Dollhouse

"This house is out of balance," says Olivia De Poshlady as the episode begins, apparently leading a briefing in which she’s warning the handlers to be extra vigilant due to the uncommon number of things going wrong since ... well, since the series began. "Be vigilant!", she says.

And can that help? Well, as luck would have it, it turns out that it just might.

Adventure of the week

There isn’t one, in the conventional sense of the word. I mean, inasmuch as "conventional" can be applied to this show ever. There is, instead, a big Doll breakout! Or, you know, there kind of is.

We came in to the episode at a point where De Witt was upping the collective security level to "Nothing to do but run around screaming, it looks like we’re jiggered, boys" (which is just above orange, I believe). "We’re all aware there have been recent problems," says De Witt, understating the case by quite a long distance.

Soon after, her worst possible fears were realised. After a day of wandering around the Dollhouse having brief flashes of memory, the principal Dolls fell asleep ... And woke up, all at once, a few hours later, personalities fully restored (though memories apparently still missing).

Echo, November/Mellie, Victor, Sierra and Mike (who’s Mike, you ask? Turns out not to matter, as he was re-Dolled soon after regaining consciousness. Seemed like a nice chap, though) got to grips with the fact they were imprisoned, and set about escaping, and fast.

It did seem like the whole thing was about to crumble around the Dollhouse’s collective ears – until you realise that for once, everything is going tits up to schedule. This, reveals De Witt, is some kind of live drill for the handlers and security.

It also turns out to be some way of quietening down the subconscious urges that have been mucking up various missions. By letting them run to their conclusion, the puppet-masters hope to extinguish the Dolls’ bubbling latent desires: just by letting them play out.

For Caroline/Echo, this means, of course, taking on a cause (freeing the Dolls), and taking on De Witt and Topher face-to-face about the fact they have been "taking away my basic human rights, my right to decide, to feel," etc. "They were relinquished by you," argues De Witt.

Though they weren’t relinquished voluntarily in the case of Sierra, who is revealed to have been literally sold into the Dollhouse by someone powerful that she once refused. This does rather undermine De Witt’s argument about it not being THAT kind of human trafficking, and makes it all feel quite nasty once more.

By the end, Caroline/Echo has led everyone out of the garage doors to freedom, Sierra confronted the man who put her there, Victor got to kiss his love (Sierra), and November visited her daughter’s grave – to grieve, as Boyd said, in summing up. And as soon as they did, they fell asleep – laced with a sedative that kicked in as soon as they felt some kind of satisfaction, or completion. Like a middle-aged man after sex, they, sated, suddenly slept heavily.

And were taken back to their cage. And now, with their most urgent desires exorcised, will they all go back to being pliable blank slates at the mercy of the Dollhouse’s most extravagant demands?

Almost certainly not. But let’s wait and see.

Other things we learned

• There is an enormous rack of clothing for each of the Dolls, filled with costumes to suit their engagements. Which, frankly, would have led most reasonable people off for a while.

• Unsurprisingly, November’s ample rack appears to be filled with pretty, floral/mumsy-style dresses. One wonders how flexible she is as a doll. Or, if she isn’t, how unexpectedly popular the expensive Hello-love-I-just-thought-I’d-pop-by-with-some-leftover-lasagne fantasy market must be.

• Sierra proved she wasn’t just a convincing fake Australian in the episode Stage Fright: she is Australian after all. Or whoever she was before she came to the Dollhouse is originally Australian. Good lord, someone tell the Queen, they’re trafficking over international borders.

• "Don’t think of them as children. Think of them as pets," said Mr Dominic early in the episode, in as cold and detached, disgusted and disgusting a way as you can imagine. "If your child speaks for the first time, you’re proud. If your dog does, you freak out." Nice.

• Echo’s punch-in-the-face-ometer: three punches in the face. She dealt out a bunch more, of course. If she can do Mr Dominic next, great.

• Oh, lucky Mike and Victor with their reasonable code names. I’m feeling ever more that November drew a short straw. Based on the rest of the NATO phonetic alphabet I can’t wait to meet Papa (I’m picturing him to be a jovial, rotund, middle-aged Doll with a moustache) or Golf, which, as a name is just mean. But not as unfortunate, however, as Uniform and Hotel. "Yes, we call those the economy or ’service-level’ Dolls. They’re £4.20 an hour."