Up until now, Dollhouse has been a good show. Even a great show at times. But it wasn’t a Joss Whedon show. The first five episodes were hindered by network interference, but with this episode Whedon finally got out from under the thrall of Fox’s “creative consultancy” and Dollhouse finally became a Joss Whedon show. Before now, you could see inklings of Whedonism in the show — Lubov’s “Sweet Home Georgia” line from a couple weeks ago, in particular — but this episode brought it all together; there was intrigue, philosophical pondering, humour, and plot twists galore. More (a lot more) after the break.

But before we talk about the real story of this week, let’s talk about the “Man on the Street” segments that open each act. The public perception of the Dollhouse has been mostly lacking from the show until now. Aside from Ballard, the FBI almost universally thinks the Dollhouse is a ridiculous notion. And we knew that  They were probably the best way to get the various mindsets the public would have about the Dollhouse. As with most things, it depends on your scenario. The sassy black woman compares it to slavery, and just as was implied when Caroline said in the first episode she didn’t have a choice, when told that some think the Dolls are volunteers she replies “there’s only one reason someone would volunteer to be a slave, is if they is one already.” The disenfranchised twenty-something asks where to sign up for the life of consequence-free good times with rich people. The creepy-in-a-good-way old dude wishes he’d had it back in the day, and the pretty, though slightly chunky, professional woman won’t even tell the camera crew the acts of depravity she’d commit if the Dollhouse were real.

The young hippy chick — whose opinions are notable placed immediately after hearing about why Joel Mynor, Patton Oswalt‘s character, uses the Dollhouse — are about the beauty of reliving, or creating whole cloth, beautiful moments through the Dolls. The young environmentally-friendly socially-conscious chick, who I would’ve called a hippy if the free-love quixotic variety hadn’t already been used tonight, considers it repulsive and tantamount to human trafficking. The butch dude with his arm draped across his wife has a very distinct and hilarious stance on it which I will quote in full, because it’s awesome:

Hey everyone’s got their fantasies right? Guy wants to know what it’s like, you know, be with another man. Just once, nothing queeny, two guys checking it out and then the other one forgets. That could be sweet for some guys.

There’s also the requisite (uber-)crackpot who says society is already a giant Dollhouse but no one’s willing to admit it. Finally we have what I consider to be Joss Whedon’s stance on the Dollhouse. It’s not funny, but it’s powerful, so let’s put it here for everyone to read and ponder:

Forget morality. Imagine it’s true. Imagine this technology being used. Now, imagine it being used… on you. Everything you believe: gone. Everyone you know: strangers, maybe enemies. Every part of you, that makes you more than a walking cluster of neurons dissolved. At someone else’s whim. If that technology exists, it’ll be used. It’ll be abused. It’ll be global. And we will be over. As a species, we will cease to matter. I don’t know, maybe we should.

I’m belabouring all this seemingly filler material because I think it’s something the show has been missing, to its detriment. The show has left you wondering what goes on in the mind of the Doll. Alpha’s ongoing journey to awaken the other Actives, Echo’s glitches and missions gone awry. It’s all within the Dollhouse universe. But what do you think about this? What should you think about this? The show shouldn’t dictate to you, but to show people not caught up in the machinations of the Dollhouse asking these questions is a necessary action at this point. We’ve been asking all these questions to ourselves, but the show had yet to announce that it too is asking these questions, and that it wants you to ask them.

OK, so now that I’ve finished my little rant, let’s get on with the rest of the episode. This is the first episode that truly integrates Ballard’s search for the Dollhouse and the Dollhouse itself, so it’s fitting that it begins with Ballard, watching a TV report about the Dollhouse that says the FBI denies the Dollhouse is being investigated. He’s looking into the kidnapping case from the pilot, the case closed by agent Tanaka played by BSG and Firefly vet Mark Sheppard. Tanaka causes a fuss, telling Ballard to “stay out of his soup,” to which Ballard says “shoulder dislocate!” but he speaks more with actions not words.

At the Dollhouse, Victor and Echo are enjoying a meal and Sierra comes by and sits at a nearby table. Victor doesn’t like that she’s alone. He thinks that since she usually sits with them, maybe she just didn’t see them. He goes over and grabs her by the shoulder, causing her to leap away screaming. In the next scene Dr Saunders has Sierra up on her gynecological stirrups, so we already know something shadily sexy has gone down. She asks if Victor upset her. Sierra says that Victor pretends they’re married. I know this is supposed to make you think Victor is screwing Sierra but given how peaceful the Dolls have been so far, I immediately saw that as a red herring. Unless doing pretend dishes and worrying about the mortgage can cause Sierra to be psychologically traumatised, because that’s totally the sort of stuff I imagine are entailed in Victor’s pretend marriage.

Dr Saunders consults with Boyd and Sierra’s handler Hearn — played by Kevin Kilner who I mostly recall from Earth: Final Conflict, so to see him in respectable television is a bit jarring — and informs them both that Sierra has had sex. “No, sir” says Hearn. “Her last engagement was with the governor’s niece at a children’s cancer ward.” Saunders says it wasn’t during a mission, it happened within the Dollhouse. Boyd asks what she said about Victor, and she says the Victor liked to play, which isn’t really the whole truth. Regardless, Hearn is confused. Dolls don’t have sex drives. Right? Boyd and Saunders look uncomfortable, although neither Saunders nor Topher talked to Boyd about Victor’s “man reactions” during last week’s episode so it’s left unclear how he learned of them.

Hearns is disgusted. He’s livid! Which of course, means he’s the one that did it. “Just because I’m not Andy Griffith with these guys doesn’t mean I want to see them abusing each other.” Yeah! Only he can abuse them. He worries that Victor could be “Jekyll-and-Hyding” like Alpha. I’m not sure if that’s been established before. It’s being implied here that Alpha pretended to be a good little Active for a while before staging his escape, which could be interesting if one of the Dolls does the same thing at some point.

Saunders warns Hearn not to jump to conclusions. Hearn retorts that they can “go to the video tape.” And yeah, he says it as though “video” and “tape” are two separate words. It’s weird. Anyways, there are two days of “video tape” to examine, so it shouldn’t take too long. And if Victor was “playing doctor when not imprinted with an MD” he goes to the Attic. After Hearn leaves, Boyd asks Saunders if Sierra has shown any other signs. Echo is there to clue everybody in. Turns out Sierra cries in her pod when they go to bed. And here’s where I have to correct a previously stated opinion. A couple episodes ago, when Echo was reset after her trauma in the antiquities vault, I said that they must be completely reset after each mission, but that’s clearly not the case. Because this episode has established that they have long-term histories of each other that persist across missions.

Ballard is now gushing to his boss about the connection he’s found between the kidnapping case and the Dollhouse. In particular, a payment was made to a massive hedge fund just after the kidnapping, the same hedge fund that one Joel Mynor, long suspected of being a Dollhouse client, pays into on the same day every year. The amount shown on the monitor is $439 million. Every year. Fuck me, that’s a lot of money.

That yearly payment apparently happened either that day or will happen the next day, because Ballard thinks he can catch Mynor in the act by the next day. But before he does that he has to have dinner with his neighbour Mellie, played by Miracle Laurie, where they bond over the “Rickishness” of her former boyfriend, who broke up with her using stock jargon despite his job at a donut shop. By the way, who really uses the full spelling of donut? Doughnut? It’s not like they’re nuts of dough. They’re rings of dough. Get with it, society. Anyways, Mellie goes fishing for compliments saying that she’s not the Gold Standard in LA. Which is a good thing, because the first thing you do in times of economic turmoil is dump the Gold Standard. Ballard obliges by calling her gorgeous, which she is. But Ballard’s still got a Caroline fixation, since he’s talking about bringing “her” in rather than “them.”

The next day, Joel Mynor gets a visit from Rebecca Mynor, AKA Echo. He’s got some news for her: he just bought their first house! Ah young love. Unfortunately, while explaining to Rebecca that the stove in their kitchen actually cooks food, a miraculous event to many living a shit life waiting to make it big in LA, Ballard kicks a shit tonne of ass and then asks them both to turn around very slowly. Then he sees “Rebecca” and freaks the fuck out. And the credits roll.

Oh man, I’m only finishing up the pre-credits act and I’m already over 1500 words. Looks like this is gonna be a long one.

When we return, Ballard explains he’s an FBI agent and Rebecca instantly assumes that Joel’s new success, which afforded him the luxury of a house, was porn. The best part about this though is that she assumes he performed in porn. She really loves this guy, because a) porn doesn’t pay very well for men, in general, and b) Patton Oswalt is not a very pretty man. Of course, for men looks aren’t a prerequisite for success in porn, so maybe she just knows he’s a well-endowed and fabulously skilled lover. Ballard tries to explain to a distraught Rebecca that she’s really Caroline and she’s being used, but before he gets any further he’s tased by Joel’s security forces, who Rebecca didn’t know about before now and so she, again, assumes they’re “porn men.” This woman’s obsession with porn is really telling. No wonder Joel pays $439 million a year for her.

Rebecca continues to freak out, and the taser’s effects begin to wear off and so Ballard goes nuts on the security guys. In the ensuing melee, Boyd appears and gets Rebecca safely away and off to her treatment. Now that Rebecca’s gone, and Joel’s security forces are taken care of, Ballard and Joel have a heart-to-heart. Joss Whedon has always been good at writing conversations between enemies and this scene is another great example of it. Ballard asks him about the Dollhouse, which Mynor delightfully describes as a place where “we learn about urges,” but Ballard’s had enough and tosses a table aside to prove that point.

After a brief period where Ballard plays Mr. Self-righteousness, Mynor begins his psycho-analysis of Ballard. “If we’re gonna talk, we’re both gonna talk.” He tells him that everyone has fantasies, that we need them to survive. He calls out Ballard’s “Knight in shining armour” complex. In particular, his obsession with Caroline/Echo/Rebecca. It’s a lot of fun, seeing Ballard squirm over the accuracy with which Mynor describes his life, from the broken marriage, to the way he discovered Caroline, to his own fantasies of saving her and whisking her away. He says Ballard’s fantasy is sadder than his. And what is that fantasy? Stay tuned to find out!

Victor’s getting questioned by Topher and Dr Saunders. He thinks Sierra’s special and different, and that she makes him feel better. Sounds like a rapist to me. Outside, Victor’s handler is chatting up Boyd. He’s astounded that he’s gone for a week and his Active “invents rape.” I’m not really sure that rape is something you can invent, and if it was then its invention was many many years ago. Maybe he meant “commits?” Boyd is calmer. He says that Hearn, who’s been doggedly investigating this outrage (hint hint), hasn’t found anything on the tapes. Victor’s handler, who I will call Bicks even though I’m not sure that’s his name, during a long rambling rant wonders why Sierra only cries at night which sets a light bulb off in Boyd’s head. Bicks asks if maybe Sierra is broken. Boyd says “they’re all broken” and heads off.

Back in the Mynor residence, after calling out Ballard, Joel describes Rebecca, the real Rebecca. She was a beautiful nurse, who loved him and trusted him for years while his near-successes in the tech world kept coming up short. Then “long story, still kinda long” he finally hits it big — his first cheque had more zeros than the Lutwaffe, which Ballard corrects saying Japan had Zeros, not Germany. First “Sweet Home Georgia” now this? He’s becoming the show’s little pedant, isn’t he? — he bought a nice little house that he knew Rebecca would love and called her up telling her to meet her at the address and that it was really important. He’d rehearsed how he’d tell her that the house was theirs in his head as she raced over there. But three block from the house, she was hit by a sanitation truck, and died instantly. She never found out that he finally had success. So every year on their anniversary, he recreates the scene as he wished it happened. A lot of stand up comics become actors without any real reason or talent, but Patton Oswalt is not one of them. He’s a talented guy, and he really sells the emotion of this scene.

With the touchy feely stuff out of the way, Ballard calls him a predator and threatens to bring him to court, but Mynor knows better. He says if Ballard brings him to court, they’ll take Ballard down. He says they’ll “throw the Kindle at you,” which is a line that only Joss Whedon would try or could pull off. Now sirens can be heard in the background, so Ballard has to leave, but not before he promises to take the Dollhouse down, leaving Mynor alone to toast a happy anniversary.

Meanwhile, Boyd is looking at the security camera placement within the Dollhouse, starting with the pod room. Finally he comes across a small alcove near a wall of plate glass windows out of the view of the cameras. He picks up his phone and tell Mr Dominic that Victor needs to isolated, along with his handler. Now, what did Bicks do to deserve this?

Victor is sitting sadly on a sofa. Echo shows up and he says that he did something bad, but nobody will tell him what, then a smiling woman tells him to come with her (if he wants to die). Echo asks Boyd and Hearn why they’re taking Victor, and so Hearn, who will soon be revealed to be a despicable rapist, has to up his douche quotient and tell her to go paint something. Boyd tells her that he’s protecting Sierra, and that she won’t cry anymore.

After the utter failure that was his Mynor meeting that day, Ballard’s invited Mellie over to help him lick his wounds. Whether that’s only metaphorical is yet to be determined. Regardless, he’s walking around incredibly topless. And you just don’t do that to your love-sick neighbour. Or me. I mean, I’m straight, but god damn.

He’s busy blaming himself for screwing up because he let his feelings for Caroline get in the way. Mellie asks if he got a chance to talk to the client and what the client said, which causes Ballard to reach forward and give her a kiss. Looks as though Joel’s therapising made Ballard reexamine some things. For the better. Or at the very least, for the increase in near nudity, as we will see shortly.

Mellie appreciates the kiss, but doesn’t want him thinking about Caroline when he kisses her. They should forget it. And just be neighbourly. He tells Mellie that the client was Joel Mynor. Mellie is astounded. The creator of “Bouncy the Rat?” Some have said the whole “Bouncy the Rat” conceit, which has carried on throughout the episode, is a reference to Ratatouille, since Oswalt provided the voice. I can sort of see that, but I’m much more inclined to believe that even if the role hadn’t gone to Patton Oswalt there would have been something like that there, otherwise Mellie would have no real reason to know who Joel Mynor was prior to this scene.

Sierra and a few other Dolls are walking down a hall, the same hall in which Boyd noticed the camera gap, and as they all continue down the hall — except for one Doll who seems to have screwed up the stage direction because she totally slows down with Sierra at first and then walks in front of Sierra and then breaks her dumbass face and looks toward something, which I can only assume is a pissed off AD — Sierra slows down and eventually stops. Once the other Dolls made it down the hall, she approaches the glass wall and one of the panes opens to reveal a hidden area. She walks in, the door closes, and a douche’s shadow appears. Even from the shadow we all know it’s Hearn. He asks her if she trusts him, to which she instinctively answers “with my life.” And that’s even worse. The fact that he’s a rapist? That’s bad. The fact that he’s raping someone who probably barely understands that rape isn’t good, some who is “broken?” That’s even worse. But he’s taking advantage of her pre-imprinted trust of him to commit this heinous act? That’s the worst part of all.

He asks if she wants to play the game. She’s not in the mood, actually. But he doesn’t care about mood, so long as she knows to be quiet. “Noise is upsetting” Sierra replies. Hearn tells her to lift up her dress, and this scene becomes unbearably disturbing, but then Boyd comes from the darkness and punches Hearn right through the plate glass window. Sierra says “That wasn’t quiet” and Boyd replies “It wasn’t meant to be.” Hearn is too busy bleeding profusely to have a witty comeback.

DeWitt looks out her window, her hands resting on her hips, as she asks Boyd why he left them out of the loop on the Hearn feint. Boyd explains that Hearn needed to feel completely in the clear to be willing to try again. DeWitt tells him he will never take action like that again, which he obliges. She tells him a bonus has been wired to his account, but Boyd doesn’t need a bonus. Unlike some people. DeWitt, however, needs to give it to him. Boyd leaves and DeWitt and Dominic talk shop. Turns out they’ve been keeping an eye on Ballard and caught his conversation with Mellie about Joel Mynor. Dominic is worried: a handler was abusing an active, and now Ballard has interrupted an engagement and spilled the beans about the Dollhouse to a civilian. The higher ups won’t like the smell of this, and the hammer will likely come down hard on the both of them, though mostly on DeWitt. DeWitt’s not too worried though. She wants Hearn brought to her, and she wants Topher to prep Echo for a “second date.”

Topher apparently got the specs because now he’s building a brain for Echo. A sexy super agent. At this point, you’d think he’d have a couple of those ready and waiting. His first attempt leads to an instability. Note to self: control issues + enhanced combat skills != crazy delicious. His Asian assistant Ivy, who previously appeared as a huge bitch on Dexter, suggests some modifications which lead Topher to rant about food and then send her off to get something from the kitchen for him. She heads off and Topher creates a successful personality for Echo’s new mission. He loads it into a drive and takes it over to another computer. Those should probably be networked together at some point, given the problems this step introduces. As he’s uploading the imprint — which he says aloud in a very “are my actions too confusing? well let me narrate to myself for you” sort of way — Boyd interrupts him to talk about something. Before he leaves, the door behind him is closed.

Boyd tells him that he’s been taken off duty, but Echo’s been engaged. He wants to know what her mission is. Topher lies that it’s a life coach mission, and then congratulates him on figuring out what Hearn was doing. Boyd is very nonchalant about it and then leaves. Topher heads back in to finish the upload and the door that was previously closed is now ajar. And when is a door not a door? When it’s ajar.

The thing about this open door is that it was clearly done to reinforce a future scene. When Echo tells Ballard that somebody on the inside inserted her “tell Ballard to keep looking” parameter into the imprint, we can easily take that as a part of the personality. Maybe DeWitt just really likes fucking with Ballard. In fact, the first time watching this episode I was unsure, but this door discontinuity reinforces that it really was someone on the inside. Was Boyd in on it? Could be. There’s also the question of who did the imprint. It seems like the only person with enough experience to insert new parameters into an imprint would be Ivy, Topher’s assistant, but it could be someone else who was given something that could do it all automatically. These are questions for future episodes to answer.

Anyways, Echo is brought to Topher and he asks her if she’s ready to play. Which again, this is sort of innocuous, but if you look at it for more than a second you realize Whedon is comparing what Topher is about to do, erase her mind and give her a new one, to the “game” that Hearn asked Sierra to play earlier. Just because Echo won’t remember it doesn’t mean it’s not as bad.

As Topher and Echo play a game, Hearn is suffering the consequences of his. Hearn asks DeWitt if she’s going to turn him into an Active. Which just goes to show you how conceited this douche really is. Which DeWitt makes note of. Hearn leers and sneers at DeWitt and so Dominics knocks him upside the head. Hearn screams at her, saying that he won’t beg. He says “You want to kill me, you want to put me in the Attic, I can’t stop you.” And let’s examine that for a moment. Handlers can be put in the Attic too? It’s possible he’s equating the Attic with death here, but it’s much more likely that the Attic is something more universal than mere storage for broken Dolls.

Anyways, DeWitt want to hear the sordid details of his “game” and Dominic says he’s disgusting. Hearns says “we’re in the business of using people.” DeWitt retorts that he knows less about their business than he thinks, a line that foreshadows the conversation Echo and Ballard will have in a few scenes.

After a few more exchanges where Hearn digs a deeper whole of evil for himself, DeWitt asks Mr Dominic to leave. DeWitt admits that they’re in the business of using people. But what is the best use for someone like Hearn, she asks. He hands her a dossier with information about Mellie and tells him that she’s a problem for the Dollhouse. She needs to be killed. “And it can’t be clean” she adds.

Speaking on unclean, here’s Mellie and Ballard being very “neighbourly” in the dirtiest way that can possibly be interpreted. Her pants and moans, which start before the scene starts, are clearly not the sounds of an attack. Unless it’s an attack of penis, because she’s having an orgasm. Ballard (who I’ll probably have to start referring to as Paul at some point, now that he has a personal life and it’s relevant to the plot) and Mellie are now extra cuddly, and extra naked, talking about their future. Mellie, for her part, will not freak out if he wants to forget about all this. Mellie is being extra cool this episode, charmingly chiding him for his affection for her, which in the Joss Whedon world means he’s preparing to kill her.

Mellie thinks that he should keep looking for the Dollhouse, that his work is important. He wants her to help him. I’m not really sure why he thinks someone with no experience in crime would be able to help him unravel this conspiracy, or if he’s allowed to show her any of that information since I assume it’s classified, but what the hey. Let’s just call it Love. He says he’ll go pick up some dinner and when he gets back they’ll “look over his case files” though that’s unfortunately not a sexual metaphor.

At the Chinese restaurant, he sees Caroline in a reflection in a window and goes to investigate. He reaches for his gun, but she gets to it first. He says he doesn’t want to hurt her, which she appreciates. Because it’ll make her job of killing him that much easier.

When we get back from commercials, there’s an awesome fight sequence between Echo and Ballard. When it spills out of the restaurant’s kitchen and into the alley the stunt doubles make too many, and too noticeable, appearances but otherwise, the fight is really cool. I’m not a stunt choreographer though, so I won’t describe it. At one point Ballard gets the upper hand and hesitates because Echo feigns fear, then she knocks his shit down and tell him that the Dollhouse is real, they’re aware of his work, and they’re going to get him taken off the case.

Ballard wants to know why she’s telling him this. There’s a person inside the Dollhouse who’s working against it. They fiddled with the imprint. Ballard wants to know if it’s the same person that sent him the picture and the DVD, but Echo says it’s not. Ballard wants to know where the Dollhouse is, but Echo says that’s the wrong way to take the Dollhouse down. She says there are over 20 Dollhouses in cities around the world. They’ve got deep pockets, deep influence, and there’s no way Ballard can take them down either on his own or by targeting the LA branch alone.

Ballard wants to know why the person that set up this meeting wants to help him. Echo says “The Dollhouse deals in fantasy. That is their business, but that is not their purpose.” They need Ballard to find out its purpose. See this is where the show starts to get really interesting. We’re moving beyond the simple reason for Dollhouse’s existence — that if the technology exists, someone will use it for profit — into more murky waters. Given the pace of the show thus far, I feel like we’ll get the answers some time this season, but I’m sure they won’t be the end to the mysteries behind the Dollhouse.

Echo says that his allies will contact him again, with Echo’s body again if possible, but in the meantime, he has to let the Dollhouse win. Or at least think they’re winning. She hands him back his gun just in time to point it at the cop that came racing into the alley and fire. Echo’s mission was exactly this. Get Ballard implicated in the shooting of an officer to get him suspended from active duty. Now that it’s been accomplished, no one at the Dollhouse will know they spoke. Echo then tells Ballard, somewhat non-sequitorially, that they don’t want Ballard dead, but anyone else with information about the Dollhouse is fair game. And so Ballard realises the danger Mellie is in and goes running back to her.

Meanwhile, Mellie being all sexy wearing a dress shirt with no pants (seriously ladies, that is the one outfit choice that no guy can resist) when Hearn comes in to make a messy mess of death. He throws her around and she flails uselessly. Ballard races down the street while calling Mellie with his phone. Mellie crawls across the apartment floor, but Hearn grabs her by the legs and turns her over. Ballard continues to run down the street with his phone held to his ear. As Mellie struggles, the phone rings. Hearn mounts her and starts to choke her. She pulls off his mask. The answering machine comes on, and Adelle DeWitt says over the machine “There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is green.” and Mellie immediately switches from frightened girl to cold killer. She punches Hearn off of her, grabs him by his crotch and slams him into the wall, beats him up and then throws him down onto the coffee table and kicks his neck into the table, killing him. DeWitt, seeing that Mellie’s mission is complete, continues “There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is yellow.” And once again Mellie revert to her normal personality. Confused by what happened and how Hearn came to be dead, she stumbles over to the wall and begins to cry. Ballard finally arrives and, after confirming that Hearn is dead, falls down beside her and holds her in his arms.

OK, so Mellie is a sleeper Active. I thought she might be an Active from her very first appearance, but I was hoping she wasn’t simply because it gets a bit too much if everybody in Ballard’s life is an Active in disguise. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the twist when it ultimately happened. And while Joss defied expectations by not killing an awesome character in love, he still made that experience a manufactured reality. And that scene was awesome for Miracle Laurie. I mean, put that shit on your acting reel, and spend the next month turning down auditions. Wow. Great stuff.

The next day, Ballard is handing in his badge and gun, the backlash from the police officer shooting. Dominic receives word of this — and in the previous scene Tanaka seemed to be taking a bit too much pleasure in this so he might be the man on the inside of the FBI, informing the Dollhouse and keeping their dirty laundry out of the FBI reports — and informs DeWitt that Ballard’s been suspended pending an investigation. They’ve also made sure that Hearn’s fingerprints come back as those of a Russian floater to tie Ballard’s feud with the Russian mob to the break-in, ensuring that no one will be able to connect any of this to the Dollhouse. And even though their sleeper Active worked perfectly, DeWitt wants to bring her in just to make sure.

Dominic congratulates her on playing a good hand, to which she badassedly replies “I played a very bad hand very well, there is a distinction” which makes me all of a sudden love her character. The power of Joss Whedon, people. She wants Dominic to contact his counterparts in the other Dollhouses about what happened with Hearn and Sierra, so that it doesn’t happen again. He asks if Sierra’s all right. Apparently Topher took the trauma’s out of Sierra. “Ignorance, in this case, truly is bliss” DeWitt quips. “I don’t think they’re ignorant as they’re supposed to be.” Dominic says. But DeWitt assures him “we’re working on it” which doesn’t bode well for the Actives.

Sierra is looking at a book as Victor approaches. Sierra invites him to look at it with her. Things are back to normal. Meanwhile, Echo is painting a house with Sierra and Victor in front of it. DeWitt comes by and compliments it. “It isn’t finished” Echo says. “The picture?” DeWitt asks. And Echo mysteriously, yet innocently, repeats “It isn’t finished.” DeWitt asks if she’d like it to be finished but we’re left hanging on the answer to that question as a Greg Laswell’s song “Sweet Dream” begins to play. We cut to Echo driving up to Joel Mynor’s house where he finally gets to tell his wife the good news.

So, yeah this episode was awesome. Was it “5500 words” awesome? Apparently, because that’s how long this is. The good news here is that the ratings for this week were solid. Solid in that they didn’t drop significantly from last week, although I figured BSG’s finale would’ve affected it at least a little. Hopefully, with this week’s really excellent episode the word of mouth will finally start to kick in and the rating will improve.

P.S. Seriously, the next review will be shorter. Honest.