Dollhouse

This is a weekly discussion of the episodes airing on UK TV. If you have not seen this episode, here be spoilers. If you have seen the entire season, please don’t spoil it for others by talking about future events. Thank you!

Yay! We’re only one episode away from the series’ game-changing instalment, the sixth episode that will, so says everyone, kick the story arc into gear, start to answer questions, pose others, reveal great truths, come round and put the kettle on for you, massage your feet and cure the common cold.

But before that, one more stand-alone episode, and it has gifts of its own to offer ...

The Super dooper Scooby Doo Adventure of the week!

This week, because it was going to take the government too long to create their own task force, a senator (now we know the Dollhouse has links in high places) comes to Adele DeWitt and asks for an extra-special special agent.

And this of course means Echo – even though she was wiped remotely last week, and seems to be having a few imprint-retention issues. She is chosen to infiltrate a religious cult somewhere in Arizona and save everyone. Oh, and have cameras implanted in her eyes, so the government agency can see what’s happening from the perspective of a true believer (who cannot have her cover blown). Good use of a doll, right?

Sadly, if they do this, she will be blind. But only for the duration of the engagement, and then, Topher and Dr Saunders tentatively agreed, she might be OK again.

So Esther Carpenter, cult wannabe with a silly name, hitch-hikes to Arizona in the car of a stranger (handler Boyd). There, she meets a cult leader. He has weird yellow eyes and is called Jonas Sparrow. Of course he is, because the first task of any incoming cult leader is to change their name to something silly. John Smith isn’t nearly as catchy.

"The Lord saw fit to take my vision when I was nine" she tells Jonas the cult leader who, after testing her with a darkened room and a cocked pistol, decides that she is kosher – or cult-equivalent-of-kosher – and lets her in.

Echo does very well at being the blind leading the CIA, until she attends her own initiation ceremony. Some blundering operative outside alerts Jonas Sparrow to the impending bust and she gets hit around the head by the estimable cult-leader ... which only knocks the camera offline, rendering her unblind!

Jonas Sparrow is raiding his weapons cache and getting Echo to read Bible passages. "It’s a miracle! Glory to Jonas Sparrow!" shouts the cult, shortly before he nearly kills them all in a fire.

Leading to one of the most memorable lines ...

"A blind girl is looking you in the eye: do you know what that means? It means God brought me here, he has a message for you. And that message is MOVE YOUR ASS."

Most of the cultees are saved (saved in the sense of not being dead, rather than being converted, obviously). But Echo, hanging back to save the last of them was suddenly confronted by Mr Dominic, head of security at the Dollhouse, who, after not liking her openly for weeks, has now moved on to trying to kill her.

He didn’t, of course; Boyd swooped in and saved the day.

Yet at the end, after Echo was given her treatment and the imprint was removed, Dr Saunders asked Echo if she could see OK. "Yes," said Echo, staring at Mr Dominic and replying in a crap-soap-opera-acting tone, "I see ... perfectly".

Echo’s brain problems, imprint leakage and memory lapses are excusable: she’s suffered half a dozen head injuries in the last two episodes alone. But that doesn’t explain the delivery of that line which, frankly, was just terrible. From next week, though, it will ALL be better. Right Joss? Right?

OTHER IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS

• Victor got an erection. Sorry, a "man-reaction", as Topher put it. This is important as it shouldn’t be possible for a doll to become romantically engorged, particularly in reference to another doll (Sierra, in this case).

• Agent Ballard saw Echo on television at the cult ranch raid, but arrived at the ranch too late to hook up with her. Next time, Ballard. Next time ...

• Incidentally, Melanie, apparently increasingly enamoured next door neighbour of Agent Ballard, brought him some "left over manicotti" – although God knows what it was left over from, because it was an entire 12-serving oven dish with not a slice taken out. Just something to bear in mind if you’re going round hers for dinner.

NUMBERS

Number of times Echo gets hit in the face: 3.5

Spat at: 1

Echo hitting other people round the head: 2

Amount of manicotti: About 16

Perfectly executed Dollhouse engagements to date: 0

Countdown of episodes to Magic No 6: 0 (Now)

Anything else? Any other things we should note or plot points to hold on to? Why is Mr Dominic so grumpy? Why are the dolls all breaking down? Is hitting people around the head always the best way to get things done?