Joss Whedonkeeps his promises – last Nox ’s Dollhouse was a well-favored payoff to everyone who ’d been pay attending to the series ’ first five weeks , while still introduce the basic premise to the newbies .
Oh , and this write - up includes spoiler , but do n’t concern … it ’ll be just like if your husband beget together with another dude . Nothing queeny , and you wo n’t even remember the spoiler afterwards .
Okay then . So last Nox ’s Dollhouse worked fantastically well on several levels . First of all , it worked on the level of a tortuous , turny thriller with all the gaga revelations and mysteries .
2nd of all , it ramped up the show ’s basic themes of “ using people ” and “ turning poeple into what you require them to be ” into overdrive . Everybody on the show is using each other and pull strings each other , and making each other over into whatever the situation involve .
And then there ’s just all the amazing persona stuff that we got , about major characters like Paul Ballard but also minor 1 like Journeyman ’s Brother ( aka Mr. Dominic . )
And lastly , there ’s all the larger thematic clobber that the “ man on the street ” interview spotlight , about quite how sinister and sludgy a morass of human fantasies this engineering douse into . And then we get the concluding statement from the random expert : if this technology really exists , then we are over as a coinage . We discontinue to count .
And you think Dollhouse had noplace to go as an ongoing series .
So here ’s what happened . First of all , FBI Agent Ballard gets tired of just being spoonfed by Alpha , and settle to follow the money . You recognise , like a veridical broker . And it turns out to be surprisingly easy to regain a prominent Dollhouse guest : a shlubby geek ( Patton Oswalt ) who got plentiful but lose his married woman in a random car stroke . So every year , on the same day , he pays the Dollhouse to give him a cleaning woman program to be his dead wife , so he can apportion his upright luck with her .
I ’m really not certain what Ballard ’s strategy is for check someone , when the “ Doll ” believes she ’s really the plenteous guy ’s wife , but in any case it goes off the rails when the “ Doll ” turn out to be Echo / Caroline , the one he ’s already obsess with . So he flubs it , and Echo experience aside . But the Dollhouse ’s fearless / remorseless loss leader , Adelle , decides that if Echo flusters Paul , they should get a “ second day of the month ” … one in which Echo beats the crap out of Paul and then draw up him for pip a fuzz .
Meanwhile , someone has been sexually assaulting Sierra , during her round-eyed “ wiped ” state . The first suspect is mechanically her fellow Active Victor , who ’s already had erection around her . But Echo ’s manager , former cop Boyd Langton , cast the pieces together , and figures out it ’s Sierra ’s coach Hearn , who ’s taking advantage of the imprinting that makes the “ Dolls ” trust the handlers without enquiry . ( The scene where we see Hearn asking the ritual questions , like “ Do you trust me ? ” and then telling Sierra to lift her dress is super disturbing . ) And as Hearn ’s penalization , Adelle decides to place him to kill Paul ’s neighbor Mellie … who turns out to be a “ Doll ” herself , and kills Hearn .
In the closing , Adelle has Paul out of the FBI , Hearn out of the picture and all the piece back in the box . “ I play a very bad hand very well , ” as she tell .
Oh , but then there are complications . Like , someone evidently founder Echo a content to pass on to Paul Ballard while she ’s beating the crap out of him – and the courier is n’t Alpha . My dead reckoning is , it ’s another one of Adelle ’s thinker games , since the message is basically “ rent the Dollhouse think they ’ve pull ahead . ” But the other possible action is that either the slimy Topher or his cunning assistant Ivy ( “ I live to serve tiffin ” ) is secretly working against the Dollhouse . Plus , there are like twenty doll’s house , and they have some other role besides just fulfilling the fantasies of the rich .
So it ’s interesting that there was so much sexual practice going on in this episode , but none of it was straightforward . Which goes to the heart of something I ’ve imagine about Dollhouse for a while . People tend to discover this as a show about whoredom , but probably nobody would pay up a million dollar just for fancy sex . Unless their kinks were really unusual . Not to bring up , in tangible life , sex is never just about sex . It ’s always about other stuff and nonsense .
So last night , you have Patton Oswalt ’s character , Joel Mynor , hiring a Richard Hooker – except , really , he ’s staunch the grief of his wife ’s death and his frustrated need to honour all her sacrifice . You have Paul Ballard , who ’s definitely using his neighbour Mellie to help him crack the Dollhouse character and also get past his Echo obsession – oh , but turns out she ’s actually playing him , without even knowing it . And then there ’s Hearn ’s sick abuse of the person he ’s charged with protecting , which is a power trip and based on seeing Sierra as essentially a “ boast - up chick . ” ( As Chief Tyrol would put it . )
As I said before , all of these character are using each other , and trying to turn each other into whatever they find they take . The only difference between the Actives and the other people on the show is , the Actives get to forget afterwards how they got used . Unlike Hearn , who gets made over into a Russian gangster , or Ballard , who gets falsify into looking like a berzerk madman . Or Boyd , who require to be establish a bonus so that his acts of man and responsibility will be transformed into mere avail to the Dollhouse .
The show ’s ensemble cast was in top form last dark , but Eliza Dushku also did a lot to quiet the doubters . Her performance as Mynor ’s married woman Rebecca ( “ It ’s porno , is n’t it ? The Internet speculation that dead pay off ! ” ) was unlike enough from her turn as Caroline the cocky college girl , which in turn was totally unlike her portrayal of Echo the clean ticket . Very few actors could entirely fulfill the “ chameleon ” needs of a show like Dollhouse , but I actually opine Dushku is doing pretty great . Plus , we have to get the sense that underneath all of this , Echo has an identity operator of her own that ’s acquire .
And the fight shot between Ballard and Echo ? Was one of the cool smackdowns I ’ve seen in old age . But then I ’m a entire fall guy for Chinese restaurant kitchen fight scenes .
My preferred view , though , was in all likelihood the last conversation between Adelle and Journeyman ’s Brother , where he finally take on how much he look up to her foxy manipulativeness , and she seems genuinely implicated that Sierra must blank out all about her horrible trauma . Ignorance , in this showcase , really is bliss . But the dolly are n’t as ignorant as they ’re speculate to be , Mr. Dominic replies . Not yet – but we ’re work on it , says Adelle . The mixture of paternal concern and pure , total wickedness is astonishing , specially come mightily on the dog of that scene with the expert talking about how this technology intend that we ’re over , as a coinage .
All in all , not only a great time of day of television , but also Joss Whedon writing an IOU to you , the viewers , for about five more yr of engrossing stories about what it means to be people in our raw dehumanizing information age . Will you cash in his IOU ? ( Oh , and thegood newsis , the episode ’s ratings did n’t suffer that much from ladder opposite the Battlestar finale . Dollhouse still came in third in its time slot . )
dollhouseJoss WhedonTelevision
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