Dollhouse

To the sound of a drumroll, we dissect the episode that until now has only been discussed in hushed tones. Did it live up to the hype?

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!

After five weeks of introducing the concept of programmable people for hire, this is the episode that starts pulling the strings together, with some remarkable twists, and game-changing revelations. But what did you think?

ADVENTURE OF THE WEEK

A pretty straightforward one. An internet entrepreneur hires a doll every year to pretend to be his dead wife, because – and this is cute – she died before she could see the house he bought her. So he brings her back (in a manner of speaking) every year on the anniversary of her death, to see her reaction. And to have sex, obviously. Yes, OK, it began cute.

This would have been all well and good, apart from the fact that, by following the money trail with the help of his one remaining ally in the FBI, Ballard was able to interrupt the engagement halfway through.

So, though the engagement was a washout (another washout), Agent Ballard finally met Echo, who he always refers to as Caroline, while she was being Rebecca.

But apart from that? Oh, there was SO much more than that.

STUFF THAT WAS FAR MORE IMPORTANT

So this is why episode six was talked of in hushed tones. Finally, the emphasis was off the clients and their fantasies (bizarre and, as we’ve seen in previous weeks, generally unfulfilled fantasies), and put firmly on the Dollhouse.

First of all, there was the fact that Sierra was being sexually abused by someone inside the Dollhouse. Someone who wasn’t paying for it. After Victor was suspected and, apparently, hauled off the Dollhouse floor for the crime, it turned out to be Sierra’s handler. Boyd tricked him into revealing himself, then punched him through a plate glass window.

You’d imagine he would be sent away to the attic, or wherever the punishment area of the Dollhouse might be. But instead, he was dispatched to "deal with" Mellie, Ballard’s next door neighbour, Dollhouse-theory confidante and, as of this episode, lover. (In real life she’s in a ukulele band, by the way. Apropos of nothing, I know, but worth mentioning for its own awesomeness.)

However, when he tried to kill her, we found out that Mellie is a doll as well. And a kickass ninja doll, at that. Even more impressively, she’s a sleeper doll, who can be activated, remotely, with use of codewords, over the phone. This is what Adele DeWitt did, activating Mellie, who killed Sierra’s handler, and then got deactivated again before Ballard got home.

Home from where? Home from being beaten to a pulp by Echo. Dispatched by DeWitt to get him kicked off the case for good, one way or another, there was an extra-intriguing part to their second meeting. Midway through the pulp-beating, Echo stopped, and in a clear, calm voice, relayed a message to Ballard from a "friend" inside the Dollhouse. It means he’s not going to work for the FBI any more; but at least he knows the Dollhouse is real.

GIFTS THIS EPISODE BROUGHT

• There is a spy in the Dollhouse! Moreover, it has to be a spy with the power to control the imprints. Which you would think would mean only Topher or his assistant. But Topher ... ?

• There are more than 20 Dollhouses, all across the world. DeWitt said so. So it must be true.

• DeWitt’s fashion sense is sharp. Seriously: one well dressed woman. You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been on a Buffy-from-the-beginning marathon all week. We said the same about the entire Buffy cast, not realising that they’d make a great "things we wish we’d never worn in the 90s" gallery 12 years later.

• Though Ballard’s colleagues are on record as thinking he is insane for believing in the Dollhouse, the closest man to him at least shares his appreciation of Caroline/Echo: "If I had a million bucks, I would blow it on that," he said on seeing her picture. Is that how much "Dolling" costs? And how would he know, if he doesn’t believe in it?

• Agent Ballard (Battlestar Galactia’s Tahmoh Penikett) walks funny, have you noticed? You could spot the terrible posture even more clearly when he’s half-naked. It’s distracting, even more than that look of grim satisfaction he always wears (when he’s not looking confused). Like he’s wearing still-warm, freshly ironed underpants, or, frankly, like a baby who has just filled its nappy.

• What about the opening and reoccurring vox pop device? Unconvincing Los Angeles locals giving their opinion of the Dollhouse – did that work for you? For an urban myth, people seem pretty informed. So why does the FBI seem so sceptical of the whole thing? Are they all Dolls? Surely not.

So, was episode six enough to get you wanting more? Or did it not live up to the hype? Anything else you noticed that I forgot to mention?