Adapting the R AgiMicroRna Package to work with COMPACT AFE output files

This isn't a Dollhouse recap, but it's something I spent some time on this week and this seems like my best place to publish it.

I''m going through some old miRNA array data my lab generated before I got here, but never really analyzed. I found the AgiMicroRna package, a great open-source tool for analyzing Agilent miRNA array data in R.

But when I started using it for my project, following the guidelines in the BMC Genomics paper, it started throwing some pretty confusing errors. After digging through some old news groups and the package source code, I was able to get it working again, and I thought I'd share all the steps in one place so that anyone else who was having the same problems could solve it more quickly than I did.

The problems all stemmed from a single issue: When Agilent Feature Extraction interprets the scanned arrays, it has two possible output formats: "full" and "compact". Agilent's GeneSpring Analysis software only needs the compact version, so that's the default. The AgiMicroRna package is written to work with the full versions.

Your first hint that you're having this problem will be that when you try to read your data files with readMicroRnaAFE(), you'll see the error

Error in `[.data.frame`(obj, , columns[[a]]) : undefined columns selected

Here's the easiest way to fix it: Pull out your raw data files, go back to Feature Extraction, tell it to use the full  output style, and get on with your life. If that's not an option, though-- say, you're pulling the data from GEO-- you can still salvage it.

The root of the problem is that the AgiMicroRna package expects to find columns in the data file that aren't there. The fixes I outline here involve changing the file-reading functions to skip over parts that aren't present.

So, the first problem is with the readMicroRnaAFE() function. If you open up readMicroRnaAFE(), you'll see that this is a wrapper for a more general internal function called read.AgiMicroRna(), and the solution is to call that internal function directly with some more specific inputs.

To bring the internal function out where we can work with it, download the source code for the package, and find the read.AgiMicroRna.R file, and source() it.

Now instead of calling readMicroRnaAFE() on your target files, call read.AgiMicroRna() with all the same settings as are used inside readMicroRnaAFE(), but where the original says:

columns=list(TGS="gTotalGeneSignal",                            TPS="gTotalProbeSignal",                             meanS="gMeanSignal",                         procS="gProcessedSignal")

Change it to remove the reference to the non-existent gMeanSignal column, so:

columns=list(TGS="gTotalGeneSignal",                              TPS="gTotalProbeSignal",                                                         procS="gProcessedSignal")

Similarly, the column with the name of the miRNA associated with each probe is names "SystematicName", not "GeneName" as the package assumes. So, when calling read.AgiMicroRna(), make the annotation variable

annotation = c( "ControlType", "ProbeName","SystematicName")

Instead of the default

annotation = c( "ControlType", "ProbeName","GeneName") 

Now the file reading function should work as normal.

There are consequences for the normalization process, though. First, the RMA normalization method is just not possible without the mean signal data, so you have to use the Total Gene Signal (TGS) method, based on the functions tgsMicroRna() and tgsNormalization(). Second, the tgsMicroRna() function expects the annotation column of the input object to be called GeneName, when it's actually called SystematicName. So, make an R script file with the text of the tgsMicroRNA() function in it, and go through and swap "SystematicName" for "GeneName" throughout. Save the fixed version and source() it.

From there, you should be able to follow the package instructions to make an expression set and do your differential analysis. 

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.

Recap: Dollhouse 202, "Instinct"

We open on the Chair, empty. Ballard is staring at it, fascinated. He sits down experimentally. It's actually good to see this kind of morbid fascination from someone-- you'd almost think it would be more widespread, although I guess part of everyone's arc is getting inured to this kind of empathy for the Dolls.

Topher catches Ballard and sarcastically offers him a treatment. Ballard jumps up and lies that he was just resting-- he mentions that he hasn't been sleeping. Topher notices that Ballard flipped some switches and treats him to some smarmy sarcasm about leaving the tech to the grownups. Ballard mentions that Echo's new engagement is weird for him, and Topher acknowledges that the "other protocol" opens up whole new worlds for them. When Ballard asks why, Topher explains that he used the chair to change neurons, which then made sweeping changes on a glandular level. This, he says, could mean he could eventually program the brain to, for instance, fight cancer, or be telekinetic, or not to have that gag reflex when eating sea urchin.

Okay, two points. (A): I'm not sure I follow the logic from glandular changes to telekinesis. (B): Topher talking about programming away the gag reflex gives me shivers, regardless of the presence of sea urchins.

Topher, however, is quite impressed with himself and says that, while he doesn't want to use the word "genius", he'd be fine if Ballard wanted to.

Ballard looks skeptical, though, and has other concerns. "You could do that to me?" he asks.

"Not until you're wiped," Topher expositions. "The human brain is like Van Halen. If you just pull out one part and replace it, it degenerates."

Ballard says he doesn't really understand, and Topher makes his sarcastic face and says, "But it's cute that you're trying." Then he says, without apparent irony, "Good talk!" which I guess, for him, it totally was. As Ballard leaves, Topher tells him to tell Echo that "we're all very proud."

Echo, meanwhile, is in bed with a guy. She gets up and puts on her robe. Eerie music plays as she sneaks into the hall. She walks into a nursery where a baby is gurgling quietly in his crib. "I thought I heard you," says Echo. She picks him up, sits down, and lowers the strap on her teddy to let him breastfeed as she sings a lullaby.

So, that's what Topher meant by "the other protocol".

After the credits, it's morning, and Echo is carrying the baby to the kitchen. She calls out for the guy, whose name is Nate, as she makes coffee. Nate pops suddenly out of his office, and then does his very best to set a record in the "acting nervous and distant" category. He holds the baby (Jack) at arm's length and puts him down as fast as possible. He rushes off to work, stopping to check that the office is locked before he heads out and tells Echo not to wait up.

As he pulls out, Echo notices one of the Dollhouse vans down the street. (Drop this in the Dollhouse suggestion box: Add "ignores the big sinister black vans" to the baseline programming.)

Later, Echo is walking with the baby and Sierra in the park. She's complaining about Nate's behavior to Sierra, and Sierra says she should make him get involved. Echo says he does fine on all the non-emotional stuff: he does laundry and buys diapers and reads all the books. He's just distant. Echo thinks he's having an affair. Sierra tries to soothe her, saying that she's suffering from lack of sleep and hormones. Echo brings up the van and wonders if Nate's into something illegal, and Sierra decides Echo really, really needs a night off and advises her to take a break for the evening.

"I'd go completely crazy without you," says Echo.
"That's what I'm here for," says Sierra existentially. The Dollhouse will send someone in alone to infiltrate the NSA, or seduce a troublesome FBI agent, or be blind and in a cult, but suburban motherhood? Gonna need backup for emotional support.

Echo thanks Sierra for her help and says she's going to give Nate his space and let him deal with things.

Cut to Echo picking the lock to Nate's office. (An ironic segue! If that were part of the Joss Whedon Drinking Game, any single disc of a DVD set could give you ethanol poisoning.) Echo babbles soothingly to the baby as she goes through the desk drawers.

When Nate comes home, the house is dark. Echo is sitting at the kitchen table with pictures of Nate with another woman spread out in front of her. "Who is she?" she asks.

Nate tries to deflect, but finally he tells Echo that he was in love with the woman in the pictures, but she died before he met Echo. He says he's not really over it, and he should have told her. "It was a mistake," he says. "This was all a terrible mistake."

Echo seems to accept the explanation, and Nate offers to take Jack tonight so she can sleep. He hugs her and says, "Things will be better in the morning," he says, while staring creepily into space behind her.

Echo wakes up in the middle of the night again and heads to the nursery, where Nate is hissing angrily into the phone. "You promised me something you didn't deliver," he says. "This is not working. Get rid of her. I'll get rid of the baby."

We come back from the break to Senator Wyndam-Pryce's house. (The title card tells us his actual name is Daniel Perrin.) He's at the computer, wondering out loud to his wife whether he jumped the gun on the press conference calling Rossum out. He says he was hoping that other witnesses would come forward, but everyone is scared. He also says that his source at the NSA dried up-- which I assume is supposed to refer to Dominic. His wife comes in and looks over his shoulder, pointing out that, with the financial records he has, he could probably prove money laundering. In response, he tries to take off her robe. She tells him to focus.

The doorbell rings and the wife goes to answer it. The Senator says he doesn't want to get them for money laundering, and he knows they're hiding something worse. He's just in the middle of musing that Rossum has the power to really lean on people when he realizes his wife hasn't come back yet. He calls out, but she comes back with some folders and says there wasn't anyone at the door.

There's another door, and someone is at it. (Ironic segue! Drink.) Adelle is paying Madeleine, formerly November, a visit. Adelle compliments the apartment. "Thanks," says Madeleine. "I stripped most of it back to the original." Heh.

They chit-chat a bit-- Maddy is living off her contract money instead of working. Adelle suggests she travel a bit, and is asking about her love life when Maddy cuts her off. She says she's worried that if she says the wrong thing, men in black vans will drag her off.

So, this is the first time we've really seen Madeleine in character, and she's definitely not Mellie. Where Mellie was warm and gave everything away, there's detachment here, and something sharp behind it. Great acting from Miracle, I think.

Adelle assures her that her obligation to the Dollhouse is complete, but she wants her to come in for a diagnostic. "I'm worried about you," she says. Maddy suggests that Adelle's actually worried that she'll expose the Dollhouse. "The two worries aren't mutually exclusive," she says as she sips tea.

Maddy asks if this has anything to do with the fact that she got out early, and asks what happened. Adelle won't tell her and insists on the diagnostic again. "I won't take no for an answer," she says.

"No," says Maddy, "I don't believe you will."

I'm having a hard time believing that the Dollhouse doesn't have layers of contingency plans for Dolls who live out their contracts. I'm going to assume that we just haven't seen them yet and Adelle prefers to keep things friendly if she can.

Back at the House of Baby, Echo is trying to sneak out with Jack in tow. Nate catches them at the door and she lies awkwardly about where she's going. Turns out she can't go, anyway, because Nate has helpfully had the car taken to the shop. He's taken the day off and made breakfast, which must makes Echo more nervous. She insists that it's time to feed Jack, and Nate tells her to take a nap afterwards.

Once Echo is upstairs, she calls Sierra and asks her to come get her. Sierra says she'll be right over, but then Echo watches from the window as the Dollhouse van pulls up to intercept Sierra and she gets in. She panics and starts checking exits, but the Toy Soldiers have them covered. She heads back upstairs as Ballard comes in the front door.

Ballard tells the others that Echo is paranoid and has the baby with her, so he wants her to see him first. They follow the sound of the baby gurgling up to the nursery. (Side note: Jack does nothing but gurgle, no matter what's going on around him. Echo has adopted the world's quietest and best-tempered baby.) Ballard offers Echo a treatment through the door, but nothing happens, because she has left the baby monitor in the crib and gone out the window using a fire escape ladder. Echo drives off in, I'm guessing, Sierra's car.

Next, Nate is in the Fortress, filing a complaint with Adelle. "Your zombie took my Jack, and you're sitting here drinking tea!" he says.

Adelle assures him Echo won't hurt Jack. "She loves him. She's his mother."
"Are you listening to yourself?" asks Nate.
"This is not someone playing make-believe," says Adelle. She explains Echo remembers planning for Jack, carrying him for nine months, and giving birth to him.
"I paid you a lot of money, and you send a crazy kidnapping chick to my house. What did I pay you for?" asks Nate.
"A mother," says Adelle sharply. "You could have hired a nanny, or a babysitter, but you wanted someone to bond deeply with the child, because you couldn't yourself. Which is, of course, understandable..."

Nate says that this was a terrible idea, but Adelle says it's very important that a child feels loved early on-- that they are "imprinted" with a sense that the world is safe. "A child that is unloved grows up to be... well, a sociopath, most likely," she says.

Ouch. I guess Adelle is in sales-pitch mode here, but that seems rather uncharacteristically inconsiderate of her. Plenty of people have crappy childhoods-- way worse than a successful but emotionally distant single father-- and manage to grow up as good people. (Not to mention the fact that Adelle and everyone in her employ wander very close to the line of sociopathy, don't they?)

Anyway, Adelle also says that they know exactly where Echo is and they are retrieving her as they speak.

Echo is apparently at the bank, where, she helpfully explains to the baby, she plans to take out as much of Nate's money as possible and then road trip. She spots the Dollhouse van and turns away from the bank, walking nervously down the street as fast as possible. She spots a cop car and runs up to it, begging for help. She tells them about the van and that her husband is trying to kill her. The van is no longer in sight, which made me think that they were going to treat her like a crazy lady, but the police, to their credit, take her seriously and bring her in.

In the station, Echo makes a statement to a sympathetic officer. The officer says that some guys just can't handle the stress of having a kid, and they snap.

"He didn't snap," says Echo. "He just... went away. The person I love isn't there anymore and there's a stranger there." Ladies and gentlemen, we've set the bar for this season's Irony Per Line record. (Still has a way to go before beating the exchanges between Adelle and Roger!Victor from last season.)

Through the interview room window, Echo sees Nate and Ballard come in and start talking to the captain. (Ballard flashes a badge-- presumably a Dollhouse-issued fake.) The case officer tells Echo to wait while she goes to sort things out, but Echo storms out of the room and confronts Nate.

"Are you sure about this, sir?" asks the captain.
"Positive. That's my baby, but that is not my wife," says Nate, and it turns out in this case that the truth is a pretty good cover story.

There's a quick struggle as someone takes Jack's carrier seat from Echo, which, naturally, causes her to freak out. Ballard tries to calm her, which would usually work, but she keeps struggling and screaming and begging as he and a uniformed officer drag her away.

That was actually really kind of raw and intense, which I think is one of the purposes of this episode-- to re-emphasize the potential cruelty of the Dollhouse program. (Also, maybe it's mining the whole mother-and-baby thing for emotion, but I think I have to credit my feelings during that scene to Eliza's acting, which doesn't stand out all that often but deserves some credit when she earns it.)

Back at the Dollhouse, November is in the Chair, which is glowing pink while Topher runs the diagnostic. She's saying a string of numbers at first, and to avoid getting drawn into any Lost-esque conspiracy theories I'm going to say that she'd just been asked to count backwards from one hundred by sevens. Topher cuts her off, has her repeat some random words, and asks about headaches, dizziness, nightmares, and deja vu. He says he hasn't found any phantom files, asks her what the words were again. ("Boat, cucumber, wire" in case they're not actually random.) He gives her a clean bill of health and says they should put her in the recruiting DVD.

(Madeleine has a definite retro look to her-- both this pink skirt suit and the grey dress she was wearing for tea with Adelle look like updated versions of 60s outfits.)

On her way out, he offers to throw in some additional enhancements. ("Sweet apps," he calls them.) "Any interest in ventriloquism?"

Maddy turns him down and goes to leave when Ballard drags Echo in, still kicking and begging for help. Ballard wrestles her into the chair. Topher is freaked out, and asks if he offered her a treatment. "That's a great idea, Topher!" says Ballard sarcastically.

Echo wrenches free and runs out into the Dollhouse, where a team of orderlies in Nehru jackets wrestle her to the ground and shoot a sedative into her arm. Topher complains that he can't wipe her when she's knocked out, and will have to wait until she wakes up.

Once Echo is settled in the chair, Ballard runs into Madeleine, which is awkward. At least, for him. Particularly when Maddy says she remembers him-- but it turns out she's just talking about her last day. He takes her to the doctor's office to see about a cut to her head, where, in the absence of Dr. Saunders, she is seen to by another Nehru-clad orderly.

Ballard explains that no one has actually taken anyone's baby, and that Echo is an Active. "It's all pretend," he says.
"It's real to her," says Maddy. "All that emotion, all that pain." She pauses. "Was I ever like that?"

This makes Ballard flash back to his break-up with her as Mellie. ("Stop being so cruel. Can't you see this is killing me?") But Ballard just says he's new and doesn't really know.

Maddy grabs Ballard's hand and says, "She'll be okay." Ballard looks confused, and Maddy explains that he looked worried about Echo, but "she'll forget. No pain. No grief." A beat. "They did it for me."

She explains about how her daughter died, and she crumbled, alone and unable to function.

"I'm sorry," says Ballard. "I had no idea." He means it.
"How could you?" asks Maddy. "But it all worked out. I met Adelle."
"She came to you," Ballard says flatly. Again, I think one of the goals of this episode is to show the predatory nature of the Dollhouse-- partly to Ballard, mostly to us.

But Maddy doesn't seem to pick up on the edge in his voice. She's satisfied with the deal.
"And you're happy now?" asks Ballard.
"I'm not sad," she shrugs and walks away.

In the chair, Echo begs Topher for help. "You seem like a nice man," she says, which goes to show that the drugs have probably not worn off yet.
Topher says he can help make it all go away, starts the wipe, and then does his part of the script. "Hello, Echo. How are you feeling?"
"Did I fall asleep?" she asks.
"For a little while," says Topher, looking relieved.
Echo drives the palm of her hand into his nose.
"Shall I go now?"

Which seems like a good time for an act break.

We come back to the Perrin household, where the senator is reading through the files. They're wiretap transcripts that describe the Dollhouse's business. "This is prostitution, human trafficking, maybe murder," he says in shock. He says that their technology could have been saving his mother from Alzheimer's, but instead they used it to set up the Dollhouse.

His wife says that, when they started, she thought this would just be another political trophy, but now she really wants him to fight. "We'll find proof," she says.

"We have better than proof," says Senator Wyndam-Pryce. "We have a name." We, the audience, will have to wait to see what name it is, though.

Echo gets into the passenger seat of a car, then looks confused for a second. "Go, please," she says. I assume this is to let us know that we're not dealing with Omega!Echo here. She then leans over and starts the car, which I guess had the keys in it. Boyd should circulate a memo about that.

In the Fortress, Adelle is grilling Topher on what happened. He gets ice from Adelle's minibar for his nose, which I thought was a nice touch. Ballard thinks Echo's going back for the baby. Adelle wants to know if she was really wiped, and Topher says yes. Adelle asks if they're looking at another composite event.

"I don't think so," says Ballard. "I think we're looking at a genius."
"You know," says Topher, "I'm not as okay with you using the term as I thought I'd be."

Ballard doesn't think the wipe reversed the changes on the glandular level.

"Of course," says Topher, "The maternal instinct is the purest-- too strong for a normal wipe." (You know, I like the idea, but they really could have phrased it a little more like "The hormonal changes I invoked weren't reversed by a normal wipe" and a little less like "Her ladyparts are stronger than logic!") "I outplayed myself," Topher says, amused. "Like in chess!"

"Not like in chess," says Ballard. "Like Echo is in trouble and pain because he didn't think it through!"
"Maybe triggering lactation was a bridge too far," says Topher. (I'll take "Lines You Never Thought You'd Say When You Got Into Acting" for $1000, Alex.) "Live and learn, I guess."

Back at Babies 'R' Us, Nate is making an effort with Jack. He changes a diaper and puts him in the crib, then goes downstairs to make a bottle. He's interrupted by a phone call, which makes him spill the bottle. It's Adelle, warning him to get out of the house and take the baby with him. The lights go out like the power's been cut and Nate rushes upstairs, but finds the crib is empty. He comes back downstairs to find Echo, holding the baby in one hand and a chef's knife in the other.

"Mommy's home, " she says.

So, let's get a little meta while we go to commercial. Echo's playing a part we all recognize here-- the horror movie villain, the obsessed woman who's convinced she belongs in your life. Basic Instinct, Swimfan, Single White Female, Obsessed. I won't be ignored, right?

Except here she's right. And the roles are reversed, because she was forced to think she belonged there by everyone else. Where the horror movie stalker is a caricature of a woman trying to fit into a role she's written for herself, Echo is here, in the same situation, because everyone else had written the role for her and forced her into it. As in the pilot, this is a tragedy of trying to sculpt a narrative using real people for characters.

And we're back. Nate is pleading with Echo not to hurt the baby. Echo, using flat Doll diction, says he took away her baby, and asks why. Nate tries to explain, but Echo gets mad and waves the knife. "I want you to go away now."

"I know that you love Jack very much," says Nate. "But he's not yours, and I'm afraid you're going to hurt him." Echo gestures some more with the knife, but Nate pushes on. "Do you remember? They made you into someone else. None of this is real."

Echo seems to recognize this is true. "I'm not real. Do you know who is real?"

"I don't," says Nate. "I'm sorry. I put you through hell. They made you love Jack because I asked them to." He explains that his wife died giving birth to Jack, and he blamed the baby for it. "Can you believe that? I blamed a baby. But I wanted him to be loved, because I couldn't do it."

Nate's moral arc is actually really interesting. He might be the first client who not only ends up regretting that he hired one, but confronts his complicity in their pain head-on. (Well, besides Adelle with Roger!Victor) In the first act, they used his awkwardness and emotional distance to imply that he was the villain, with Echo and the baby as some sort of nefarious plan. But those things end up being character notes, and flaws that he overcomes. That's nicely done.

Anyway, Nate's confession makes Echo look hopeful. "Then, can I be his mommy?"

"I'm sorry," Nate says again. "You can't. Karen is a part of Jack, and he's all I have left of her." He steps forward. "So, you can do what you want to me. But please, don't hurt him."

At that point, Ballard comes through the front door. Echo silently hands the baby to Nate, drops the knife, and walks out.

At the park where she talked with Sierra earlier, Echo sits on a bench in front of the playground. Ballard approaches and asks if she's okay. (It's nice that he seems to talk to her like she's a person. Even Boyd didn't do that-- although I got the feeling he was deliberately trying to distance himself.)

"I had a baby. Now I don't have him anymore. I feel sad," says Echo.
"I'm sorry," says Ballard.
"These things that happened to me-- I feel them," says Echo.
"I know, Echo," says Ballard. "I know you remember everything."
Echo shakes her head. "Not remember. Feel. They made me love my little boy. Then they took him away. They make it so real-- every time, they make it so real. Why do they do that?"

Ballard says it might be too much for her. He says he can work on their project to free her and the other Dolls by himself, and tell Topher what's happening to Echo so he can come up with a wipe that works.

"Feeling nothing would be worse," says Echo. "That would be like before, when I was asleep. I'm awake now. I don't want to go back to sleep."

And that's the other purpose of this episode-- Echo's decision to accept the pain of feeling. (Making, of course, the opposite choice from Madeleine.) Both are related to the repeated motif that the feelings are real to the Dolls-- which gets back to what I was saying about the tragedy of using people as characters.

It's elegantly constructed and probably thematically important. But it wasn't really fun, or mindblowing, or exciting. And the thing I admire most about Joss is his ability to do this stuff while being fun, mindblowing, and exciting.

Recap: Dollhouse 201, "Vows"

So, there's a second season. As the original spirit of this project was not to obsess over the commercial success or failure of the show, I won't spend too much time doing my happy renewal dance. (Or pouring one out for our former lead-in, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which was a very cool show and it's too bad that FOX's newfound tolerance for quirky, low-rated sci-fi shows on Friday evenings didn't extend to them.)

Ahem. To the story at hand. Echo is in the chair. Ballard is hanging around looking worried, and Topher tells him it's fine. (And uses the phrase "frenemy" to do so.) He mentions that this engagement has been long-term, which raises complications, but that he thinks Echo's handler will tell him if anything goes wrong.

Just then, something goes wrong. One of the screens flickers suddenly to show a clip from "Bride of Frankenstein". Topher gets rattled and looks out his window to see the Dr. Saunders enjoying his reaction. Well, the person formerly known as Dr. Saunders. I guess it's a tribute to the complexity of the situation that neither "Dr. Saunders" or "Whiskey" really seem right as names for her. And "Whiskey Saunders" sounds like a rail drink. Let's go with "Doctor Whiskey".

Topher apparently can't handle the added strain of being fucked with by an unbalanced ex-doll, so he says he's going to bed and calls for Ivy to finish Echo's imprint.

On the Dollhouse floor, Boyd and Adelle are doing a Sorkin-style walk-and-talk. Boyd thinks Echo's engagement is too risky. Adelle thinks they need to stick with it, as it's part of the deal she made with Ballard, and the alternatives are that (a) Ballard exposes them or (b) Adelle had Boyd kill Ballard. Adelle still has plans for Ballard and doesn't want to go with options (a) and (b).

While they're talking, they run across Victor, whose scars look noticeably lighter. Adelle checks the progress of his healing by touching his face, which goes on just long enough to become awkward. Boyd doesn't think Ballard's really flipped to their side, and Adelle says she knows she isn't, but she's counting on his obsession with Echo to keep him in line. Boyd notes that Ballard is using his obsession with Echo to fuel a fantasy about righting old wrongs while doing something worse-- which probably has a familiar ring to it for him.

And his worries about this assignment are apparently not all safety-related. He says that he thought he'd seen it all after "that news caster who wanted to be rolled in eggs and flour". ("Ah, Tempura Joe," Adelle murmurs discreetly. "Such a lonely soul.") "But this-- this is sick," finishes Boyd.

We cut to Echo in a wedding gown, walking down the aisle.

And... credits. New, Season Two credits. Which are... kind of all Echo, all the time, actually. Since everyone else is more interesting that she's been so far, you'd think they'd get at least a 2-second shot while their name scrolls by, but no.

When we get back, Topher is waking up from his nap, which he took on a cot in the server farm. You'd think he'd have more comfortable arrangements-- I assume he's almost as much of a workaholic as Adelle and Dr. Whiskey. You think they're sleeping on cots?

He comes out into his office, yawning, and checking in crankily with Ivy. Apparently the House is crazy busy-- so busy, in fact, that Sierra has shown up to get a treatment that they didn't know she was getting. Her imprint is dressed in a pink skirt suit with a pillbox hat and has a Henry Higgins-inspired British accent, but she's not exactly a gentlewoman. When Ivy tries to give her the treatment, she at first objects to being treated by a woman, and an "Oriental". Then she suggests that, if Ivy were to tie her up and spank her, she'd be in no position to resist. Whoever hired her is apparently in the same league of odd fetishes as Tempura Joe.

Topher, meanwhile, went off in search of caffeine, and found his cabinet stocked with huge white rats. He freaks, jumps backwards, and grabs the phone to dial Dr. W. Ivy comes in and starts gathering the rats up, saying, "I didn't know you hated rodents." "Someone did," Topher mutters darkly.

When Whiskey picks up, he asks, "Is this your idea of a joke?"
"You designed me," says Whiskey. "It must be your idea of a joke."

They argue for a bit about whose fault it is that she's crazy. Meanwhile, Boyd walks into Dr. Whiskey's office with a report on the surgery to remove Victor's scars. Whiskey says that she's surprised DeWitt would spring for such an expensive process for Victor. "When she didn't for you," finishes Boyd.

"I like my scars," Whiskey demurs. "They bring out my eyes." Then, more genuinely, "Without my scars, I'm just one of them." She says she's afraid that Adelle will remember that she was a more lucrative asset without the scars or the self-awareness.

"There's no way--" starts Boyd.
"Adelle DeWitt is not the sort of person who--" she interrupts.
"--that I would ever let that happen," finishes Boyd. Aww.
"What if she goes over your head?" asks Whiskey.
"I'm very tall," notes Boyd. Double aww.

Whiskey takes off her lab coat and notes that, when neither of them knew she was a Doll, he wasn't very interested in her. "Should I interpret this as pity? Curiosity? Deviant excitement? There's no judging in the Dollhouse." And, within ten seconds, Boyd's attempts at gallantry get undercut and eviscerated. (Deconstructed aww?) Maybe he and Ballard can form a support group.

It needs to be said somewhere, so it might as well be here: Amy Acker is burning this role to ash. I never really liked her on Angel as Crazy!Fred, or as Sweet!Shy!Fred, and Illyria was pretty much one note. Even before the revelation here she was a little boring. But she's luminous here, swerving from wry to bitter to brittle in unpredictable ways.

Boyd tries to calm her down, but it doesn't take: "My entire existence was constructed by a sociopath in a sweater vest. What would you suggest I do?" she asks, which is when Boyd asks her to dinner. Whiskey goes through the various phobias that make her more comfortable never leaving the Dollhouse: crowds, pets, open spaces, sunlight. "Guess I'm just built that way," she says, hitting the wry/brittle/bitter trifecta.

"Every person I know is pretty poorly constructed," says Boyd, "and they all have an excuse for not dealing."
"What's yours?" asks Whiskey.

Back at the wedding, a bodyguard type is on the phone, saying that the shipment is delayed for a day because his boss is busy. Echo and her husband cut the wedding cake, and we got to commercial.

We get back in time for the first dance, during which Echo and her husband banter romantically. Then, the wedding day is over and it's time for the wedding night-- which is when we find out that Echo's wearing a wire and Ballard is listening. Echo slips out of the wedding dress and gets with the consummating while Ballard eats takeout and works out nervous energy with conveniently timed push-ups.

The next day, Echo walks into a shop, goes to the back and through a door marked "Private" to where Ballard is waiting. There's more banter, except of the platonic partner variety. Echo complains that she's sore. There's a beat, then she says, "My feet, perv." She makes him rub them while they go over the mission status. The husband, Martin, is an arms dealer that the FBI can't get close to. Echo notices that Ballard is grumpy, and asks if it's about the sex. "I know for you the act of love is the most precious thing two people can share, but it's just bodies. And it's fun with Martin. Boy has a work ethic..."

"I think you might be a demon," says Ballard. He changes the subject back to work, wondering what the big shipment is. Echo thinks he's selling an old buddy some dirty bombs, but Ballard doesn't think the arms dealer would escalate that far. Echo asks how long they've been partners, and Ballard surreptitiously checks a list before he answers "three years". Echo says her hunches have a good track record. She's interrupted by her handler offering her a treatment. Ballard protests that he wants her right back, and the handler shrugs. "You're the client."

Back at the Dollhouse, Whiskey is giving Echo a check-up, which includes a pelvic exam. Dr. Whiskey is being her usual professional self, but the contact makes Echo flash back to an engagement they did together that involved making out with each other in evening wear. This leads Echo to call the doctor by her old handle. Whiskey starts out angry, thinking it's a prank, but quickly goes towards shell-shocked. Echo says she doesn't remember the rest. Barely under control, Whiskey asks Echo if she remembers that Alpha cut up her face so that Echo could be number one. As she's talking, her hand hovers over the scalpels. Then she switches to a post-checkup lollipop, but she eats it herself instead of giving it to Echo. "Go, be your best," she says sarcastically.
"No one is their best in here," Echo says as she's leaving. Whiskey watches her in shock.

In the Fortress, Adelle is dourly watching her enormous flat screen as a senator gives a press conference accusing Rossum of withholding medical advances in neurology. The senator is played by Alexis Denisof, which makes him Senator Wesley Wyndam-Pryce until further notice. (It's actually odd, at this point, to see him without Wesley's accent.) Adelle asks Boyd what he thinks. He thinks Senator Wyndam-Pryce is wearing a nice suit, which Adelle doesn't think is relevant, but he uses it as a jumping-off point for his analysis-- old money, connections, and ambition, which makes him dangerous.

Adelle asks why he wasn't on their radar, and Boyd thinks that he didn't really have it out for them. He was just looking for a cause and someone gave him Rossum. "Any ideas who?" asks Adelle.

Ballard walks in. Boyd makes his suspicions clear, glowers manfully at Boyd, then leaves. Ballard tells Adelle it wasn't him-- he's given up on being able to take the Dollhouse down himself. "If you want to point fingers, you should look at Boyd," he says. "I know why I'm here."

"Do you?" Adelle asks, bemused. Ballard says he's using his leverage with the House to take down the gunrunner. Adelle points out that, despite getting him to marry Echo, he's made no progress on closing the case. She wants Ballard to become Echo's handler.

"I don't work for you," says Ballard.
"No, you work for the betterment of mankind, fighting crime by listening to Echo have sex. It's very noble," says Adelle, awesomely. Her continued awesomeness comes as a relief after that tragic, tragic haircut. She points out that he never asks about November. She says she thinks he didn't really forgive her at all-- he was just done with her, but still obsessed with Echo.

She says Echo's special, and everyone can see it, even Alpha. Policy would be to send her to the Attic, but Adelle is curious. Ballard likens it to learning from a rat before one kills it, and Adelle says that's how science works.

(I think she's bluffing, by the way. She's not as cold as she's pretending, to Ballard or to herself. She is curious, of course, but she also feels something almost maternal towards both Echo and Caroline. And, I think, she's hoping that if Echo becomes something transcendent it will redeem her for having her hands up to the elbows in muck to build her.)

She tells Ballard that she'd prefer Echo to have a handler who really cares about her, even unreasonably. Ballard says she's working an angle. "Other than the very special and the comatose, have you ever met anyone who wasn't?" asks Adelle. "Think about it."

In a darkened room, the security guard is flipping through some photos in a darkened room, then calls the boss at the House of Weapons and Wedded Bliss. The boss, Martin, doesn't want to hear about it just now, because Echo just came home for more banter. As we go to break, we see that the photos are of Echo talking to Ballard.

We come back to Topher napping in the server farm again. (He seems to be wearing a medical alert bracelet, but I can't see what for. It doesn't come up in this episode, but maybe it's some long-range plot set-up? Or just a character note? Or, possibly, just a piece of jewelry that I'm misidentifying.) A hand sneaks around his body and travels downward. It's Whiskey, who's spooning him from behind. Topher wakes up, jumps to his feet, and speaks for the audience: "What the hell?"

"Just trying to be my best," says Whiskey sarcastically.
"I don't want your best," stammers Topher.
"I think you do," says Whiskey, with a pointed look at his boxers.
"That's the minority vote," says Topher, covering up, "and you tricked it! It was asleep! You could have been Fozzie Bear and it would have..." Here he makes a vague upward gesture. "Not that I think about Fozzie Bear."
Whiskey says she wants to stop playing games, and Topher, quite sanely, asks how this qualifies as not playing games.

Whiskey has apparently come to the conclusion that the reason Topher made her despise him was so that he could eventually seduce her, and has decided that the best way to deal with that is to get it over with. "I see that now. I love you," she says. Topher pushes her off of him, and she slaps him. "Why shouldn't I love you? Aren't you Big Brother? Aren't you the Lord my God? Why shouldn't I accept your divine plan?"

"Because you're better than that!" Topher snaps. (He's doing a great job here, too-- his usual snide detachment has been shaken by the stress of guilt and Whiskey's weirdness and he's pushed reluctantly into sincerity, which he finds unfamiliar.) "You're better than me." He describes her creation: "DeWitt gave me the call. We need a new doctor. One that's kind, and efficient, and committed to our cause."
"Why didn't you stop there?" demands Whiskey.
"Because I was designing a person, not a Roomba," snaps Topher. "I needed you to be whole. If you always agreed with me, we'd miss something, and someone would get hurt--"
"You don't care if people get hurt," Whiskey scoffs.
"You don't know me!" says Topher. "That's the deal. You don't know me, and I don't know you. Not fully. Not ever. That's the deal. I made you question. I made you fight for your beliefs." His voice drops. "I didn't make you hate me. You chose to."

They both drop to a sitting position, both near sobbing. "How do I live knowing that everything I am stems from something I can't abide?" asks Whiskey.

A thought occurs to Topher. "So... we weren't really going to..."
"I can't stand the smell of you," says Whiskey.
"I did that," says Topher, with just a little bit of the old grin. Then he asks why she didn't find out who she used to be when she had the chance. He think she could even get re-imprinted and released.
"Because I don't want to die," says Whiskey, or rather, Claire Saunders. "I'm not real. I'm in someone else's body. And I'm afraid to give it up. I'm not better than you-- I'm just a series of excuses."
"You're human," Topher says, almost gently.
"Don't flatter yourself," says Claire.

Echo wakes up alone. She calls for Martin a couple of times, then sneaks into his office and starts going through his desk. When she finds a locked drawer, she grabs a letter opener and starts trying to pry it open. She's keeping an eye on the office door the whole time, but Martin is watching from outside. He comes in and catches her. Echo starts to act guilty, then tries turning it around on him and pretending she was just trying to figure out where they're going on the honeymoon. She notes that she didn't damage the desk, and Martin seems to relent.

"That's all right," he says. He grabs her and slams her head into the desk. "I can always have it refinished." The head trauma makes Echo flash through her previous imprints. Martin wants to know who she really is. He shows her the photo of her talking to Ballard, and she claims she doesn't know him.

They yell some more, and finally Martin seems to be buying it. "I can't be wrong about you," he says. Echo moves in to seal it, kissing him and saying, "I'm your wife. I will always be Mrs. Eleanor Penn." (Continuity porn: That was her name as the hostage negotiator in the pilot.) Then she looks confused. "Wait, who did they make me this time?"

After the break, we find out that the slip seems to have damaged Echo's credibility. She's sitting with Martin in the backseat of a car as he fondles a briefcase full of bomb cores and waxing philosophical. "They're not dirty bombs yet," he explains. "Not until you wrap them in plutonium. But then they're ordinary looking. I like the heart of the thing. The light from within. The mechanism. That's why I loved you."

Echo just sits there, looking poleaxed and bleeding from the forehead. Ballard calls Topher and asks him to check on Echo. The handler said she spiked a couple of hours ago, but he ignored it because he figured they were just being newlyweds. Topher looks at the logs and decides (from the serotonin levels, apparently) it wasn't hot monkey love, but pain. The rest of the logs are inconsistent and he thinks she's concussed. "I'm calling it," he decides. Ballard stops him, saying that if he tries to send the Toy Soldiers in now, Martin will kill Echo. "Do you have a better idea?" asks Topher.

"No, but I have a much worse one," he says. He walks out of his stake-out position and straight up to Martin, who recognizes him as "Paul Ballard, Special Agent in Charge of Bugger-All". Martin's guard all have guns on Ballard, and Martin punches him a couple times as he asks Echo if he told her he wasn't with the FBI anymore.

Echo, though, is still skipping between personalities. She starts off as Crystal, the ditzy Southern criminal that Alpha imprinted her with. "I don't know what you're talking about," she drawls. "Where's Bobby?" Martin hits her, and she switches to Margaret, the rich dead woman. "Mommy's head is killing her. Would you be a doll and get me a Vicodin?" Martin's not amused, but Ballard recognizes what's going on.

He turns on Echo, acting furious. "All you had to do was remember who you were." This sparks a flashback of Ballard telling her that she's Caroline, and that he'd never hurt her. Then he punches her. "Now we're going to die and this guy is going to walk, because of you." He hits her again. Martin and his guards have apparently decided that if these two are going to beat each other up, they're going to let it happen. "The Chinese restaurant. You remember that, right?" She does. She punches Ballard back.

They exchange a few punches until they're in range of the guards, then Echo switches to them. She grabs one's gun arm, twists it around her, and shoots the others. Ballard goes for Martin, who's going for the car and drops the briefcase of bombs. One of the henchmen recovers enough to take a couple of shots at Ballard, which makes him take cover and lets Martin start driving away. Echo takes a running jump onto his hood, which leads to a Death Proof-esque scene where Martin tries to shake her off and shoot her and she does improbable acrobatic things to avoid it. Then she tosses one of the bombs into the passenger seat (which had been shot out earlier) and jumps off. Martin manages to get out, too, but before he can get up and start shooting, Echo disarms and headbutts him.

I'm kind of wondering what Ballard's original plan was. He didn't know she was manifesting old imprints until he got there. Maybe it's just supposed to show that he really is unreasonably attached to her?

After the break, we're back at the Dollhouse for Echo's mindwipe. Adelle congratulates Ballard on accomplishing his goal, and points out that it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't picked up on something Echo's handler missed.

Looks like we're in for another closing montage. (I guess the show still has the extended run time from the experimental shorter ad breaks. That pushes us into some odd structures-- one of the ways they usually deal with it is a long teaser that actually serves as a first act, and a much shorter tag at the end, which involves one of these wrap-up montages.) Boyd comes into Whiskey's office to find a note on the desk. It says, "I'm running out of excuses." Whiskey drives away from the Dollhouse. Topher mopes on his cot in the server farm. Sierra and Victor run into each other on the Dollhouse floor. Sierra touches Victor's fading scars, and they hold hands as they walk off. Echo watches.

Ballard approaches Echo. He says he's sorry, and that he wasn't his best. "I'm just trying to do what's right, but I can't even figure out what that means anymore. Maybe I should have gotten you out first thing, but instead I put you through-- well, you don't remember, but..."

"I remember everything," says Echo, back to Doll blankness even as she says un-Doll-like things. "I still feel them." In an echo from last season, she says, "I've been many people, but none of them are me." She asks Paul if she knows who's real, and he tells her it's Caroline. "I want to find her," says Echo. "I want to find all of them." (This is looking out at the Dollhouse floor.) "We are lost, but we are not gone. Will you help me?"

Ballard replies, "I swear. No matter what. I'm with you."

We cut to the handler bonding ritual. Echo's bathed in pink light, and they hold hands as they say the words.

"Everything's going to be all right."
"Now that you're here."
"Do you trust me?"
"With my life."

So, two major motifs running through this episode, which really ends up centering on Ballard, with Whiskey's awesomeness serving as a counterpoint. The first is the "series of excuses" set of lines. (Which is a little similar to "How do you live with yourself?") Claire is doing what it takes to hold on to her existence even though she knows she's fictional. Ballard was constructing convoluted plans that let him stay close to Echo, and he gets confronted by the difference between his actions and his stated goals. Accepting his role as handler might be seen as abandoning his excuses.

Second, of course, is vows, for which the wedding just served as an intro. It's bordering on too obvious to point out, but the real ceremony was between Echo and Ballard, and his vows were not just the handler ones but also the promise he made to Echo on the Dollhouse floor.

By doing this, he regains a little of his clarity of purpose-- at the cost, of course, of throwing himself in with the Dollhouse. Which is probably a path that Boyd and Adelle would find familiar.

Recap: Dollhouse 112, "Omega"

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:

Victor: It hurts.
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.

That's good work, where she tries to maintain the calm simplicity you need to use to talk to Dolls, then breaks down.

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.