Episode 5 - True Believer
28 March 2012
Synopsis: Echo is made blind so that she can infiltrate a religious cult in Arizona. Boyd works with the ATF agents who are watching the cult leader Jonas Sparrow. They see a cache of guns stored in the compound and prepare to storm in. But they trip the alarm and Echo’s sight returns. Jonas decides to burn down the compound and Echo helps his followers escape. Meanwhile Ballard receives the video of Echo from Alpha and then sees her on the news. And at the Dollhouse, Topher and Dr Saunders realise that Victor is attracted to Sierra which he shouldn’t be while in his doll state.
The Good: This episode started off with more conviction and clarity than any previous episode but then slowly became more convoluted and confused as it went on.
The opening shot of a band of Christian fanatics singing their way in and out of a grocery store was very intriguing. By singing constantly to avoid being engaged by the sinners of Pleasant we get an immediate creepy vibe. The note saying “Save me” is a good hook to setup what should be a simple mystery, what is Jonas illegally doing on his compound?
The parallel between the cult followers and the Actives is drawn well and we learn that someone as powerful as a Senator is helping the Dollhouse to continue its business. Agent Lilly explains the parameters and time constraints of the mission really well, adding a necessary timeframe for Echo’s mission. Making her blind is yet another inventive use of the idea of programmable people. Jonas looks sensible and thorough for shoving a torch and gun in front of her eyes as we discover his hidden arsenal. So far so good, then comes the problem areas (see The Bad).
Meanwhile the first seemingly pure Whedon scene comes as Topher awkwardly tries to deal with the issue of Victor’s arousal in front of Dr Saunders. It seems like an ideal side plot to show us a bit of their interaction and inject some humour (but…see The Bad).
Finally Agent Ballard gets another step closer to finding Echo. The tape should provide him with enough information to lead him off to her college campus soon. The scene where Agent Lilly refused to help him was actually an important one. It showed a plausible situation where Ballard’s investigation is ignored. We can see from this moment that even without the giant conspiracy, he is going to find it very tough to get answers.
The Bad: The Jonas versus Lilly part of the story suffers from several issues.
It’s never clear whether Jonas has had a religious conversion or is a gun smuggler. He claims he brought the weapons in to protect his followers. He then decides to set them all on fire, including himself. Is that because he is a crazy religious fanatic or was he trying to destroy the evidence of his wrongdoing? You have to conclude he was a fanatic if he was willing to murder them all. But up until that point he hadn’t done anything particularly wrong and so his sudden insane decision making comes out of nowhere.
Meanwhile Agent Lilly turns out to be a fanatical lawman who planted the “Save Me” note so that he could put Jonas behind bars. Again, that sound pretty reasonable. A lawman breaking the law to make sure justice was served. Jonas did have illegal weapons on site, so to some extent he was justified. But then he suddenly turns “evil” corrupt rather than “crossing a line” corrupt by trying to have Boyd killed to protect himself.
The mixed motives of these characters (particularly in light of last weeks grey morality) suggest to me that Dollhouse’s message is about how morally grey the world is. It makes sense for that to be its message considering the central character of the show is a slave hired out for money. It’s clearly important to establish that she does good, that she volunteered for this and that Actives are not the only vulnerable people being exploited (like these religious followers or Rayna Russell the pop diva from 103).
Unfortunately in forty minutes that is a difficult message to make compelling. It would make for far easier television if at least some of Echo’s missions could be clear cut good versus evil tales. Once more the grey behaviour of Jonas and Lilly makes me care less about them and not more. That’s partly because both men slip so quickly into immoral behaviour that it seems too convenient. Add to this grey soup that Boyd and Laurence Dominic are able to so easily penetrate an ATF raid that they go undetected.
Dominic’s interference is particularly irritating. Like Lilly and Jonas his tone becomes generically “evil” rather than having a more nuanced reason for hating Echo. If we knew that Alpha had killed his best friend or something equally simple it would be so much easier to buy into his hatred. But his behaviour seems far too convenient and thoughtless. He walks in and kills Jonas and then knocks Echo out, leaving her for dead. I am never happy with casual murder on television. But worse than that is that he didn’t kill Echo. Just knocking her out accomplishes nothing for him, so why not just kill her and be done with it? If he was there to save her and protect the Dollhouse’s asset then why knock her out and not help her?
We also get no follow up on the Borodins’ men being arrested after shooting Agent Ballard (103). No one has asked him why they did that, we haven’t heard if they have been tried or questioned about the Dollhouse. We don’t know if he is still worried for his safety?
Finally the fun “man reaction” story with Saunders and Topher isn’t really that fun after all. It is yet another hint of the unstable and unpredictable behaviour of the Actives. It’s just difficult as a viewer to see these abnormal reactions as interesting plot twists when we have barely seen the Actives follow their programming yet. Topher also cracks a joke (“Sneesure”) about Echo having a stroke. Again I reiterate that it is difficult for Topher to be the major source of humour on the show when his own behaviour lies right on the morally grey fault line which is the core of the story.
The Unknown: What does Echo remember about Laurence Dominic?
Best Moment: Saunders and Topher reviewing tapes of the Actives in the shower. Topher is finding the experience a little uncomfortable and suggests “You know I could burn these and you could just take them home.”
Epilogue: It’s not easy to present conflicted, morally questionable behaviour in an action drama like this. There just isn’t time to explore characters in great depth and so they need to communicate their motives and emotions clearly and concisely if viewers are going to be engaged. Dollhouse has repeatedly failed to do that and despite more promise at the start, this episode falls flat too.
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