Dollhouse: Electrifying Endgame

This third-to-last episode of Dollhouse is concerned with pushing the story toward the finale but also in showing how it all came to be. In short, the focus is on filling in some of the big honkin’ bare spots in the colossal jigsaw puzzle that makes up the mythology of the Dollhouse. Echo’s real identity—Caroline—and how she came to be a doll, is of course the key, but we also learn quite a bit about DeWitt, and Summer Glau’s Bennett Halverson. The character revelations are nothing short of electrifying. It’s the kind of writing that makes you go “Holy crap!” and “Now I get it!”

We begin with the anti-Dollhouse task force of Echo, Boyd, Topher, Ballard, and DeWitt…yes, as of the last episode, DeWitt…plotting their next course of action. We learned that DeWitt sent Echo to the Attic not as a deathly punishment but in hopes that she would be the first to come back and provide all kinds of juicy intel. I don’t know why DeWitt so abruptly and completely switched sides, except maybe she got royally pissed when Harding tried to shut her down. Pissed enough to jump ship and lead the revolt (a woman scorned and all that).

At any rate, Echo didn’t disappoint. Everyone agrees that to bring down the Dollhouse—and thereby hopefully prevent the apocalyptic fate Echo gleaned to be the future in the Attic—they need to bring Caroline back. That’s right, Echo’s true self, Caroline.

Up until now we’ve only seen glimpses of Caroline in a video file taken during her college years, and as I recall we got a little flashback episode of Caroline last season. But the mystery of why she chose to become a doll only to turn around and hypocritically decide to bring the Dollhouse down has never been solved. Through flashbacks courtesy of Halverson (who the team abducted and brought back to the L.A. Dollhouse), we learn that Caroline didn’t choose to become a doll. Well actually, I guess she did, although her only other option was death, so I can understand her decision.

In the first episode with Halverson we learned that she harbored a longtime death grudge against Caroline that had something to do with how she lost one of her arms. Well now we discover that Halverson and Caroline became close college chums, Halverson a neuroscience major and Caroline an undeclared free spirit. They were an unlikely pair who shared only one thing in common: the Rossum corporation. Halverson was working for them, becoming a rising star, while Caroline wanted to destroy them. So it seems that Caroline and Echo have a lot in common besides sharing the same brain.

Fairly quickly, Halverson realizes that Caroline is interested in her not just as a friend but as an asset in her quest to bring Rossum down. Halverson confronts her and Caroline asks why Halverson isn’t mad that Caroline has been using her. “I’m mad because you aren’t” Halverson responds. The two decide with almost absurd ease to blow up the Rossum headquarters in Arizona. Things go awry (as they always do) and Bennett gets her arm trapped under a fallen pillar. Caroline sees her and runs away. To Halverson, this is a betrayal, but Caroline was really trying to go get caught by the security guards and take the rap so that Halverson could pretend that she was just working late and was a victim of the attempted exploding of the building. DeWitt catches Caroline. Now we know why DeWitt always loathed her. What is less clear is how a) college student Caroline came to be obsessed with blowing up Rossum and b) how she learned about setting explosives.

Those aren’t the only points that warrant some head-scratching in this twisty narrative, but in watching you definitely feel that more is being answered than not. The other big event this week is the surprise return of Dr. Saunders, who it turns out has been shacked up with Boyd this whole time. Why she has Boyd saunter her back into the Dollhouse is initially unclear…or at least why she tells him she wants to come back is initially unclear…but then she does something really shocking that defines her role for the rest of the show. Just watch, believe me.

The other highlights: watching Topher act like a love-struck idiot around Halverson and seeing how Ballard and Echo’s relationship (which I always thought came out of nowhere anyway) decline in the wake of Ballard being vegetablized (yes, I’m using that word) by Alpha and being subsequently resurrected by Topher into a doll himself. In doing this, Topher (who continues to affectingly demonstrate that he may indeed have a conscience and feelings), though saving Ballard’s life, messed up with his brain chemistry and essentially destroyed all of Ballard’s romantic feelings for Echo. She’s a tough dame though; she’ll get over it. Besides, her priority right now needs to remain ass-kicking, not romance. Anyone expecting a cat fight between Echo/Caroline and Halverson may be disappointed though by the surprising way in which the episode ends. It’s worth it though, I have a feeling. This is by far the most remarkable end run for a cancelled show that began muddled and mediocre I have ever seen.

Season 2, Episode 11: Getting Closer (originally aired January 8, 2010)

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