We open with moaning. The moaning seems to be coming from a lady on a bed, but it quickly becomes clear that it isn't the good kind of moaning. Then it's screaming, and that's not the good kind either. She's giving birth, and Echo is there as a midwife. The father-to-be is pacing nervously, and to break the tension Echo asks them about who kissed whom in the beginning of the relationship, which helps as the mother-to-be tells an embarrassing story. Echo breaks in to say that little Lucy has linebacker shoulders. The father asks if that means she'll be a lesbian, but Echo is just talking about the physics problem. She says it's going to hurt, but assures the mother-to-be that once it's over she won't even remember it. As they go through the final push, the mother screams, "I want to forget!" which takes us to Echo's mindwipe.
In the Dollhouse, Sierra is looking for a place to sit to eat lunch, and settles on a place at Echo's table. They have some blank Doll conversation about their exercise regimens, followed by what seems to be a Doll slogan, "I try to be my best." (We have found the source of the mystery line!) This prompts a little philosophical questioning from Echo about what it means to be one's best, and the camera pans to show that Victor has sat down with them. He joins in the blank inspirational chatter.
Upstairs, Topher is pointing out to Boyd that Echo, Sierra, and Victor seem to have bonded. (Hilariously, Topher calls Boyd "man-friend".) Boyd asks if it's leftover from previous memories, but Topher insists the wipes are clean. He thinks the pack bonding is instinctual herd behavior.
Boyd: They're not bison, Topher
Topher: They're a little bit bison.
Boyd points out that they used to be real people, and Topher reminds him that they volunteered for the gig. Boyd is a little skeptical about that.
In the Fortress of Dollitude, DeWitt is telling a another client that his request will require a risk premium. This time it's not a psycho who hunts girls with a bow-- or at least, I don't think it's a psycho who hunts girls with a bow. That would be a little bit repetitive. The client does seem very concerned that no one, not even DeWitt, know what his engagement is. In the middle of the conversation, DeWitt gets a call, and she seems very eager to please the person on the other end, who wants an update on Ballard. She says it's handled, that he just needs closure, and they are the experts at giving people what they want. Once she hangs up, the client pays the premium, insisting that the night is a gift. Adelle says he's very generous.
Echo, presumably on the cagey client's engagement, is dressed in tall boots, a tight leather skirt, and a low red top. She primps in front of a mirror briefly, slides something into the top of her boot, smiles and says, "Blue skies." (Which I'm guessing is this imprint's equivalent of "Five by five.") Then we see her in the lounge of a fancy hotel, giving some guy a lap dance and eating cherries provocatively. The other two members of the bachelor party look on enviously for a bit, and finally the manager comes by to bribe them with champagne to take the party upstairs.
Later, upstairs, it's starting to look like the engagement has gone badly: a banged-up Echo is running down the hall, banging on doors and yelling for help. The guys stagger after her drunkenly, but back off when she finds the manager. The manager escorts her through the kitchens and into an office with a keypad lock, assuring her that she's safe. Once there, he tries to offer her ten thousand dollars not to sue the hotel or the guests. Echo seems to be considering it, then refuses and knocks the money on the ground. When the manager bends down to pick it up, she kicks him in the head. Then she flips open a phone and calls the other members of the bachelor party, tells them she's in, and gives them the door code. "Blue skies," she says. And credits.
This one is written by showrunners Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft, who think apparently think 11 minutes is a good length for a teaser. Give your recappers time to rest their fingers, ladies.
When we come back, Echo is changing from her hookerwear into something a little more break-and-entery. She tells the guys they can blog about the magnificence of her breasts after the job. I'm taking that as a shoutout.
Now, if I don't do something fast, we're going to run into a problem quickly: None of the rest of the crew have names. So, in the interest of my sanity, they all get nicknames. There's a short, bald, nervous guy with glasses, who I will call the Professor. There's a tall guy who's fiddling with computers, who I, for no particular reason, will call Stabbed in the Belly. There is a guy setting up explosives, who I will call Not Stabbed in the Belly.
Echo doses the manager with a syringe to the neck. Stabbed says they should have killed the manager, and Echo asserts some authority by throwing him against a wall and holding him there while she explained that she learned on her very first job, when a little creative thinking almost kept her from getting paid, never to second guess a client-- and to wear comfy shoes. The client doesn't want anyone dead.
The Professor acts nervous about the plan, so Echo, whose imprint's name is Taffy, assures them that they have one hour-- a "gray hour"-- in which the security system will shut down while they upgrade it. During that time, the guards won't be allowed near the vault, for security reasons, and they're going to get in and out in that time. Stabbed asks if they should sync their watches, and Taffy says they're on Taffy Standard Time now.
Not Stabbed blows a hole in the wall, and as the team walks through the new tunnel he crows about being the best. Taffy says to relax-- they're all the best. Stabbed wants to know why, if she's the best, he hasn't heard of her. Taffy points out that he's heard of Bonnie and Clyde-- and they got killed. She keeps her head down. She asks for silence while she gets to know the safe door. Stabbed taps on his computer for a bit to track the guards, and Taffy has the door open.
Inside, the Professor starts freaking out-- they're surrounded by art of... disputed ownership. He says some of them are high-quality forgeries, but others are real stolen pieces, and worth millions. He says antiquities are his real specialty, and Taffy points him toward some "old stuff" and hands him a picture of what they're after. The Professor says he should have known: They're stealing the Parthenon. Not Stabbed looks confused: "Isn't that kind of big?"
We cut to Ballard at home. He sits down gingerly, holding his side, and starts to unpack his painkillers when he pulls out his gun and whips around. Victor is standing in the shadows, saying he needs Ballard's help. Ballard is understandably still a little mad about the thing where he followed a tip from Victor and ended up getting shot. He shows Victor the picture of Echo as Caroline and asks if he knows her, but Victor swears he doesn't. Victor says he realized the Borodin family had used him to set up Ballard, which means that they know he's talking to the FBI, which means he's dead. Ballard wants to know who the bad tip came from, but Victor can only tell him the voice on the phone sounded Georgian: "Russian Georgian, not sweet-home Georgian". Ballard corrects him to Alabama, and Victor complains that this country is confusing. Ballard says that if he helps Victor, he never wants to see him again, then leaves to see what he can do.
In the vault, the Professor is explaining what they're looking for: a piece of the Parthenon carvings the Turks granted to an Englishman while they controlled Greek territory. This leads Stabbed and Not Stabbed to speculate that Greece is hiring them to steal it back, but Taffy shuts down that line of speculation. Not Stabbed asks Taffy if she wants to grab a drink, and she says to ask her after the job.
Then, the Professor apparently finds what he was looking for, because he grabs a heavy slab of something and runs out the door. The team tries to stop him, but he grabs a sword off a rack and stabs Stabbed in the Belly in the belly, which makes my naming convention quite handy. The vault doors close behind him. Echo grabs her phone and calls out to Boyd. She tells him she can get the team out of the vault, but he needs to get the Professor. (Interesting that Taffy knows Boyd is there and watching.)
Suddenly, there's hissing and squealing on the phone line, which sounds a lot like a dial-up modem making contact. Echo drops the phone, which I understand-- dial-up is terrifying. Then she looks up blankly and asks, "Did I fall asleep?" Oh. She's had her personality remotely erased. That's almost as inconvenient as dial-up.
In Topher's office, there's a new character: an Asian girl who is apparently Topher's trainee. She's objecting to being sent out to purchase Topher's extensive list of snack food, but Topher entices her with the promise of teaching her his neurotechnobabble secrets and she gives in. She notices Echo's readings have gone funny.
In the vault, the guys are trying to figure out what happened to Taffy. Not Stabbed, charmingly, blames it on "hysterical woman syndrome". He pulls out all the condecension stops to try to talk her down, then, even more charmingly, tries slapping her. Echo just keeps repeating "Shall I go now?"
In a stairway behind the hotel, Boyd is heading off the Professor's escape. The Professor tries to bargain by letting Boyd in on what he's getting paid for the double-cross, but Boyd isn't remotely tempted. The Professor threatens to drop the slab, and Boyd says if he does, he'll get shot-- "Then you won't get paid. Or breathe." Finally, the Professor hands Boyd the slab and tries to run while Boyd is still struggling with the new weight. Boyd shoots him in the leg.
Professor: You shot me!
Boyd (dismissively): Barely.
In the Fortress of Dollitude, Topher is telling Dominic and DeWitt that Echo's vitals are off the chart and he doesn't know why. Dominic says Boyd has called in and explained the double-cross situation, and he thinks that stress explains the problem, but Topher insists that he built Taffy to be unflappable. DeWitt seems to believe Topher that there's a problem, and Dominic replays the call. When Topher hears the modem noise, he starts to panic, and again, it's not because of bad AOL memories. He says it was a remote wipe. DeWitt says Topher told her remote wipes weren't possible, and Topher clarifies that he said that they were untested and dangerous and the he couldn't do them. DeWitt wants to know how they undo it, and Topher says they can't. He's freaking out about how complex a job the remote wipe would be, but Adelle is in calm crisis mode, looking out for the Dollhouse's reputation. She sends Dominic to get the item and asks Topher what Echo is going through. Topher explains that being wiped is traumatic, like being born. The Dollhouse is built to minimize the trauma with "throw pillows and perfectly crunchy lettuce", but out there, Echo's confused and in pain. He says she could end up in a coma, or as Carrie at the prom, but either way they have to help her, because she can't help herself.
In the vault, Not Stabbed is trying a new method on Echo: Proof by vigorous assertion. He has her repeat, "I'm Taffy, and I know how to get us out of here," which she follows with "I try to be my best." He reminds her that she is the best, but she goes back to blankness. Stabbed is ready to give up: "Taffy's gone, and she's not coming back."
Which is, of course, a cue for a patented Whedon Ironic Segue. In the Mental Hygeinist's Chair, Sierra has just been imprinted with Taffy's personality, and DeWitt is asking her for help. (I was wondering how long it would take them to put the same character into two different Dolls. Answer: four episodes.)
After the act break, Echo is wandering the vault looking at the art. She stops in front of a Picasso portait-- one of the Cubist jobs where he's showing multiple simultaneous perspectives so the eyes are out of alignment and a nostril is soaring off the side of the nose. She says it's broken, which prompts Stabbed to say "Look who's talking." He asks if she likes art, and she says this one looks broken. Stabbed is apparently a critic: he says art shows us who we are, and that the Picasso says we start out whole, then the pieces start to slide and we get broken. Echo says that's sad, but Not Stabbed has a different take-- you can get broken, or you can be the one doing the breaking.
Taffy!Sierra is freaking out over the fact that they gave the Parthenon job to someone else, since the personality has spent months planning, including learning how to lap dance. DeWitt says it was the client's decision, which triggers Taffy's "Never second guess a client, and wear comfy shoes" speech-- and makes it clear that memory was implanted to inspire programmatically useful deference. DeWitt offers to pay double the fee, and points out that there's no cure for a wounded ego like saving the day. Taffy!Sierra accepts.
Topher, meanwhile, is freaking out over who might have pulled off the remote wipe. Topher becomes convinced that it could only be the work of a vast, multi-pronged conspiracy. Before he starts work on his tinfoil hat, he puts in a call to Boyd to make sure Echo seemed normal when the engagement started. Topher realizes Boyd doesn't know what happened, so he tells him.
Boyd instantly calls Adelle, who says she has a plan and is hopeful of a happy outcome. Boyd asks what happens if the outcome isn't happy, and she tells him to prepare himself. Boyd returns to the van and terrifies the Professor into drawing him a map to the access point. The Professor says he doesn't remember, but Boyd tells him to try as if his life depended on it-- and his voice makes sure that doesn't require much imagination.
In the Fortress of Dollitude, Dominic wants to field a rescue team, but Sierra points out that they don't have time to field a rescue effort before the gray hour is over. (Thus bringing the situations in which the Toy Soldiers are well-equipped but useless to an even one per episode.) Taffy!Sierra's plan is to talk Echo through it.
Back in the vault, Echo and Stabbed are looking at a painting of a mountain and some sky, which Echo accurately describes. ("That's a mountain.") Stabbed starts going through his bag for the syringes full of sedative as he explains to Echo that they're the bad guys, and when they get caught they're going to go to prison. Not Stabbed intervenes, telling Stabbed he can't take the easy way out. He wants them to shoot their way out.
When we get back from the act break, Topher has a new theory. He suspects a rival Japanese hacker is out for his job, but the assistant points out that killing an Active isn't a good way to get into DeWitt's good graces. Topher says he only knows one person who could have done it, and they're dead.
In the Fortress, Sierra is dialing Echo's phone as Dominic goes over the new plan. Echo packed some resin that she can use to keep the glass anti-drilling plates in the door from cracking. The grey hour expires while she's dialing, but Taffy!Sierra says they'll be bringing the system online gradually, and that they still have a few minutes before the motion detectors come on. Echo finally picks up the phone and Sierra talks her through drilling the first hole and applying the resin. When it comes to the delicate part, though, Echo doesn't have the skills anymore and she triggers the alarm.
Adelle is giving up and making moves to clean up the mess. She sends Sierra down with Dominic to get mindwiped. Dominic says he'll notify Boyd that he might have to "neutralize" Echo, but Adelle says to get another team on standby, as she doubts that Boyd has the "necessary distance." (Sounds like (a) they have a standard procedure for keeping Dolls from being captured or exposed and (b) it involves the handler killing the Doll.) Dominc stops to say he's sorry, and Adelle says she is too. (And Olivia Williams is doing great work here, selling genuine-looking sorrow and defeat along with determination.) When Sierra gets to the MHC for her mindwipe, Topher asks Dominic about Echo and gets a small shake of the head for an answer. He looks crestfallen, too.
Stabbed tracks the guards closing in while Not Stabbed sets up barricades made of priceless sculptures. Stabbed tries to coach Echo in how to surrender, but Not Stabbed hands her a gun and tells her to shoot the bad guys. (This confuses her since Stabbed just told her they were the bad guys.) Stabbed reiterates his Picasso theory of "get broken or do the breaking," then tells Echo to start shooting, or he'll shoot her. Which is a good time for an act break.
Echo is getting understandably agitated. Rather than shoot her way out, she grabs the syringe that Stabbed took from Not Stabbed and stabs Not Stabbed in the neck with it. (Suddenly my naming convention is less illuminating.) Original Recipe Stabbed throws a smoke grenade and tells Echo to run for it. Meanwhile, Boyd is running through the kitchens and into the office where the access point is. When he gets there, he finds Echo dragging Original Recipe Stabbed out of the tunnel. Echo says Original Recipe Stabbed is broken, and Boyd says that they'll try to fix him. As she, Boyd, and Original Recipe Stabbed leave, Echo says she's not broken. Indeed.
Agent Ballard has gotten back home, and Victor wants to know what his name will be in witness protection. Ballard says he lied about helping Victor-- he went out to go put Victor's name on watch lists so he can't leave LA. Ballard says he'll learn a lot from Victor's corpse, since he speaks fluent Russian Mob Body Mutilation. Victor leaves in disbelief, but not before telling Ballard that he's not fooles by the agent's tough act. "Eventually, you will care. That's your problem."
As Echo is mindwiped again, DeWitt is admiring the stolen sculpture. She tells Dominic that Michelangelo believed his sculptures lay hidden in the marble, waiting to be released. She tells Dominic to deliver the sculpture, and the Professor, to the client. Topher enters and says he's tested Echo for damage from the remote wipe and performed a full new one, and that she's back to normal. Adelle thanks him, and he nervously asks her if Alpha was the one who did it. DeWitt pushes a form at him and asks him to sign it, which Topher thinks means he's being fired, but she's just raising his security clearance so she can tell him that Alpha isn't dead. She says that, with his gifts, they can't find him or contain him. Topher says he's scared like a little girl, and DeWitt doesn't disagree. She just wants to know how he did it, and how they can keep him from doing it again.
In the Dollhouse, a rewiped Echo swims, and we get the credits shot of her sitting on the bottom of the pool in the fetal position. She showers, passes Sierra, and goes to the mirror. On the steamed surface, she hesitantly draws a distorted face over her own. Then she wipes it clear.
That was a good one-- they put down the Thematic Sledgehammer they were using last episode and used a much lighter touch. It was cool to see the Dollhouse team react when they thought they were losing Echo, and we got some new information on Alpha-- that he's a better neurohacker than Topher. Was he maybe a founding member who went in for some self-experimentation?
That revelation, plus the lighter-touch themes in this episode, make me much more certain of my previous thoughts on Alpha's goals. (If he's an expert neurohacker, then the drugs that O'Connell slipped her starting to break her programming is probably not an accident.) The Dollhouse crew has been assuming he's trying to kill her, but we know that he'd have done that already if he wanted to. Echo is, to use the motifs of this episode, being sculpted. (Or born-- they're both in there: the midwife, Topher's analogy, the fetal position in the pool.)
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