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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2-4. Belonging.

THE PLOT

Noticing that Sierra is troubled, Echo takes a picture Sierra drew in art class to Topher. She tells Topher that Sierra is bothered by "the bad man." Topher's first impulse is to ignore the silly wiped girl. But he's sufficiently intrigued to talk to Langton, and then to look into Dr. Saunders' files. When he discovers that Sierra has drawn similar pictures after each engagement with Nolan Kinnard (Vincent Ventresca), her recurring client. Topher investigates further - and is shocked to discover that Sierra is not a willing Active, but instead was drugged by her "suitor" to be made into a fantasy object after she refused his advances.

Adelle tries to cut Nolan off. But the client goes over her head, and Rossum orders Adelle to imprint Sierra and deliver her to Nolan - permanently. When Adelle conveys the order to Topher, he balks, leading to consequences no one is expecting!


CHARACTERS

Echo: Continues to be protective of Sierra. She is the one who notices that something is bothering her, and she brings that to Topher's attention. She is keeping herself "awake," writing reminders for herself on the inside of her glass "coffin lid" (a good bit to freeze frame, by the way). When Langton confronts her, she tells him that "something bad" is coming, and that "everyone has to wake up."

The Ice Queen: I had wondered, when I watched Needs, if Adelle already knew about Sierra's situation. It seemed to fly in the face of her idealism regarding her work.  Still, Adelle is also a ruthless pragmatist, and might accept such a thing as "a necessary evil." Which seems to be what she resigns herself to, when her superior (Keith Carradine, in what I'm guessing will be the first of multiple appearances) puts her options into stark relief.

The Genius: As much as this is Sierra's episode, it is also Topher's. He's always been fairly blase about the Actives' situation, but that was based on the presumption that they were all volunteers. We have seen hints that he has a moral line before. As far back as Ghost, we saw the sarcasm fade into something human when confronted with some of the more terrible things people can do. Sierra's situation clearly crosses Topher's moral line. Even when Adelle orders him to go through with the procedure, Topher does not do so blindly. That said, his plan is poorly thought through, and heaps yet more guilt onto a man who is unaccustomed to even feeling remorse and yet now is carrying far too much of it.

The Security Chief: I've been lamenting the lack of material for Langton this season. In fact, it has seemed very much that after the first handful of episodes of the series, Langton has receded further and further into the background while Ballard got all the good character material. This episode brings him back into focus. We already knew he had a law enforcement background. Now it seems that this background is probably a bit less than spotless. He certainly knows a lot about covering up a crime, and is very cold-blooded about doing so. He is also aware of Echo's evolution, though he's keeping it to himself... for now.

THOUGHTS

Season One's Needs introduced something in Sierra's backstory that demanded being revisited. Sierra represented the lie in Rossum's sales pitch, an example of someone who did not willingly become an Active but was forced into it by a man with too much money and power and too few moral scruples. I would have been very annoyed if that never was touched on again.

This episode returns to Sierra's situation, and expands upon it. The teaser shows us a lot more detail of the events leading up to Sierra's wipe. These scenes manage the impossible feat of making Nolan even more disturbing and despicable than he was already. Vincent Ventresca does an excellent job at creating the kind of person the audience is guaranteed to hate, without actually going over-the-top into pantomime villainy. Keith Carradine gives us another, colder villain, one who seems likely to be more formidable.  If nothing else, he's the first person to actually leave Adelle cowed after a confrontation.  Usually, it's the other way around.
The episode is well-directed by Jonathan Frakes, and has a very well-structured, well-paced script by Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon - who actually seem to be the writers with the strongest overall feel for this show, even more (far more, in fact) than Joss Whedon himself! The script does a good job with the Claire issue, as well.  In her absence, the spectre of Claire seems to almost be acting as Topher's conscience. When Topher finds his moral sense outraged, his first response isn't that this is wrong, but rather that "Dr. Saunders never would have" sanctioned such a thing. She's also still needling him from afar, as her notes associate Sierra's "bad man" not with Nolan, but with Topher himself.

An excellent episode, one which delivers on the seeds planted in Needs, while at the same time layering in elements for the future.


Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Belle Chose
Next Episode: The Public Eye

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1-10. Haunted.

THE PLOT

When Adelle's friend Margaret (Brenda Bakke) dies of an apparent heart attack, Adelle keeps a promise to her: She uses the brain scans she had made of Margaret to bring her back as a doll. Ostensibly, this was so that Margaret could attend her own funeral and wrap up the loose ends of her life. In reality, the revived Margaret-in-Echo confides to Adelle that she is certain that she was murdered, and she intends to use this extra time to solve her own murder!


CHARACTERS

Doll of the Week: "Julia" is Margaret's persona to attend her own funeral, and to attempt to sniff out the identity of her killer. Her attempts to disguise herself as someone else frequently break down, as she cannot let go of her old mannerisms or her prejudices regarding her children's choices.

The Ice Queen: Adelle is not a woman who shows her emotions easily, but we do get glimpses of how attached she is to Margaret. The scene in which the two of them visit Margaret's funeral together, with Margaret making caustic observations about everything in order to make Adelle laugh, may well be the most relaxed we've seen her - including during last episode's bedroom interval.

The Genius: In an amusing subplot, Topher takes advantage of the relative stillness within the Dollhouse to turn Sierra into a playmate. No, not that kind of playmate - He uploads a videogame/sci fi/laser-tag geek persona into her, and then spends a full day just playing. These scenes are the most purely enjoyable of the episode, as Fran Kranz shows Topher having pure, innocent fun. The coda to this subplot is rather touching, and ties in well with the themes of the standalone plot.


THOUGHTS

After a run of episodes that really moved plot, concept, and characters forward, it was probably time for another standalone. After this episode, it will probably be a run of heavy "arc" episodes to the season finale, so a last chance for a breather is entirely reasonable.

It should be said that Haunted is a competently crafted piece of television.  The story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It presents a mystery with a reasonable gallery of suspects, and the solution to the mystery makes sense.  It is an absolutely professional, competently-turned hour.

It is also quite dull. It's not the worst episode of the series. I would still give that title to The Target.  But it is the most tedious. The story is nothing that we haven't seen a million times before, albeit with the twist of Margaret actually being present to investigate her own death. And since we only see Eliza Dushku playing Margaret, with no flashes of "Echo" or Caroline, it really does feel like we're spending an hour watching a character in whom we have no ongoing investment. It seems an odd choice to end the previous episode by telling us that Echo is evolving in a way that not even Adelle can predict... and then follow that up by effectively giving us an episode that Echo isn't even in.

Overall, it's entirely passable fare, but more than a little listless. It only really comes to life in the Topher scenes, which Fran Kranz and Dichen Lachman play with an enthusiasm and energy the rest of the show sadly lacks. Thoroughly expendable, and a disappointment after the run of very strong episodes the show has been presenting.


Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: A Spy in the House of Love
Next Episode: Briar Rose

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1-9. A Spy in the House of Love.

THE PLOT

Topher is hard at work repairing the damage done to his chair during Claire's experiment. That is how he discovers the security breach. A device, very small, planted in the chair. It can be used to add an extra parameter to a doll - to send messages to an FBI agent, for example.

Adelle has been called away, leaving Laurence Dominic in charge. Dominic and Topher quickly identify the bug as NSA. Dominic orders Topher to program Sierra with "all (his) best spy parts," and dispatches her to the NSA to discover the identity of the spy. He also makes it clear that he holds Topher responsible for this breach.

That's when Echo wanders into Topher's lab, offering to help. "You make people different," she observes. "You can make me help."


CHARACTERS

"Echo": The teaser sees the wiped Echo observing the strained goings-on at the house. She sees both Sierra and November taken to Topher's lab, she sees one of them put into the chair, she sees both of them come out different. And she puts the pieces together. Her awareness is growing, and by the end of the episode Topher, Adelle, Dominic, and Langton are all fully aware that "she's evolving."

Doll of the Week: Echo's imprint is a counterintelligence operative, a sharp, cold-blooded investigator with "a little bit of Sherlock Holmes" programmed into the mix. She's an expert at reading body language, a skill which leads her straight to the identity of the spy.

The Genius: When Topher is interrogated over his reasons for joining the Dollhouse, he makes it clear that he is excited by the science. He's doing work here that would be beyond the imaginations of his old professors. Topher gets to spend virtually the entire episode in panic mode, which brings out the best in Franz Kranz's performance.

The Ice Queen: We get a glimpse at Adelle's feelings of isolation. While away from the Dollhouse, she talks about the work she used to do before - stem cell research - and indicates that she misses the days when she could actually tell people what she does for a living. When she returns to the house to discover that she has been betrayed, she is merciless in dealing with the spy, sending the infiltrator "to the attic" - from which that infiltrator can still be used any time the NSA needs to be told that everything is fine, before being "put back in (his/her) box."

The FBI Agent: Without his job, without support from Mellie, left entirely to himself... Agent Ballard degenerates into a paranoid shut-in, complete with a conspiracy wall chart. His job has already been taken away from him. Now he loses another anchor, as the agent inside the dollhouse sends him a message in the worst possible way.


THOUGHTS

No real points for guessing who the spy is, but the revelation is still well-done. Plus, we finally learn exactly what "The Attic" is, and why being sent there is such a horrific fate. The nature of "The Attic" also means that the guilty party probably isn't being permanently written out of the show. After all, a doll can be taken out for use at any time.

The structure of the episode nods to Crash, as we see the same period of time through multiple viewpoints. Through the first half, each viewpoint gives us a new snippet of information as we follow each of several imprints through the events of the teaser and just a bit beyond. We see two imprints that precede the discovery, November and Victor, both of whose engagements further running plots and characters. We see Sierra's imprint, ordered by Dominic to allow him to identify the spy. Finally, we see Echo's imprint, volunteered in order to help Topher catch the spy. The strands are brought together effectively, and by starting each strand from a common point (the teaser), we are able to keep track of where we are in the story at all times.

The episode also has one very well-executed action set piece, as Sierra infiltrates the NSA. It's a flashy, fast-paced scene that wouldn't be at all out-of-place in a Bourne/Bond-style action film. A strong centerpiece to yet another very strong episode.


Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Needs
Next Episode: Haunted

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1-8. Needs.

THE PLOT

The drug the Actives were exposed to has caused problems. They are having memory glitches, going off-mission, and showing signs of memory even in their wiped states. Adelle has decided drastic measures are needed to stop these problems from building into the creation of another Alpha, and she authorizes Topher to experiment with the drug treatment that keeps them without memory.

The next morning, the five Actives in Echo's sleeping hub wake up. They don't remember anything, but they are themselves again, personalities intact. When one of their number draws attention to himself and is taken away, the other four realize how important it is that they are not noticed. They need to escape. Now.

Up in the head office, Adelle DeWitt and Laurence Dominic watch and study their every move. "Like rats in a maze..."


CHARACTERS

"Echo": The series opened with the frightened but defiant Caroline talking about how she wanted to "make a difference." Even with no memory, once Caroline gets a look at what the Dollhouse is, she decides to head back in.  After she sees one of the blank young Actives taken out in a prostitute's getup, and another coming back as a soldier, she determines that the house is a "people factory," and decides that she can't just run away. She has to "try to make a difference."

Victor: The confident leadership skills his imprint displayed in the previous episode? Those appear to actually be part of Victor's own personality. He takes charge almost immediately. He also recognizes that the names the Actives are called by are codes. Given the brief flash of his memories we saw in Echoes, I'm guessing Victor comes from the military. As was the case in the previous episode, Enver Gjokaj seems to really enjoy getting this strong material.

The Genius: Topher is not someone who's generally out of control within his own office. This episode sees the experiment get out of control, allowing Fran Kranz to show a different side to Topher's character: fear. He is very good in the scene in which Echo holds him at gunpoint, demanding answers from him.

The Ice Queen: Topher still believes all of the Actives are volunteers. It's on that basis that Adelle defends the Dollhouse, that the Actives all volunteered to escape from memories too painful to continue carrying. We do know that Caroline had at least one horribly painful memory, and we learn this is the case for November, too. Adelle desperately wants to believe that she's doing something good. But is she aware of cases like Sierra's, where enough money or power was applied to take someone against her will? It seems inconceivable that she doesn't know, but even one case like that - and you'd have to assume that there would be more than just one - seems to break down her entire defense.

THOUGHTS

Needs isn't really a big plot episode, though I expect at least some of its revelations will be revisited. It is mainly a character episode, one that sheds some light on who the principle Actives were, before they became Actives. We get some key backstory about November and Sierra, we see Victor's true nature. And we get our first sustained, episode-long look at Caroline in action - not Echo, not some random imprint, but Caroline herself. The Actives have been more plot devices than people, with the strongest character material carried by either Ballard or the people running the Dollhouse. This episode allows the Actives to become characters.

Which isn't to say the Dollhouse staff are neglected. Laurence Dominic has recovered from his drug-induced remorse over trying to murder Echo, and he is back to being his usual, cold self, comparing the "dolls" to "pets." Topher and Adelle each get an outstanding scene opposite Caroline. This is also the strongest episode yet for Amy Acker's Claire, who has become probably my favorite secondary character. She is extremely compassionate, absolutely sincere... and yet at the end, it's clear that Langton doesn't trust her. Given the strength of Langton's instincts, and given how sympathetic Claire has been played, I can't help but wonder what twist is in store.

The episode is wonderfully directed by Felix Enriquez Alcala.  It features a strong score, and is closed out by a haunting, thematically-astute song about how they're all there because they "have nowhere else to go." The final image, of the pods closing up again, shutting the "pets" back in their cages, is beautifully timed and photographed. It's visually gorgeous, haunting, and chilling all at the same moment.


Rating: 10/10. My favorite episode to date.

Previous Episode: Echoes
Next Episode: A Spy in the House of Love

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1-4. Gray Hour.

THE PLOT

Echo is imprinted to act as a master criminal, leading three thieves into a vault of stolen art. They are there to recover a piece of the Greek Parthenon. But when one of the thieves double-crosses them, Echo is trapped in the vault with the other two crooks and a clock that's rapidly counting down to a security system reset that will reveal their presence.

None of this is actually a problem for Echo's imprint, who is confident that she can get them all out. She calls Langton to get him to deal with the double-crosser and to retrieve the Parthenon piece, with her next order of business escape. Then the unthinkable happens. At the end of her phone call, a mysterious signal breaks in... leaving Echo wiped, in a helpless, childlike state.


CHARACTERS

"Echo": Topher may well have put his finger on the moments in which Echo has been responding to something that isn't quite memory, but which is based on things that have happened to her in her various imprints. She is, in Topher's words, "flocking" with Sierra and Victor. Also, even in her childlike "wiped" state, she is naturally intelligent and observant. She knows she doesn't want to shoot the policemen and puts together the handful of pieces she's been given inside the vault to figure out how to stop the most ruthless of the criminals from killing either her or them.

Doll of the Week: Taffy is a master criminal. She's experienced, with several layers of "unflappable" built into her to keep her calm during any crisis. The twist on the "Doll of the Week" this time is that Taffy is imprinted on Sierra as well.  This allows Dichen Lachman to stretch her acting muscles by playing the same role in the last part of the episode that Dushku plays in the first part. Lachman's is actually the more entertaining take. Between her strong showing as the Australian fan in the previous episode and her work here, I'm looking forward to seeing more from her in future episodes.

The Ice Queen: Though Adelle assures her client that she knows nothing about the specific engagement, that risks are simply calculated by computer, the way the mask drops off her face once the client is out of the room indicates otherwise. Adelle definitely is not at the very top of this particular organization, and she is trying to "handle" her employer with regard to Paul Ballard's investigation. She is favoring granting Ballard closure, so that he'll stop pursuing the Dollhouse. Based on Adelle's side of the telephone conversation in the teaser, I'm guessing her employer is favoring more drastic measures - probably on the advice of Dominic.

The Genius: Is flabbergasted at the discovery that someone has been able to successfully "remote wipe" an operative. His first fear is for his job, as he tells anyone who will listen that he could not have foreseen this and that it was not his fault. He barely spares a thought for Echo until the very end when, to his credit, he does appear saddened by the apparent failure of her rescue. He isn't a genius for nothing, and it doesn't take long for him to figure out that only one person could have done this... and that this means that not all the information he's been given is accurate.


THOUGHTS

This one is a surprise, the first genuinely surprising episode of the series. It starts out looking very much like another standalone story, running through a stock plot. It's a heist plot, and I enjoy a good heist story, so I was already set to enjoy it. Then the plot takes an unexpected turn with the remote wipe, and it becomes something completely different and much more interesting.

I enjoyed seeing Echo thrust into her childlike state in an uncontrolled environment.  Particularly good are the scenes in which Walton (Toby Leonard Moore) discusses with Echo exactly why a Cubist painting is "broken," and Echo's final determination at the end that she isn't broken.


OVERALL

Gray Hour offers up a couple of surprising plot turns, which elevate it above the well-worn standalones that came before. Now that the concept and characters are pretty well established, it feels as if this show is getting ready to kick into gear. In any case, this was certainly the best episode yet.


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Stage Fright
Next Episode: True Believer

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