Recap: Dollhouse 108, "Needs"

Apologies to my loyal readers, if I have any, for falling a full week behind. If it helps, it was a hell of a week. There was a confluence of work stuff, school stuff, and a visit from my parents that barely left me time to watch the episodes, much less write a recap. At the same time, I've started having much more to say about each ep, and that's not stopping this week. So, let's get on with it and maybe I'll get caught up.

We open on Agent Ballard, shirtless. This appears to be a recurring motif, but I'll speculate on its thematic implications later. He answers a knock at the door, and it's Echo. She says she has a message from inside the Dollhouse, and that she has something he needs. Then she kisses him. He breaks it off, saying he's not a client and he doesn't need that, but she says, "You know you do."

Breathless, he says, "Caroline?" and she says, "Save me, Paul," and leads him to the couch. They're getting intimate when they're interrupted by Mellie, who has apparently returned from her vacation. "I know this is confusing-- for all of us," Ballard explains in an oddly calm voice. "I have something she needs." (I bet he does.) "I need you to finish what you started, Paul," says Echo.

"She doesn't need anything anymore," says Mellie, "She's dead." And indeed, suddenly, she is-- stiff and pale, which I would imagine makes his current situation even more awkward. Ballard tells Mellie he's trying to stop everything when she starts bleeding from her scalp line. "How did they know what we shared?" she asks.

Finally, we get the traditional "bolt upright in bed" version of "it was all a dream". Okay, I'll give you points for a dream sequence that started out moderately plausible and got progressively weirder, but could we not come up with a better ending? Has anyone, ever, actually bolted upright in bed when waking up from a bad dream?

Speaking of waking up, it's morning in the Dollhouse, and Echo, Sierra, Victor, November, and a Doll we haven't seen before named Mike are getting out of the recessed floor pods, stretching and smiling.

Upstairs, there's a general staff meeting going on in the Fortress. Topher runs in late, with the excuse that he was backing up his drives-- which is a good call, since the Dollhouse is upgrading its electrical and security systems and it's causing brownouts.

DeWitt, leading the meeting, says that the house is "out of balance." She runs through the recent string of incidents and says she needs everyone to be hyper-aware and report anything they think is strange. Dominic breaks in to say that he knows the handlers can get attached to their Actives, and that's good, but it's better that they think of them as pets, not children. When Dr. Saunders objects to the metaphor, he expands: "If your child starts speaking, you're proud. If your dog starts speaking, you freak the hell out." He says that any developmental progress could lead to another Alpha. Boyd asks what happened to the first one, and Dominic says he whereabouts are unknown, so I guess they're no longer trying to convince everyone he's dead. (Which seems odd-- nothing has really changed on the Alpha front since Topher had to get his clearance raised to hear he wasn't dead in "Gray Hour".)

Topher unleashes some neurobabble about what he's going to do to try to correct things, which includes giving us a reason why the Dolls sleep in pods, instead of, say, stylish Asian-inspired bunk beds: they pump the environment full of gases and pheromones. Topher wants to tweak the mix, and Dr. Saunders objects, saying he could mess everything up. Topher points out that it could also fix the problem, and that he knows what he's doing. "I know what I'm doing, too," she shoots back, "and I care."

DeWitt reiterates that she wants reports, and Boyd worries about overreacting-- he doesn't want to condemn Echo to the Attic over someone's hunch. Adelle says that his devotion to Echo is admirable, but his primary duty is to the house. She finishes: "A tide is coming in, and until we figure out how to turn it back, we pile up the sandbags. Together. Unless someone has a better idea."

Back on the Dollhouse floor, Echo looks placidly in a mirror while Ballard's voice plays in her head: "Your name is Caroline. You're being used." Sierra, walking past the plate glass doors, flashes back to the rape, including a really gut-twisting shot of her face over Hearn's shoulder. She's shaken, but as she walks into the pod room she makes eye contact with Victor and seems to calm down.

As Echo goes to sleep, she experiences flashbacks to old engagements, then a shot of mountains, and a voice says, "Caroline. Wake up!" She does, and starts pounding on the glass in panic.

Credits. When we come back, Echo is prying her pod open and cuts her hand on the glass. Victor is fighting his way out, too. He grabs Echo and asks who she is, and they establish that neither of them know why they're there. They help the others out, and they start theorizing. (This is fun. This episode's hook is that they have their old personalities without their memories, which, like in the first episode, is kind of a metatextual test for writers: how much of a character is backstory? They have very little to work with, and I think they do a pretty good job of having every single line reveal something.)

Mike thinks they've been abducted by aliens. Victor thinks they might be in a nuthouse. Echo feels "a little lab ratty". November starts giggling hysterically, then fights it down and wonders if they're supposed to be here. Sierra says, emphatically, that she didn't do anything. That's when they all realize they don't remember anything.

Victor wants to lay out a strategy. Sierra wants to run-- strategically. She thinks it's a deranged millionaire serial killer, and Mike says, "What, that's not crazier than aliens?" Victor shoves Mike, and Echo breaks it up.

Then, they start to realize they have small shreds of memories. Victor says he thinks he knows Sierra, but he doesn't know how. Echo remembers mountains, and wants to get to them, because everything will be okay there. November says she lost something, but she doesn't know what. Mike thinks the aliens want to study their genitalia, which makes Victor take a vote on who wants to put Mike back in the box. They all freeze as they see other Dolls through their pod room's translucent walls. The doors open.

So, in the space of a one-minute string of one-liners: Echo wants to reach a serene place, breaks up fights, and thinks they're lab rats. Victor likes strategies, remembers Sierra, and will employ violence on her behalf. Sierra doesn't think she did anything to deserve being there and thinks a psychopathic rich man is responsible for it. November thinks she deserves to be there, has lost something, and giggles when she's nervous. Mike is a hyper-paranoid nerd. That, as we'll see, is some solid, forward-looking work, and all very natural-sounding. Well, natural for five people who have awoken in five-star floor coffins with no memory.

The doors to the room open. Sierra wants to make a run for it. Victor will follow where ever Sierra goes. Mike wants to see what the aliens look like. November is scared. Echo won't leave her behind.

They work themselves into the flow of Dolls, and Victor tells them all to blend in until they figure out what's going on. A staffer comes by and calls them all by their handles. Victor recognizes the code as military. They enter the Dollhouse floor and stand flustered for a bit-- and we get a full pan over the central Dollhouse floor, with Topher in his office overlooking it, and it really is all a bit impressive. Echo notes that it looks peaceful, and November suggests that maybe something bad happened to them, and this is helping them heal. Victor starts to think maybe things aren't so bad. Another staffer comes up to them and says brightly they're having banana pancakes for breakfast. A blonde female Doll (Tango) walks by, and says in that placidly excited Doll-voice: "I like pancakes." Victor: "We're all going to die."

Side note: Having now met E, S, V, N, M, and T, with references to F and A, I'm wondering what happens to the Dolls with the less-glamorous phonetic handles: Golf? Hotel? Uniform? Also, does anyone ever have a fantasy/requirement that doesn't involve fantastically physical attractive specimens in their mid-20s? (OCD historical note: the client in the pilot expected a "Edward James Olmos-type") I'm picturing a spin-off in which Golf, a late-50s fatherly Latino, Hotel, a wiry early-70s lady, Uniform, a 300-pound bodybuilder, and Quebec, a former plus-size model, solve the problems the other Dolls won't touch. The Dollhouse Irregulars.

Ahem. Back on the show, Ballard has correctly interpreted at least Mellie's last line in his dream: "How did they know what we shared?" He's tearing his apartment apart looking for the bug, and he finds it hidden in the air conditioning vent.

At the International House of Mindwipes and Pancakes, Echo and Mike are sitting with Tango, who expresses the deep thought that she likes bananas because they are naturally sweet. Eager to blend in, Mike mentions that they are also high in potassium, like the earth's core. "That's not a fruit," says Tango, confused, and, prompted by Echo, Mike starts trying to name other fruits. (Rather unsuccessfully. The last one we hear is "mayonnaise".) Meanwhile, an attendant has noticed Echo's improvised bandage and sends her to see Dr. Saunders.

Echo walks nervously into Dr. Saunder's office. When she sees the scars, she flinches. She asks if "they" did that to her, but Dr. Saunders, characteristically, ignores it. She tries to quiet Echo down, and points out the cameras. Echo deduces that she works for them, and starts asking questions, but Dr. Saunders says she can't help: "I'm not your friend in here, Echo." (This scene seems to be a relatively straightforward instance of Saunder's sympathy conflicting with her duty on the first run-through, but it obviously has to be re-evaluated later. I'll get to it.)
When Echo gets back out on the main floor, Mike has apparently given himself away. Two orderlies are dragging him upstairs while he tries desperately to pretend he's a blank Doll: "I'm happy! I like pancakes! I want to swim in the pool! Isn't that what you want?" The fact that he is screaming hysterically undermines his clever subterfuge somewhat.

The other four decide there's nothing they can do. They follow the crowd of Dolls off the floor and into the communal shower, which comes as something of a shock. Sierra can't believe it. Echo says they have to go through with it, and November grins and says it's no big deal. She's the first to hand her robe to the staffer. (Hmm, maybe the Dollhouse staff need a nickname, too-- they've come up a lot in this recap. I'll think on it. Or take suggestions from my legions of loyal readers.)
Sierra warns Victor to keep his eyes to himself. Victor starts reciting baseball line-ups under his breath. (And, incidentally, still totally doesn't keep his eyes to himself.) While they're showering, Mike comes in. They're glad to see him and hustle him into the nearest space they can find without a camera-- the sauna. (Which seems like something of an oversight on the Dollhouse's part. I mean, they film the showers, but they leave the saunas private? And remember how hard Boyd had to look for a blind spot to catch Hearn?)


Anyway, once they’re in the Sauna of Secrets, they start asking Mike what happened. He says he had a treatment. Echo realizes that he doesn’t remember anything, and he heads out to go swimming. This convinces Sierra that they have to leave now, and Echo reluctantly agrees.

Fortress. Dominic tells DeWitt that they have four rogue Actives planning an escape. Adelle smiles and says, “Right on schedule.” But, of course, she uses the British pronunciation of “shed-yool”, evenly accented, and not “SKED-jyuhl”. Which led to me rewinding that line 4 times trying to figure out what it was. Time for an act break, is what it is.

Dominic and DeWitt are continuing their conversation when we get back. Dominic wants to warn security, but Adelle wants to let it play out—she says the Dolls need real opposition. Dominic says they don’t have a kill switch on this operation, and if it gets out of hand they could lose them all, but Adelle has made her decision.

Victor tricks a Toy Soldier into the Sauna of Secrets, then chokes him with a towel. He takes his ID, then explains to some passing Dolls: “He’s very tired.”

Victor and Sierra use the ID to open a door, then drop the card in a plant pot. They find themselves in a very institutional-looking hallway, like a hospital: glossy dark paint up to shoulder height to prevent scratches, tile floor, fluorescent lights. Kind of a reminder that someone has to cook the banana pancakes and wash the matching Asian-inspired casual china and take the solid-colored tank tops out of the hampers.

Echo is biding her time watching yoga class, and sees Tango being taken upstairs for a treatment. November comes up to tell her it’s time. Meanwhile, Victor and Sierra wait crouched in a doorway. Victor tries making small talk, but Sierra points out that they don’t remember anything to chat about. Victor says he thinks he remembers some things, like her. Sierra noticed his attempt at baseball self-distraction and asks if he remembers the Yankees, and he says it was the Mets, but to forget about it. (Man, I don't know much about baseball, but I know enough to know he must really be in love to overlook that one.) He says he remembers that something bad happened to her—something more than what happened to all of them. He asks if she remembers, but Echo and November arrive before she answers.

Boyd is talking to another handler, who he calls Sophie, in a room we’ve never seen before. It looks like a locker room for the handlers. There’s a gun safe where Sophie is putting up her weapon. They do a little business chatter—Sophie just came off a gig where the Doll was used as bait in a divorce case; Boyd says he’s happy to have some time off while Echo’s being rested. Sophie doesn’t think Echo will last, and says Boyd will have to get used to the idea: “Sometimes even a good dog needs to be put down.” The escapee Dolls get a glimpse in as they pass, and seeing one of the handlers with a gun makes Sierra flash back: “Men, they had guns, they took me away.” Victor promises they’ll get the guys who did it, but pulls her along to escape first. Echo notes that there are no windows—they’re still underground.

They find themselves in a costume room. Each of them has a rack of clothes. November is excited and starts trying things on. They all grab clothes. Victor wonders if the clothes are from their old lives, then shuts down that line of speculation when he finds a pair of leather chaps lined with pink lace on his rack.

Meanwhile, November found a prop stroller and is standing there, stunned. She remembers that she had a daughter named Katie, but she doesn’t know where she is. She begs the others to help her find her, and they say they will.

Someone comes in to get clothes, and the Dolls pair up to hide among the racks: November with Echo, and Victor with Sierra. There’s some of that good old-fashioned life-in-peril romantic friction between Victor and Sierra. (We don’t see Echo and November that much, so I can’t speak to that atmosphere.) (I’m reminded of Season Two Cordelia and Xander: “I didn’t even really like him. We just kept getting put in these life-threatening situations, and that’s always all sexy and stuff.”)

Once the staffer leaves with the clothes, the escapees run down the hall and use the ID card to call the elevator. Victor worries about what happens if someone’s in it, but Sierra points out they don’t have much choice. The elevator arrives, empty, and they take it up to the surface. They arrive at the motor pool and start checking doors to see if any are unlocked. They debate calling the police, or the FBI, but Victor says they don’t know who they can trust. As someone pulls in, they hide behind a car. A Doll in camouflage is telling his handler about dealing with the trauma of what he had to do. While crouched behind the care, they start making plans. Echo asks Sierra to try hard to remember the name of the guy who put her there, and she does—Nolan. Echo tells November to try to remember what she can about Katie. Meanwhile, Victor saw the handler put the keys in a safe by the elevator door and breaks in.


They pile in to an SUV, but have to hide again when another handler-Active pair comes out of the elevator. It’s Tango, speaking French, in an outfit that says either someone has an extremely odd fetish or a very wealthy casting director couldn’t find anyone for the lead in his production of “Cabaret”.

In the Fortress, Dominic puts a description of the vehicle out to security. As the escapees are about to pull out, Echo makes them stop. After seeing the costume room, the soldier, and Tango, she’s figured out what the Dollhouse does, and she can’t leave everyone behind. November wants her to come with them anyway, and Victor points out that it’s a rough tactical situation, but Echo wants to try to make a difference, and she goes back down the elevator.

In the handler locker room, Sophie catches Echo trying to knock the lock off of the gun safe with a fire extinguisher. She tries to keep Echo calm, speaking softly and using the words “Boyd” and “treatment” as often as possible. (I’m assuming she’s trying to tap in to some of the base programming.) When she pulls out her phone, Echo sprays her with the fire extinguisher and they fight. The fight includes Echo ducking a sick-looking elbow smash move from Sophie. Sophie manages to throw Echo to the ground and starts moving towards the phone she dropped when Echo swings the fire extinguisher at ankle height and sweeps out her legs. Sophie takes a nasty fall—she’s unconscious and there’s a pool of blood under her head when Echo goes to take the keys from her. Echo takes a gun from the safe and heads down the hall.

Ballard is in a run-down electronics shop, trying to get information about the bug from a tech guy named Jimmy. Jimmy takes some convincing, but Ballard eventually intimidates him into looking at the device, which then blows his mind. "This doesn't exist yet. Me and everyone I know powwowed couldn't figure this thing out." Ballard wants to know if he can trace it, and Jimmy's doubtful: "If you were ET, maybe." Ballard lowers his sights and just wants to know how to scramble it. Jimmy has some ideas for that, but warns Ballard not to get hopeful: "I don't care how big you think you are. Someone who can afford this is bigger."

The Road Trip of the Dolls isn't going so well. Victor has been driving in circles following Sierra's hunches about where Nolan lives. November sees a woman with a child in a stroller, and asks them to stop-- she knows where Katie is. Victor and Sierra want to stick together and handle one problem at a time, but November won't wait, and Sierra says they left so they could choose for themselves, so they let November out. She walks, looking mopey.

Fortress of Dollitude. Dominic calls for a separate tail on November, and DeWitt spots Echo on camera in Dr. Saunders' office. Again, Dominic wants to call it in, but Adelle stops him. She says, "I should have expected this. This is Caroline, after all. Without the memories, but still..." Dominic wonders if she thinks she can take them down alone, and Adelle says, "Caroline never was very realistic." Heh. Thanks, Adelle.

Just then, though, the power fails. Dominic gets DeWitt's wordless permission to call in the Echo situation, and DeWitt calls Topher to ask him to keep an eye out. She also asks if the Actives seem afraid of the dark, and Topher says he can't tell, because it's dark. Before he hangs up, he says: "I am, by the way. Afraid of the dark." And he should be-- Echo is behind him with the gun.

On the main floor, a friendly PA voice is asking everyone to gather calmly. Topher suggests they join the others, but Echo isn't having it. Echo asks him what he does here, and he tries to demur-- first by saying it's complicated, then by actually saying some complicated neurobabble, but eventually he settles on "I program them." Echo says people aren't computers, and Topher says they're not that different-- computations performed by electrical impulses. He just hacks the system. Echo asks what year it is, and when she gets her answer, she asks how long she's been in. Topher deflects some more: "Kind of a while." Echo makes him show her the Mental Hygeinist's Chair.

Victor and Sierra are knocking on Nolan's door. He opens it and recognizes her-- he calls her "Priya". Victor shoves him inside as Nolan asks if this is some kind of "frequent buyer reward." Sierra asks what she did to him that made him put her in the Dollhouse, and he says she said no-- and no one ever says no to him. Sierra can't believe he would take her entire life away just because she wouldn't have sex with him, and Nolan says that, with the money it took him to pull it off, he could have bought an island, but "owning you is better than real estate." Victor hits him. (I'm aware that male aggression isn't a winning strategy for protecting women from male aggression. Sometimes, even for someone as physically unthreatening as I am, it's still a comforting fantasy. I just hope, for the story's sake, that when it comes time for Sierra to deal with this, she does it herself. Boyd and Victor can't do it for her.)

The punch made him realize this isn't an official Dollhouse visit, and that they've escaped. He says that doesn't matter-- they don't exist anymore. Sierra shoots back that she's more of a person than him. He comes back: "You're programmed to give me-- and anyone else-- whatever we want. And you do. Frequently. With great pleasure." Beat. "Sometimes you beg." Victor hits him again.

He tells them his security team is on the way. Sierra says, "You will see me again." Nolan says he's looking forward to it: "It will be even better now."

November is outside a church, and kids in Catholic school uniforms are pouring out the doors.

Echo, in the Mental Hygiene Room, is holding a drive containing an imprint. "What is wrong with you people?" she asks. Topher gamely tries to give Adelle's sales pitch about helping people by giving them what they need, but he's not very good at it. (And no wonder-- he doesn't care about that. He's there because he gets to do really, really cool stuff.) Echo counters: "You kill people. You gut them, and use their bodies as playthings. Who was I before you killed me?"

Topher points out that she's not dead, and tells her she volunteered. Echo doesn't believe him, but Topher points out that she can't remember that and she starts to doubt. She asks what he made her the last time she was in the Chair, and he says it was her, as she was when she came, but without memories. He says she'll get to be herself again after her five year term, and will have a truckload of money to go along with her old personality.

Echo asks why she's not blank like the other Dolls, and Topher says they're running a test on her. She asks about her mountain memory, and he says he didn't put that there-- that's hers, and it's real, and it's what she needs. The power comes back on, and Topher says he can give her her memories back. Echo says that would involve her getting in the chair, and suggests Topher go first.

Victor and Sierra are running from security down a stairwell. Sierra asks Victor what they want, and he says they'll send them back. Then two bullets ricochet off the walls and he amends his projection. When they come out of the stairwell into the parking garage, the exit is block, so they hide in a utility closet.

Echo forces Topher into the chair and puts the drive in the slot, and Topher starts to panic-- he says you can't imprint on top of a normal brain. Echo asks if it hurts, and Topher deflects again: "Pain is just nerves talking to your brain." He pleads "I'm just the science guy," which is not really a way to gain Caroline's trust. She accuses him of playing God and tells him to let the Dolls go. He protests, "I don't have that kind of power!"

"I do," says Adelle. Butter wouldn't fucking melt, man. Act out.

When we come back, Adelle tells Echo to stop the imprint, and she does-- by shooting the chair. Adelle tells Echo that she wanted to forget, and that she eased her suffering. "By taking away basic human rights? To choose, to remember? Free will?" (Apparently on-the-nose dialogue is another of Caroline's character traits.) Adelle says she freely relinquished her rights, and Echo asks why she would do that. Adelle refuses to tell Echo: "I would be breaking a promise to you. Suffice to say you could no longer live with the consequences of your actions." She tells Echo that she's free to leave, but she can't decide for the others. Echo, quite rightly, thinks that maybe Adelle isn't in the best position to talk about deciding for others, but Adelle says she made the same promise to each of them, to protect them from their memories, and she won't return them. With that, Echo empties a couple of rounds into the computers around the Chair and says, "We agree, then-- no one gets in the chair."

Outside, November walks past the crowd of children and through the gates of the church's graveyard.

Victor and Sierra are still in the utility closet at security closes in. Sierra says it's her fault, and that Victor would be free if he didn't try to help her. Victor says he's where he wants to be. He remembers the Doll state, and being stuck inside his own head, and that someone in there hurt her like Nolan hurt her. "I can see it happening. I can see his face, but I couldn't stop it." That makes Sierra remember, too: "I trusted him. Why did I trust him?" Then another memory: "You wait for me. At night, when we go to bed. You wait for me to make sure I'm okay."
As the forces outside start to break down the door, Sierra says she doesn't know which ending to hope for: "It feels like dying either way." But Victor says going back isn't the end: "We'll look for each other, like we always do. And we'll finish this." Aww. They kiss.

November kneels in front of a gravestone that says "Beloved Katie".

Adelle tells Echo she can't take the Dolls outside, as they'd be overwhelmed. Echo: "They'll do all right. Your unbearable truth, lady? You're not as important as you think you are." She aims the gun and says "The next one goes where your heart should have been. Show us out."

A crowd of Dolls walk out the tunnel to the surface. Dr. Saunders is with them, and at the back marches Echo with the gun still held on DeWitt. As she steps out into the light, she smiles. Then she collapses. Handlers move in and herd the Dolls back indoors. One of them picks Echo up and carries her inside.

In the closet, Victor and Sierra collapse. November, sobbing, falls against the gravestone. Handlers gather them up.

We flash back to Adelle's last line of the staff meeting: "We pile up the sandbags, together. Unless someone has a better idea." Someone, it turns out, does. Dr. Saunders suggests that they give them what they need: closure. She says experiences during engagements can unlock emotional needs that the Dolls had before they came. Those needs are open loops that drive their developing consciousnesses. She suggests that they let the Dolls, or at least the worst cases, take a self-guided journey. "Let the tide come in. It's the only way to let it out again."

Nice. I mean, it's hard not to feel a little cheated-- it looked like this was going to be a game-changing episode. All the way up until Adelle gave it away in the third act break we we supposed to think it was a real escape, a mistake in Topher's pod conditioning. On the other hand, this is a pretty cool move, too. First, I want to give props to Dr. Saunders for her delightfully Hofstaderian conception of consciousness as an open loop. (Even as the pop psychobabble about "closure" makes me cringe a bit.) Second, it's kind of a meta-blow against the show's meta-premise. (Where the "premise" is:"Eliza Dushku is programmed with different personalities for different jobs", the meta-premise is: "The human need for freedom and self-expression and self-construction is stronger than our desire to avoid our pain.")

Maybe the human need for freedom and self-expression isn't indomitable. Maybe you can give someone just enough freedom to tamp it down. Maybe we can get by on freedom rations. Maybe we already do. (I'm reminded of how the Party operative in 1984-- O'Brien, was it?-- helped write the book that had inspired Wilson and Julia to their rebellion, because it made rebellion easier to handle.) Up to now, Dollhouse was a dark and disturbing show with an optimistic humanism at its heart. If the Saunders plan works, I'm not so sure about that heart anymore.

(Also, it would seem that Dr. Saunders is more Machiavellian than I had given her credit for. I kind of thought she was in Boyd's camp, respecting the Dolls as both nascent people and former people and resenting the Dollhouse while feeling a responsiblity to protect the Dolls. As we'll see, I guess that's still true-- she just has a very different conception of what looking out for the Dolls means. And I think we have to chalk up her behavior during Echo's exam as a little push to help them get their escape started and not as genuine, if limited, sympathy. Maybe I'm being too harsh, there, though. Maybe it's both.)

In Dr. Saunders' office, Boyd is acting a bit bitter. "Are they better?" he asks. Claire says they were programmed to sedate themselves once found the closure (twitch) they needed. (I like the interplay in this scene between Boyd's and Claire's philosophies, but I'm finding the plot retrospective a little on-the-nose.) Boyd runs through their needs: November needed to feel her grief, Sierra needed to confront Nolan, Echo wanted to free "us" all. (Interesting pronoun choice there, Boyd.) He's confused by Victor's need, but as Claire says, it's not that confusing-- he was in love.

Boyd says, wistfully, "When she was leading them out... I would have liked to have seen that. Even if it was just a game." He pauses. "Your game." Dr. Saunders acts hurt, asking if he thinks she had fun. "I don't know you very well," says Boyd.
"You have to look after Echo. I have to look after all of them," she says. "She wasn't leading them to freedom. She was leading them into a world of pain and chaos that would have destroyed them."
"She's not leading them anywhere anymore," says Boyd.
"You should be grateful," says Dr. Saunders.
"I'll work on that," says Boyd. That's pretty much his only scene this week, but he worked it like... a thing that really works.

The five Dolls climb into their pods again.

Ballard has assembled his bug-blocker and turns on his phone to find he has voice mail-- from Echo. She found his name in her file when she was going the Dr. Saunders' office. She says she's going to try to get out, but if she can't, she thinks they're somewhere underground. "Please find us."