This episode seemed like a big drop in quality, especially the initial setup but what’s most shocking is how great this episode is despite being a markedly weaker episode.

I think one of the reasons I initially disliked this episode was because it introduced a new realm of mind-fuckery beyond what the Dollhouse was doing. This is something the show probably should be doing half-way through their second season: building the world, growing it out but keeping the core there, is what smart shows do but given the context of knowing that Dollhouse ends in a few episodes and that this particular Group Think technology will likely not be explored again — not saying it won’t be, but this has the feel of a one-off when compared to the other mythology based stories we’ve been inundated with recently — in the time the show has left.

But it was still a very cool idea, and even more it was a very sci-fi idea, and while Dollhouse is certainly one of the shows on the air right now that’s mostly open about its sci-fi basis it still tends to hide that aspect of itself whenever possible.

So Victor, who maybe I have to start calling Anthony (or maybe Tony), is released from his contract, dropped into the real world, and is quickly scooped up by a group of ex-soldiers looking for new recruits. Turns out they work for Rossum in a private army and are all connected neurally so they share thoughts and eventually lose their own identities to the Group Think.

Boyd and Topher get Echo to help them find Victor, and when they find out about Rossum’s private army they imprint echo with a few more minds with useless skills and imprint Sierra with her original mind, Priya, in the hopes of using her connection with Victor to save him from losing his identity.

Cutting all the interesting but not particularly exciting action sequences out, Echo is driving Tony and Priya away from the super soldiers and decides to let them go because they have their original minds back so they should be free. But before they can get away Topher’s disruptor is used on the three of them. Echo wakes up and DeWitt tells her she’s going to the Attic, along with Victor and Sierra. And that’s where the episode ends.

So despite the initial reaction, there are a few really great things about this episode. I especially appreciated the explication on what happens to released Dolls. We’d already seen Madeline living a fairly pain-free life post-Dollhouse despite her child still having died. It’s made more clear here that these sorts of traumatic events are either erased by Topher or molded to have less of an impact when he re-imprints the ‘original’ personalities back into the Dolls.

That little detail is another sign of the writer’s filling in the blanks while introducing more mysteries, something a second season should always do, but here it’s a little depressing because you can see in the scripts that the writer’s were hoping the show would get picked up. This isn’t the sort of episode you would get from a writer’s room waiting for the axe to drop¹.

Another small note that got played repeatedly in the first season, best exemplified by the first episode Ghost, was that Dolls can atone for the failings and weaknesses of their imprints, that that somehow heals the original. But here, those threads come together in a much more practical manner.

Eleanor Penn is still rattling around in Echo’s head, and she received catharsis thanks to Echo so she is capable and functional as a subset of Echo’s mind. In the case of Eleanor Penn she was already functional though broken, but there could have been worse cases that Echo ‘fixed’ in her weekly missions that lead to useful skills being easily accessible. This is all long-term thinking on the part of the writers, which is great to see but also sad because we know the impending fate of the show.

I like the speed at which the show is pushing forward the narrative this season, but it certainly feels rushed when compared to the first season; Rossum becoming out-and-out evil seems like a third season reveal, maybe even fourth season, which makes me wonder what sorts of things they had planned for the show had it been renewed. The continual re-scoping of the show’s core each season worked wonders for Lost, so it may have been equally successful for Dollhouse, but I guess we’ll never find out now.

I can’t think of much else to say about this episode. It was an above average episode and set up the next one quite nicely. See you then.

---

1. Unlike Epitaph One which I’ll talk about in my review of the second episode of the night The Attic. [↩]