We open on a traditional small-town gas station: a radio plays country music, a guy in overalls is fixing a truck, and a schoolbus full of singing people is pulling down the dirt road. Okay, maybe not an entirely traditional small-town gas station. The bus pulls up and about a dozen people get out, dressed in old-fashioned clothes and smiling broadly. They keep singing on the way into the store, and one of the guys in front hands the shopkeeper a list. Since no one says anything, the smiling and singing get creepy fast.
(I'll pause a minute here to point out that the show so far has had enormous variance in the subtlety with which the themes are expressed-- sometimes from minute to minute in the same episode. That's going to keep up here, but it starts out subtle. The cultists could have been singing anything vaguely religious, but they're singing "Everlasting Arms"-- a song about the sense of peace that comes from dependence ("safe and secure from all alarms"), something the cultists and the Dolls share.)
Anyway, some of the townsfolk are also creeped out, and one of them responds by following the guy with the list around, bumping into him and trying to start a fight. The cultist with the list just keeps singing. The townie says he knows what they're up to out on their compound, and calls the cultist "Osama Bin Ghandi". Finally, he loses patience and tackles the cultist into a rack of merchandise. The sheriff comes in to break things up, and the cultists leave with their box of duct tape and twine.
The sheriff tells the shopkeeper that it's not the singing that creeps him out as much as the smiling. The shopkeeper suggests they might just be happy, but the sheriff notices that someone has written "save me" on the shopping list.
In the Fortress of Dollitude, DeWitt and a client are having the same discussion as the sheriff and the shopkeeper. The client is saying that the cultists look happy, but they can't be, really-- they have no self-awareness or will. DeWitt , with an ironic smile, says that sounds terrible, and the client says the irony of bringing the situation to the Dollhouse isn't lost on him. Well, the parallelism isn't subtle, but at least they admit it.
DeWitt is worried about placing an Active with a federal agency. She calls the client "Senator" and says one of the advantages of having him as a client is that he helps them avoid entanglements with federal agencies. He points out that it's the ATF , who wouldn't really be interested in the Dollhouse. He says it's an election year, and having a very public nasty cult situation puts him in trouble with all the wrong demographics, so he can't bank on someone going undercover-- he needs a true believer.
At the FBI office, Agent Ballard is trying to pester a woman to look up Caroline in her databases. "Aren't you supposed to be shot?" she asks, and he says he was, but he got better. She says she has things to do for people who are much more impressive than Ballard.
Ballard: But not as charming.The woman takes the file and agrees to run it.
Woman: Was that flirting?
Ballard: I think so. It's been a while. Did I mention I was shot?
Back at the Dollhouse, Dominic is saying he doesn't like it, and DeWitt says it's his job not to like it, but they still have to do it to keep the Senator happy. Dominic worries that Echo is unpredictable.DeWitt says she's adaptable, and Dominic says Alpha was adaptable, too. DeWitt says Dominic doesn't like Echo, and Dominic says, "It's not that I don't like her. It's that I'm worried that you do."
DeWitt leaves Dominic outside and goes into see Topher and Dr. Saunders, who are preparing an operation to put cameras in Echo's eyes to feed back to the feds, which will make Echo temporarily blind. Dr. Saunders warns that the technology is dangerous, and that just a sneeze could lead to Echo having an aneurysm or seizure. ("Or a sneezure," breaks in Topher, who looks very pleased with himself.) DeWitt says to get started.
At the ATF base, the Agent in Charge is going over a briefing-- the cult leader is currently calling himself Jonas Sparrow, but he's an ex-con who claimed a conversion experience in prison, joined a shady cult in Texas, and then formed this splinter group. The AIC is sure there's something wrong going on in there, and the message on the shopping list was enough to get him a warrant to do some observation, but just for 48 hours. He introduces Boyd, who describes what Echo, who will be called Esther Carpenter, will be doing. Boyd assures them she'll be accepted by the cultists. One of the agents asks if she escaped from a cult, and Boyd says, "She didn't escape from anything." To emphasize the point, we get a shot of Echo getting her scary eye surgery.
Next, Echo and Boyd are in a car. Echo is blind, sensing that they've made turns by the sun. Boyd says he admires her courage, and I don't think he's just playing along with the imprint. Echo reveals that Esther has been blind since she was nine, and Boyd asks if she blames God. Esther says no, citing Saul of Tarsus: He went blind, went to Damascus, and became a new person.
Boyd: Do you want to become a new person?Boyd drops her off at the gate and she walks into the compound, tapping with her staff. The cultists close in around her but no one speaks. She walks up to a man, feels his face, and says, "Jonas Sparrow-- I'd know your face anywhere."
Esther!Echo: More than anything.
Which takes us, finally, to the credits. Writer Tim Minear apparently feels the same way about teasers that Fain and Craft do: Just Act One with some music during the act break.
When we come back, Agent Ballard is on the phone, giving instructions to someone about where to drop off drugs. This conversation earns him a funny look from Database Lady, but he explains that he forgot his pain meds and his neighbor is going to drop them off. Database Lady says the search for Caroline came up negative.
At cult compound, Sparrow is looking at Esther's driver's license. (Which, come to think of it, is probably not actually a driver's license, but some other form of ID, since I assume the state of Arizona frowns on the operation of motor vehicles by the legally blind.) Sparrow is obviously suspicious, but Esther says she was led to the ranch by Sparrow in a vision, and her story convinces the cultists. Sparrow goes along with it but doesn't look sure. Inside, Sparrow tells Shopping List Guy, whose name is Seth, that they still need to test her, in order to protect the "garden" and keep it pure.
Victor is enjoying a Dollhouse communal shower. Sierra comes in, and they chat about the water. Victor agrees that it feels nice, then starts looking confused by something happening below his waist. In his office,Topher notices Little Victor standing at attention on his video monitors and cuts short a neurobabble phone conversation: "Something came up."
He fumbles in to Dr. Saunders's office and babbles hilariously around the issue, finally admitting that he noticed Victor having a "man reaction". Dr. Saunders tries to use more medical terminology, but Topher insists on "man reaction". He says it shouldn't happen-- that blank Dolls have a "limpness" built in. Dr. Saunders thinks it's a consequence of Victor being sent on the same engagement to "Miss Lonelyhearts " too often. She asks if it's happened before and tells T they'll have to go through a few months of tape to look for man reactions.
(In what I think will be a Dollhouse hallmark, our first communal shower plot point is pretty much takes the titillation inherent in the concept and runs in the opposite direction: a quest to stomp out erections, accomplished by hours of assiduously inspecting phalluses on video. It titillates with one hand and deconstructs the expectation of titillation with the other. (Hee, I said "titillation" a lot.))
At Crazy Cult Ranch, Esther is being introduced to the cultists, who dispense some backstory about how Sparrow led them out of a bad situation at their previous Crazy Cult Ranch. Seth breaks in to take her to see Sparrow. At theATF headquarters, they're printing out pictures from Echo's eye-cameras and matching faces to names. Boyd asks the AIC if they can figure out who wrote the note, since it would be good to know who their ally is, but the AIC doesn't think they can rely on having a friend inside. One of the techs point out that their picture has gone dark, but they're still getting a signal.
There's a good explanation for this, which is that Echo is in the dark. Sparrow has her in the basement and shines a light in her eyes, watching the pupils as he asks her if she's with law enforcement. The pupils don't move as she denies it. Jonas turns on the light and says he wants to believe her story, but that the serpent had a beautiful story too, and believing that story led to Adam and Eve being forced to leave the garden. As he loads a revolver, he says he comes into this garden as Adam left, broken and corrupt, but that the others are pure and innocent, so he has to protect them. He points the gun at her and she doesn't flinch. Jonas welcomes her to the temple, with a kiss on the head, saying her name and that she came for "a time such as this".
(I'll say this for the portrayal of religion in this episode: Whoever wrote it didn't get their knowledge of the Bible from Wikipedia. The serpent/garden stuff is part of the cultural background, but nobody pulls the link between the name "Esther" and the phrase "such a time as this" without a little more in-depth background. (For the uninitiated: Esther is the only book of the Bible that doesn't mention God. When Mordecai tells Esther that she became queen "for such a time as this", it's the closest the story comes to acknowledging divine providence.))
As he leaves, Esther says to Seth that Jonas is a great man-- and the feds can see that the basement is full of guns. Which is a great time for an act break.
When we come back, Mellie has brought Ballard his meds, along with some cleavage and manicotti. Oh, and an envelope someone had given her with Alpha's handwriting on it, which is enough to render Ballard oblivious to the combined charms of drugs, breasts, and homemade Italian food. Ballard and Mellie go to visit Database Lady, who opens the envelope and plays the enclosed DVD-- it's the college video yearbook footage of Caroline. Ballard is convinced this is Original Recipe Echo, Mellie somewhat jealously notes she looks prettier on video, and Database Lady notes she has a "potty mouth". Ballard starts scribbling down bits of information he can glean from the video, and Mellie resignedly excuses herself. Ballard thanks her absently, intent on the video.
In the Dollhouse, Topher and Dr. Saunders are similarly intent on a video. Claire makes Topher back up the tape because she saw a "tumescence", and Topher euphemistically agrees. He offers to burn the video to disk so Dr. Saunders can take her work home with her, but she just had a breakthrough, which makes her exclaim, "If it had been a snake..." She stops before she finishes the unfortunately phallic phrase. (Between the crazy Bible people and the colorful Southern expressions, I'm really uniquely qualified to be recapping this episode. Again, for the uninitiated, the full phrase is "It it was a snake, it would have bit me," and it's used when you've been overlooking something obvious. (Also, it semantically ties our erection-hunt plotline to our extended Garden of Eden metaphor.)) In this case, the something obvious is that Little Victor only gets excited when Sierra is around. Claire says Sierra is "the catalyst to his physical response", and Topher translates: "He likes her."
At ATF HQ, the AIC is prepping to raid the compound. Boyd wants to extract Echo first, and the AIC points out that he can't really in. Boyd says the raid seems premature, but the AIC says he won't pass up another chance to take Sparrow down, which makes Boyd realize that the AIC has a history with the guy. When Boyd presses him, the AIC says he was a cop on Sparrow's original case, when he was trafficking underage girls, and that Sparrow got out of prison in two years. Boyd gives up on convincing the AIC and calls Dominic for permission to extract Echo. At first Dominic is worried that Echo is glitching again, but Boyd says she's not-- her imprint just isn't prepared for what's about to happen. Dominic, naturally, still denies permission for extraction.
At the compound, Jonas is leading a cult meeting. He says he makes no claim to special revelation, and that he's just a man, and weaker than most, but that his people, and the appearance of Esther, gives him faith. He ritualistically asks Echo if she will forsake the world of men and dedicate herself to the temple, then anoints her and welcomes her as a sister. She's still hugging the other cultists in celebration when the ATF agents moving into position hit a tripwire and activate floodlights all over the compound.
Most of the cultists are confused, but Jonas and Seth react, running down to the basement for guns. The AIC tells his men to hold positions, and they've got a standoff on their hands. Inside, a furious Sparrow is asking Esther if she brought the feds in. When she denies it, he hits her, which makes the feds lose picture on her eye cameras. Sparrow swings again, and Esther blocks. She says it's a miracle: She can see.
When we come back from the act break, the cultists seems to have settled in to the standoff situation-- they're huddled on the floor, crying and praying. Seth tells Jonas his people need his leadership, and Jonas asks if Seth believes Esther. Seth points out that they tested her blindness themselves, and Jonas crawls across the floor to her. He says he believes she didn't bring the agents, and asks if it really was a miracle. Esther just says, "I was blind, but now I see." Jonas says she was brought here for this purpose, and that he now knows what to do.
Outside, Boyd is telling the AIC that he can't contact Echo, and the AIC complains that she's useless now, just one of the cultists, and that's how she'll be treated. Some news vans pull up, which upsets the AIC.
Inside, Jonas tells the cultists that he hid the weapons in preparation for this kind of raid-- which seems like a chicken-and-egg sort of situation, really-- but says that, because of Esther's demonstration, he won't ask them to take up arms.
At the FBI, Ballard walks past a TV that's playing the news coverage of the standoff. He watches as the cultists move out of the main building and into the chapel, and sees Echo with them.
Boyd has gone into town and is asking the shopkeeper about the note-leaving incident. He asks to see the store's security tapes.
Back at the compound, Boyd storms up to the AIC as he's going over tactics. AIC takes him aside and says he's open to letting him extract Echo, under certain conditions. Boyd has a counteroffer: The AIC lets Boyd do whatever he wants, and Boyd doesn't tell anyone that the AIC wrote the note himself. "No one ever asked to be saved. Not by you." Props to Harry Lennix here-- he's got a good "controlled outrage" thing going on with his "badass negotiator" schtick, and it takes us into the act break.
In the chapel, Jonas is talking to Seth privately. Seth looks worried, but Jonas tells him he'll witness the wonders of the Most High, and he goes. Jonas asks Esther if she can read by sight, and she says that learned before she went blind, a long time ago. He hands her a Bible and asks her to read. It's the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abdenego , who survive execution-by-furnace. As she reads, we see Seth siphoning gas out of the Creepy Singing Bus, dumping it on the chapel, and lighting it on fire. Jonas says they've seen miracles already, and they're about to see another. Esther and the cultists are catching on to the plan and getting nervous, but Jonas says if they lose their faith they'll be consumed by the fire.
AIC tells his people to put on fire gear, but that this isn't a rescue operation yet. He takes an agent aside and tells him that he thinks Boyd was working with the cultists, and should be taken down if he's found near the building, which I guess is a clever if somewhat implausible way to get rid of someone who knows something incriminating. Boyd is indeed sneaking towards the chapel to rescue Echo. He knocks out an ATF agent and takes his fire gear.
In the chapel, Esther is telling Jonas to let people leave, and that he can't force a miracle. He knocks her down again and tells her to pray, then kneels and starts to lead a prayer himself, which is when Esther brains him from behind with a candlestick. The cultists are shocked, but she tries to get Seth to help her herd them out: "Seth, God brought me here. The blind girl is looking you in the eye; do you know what that means? It means God has a message for you, and that message is 'MOVE YOUR ASS!'"
It's apparently a convincing doctrinal argument, as the cultists run out of the burning chapel, off the compound, and into ATF custody. Most of the cultists do, anyway. Elias tries to stay, and Echo tries to reason with him. He asks how she can have so little faith after God restored her sight, and she replies, "I don't think God let me see again so I could just watch." This is a good line but apparently a less convincing theological argument, because Elias spits in her face. She slaps him back, and lets Seth drag him out.
Jonas suddenly stands up behind Echo, aiming his gun and saying, "He commanded them to purge the evil from their midst." Someone offscreen takes a reformist view of this proposition, and shoots Sparrow a couple times in the chest. It's someone in ATF fire gear-- he raises his mask to reveal it's Dominic, who knocks Echo out with the butt of his gun and says, "Problem solved."
(While we're on commercials, I'd just like to point out that hitting someone with the butt of a gun is a serious Dollhouse narrative tic, sitting pretty at once per episode. I was going to point out that the Toy Soldiers manage to drop below being useless an average of once per episode, by virtue of not appearing in this episode. Then I realized that they're actually useless twice in "The Target": once in the normal timeline and once in flashback. So they're holding a steady Uselessness Ratio of 1.0.)
After the act break, Echo is still on the floor unconscious, and outside the AIC is asking his second-in-command about Sparrow, then about Boyd and Echo. When he hears that they're all still inside, he says to pull the team out.
In the chapel, Boyd runs in and pulls off his mask. Echo recognizes him and doesn't know why, and the fire traces wings over his shoulders. Outside, the AIC is telling a camera that he doesn't think there will be any more survivors. Behind him, Boyd carries Echo out of the burning chapel. Without enthusiasm, the AIC says, "Thank God."
Later, Ballard pulls up at the ruins and tries to get the AIC to let him talk to the cultists in custody, but the AIC is not feeling very friendly towards the FBI and is suddenly very concerned about doing things by the book. Ballard shows the AIC Caroline's picture, and the AIC shrugs it off, with some help from the Irony Fairy: "She could be anybody."
Which takes us to a voiceover from Adelle, who telling the abashed-looking Topher and Claire that the Dollhouse has to remain a place of safety, untroubled certainty, and purity. It is imperative to maintain innocence, as any temptation will spread like cancer. She orders them to "scrub" and monitor Victor.
(And we take the Garden of Eden imagery home with us-- and we're clearly getting the humanist/His Dark Materials take on it, where the Fall is the triumph of messy human-ness over sterile obedience. And, as seems to happen so often with this myth, people think the Fall is about sex when it's really forbidden knowledge.)
As they leave, DeWitt asks Dominic how his trip to Arizona went-- she knows he took the company jet. Dominic says he was worried about Echo glitching on an important job, and says that he was just watching out for DeWitt's interests. Adelle sarcastically says that she's touched, and Dominic starts pressing her to do something about Echo. He says that she's showing the same signs as Alpha did before his break.
Dominic: If you're not willing to send her to the Attic...With that, she awesomely shuts the elevator door on him and tells him to take the stairs.
Adelle (interrupting): Don't gamble on what I'll be willing to do.
We see Echo's mindwipe, and Topher and Dr. Saunders are both waiting. As Echo leaves, Dr. Saunders asks her about her vision. Echo walks to the rail overlooking the Dollhouse floor and clearly recognizes Dominic. She tells Dr. Saunders, "I see perfectly."
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