I’ve used up a lot of space on this blog trying to articulate why I don’t like Epitaph One. Last episode, I worked to describe why all this apocalypse foreshadowing doesn’t feel as powerful if you know it’s coming the first time through. I think I made my point, so I won’t go into another spiel about the exact same point regarding this episode’s excellent (but to my eyes hollow) foreshadowing. But this week’s episode of Dollhouse — the last before the great ratings escape hiatus — was another in a string of stellar episodes that divide their work between arc development and character development, all while masking it as your basic one-off episode.

This episode marked the return (and demise) of Nolan Kinnard, the man who created Sierra’s prison, played by Vincent Ventresca who fills out the rapist douchebag role perfectly though I still tend to see him as he was on The Invisible Man, a long lost show that was better than its budget, so I see him as more likable than he should be. Ever since Needs, when Nolan first appeared, the show has largely ignored Sierra’s forceful placement in the Dollhouse, and given the long standing claim of dolls being volunteers, there had to be a good reason for her exception. In a smart move, the show laid the cognizance — or willful ignorance — on the higher-ups in the Dollhouse, represented in this episode by Keith Carradine, whose character early on in the episode is shown very clearly willing to mix business and pleasure. So as the story goes…

Priya was a bohemian-in-spirit-Australian-in-nationality artist selling her wares on the Venice Beach until Kinnard makes his move. He tries everything, up to and including setting up a lavish art showing for her work, filled with Dollhouse Actives ready to encourage Priya to sleep with this most especial man. In a nice moment, we see Victor playing an Italian art dealer who quickly woos Priya despite his programmed mission to drive Priya to Nolan; this show really loves to push Sierra and Victor as star crossed lovers destined to be together no matter what the current configuration of their synapses which, to me as a Joss Whedon fan, means I try not to get invested in their long-term well-being and happiness. Nonetheless, that nice moment ends, Nolan drugs Priya to high hell, and convinces the Dollhouse to take her in as a new Active, something Topher finds appealing since her then-current madness makes her someone he can fix by making a Doll.

From there, Nolan becomes a repeat customer of the Sierra model, creating a new lover each time and capturing them with the very camera Priya used in her past life, each time casting aside the photo which, given Nolan’s earlier displeasure at the thought of using a Doll, can only be disdain. Ultimately though, Echo brings Sierra’s tortured artwork — a remnant of Priya’s work, filled with birds and bright colors, spare the large splotches of dark ink spilling out on the canvas — to Topher’s attention which brings about all the revelations about how Sierra came to be in the Dollhouse. And when Adelle confronts Nolan about his abuses, he fights back, demanding that the Dollhouse give him Sierra permanently. Adelle has always operated as a believer in the lie of the Dollhouse, and when her superordinate orders her to do as Nolan demands, there is a very real shift in her persona. It’s hard to tell if it will be permanent, but for the moment she has glimpsed the seedy underbelly of vicious implications that festoon the very idea of a Dollhouse.

Topher is even less pleased about the demand than DeWitt and he fights back by returning to Nolan Original Recipe Priya ready to seek revenge. But during the initial confrontation, the writers offer us a taste of what Nolan had hoped would happen. When she begins to declaim her love for a total stranger, Nolan begins to offer himself up telling her that he’d made her say ‘I Love you’ so many times that now she really does love him. This says a lot about Nolan, but even more about the show’s thoughts about Dolldom. Joss Whedon has said frequently in interviews that he doesn’t want the show to become all about ‘Who’s a secret Doll?’ claiming that it would make everyone lose their investments in characters.

Clearly, he doesn’t believe this in the writer’s room because the show continues to develop these sorts of stories. This year we’ve already seen Madeline’s sorrow over her lost child healed thanks to, based on the request Priya makes in this episode, some artful modification of her ‘original’ mind. We’ve seen Dr Saunders, a whole cloth fabrication of a person, move beyond her limitations, and become a cipher for much of the Dollhouse’s core messages. And now in this episode we get to see another person ‘helped’ by the Dollhouse. Put simply, being a Doll isn’t the end of your story in the Dollhouse, something the show I think downplayed in the first season, perhaps to allow these sophomore stories a greater impact.

Getting back to the story, only to veer off once again very shortly, after the ensuing melee and Nolan’s death, Priya rises and casts a shadow on the artwork, one of the many interesting directorial choices made this week, in an episode directed by Jonathan ‘Riker’ Frakes. I’ve not followed his directing work per se, but I’ve seen a good chunk of it simply by virtue of watching a lot of television, and this is absolutely his most accomplished work. There are interesting shots, well placed transitions, and a lot of effort put into the background continuity¹, all while retaining a certain understatedness. Kudos to you, Mr Frakes: continue being awesome.

Getting back to the story yet again, Boyd and Topher discover his body and a shattered Priya. Boyd being Boyd, that is to say a total mystery, calls up a friend capable of disappearing people, marshals Topher in the dismembering and dissolving of the corpse, and establishes a lie that obviates further examination of the fate of Nolan Kinnard. When Priya returns to the Dollhouse, she and Topher share a beer — hearkening back to the episode Sierra and Topher shared last season as friends — and discuss her fate. Priya ultimately asks Topher to erase these events from her, to ‘fix’ her when — though the phrasing of her request quite clearly leaves the possibility of this being an if — she’s ultimately released from her contract.

Throughout this main storyline, Echo works in the background. She brings the painting to Topher, encourages Victor to ‘take charge,’ and even takes up long-term reading thanks to a leafy bookmark. The growth she’s had this season is already vastly improving on what she experienced last year.

I wrote in the first review of this season that I wanted to avoid the blow-by-blow recaps I’d resorted to last year, but this episode was just so good, so filled with moments I was unable to ignore, that I had to write about it all in this fashion. The episodic story for this episode is one of the strongest yet, quite probably the best, and it also managed to integrate many of the show’s ongoing arcs and themes: Victor’s and Sierra’s romance; Topher’s growth, regrets, and ongoing work on creating remote mind-wiping technology; Echo’s increasing awareness; the Dollhouse’s depths. I could go on, but I swore myself I wouldn’t overwrite these reviews this year.

Put simply, this episode was the best the show has offered to date. There wasn’t a single weak moment. I’m fairly certain that Dollhouse will get neither a back nine pickup nor a third season, but this season has been undoubtedly stronger than the first so it’s not for a drop in quality. Unfortunately, this uptick in quality won’t translate to an uptick in ratings. Such is the life of an avid television watcher. For now though, Dollhouse returns in December with weekly double doses. I’ll be there, writing about it, till the very end.

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Footnotes

1. Seriously, just watch that opening sequence with the art showing scene, so much great background work is going on there. [↩]