Recap: Dollhouse 203, "Belle Chose"

We start with the worlds' least illuminating previouslies. I am aware that this is a hard show to summarize, but after that montage, I'm a little confused. And I'm, shall we say, familiar with the show.

Once we're thoroughly confused, we switch to shot of what looks like a closed department store, where someone is dressing and arranging mannequins. The shots are a lot of close-ups of the mannequins at first, so we don't see who's doing the dressing.

When we finally do, it's not pleasant. It's a fussy-looking man with a yellow plaid button-down and crazy eyes. His hair is carefully arranged into something really unappealing. He keeps working, and it becomes clear that he's setting up a croquet game. Some of the figures are playing, and others are arranged in lawn chairs around a table. The clothes are pastel and the drinks have umbrellas in them-- it's that sort of scene.

Crazy Eyes is talking to the mannequins, which is probably not a good sign. Things like "Goodness gracious." and "What a healthsome and robust young lady you are!" Definitely not a good sign. He walks and talks them through the croquet game.

We zoom in on one of the mannequins-- a bead of sweat is forming on her forehead. So, not a mannequin, then. She moans, and Crazy Eyes just works it into his routine: "No use moaning about it."

So, the mannequins are real women, paralyzed somehow. Crazy Eyes blithely lines up his shot. One of the women starts to crawl away, very slowly. "Aunt Sheila," chides Crazy Eyes, "It's not very sportsmanlike to just walk off because you don't like the way the game is going." He goes over to a duffel bag, pulls out a syringe, and fills it from a bottle.

Bitterly, Crazy Eyes says, "Oh, sure, right when it's my turn to play, everyone wants to quit." He stabs her with the syringe and starts dragging her back, but it hasn't quite kicked in yet. She grabs the syringe and stabs him in the ankle with it. He yells in surprise. "Damn it, Aunt Sheila, this is not how we play the game!" He swings with the croquet mallet, and there's a wet crunch. Crazy Eyes is a bit shaky, but he smooths his hair. "Guess we need a new Aunt Sheila."

We get a point-of-view shot from Crazy Eyes as he goes out in search of the new Aunt Sheila. It's good work-- it's super-saturated, which suggests he doesn't get out much. And it's shaky, because the drug is kicking in. He focuses intently on various women, mainly in close-ups of their bodies so that they look dismembered. He settles on a woman getting out of her car in a parking lot across the street. He readies his syringe and steps out.

Where he is hit by a car.

That'll take us to credits.

When we get back, Ballard in the Dollhouse, looking lost and a little uncomfortable with all the Dolls. He's looking for Echo, and gets pointed into the communal shower room. He calls out for Echo and she answers-- fresh from the shower, wet and naked.

Ballard tries not to look. Or at least he thinks he should try not to look. Maybe he fails in the not looking, but he feels bad about it. He hands her a towel, then offers her a treatment. Echo asks if she should dress first. "Yes. Dress. Would be good," says Ballard, still flustered.

Adelle and Boyd are walking briskly through the Dollhouse while talking business. (Hereafter, this action shall be referred to as "sorkining".) Adelle asks if there's been any progress on finding "our troubled, missing employee." Boyd points out that "Claire" isn't exactly missing; she just left. Adelle says that one doesn't just leave the Dollhouse.

Victor hears them talking about Dr. Saunders, and asks where she is. It's not Doll solidarity, though-- Victor says there's a man in the doctor's office who is "not his best", and the Dr. Saunders could help him.

Adelle tells Victor that they'll help him, and that they'll also keep looking for Dr. Saunders. Both statements are actually somewhat archly directed at Boyd.

They go into the doctor's office, (now, I guess, the Nehru-jacket-wearing physician's assistant's office) where Crazy Eyes in on life support, with electrodes stuck to his head. Topher is fiddling with equipment. Adelle asks him how the patient is.

"Not complaining," says Topher. "Of course, that could be because of the H. R. Giger-like tube down his throat. Also, the stage one coma."

Adelle asks if it's irreversible, and Topher has a plan, which involves "sneaking up behind his reticular activating system and giving it a goose. Although it could also just give him a man reaction."

Heh. I appreciate the return of term "man reaction". Adelle, however, does not. "I choose not to hear that," she says.

Boyd raises the question of whether or not they really want to be waking the guy up.

Adelle says, "We're workign to reunite a desperate family with their wayward loved one."
Boyd: "And by 'wayward' do you mean they've been looking for him since he skipped his last bail hearing?"
Adelle: "A bail hearing on a minor matter which has since been resolved."
Boyd: "And by resolved, do you mean..."
Adelle: "Yes, yes! A judge was bought off. You needn't continue to translate me."

Heh. I kind of like that Boyd politely doesn't let Adelle get away with her soft-pedaling. And I like that Adelle clearly knows it's bullshit.

Anyway, Crazy Eyes is a nephew of someone who is both a top client and a major Rossum shareholder, so Adelle says if the uncle wants them to work on his coma, they work on his coma. She tells Topher to report progress to her, and leaves.

Topher's brain scan finishes. He takes one look and gets worried, then shows it to Boyd.

We cut to Echo in the chair. Ivy is apparently in charge of imprints while Topher is on Crazy Coma Guy duty. Ballard is tapping at his electronic clipboard thingie, looking lost. Ivy takes pity and translates for him-- the client is a college professor, and Echo's being imprinted as a student. The engagement is flagged "R" for "Romance".

(This makes me wonder about the Dollhouse's single-letter code flags for engagements. "Replacing a baby's dead mother? Geez, another 'W'.")

Ballard is not thrilled about Echo being some egghead's sex fantasy. Echo wakes up, and she's been imprinted as Kiki, who is apparently annoyingly bubbly. She feels like dancing, because, she says, "normally at this time I'd be at yoga disco, so my body's just sort of programmed to do this."

"She's not wrong," notes Ivy.

Echo worries about missing the professor's lecture, but Ivy assures her that Ballard will make sure she's there on time, and that she should go upstairs and get dressed. She dances off, and Ballard follows uncomfortably.

Up in the Fortress of Dollitude, Topher is explaining what he found to Adelle. He starts off with a fancy-looking brain scan transparency. "This is a normal brain. A healthy, frankly overly-smart brain. It's my brain, actually." He pulls out a second transparency. "This is Terry Karrens brain." (We have a name for Crazy Eyes!) "See those dark areas? You know what those area are dark? Because he doesn't use that part of his brain. That would be the area where you'd find stored such thins as empathy, compassion, an aversion to disemboweling puppies. Basically, this is what the brains of some of your more famous serial killers looked like."

Adelle asks if he's certain, and Topher says he's certain enough to have real ethical problems with waking him up.

Boyd, to Adelle: "Topher has ethical problems." A beat. "Topher."

Adelle suggests that they just tell the client they couldn't do anything, but Boyd says that might not solve anything, since he'd probably wake up in a couple of days in the normal hospital. That makes Adelle realize that it's really sort of odd that the client asked for the Dollhouse's help in producing a medical miracle. She picks up the phone to arrange a meeting

Next, we get our first look at the costuming portion of the Dollhouse. (Well, second look-- we saw the warehouses of specially-fitted clothes in "Needs".) An attendant makes small talk while processing the work order. Ballard gets impatient, but the attendant says changing the Dolls' outsides takes longer than changing the insides, and offers Ballard a magazine. Ballard settles down in a waiting area next to another handler.

The other handler remarks, "I don't even do this for my wife."
"I was trained at Quantico," bemoans Ballard.

Back at the Fortress, Adelle gets her meeting. Turns out the client is BSG's Colonel Tigh, ticking off another box in the effort to get quest spots for the entire casts of BSG, Firefly, and Angel.

He asks for a progress report, but Adelle turns it around on him, asking him to convince her again why their help is needed. He acts a little guilty when he says that when he said Terry couldn't be revived, he meant he couldn't be revived in time.

Adelle asks what's causing the rush, and Uncle Tigh says that Terry's criminal record only shows the things that the family couldn't manage to hush up, and that he's done much worse things. "There have been other... indiscretions. Women. Survivors. When you have a survivor, you have someone who can be persuaded to keep quiet. When all you have are bodies..."

Uncle Tigh is worried that there might be some survivors, or bodies, out there, and needs to talk to Terry so he can find them before they cause trouble. Adelle uses her leverage and takes control, saying that if he's going to be questioned, it will be on her terms. Uncle Tigh tries to protest, but Adelle, in the politest possible tone, says, "My terms. That's all."

Back in the dress-up studio, Echo is done, dressed up like a porn director's idea of a co-ed. Including pigtails, which seems a little over the top. Ballard seems a little fascinated, though. He's interrupted by Boyd, who cuts in to say that he'll take Echo out on the engagement. He tells Ballard he's staying at the Dollhouse because, it turns out, they have a sudden need for an FBI profiler to interrogate a serial killer. Ballard looks relieved.

In the Chair, Victor is imprinted. He wakes up suddenly, then remarks, "Goodness gracious." Security guys grab him as we fade to black for an act break.

Afterwards, Terry!Victor is alone in an interrogation room that's a little too swanky to be police. Adelle, Topher, Ballard, and Uncle Tigh are watching the video feed in the Fortress. Ballard asks how much Victor knows about where he is, and Topher says that it's a straight brain dump, right up to the moment of the accident.

Since this is the second time we've seen them try to interrogate someone whose brain they have on disk, it looks like we can deduce that they can't access memories as separate from personalities, as pure data-- or at least not easily. (The recorded memories in Epitaph One would seem to be a counter-example.) Also, it's apparently not easy for Topher to make, say, someone who is just like Terry Karrens but with an intense and inexplicable urge to be very, very helpful to Ballard. I wonder if it would be possible to exploit the Dolls' built-in trust of their handlers.

Anyway, advanced Doll interrogation techniques are apparently not on the table. Back in the Fortress, Ballard asks Uncle Tigh why he thinks the four women in the file are connected. Tigh tries to play it off as a hunch, but Ballard rejects that: the women are all different ages and from different areas. He demands an explanation, but before we get one we cut to the interrogation room.

Victor is getting nervous and complaining about the circulation in his hands when Ballard walks placidly in. He starts off the interrogation by mocking Terry for having three girls' names. From there, he transitions to asking if he's been practicing dentistry on large cats-- a leopard or a puma, maybe? Victor looks confused, but Ballard says that's the only explanation he could come up with for the veterinary paralytic they found on him.

Terry!Victor realizes he's in trouble and starts asking for lawyers and phone calls. Ballard informs him that he's not in police custody, and he doesn't have any rights. Once that sinks in, he starts laying out the pictures of the women.

Up in the Fortress, the others are still watching the feed. Uncle Tigh insists that the tough approach won't pay off with Terry, and that he should talk to his nephew instead. Adelle disingenuously pretends to be touched by his concern for his nephew and insists that he visit his bedside. Now. She tells Topher to escort him there.

In the interrogation room, Terry!Victor is still trying to play dumb, but Ballard identifies the women as his surrogates for Mother, Big Sister, Little Sister, and Aunt Sheila. "At least, that's how you know them. Wanna know who they were before?"

On that, we cut to the professor, who says, "They were, in a real sense, nobody." He's playing to stereotype, here-- balding, tweed jacket, that sort of thing. The line was part of his lecture on medieval literature. He says that the authors of most of pieces they read had no concept of self-identity as we understand it. Echo is in the audience, and he seems to be talking to her. "We think of them as anonymous. They didn't think of themselves at all."

So, of the cultural references I thought I'd bring to bear in interpreting Dollhouse, I really didn't expect Harold Bloom's "Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human" to be one of them. Also, if I had any doubts that I was overreading all that meta-fictional stuff I'd been talking about, this episode demolished them.

The professor says he's returning their papers, and his office is open if they have any questions. Echo gets hers back, and it's an F. (Okay, professor-- your fantasy, which you are paying obscene amounts to have fulfilled, is for one of your dumber students to sleep with you to improve her grades? I mean, firstly, that shouldn't be that hard to pull off in real life, if you're not particular about the morality of it, which a Dollhouse client presumably wouldn't be. Second, it's just not that exciting. In that light, I'm going to chalk Kiki's lameness, which is fairly extreme, entirely up to the client's lack of imagination.)

Echo approaches the professor, saying the grade can't be right. "Okay, I probably shouldn't have taken this course to begin with, but I figured it's mid-evil lit. Not advanced evil. So I skipped intro to evil or whatever. But how is it I get an F when this guy we're reading, Chauncy, can't even spell?"

They argue for a bit, with Echo committing a couple more "comic" errors. The professor is blown away to see his vision come to life. "The vulgarity is entirely unaffected," he says to himself, but pretends he's talking about Alisoun, the Wife of Bath in Canterbury Tales, who the paper was about. "Alisoun is his most fully-realized character."

"Well, then he sucks. Because I don't get her," says Echo.
"Really? Because I think I can detect a little Alisoun in you," says the professor.
Echo twirls her hair.

Back at the Dollhouse, Ballard is continuing the interrogation. He goes through a long spiel to tell Terry!Victor that he's not special, just weird. Adelle watches the footage from the the Fortress, and she seems fascinated. Ballard works to his conclusion-- that Terry has decided real people weren't worth the trouble, and surrounded himself with fakes and copies so he could feel in control. He flips his electronic clipboard around to show Terry!Victor the surveillance footage of Uncle Tigh visiting Coma!Terry. That, understandably, shakes him up a little.

Fortunately, he has a catchphrase for this sort of occasion. "Goodness gracious."

Ballard pursues the break. He says Terry's only hope of getting out is to tell them where the women are. Terry!Victor starts fuming that it's Aunt Sheila's fault, that she made him do it. Ballard's taken by surprise a bit but tries to catch up. "What did she make you do, Terry?"

This sets Terry off on a rant about how the women never had time for him, even when he just wanted to have a nice day, and they're all whores.

"She's not a whore," says the professor, as he's apparently moved on to giving Echo a private lesson. Echo points out that the Wife of Bath uses sex to get what she wants, and the professor says she's a lusty, bawdy woman who knows she has the real power.


Back to Victor, complaining that even though he goes to all the effort of putting together a nice day, with little umbrellas in the drinks, it doesn't matter.

Echo says she thought that women back then had to do whatever a man said. The professor says, "Alisoun knows better. Alisoun knows it's all up to her. She can have what she wants. She knows how to get it. 'Myself have been the whippe.' She's the one in control."

Back to Victor, complaining that no one ever does what he wants them to, so really she made him do it.

Echo is beginning to catch on to the professor's game. "So, if she were here, and you were Chauncy..." The professor tries to correct her, but she carries on. "She'd know how to get that F on her chest turned into an A."

"You're learning," says the professor. "Not literature. But still."

By the way, you know how Canterbury Tales is a story about people who tell stories? And the characters are defined by the kinds of stories they tell? That's the Dollhouse-- a chance to make and populate your own story.

Anyway, back at the Dollhouse, Victor is saying he can make things right again-- they just need a new Aunt Sheila.

Ballard heads back to the Fortress to report. He says it's clear Terry's killed at least one of the women, probably because she fought back. (The similarity between mannequins and dolls makes this almost too obvious, but Terry's urge-- to replace people with with something that puts you in control of your own story-- is the urge the Dollhouse caters to. And the thing that brought him down-- that sometimes people fight back, and don't fit into the narrative-- is what the Dollhouse is up against, too.)

Adelle congratulates Ballard on doing well in there, all things considered. Ballard is still unhappy not to have gotten a location yet. He says sending the uncle down to visit Terry's body was a nice touch, and Adelle said she thought it would help. Also, he was annoying her.

The phone rings. Terry is apparently crashing. Adelle and Ballard rush in to the doctor's office while the medical team scurries around. Then the alarms stop suddenly, and the medic announces that nothing was really wrong-- someone had tempered with the monitors.

Adelle realizes that Uncle Tigh isn't around anymore, and she and Ballard rush off-- Adelle to the Fortress to check the video feed and Ballard to the interrogation room. They both find the same thing-- Terry!Victor is gone.

After the break, a very unhappy Adelle is on the phone with Uncle Tigh, who is driving with Terry!Victor in the passenger seat. Adelle reminds him that she insisted on her terms, but the uncle thinks her way didn't work and it's time to try his way. He hangs up on Adelle and turns to smile at Terry!Victor.

Terry!Victor grabs him by the back of the head and smashes his face into the steering wheel. He then sits there calmly as the car drifts into a wall. He gets out of the wreck and walks away.

In the Fortress, Adelle calmly says this is a positive turn of events, which surprises Ballard, but she reminds him that all the Actives have GPS implants. Since Ballard's profile indicates that Terry will try to collect a new Aunt Sheila, then return to his prisoners, he'll end up leading them right to them.

A little later in Topher's lab, Adelle isn't quite as calm. Topher is explaining that Victor isn't tagged anymore. They took the strip out when he went in for the facial reconstructive surgery. (They don't say why, but let's fanwank that it would have shown up on scans and caused questions.) Adelle says the surgery is over, but Topher points out that Dr. Saunders signed off on having it taken out, and left before she told anyone to put it back in.

Adelle, in a line that was pretty much written to go in the promo, says, "Lovely. So, you're saying that we've imprinted an Active as a serial killer and blindly set him loose on the streets?"

Ballard's FBI instincts kick in, and he says that, while Victor's GPS may be gone, Uncle Tigh probably had one in his car.

In a dingy basement, the three remaining mannequin women are waking up in a large-ish chain link pen. They fumble to their feet and try to get their bearings. Little Sister notices Aunt Sheila's body lying nearby and starts to panic, but Mother takes charge. She has them all tell each other their real names. "We have names. Remember that. We're people. Not his toys."

She has them start checking the cage for weaknesses.

On the street, Uncle Tigh is being seen to by some paramedics while Ballard examines the scene. He reports that Victor's left the car, probably on foot. Then he notices a Metro Link station and realizes that he could have gotten on that and be anywhere by now. He asks where the accident happened, and figures that has to be close to where he was keeping the women, so he's probably headed back there. He leaves to go pick up the trail.

Topher notes that a one-man manhunt using public transportation doesn't seem like a promising approach. Adelle agrees, and tells Topher to provide assurance by finding a way to get Terry out of Victor. Topher points out that Victor's not here, but Adelle wants him to design a remote wipe.

Topher insists it can't be done, but Adelle reminds him that Alpha did it to Echo. Topher points out that doing it Alpha's way would require Victor to answer the phone for him to play the tone into. Adelle tells him to think of another way, and fast.

Terry!Victor gets off the Metro near a nightclub. We get another perspective shot of him focusing on various women's body parts. He seems to get excited as he starts choosing a new victim.

Back in the professor's office, Echo is reading aloud from Canterbury Tales. When she gets to "The remedies of love she knew, perchance. For of that art she'd learned the old, old dance." she gets up, puts on some music, and pulls the professor to his feet. "Don't you just feel like dancing?" she asks. They do.

"Are you feeling my girl power? Because I'm pretty sure I'm feeling your boy power," she says. "Now let's talk about this F."

Boyd's in the Handler Van. (Vandler? Okay, even given my extraordinarily high tolerance for bad puns in the service of pithy nicknames, I'm going to have to let that one drop.) He idly notices Echo's vitals rising when Topher calls. Topher explains that he's going to have to take the biolink grid offline for a few seconds. Boyd asks why, and Topher says he's trying a remote wipe. When Boyd asks why again, Topher says, "Well, Victor's loose, and he doesn't have GPS and apparently he's a serial killer."

"Ah," says Boyd.

Topher then explains that Victor still has his biolinks, which is what he's going to use to send the wipe signal. Boyd protests that that will leave Victor mind-wiped in public, and Topher quite correctly points out that (a) a loose blank Doll is better than a loose serial killer, and (b) it's Hollywood, so odds are good no one will even notice.

Over Topher's shoulder, Adelle asks how they'll know if it works. Topher points out Victor's biolinks and says that his vitals are excited now, but if it works, they'll go flat. Adelle gives the order, Topher throws the switch, and all the biolinks shut down.

It seems to work. In the nightclub, Victor clutches his head and there's a shrieking static sound.

Back at the Dollhouse, the biolinks come back online for a second. Topher looks hopeful. Then the power goes out. "Huh," says Topher.

In the professor's office, Echo and the professor are still dancing. The professor tells her, "You do have power over me. You are an incredible woman." Then he gasps and his eyes go wide, because Echo has just stabbed him in the throat with a letter opener.

"What did you call me?" asks Echo. As he drops to the floor, she notices herself in the mirror. She casually sidesteps the gasping professor and examines herself. "I am an incredible woman." A beat. "Goodness gracious."

We come back from the break to see Boyd, reading his book with his feet up, not worrying about the blank screens. Adelles to tell him that the whole system has gone down, and they won't know if the remote wipe worked until Topher brings it back up. She wants a full recall of all active Dolls, and Boyd agrees. Boyd hangs up and gets out of the van to retrieve Echo.

The professor is still moaning on the floor as Echo goes through his pockets for his car keys. Terry!Echo is so fed up with his efforts to make his nice day that he's decided they don't even get a new Aunt Sheila. She find the car keys, wipes the blood off her hands on the professor's suit, and heads out.

In the parking lot, Boyd is on his cell phone giving orders to other handlers when a car nearly runs him over. He senses something is wrong, so he hangs up and starts hurrying. He busts through the door of the office and finds the professor on the floor. He kneels beside him and calls an ambulance. From his position on the floor, he looks up to see the word "whore" written on the mirror in blood.

In the Dollhouse, Topher is struggling to fix things while Adelle hovers, very displeased. Topher babbles that he had to use the whole grid, and he thought he had Victor isolated but things must have gotten mixed up. Given the evidence, they suspect that Terry ended up in Echo-- who has fully functioning GPS, which they can't use because the system is still down.

Adelle asks what might have happened to Victor now that Terry's gone, and Topher gives a noncomittal shrug.

In the nightclub, Victor is dancing, enthusiastically. And girlishly. "Don't you just feel like dancing?" he asks a nearby fratty-looking guy. "I'm Kiki," he says, flirtatiously, "and I have no idea how I got here, and I sort of don't care!" He dances off. Enver is having a ball with this bit, and it's hilarious.

In the basement, the three women are still trying to break out of the cage. The younger one starts to give up, but the mother tells them to think of their families and keep trying. Finally, they break through, and are crawling out of the cage when the door opens. They're scared at first, but then they see it's Echo.

"Oh, thank God," says Big Sister. "We thought you were him."
Echo hits her with the croquet mallet. "I am him. Ready to finish our game?"

Paul searches the area around the metro stop and spots the club. He shows a picture of Victor to the bouncer and goes in. He's looking around, but the club is dark so he doesn't notice Kiki!Victor, who has started incorporating the DJ booth into his dance. Ballard's phone rings and he takes it towards to exit so he can hear.

Meanwhile, Kiki!Victor approaches a group of frat guys. "I noticed you watching me. And I think we both know why. 'As help me God, I laughe whan I thynke. How pitously a-nyght I made him swynke!' Know what that means? I don't, but it's wicked filthy. How aout buying a girl a drink before you swynke?"

The frat guy shrugs in a way that says he thinks Victor is asking for it, then starts swinging a punch as we cut away to Ballard, straining to hear his phone. "You think he might be what?"

There's a loud moaning cry, and Ballard moves in to investigate. The frat guy is sprawled on the floor. Kiki!Victor is incensed. Perfect.

Kiki notices Paul and runs over, leaning in. "Paul! Why did you ever leave me?"

Ballard puts a soothing arm around him and leads him out. "You got a problem?" he asks the remaining frat guys.

In the basement, the other two women are trying to help the one who Echo hit while Terry!Echo accuses them of conspiring to get rid of him, including blaming them for having him hit by a car and turned into a woman. Given that he kidnaps women to reenact croquet games using veterinary tranquilizers, we'll just go ahead and assume logic is not his strong suit.

Back at the Dollhouse, Ballard comes in with Kiki!Victor as Topher finally brings the grid back online, which lets them trace Echo's location to Beverly Hills.

Then Echo winces and grabs her head. There are flashing images as Terry apparently fights to stay in control. Terry!Echo recovers as one of the women tries to get past her, saying they just want to leave. Terry!Echo points to Aunt Sheila's body and says she doesn't want to leave anymore, and thinks they all could take a lesson from her.

Echo grabs the younger woman and drags her back inside. The motherly one tries to stop her, but Echo throws her off and raises the mallet. More flashing images of the last time Terry killed someone with the mallet, but Echo doesn't strike. Her face goes blank.

"Did I fall asleep?" she asks. Then she starts looking around. "He was here." A few more flashes of Terry. "He's still here." The women don't know what to think. Echo comes to a conclusion. "He wants to kill you." She throws the mallet towards the women. "You have to kill him first."

She grabs her head again as more Terry images flash. "He's coming back," she says. The younger prisoner has the mallet now, and tells Echo to get away from the door, but Echo says "He won't let me."

(At first, the head-grabbing and "Did I fall asleep?" made me think that Topher had done another remote wipe, but rewatching I don't think that's right. I think we're supposed to see this as Echo and Terry fighting for control. That's supported by the fact that she says he's coming back and exerts some control over her after the "wipe". That means we see two things happen this episode that are also shown in "Epitaph One": remote imprints, and Echo with control over her imprints.)

The mother catches on. "She's saying we have to kill her."

"No problem," says the younger one, and starts laying into Echo with the croquet mallet. The mother pulls her off, but Echo says, "Yes. He'll find you. He won't stop. He'll never stop. He can't." The mother hesitates, confused, but Echo uses Terry's memories to recount how he tracked her down and took her, and she gets convinced. She raises the mallet and Echo lowers her head.

The Toy Soldiers rush in on time for once. Someone grabs the mallet and the others see to the other women. Ballard finds Echo and asks, "Are you all right?"

"I don't think so," says Echo seriously.

Ballard offers her a treatment and leads her out.

Back in the Dollhouse, Terry's real body is still hooked up to life support. Ballard is looking over it bleakly. Adelle comes up behind him and says she prefers Terry this way. Ballard says he tried to get into his head, but it took Echo to do that.

Adelle says that he's being moved to the hospital. Ballard asks if she thinks he'll recover, and she says, with a very hard-to-read expression, "Wouldn't it be nice if he didn't?"

Echo walks across the Dollhouse, says hello to Victor, and looks into the doctor's office where Terry is lying. "I think he dreams," she remarks to Ballard.

"Not anymore," says Ballard as he leaves. Echo watches as the monitors flatline.

"Goodness gracious," she says.