We pick up right where we left off last week: Dr. Saunders comes running out of her office, calling for help. Boyd and Adelle rush down the stairs. Adelle barks for someone to get EMTs. (Doesn't seem like they'd want the normal ambulances and paramedics coming into their super secret base with zombified hotties. Maybe they have some on staff?) Boyd notices that Alpha's already gone, and Adelle orders a full headcount, but Topher saves them the trouble, saying that Alpha came for Echo.
Topher says Alpha put an imprint in her, but he doesn't know which one. Boyd wants to use Echo's implanted locator tag, but Topher holds up a metal strip about three inches long and says Alpha pulled it out, and "went into the system and severed the biolinks", so he can't trace them. Adelle tells Topher to figure out which imprint Alpha used, then rushes out the door with Boyd.
This just leaves the still-traumatized Dr. Saunders, standing in the door looking vacantly at Topher. "He asked me if I always wanted to be a doctor," she says. "Why would he do that?"
Topher looks deeply uncomfortable but dodges the question, saying, "Who can fathom the mind of a crazy person?"
Claire wanders off, muttering, "The one who made him crazy, maybe?"
In a car, Alpha is driving and Echo is in the passenger seat wearing normal clothes. Alpha starts talking about their history together, and how they met, creepily, when he first took her out when she was thirteen. "Thirteen, and already a woman, you said," Echo agrees.The scene flashes as he mutters, rapidly, "But it never happened./Why did you tell her that?/Shut up!"
It's not clear how much of that was real-- Echo asks what he just said, and he says "I didn't know you when you were thirteen." Then, again, flashing rapidly through different voices, he repeats, "None of us did." After a pause, he adds, "I'm not Bobby."
"What do you mean?" asks Echo.
"I'm not just Bobby," he amends. Echo looks confused for a moment, then gets distracted by the fact that she's missing one of the shirts they stole while getting her new wardrobe. Alpha tries to soothe her, but she twists around and yells, "You forgot my Juicy Couture shirt!" This last bit is directed at a scared-looking blonde woman, evidently a salesperson at the store they just robbed, who is bound and gagged in the back seat. "Bitch," sniffs Echo, as she leans across the front seat and Alpha puts his arm around her. (I guess we can't expect proper seat belt usage from Southern Gothic thieves and kidnappers.)
We come back from the credits into a flashback. Adelle is asking a handler if she's managed to lose both Actives and the client. (The handler is named Alvarez, and I'm pretty sure she's the same woman whose nose Echo introduces to a fire extinguisher in "Needs".) Another handler complains that Alvarez's girl is a bad influence on his guy, and he doesn't know why they keep pairing them up.
Adelle tells him it's none of his business which Actives get sent on which engagements. "Your task is discreetly to observe," she says, and of course she refuses to split infinitives even in the most tense of circumstances. The handler complains that Alpha knew he was being watched. Topher, who has been sitting next to Adelle, jumps in to say that he warned them that these imprints would be prone to paranoia. Adelle asks, as a matter of curiosity, how dangerous these imprints could be. Topher makes the face he makes when he's about to break some bad news.
In a dark, open space, like a warehouse, country music plays while a woman dances sexily in silhouette. Alpha has a man, who he calls Lars, tied to a chair, and wants to know who he's working with. Lars, bleeding from small cuts on his face and shoulders, denies that he's working with anyone. Alpha pours whiskey over Lars's head, making him whimper. He says he saw the vans, and he hasn't made it this far on the run without knowing when he's being followed. Then he whips out a knife and goes to cut out Lars's eyes. Lars breaks and yells, "It's complicated!"
Looking satisfied, Alpha tells him to make it simple. Lars, breaking down, says Alpha and his girlfriend are not real, which understandably pisses Alpha off. Lars sobs that they think that they're on a cross country crime spree, but they're not, and they think they have a doomed love, but they don't. It's all his fantasy and he's paying for it to have a little fun.
"Are you having fun, Lars?" asks Alpha. He looks at the girl, saying that she's real, and the last real thing Lars is ever going to see. He calls her over. Her name is Crystal, but that's not the surprising part. It's not Echo. It's Dr. Saunders.
Right, once we've recovered from the Holy Shit moment, let's do a quick history check. First, it should have been obvious the female Active on this engagement wasn't Echo. Alvarez wasn't Echo's pre-Boyd handler. That was some other guy, who was killed by Alpha during his breakout.
Second, while I said back in "Man on the Street" that they were running out of times they could reveal that a character is really a Doll. Well, I'm going to spot them this one. We were warned. When Echo was turned into an interrogator in "Spy in the House of Love", she noted that Claire never left the Dollhouse and had no outside contacts.
If I were Topher, Boyd, or Adelle, though, I'm pretty sure I'd be having regularly scheduled existential crises. Especially Topher-- I mean, it's Moore's Law, right? You use technology to build better technology. You make a rock into a chisel, then you use that chisel to make sharper chisels. You make a fast microchip, and you use it to design an even faster microchip. The prospect using your neurohacking technology to build a better neurohacker has to have occurred to someone in upper management.
(Actually, it sounds like they tried this with Alpha, and that's where he gets his neurohacking knowledge from.)
In the flashback, Topher tracks their location and clues in the team. Not-Doctor-Saunders-Yet (Oh, screw it, she's Whiskey. Dominic told us last week.) takes the knife from Alpha and starts giving Lars the world's most threatening lapdance, occasionally making out with Alpha during. It's... well, I guess it's giving Lars his fantasy of eroticized sociopathic violence. Damn. Last week I said Bobby!Alpha and Crytsal!Echo reminded me of Spike and Dru. Here, it's more like Vampire!Xander and Vampire!Willow caressing each other's hair while the bite into Cordelia in "The Wish".
The Toy Soldiers break down the door and the Dolls' handlers offer them treatments. "Let's do that instead," says Alpha. "Thanks for the ride," Whiskey drawls at Lars on her way out.
In the present, Boyd and Adelle return to the Fortress, where Ballard is still sitting with cuffs on. He asks what happened to Keppler, who he still thinks is an agoraphobic hypochondriac. Adell pulls a file and spreads it out in front of him, explaining about Alpha. Ballard gets a look at the pictures of Alpha's initial rampage and says, "My God, you programmed a massacre."
"Alpha was an unfortunate technological anomaly," says Adelle. Ballard mocks the euphemism, and Adelle must be spread pretty thin because she lets him get to her. She snaps that Ballard is the one who brought the monster back to her house, and that he's taken Echo. As Ballard reacts, she regains the upper hand. "Yes, I thought that might wipe the smirk off your face," she says.
Ballard says that if Alpha broke out, he can too. "Alpha was a genius," Adelle says, in a tone that makes it clear how she thinks Ballard measures up. Boyd, though, notices on the monitors that a fleet of police and FBI cars are pulling up outside, because Alpha called in a bomb threat on his way out. Leading the FBI contingent is Agent Badger! When he sees that, Ballard says he can make this go away.
Ballard walks out the front door to talk to Badger. They trade insults while Ballard asks him to smile and nod because they're being watched. Upstairs, Boyd asks Adelle if she trusts Ballard. "I trust I know what he wants," she says.
Outside, Ballard explains that there isn't a bomb, but the Dollhouse is right here, and offers to take them inside. Disgusted, Badger tells everyone that it's a false alarm and threatens to send Ballard to jail. As the police pack up, Ballard turns to the camera and Adelle gives a tight smile.
Interesting-- Did Ballard mean to drive them off, knew Badger wouldn't believe him, and just used the truth for the delicious ironic aftertaste? Or did he realize he was getting trapped, genuinely make a last-ditch effort to get Badger into the Dollhouse, fail, and resign himself? It's hard to read his expression.
Topher comes into the Fortress with news: Alpha took all of Echo's old imprints. (They call the storage devices, which look like internal hard drives with handles bolted on, as "wedges", and since the word comes up often, so will I.) Boyd immediately wonders what good the wedges will do Alpha.
For an answer, Alpha brings Echo and the captive salesgirl into a dark warehouse-like space, where he's got a creepy homemade version of the Mental Hygeine Chair set up.
"Welcome to your castle, my princess," Alpha says dramatically. "Behold, your throne."
"Wow," says Echo, twirling her hair. "You got a bathroom?"
After the act break, Dr. Whiskey is stitching Victor's facial wounds. This deserves a block quote:
In flashback, a voice calls for Dr. Saunders. The Original Recipe an old guy, with white hair and glasses. Alvarez brings Whiskey in for an exam, and he offers her a lollipop. He says she's overworked and recommends she take a week off. Alvarez doesn't think that's likely, because she's the most popular Doll in the house. Dr. Saunders hears something outside and tells Whiskey it sounds like she'll have a new friend soon. We pan past a very interested Alpha, who is watching as Adelle gives Caroline the grand tour. Caroline complains that the Dolls look like zombies, but Adelle lays the pitch on a little thicker. As they pass, Alpha comments to Whiskey that Caroline is sad. Whiskey licks her lollipop and says Dr. Saunders is nice. Caroline and Adelle go up the stairs to the Chair.
In the present, Ballard, Adelle, and Boyd meet Topher in the Chair Room. "So, this is where you steal their souls," says Ballard.
"Yes, and then we put them in a glass jar with our fireflies," Topher says with about as much sarcasm as it is possible to put into one sentence. (Side note: Firefly shoutout?) Pointing at Boyd, he asks Adelle, "Why is there a tall, morally judgmental man in my imprint room besides him?" When Adelle says Ballard is offering them his crime-solving services, Topher says, "Hey, he could start by finding the guy who tasered me. Pretty sure he let Alpha right in."
Boyd points out that they need all the help they can get to catch Alpha. Adelle tells Topher to be cooperative. "All hands on deck, am I clear?" she asks.
With this, Sierra and November walk in, ready for treatments. Recognizing November, Ballard asks, "What the hell is this?"
"A couple more deckhands," says Topher. As they wait for Sierra to get her imprint, November stands next to Ballard.
"Hello," she says brightly. On most shows, that would be the peak of their irony for the year. On this show, it doesn't crack the top twenty.
In Chair Lair, Alpha is strapping the salesgirl to the improvised Chair. He takes her nametag off, saying that she won't need it, since "Wendy" is going away. (Yay, a name! That... won't actually make most of what's coming that much easier to describe, actually. Still, I approve on principle.)
"You're going to make her disappear? Like a magic trick?" asks Echo.
"We're going to stick her in a wedge!" says Alpha with a little too much glee. "We're going to wedge her."
Echo doesn't get it. Alpha's not surprised, sneering, "Of course you don't. The mind that you've been given is so pathetic that it's a surprise you're able to perform basic motor functions."
Echo is stung, but Alpha's personality swings and he says, in Bobby's voice, "Don't listen to him. You're perfect, just like this. Not afraid of anything." And damn, in a one-line turnaround Alan Tudyk actually sells me on what Bobby feels for Crystal. "That's what you needed to get out of that place. To make it here." They kiss. Sparks crackle along the improvised wiring as Wendy gets wedged.
Flashback. In the Halls of Dolls, Alpha and Echo are walking past each other. Echo says hello, and Alpha leans in and kisses her on the mouth. Echo barely pauses as she describes her plans to go to the pool. "I like you. You're special," says Alpha.
"I try to be my best," says Echo.
"You are the best," says Alpha, kissing her again. Alpha's handler comes around the corner and yells at them, sending Echo off for a treatment. Then he asks Alpha, "What the hell was that?"
"I don't understand 'hell,'" Alpha says.
"It's what you would have caught if it had been DeWitt who caught you instead of me. Just watch your step, okay?" says the handler.
"I'll do that," Alpha says, solemnly. He walks down the hall with his eyes firmly on his feet. Pretty sure he's just playing to expectations, here, though, because as soon as his handler leaves he looks up creepily.
In the present, November is getting her imprint. Boyd comments to Ballard that Topher says it's like childbirth. Boyd thinks it's more like watching someone die. Sierra, already imprinted as a bounty hunter, oozes over and starts flirting with Ballard. She thinks he's a rival on the contract, but she doesn't mind. November wakes up, takes in the situation, and rolls her eyes. "If you're done molesting the furniture, can we get these guys?"
"You're still in your pajamas," Sierra snarks.
Back at the Chair Lair, Echo notes that Wendy's not screaming anymore. Alpha, creepily, puts his ear to the wedge and disagrees. "Bobby, you're scaring me," says Echo.
"There's only one person who can hurt you now," says Alpha, "And we're going to to take care of that." He holds up a wedge. We go to commercial.
In Topher's office, Ballard is working on his profile. He asks Topher who Alpha went after first. Topher doesn't think it matters. He says you can't profile Alpha, because Alpha isn't a person. He explains the composite event: "He's like Soylent Green. He's people." Ballard sticks with his line of inquiry, though, and Topher finally starts walking through the massacre. He says Alpha's handler was first, then half of his staff, and then Dr. Saunders walked in.
"The woman with the scars?" asks Ballard, but Topher dodges the question. Ballard says that in a spree like this, the first victims might just have gotten in the way. He asks who Alpha went for the first time he had a choice. This actually gets Topher thinking. He says Alpha went after himself-- he went to the "Self Shelf" (Topher apparently shares my fondness for quirky euphonious nicknames for places.) and smashed the disk containing his original personality. A nasty thought seems to occur to them all at the same time, and Topher goes to check on Caroline's wedge. He comes back with shattered pieces.
"You have a backup, right?" asks Boyd.
"This is the backup," Topher says miserably.
"So where's the original?"
For an answer, we cut to the Chair Lair. Alpha puts the original Caroline into Wendy's body. When she wakes up, she asks, "Has it been five years?" Then she sees Echo standing across from her.
"What am I doing standing over there?" asks Caroline!Wendy, understandably.
"Meet yourself," Alpha says grandly.
"The wrongness of this is so large," Caroline says, and I take a moment to savor the pure Buffiness of that line. "Whose body is this?"
"Just a body," says Alpha. "They're all pretty much the same."
"I think this one wet itself."
Echo-- Crystal in Caroline's body, rather-- wants an explanation. "My brain hurts," she complains.
"How do you think my brain feels?" asks Caroline!Wendy. "Hey, that is my brain. I want my brain back. I want back in my brain!"
"You should have thought of that before you vacated the premises," Alpha says.
"I don't know this girl," says Crystal!Echo.
"You know why? She abandoned you," sneers Alpha. He says that, when things got a little rough, Caroline decided she'd sleep for five years, and left Echo to the wolves.
"She said I'd be taken care of," protests Caroline!Wendy. "That I'd be safe."
"And do you feel safe now?" asks Alpha. "What do you feel?"
"Confused," says Caroline!Wendy.
"I'm with her," says Crystal!Echo.
"You are her!" says Alpha, unhelpfully. "But you don't have to be. You can ascend. You can evolve. I can help, like I always have. She wasn't there when you needed her, but I was."
This takes us to a flashback of the Dolls doing bonsai in art class. Alvarez comes in to call Whiskey up for a treatment, and she and the art teacher discuss how Whiskey's the most popular Doll in the house. Alpha walks over to Whiskey and says, brightly but firmly, "Whiskey, let Echo be number one." Then he pushes her to the floor, straddles her, and starts slashing at her face with the bonsai scissors.
Handlers rush in to drag him off. They take him upstairs and throw him in the Chair.
"How did this happen?" demands Adelle. Topher thinks it's a leftover neuron bundle from a previous engagement, and says he has to go through all the old ones to check. Adelle says to do the diagnostic, then put Alpha in the Attic. In the Chair, Alpha is confused. He thinks he was making art. His handler gets in his face, telling him he needs a treatment. Alpha says he likes those, and Topher says he'll love this one, as it's kind of a greatest hits.
As it starts, Alpha kicks his handler into the terminal. Overload warnings sound as Topher tries to shut things down. Alpha grabs his handler's head and puts his thumbs through his eye sockets. "Understand hell now," he says.
Hearing the noise, Original Recipe Dr. Saunders comes in. Alpha grabs him, too, and we fade to black.
In the present, Ballard storms into the fortress and plops a heavy file in front of Adelle. He says the 48 profiles in there don't tell him anything, and asks who Alpha is.
"Alpha is all of these," says Adelle unflappably.
"That's what I told him," complains Topher, who followed Ballard and Boyd in. "And of course they don't tell you anything. They don't tell me anything, and I'm smarter than everyone in this room."
Adelle gives him The Eyebrow.
"But less scary," he amends. (What happened to "superior in every way", Topher?)
Ballard says he doesn't think the Chair can wipe away someone's soul. Topher mocks him for his soul hypothesis, but Ballard still wants to know who Alpha was in private life. Adelle insists it's not relevant, but Boyd backs Ballard up. Topher huffily wishes everyone luck with the "whole God thing" and goes off to work out which old imprint Alpha put in Echo.
In the Lair, Alpha is strapping Crystal!Echo into the Chair. Caroline!Wendy is tied up in a nearby chair, yelling at Alpha. She points out that the chair hurts, and Alpha assures Echo that she won't remember it. Echo says, uncertainly, that Alpha is going to make her an ascended being.
"Do you know what that means?" asks Caroline.
"No. Do you?" says Echo.
"No."
"So you're not better than me."
Caroline switches tactics. She points out that Echo is in a lair (the show once again catches up to my nomenclature), strapped to a messed-up dentist chair (twice in one sentence!), letting a guy who talks to himself strap wires to her head-- which, incidentally, is also Caroline!Wendy's head.
Echo looks a little worried after that, but Alpha keeps working. He says Echo will understand, and then she'll kill Caroline. Understandably, Caroline wants to know why that needs to happen.
"A blood ritual, that's what we need," Alpha monologues. "The Mayans knew it. The Pre-Hellenic Minoans knew it, for God's sake. The gods require blood. New life from death. The ancients had it right. The old gods are back. Alpha, meet Omega."
With that, he throws the switch, and Echo flashes back through all her imprints. She wakes up with a gasp and rips the electrodes off as she jumps to her feet.
"Oh, God," says Caroline!Wendy.
"Oh, gods!" corrects Alpha.
"I get it," says Echo softly as she leans down to pick up a pipe from the Lair floor.
"I knew you would," says Alpha.
Echo faces Caroline and hefts the pipe ans Alpha watches in anticipation. Then she swings it behind her and knocks Alpha to the floor.
"Oh yeah, now I understand everything," says Echo.
In the Fortress, Adelle hands Ballard Alpha's original file. His name was Carl William Craft, which, as Ballard points out, is totally a name for a serial killer or presidential assassin. Adelle says that some of Rossum's early trials were on prisoners, which shocks Boyd a little-- and me too, a little.
Adelle's self-justification seems to rely heavily on the idea that the Dolls are her willing wards. That choice, that contract, is what she clings to. I don't think she was lying when Echo held the gun to her in "Needs". She thinks it's her duty. And she used to oversee medical research, where we treat prisoners as a vulnerable population that can't give uncoerced consent to be research subjects.
(I'm assuming here that when Nolan paid to have Sierra sent to the Dollhouse, Adelle didn't know about it. I hope she didn't-- that's sort of a Moral Event Horizon. Right now, I'm interested in seeing her work out how to live with herself, as I am with Topher and Boyd. If she bought Sierra as a slave, then her justifications are just delusions.)
Anyway, as Ballard runs down Carl's record, Adelle says he never killed anyone. (Boyd: "Until he came here.") Reading the case, Ballard says that was just because his first victim escaped before he finished. Boyd points out that this means there's a living witness. "You want to drive?" asks Ballard. (I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if the fingers of thousands of slashers hit the keyboard simultaneously.)
Back in the Lair, Alpha is picking himself up, confused. "Omega, you hit me with a pipe," he points out.
"Call me 'Omega' again and you'll get some more," says Echo. Alpha thinks something went wrong with the composite, but Echo says it didn't. "Every imprint this Active ever had is alive and awake in her head right now." Alpha wants to know, if that's true, why she hit him in the head with a pipe. "Because it was handy," she says, "and you wanted me to kill myself."
"I wanted you to kill her," says Alpha.
"Her is me. You made that very clear," says Echo.
"Her is the old you," says Alpha. "Try to keep up."
(I'm quoting a lot more than I'm summarizing here, but it all seems pretty thematically fraught.)
Echo says she's way ahead of him-- he thinks they're gods, but they're not. Alpha offers to switch terminology to ubermenshen and starts talking about Nietzsche.
"New, superior people, with a little German thrown in. Where could that possibly go wrong?" Echo Godwins. "We're not anybody. We're everybody. I'm experiencing thirty-eight of them right now, but I can tell that not one of them is me. I can slip into one-- or rather, it slips into me. They had to make room for it. They hollowed me out. There's no me. I'm a container."
"There is a you," interrupts Caroline. "It's me." Pronouns are going to be a bitch.
Echo turns to her. "He may be crazy, but he's right. You walked away from me. You left me alone in that place."
"It's complicated," protests Caroline.
"However complicated you thought our lives were before..." Echo starts to say, but Alpha attacks and they fight.
Back in the buddy cop movie, Boyd and Ballard are at the victim's apartment. (He's a conflicted ex-cop struggling for clarity! He's an obsessed ex-FBI agent who's compromising his morality more quickly than he'd ever realized! They fight crime! And glower manfully!)
"Let me ask you something," says Ballard. "It's obvious you were police. How'd you end up working for these people?"
"I could ask you the same thing," points out Boyd.
"I'm not working for them," Ballard says, a little smugly. "I'm just trying to save the girl."
"There's always a girl," Boyd says wearily. (And that's his answer to the big "How do you live with yourself?" question. He's decided that the best thing he can do is make sure Echo gets out safe, whatever it takes.)
Boyd lets Ballard do the talking, since he's technically still with the FBI. He hits the callbox button and asks the woman if they can talk. She says she doesn't let strangers up, but she'll come down. While they wait, Boyd points out that this could be for nothing-- Carl William Craft could have nothing to do with who Alpha is now, and they could be stirring up this poor woman's ancient trauma for no good reason. Ballard thinks that's a chance they've got to take.
The elevator opens, and the victim steps out. Her face is crossed with thin scars, just like Whiskey's.
(Structural note: So that's why there was all that business with the callbox. Normal television writing wouldn't show them calling up to the apartment anymore than it would show them finding a parking space or putting gas in the car. Start the scene as late as possible. But here they couldn't see her face until they'd already raised their doubts.)
Back in the Lair, Alpha and Echo are arguing while they fight. Alpha says she doesn't know what she's giving up, but Echo doesn't think the Lair would really be a step up.
"I thought you were different. Exceptional. I was wrong. You're weak," says Alpha.
"I may not know who I am, but at least I know who I'm not," says Echo. As she lands a knockout blow, she finishes, "I'm not your girlfriend."
She goes over to Caroline and starts to untie her. "I kick ass!" Caroline notes, with some astonishment.
Then Alpha shoots Caroline in the throat.
Sidenote: Both Echo and Ballard have objected to Adelle's contractualist framework by pointing out that you can't sign a contract to be a slave. This might be true, but it's kind of irrelevant-- like pointing out that some of the engagements don't live up to OSHA safety standards. It's not like it's going to get adjudicated in court. The moral question is why she made the deal in the first place, and whether she still feels a obligation to live up to it, and whether she's willing to face the consequences of failing to live up to it. (I'm not really talking about the "Toy Soldier hunt you down and kill you" consequences here. That's violent coercion-- a factor in the decision, maybe, but not really a tricky moral dilemma. I'm talking about no longer escaping the consequences that pushed her there in the first place.) I think it's valid-- and, indeed, important-- that she reject the deal in those terms.
Ahem. So, Alpha shoots Caroline in the throat. Then he points the gun at the Caroline's wedge and says, "Do what I say, or I will blow your brain out."
In the Original Recipe Chair Room, Topher is going through the old imprints. He's gotten as far as the back-up singer/bodyguard from "Stage Fright", and notes aloud that he doesn't really think Alpha would have used an imprint of a back-up singer, unless he was planning to start an evil band. (Now I kind of want to see the alternate universe in which Alpha's plan was to start an evil band.)
He's interruped by a phone call from Boyd. From their interview with CWC's first victim, they found out that she was held in an abandoned warehouse in San Pedro, and Boyd wants to know if Alpha ever went back there as an Active. Topher looks like he has an idea, and tells an assistant to pull Whiskey 1.1's imprints. (Where's Ivy? We just get Generic Assistant Guy.)
Over the phone, he tells Boyd about Lars's ill-fated Southern-Gothic-Bonnie-and-Clyde engagement and gives them the address. He's about to put the drive back when he looks thoughtful and decides to test it. It's the one, and as he mutters, "He's using an old Whiskey imprint" to himself, we see Dr. Whiskey standing quietly outside his door.
Back in Alpha's Chair Lair, Alpha orders Echo to get in the chair so he can put Caroline back in her, then kill her. Echo points out that that's a pretty convoluted to get Caroline dead when he can get shoot her and the wedge.
Alpha says he's not going to shoot the wedge-- once he's done with Echo, he's going to kidnap more girls, put Caroline into their bodies, and carve them up till he gets bored. This plan makes Echo realize (or possibly remember) that Alpha was the one who gave Whiskey her scars. Alpha protests that he did it for her.
"Don't give me any more crap about being an ascended being," says Echo. "To ascend to anything, at minimum, you don't cut up women." It's a solid sentiment, but you do have to wonder why Echo is more pissed off by the memory of Alpha cutting someone's face a few years ago when he shot a girl in the throat. Right in front of her. Thirty seconds ago.
Alpha tells her to lite back in the chair, and Echo finally gets around to a dentist joke: "I'm done lying back in the chair. I'm ready to rinse and spit." Alpha threatens again to shoot the wedge, but Echo acts unconcerned.
Alpha's voices say, "I'm not bluffing./We're not bluffing./I'm bluffing./But the rest of us mean business." He suggests that, if Echo doesn't care if Caroline is destroyed, maybe Caroline would. (I want my pronouns back!)
"She's me," says Echo. "And we're both coming to get you."
Alpha shoots her in the shoulder and runs upstairs with the wedge. Echo doesn't seem too phased. She follows out onto the roof and chases Alpha through the power plant infrastructure, up another set of stairs.
Boyd and Ballard pull up to the power plant. They find the stolen car are are about to kick in the door when Alpha spots them from the stairs above and takes a couple of shots. Ballard spots Echo chasing Alpha as they scramble for cover.
Alpha reaches the top of the stairs and turns to taunt Echo, still a flight down. "You want to save the girl? Go and get her." With that, he tosses the wedge over the rails. Echo turns to follow it. The disk, improbably, has balanced itself on a cross-beam. Echo begins carefully crawling out towards it, but as she reaches for it, the bullet wound in her shoulder makes her wince and the disk falls.
Ballard catches it.
"You saved her," murmurs Echo.
Back at the Dollhouse, Topher comes out of the Chair Room and finds Whiskey standing by his computer. "I think you gave me more computer skills than would be required by a medical doctor," she says. (Good acting from Amy, here-- she strikes a careful balance between shaken and steady.) "It was very easy for me to hack your system. I'm curious-- I guess I understand why they wouldn't want to waste an investment. And why hire a new physician when you can just imprint the broken Doll? But... why did you think it was so important for me to hate you?" She pauses. "I think that's strange."
Topher's reaction shot is great, too. He looks guilty and miserable. (His answer to how he lives with himself-- because this is really fucking cool-- is starting to wear thin.) Then, as she's leaving, he notices that she didn't open her file. "Don't you want to know who you are?" he asks.
"I know who I am," says Whiskey.
In the Fortress, Boyd confirms to Adelle that Alpha is still eluding them. He says an anonymous source is providing generously for Wendy's family. Adelle notes, correctly, that this is cold comfort. "We'll find him. I have confidence now. Our new contractor has the skills to inspire it."
The camera pulls back to show Ballard sitting on the couch. "I don't work for you yet," he says. He wants the rest of their deal worked out.
"The young woman's freedom has been granted," says Adelle, as Ballard insists that her contract be paid in full.
Adelle takes a phone call and says to send her in.
November walks in to sign her final papers. She says hello to Paul again.
We end on a montage of three scenes: Adelle, Boyd, Ballard, and November in the Fortress; Topher and Echo in the Chair Room; Whiskey and Victor in the doctor's office.
In the Chair Room, Echo is mindwiped.
In her office, Dr. Whiskey treats Victor's wounds.
In the Fortress, November says, "It was so easy-- I feel like I just got here." She thanks Adelle, and they hug. On her way out, Ballard stops her.
Dr. Whiskey gives Victor a lollipop as he leaves.
Echo wakes up, and Topher makes the waking ritual sound like confession.
Ballard asks November her name. It's Madeleine.
Topher turns to his machinery as Echo gets up. Instead of leaving, Echo turns Topher around and silently puts her hand over his heart.
November-- now Madeleine-- asks who Paul is.
"Nobody," says Paul.
November leaves. Adelle and Boyd look resolved.
Echo goes to sleep in her pod. As the lid seals, she whispers to herself: "Caroline."
And that's our season. (Yes, I know about the unaired episode. I'll track it down and write it up, but I figure it has to be viewed as apocryphal.) We spun our wheels for a while, but damned if we didn't end up somewhere interesting.
I do feel like a lot of this episode had to have been left on the cutting room floor, though. There are a lot of missing structural elements. Sierra and November's bounty hunters dropped off the face of the planet. Alpha was on top of a tower with Echo, Boyd, and Ballard hunting him, then we're told he got away.
Going through it in detail, as you might have noticed I do, I noticed that there were a couple of lines that get repeated in interesting circumstances. Both Lars and Caroline try to explain their situation to a Doll with "It's complicated." And both Echo and Ballard answer the question "Who are you?" with "Nobody." Might be some parallels there-- especially that second one.
I hope we get more on Ballard's motivation later and he doesn't just join the team. I love that he came to terms with the fact that he was holding November responsible for the Dollhouse's sins and forgave her. I'm going to miss Miracle Laurie, if she's really gone, which I assume she is.
And Whiskey. It should be really interesting to watch a self-aware Doll. (I've wondered if some of Echo's imprints were self-aware before. The interrogator in "Spy in the House of Love" seemed to know what the situation was, and she didn't object to Dominic calling her a Doll-- just a broken Doll.)
I was trying to identify Dollhouse's closest TV relatives recently, and I was coming up blank. Structurally, it's a very odd animal. If it weren't for the mindwipes, it could be something like Mission: Impossible, with neurohacking instead of cons and masks. But the mindwipes mean that the procedural/mission elements fall to the background quickly. They're mainly useful for highlighting the conflicts of the major characters.
In that way, it's kind of like an Aaron Sorkin show, only instead of being about the emotional machinations of the wordy, neurotic people behind the scenes of a sports show or the White House, it's about the emotional machinations of the wordy, neurotic people behind the scenes of a clandestine neurohacking ring.
And that's before you tack on the development of the Dolls themselves-- which happens slowly, but it's there, and really has to be considered the major overall arc. What's that? A coming-of-age story for a constructed personality?
I saw an interview where Joss explained that FOX really, really wanted miniature episodes they could put on the web as added content, but he couldn't do it because Dollhouse stories are so hard to put together and so easy to break. When you look at that structure, I can see why.
Topher says Alpha put an imprint in her, but he doesn't know which one. Boyd wants to use Echo's implanted locator tag, but Topher holds up a metal strip about three inches long and says Alpha pulled it out, and "went into the system and severed the biolinks", so he can't trace them. Adelle tells Topher to figure out which imprint Alpha used, then rushes out the door with Boyd.
This just leaves the still-traumatized Dr. Saunders, standing in the door looking vacantly at Topher. "He asked me if I always wanted to be a doctor," she says. "Why would he do that?"
Topher looks deeply uncomfortable but dodges the question, saying, "Who can fathom the mind of a crazy person?"
Claire wanders off, muttering, "The one who made him crazy, maybe?"
In a car, Alpha is driving and Echo is in the passenger seat wearing normal clothes. Alpha starts talking about their history together, and how they met, creepily, when he first took her out when she was thirteen. "Thirteen, and already a woman, you said," Echo agrees.The scene flashes as he mutters, rapidly, "But it never happened./Why did you tell her that?/Shut up!"
It's not clear how much of that was real-- Echo asks what he just said, and he says "I didn't know you when you were thirteen." Then, again, flashing rapidly through different voices, he repeats, "None of us did." After a pause, he adds, "I'm not Bobby."
"What do you mean?" asks Echo.
"I'm not just Bobby," he amends. Echo looks confused for a moment, then gets distracted by the fact that she's missing one of the shirts they stole while getting her new wardrobe. Alpha tries to soothe her, but she twists around and yells, "You forgot my Juicy Couture shirt!" This last bit is directed at a scared-looking blonde woman, evidently a salesperson at the store they just robbed, who is bound and gagged in the back seat. "Bitch," sniffs Echo, as she leans across the front seat and Alpha puts his arm around her. (I guess we can't expect proper seat belt usage from Southern Gothic thieves and kidnappers.)
We come back from the credits into a flashback. Adelle is asking a handler if she's managed to lose both Actives and the client. (The handler is named Alvarez, and I'm pretty sure she's the same woman whose nose Echo introduces to a fire extinguisher in "Needs".) Another handler complains that Alvarez's girl is a bad influence on his guy, and he doesn't know why they keep pairing them up.
Adelle tells him it's none of his business which Actives get sent on which engagements. "Your task is discreetly to observe," she says, and of course she refuses to split infinitives even in the most tense of circumstances. The handler complains that Alpha knew he was being watched. Topher, who has been sitting next to Adelle, jumps in to say that he warned them that these imprints would be prone to paranoia. Adelle asks, as a matter of curiosity, how dangerous these imprints could be. Topher makes the face he makes when he's about to break some bad news.
In a dark, open space, like a warehouse, country music plays while a woman dances sexily in silhouette. Alpha has a man, who he calls Lars, tied to a chair, and wants to know who he's working with. Lars, bleeding from small cuts on his face and shoulders, denies that he's working with anyone. Alpha pours whiskey over Lars's head, making him whimper. He says he saw the vans, and he hasn't made it this far on the run without knowing when he's being followed. Then he whips out a knife and goes to cut out Lars's eyes. Lars breaks and yells, "It's complicated!"
Looking satisfied, Alpha tells him to make it simple. Lars, breaking down, says Alpha and his girlfriend are not real, which understandably pisses Alpha off. Lars sobs that they think that they're on a cross country crime spree, but they're not, and they think they have a doomed love, but they don't. It's all his fantasy and he's paying for it to have a little fun.
"Are you having fun, Lars?" asks Alpha. He looks at the girl, saying that she's real, and the last real thing Lars is ever going to see. He calls her over. Her name is Crystal, but that's not the surprising part. It's not Echo. It's Dr. Saunders.
Right, once we've recovered from the Holy Shit moment, let's do a quick history check. First, it should have been obvious the female Active on this engagement wasn't Echo. Alvarez wasn't Echo's pre-Boyd handler. That was some other guy, who was killed by Alpha during his breakout.
Second, while I said back in "Man on the Street" that they were running out of times they could reveal that a character is really a Doll. Well, I'm going to spot them this one. We were warned. When Echo was turned into an interrogator in "Spy in the House of Love", she noted that Claire never left the Dollhouse and had no outside contacts.
If I were Topher, Boyd, or Adelle, though, I'm pretty sure I'd be having regularly scheduled existential crises. Especially Topher-- I mean, it's Moore's Law, right? You use technology to build better technology. You make a rock into a chisel, then you use that chisel to make sharper chisels. You make a fast microchip, and you use it to design an even faster microchip. The prospect using your neurohacking technology to build a better neurohacker has to have occurred to someone in upper management.
(Actually, it sounds like they tried this with Alpha, and that's where he gets his neurohacking knowledge from.)
In the flashback, Topher tracks their location and clues in the team. Not-Doctor-Saunders-Yet (Oh, screw it, she's Whiskey. Dominic told us last week.) takes the knife from Alpha and starts giving Lars the world's most threatening lapdance, occasionally making out with Alpha during. It's... well, I guess it's giving Lars his fantasy of eroticized sociopathic violence. Damn. Last week I said Bobby!Alpha and Crytsal!Echo reminded me of Spike and Dru. Here, it's more like Vampire!Xander and Vampire!Willow caressing each other's hair while the bite into Cordelia in "The Wish".
The Toy Soldiers break down the door and the Dolls' handlers offer them treatments. "Let's do that instead," says Alpha. "Thanks for the ride," Whiskey drawls at Lars on her way out.
In the present, Boyd and Adelle return to the Fortress, where Ballard is still sitting with cuffs on. He asks what happened to Keppler, who he still thinks is an agoraphobic hypochondriac. Adell pulls a file and spreads it out in front of him, explaining about Alpha. Ballard gets a look at the pictures of Alpha's initial rampage and says, "My God, you programmed a massacre."
"Alpha was an unfortunate technological anomaly," says Adelle. Ballard mocks the euphemism, and Adelle must be spread pretty thin because she lets him get to her. She snaps that Ballard is the one who brought the monster back to her house, and that he's taken Echo. As Ballard reacts, she regains the upper hand. "Yes, I thought that might wipe the smirk off your face," she says.
Ballard says that if Alpha broke out, he can too. "Alpha was a genius," Adelle says, in a tone that makes it clear how she thinks Ballard measures up. Boyd, though, notices on the monitors that a fleet of police and FBI cars are pulling up outside, because Alpha called in a bomb threat on his way out. Leading the FBI contingent is Agent Badger! When he sees that, Ballard says he can make this go away.
Ballard walks out the front door to talk to Badger. They trade insults while Ballard asks him to smile and nod because they're being watched. Upstairs, Boyd asks Adelle if she trusts Ballard. "I trust I know what he wants," she says.
Outside, Ballard explains that there isn't a bomb, but the Dollhouse is right here, and offers to take them inside. Disgusted, Badger tells everyone that it's a false alarm and threatens to send Ballard to jail. As the police pack up, Ballard turns to the camera and Adelle gives a tight smile.
Interesting-- Did Ballard mean to drive them off, knew Badger wouldn't believe him, and just used the truth for the delicious ironic aftertaste? Or did he realize he was getting trapped, genuinely make a last-ditch effort to get Badger into the Dollhouse, fail, and resign himself? It's hard to read his expression.
Topher comes into the Fortress with news: Alpha took all of Echo's old imprints. (They call the storage devices, which look like internal hard drives with handles bolted on, as "wedges", and since the word comes up often, so will I.) Boyd immediately wonders what good the wedges will do Alpha.
For an answer, Alpha brings Echo and the captive salesgirl into a dark warehouse-like space, where he's got a creepy homemade version of the Mental Hygeine Chair set up.
"Welcome to your castle, my princess," Alpha says dramatically. "Behold, your throne."
"Wow," says Echo, twirling her hair. "You got a bathroom?"
After the act break, Dr. Whiskey is stitching Victor's facial wounds. This deserves a block quote:
Victor: It hurts.That's good work, where she tries to maintain the calm simplicity you need to use to talk to Dolls, then breaks down.
Whiskey: I know. It won't always.
Victor: I'm not my best anymore. I want to be my best.
Whiskey: I know you do.
Victor: How can I be my best now?
A pause. Victor grabs Whiskey's sleeve.
Victor: How can I be my best, please?
Whiskey: You can't. Your best is past. A past you can't even remember. You're ugly now. Disgusting. All you can hope for now is pity. And for that, you're going to have to look somewhere else.
In flashback, a voice calls for Dr. Saunders. The Original Recipe an old guy, with white hair and glasses. Alvarez brings Whiskey in for an exam, and he offers her a lollipop. He says she's overworked and recommends she take a week off. Alvarez doesn't think that's likely, because she's the most popular Doll in the house. Dr. Saunders hears something outside and tells Whiskey it sounds like she'll have a new friend soon. We pan past a very interested Alpha, who is watching as Adelle gives Caroline the grand tour. Caroline complains that the Dolls look like zombies, but Adelle lays the pitch on a little thicker. As they pass, Alpha comments to Whiskey that Caroline is sad. Whiskey licks her lollipop and says Dr. Saunders is nice. Caroline and Adelle go up the stairs to the Chair.
In the present, Ballard, Adelle, and Boyd meet Topher in the Chair Room. "So, this is where you steal their souls," says Ballard.
"Yes, and then we put them in a glass jar with our fireflies," Topher says with about as much sarcasm as it is possible to put into one sentence. (Side note: Firefly shoutout?) Pointing at Boyd, he asks Adelle, "Why is there a tall, morally judgmental man in my imprint room besides him?" When Adelle says Ballard is offering them his crime-solving services, Topher says, "Hey, he could start by finding the guy who tasered me. Pretty sure he let Alpha right in."
Boyd points out that they need all the help they can get to catch Alpha. Adelle tells Topher to be cooperative. "All hands on deck, am I clear?" she asks.
With this, Sierra and November walk in, ready for treatments. Recognizing November, Ballard asks, "What the hell is this?"
"A couple more deckhands," says Topher. As they wait for Sierra to get her imprint, November stands next to Ballard.
"Hello," she says brightly. On most shows, that would be the peak of their irony for the year. On this show, it doesn't crack the top twenty.
In Chair Lair, Alpha is strapping the salesgirl to the improvised Chair. He takes her nametag off, saying that she won't need it, since "Wendy" is going away. (Yay, a name! That... won't actually make most of what's coming that much easier to describe, actually. Still, I approve on principle.)
"You're going to make her disappear? Like a magic trick?" asks Echo.
"We're going to stick her in a wedge!" says Alpha with a little too much glee. "We're going to wedge her."
Echo doesn't get it. Alpha's not surprised, sneering, "Of course you don't. The mind that you've been given is so pathetic that it's a surprise you're able to perform basic motor functions."
Echo is stung, but Alpha's personality swings and he says, in Bobby's voice, "Don't listen to him. You're perfect, just like this. Not afraid of anything." And damn, in a one-line turnaround Alan Tudyk actually sells me on what Bobby feels for Crystal. "That's what you needed to get out of that place. To make it here." They kiss. Sparks crackle along the improvised wiring as Wendy gets wedged.
Flashback. In the Halls of Dolls, Alpha and Echo are walking past each other. Echo says hello, and Alpha leans in and kisses her on the mouth. Echo barely pauses as she describes her plans to go to the pool. "I like you. You're special," says Alpha.
"I try to be my best," says Echo.
"You are the best," says Alpha, kissing her again. Alpha's handler comes around the corner and yells at them, sending Echo off for a treatment. Then he asks Alpha, "What the hell was that?"
"I don't understand 'hell,'" Alpha says.
"It's what you would have caught if it had been DeWitt who caught you instead of me. Just watch your step, okay?" says the handler.
"I'll do that," Alpha says, solemnly. He walks down the hall with his eyes firmly on his feet. Pretty sure he's just playing to expectations, here, though, because as soon as his handler leaves he looks up creepily.
In the present, November is getting her imprint. Boyd comments to Ballard that Topher says it's like childbirth. Boyd thinks it's more like watching someone die. Sierra, already imprinted as a bounty hunter, oozes over and starts flirting with Ballard. She thinks he's a rival on the contract, but she doesn't mind. November wakes up, takes in the situation, and rolls her eyes. "If you're done molesting the furniture, can we get these guys?"
"You're still in your pajamas," Sierra snarks.
Back at the Chair Lair, Echo notes that Wendy's not screaming anymore. Alpha, creepily, puts his ear to the wedge and disagrees. "Bobby, you're scaring me," says Echo.
"There's only one person who can hurt you now," says Alpha, "And we're going to to take care of that." He holds up a wedge. We go to commercial.
In Topher's office, Ballard is working on his profile. He asks Topher who Alpha went after first. Topher doesn't think it matters. He says you can't profile Alpha, because Alpha isn't a person. He explains the composite event: "He's like Soylent Green. He's people." Ballard sticks with his line of inquiry, though, and Topher finally starts walking through the massacre. He says Alpha's handler was first, then half of his staff, and then Dr. Saunders walked in.
"The woman with the scars?" asks Ballard, but Topher dodges the question. Ballard says that in a spree like this, the first victims might just have gotten in the way. He asks who Alpha went for the first time he had a choice. This actually gets Topher thinking. He says Alpha went after himself-- he went to the "Self Shelf" (Topher apparently shares my fondness for quirky euphonious nicknames for places.) and smashed the disk containing his original personality. A nasty thought seems to occur to them all at the same time, and Topher goes to check on Caroline's wedge. He comes back with shattered pieces.
"You have a backup, right?" asks Boyd.
"This is the backup," Topher says miserably.
"So where's the original?"
For an answer, we cut to the Chair Lair. Alpha puts the original Caroline into Wendy's body. When she wakes up, she asks, "Has it been five years?" Then she sees Echo standing across from her.
"What am I doing standing over there?" asks Caroline!Wendy, understandably.
"Meet yourself," Alpha says grandly.
"The wrongness of this is so large," Caroline says, and I take a moment to savor the pure Buffiness of that line. "Whose body is this?"
"Just a body," says Alpha. "They're all pretty much the same."
"I think this one wet itself."
Echo-- Crystal in Caroline's body, rather-- wants an explanation. "My brain hurts," she complains.
"How do you think my brain feels?" asks Caroline!Wendy. "Hey, that is my brain. I want my brain back. I want back in my brain!"
"You should have thought of that before you vacated the premises," Alpha says.
"I don't know this girl," says Crystal!Echo.
"You know why? She abandoned you," sneers Alpha. He says that, when things got a little rough, Caroline decided she'd sleep for five years, and left Echo to the wolves.
"She said I'd be taken care of," protests Caroline!Wendy. "That I'd be safe."
"And do you feel safe now?" asks Alpha. "What do you feel?"
"Confused," says Caroline!Wendy.
"I'm with her," says Crystal!Echo.
"You are her!" says Alpha, unhelpfully. "But you don't have to be. You can ascend. You can evolve. I can help, like I always have. She wasn't there when you needed her, but I was."
This takes us to a flashback of the Dolls doing bonsai in art class. Alvarez comes in to call Whiskey up for a treatment, and she and the art teacher discuss how Whiskey's the most popular Doll in the house. Alpha walks over to Whiskey and says, brightly but firmly, "Whiskey, let Echo be number one." Then he pushes her to the floor, straddles her, and starts slashing at her face with the bonsai scissors.
Handlers rush in to drag him off. They take him upstairs and throw him in the Chair.
"How did this happen?" demands Adelle. Topher thinks it's a leftover neuron bundle from a previous engagement, and says he has to go through all the old ones to check. Adelle says to do the diagnostic, then put Alpha in the Attic. In the Chair, Alpha is confused. He thinks he was making art. His handler gets in his face, telling him he needs a treatment. Alpha says he likes those, and Topher says he'll love this one, as it's kind of a greatest hits.
As it starts, Alpha kicks his handler into the terminal. Overload warnings sound as Topher tries to shut things down. Alpha grabs his handler's head and puts his thumbs through his eye sockets. "Understand hell now," he says.
Hearing the noise, Original Recipe Dr. Saunders comes in. Alpha grabs him, too, and we fade to black.
In the present, Ballard storms into the fortress and plops a heavy file in front of Adelle. He says the 48 profiles in there don't tell him anything, and asks who Alpha is.
"Alpha is all of these," says Adelle unflappably.
"That's what I told him," complains Topher, who followed Ballard and Boyd in. "And of course they don't tell you anything. They don't tell me anything, and I'm smarter than everyone in this room."
Adelle gives him The Eyebrow.
"But less scary," he amends. (What happened to "superior in every way", Topher?)
Ballard says he doesn't think the Chair can wipe away someone's soul. Topher mocks him for his soul hypothesis, but Ballard still wants to know who Alpha was in private life. Adelle insists it's not relevant, but Boyd backs Ballard up. Topher huffily wishes everyone luck with the "whole God thing" and goes off to work out which old imprint Alpha put in Echo.
In the Lair, Alpha is strapping Crystal!Echo into the Chair. Caroline!Wendy is tied up in a nearby chair, yelling at Alpha. She points out that the chair hurts, and Alpha assures Echo that she won't remember it. Echo says, uncertainly, that Alpha is going to make her an ascended being.
"Do you know what that means?" asks Caroline.
"No. Do you?" says Echo.
"No."
"So you're not better than me."
Caroline switches tactics. She points out that Echo is in a lair (the show once again catches up to my nomenclature), strapped to a messed-up dentist chair (twice in one sentence!), letting a guy who talks to himself strap wires to her head-- which, incidentally, is also Caroline!Wendy's head.
Echo looks a little worried after that, but Alpha keeps working. He says Echo will understand, and then she'll kill Caroline. Understandably, Caroline wants to know why that needs to happen.
"A blood ritual, that's what we need," Alpha monologues. "The Mayans knew it. The Pre-Hellenic Minoans knew it, for God's sake. The gods require blood. New life from death. The ancients had it right. The old gods are back. Alpha, meet Omega."
With that, he throws the switch, and Echo flashes back through all her imprints. She wakes up with a gasp and rips the electrodes off as she jumps to her feet.
"Oh, God," says Caroline!Wendy.
"Oh, gods!" corrects Alpha.
"I get it," says Echo softly as she leans down to pick up a pipe from the Lair floor.
"I knew you would," says Alpha.
Echo faces Caroline and hefts the pipe ans Alpha watches in anticipation. Then she swings it behind her and knocks Alpha to the floor.
"Oh yeah, now I understand everything," says Echo.
In the Fortress, Adelle hands Ballard Alpha's original file. His name was Carl William Craft, which, as Ballard points out, is totally a name for a serial killer or presidential assassin. Adelle says that some of Rossum's early trials were on prisoners, which shocks Boyd a little-- and me too, a little.
Adelle's self-justification seems to rely heavily on the idea that the Dolls are her willing wards. That choice, that contract, is what she clings to. I don't think she was lying when Echo held the gun to her in "Needs". She thinks it's her duty. And she used to oversee medical research, where we treat prisoners as a vulnerable population that can't give uncoerced consent to be research subjects.
(I'm assuming here that when Nolan paid to have Sierra sent to the Dollhouse, Adelle didn't know about it. I hope she didn't-- that's sort of a Moral Event Horizon. Right now, I'm interested in seeing her work out how to live with herself, as I am with Topher and Boyd. If she bought Sierra as a slave, then her justifications are just delusions.)
Anyway, as Ballard runs down Carl's record, Adelle says he never killed anyone. (Boyd: "Until he came here.") Reading the case, Ballard says that was just because his first victim escaped before he finished. Boyd points out that this means there's a living witness. "You want to drive?" asks Ballard. (I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if the fingers of thousands of slashers hit the keyboard simultaneously.)
Back in the Lair, Alpha is picking himself up, confused. "Omega, you hit me with a pipe," he points out.
"Call me 'Omega' again and you'll get some more," says Echo. Alpha thinks something went wrong with the composite, but Echo says it didn't. "Every imprint this Active ever had is alive and awake in her head right now." Alpha wants to know, if that's true, why she hit him in the head with a pipe. "Because it was handy," she says, "and you wanted me to kill myself."
"I wanted you to kill her," says Alpha.
"Her is me. You made that very clear," says Echo.
"Her is the old you," says Alpha. "Try to keep up."
(I'm quoting a lot more than I'm summarizing here, but it all seems pretty thematically fraught.)
Echo says she's way ahead of him-- he thinks they're gods, but they're not. Alpha offers to switch terminology to ubermenshen and starts talking about Nietzsche.
"New, superior people, with a little German thrown in. Where could that possibly go wrong?" Echo Godwins. "We're not anybody. We're everybody. I'm experiencing thirty-eight of them right now, but I can tell that not one of them is me. I can slip into one-- or rather, it slips into me. They had to make room for it. They hollowed me out. There's no me. I'm a container."
"There is a you," interrupts Caroline. "It's me." Pronouns are going to be a bitch.
Echo turns to her. "He may be crazy, but he's right. You walked away from me. You left me alone in that place."
"It's complicated," protests Caroline.
"However complicated you thought our lives were before..." Echo starts to say, but Alpha attacks and they fight.
Back in the buddy cop movie, Boyd and Ballard are at the victim's apartment. (He's a conflicted ex-cop struggling for clarity! He's an obsessed ex-FBI agent who's compromising his morality more quickly than he'd ever realized! They fight crime! And glower manfully!)
"Let me ask you something," says Ballard. "It's obvious you were police. How'd you end up working for these people?"
"I could ask you the same thing," points out Boyd.
"I'm not working for them," Ballard says, a little smugly. "I'm just trying to save the girl."
"There's always a girl," Boyd says wearily. (And that's his answer to the big "How do you live with yourself?" question. He's decided that the best thing he can do is make sure Echo gets out safe, whatever it takes.)
Boyd lets Ballard do the talking, since he's technically still with the FBI. He hits the callbox button and asks the woman if they can talk. She says she doesn't let strangers up, but she'll come down. While they wait, Boyd points out that this could be for nothing-- Carl William Craft could have nothing to do with who Alpha is now, and they could be stirring up this poor woman's ancient trauma for no good reason. Ballard thinks that's a chance they've got to take.
The elevator opens, and the victim steps out. Her face is crossed with thin scars, just like Whiskey's.
(Structural note: So that's why there was all that business with the callbox. Normal television writing wouldn't show them calling up to the apartment anymore than it would show them finding a parking space or putting gas in the car. Start the scene as late as possible. But here they couldn't see her face until they'd already raised their doubts.)
Back in the Lair, Alpha and Echo are arguing while they fight. Alpha says she doesn't know what she's giving up, but Echo doesn't think the Lair would really be a step up.
"I thought you were different. Exceptional. I was wrong. You're weak," says Alpha.
"I may not know who I am, but at least I know who I'm not," says Echo. As she lands a knockout blow, she finishes, "I'm not your girlfriend."
She goes over to Caroline and starts to untie her. "I kick ass!" Caroline notes, with some astonishment.
Caroline: Who are you?
Echo: Echo.
Caroline: Who's that?
Echo: Nobody. I'm just the porchlight, waiting for you.
Caroline: You have to put me back in the wedge so Wendy can come back to her body.
Echo: Why the wedge? Why not come home?
Caroline (looking uncomfortable): I signed a contract.
Echo: I have thirty-eight brains, and not one of them thinks you can sign a contract to be a slave. (grins) Especially not now that we have a black president.
Caroline: We have a black president? Okay, I'm missing everything. (pause) Yeah. Let's do this.
Then Alpha shoots Caroline in the throat.
Sidenote: Both Echo and Ballard have objected to Adelle's contractualist framework by pointing out that you can't sign a contract to be a slave. This might be true, but it's kind of irrelevant-- like pointing out that some of the engagements don't live up to OSHA safety standards. It's not like it's going to get adjudicated in court. The moral question is why she made the deal in the first place, and whether she still feels a obligation to live up to it, and whether she's willing to face the consequences of failing to live up to it. (I'm not really talking about the "Toy Soldier hunt you down and kill you" consequences here. That's violent coercion-- a factor in the decision, maybe, but not really a tricky moral dilemma. I'm talking about no longer escaping the consequences that pushed her there in the first place.) I think it's valid-- and, indeed, important-- that she reject the deal in those terms.
Ahem. So, Alpha shoots Caroline in the throat. Then he points the gun at the Caroline's wedge and says, "Do what I say, or I will blow your brain out."
In the Original Recipe Chair Room, Topher is going through the old imprints. He's gotten as far as the back-up singer/bodyguard from "Stage Fright", and notes aloud that he doesn't really think Alpha would have used an imprint of a back-up singer, unless he was planning to start an evil band. (Now I kind of want to see the alternate universe in which Alpha's plan was to start an evil band.)
He's interruped by a phone call from Boyd. From their interview with CWC's first victim, they found out that she was held in an abandoned warehouse in San Pedro, and Boyd wants to know if Alpha ever went back there as an Active. Topher looks like he has an idea, and tells an assistant to pull Whiskey 1.1's imprints. (Where's Ivy? We just get Generic Assistant Guy.)
Over the phone, he tells Boyd about Lars's ill-fated Southern-Gothic-Bonnie-and-Clyde engagement and gives them the address. He's about to put the drive back when he looks thoughtful and decides to test it. It's the one, and as he mutters, "He's using an old Whiskey imprint" to himself, we see Dr. Whiskey standing quietly outside his door.
Back in Alpha's Chair Lair, Alpha orders Echo to get in the chair so he can put Caroline back in her, then kill her. Echo points out that that's a pretty convoluted to get Caroline dead when he can get shoot her and the wedge.
Alpha says he's not going to shoot the wedge-- once he's done with Echo, he's going to kidnap more girls, put Caroline into their bodies, and carve them up till he gets bored. This plan makes Echo realize (or possibly remember) that Alpha was the one who gave Whiskey her scars. Alpha protests that he did it for her.
"Don't give me any more crap about being an ascended being," says Echo. "To ascend to anything, at minimum, you don't cut up women." It's a solid sentiment, but you do have to wonder why Echo is more pissed off by the memory of Alpha cutting someone's face a few years ago when he shot a girl in the throat. Right in front of her. Thirty seconds ago.
Alpha tells her to lite back in the chair, and Echo finally gets around to a dentist joke: "I'm done lying back in the chair. I'm ready to rinse and spit." Alpha threatens again to shoot the wedge, but Echo acts unconcerned.
Alpha's voices say, "I'm not bluffing./We're not bluffing./I'm bluffing./But the rest of us mean business." He suggests that, if Echo doesn't care if Caroline is destroyed, maybe Caroline would. (I want my pronouns back!)
"She's me," says Echo. "And we're both coming to get you."
Alpha shoots her in the shoulder and runs upstairs with the wedge. Echo doesn't seem too phased. She follows out onto the roof and chases Alpha through the power plant infrastructure, up another set of stairs.
Boyd and Ballard pull up to the power plant. They find the stolen car are are about to kick in the door when Alpha spots them from the stairs above and takes a couple of shots. Ballard spots Echo chasing Alpha as they scramble for cover.
Alpha reaches the top of the stairs and turns to taunt Echo, still a flight down. "You want to save the girl? Go and get her." With that, he tosses the wedge over the rails. Echo turns to follow it. The disk, improbably, has balanced itself on a cross-beam. Echo begins carefully crawling out towards it, but as she reaches for it, the bullet wound in her shoulder makes her wince and the disk falls.
Ballard catches it.
"You saved her," murmurs Echo.
Back at the Dollhouse, Topher comes out of the Chair Room and finds Whiskey standing by his computer. "I think you gave me more computer skills than would be required by a medical doctor," she says. (Good acting from Amy, here-- she strikes a careful balance between shaken and steady.) "It was very easy for me to hack your system. I'm curious-- I guess I understand why they wouldn't want to waste an investment. And why hire a new physician when you can just imprint the broken Doll? But... why did you think it was so important for me to hate you?" She pauses. "I think that's strange."
Topher's reaction shot is great, too. He looks guilty and miserable. (His answer to how he lives with himself-- because this is really fucking cool-- is starting to wear thin.) Then, as she's leaving, he notices that she didn't open her file. "Don't you want to know who you are?" he asks.
"I know who I am," says Whiskey.
In the Fortress, Boyd confirms to Adelle that Alpha is still eluding them. He says an anonymous source is providing generously for Wendy's family. Adelle notes, correctly, that this is cold comfort. "We'll find him. I have confidence now. Our new contractor has the skills to inspire it."
The camera pulls back to show Ballard sitting on the couch. "I don't work for you yet," he says. He wants the rest of their deal worked out.
"The young woman's freedom has been granted," says Adelle, as Ballard insists that her contract be paid in full.
Adelle takes a phone call and says to send her in.
November walks in to sign her final papers. She says hello to Paul again.
We end on a montage of three scenes: Adelle, Boyd, Ballard, and November in the Fortress; Topher and Echo in the Chair Room; Whiskey and Victor in the doctor's office.
In the Chair Room, Echo is mindwiped.
In her office, Dr. Whiskey treats Victor's wounds.
In the Fortress, November says, "It was so easy-- I feel like I just got here." She thanks Adelle, and they hug. On her way out, Ballard stops her.
Dr. Whiskey gives Victor a lollipop as he leaves.
Echo wakes up, and Topher makes the waking ritual sound like confession.
Ballard asks November her name. It's Madeleine.
Topher turns to his machinery as Echo gets up. Instead of leaving, Echo turns Topher around and silently puts her hand over his heart.
November-- now Madeleine-- asks who Paul is.
"Nobody," says Paul.
November leaves. Adelle and Boyd look resolved.
Echo goes to sleep in her pod. As the lid seals, she whispers to herself: "Caroline."
And that's our season. (Yes, I know about the unaired episode. I'll track it down and write it up, but I figure it has to be viewed as apocryphal.) We spun our wheels for a while, but damned if we didn't end up somewhere interesting.
I do feel like a lot of this episode had to have been left on the cutting room floor, though. There are a lot of missing structural elements. Sierra and November's bounty hunters dropped off the face of the planet. Alpha was on top of a tower with Echo, Boyd, and Ballard hunting him, then we're told he got away.
Going through it in detail, as you might have noticed I do, I noticed that there were a couple of lines that get repeated in interesting circumstances. Both Lars and Caroline try to explain their situation to a Doll with "It's complicated." And both Echo and Ballard answer the question "Who are you?" with "Nobody." Might be some parallels there-- especially that second one.
I hope we get more on Ballard's motivation later and he doesn't just join the team. I love that he came to terms with the fact that he was holding November responsible for the Dollhouse's sins and forgave her. I'm going to miss Miracle Laurie, if she's really gone, which I assume she is.
And Whiskey. It should be really interesting to watch a self-aware Doll. (I've wondered if some of Echo's imprints were self-aware before. The interrogator in "Spy in the House of Love" seemed to know what the situation was, and she didn't object to Dominic calling her a Doll-- just a broken Doll.)
I was trying to identify Dollhouse's closest TV relatives recently, and I was coming up blank. Structurally, it's a very odd animal. If it weren't for the mindwipes, it could be something like Mission: Impossible, with neurohacking instead of cons and masks. But the mindwipes mean that the procedural/mission elements fall to the background quickly. They're mainly useful for highlighting the conflicts of the major characters.
In that way, it's kind of like an Aaron Sorkin show, only instead of being about the emotional machinations of the wordy, neurotic people behind the scenes of a sports show or the White House, it's about the emotional machinations of the wordy, neurotic people behind the scenes of a clandestine neurohacking ring.
And that's before you tack on the development of the Dolls themselves-- which happens slowly, but it's there, and really has to be considered the major overall arc. What's that? A coming-of-age story for a constructed personality?
I saw an interview where Joss explained that FOX really, really wanted miniature episodes they could put on the web as added content, but he couldn't do it because Dollhouse stories are so hard to put together and so easy to break. When you look at that structure, I can see why.
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