-service organization" that takes down kidnapper rings.  Ballard is unfazed.  If I keep recapping these episodes, I have a feeling I will type that a lot.

In the woods, Richard is teaching Jenny how to shoot a bow so they can rustle up some lunch. He does a salute-like motion where he slaps his left shoulder with his right hand as he talks about his dad's shoulder-to-the-wheel philosophy.  "If you can bring down something bigger than you with just this, you proved you deserve to eat it.  If it gets away, you proved it deserved to live." They're interrupted by a deer that Jenny aims at and releases an arrow, cutting immediately to his post-coitus release.  Which is appropriate because it's all the same to him.

He tells Jenny she needs to start running so he can hunt her down.  This reminds me of that advertising poster of the woman as a side of beef that comes up in conversations about vegetarianism and feminism.  This guy's fantasy is a girl he can fuck and then hunt and kill like an animal.  But keep in mind his comment before about bringing down something bigger than you, because even as fucked up as Echo/Caroline/Jenny is, she is totally bigger than you, jackass.

Jenny runs through the woods and we go back to less than 3 months ago at the Dhouse.  Madam is meeting Boyd for the first time.  It's fairly soon after the Alpha blood soup mess.  Boyd is hard at this time, very different from the man we met in the pilot.  He talks about how the stories are true and they have programmable people.  Madam exposits that they decided they needed people with more intensive backgrounds as handlers, I expect especially in the case of the only girl Alpha left alive.  She calls Echo one of the most requested Actives.

Dr. Saunders comes up with healing scars across her face, asking if they can please get rid of the body in her office and telling Boyd to watch where he steps.  There's still blood stains on the floor.  And she's not in a good place either.

Boyd wants to see Samuelson, his predecessor's, body and he takes note of all the cuts, including cutting the leg tendons first to disable him.  Shudder.  He thinks it was done slowly to cause pain, but Mr.D tells him it was over in 8 seconds.  Boyd asks a question that I don't want to think about the answer to, regarding why Alpha was programmed to be Jack the Ripper.  Really, I think we all would have prefered Giles the Ripper.  Anyway, no one knows why Alpha didn't kill Echo.

The Middleman is on the hunt.  Have I mentioned his biceps yet, because they're worth mentioning.  Ahem.  Anyway, Jenny heads back down the rock cliff and we cut to:

Victor, making out with a girl while driving and listening to the Delorentos.  Then he answers his cell phone!  Dude needs a lesson on driving without distractions.  Ballard's calling to harass him about the Dollhouse and he claims to be an innocent citizen.  Ballard, "And I'm the Easter Bunny. Dollhouse, get hopping."  Heh.  He tells Victor to find someone who knows something.

Ballard heads in to his desk and is ruthlessly mocked by his colleagues; wouldn't you love to be him?  Apparently there's a gingerbread house in the forest he might want to check out.  Then he finds Alpha's present with Caroline's photo in it.  Left by the Granny with big teeth.  Should I keep track of the fairy tale references in this show?  Last time was Cinderella; now we've got Little Red Riding Hood and the witch from Hansel and Gretel.  Children's stories in the Dollhouse.  And both are scary as hell.

Jenny keeps running as Richard watches her in his scope and takes his first shot.  He grazes her leg.  Meanwhile, CreepyChris retasks the satellite for Boyd finally, but a ranger pulls up to check out the DollVan.  Of course, they have a backstory and fake ID all ready and it looks like they've pulled it off, until the ranger draws a gun and totally assassinates the driver!  I go to commercial thinking he's totally Alpha.

Back in time at the Dhouse, Dolls are doing tai chi as Topher meets Boyd.  He's all full of himself and talking about the Wizard of Oz, where he's the man behind the curtain.  Boyd shuts him down right away (Yay, Boyd!) by reminding him of his wonderful achievement known as Alpha. Topher insists that was an anomaly, still working out the kinks.  And I'm not really into this whole thing of comparing all the Dollhouse characters to previous Whedonverse characters because I'd like to see who they are first before sticking them in a preset box, but his lines this week are extremely Warrenesque.  

Boyd is pretty unimpressed with the Dolls, calling them helpless children with scorn in his voice. Either he's trying to distance himself in order to work with them, or he's so uncomfortable with what they are that he's trying to make himself feel superior to combat the unease.  Or maybe he really doesn't see them as people.  They discuss how the Dolls can't even defend themselves and Boyd asks why they aren't given default ninja skills.  Topher says they tried that once.  His name is Alpha.

Boyd says Echo is not a girl or a person, just an empty hat until you stuff a rabbit in it.  (Don't do that! Why would you do that?)  That brings the conversation back to its start, with Topher calling himself the wizard, although I think magician is a downgrade.  Also refers back to the illusions to deceive stuff that Madam was saying at the start.  Very cool.

In the present day, Echo is still running.  Makes me tired just thinking about it.  Topher finally notices that her adrenaline is in fight or flight mode and calls Boyd about it, calling him mountain manfriend.  He needs to stop that.  Manfriend is not going to catch on no matter how many times he twitters it.  Boyd is in the DollVan with a gun to his head.  He alerts Topher to this and then goes for the ranger.  They have a very realistic and cool fight in the cramped van, and I realize he's not Alpha because, well, 8 seconds.  I also realize that Boyd is a badass!

Then we're back in Madam's office, where she and Mr.D are looking at a picture of Paul Ballard and arguing over what to do about him.  Think how glad he would be if he knew they were taking an interest.  Mr.D wants to ice him, but Madam thinks that's overkill.  She says the appropriate measures are being taken.  Mr.D says even a blind dog will find something if it digs enough holes -- dude can't even get any respect from people who know that the Dollhouse is real!  Their argument is interrupted by Topher with the news that another engagement has gone awry.

Echo gets back to the raft to find it deflated, then heads off and finds an isolated cabin.  She seems to think that that's a good thing, proving that Jenny didn't watch many movies.  It's a ranger outpost, and Echo gulps down some water from a canteen before finding the dead ranger in the closet.  She tries to call for help on his radio, but MM has another talkie and starts philosophizing at her again.  "I want to know if you deserve the right to live.  You've earned that right."  Very good writing this ep, but some of the dialogue dips below the bar.  "You know what gives someone the right to live?  Not hunting them."  But at least she has a good excuse for not being particularly eloquent.  "That's it, shoulder to the wheel.  Prove you're not just an echo." 

And it turns out he poisoned the canteen of water with some drugs to mess up her already messed up sense of reality.

Back in time again, it's time to imprint Echo on Boyd.  It's the ultimate odd couple/cop buddy movie.  He calls her special needs and she thinks he's tall.  Boyd's beginning to wonder why he didn't just join a security agency to bodyguard celebrities who he can at least have a conversation with, maybe.  Topher says, "This isn't about friendship; it's about trust.  From this point on, Echo will always trust you, without question or hesitation, no matter what the circumstance.  You're about to become the most important person in her life."  Hella responsibility there.

He has to hold her hand and say, "Everything's going to be all right."  Echo replies, "Now that you're here."  "Do you trust me?"  "With my life."  Welcome to fatherhood; it's a girl.  Helpless, an innocent in this Echo persona.  She needs you.

MM has entered the outpost and radios Echo to taunt her about the drugs.  Echo sees a girl walking in the forest.  It's Caroline, dressed as she was in the video yearbook.  She turns and says, "No, no, no, get that thing out of my face," just like on the tape.  Echo WTFs and falls, rolling down the hill and into the river.

Boyd has fake ranger tied up in the DollVan and interrogates him about who else is out there between him and Echo.  He does this by shooting him in the legs whenever he doesn't answer the question properly.  Then pistol whips him to la-la land.  Badass.  

Echo is coughing up water and she looks around and sees dead, bloody bodies surrounding her in the shower.  There's a man with a shadowed face and a knife dripping red blood.  Echo isn't naked as she was when it happened, but dressed as Jenny still.  Compositing.  The figure seems to tell her to wake up, but it's MM's voice, and she does wake out of the dream on the shore of the river.  MM is near, watching her.  He wants her to run some more.

Agent Ballard is arriving home at a realistically grim looking apartment house hallway.  His female neighbor, Ellie, is hitting on him with lasagna, and he's nice but not interested.  Is she one of the appropriate measures Madam was talking about?  If so, does she know she's a spy or is she programmed with a neighbor-girl-with-a-crush imprint?  She spots Caroline's picture and asks about it, and Ballard says he'll keep looking until he finds her, digs the right hole.  Ellie says, "Lucky girl" after he's already gone inside.  So I bet she's a sleeper, not an Active programmed as a spy.  Or she's a red herring for the real Active the Dollhouse has on Ballard.  I'm very interested in how that all plays out.

The lucky girl is still running for her life in the woods.  She hears someone closing in and almost beans Boyd with a tree branch.  He uses their trust code about everything being all right now. Then he gets shot with an arrow.  That DeKnight, he likes shooting people before commercials.

We come back in the past again as Boyd handles Echo back into the Dhouse.  She's talking his ear off about how her fat, ugly client is the man of her dreams, and Boyd is just wishing she'd shut up about it.  He tells her he'll be there waiting for her, and she hugs him and tells him he's the best. After a few months of that kind of thing, it's no wonder she's worn him down and brought out his inner protector.

Back to the woods, with Echo helping Boyd run.  They have to stop.  Jenny can't figure out how she knows him, talking about the poisoned water and the things she's been seeing, bodies in the shower and a girl who's her but not her.  I wonder if he'll tell anyone at Dhouse about that.  I doubt it.  But she's freaking out and wondering if he's even real, and he tries to calm her with the Handler/Active imprint code that makes her trust him no matter what the circumstances.  She's all, "No, everything is not going to be all right."  So the imprint is being overridden by Jenny or maybe by Caroline herself somehow.

She talks about how MM is all about proving you deserve to live and is not going to stop until he's proved you wrong and him right; basically she has to kill him.  Boyd doesn't think she can do it because she doesn't have the right impri--training.  She says she's a fast learner.  So again, is it the personality of her imprint that enables her to reach beyond her basic level?  Was Miss Penn able to face down her abuser because of the circumstances pushing her to it?  Or is it something in Caroline that is asserting itself to take the imprints past their own limitations?  Compositing?

Echo turns the Handler/Active into Active/Handler.  "Do you trust me?"  Boyd answers, "With my life."  And gives her one of his guns.  "You didn't think I'd give you my only gun?"  I think he'll miss Jenny.

Tables are turned as Echo radios MM and takes a couple shots at him.  She grazes his arm and then runs.  I'm assuming she wanted to gain higher ground on him or draw him away from Boyd or something.  But she's brought up short by another image of herself saying, "I just wanted to make a difference."  That's what Caroline told Madam in the pilot, but this Caroline is dressed differently and calmer, so it might be a different memory of that same phrase.  

MM catches up and they have a standoff.  He calls this his best date ever, then tries to trick her into easing off.  They count to three and lower weapons, then both take a shot.  Hers hits, his misses, and she tackles him and pounds on him.  They have another really well-done scuffle, with him finally ending up on top and strangling her with a grin on his face.  (And Xander gets some catharsis.)  He's out-creeped Topher this week fo sho.

Echo has another vision, this time of black-shirted Caroline number 2, green-shirted Caroline number 1 (very Farscape), and another Echo in a black tank who says, "I try to be my best," and looks down at an arrow in reach of Echo's hand.  She grabs it and jams it into MM's neck.  Yes! As he's dying, he says, "He was right about you.  You really are special."  She's like, what?

Echo comes back down to Boyd in slo-mo and they sit against a tree and hug while the choppers, Mr.D and DWAT finally show up.  Then we go right into the brain sucking as Topher removes the entire episode from Echo's head.  Boyd watches and takes her hand when she wakes up. Dude gets a nice character arc in all of two episodes; who did he pay off?

Mr.D and Madam D talk about how Richard Connell doesn't exist, absolutely everything about him is incredibly well-faked.  Fake ranger was sliced and diced like Samuelson.  Dr. Saunders and Boyd look him over.  She insists that Alpha was killed and is not happy to think he's still out there.  Boyd snarks that Dhouse would never lie to them about that.  Then muses on how he left Echo alive 3 months ago, then shows up again when someone hired a psycho to hunt her down. "It all leads back to Echo."  Well, yeah, dude, she's the target.

Then a little coda with Mr.D being a dick and spilling out his bile over all the bad stuff that's happened onto Echo, who doesn't even know how to respond.  I mean, even if it turns out that some of this mess is Caroline's fault, it's not Echo's.  Anyway, he does get to her and when he walks away she does the shoulder-to-the-wheel salute.  Does Mr.D deserve to live?  Better hope she doesn't composite old Richard's ideas when she goes nuts, buddy.

Excellently dense and action-packed episode.  I can't believe how much is going on already in this show.  

Made up of distinct components, compound = Composite.

Dollhouse 1x01 Ghost

Nothing is what it appears to be.

Those are the words that start off Dollhouse, a TV show that's already been talked over ad nauseum by people who have a stake it whether it succeeds or fails.  A new show by Joss Whedon has no chance of starting on a level playing field.  You have the fans that love everything he does, the fans that love some things he does and have the bar set so high it's almost impossible to hit every time, the antifans who are so incensed by other people loving him that they automatically hate everything he does, and the professional critics who are trying to be objective while also clearly holding him to a high standard.  It makes reading Dollhouse forums a lot less fun than reading those of a long-running, high quality show like BSG.  Emotions are running pretty high, and the separation between giddy delight and bitter disappointment is razor thin.

I for one am a believer in very little in this world, but I do believe that anything Joss Whedon does has value to it, and the potential to have greatness to it.  And I also know that for me, I don't know at the start which will win out, but I'm willing to go along for the ride.  I could spend a lot of time worrying about the ratings and whether something will appeal to enough viewers and whether something is a good choice for a marketplace and all that; it's obviously important for a show to live if it is to grow.  But I can't do it.  I'm in it for the story, for however long that lasts, and I would rather judge it on its internal merits and try not to let external exigencies enter into it.

Anyway, for fun and to give me a chance to look at the details, I'm going to attempt to recap and comment on Ghost.

We start with a security camera look in on two women in an office.  Adelle DeWitt, henceforth Madam, is pouring tea for a girl named Caroline, who soon will be Echo, who isn't anybody.  Madam says, "Nothing is what it appears to be," which is one of the premises for this show.  A lot of those premises are going to be outright stated in this pilot, as so often happens, and it is clunky in places, but you've got to set the scene.

Cut into the room with them.  "It seems pretty clear to me."  "You're only seeing part of it.  I'm talking about a clean slate."  "You ever try to clean an actual slate?  You always see what was on it before."  That's what the show will be about.  Tabula rasa.

Caroline accuses Madam of loving this, and I think it means they know each other.  This is not a business acquaintance conversation.  Caroline just wanted to make a difference, like SHE said.  The first mystery.  At first I wasn't sure I liked introducing Caroline right away; thought maybe just go right to Echo or a persona, but then it turns out that who she was will be important and we have to meet her.

Madam asks what would happen if actions didn't have consequences, which is something else the show will explore.  Then we cut to a kind of silly motorcycle race set to rock music.  One racer skids and the bike falls on her knee.  It's Echo as that Fun Girl you meet and have a magical vacation with, then never see again.  The motorcycles finish the race in some banquet room in Chinatown maybe, where the other racer, the client whose name is Matt, has won.  They do the big talk thing a bit, cute conversation with cute guy, then they dance to Lady Gaga.  FunEcho is wearing the shortest dress in the history of dresses, like she just took off her motorcycle pants and went with it.

They talk some more about how he will always remember the last three days, and FunEcho is, like I'd forget?  Which, if you know the concept of the show ahead of time, you know she will.  And so does Matt.  I'm sure that, even though these people are spending a lot of money for these Actives, not all of them believe that they really don't remember anything, that they don't exist until they're activated.  But they will always know on some level that it's a lie, while the Actives won't.  To them it's all real.

FunEcho wanders off and Matt talks about Cinderella to his drunk friend.  She's back to her pumpkin coach at midnight for her treatment, some sort of posthypnotic suggestion that brings her back to be wiped of this identity.  Matt's friend's comment about "dude it's like 5" is silly and obvious, but it still makes me laugh.

Now we're underneath the Dollhouse, and a girl (prob) in a kimono is being helped into another black DollVan while Echo's hander, Boyd Langton, is walking her to the elevator, listening to her blather on about the cool guy she met and whether he's the one.  She's flying high and tells him, "You're good people."  You can tell he's not so sure about that.  He's still got some principles I think.  Wonder how he got here.

FunEcho goes on about Matt to everyone while automatically changing to Dollhouse clothes and getting into the scary chair in the Frankenstein lab.  "I think I found something real."  Think again.  I have a feeling you're going to have to look long and hard to find anything real here.  

We meet Topher Brink for the first time as he runs the memory wipe.  We get a cool flashback of her memories, containing her relationship with Matt, some of what we saw plus the start of it.  Then there's other flashes that are hard to figure out but are partially or entirely from Caroline, no slate is clean.  There's a school bus, a girl listening to a guy who looks to be a musician, something fuzzy, a little girl being read to by a woman who's not hot enough to be a TV mom, and then a house, and a view upwards from a crib, looking at a woman who looks not unlike Madam DeWitt to me.  I think those two are related, but wait to be proved silly.  The memory flashes are accompanied by a cool, slightly organic sound, like they're literally sucking the brain out of her head and the neurons are sputtering like shorting wires.  I like it.

Echo wakes up with the creepiest blank doll face.  "Did I fall asleep?"  And wanders out of the room.  Topher takes the memories, or imprint, data and goes out of the lab and into his office.  Where Boyd is waiting to check on how it went.  He obviously cares about his charge.  Topher says a bunch of creepy stuff about how he made her a virgin again, and quotes Shakespeare that it's only good or bad if you think it is one or the other.  To him, apparently they're great humanitarians, giving people what they want.  He and Boyd look over the gorgeous Dollhouse set as they talk about how illegal it all is, and Topher says Echo is living the dream.  Yeah, your being-serviced-by-hot-willing-girls-whose-thoughts-don't-matter dreams, creep.  "Whose dream," Boyd asks.  Whoever is next.  This really is a disturbing concept.  Not at all sexy but very relevant.  It's no mistake that reality shows are referenced later on.  This is a step beyond seeing a "real" world that's been crafted just for you on TV, to interacting with a person crafted just for you.  We all live in a movie about ourself, what happens when you can make someone else a scripted guest star?  In a way that goes beyond marriage, I mean.

Now we get to the main story of the week.  A mansion with a young girl in it, talking on the phone to her father in the back of a limo.  He looks like a Hispanic Keanu Reeves.  She wants to watch a reality show and he tells her it will melt her brains.  And we find out soon he's a client of the Dollhouse, so he should know something about that.  The girl lies back on the bed and is snatched by kidnappers who stick her in a body bag or something.  Credits.

That's a longass teaser/first act.  Theme song is by Jonatha Brookes; credits are simple but pretty and relate to the memory flashes in their looks.

We come back to Quianu talking to Madam about the kidnapping.  He wants her to provide a professional negotiator to make things go like clockwork.  Says his daughter is completely helpless; like a doll?  Another pale suit is there, Mr. Dominic, head of security.  Madam says Quianu is a valued client and that Actives aren't robots but can do the job.  Tells him to enter the rest into the confessional, I think.  That must be some twisted name for the process of clients telling the Dollhouse exactly what they want from the doll without having to look anybody in the face.  I'm guessing.  Then she warns him and the audience not to confuse the Active by talking about what she really is.

Then a few shots of pretty, buff boys and girls working out, doing tai chi, keeping at least the body part of the mind-body package in order.  In a scary way, it's not unlike looking at people at a gym, the total focus on the physical that for normal people only lasts as long as the workout.  Do dolls think at all as they try to fall asleep, as they eat, as they brush their teeth.  Creepy.

Then we're in a darkish med lab with a scarfaced Amy Acker as Dr. Claire Saunders.  She's giving Echo a physical and Echo can't remember what fell on her knee.  Claire talks to her like she's a kid, and Echo acts like one too, or like someone so numbed on thorazine she's barely there.  Dude, can you imagine what these folks would do with mental patients?

As Echo leaves, she sees flashing blue light from Topher's lab o'fun and heads up to investigate.  I would guess they're not supposed to feel curiosity at all, so this may be a sign of Echo beginning to become someone.  She walks in on a creepy Alliance conditioning River scene with the newest doll, Sierra.  She's got some gross electrode/twisted acupuncture needles stuck in her all over as Topher maps her tissue.  I don't want to know.  But it looks painful.  Echo is surprised that someone in the treatment chair is hurting; Topher's pissed off that she's up there and doesn't know how to handle it beyond making a comment that it only hurts because it's her first time.  Ewww.  Couple that with the virgin moon remark and Topher is my favorite character to hate.  He says they're making her better (stronger, faster, we have the technology).  Then WTFs Claire who's come looking for Echo.

We look back on Sierra's blue lighted, needle penetrated face as her memories are wiped and replaced, and then fade to the interior mind space of Agent Paul Ballard of the FBI.  (Hi, Helo.)  He's boxing a tattooed dude in his mind while his bosses are reaming him out over a list of non-FBI-kosher activities.  To wit:  assaulting a senator, disrupting a 7 year investigation into Russian human traffickers, and trespassing on some guy with the unfortunate name of Princeton Moody's yacht.  Hello, if your investigation of modern day sex slavers is taking 7 damn years, your investigation needs some disruption!  Then boss man sucker punches Ballard with the fact that he's also divorced.

They do a bunch of exposition intercut with mind boxing about how Ballard's trying to find the Dollhouse, how it doesn't exist because billionaires can already buy what they want, how someone high up in the FBI does think it's real and won't let them close the case.  Ballard is Fox Mulder.  But probably not a Cylon.  Some more thematic dialogue happens as Ballard talks about survival patterns.  When you get what you want, you want something else.  "If you have everything, you want something else, something more extreme, more specific, perfect."  This show will examine what happens when you try to create that perfect thing, from the point of view of the perfect thing.  Just like with the Pax, you can't have a perfect world without losing something essential about being human; like with Jasmine, you can't have peace when it means losing the ability to choose; in this case, you can't make another person your perfect anything without taking away their personhood.  And the doll can't disappear from a disappointing life and into oblivion, can't retreat from making choices and living with the consequences of her actions without there being a cost.  You're the only one who can give away your own agency, but at some point you have to take it back.  If there's still a you there.

Ballard also claims that to imprint a person with a new personality means wiping out the old, basically making the Actives the walking dead, "as good as murdered."  We'll see.  

As the bosses continue to yell at him for believing in this fairy tale, and the other employees in the outer office pretend they can't hear it, Ballard seemingly agrees to back off on the Borodins, but his inner boxer rallies and kayos his opponent.

Back at the Dollhouse, Echo is getting into the creepy chair while Topher continues to be creepy.  Creepy, creepy creep.  We hear Madam's voice talking about the girl, Davina, and cut to her office as she briefs Boyd about their operation to exchange $5 million for the kid, without trying to bring anyone to justice.  Mr.D doesn't like Boyd and tells him to skip any ex-cop heroics.

Cut to sexy librarian Echo, known to herself as Eleanor Penn.  She's at the mansion and Quianu is not happy with the choice of operative.  He wanted Adama, dammit, not some hot chick with glasses!  

Boyd wonders WTF about the glasses too.  CreepyChrisTopher says he can convince her brain it can't see well and it's all a part of the imprint.  More expo about how it works.  They have all these personalitie with all these traits.  CreepyChris can amalgamate them, but only in organic ways, not just a mish-mash.  His idea, he explains as he watches Sierra on a treadmill with less creepy electrodes, is that competence or achievement has to be balanced with faults.  The person running is running both to and from something, and everyone who excels is overcompensating.  Basically, sane people aren't geniuses, well-balanced people don't stand ahead of the pack, and people need to have weaknesses to overcome to become strong.  Hard to argue that.  He stares at Dr. Claire for a bit while talking about people running or hiding from things.  Dudes dig scars.

Back to crazy scupture filled mansion where Mr. Sunshine, the kidnapper, is calling.  Miss Penn takes control of the sitch by getting disciplinarian on him and offering more money.  Some funny there.  "You going to rap my knuckles?"  "It's unlikely."  "You have the money."  "It's polite to ask."  And Miss Penn and Quianu talk strategy.  It's boring, but I do like that they just go whole hog and dedicate themselves to the storyline, even if it's just one day out of many and Echo won't even remember it.  But the audience will.  Imagine if Sydney was mind-wiped after every assignment.  Would that have actually made her life easier?

We now move on to a night club where Ballard is lurking at the bar to spy on the Russians he was told to leave alone.  There's a new pimp in town in the form of Enver Gjokaj, or Victor, who's telling some VIP bouncer who doesn't care some no doubt 'anal'ytic story about an immigration officer and a rubber glove.  

Back to the mansion.  Kidnappers put Davina on the phone.  There's a very subtle little sway to the camera that in hindsight is showing that they are in the hold of a boat.  Davina tries to tell Poppy clues to where she is, but Miss Penn keeps interrupting so the kidnappers don't panic and kill her.  They set up a meet.  Quianu is not happy that she wouldn't let his daughter risk her life to tell them she's on a boat, and he goes up to this ridonkulous balcony over the Hollywood Hills or something and bitches about it.  He wants Miss Penn to prove herself, that she's the man for the job.  Her backstory is that she's Rebecca Locke from The Inside.  (Hi Tim Minear!)  She was kidnapped, and now she helps people who are kidnapped.  "Trust me, I've done this many times."  And of course, Quianu knows she hasn't because he doesn't get the Dollhouse.  Nothing is what it appears to be goes both ways.  He wants her to make him believe the way she does.

Boyd is watching all this on the security feed as Miss Penn tells her story, and Quianu is kind of disgusted/impressed with the depth of it.  "Maybe it's all made up," he tests her.  "The terrible memories those men put in your head.  Why would they do that?"  Uh, to give you what you need.  But I get the point.  Did she really need to be so damaged, CreepyChris?  You know he's getting off on it.

Poor Miss Penn doesn't quite get what he's saying, and no doubt she's wondering why she's remembering some blue room with a girl with needles in her face instead of her own ghost.  Tabula nonrasa.  She freaks out a little and pulls out an inhaler.  Asthma is really a necessary part of the imprint?

Back at the club, Victor is ordering champagne for his girlscorts (the best in the house until they stop noticing) as he heads to the loo.  BTW, between BSG, Terminator, and this show, I've now seen way too many violent urinal scenes on TV.  Ballard puts a gun to his head, asks him to say Dollhouse a lot, and it's obvious he know nothing about it, and then tells him to find out who of the Borodins supplies bodies to the Dollhouse.  Then he'll leave them to traffic humans in peace.  I like Victor; he's cute.

Now we're at the dock for the exchange.  Boyd's on hand with a sniper rifle; CreepyChris is monitoring Echo's vitals from the House.  It's going okay until Miss Penn sees one of the kidnappers and freaks out.  Yep, he's her ghost.  It all goes to hell.  She's on her knees, saying that they're not going to give the girl back, Quianu goes for Sunshine and gets shot, Boyd shoots Sunshine, and the boat takes off with the girl.  Miss Penn's all "You can't fight a ghost."  Which becomes much less weird and much more grim when we find out what that means.

Which we do here, in the DollVan on the way back to the House.  Miss Penn PTSDs some more about the gross things the heavy ghost did to her as a kid, but then she regains herself (ha) and she and Boyd work the case together like professional partners.  Nice.  But then they arrive and Mr.D gets in Boyd's face about the mess at the docks, while Miss Penn is off to quickly get her treatment so she can come back to get the girl.  I like how they just have her automatically undressing and going to the creepy chair in whatever persona without thinking about why she's doing it.

Cut to CreepyChris saying the imprint was fine, Echo didn't screw up, Eleanor Penn did.  Echo comes in and we cut to Boyd freaking out at Madam that they need Miss Penn to find the girl.  Madam just wants distance from the whole PR nightmare.  Her valued client was shot so who cares?  Boyd says saving the girl is a mission, and I think we just saw how he gets through the day in his job.  Madam frostily tells him that it's an engagement (more creepy), not a mission.  And he says he's been there long enough to know that she likes to tell herself that "we help people."  That gets to her and he runs to stop the wipe.  Fake out with him thinking it's Echo, before she asks for her Miss Penn glasses.  Try the phone next time, Boyd.

Miss Penn and Boyd figure out who one of the kidnappers is and where they're holed up.  Mr.D benches Boyd and goes off in a chopper with her.  He plays it straight like a man who's dealt with a lot of Actives; just treats her like the profiler/negotiator she's supposed to be.  She convinces him to give her 10 minutes to get the girl.

So she walks up to the house, and her vitals are all fear, all the time.  CreepyChris found out that the part of the persona that was abused came from a woman who ended up committing suicide last year.  She never got over it.  Nice choice, creep.  

But our Miss Penn does get in, turns the two kidnappers against her ghost abuser, and manages to get some closure when she had an actual person to confront, as opposed to the ghost and her memories of him.  There's a gun fight where the other kidnappers kill the bastard, she saves the girl and goes to leave, and Sierra busts in like an assassin and takes out the other two so the House can return (some of) Quianu's money. 

Remember Caroline, who just wanted to make a difference in the world?  And Eleanor Penn, who tried to make it so no other girl went through what she did?  Well, they both won today.  And then disappeared as if they had never been.  We morph from Penn carrying Davina to safety to blank-faced Echo leaving the chair behind.  So who rescued Davina?

The dolls shower together and get ready for bed.  Mr.D and Madam talk about how they pulled it off, then she shows him a folder labeled Alpha, asking how they'll contain this.  The dolls get into their beds/coffins/plastic doll cases for sleeping.

Now we go to a TV screen showing Caroline being filmed for her college video yearbook.  A naked man is sitting cross-legged on a coffee table watching this, while he puts a picture of Caroline in an envelope for Paul Ballard that says "Keep Looking."  

As Caroline talks, we pan back to a dead man in a recliner and then to a dead woman on the floor, then back to naked man.

Caroline says:  I'd like to take my place in the world, like Mrs. Dundee (she?) taught us.  Global recovery, doctors without borders -- the world is in need of some serious saving.  And I want to travel around the world as I save it in a private jet that I pilot and design.  What can I say?  I want to do everything.  Is that too much to ask?  She's full of life.

Cut to Echo, lying in her coffin with a dead face as the lid closes and we pull out.  The end.

I think there's a lot there.  And yeah, the pilot is not real subtle about telling you what's what, but I don't care.  I'm fascinated to find out what happened to Caroline to turn her into Echo; what happens to many of us to turn us from vital, energized, caring people into dull, dead inside robots just trying to get through the day without thinking or feeling too much.  And I want to learn about the House and its people and more about the world it inhabits.  So I'm good to go.  I can't wait until next Friday.

thinking to myself (aloud)

Is the key to blogging imagining that you're a celebrity and everyone wants to know everything you do? Or is it more pretending it's a letter: A cleaned up one to your parents, a raunchy one to your friends, a rant to your co-workers, or a complaint to the editor? Because I can't really accept that it's a journal to yourself. And I think most people would agree that bloggers are writing to somebody, some audience out there. Therefore blog is not equal to journal. Blog is more equal to news report. That's helpful to me, being all behind the curve in this area.

My head is full of circling ideas and half thoughts and cockeyed schemes. None are coming clear and I'm left with a restlessness of the mind (but definitely not the body). Can't even settle on something to watch/read/work on. It's the kind of day where I just want to hole up and be cozy while it's gross outside, but I apparently feel that I need some project to take advantage of the holing up time. And I can't think of any project that I want to do.

Maybe it's just a dissonance from thinking I should be doing something, even though there's nothing I technically have to do. It's a low income month, and I've been thinking about that. That inevitably leads to some agitation over all the wrong things, which is just frustrating. It's like I'm almost stirred to action but at a time when there's no action to be taken, and I search for a substitute. Then it's over. Of course, if there comes a time when action should be taken, I quite possibly will not recognize it, and it will pass by unnoticed.

I know everyone has weird mental blocks, and it's in their nature that you cannot understand them, but it still feels annoying -- I don't know. You are who you are; you're all you've got. Take it as it is. Or my newest personal catchphrase: Own It. (not unique, I know)