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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