Episode 3 - Belle Chose
28 March 2012
Synopsis: The Dollhouse becomes temporary residence to psychotic neglected son Terry. His uncle Bradley is a Rossum donor and has brought Terry in to see if Topher can help him out. Terry is put into Victor’s body and Paul interrogates him to find out where the women he abducted are. Terry escapes as Victor prompting Topher to perform a remote wipe. The wipe only succeeds in swapping Echo and Victor’s personalities. Now in Echo, Terry heads to his hideout and tries to further torment the abducted women until help arrives to save them.
The Good: For most of the episode an intriguing link is kept up between Echo’s mission and Victor’s interrogation and escape. The deliberate link looks set to be significant as Topher prepares for a remote wipe and of course the two imprints then swap bodies leading to the big twist. Up to that point the intrigue level of the episode was strong. Pity it didn’t go anywhere good.
The opening scene was truly creepy (see Best Moment) and there was another rich irony in what Terry was doing. He was forcing women to “play” the roles of his family so that he could get the attention he desperately desired. The irony implied of course is that what he was doing was seen as sick and wrong by people hiring Echo out to fulfil another man’s fantasy. The real irony though was that if Bradley had introduced his nephew to the Dollhouse then he could have fulfilled all his fantasies without the need for abduction.
In the meantime I enjoyed the camp Dollhouse outfitter. It makes sense that they would need someone to choose outfits for the actives and it was an obvious opportunity for some humour. But even more than that, by making the man so delighted and flippant about his work was another way of showing what humans are capable of doing. Questions have to be asked about why certain people work at the Dollhouse knowing the moral questions involved. Adelle and Boyd have a conversation addressing this very subject where they both demonstrate the type of moral gymnastics their job requires of them. But now we can imagine the outfitter being sold a job where he gets to exercise his creative vision every day on a bunch of excited models who throw praise and energy his way at every decision he makes. So why not keep your mouth shut about what those models then head off to do?
Dr Saunders is confirmed missing, which really should have been a bigger deal. But at least it implies that her return should be an important story to watch, rather than her occasionally appearing as if she had never left. Victor’s surgery was a good excuse for why he wouldn’t have his GPS tracker fitted, though it was another glaring piece of incompetence from the Dollhouse staff.
The Bad: Once the wipe took place the plot was meant to kick into its big climax but instead ended with a whimper. Echo begins to battle with Terry for control of her body and thus buys enough time for her own GPS to be located and save the abducted women. It really was an anticlimactic end to the story and never approached being interesting or exciting. Partly of course because it was the same end to every episode this season, once more questioning how on earth Adelle can justify sending Echo out to work.
Worse in a way though was Victor’s sudden change into Kiki. Earlier in the episode it seemed very odd that Terry hadn’t noticed that he was suddenly Victor. They went to the trouble of dressing him up like Terry, but anyone would recognise their own hands were different. Let alone all their other body parts being strange shapes and lengths. So when Kiki arrives in Victor’s body there is absolutely no excuse for her dancing around as if nothing was amiss. I think she would have noticed that she was suddenly a dude. It was a really mindless execution of the story and her explanation that she didn’t know or care how she got there was also ludicrous. If you suddenly changed locations you would freak out.
As bad as these logic holes was just the tone. At the high point of a serious psycho story we were suddenly meant to giggle at Victor prancing around a club. The joke was also very on the nose and with the logic holes it had no chance of succeeding.
Of course Victor should never have been able to escape in the first place. For the second episode in a row an active just walks out of the Dollhouse. Where is the security? I shouldn’t need to ask when Boyd reacts with a shrug of indifference at the news that Terry is loose on the streets. That might have been an appropriate joke if Boyd was still just a handler but he is now head of security and it looked ridiculous.
Shouldn’t Echo have had a few bruises after taking some mean looking mallet shots?
Finally I think Paul Ballard’s love affair with Echo is worth commenting on. It’s almost the first relationship in television where only one person is involved. This week Paul catches a glimpse of Echo’s goods in the shower and then gives her college outfit a longing look for good measure. She has no idea who he is in general and certainly isn’t capable of reciprocating whatever feelings he has. And he can have no real “love” for her because she isn’t a real person and he didn’t know Caroline. He doesn’t have any friends to share his feelings with. So it really is the most isolated and relatively pointless love story on television.
The Unknown: Where has Dr Saunders gone?
Best Moment: The opening scene was pretty disturbing. Under some intense lighting Terry’s “family” were all made up and drugged up, posed like a store front window. Soon one of the mannequins began sweating and then fell over. The realisation of what was going on was a nasty one. Soon he smashed “Aunt Sheila’s” face in and the image of frozen women unable to react to the nightmare unfolding was very memorable. Definitely an attention grabbing opening scene.
Epilogue: Despite initial appearances’ this is a forgettable episode. The logic holes undermine the story at each stage but in general the plot doesn’t go anywhere and follows the repetitive pattern of each episode this season.
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