Dollhouse

Topher’s discovered that there’s a spy working at the Dollhouse and fiddling with the imprints: now all that’s left to do is find them. Using (of course!) the Dolls

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!

The Spy! (and the catching of the aforementioned spy)

So we might have known for ages that there was a well-meaning (possible) informant inside the Dollhouse, because we’ve seen them passing information out to Agent Ballard. But suddenly Topher knows something is up. And, with De Witt away at a mysterious engagement, he sets out to conduct some kind of maverick investigation. Like Diagnosis Murder, but with floppier hair.

And so does Echo. Last week’s wish-fulfilment exercise seems to have had very little effect as she drifts from room to room, overhearing the right bits of all the most important conversations and eventually going to Topher, climbing into the chair and volunteering as a spycatcher herself.

Meanwhile, Mr Dominic, overbearing head of security, recruits Sierra as another, different spy, who would break into the NSA database through some incredibly complicated and dubious means, steal a document containing the name of the spy, and then run away again. In very high heels.

Back at the Dollhouse, Echo is interviewing all the main characters (except De Witt, still missing in action, and Mr Dominic, who is overseeing the interviews). Mr Dominic announces he’s won, as Sierra has unmasked Ivy – Topher’s gopher/assistant – as the spy. But suddenly, with a perfect flip of logic and a simple read of body language, Echo reveals the spy to be ... Mr Dominic.

There was, of course, then a fight, in which Mr Dominic pulled out a gun, and fire it EIGHT TIMES in Echo’s direction without hitting her once. I know she’s thin, but that’s ridiculous.

De Witt came back, and Mr Dominic got whipped, wiped, his personality archived and his body sent to the attic.

But WAS he the spy? As De Witt said in the end, Echo here removed her greatest threat in the Dollhouse. And when he was scoffing at De Witt, he certainly didn’t seem to be on spy-message: "If it weren’t for me, Paul Ballard would have found you already," he said. Which doesn’t quite chime with what we’ve seen, no?

Adventure of the week

Although almost everyone was programmed, it was mainly so they could engage in internal investigations.

Only one doll could be said to be out on assignment this week: Victor. Granted, it was a bit of a funny one at that. Sent out on another romantic engagement (there has been frequent mention of him going on too many "Lonely Hearts engagements")

Turns out that he’s being hired out by Adele de Witt, who – like (apparently) most right-thinking people – likes to copulate with computer-programmed dubiously appropriated human beings in her spare time.

He wasn’t the only one, though. We did see Echo at the tail end of one of her engagements, too. She had been a dominatrix. Lots of leather. One does sometimes suspect there’s room for a whole companion series on a pay-per-view channel showing the business end of the Dollhouse engagements. Shudder

New blessings of information and random things:

• The latest piece of information to Ex-Agent Ballard (fed through Mellie/November this time) was interesting – "You need to investigate why it exists. The dollhouse deals in fantasy but that is not the reason for its existence." – Well then what is?

• Boyd was a hole in Echo’s investigation: she was bound to trust him whatever he said, he’s her handler. So he could still be feeding information to Ballard, right? In theory? Probably not, but in theory, right?

• Dr Saunders hasn’t left the Dollhouse since the Alpha attack that left her with all the scars. That ain’t healthy, no matter how good the banana pancakes are.

• Thanks to De Witt, we learn what the perfect British-person date really is: a classic sports car, a romantic balcony meeting, a rousting round of fencing, followed by a bloody good rogering, a deep, meaningful heart-to-heart, and a big cry. Hurrah!

Echopunchcount A punch in the face and a roundhouse kick for Echo this week. But she did manage to avoid eight bullets at short range, so she still comes out the winner.

A Question: if the Dollhouse is underground (it is, right?) and you can see the Dollhouse floor from De Witt’s office, then why, when the window was broken and Lawrence Dominic was hanging out of it, were they about 20 floors up? Or is it only metaphorically underground?