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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2-6. The Left Hand.

THE PLOT

Echo is held captive in a Rossum lab, presided over by Bennett (Summer Glau), a brilliant but unstable scientist.  Bennett has a personal grudge against Echo - or rather, against Caroline - and tortures her mercilessly before imprinting her with a particularly vicious memory. But Adelle has no intention of letting Rossum claim Echo. She has set up a meeting with a Rossum executive (Ray Wise), while directing Topher to meet with Bennett. Adelle uses her particular blend of directness and feminine wiles to get Echo released, while Topher uses his own technical wizardry to figure out what Bennett's been up to.

But Bennett's grudge leads to an unpredictable turn. Soon, Echo and Senator Perrin (Alexis Denisof) are on the run, with Rossum's finest in pursuit. And there's one final twist to Bennett's revenge, one which could turn everyone's plans upside-down!


CHARACTERS

Echo: Before she became an Active, Caroline apparently got into this Rossum lab, sometime after her first foray into Rossum. She was friends with Bennett, whom she probably used to get into the lab. Something Bad happened, resulting in Bennett's arm getting pinned, and Caroline was rather callous about leaving the other girl to her fate rather than trying to help her. In the present, Echo has pretty much become fully aware, as she pushes Perrin to use his position to expose Rossum while at the same time making her own escape. The episode ends with Echo on the loose, with no way for the Dollhouse to track her - a situation that presents a lot of interesting possibilities...

The Ice Queen: Adelle may have been out-manipulated by Harding and Rossum, but she's still a formidable woman. With manipulation no longer an option, when presented with a weak-willed Rossum executive (Ray Wise), she opts for brute force. She's quite skillful at it, and the only reason she doesn't get everything she wants out of the exchange is Bennett's personal baggage taking her off-script.

The Genius: This episode gives us a double-dose of Topher. There's Fran Kranz's usual, entertaining performance, as Topher goes out into the field. His nervous fidgeting in Adelle's limousine is quite funny, as he alternates between behaving like a small child with ADD and admitting, with nice vulnerability, that he is "outside (his) comfort zone" when out of his lab. His attraction to Bennett (Summer Glau) is convincing, and I enjoyed every moment Kranz and Glau shared on-screen. We also get Victor-as-Topher, Topher having duplicated himself in order to work on the problem both in his lab and in person. Scenes in which Topher literally talks to himself are hilarious, as Enver Gjokaj does a fantastic job of imitating Kranz's mannerisms.

THOUGHTS

As a resolution to the cliffhanger posed by The Public Eye, The Left Hand does its job well. It's entertaining, particularly when Topher is center-stage (in either guise), and it moves the plot that little bit closer to the future we saw in Epitaph One.

Really, that's becoming one of the great strenghts of Season Two, now that the season's properly underway. Having seen the future, there is a sense of steadily approaching doom over all of the proceedings. With each new step, from Topher's well-intentioned inventions to Rossum's manipulations, the possible paths for the characters to turn away from disaster are steadily closing down. Now each episode closes off another opportunity to prevent the future, turning a maze of possibilities steadily into a one-way tunnel... one that's heading for a collision with an oncoming train.

The Left Hand is not as strong an episode as The Public Eye, however. It's less compelling, with less of the sense of a thriller hanging over it. It gets where it needs to go, and it's a fun journey to take. But even the ominous note struck by the ending doesn't have the same gut punch to it as the revealtions in the previous episode did. It's a good episode, make no mistake, and yet another episode that leaves me anticipating what's going to come next.  But it just lacks that certain extra "something" that the strongest episodes have, limiting my score to a solid and enjoyable:

Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: The Public Eye
Next Episode: Meet Jane Doe


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2-3. Belle Chose.

THE PLOT

Terry Karrens, the nephew of Dollhouse client and Rossum stockholder Bradley Karrens (Michael Hogan), is put into a coma after he is struck by a car. Bradley has the young man transferred to the Dollhouse, ostensibly because he does not believe the hospital will be able to revive him. But when Topher looks at Terry's brain scan, he realizes the truth: Terry is a sociopath!

Bradley confesses to Adelle that several women are missing, and that he is certain Terry has taken them. They need to question him so that the women can be retrieved before it is too late. Adelle agrees to imprint Victor with the personality of the sociopath, and assigns Paul to question him. The interrogation is going fairly well... until Bradley decides that he'll be better off talking to his nephew directly, and frees him from the Dollhouse. Bradley is knocked unconscious for his trouble - leaving Victor out on the streets, with the mind of a serial killer, with no way to track him!


CHARACTERS

Echo: In a crisis situation, she has enough mental will of her own to fight back control by a harmful personality - though not enough to win the fight, apparently. The ending indicates that she has gathered yet another mind into her growing composite, this one a mind she would probably just as soon not have floating around up there.

Doll of the Week: Kiki is an airheaded college co-ed who signed up for Medieval Literature figuring that since it was "Mid-Evil," it wouldn't be as hard as "Advanced Evil" would be. She has basically been created as a fantasy object for a very literate English professor (Arye Gross) who likely feels discouraged at his inability to get his students to share his interest in literature such as The Canterbury Tales. She is there not just for the professor to sleep with, but for him to teach first.  So your basic "teacher/student" fantasy, in other words.

The Ice Queen: Adelle works quite well with Paul. And while Paul may be plotting against the Dollhouse, he does seem to be very much in sync with Adelle. She aids his interrogation of Terry/Victor by sending the uncle down to visit Terry's comatose body at the very point at which Paul shows "Terry" his actual body. When Paul compliments her on the timing, he also knows that a part of the reason that she did that was that she couldn't stand another second with Bradley. Adelle's basic idealism also shows itself again. She will do a lot to accomodate an influential client, but she is very willing to send Terry back to the hospital unless Bradley tells her the full truth.

The Genius: With a serial killer loose in Victor's body, Topher is pressured to come up with a way to remote wipe an Active without so much as a telephone connection. What he comes up with isn't exactly glitch-free, but it does have an impact - which I suspect is a big step toward the future we saw in Epitaph One.

The (Ex-) FBI Agent: Paul gets to use his FBI training in dealing with Terry, in Victor's body. He does very well interrogating Terry, successfully putting him off his guard and gleaning a lot of information from the man's offhand comments. Paul's fascination with Echo continues, as he very visibly reacts to her nudity in the shower, and to the prospect of guarding her on another "romantic" engagement.


THOUGHTS

OK, that was good.

Not to mention, quite disturbing. The teaser, with Terry playing with his "dolls," is initially disorienting. We only see closeups of his hands adjusting the clothing on the captive women. My immediate assumption was that we were in the Dollhouse... and then we see Terry talking to his mannequins, and for a moment I thought that was all they were: mannequins. Right up until "Aunt Sheila" begins whimpering and sweating.

The episode provides a field day for Enver Gjokaj, who is quite chilling when Victor is imprinted as the sociopath. He's also hilariously funny when he receives a second, abrupt and random, imprint. It may say something about where the acting strengths of this show do and don't lie that, in every case that multiple Actives receive the same imprints, Eliza Dushku's performance has come across the weaker. Here, she and Gjokaj each play the same two imprints at various points in the episode - and in both cases, Gjokaj outacts Dushku by a considerable margin.

I did appreciate that Claire's disappearance (finally) receives a mention, with Adelle and Langton sparring over how much of a priority her retrieval should be. Given that the absence of Dr. Saunders leads to a crisis in retrieving Victor, I would think at the very least that Topher should be imprinting one of the lower-earning Actives to be a new doctor as soon as possible.

Oh, and a final, stray thought. Bradley is able to not only whisk the Terry-imprinted Victor out of the interrogation room, but right out of the Dollhouse, with nobody noticing before he made it all the way to the street? They really should bring Laurence Dominic out of the attic, because Langton's obviously doing a lousy job replacing him as Security Chief.


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Instinct
Next Episode: Belonging


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1-11. Briar Rose.

THE PLOT

Echo is imprinted to act as a counselor to Susan, a troubled girl who has been returned to a state facility after being rejected by multiple foster families. Susan had a horrific past, prostituted as a child after the death of her drug addicted mother. By imprinting Echo to be an ideal version of Susan's future, Topher hopes to guide the girl away from her hostility toward a productive future.

While Echo engages in her mercy mission, Langton brings a package to Adelle - a USB drive, hand-delivered for Laurence Dominic. The drive is password protected, so the only way to retrieve the information is to retrieve Dominic. But this gift has come from a most unexpected source.

Paul Ballard gains a source of his own. He manages to identify the location of the Dollhouse, and finds Steven Kepler (Alan Tudyk), the man who designed the closed system to allow the house to operate off the grid. Ballard bullies, blackmails, and threatens Kepler until he agrees to take him into the Dollhouse. What Ballard doesn't know is that all of this is according to somebody else's well-laid plans...


CHARACTERS

Echo: When confronted by Langton and Ballard, each of whom tries to enlist her trust, she has flashes of past engagements involving both of them. She recalls Langton trying to save her even when wounded, and she recalls fighting Ballard. Her instinctive trust in Langton wins out and, as a doll who is "evolving," she is able to assist him at a critical moment.

Doll of the Week: "Susan" is a counselor for troubled youth. She is intelligent and very observant. She is able to connect with the troubled young Susan, in large part because her past so closely mirrors the girl's own.

The Handler: Ballard appeals to Langton, telling him that he knows the Dollhouse is "wrong." The words don't wash off Langton, but he retains loyalty to Adelle. However, it is clear there are lines he won't cross. He won't necessarily interfere with Adelle acting in ways that cross those lines, but he won't grant his personal sanction either.

The FBI Agent: Ballard may not actually be crazy, but his obsession with the Dollhouse does drive him to some disturbingly ruthless actions. His treatment of Mellie is painful to watch. She may not be "real," so to speak, but her feelings are real, including her pain as he calmly destroys her in minutes. It's all the more painful, recalling the pain of the real woman behind "Mellie." He is just as ruthless dealing with Kepler, though thanks to Alan Tudyk's performance, those scenes end up being more comical than disturbing.


THOUGHTS

Tudyk, so much fun to watch in Joss Whedon's earlier Firefly, returns to the Whedonverse as Kepler. His scenes with Ballard range from hilarious to merely highly amusing. I love his introductory scene.  As Ballard pushes him into the apartment and sees his prodigious personal supply, Kepler spouts every "the-pot's-not-mine" cliche in the book, not even noticing that each of them contradicts the other. With so many of the performance and writing beats for this character acting as direct callbacks to his Firefly role, Tudyk's casting proves to be superbly well-judged.

Briar Rose is a very busy episode, juggling three separate plot strands. It is also a very good one. You can see the show building toward its season finale, taking all the pieces that have been carefully laid on the board and putting them into play.  By the end, all of the plot strands have been expertly woven together. Two of the plots have converged on a story level. The third strand, the one that grants the episode its title, resonates thematically with the main plot.

"Susan" reads Susan the story of Briar Rose, a girl cursed to 100 years' sleep who is rescued by a prince. Ballard goes into the Dollhouse believing that Caroline is his Briar Rose, and that he is her prince. It's a given that Ballard's extremely simple and naive worldview is wrong. But the episode's final note, which again resonates with the Briar Rose story, is a genuine surprise.

That surprise is coupled with a truly gripping final Act.  The result is another terrific episode, one which more than makes up for the dreary installment that preceded it.

Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Haunted
Next Episode: Omega


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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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1-3. Stage Fright.

THE PLOT

Rayna (Jaime Lee Kirchner) is a superstar singer managed by a long-time client of Adelle's. She has gained a huge fan following... including one insane stalker. The sabotage of a recent performance seriously injured one of Rayna's back-up singers, leaving the star's manager concerned for her safety.
One visit to the Dollhouse later, and Echo emerges as Rayna's new backup singer. She has been programmed to stay close to the girl and to be instinctively protective of her. When she discovers the true nature of Rayna's relationship with her stalker, though, the parameters of the mission are changed, in a way that's a big worry to Laurence Dominic (Reed Diamond).


CHARACTERS

"Echo": She continues to retain something vague after her missions, and it doesn't seem that she's the only girl doing so. She may not recall specific things from engagements, but she has a sense of friendships, and she has a sense that it would be bad for her if those running the house knew that.

Doll of the Week: Jordan is a background singer who has had a reasonable amount of work, but no big break. She is thrilled to get a job on a major tour. She's observant and tough, and grounded enough to have no time for Rayna's self-destructive streak.

The Handler: Langton's protectiveness of Echo takes on a paternal tone. He is not just anxious for her welfare. When she is about to have her first performance, he is genuinely anxious about her doing well, his jitters reminding me (and Topher) of a nervous father. He also appears to have gained a confidante, in the pretty-but-damaged Dr. Saunders (Amy Acker). I haven't really touched on Acker's role in previous reviews, but she's been consistently excellent so far in a role that seems likely to grow more important later.

The FBI Agent: Ballard finally begins to emerge as his own character, rather than just a collection of recycled Bogie cliches. We learn some things about him that cast him in a new light. Chief among them is his track record at the FBI. He apparently doesn't have one. "You can't close," his source Victor (Enver Gjokaj) observes after doing some research on him.  Victor goes on to say that Balllard was assigned the Dollhouse case because he couldn't possibly screw up an investigation into something that doesn't exist. Ballard's reflective side is shown by his explanation of why he's so sure it does exist, musing about how when man split the atom, the first thing done with that breakthrough was to create a bomb. For the first time, Tahmoh Penikett actually reminds me of how good he was on Battlestar Galactica, and this episode gives me some hope that both actor and performance may eventually be that good here.


THOUGHTS

After the first two episodes, I'd have never thought that there would be an episode in which the Ballard story was the strongest element. Stage Fright will hopefully be a turning point for both Ballard and his subplot. Not only does he finally begin emerging as a real character, but a genuinely unexpected twist is thrown in regarding his story strand. It will be interesting to see where the show takes this new development.

As to the standalone plot this week, it's another very traditional one. The superstar with the crazed fan is one of those obligatory stories that every private detective or cop show that survives longer than one season will eventually feature. But it does manage to work a little bit better than last week's Most Dangerous Game riff.  This is partially because it doesn't have two or three other plots competing for the viewer's attention, and partially because writers Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon throw in a couple of unexpected turns. I was genuinely surprised at Rayna's reaction to her murderous stalker, and that kicked the episode up a notch in the late going.


OVERALL

I feared the worst when I realized this was going to be yet another episode with a stock plot, but Stage Fright largely works, and even manages a couple of surprises along the way. The ongoing elements in the background seem ready to be brought forward anytime now, which is promising for the show's development. There's a sense of something simmering slowly to a boil. Stage Fright in itself is only slightly better than adequate television. But what's good here gives me hope that this show is going to get a lot better before too much longer.


Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: The Target
Next Episode: Gray Hour


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