2-13. Epitaph Two - The Return.

Readers of my reviews will note the lengthy (4+ years) gap between my review of The Hollow Men and this one. There's a simple explanation: I did watch Epitaph Two at the time, and wrote a little over half of the review. I intended to complete that review within a few days... And somehow just never got up the interest to actually do so.

I'm revisiting it now, mainly because it bothers me to leave this review blog one post short of completion. Most of what follows is a polish of what I wrote at the time, but it's also supplemented by my thoughts on the series today.

Note that the "Characters" section has been left out of this review.  That was the one section in which I had written virtually nothing four years ago... And I suspect a lack of ideas as to what to write about the characters in this episode was a large part of why I found myself unable to finish the review.

So with no further ado, I present... The semi-reconstructed, vaguely abridged, mildly touched-up Special Edition of my lost and incomplete Dollhouse review... Epitaph Two - The Return!


THE PLOT

Picking up where Epitaph One left off, we find Mag (Felicia Day), and the young girl imprinted with Echo's personality (Adair Tishler) finally reach their goal, and are united with the surviving Dollhouse crew. But things are far from over. In a recent raid to the Rossum headquarters of Neuropolis (formerly Tucson), Echo has discovered that Rossum is forcing Topher to build a new technology, one which will wipe the entire world in one blow. But Topher is putting his own spin on the assignment: Rather than wipe everyone, he is planning to adjust the tech so that it resets the original personality and memory of everyone who was ever wiped, putting an end to Rossum's "dolls" forever!

To achieve this, Echo and Adelle will need the help of their new refugees to guide them back to the Dollhouse. There, they can get the tech Topher needs, and wait underground so that their personalities are not reset along with the rest of the world's. However, not everyone making the trip has the same agenda. Echo may just be able to save the world - but doing so will come at a cost...


THOUGHTS

As the title implies, writers Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon return to the post-apocalyptic world of Epitaph One and, along with writer Andrew Chambliss, create an epilogue to the series. This might work better if they weren't burdened with having to salvage dropped threads from the somewhat botched finale that was The Hollow Men. Like too much of Season Two, it is so busy hitting obligatory plot notes that it never is able to match the haunting atmosphere of Epitaph One, which may well be my favorite Dollhouse episode.

With some distance from the series, I find myself wondering if it wasn't a bad creative decision to spend Season Two filling in the gaps between the "highlights" glimpsed in Epitaph One. Instead of chasing plot points, I think a Season Two that stuck with the post-apocalyptic world could have made for something atmospheric. It would have been a sharp break from what had been seen, but the gap between Season One and the apocalypse could have provided good opportunities for backstory as we revisited the characters now, without the obligation of connecting every single dot in 12 episodes.

Certainly, I found it interesting to revisit Harding and Ambrose, both of whom were largely forgotten by the last part of Season Two. These Rossum bigwigs have shuttered themselves up in one city, living a life of luxury among slaves. Even so, as Ambrose observes, they are themselves declining. They may be lords of a small section of the wasteland, but they actually had better lives before the fall... something Ambrose seems to be aware of, though Harding seems content enough with his lot.

The conclusion feels a touch overly-pat, but it does a better job of closing out the series than the rushed action movie heroics of The Hollow Men did. But revisiting it, I can't help but feel something more interesting lay in the shadows of the entire second season. I understand why many fans prefer Season Two, with its tightly-linked arc and twists and turns. But I preferred the atmosphere of the first season, which I felt all but vanished in the second. The need to cram too much story into too little time left it all feeling a bit rushed... Which is probably why, despite quite enjoying this episode, I just couldn't find the will to finish the review then.

So for the sake of completeness, here is my final Dollhouse review. It's a positive review, as it should be said was true of most of my reviews of the series... But that doesn't stop me from seeing the entire second season as a bit of a near-miss... Interesting, well-made and well-acted, but ultimately not as compelling as it feels like it should be.


Rating for Epitaph Two: 8/10.

Previous Episode: The Hollow Men


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2-12. The Hollow Men.

THE PLOT

After saving Topher's life, Langton reaches the rendezvous point with both the computer genius and Echo in tow. Then all the Los Angeles "conspirators" head off to Tucson, for the final confrontation with the Rossum Corporation and its mysterious leader.  But there's one final twist in store for all of them... a little something to remind them all that no one can truly be trusted!


CHARACTERS

Echo: Caroline is finally made part of Echo's composite, after two years of episodes, and... It's a non-event. Caroline does not appear to become in any way a dominant personality. Echo is exactly who she already was, just with a bit of new information. This is one of several frustrations about an episode that doesn't have time to do character when there's so much plot to get through.

The Security Chief: Langton insists that, even with Echo's mind scrambled, they still need to follow through with the plan to infiltrate Rossum's Tucson headquarters. He uses his knowledge to break himself, Topher, Ballard, and November out of the Rossum cell, allowing them to strike at the corporation from inside the belly of the beast. In private, he admits to Adelle that while he considers the Dollhouse staff as "family," he has never really liked nor respected Ballard and doesn't understand what Adelle saw in him.

The Genius: Topher really can't help himself when it comes to playing with gadgets, can he? In the middle of Rossum's lab, seeing his Apocalypse Weapon being mass produced, he knows with every fiber of his being that the right thing to do is to destroy it. But he also sees that the gadget doesn't work, and he recognizes why. He can fix it in ten minutes and, with no more than a few encouraging words to provide a rationalization for doing so, he honestly can't help himself. He just has to make the toy work, no matter how bad an idea he knows it is.

THOUGHTS

The Hollow Men is to Season Two what Omega was to Season One: The not-quite finale, which nevertheless wraps up most of the arc of this season. The war against Rossum builds to its climax here, as Echo, Adelle, and their group face off against the mysterious Rossum founders. It's all paced at lightning speed, with terrific performances. Harry Lennix, Amy Acker, and Miracle Laurie get the best moments, but everyone gets something to do. We even get a brief return of Enver Gjokaj's Topher impression, which injects a bit of humor into an otherwise all-out suspense episode.

While the pace and performances make this highly watchable, however, The Hollow Men is a disappointment.  In fact, this episode gets worse in my mind the more time I have to think about it. One issue is inevitable: Getting Closer delivered the series' single biggest twist. This episode sees that twist play out, but there simply aren't any surprises on the same level as the one that closed out the previous episode.

I also think it's a bit of a cheat. From the ending of Getting Closer, there were many possible paths to follow. Maybe the Rossum head had lost control of his company (to, say... Harding? Who, after much build-up this season, has barely even been mentioned the past few episodes), and was using Echo to bring things back under control? Maybe the Rossum head actually isn't the villain? Maybe there's some big plan in play?

Well, no. The Rossum head's just crazy. Nothing more to it than that. And as that character is revealed to be a lunatic, this episode becomes vastly less interesting. I know it's hard to wrap all of this plot up in 45 minutes. But there were a lot of pieces on the board that might have been used. Many of those pieces go unused and unmentioned, while the writers - and by the credits, I'd say this one was pretty much written by committee - don't even get the best use out of the pieces they bother to play with.

The Hollow Men is all plot, and I don't mean that in a good way. There's no time for characterization, or to linger on interesting little moments. The long-awaited scene in which Caroline is integrated into Echo comes to pass... and it's meaningless, as Echo remains indistinguishable from who she has been. Why would a moment that the series has been building toward since its first episode get such an absolute lack of acknowledgement? Because there's plot to get through, and no time to do anything save to get through it all.

I'll be interested to see how Epitaph Two ties it all together (if it does). But while The Hollow Men entertains, it leaves the viewer feeling hollow afterward.  Much like a fast food meal, it's reasonably fun to consume - but it suplies virtually no real nourishment.


Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: Getting Closer
Next Episode: Epitaph Two - The Return


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2-11. Getting Closer.

THE PLOT

With the L. A. Dollhouse's conspiracy against Rossum now fully assembled, they decide it is time to reintegrate Caroline with Echo, to find out exactly what secret it was that she learned. There's only one hitch: When Ivy goes into the vault to recover Caroline's wedge, she discovers that it's gone!

There is one, fragile hope to recover Caroline. The wedge that Alpha smashed during his infiltration of Rossum still exists, and Topher believes that Bennett (Summer Glau) is skilled enough to reassemble it. Ballard and Victor make a quick raid on the Washington, D. C. Dollhouse and abduct Bennett. But the real challenge is getting her to agree to effectively resurrect Caroline, the friend who so badly betrayed her!


CHARACTERS

Echo: In flashback, the show fills in the backstory between Caroline and Bennett. We discover that, in between her first escape from Rossum and her imprinting, Caroline successfully infiltrated Rossum's L. A. office. She discovered a file on Bennett, whose brilliance attracted Rossum's attention even as she pursued her neuroscience degree. She befriended the girl, then used her to get inside Rossum's labs to blow them up - the action that led to Bennett's maiming and to Caroline's final capture. In the present, Echo dreads the idea of Caroline's return, fearing that she will cease to exist when the original personality is returned. She confesses to Adelle and to Bennett that she considered taking the wedge and considered letting Bennett go - but she knows after what she witnessed in The Attic that the stakes are just too high.

The Ice Queen: Remains very icy, even though she's now revealed to be on the "right" side. Her responses to Bennett's outrage at being abducted are highly amusing, as Bennett attempts to lodge a complaint against Topher for punching her in the face and Adelle responds by gently reminding her that she has been abducted. She is particularly cool after Langton dispatches the Rossum assassins in her office, taking in the scene calmly and then pronouncing that this finishes off her carpet.

The Security Chief: We discover the nature of the "personal business" that had caused Langton to miss work. He's been housing and protecting Claire (Amy Acker), who has returned to L. A. Langton and Claire are now firmly a couple, as Epitaph One indicated they would be. And by developing Langton's "personal" absences in other episodes, it doesn't even feel too forced. We saw the beginnings of Langton's interest in her, and now we bring her back with the relationship having developed over time, just offscreen. It's not ideal, but given Acker's limited availability for Season Two, it does work.

We also get a reminder of Langton's somewhat disturbing skills. When three Rossum officials come to the Dollhouse to "debrief" Adelle (Rossum-speak for "take a ride"), Langton deals with them ruthlessly and efficiently, and his facial expression barely registers a twitch. Harry Lennix is outstanding throughout, in an episode that finally brings his often nebulously-defined character into sharp focus.

The Genius: Receives a shock that precipitates a brief break from reality - reflecting the behavior of the crazed Topher of Epitaph One. He recovers, probably thanks to having a task to focus on, but the joviality is kicked right out of him. Gets a semi-heroic moment, as he urges Ivy not to linger to help him, but instead to escape. "Don't become me," he hisses to her.

The (Ex-) FBI Agent: We learn what was taken from Paul: His deep connection with Echo. Topher acknowledges this to Echo, telling her that he needed to use the most active parts of Ballard's brain for his rewiring, and that those parts were Echo. She seems to forgive him - and honestly, unless she's massively selfish, surely a Ballard who no longer loves her is at least better than a Ballard who is brain dead - but she is clearly hurt at the change.


THOUGHTS

Tim Minear, a veteran of several Joss Whedon shows and particularly noteworthy as the writer of the best episodes of Firefly and Angel, pens this action-heavy installment. Getting Closer crams probably about three episodes' worth of material into 45 minutes: The return of Claire, the "outing" of the L. A. dollhouse's conspiracy, the kidnapping of Bennett, the unmasking of the Rossum head. There's a lot going on. Fortunately, Minear is a good enough writer to take all these threads and deliver an episode that's fast, lean, and intense without making it feel rushed. He juggles all the balls he's been given, and he doesn't drop any of them.

But with so many balls in the air, he can be forgiven one or two slight wobbles. Laurence Dominic (Reed Diamond) is featured again, and this time we get to see both the "new" Dominic and, in flashback, the slickly hateable Dominic of Season One. I particularly enjoyed seeing that version of the character again. However, there's no time to deal with the "new" Dominic, so Minear cuts that plot thread off as cleanly as he can... which unfortunately leaves the arc of one of the series' best recurring characters cut short. Still, it's fun to see the sneering Laurence of the series' beginning again, a reminder that however commendable his actions in The Attic may have been, Laurence Dominic is Not a Nice Man.

Minear does better with the return of Claire. Anyone reading these reviews knows that Claire won me over quickly, and that I found her character arc the most interesting of those on display at the end of Season One/beginning of Season Two. Acker's departure from the bulk of this season meant that Claire's dilemma was never able to receive the attention it was due. But Acker remains splendid, and the way in which she is brought back is effective in keeping the plot consistent with Epitaph One.

The mixing of the present day story with the flashbacks pays off handsomely. We discover the rest of the story of Caroline's harsh abandonment of Bennett, and it casts that scene in a very different light. We also close the episode on a particularly chilling twist - one which makes me re-evaluate some bits from earlier episodes, and also one which makes me wonder exactly what sort of long and twisted game the Rossum heads are playing.

Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: The Attic
Next Episode: The Hollow Men


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2-10. The Attic.

THE PLOT


Echo is in The Attic. This means that she is living a nightmare, repeating a hopeless scenario over and over again. But after a couple of loops, her composite mind notices the pattern, allowing her to break free. She discovers Laurence Dominic (Reed Diamond), her old nemesis who was sent to the Attic a year earlier. Dominic has also gained awareness of his situation - probably thanks to some NSA training - and has been fighting off a malevolent shadow that calls itself "Arcane," and which stalks and kills newcomers to The Attic.

Echo and Dominic team up to locate Victor and Sierra, to save them before Arcane can find them. But when they come face to face with Arcane, they learn more than they could have expected: About Rossum, and about the true nature of The Attic. This leads Echo to a desperate gamble, one which may enable her to take down Rossum - if it doesn't kill her first!


CHARACTERS

Echo: At this point, she seems to actively reject "Caroline" as her true identity. When a Rossum security man tells her that all Actives go by their "real names" in the Attic, she snaps back that her real name is Echo. She doesn't trust Dominic, recognizing him as she did even in her pre-aware state of early Season One: The enemy who was constantly trying to destroy her. But her mind is fully formed now, and she can recognize Dominic as something other than just being "bad." They make a good team, and Reed Diamond's performance brings out the best in Eliza Dushku's acting as well.

The Ice Queen: In the space of just a handful of episodes, Adelle has gone from being the person Topher most trusted to being "Darth Vader." Adelle's de-volution from icily pragmatic idealist to being simply cold and hard seems to be complete in this episode. As she wields the power of Rossum - quite literally the power of life and death - over Topher, Ivy, Langton, and finally Ballard, she seems truly, irredeemably cast in the role of "villain." A genuinely surprising end twist puts the new path of her character into a fuller context, while providing a hint of where both she and the show are going from here.

The Security Chief: Langton is as protective of Echo as a father of a daughter. With Echo taken away from him, he begins to skip work, arriving late, drinking. When Adelle confronts him about his feelings for Echo, he snaps at her that she "took her away from (him)!" He seems more inclined to confide in Topher now, less mocking of the idea of Topher as a man with a conscience, even as his trust in Adelle has been shattered.

The (Ex-) FBI Agent: Topher is able to revive Ballard, but only by taking something away from him so that other parts of his brain can fill in for those destroyed by Alpha. I doubt the science of "the wildcat play" would bear close scrutiny - but the idea that Ballard has been restored, but only by taking something unspecified away from him, is an interesting notion. And the warning that "sooner or later, he's going to figure out what's been taken away," is both intriguing and unsettling.


THOUGHTS

A funny thing happened with this particular Joss Whedon show. Joss Whedon ended up being only about an average (possibly even slightly below-par) writer for his own show. Meanwhile, the writing team of Maurissa Tanchauroen and Jed Whedon - his brother and his sister-in-law - announced themselves as the series' very best writers. They rounded off Season One with the magnificent Epitaph One. They wrote Belonging, the second season's only previous great episode. And they possibly top both of those previous achievements with The Attic, an episode which starts off good and then gets better and better and better as it goes.

The Attic is the strangest episode of Dollhouse yet. With most of the episode set inside Rossum's personal "Matrix," we get an episode rife with the logic of dreams and nightmares. A ladder to a roof leads Echo out of a fairy tale tree, which grows out of the Dollhouse's hardwood floor. A malevolent shadows seeks to assassinate dreamers, stalking them from the familiar confines of the Dollhouse to a paper-walled Japanese restaurant, to an Afghani war zone, to a post-apocalyptic hell. The imagery is vivid, sometimes stunning, and the script keeps all of the surreal nightmare tripping within a solid story structure, with the set pieces never getting away from a tightly controlled story. It works, the eerie nightmare aura bringing resonance to revelations about Rossum and the plot arc in such a way that it doesn't just feel like an episode there to "advance the plot" and nothing else (which I found to be the case with Stop-Loss).

The episode also features the welcome return of Reed Diamond's Laurence Dominic. Diamond's performance was a frequent highlight in the first season, and he and Amy Acker have both been sorely missed in Season Two. Here, Dominic is reinvented as a more heroic figure, though he retains enough of an edge not to feel like a completely different character. Diamond continues to exhibit a flair for deadpan comedy, with his reaction to a particularly gruesome discovery in the Japanese nightmare adding a darkly hilarious button to a particularly grisly moment.

The Dollhouse scenes work well, too, with just enough information withheld to make the ending a surprise without it coming completely out of left field. By showing us just a piece of Adelle's frosty interactions with her underlings, we are led to draw one conclusion... but when the truth is unveiled, we saw enough for the pieces to snap into place. Which is the way a twist should work, when it's executed right.


Rating: 10/10.  My favorite episode since Epitaph One.

Previous Episode: Stop-Loss
Next Episode: Getting Closer


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2-9. Stop-Loss.

THE PLOT

Victor's contract has reached its end date. His original personality is restored, and he is sent back to his life as an ex-soldier, supposedly cured of his PTSD. He doesn't stay free for long, though. His first night in the city, his apartment is attacked by a team of soldiers. He fights back, but is quickly subdued... and awakens to find himself face-to-face with an old combat buddy, who tells him that he's being recruited to be a soldier again. Without even thinking about it, Victor asks, "Where do I sign up?"

It turns out to be another Rossum program, one which has recruited several "retired" Actives. It's an experimental military program, one that uses Rossum technology to create a group that thinks as a single unit. The individual is totally absorbed by the group mind. Topher explains that if Victor is not retrieved soon, then he will be lost forever - prompting Echo, Langton, and Sierra to undertake a desperate rescue mission!

CHARACTERS

Echo: Has fully mastered the range of personalities in her head, to the point at which she can simply slip between them without even having to think about it. She makes the mistake of believing that this puts her on an equal (or better) footing to Adelle, and lays down an ultimatum to choose which side she's on. When she describes herself as "scarier" than Adelle, you just know this is a moment of hubris - No matter how many serial killers may float around in her brain, Eliza Dushku will never be able to be scary in the cold, quiet way that Olivia Williams can do, and a part of me was just as happy to see Echo's arrogance in this scene end up blowing up in her face.

The Ice Queen: "Pain reveals who we really are," Adelle snits. If so, it's saying very bad things about who she is right now. Any question as to why Adelle believed Echo was there to kill her in the Epitaph One future is pretty well answered here. She spends the bulk of the episode in a drunken stupor. When Langton tries to shock her back to her old self - much as he attempted to do in Meet Jane Doe - it backfires spectacularly, as what he succeeds in doing is pushing her self-preservation instinct into overdrive. Olivia Williams is splendid, but this Adelle is jarring given the Adelle DeWitt that we saw in the bulk of the series - as recently as four episodes ago! The lack of transition does hurt a character turn that might have been amazingly compelling, had it been allowed to occur over the length of a season rather than a couple of episodes.

The Security Chief: With Adelle no longer in full control, Langton steps up to act as leader. He fills the leadership role very effectively, using Echo's skills to trace Victor and then coordinating the escape. He is quite strong facing down Adelle. His one weakness is that he still has faith in the Adelle that he knew, and can't quite accept that she's changed so much in so short a time.


THOUGHTS

Topher tells us that Victor has been cured of his PTSD. As with November's trauma, I can't help but wonder: How? The five years passes like it's five seconds. Shouldn't they awaken in more or less exactly the same emotional state as before? I suppose it could be argued that Topher meddles with the original personalities somehow - We know that he promised Priya that she would not remember one horrible day. But it still seems a bit sketchy to me, and it's not made any less sketchy when the reawakened Victor shows signs of PTSD on his first night out.

Stop-Loss is an eventful episode, but I can't help but feel that it doesn't quite work as well it should. It may be slightly too eventful, as there is a sense that the pace is more rushed than would be ideal. Certainly, some of the climax with Echo vs. the Super Soldiers, plays out a little too easily. One soldier is even awakened from the group mind, even though he's evidently been part of it for some time. This seems to break the rules of the episode set forth by Topher, for a bit of "effect" that doesn't honestly add much.

There are still some excellent scenes. Anything involving Adelle is good, particularly her scenes opposite Echo and Langton. The ending is outstanding, with a final visual that leaves me wanting to move to the next episode right now. Really, the entire last ten minutes is superb. It's just a shame so much of the pacing feels "off," leaving Stop-Loss as the weakest of an admittedly very strong run of episodes.


Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: A Love Supreme
Next Episode: The Attic


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2-8. A Love Supreme.

THE PLOT

Adelle is certain that Echo is hiding something, and begins rigorously testing her.  But with every test coming back normal, and a repeat client requesting Echo's services, Adelle finally relents and allows her back into the field, even as Langton and Ballard bring Topher into their confidence regarding Echo's evolving nature.

What none of them are counting on is that the engagement is a set up. The client is dead, carefully posed in a chair for Echo, Ballard, and Langton to find. With the body is a note, addressed to Echo. Alpha has returned, and is leaving in his wake a trail of bodies - all of them repeat clients of Echo!


CHARACTERS

Echo: As we saw in the last episode, she can switch between her imprints at will. That doesn't stop her from fully being her imprints when they take control. When she assumes the role of Rebecca in her interactions with Joel (Patton Oswalt), she is Rebecca, and her love for Joel is quite genuine. When, in the guise of another imprint, she discovers the body Alpha left for her, she is inconsolable in her grief. It is only when Langton and Ballard begin picking apart the crime scene that "Echo" reasserts herself.

The Ice Queen: Has never been icier. The brutal coldness Adelle displayed at the end of Meet Jane Doe remains in place here. As she bluntly tells Alpha, she has "moved past chivalry," and is now solely concerned with self-preservation. I suspect this is going to be temporary, the character hitting her moral bottom after the demoralizing experience of being Harding's lackey for three long months. But in the meantime, she is unwittingly putting her best people in opposition to her. And despite Echo's actions aiding her in this episode, the final look she gives as the episode ends suggests that Adelle is far from done with doing damage.

The Security Chief: Langton hates seeing Echo so brutally tested every bit as much as Ballard does. As he sharply reminds Ballard, he was Echo's handler long before Echo ever met the former FBI agent. He has dedicated himself to protecting her throughout the series. What he recognizes, that Ballard does not, is that sometimes protection means staying still. He tells Ballard to "man up" and stop showing his agitation around Adelle. Langton almost acts as a mentor, or at least an older brother, figure to Ballard in this episode - a nice relationship to see between these two characters. A shame it's only evolved to that point this late in the series.

The Genius: Seeing what Echo has become, Topher reacts in a perfectly sensible and rational manner: He freaks out. He doesn't know what Echo's current state means, he doesn't know if she's going to lash out murderously the way Alpha did. He is keenly aware that at least one of Echo's imprints is a serial killer, and isn't reassured at the thought that she's "only a little bit" a serial killer. For all of that, Topher trusts Langton, and his previous trust in Adelle has been shattered. As little as one episode earlier, he would probably have gone to Adelle. Now, he keeps Echo's true state secret even before he talks to Langton.

The (Ex-) FBI Agent: Ballard's obsession with Echo is commented on by several people in the episode: Adelle, Langton, even Alpha. But he is also focused on stopping Alpha from killing any more clients. He deals very effectively with Joel, and he shows resolve in the face of Alpha's interrogation of him.


THOUGHTS

And yet another step toward Epitaph One, as we are introduced to the device that turns the wiped into violent zombies with ninja skills (which sounds like the setup for a pretty cool "B" movie, come to think of it). This leads to an action-heavy last Act of an already really good episode. A tightly-paced, fun-to-watch hour of television.

It almost goes without saying that the most noteworthy element of the episode is the return of Alpha. Alan Tudyk remains terrific, utterly chilling in his scenes opposite Ballard and Adelle. His character has also gained a new wrinkle since we saw him last. He's become a dandy, dressing himself in tailored suits, and preening at the effects of "a little splash of color." Oddly, this makes him even creepier. This is particularly true in the episode's best scene - a confrontation between Alpha and Adelle, which largely consists of Alpha mocking her as she tries to bargain for her life.

It's all extremely well-directed, with both the detective story that makes up the first two-thirds and the action climax effectively shot and edited. Performances are all at their usual level, with Olivia Williams perhaps even slightly above her usual (already excellent) average. All told, a terrifically watchable outing.


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Meet Jane Doe
Next Episode: Stop-Loss


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2-7. Meet Jane Doe.

THE PLOT

It's been three months since Echo's escape from Rossum, and both she and Paul remain unaccounted for. At the Dollhouse, things have changed - and not for the better. Adelle is no longer in control of the house, Harding (Keith Carradine) having effectively taken over. Harding has given Topher a blank check for extensive research, with no real indication of what the research may be for. Meanwhile, Adelle continues to push Langton to find Echo, "even if it's in a ditch somewhere."

As for Echo, she and Paul have settled into a life on the run. Echo has taken a job as a nurse in a small town in Texas, using the knowledge of one of her old imprints to gain access to the county jail. The jail is run by a particularly cruel sherriff, who along with his guards are abusing Galena (Ana Claudia Talancon), a pretty Spanish-speaking inmate. Echo gains access in order to break the young woman out. But her plan may not take into account her own deteriorating mental state.

CHARACTERS

Echo: Her development now is fully even with the one clip from Epitaph One, with her a full partner with Paul but suffering increasing headaches as a result of the composite memories and personalities. In her confused post-escape state, she got Galena arrested, and now she is making freeing the girl her "training run" to go back into Rossum. The limpse Bennett gave her of Caroline has disturbed her, and she worries that her "real" self is not the person she hoped for.

The Ice Queen: In the wake of Echo's escape and Rossum's increasing ambitions, Adelle is left powerless - something we've never really seen from her before. She has lost control of her own house, and drifts around the halls almost like a ghost, all but flinching in Harding's presence. It's a shame we didn't get a chance to see what happened to take her from the confident Adelle of even the last episode to this cowed version, but I'd guess Harding probably stepped on her hard (metaphorically, if not literally).  erhaps that explains the choice she makes at the end, when she undertakes an act that seems to go against all of the more idealistic shades of the character.

The Security Chief: Langton urges Adelle to take back her house from Harding, and tries to boost her self-confidence to get her to take the chances necessary to do it. When she hesitates, he tells her that "the Adelle (he) knew wouldn't ask" how to do it - She would already know. Though it's a sure bet that Langton likes Adelle a great deal more than he likes Harding, he does a good job of concealing his feelings in Harding's presence, playing the good employee.

The Genius: With Harding elevating Topher to the inner circle and giving Topher anything and everything he needs to advance his research, Topher is the proverbial kid in the candy store. Or at least he seems to be. As we've seen before, Topher really does have more of a moral sense than his surface personality shows, and he's more than smart enough to figure out the shape of a puzzle from a handful of pieces... which leaves him in shock when he figures out the extent of Rossum's true ambitions.

The (Ex-) FBI Agent: Paul finally seems to have what he's been obsessing over. He is sharing an apartment with Echo, and has her complete trust. But while Paul has at times seemed creepily obsessive, he still has moral qualms about taking advantage even when Echo offers herself. To him, it would be wrong to sleep with Echo unless Caroline is present in that body to grant her consent. He sees Echo's deterioration, with the increasing headaches, and worries that if they don't move against Rossum soon, they will miss their chance.

THOUGHTS

I suspect this episode is one of the major points of the season in which the "back nine" not having been picked up becomes visible. I would tend to assume that, had the remaining nine episodes of a 22-episode season been greenlit, there would have been at least a couple of episodes filling in this three-month gap. The script does a good job of giving us the backstory, or at least enough of it for us to make some guesses about what happened in the meantime, but it would have been nice to have seen it. Still, I can suffer one bumpy mid-season transition for the sake of getting a proper ending to the tory - and this episode probably achieves this transition as well as would have been possible.

It's a good episode too, for the most part. Keith Carradine's coldly sinister Harding is always a welcome presence, and this time he gets more than a cameo appearance. Seeing the always collected Adelle reduced to flinching every time he so much as looks at her is very effective shorthand for demonstrating just how formidable he is (though, again - I really wish we could have seen how Harding reduced her to such a point). Really, the Dollhouse scenes are uniformly excellent, with the ending being both effectively shocking and likely representing the point of no return for the future seen in Epitaph One.

The standalone plot, with Echo breaking the girl out of jail, is reasonably entertaining too, and makes good use of both Echo's composite personality and of several of the imprints we've seen in past episodes. Notably referenced are the imprints from Ghost, Gray Hour, and Man on the Street. On the other hand, the sherriff and his deputies are cartoon characters, recycled wholesale from Macon County Jail, and as such are hard to fully take seriously. I can buy a corrupt sherriff. But this sherriff and his deputies have no shades of anything to their characterizations. They're evil, brutish, and stupid: Cartoon baddies designed to make us cheer when Echo unleashes her various imprints on them. The plot is interesting insofar as seeing Echo move through her imprints deliberately, and seeing Echo work on her own initiative toward a goal. But the bad guys make the child molester/kidnapper in Ghost look like a carefully-shaded characterization by comparison.

Still, the episode moves swiftly and represents major developments in the plot. The overall effectiveness is substantially raised by the outstanding scenes involving Harding, Topher, and Adelle. Despite some issues with the standalone plot, a strong episode with a genuinely chilling ending.


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: The Left Hand
Next Episode: A Love Supreme


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