Dollhouse: Echoes

Oh, how I'm loving this show now!!

In last week's episode of Dollhouse, hilariously titled, "Man on the Street," Joss Whedon poked fun at critics of the show, having the usually boneheaded "man on the street" interviews interspersed throughout the episode of people saying what they think of the idea of a "Dollhouse" where people are mind-wiped, and whether it's misogynist or human trafficking or kinda cool. (Side note: If any Torontonians reading this listen to 680 News, that is one of my pet peeves of that station. They always ask ONE person on the street for their opinion of their top story, then run it, no matter how inane or mumbling or incoherent it is. It's gotten to the point where it's moved beyond pet peeve and has officially become a must-listen part of my day. "On the corner of Yonge and Bloor, I found Wanda, who says she's tired of this winter." Wanda: "I'm just tired of this winter." "There you have it John, back to you.")

ANYWAY... in recent episodes, as Echo begins to have flashes of her life before it was wiped, we were starting to find a thread between episodes. In the beginning, it was more of a mission-of-the-week feel to the series, but now it's moving to a more continuous arc, where you have to see each episode or you'll be missing out.

But last night's episode was the one we've been waiting for. This one tied together the series to this point (including having Echo back with the guy who hired her in the first episode) and for the first time, we see Caroline -- the woman Echo used to be -- in action, and what happened to bring her to the dollhouse. And, as with the last few episodes, it had lots of the funny -- the scenes of Topher and Adelle talking about her Britishness had me in stitches.

Free will versus blissful ignorance has been a favourite topic of Joss Whedon's for some time. The largely disappointing fourth season of Angel was all about it, where Jasmine came to the world wiping everyone's minds and making them fall in love with her, and all they had to do in return was give up their free will and be completely happy all the time. Oh yeah, and a few of them had to become daily lunchtime human sacrifices. There was that part, too.

On Dollhouse, we didn't know what Echo's life was before this (or Victor's, or Sierra's, etc.) but the assumption was, something bad must have happened to have made them turn to this as their solution. What could be so bad that they'd want to forget?

In Echo's case, it was losing her lover, who died in her arms as they tried to raid a lab and save some animals, exposing the Rossum Corporation for what it really is. It's still not completely enough to convince us that she'd want her mind wiped, so to provide the parallel, Joss gives us the present-day story of Echo/Alice wandering through the campus, and beginning to have memories of having been there before. After realizing who the perpetrator of the mysterious hallucinogenic drug release was, she rushes down the halls, and flashes of having run down those same halls -- moments before her lover was shot -- begin to invade her mind. By the time she gets outside, the two time periods have blended into one, and she's on top of the guy in the present, thinking he's the guy from her past.

Until now, we see Echo get off a "job" and Boyd is standing there, jolting her out of her persona with the trigger phrase, "Echo, would you like your treatment?" and it always comes as an unwelcome shock. We've seen her fall in love and have to be mind-wiped, we've seen her save lives and be forced to forget it. It all seemed like a horrible thing to do to a person. Until this episode, where the horrors of the past blend into the terrifying present, and Boyd's trigger phrase is as welcome to us as it is to her. He offers her salvation in forgetting.

And, at the end of the episode, as Adelle watches Echo walk through the dollhouse, blissfully ignorant of the pain she'd been through earlier that day, we can't help but see a touch of jealousy on Adelle's face.