This show is getting much better.
After a somewhat lackluster start, the second and third episodes of Dollhouse stepped up the game, thanks to a number of factors.
1) We all expected the usual semi-lighthearted veneer and witty banter that we’re used to from Whedon. So the pilot was a little jarring when it lacked those things. Now we see what’s going on: this ain’t your usual Whedon.
2) While the first episode set up the general universe we’re working with, the rules of the Dollhouse, and the characters we’ll be following, it didn’t do much as far as intrigue to last a season or longer apart from the very beginning and the very end. But in these episodes, we got some serious backstory tidbits and promises of future tension. Awesome!
In “Target,” Echo is turned into an adventure-loving outdoors girl on a weekend date with a guy who seems to be pretty nice, just really into his outdoor activities. The warning signs aren’t clear until of course it’s too late–his comments about every other girl he’s taken into the wilderness with him being a disappointment who couldn’t keep up, his willingness to pay extra for the high risk engagement, his remarkable expertise with a bow and arrow, and his ease with life-threatening situations. Why is this? Oh right, because he’s a psycho taking his pointers from General Zaroff and wants to hunt him some human!
While Echo starts fighting for her life rather than enjoying post-coital bliss, we get some background on her Handler, Boyd, and some more history of the Dollhouse. Tidbit #1: Alpha, a former Active (if you hadn’t noticed yet, the Actives are named according to the NATO phonetic alphabet), went kinda nuts a few months and killed a whole lot of people. Somehow he accessed ALL of his imprints at once, and started slicing and dicing with terrifying efficiency, aiming for maximum pain as well as quick deaths. He killed Echo’s former Handler, gave Dr. Saunders her fetching facial scars, and also killed a slew of other Actives…but curiously left Echo alive in the midst of all this. Echo, naturally, had her memory wiped and was given a new Handler, Boyd the former cop. We see the imprinting process of the Handler and Active as well–they are set up so that the Active will always trust his/her Handler no matter what, as soon as they see them. There are certain key phrases such as “Everything is going to be okay” and “Do you trust me?” These come up later, hence the importance in hearing them now.
So Echo’s on the run from Psycho Hunter, and Boyd and his driver are attacked by a “ranger” who shoots the driver. Boyd takes him out and ties him up inside his van to get information out of him. The “ranger” was hired over the phone to keep anyone from interfering with what’s going on in the woods right now. Boyd takes off, leaving the ranger, intent on finding his girl. Echo isn’t doing too bad as she finds a ranger station, but that’s quickly followed by finding the real ranger dead in a closet and drinking from a contaminated flask of water. Psycho Hunter contacts her via the walkie in the hut and lets her know the water won’t kill her, just get her dizzy. This is where it gets interesting (I know, NOW it gets interesting, what? More interesting then, fine!). Echo starts hallucinating and seeing former versions of herself, one of whom we recognize as her actual personality, Caroline. Through this, fording a river while doped up, and finding Boyd, Echo decides she mad as hell and she’s not gonna take it anymore. Boyd takes an arrow through the abdomen, so it’s up to her–this time she’s the one telling Boyd everything will be okay and asking if he trusts her. He does.
Taking a gun and taunting her would-be killer over the walkie, she gets a few shots off before they end up wrestling in the dirt. Psycho ends up on top and starts choking the life out of her, but inspired by another hallucination, she grabs an arrow that’s on the ground near her and stabs that jackass in the neck. Oh snap!
Back in the Dollhouse after all of this, we hear about how this man’s entire background was thoroughly fabricated, so much so that they didn’t catch on at all when they did their check on him. What’s more the “ranger” that Boyd tied up? He’s dead. Killed with the same efficient slashes we now know Alpha was fond of using. Dun dun duh! Echo is wiped already wiped when one of the security types tell her that if it were up to him he’d put her “in the Attic or in the ground.” ‘Attic’ sure sounds specific, and we find out in the next episode that it is. As he turns around and walks off, Echo gives her shoulder a hard tap with her fist, echoing (see what I did there?) a gesture made by the Psycho Hunter earlier, in his pre-Psycho moments, when he told Echo about how it means keeping your shoulder to the ground, a statement made often by his own father. Now seen here with the supposedly tabula rasa’d Echo. Dun dun duh! Again!
So now we’ve got Alpha the Renegade Active (who, it seems we can safely assume, was the naked man at the end of the pilot) (in one of a handful of side scenes, we see Agent Ballard has received the photo of Caroline, and she doesn’t exist in any database anywhere). We’ve got Echo, already showing an ability to retain memories and information. We’ve got Alpha’s focus on Echo for reasons unknown, and someone (who may or may not also be Alpha) fabricating backgrounds with extreme expertise. The majority of the Dollhouse has been told that Alpha was killed, but it’s obvious now that this isn’t true. Now this is getting interesting!
Episode 3 recap coming today as well! Promise!
