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| Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:05 AM |
| On the Viewer - Dollhouse (Episode 9 - "A Spy in the House of Love") |
 by Fëanor |
Intense opening. Someone is dragged into the room with the chair and apparently killed. Did they find the mole?
We jump back 12 hours, to Echo on a mission. Echo as a dominatrix, in fact. Yowza.
Victor, of his handler: "She wants to be kidnapped by a pirate."
Echo: "I know a guy..."
Echo whips Victor's handler and tells Langton, "Sometimes it is about the pain." Then we cut to Echo screaming during her treatment. Ouch.
Ah, Topher's intern is back. I suspect her of being the mole, but she almost seems too obvious now...
Topher, to Dominic: "Somebody's a grumpeteer today!" *snort*
Rossum's calling in DeWitt, probably for a dressing down, and she's leaving Dominic in charge. Hmm... Echo seems to be wandering away... Wouldn't it be crazy if Dominic were the mole?? Maybe he's been overcompensating to throw off suspicion...
Saunders, to Langton: "I believe the system's flawed. Maybe irreparably. But maybe not for the same reasons you do."
Topher found a chip that's been letting someone alter his imprints. He suspected Langton at first, but was going to give him a chance to get away. Aw, that's nice.
Echo is acting a little weird. Shouldn't Topher have considered the idea that her most recent imprint, or brain wipe, might have been tampered with?
Did Sierra just say, "I'd kill him?" In her doll state? Or did Dominic get her imprinted with some other personality? And now Echo is pointing out to Topher that he could imprint her with a helpful personality.
Cut to a new scene, which actually gets a title - "Imprint: November." We're back in time a bit here. November has just gotten her Mellie imprint back. Mellie is supposedly returning from her trip. But before they take her outside, Mellie sees Echo and sort of recognizes her!
Ballard has turned his apartment into a huge and disturbing chart of the Dollhouse's activities. I'd say he was turning into a paranoid weirdo if I didn't know he was right.
Mellie says Ballard needs someone to help him stay grounded - meaning herself. Right, a Dollhouse sleeper active keeping Ballard from seeing the Dollhouse everywhere...
Oh. My. God. Mellie suddenly stops and says, "I have a message for you from inside the Dollhouse." That's a pretty shocking way for him to find out the truth about her. The mole suspects he/she has been made, and had to send a message this way. The mole warns Ballard that Mellie is a spy and not to tell her anything, but not to let her know he knows about her, either, or she'll probably kill him. And the mole once again insists that Ballard investigate the purpose of the Dollhouse, instead of trying to find it.
Now he has to pretend he doesn't know all that, and act normally with Mellie? That's brutal.
We jump back in time a bit again for a new section - "Imprint: Sierra." We get to see the argument between Topher and Dominic again, this time from up close. They can't seem to contact DeWitt - could someone have moved against her? They've given Sierra a secret agent imprint so she can help them find the mole. Interesting use of the technology! We need an expert - let's build one.
Turns out the chip they found on the chair is NSA technology, so Sierra is infiltrating the NSA. She grabbed a file, but is having a hard time escaping with it.
Let's move back in time again to another part of the story - "Imprint: Victor." It's Victor heading out on his Miss Lonelyhearts mission. But oddly, after arriving at the old lady's house, Victor immediately takes off in her car... and meets Miss DeWitt?!? Wow, yet another twist I totally did not see coming. Her meeting with the Rossum Corporation is actually a secret tryst with Victor. Crazy.
Heh. So the reason they can't reach DeWitt is not because of any sinister conspiracy; it's because Victor dropped her phone off a cliff by mistake. She's told Victor about the Dollhouse, but of course he doesn't realize he actually works there.
Victor says something disturbing to her in bed: "You are perfection. If I could make a woman, I'd make you.... If I were one of your clients, I would order one of you with a spare for when you're in the shop."
DeWitt: "I'm not suggesting you become a client. I think the universe might collapse under that one." Indeed, that would be creepy.
Victor: "I want the real you."
DeWitt: "And I want the real you. It's ironic - sometimes I think you're the most real person I've ever met."
Victor: "That's not irony. No one gets that right." Oh, but it is!
Victor suggests they run away together. DeWitt entertains the fantasy for a moment, then is depressed by its impossibility. Poor, poor Miss DeWitt! She's the loneliest and most lost of them all.
Next story! "Imprint: Echo." I've been waiting for this one. Topher's turned her into an expert to help them find the mole. She wants to interrogate a whole list of people - starting with Topher! Heh. This is a particularly postmodern episode, with the actives of the Dollhouse having their focus turned inward, to act on the Dollhouse itself, and on its employees.
Wait a minute... if Echo and Sierra were given access to Dollhouse's files, wouldn't they find files on themselves and freak out?
Langton: "We're pimps and killers. But in a philanthropic way. Can I go now?" Heh. Echo's natural trust in Langton makes her interview with him quick and mostly pointless.
Echo has uncovered the rather creepy fact that Dr. Saunders stays in the Dollhouse 24/7 ever since the Alpha incident. Saunders is not okay!
Sierra claims to have the mole's identity - and it's Topher's assistant. Now I know for sure that's too easy! It's definitely somebody else. And indeed it is. Echo says it's... Dominic!!
Echo beats the crap out of Dominic, then tells him in no uncertain terms: "I'm not broken." Nice! Also, I totally called Dominic as the mole. Hee hee.
Interestingly, Dominic was not there to bring the Dollhouse down. He was there to make sure they didn't bring themselves down. He was there to reign in the technology, to keep them from being found out (by Ballard or anyone else), to keep it under control.
Dominic: "When the agency finds out, they'll come looking for me."
DeWitt: "And when they do, you'll tell them everything's fine. Then we'll put you back in your box." Ouch.
Dominic was with DeWitt three years, but she calmly hands him over to be tortured and mind-wiped. She only shows her real emotions to Victor.
Dominic, to Echo: "One day you'll be erasing them. And even after all this, they still won't see it coming. Sooner or later everybody gets theirs." That's an interesting prediction right there.
The blood we saw in the opening scene was DeWitt's; Dominic got a shot off at her before they zapped him. She accepts the gunshot wound as if it's just a minor annoyance; a mosquito bite, say.
Topher, of Echo: "She's still evolving. Saunders' wish fulfillment exercise didn't fulfill anything."
DeWitt: "She's protecting herself.... She just saved the Dollhouse. Keep an eye on her. Echo might be useful to us in ways we haven't yet realized."
DeWitt has them shelf Victor's Roger imprint because "Miss Lonelyhearts" finally realized "the indiscretion was unwise." She is so brutal and cold-blooded! She's taking away the one thing that gives her joy, the one person she can open up to.
Saunders: "It's okay to feel something."
DeWitt: "That would imply I'd lost something."
Saunders: "Didn't you?"
DeWitt: "Nothing I can't live without." As she looks at Victor through the window.
Langton's being promoted to Dominic's old job as head of security, and Echo's getting a new handler. This is greatly upsetting to me for some reason. They're breaking up the team! But as the new guy's doing the call and response that's supposed to make Echo trust him implicitly, and bond him to her as her handler, she's not looking at him - she's looking at Langton. A very bittersweet moment.
Wow. Another insane episode, with lots of big changes. The main focus this time was on a deep and powerful analysis of DeWitt's character, and she's revealed to be a far more complex, flawed, and interesting person than she'd seemed. We also found out who the mole was, but more importantly, we found out why he was there, and it wasn't nearly as altruistic a motive as we might have hoped. The NSA just wants to keep an eye on things and make sure this technology doesn't leak out. So it's all been wheels within wheels. Even the crumbs they've been throwing Ballard's way have just been to keep him quiet. Brutal!
I read today that it's very likely this series and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will not get picked up for another season. That makes me very sad. They're easily two of the most intelligent, thought-provoking, complex, character-driven dramas on TV right now. I guess there probably won't be another episode of Terminator now that that series' season has ended, but there are still a handful of episodes of Dollhouse left, and I plan to savor each of them as much as I can. |
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