Dollhouse S01 E10 – Dead alive

Previously: Dominic was a spy and got good and wiped.
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Haunted

Marines: Rich people stuff like large lawns and horseback riding: a woman rides up on a horse and calls out to a man named Jack that she’ll be done shortly and he should behave himself. Rich Lady (Margaret) blows him a kiss and rides off. Jack is sitting with a group of his buds and they joke about not actually ever playing tennis, and just sitting around day drinking. It’s all fun until one of his bros sees Margaret’s horse, suspiciously sans Margaret.

Echo is in the chair just after an imprint. She sees Adelle and greets her with a familiar “Addy?” Adelle looks pained as she tells Echo!Margaret that she’s very sorry to be the one to break the news. Margaret is dead.

LA-LA-LA-LA-LA.

Boyd comes to see Topher, kind of casually strolling in, but his purpose becomes quickly apparent. Adelle’s been keeping the Dollhous idle after the whole Dominic thing, but Echo’s out on a mission and Boyd wants to know why. Topher makes a little fun of him for having trouble letting go. The rest of the exposition (“yes, that is the information I already heard, but I didn’t believe it, so please tell me again”) tells us that Echo was imprinted with a dead client who happens to be close friends with Adelle.

Topher says he needs a Doll because he’s doing some annual diagnostic and he needs Boyd to sign off on it. Boyd suggests Sierra, since she’s been idle the longest (and Dichen Lachman is in the credits) (S: and there are only 3 dolls who ever do anything. The rest are decorations). He’s mostly distracted by the idea that the Dollhouse can grant life after death. You can see it messing with his entire moral map. He asks Topher where that ends. “Same place it begins. Death.” #deep

Stephanie: This whole bringing dead people back as imprints thing brought up a lot of thoughts for me, most of which I don’t think I can articulate with human words, but I’ll try. I started thinking about souls (thanks Buffy) and whether or not this woman is really Margaret or just her personality/memories placed on another brain. For example, if a Margaret imprint were to be put in a doll while she was still alive, that doll wouldn’t really be Margaret because her awareness/consciousness/whatever would still exist in her body. So wouldn’t the same be true if she’s dead? She didn’t die and then wake up someplace else. She died and then they placed a version of her in a doll.

What I’m trying to say in far too rambly a way is that this series confuses me on what makes a person alive. I’m positive no one will understand what I’m trying to say here, because I hardly understand myself. #existentialcrisis. 

Sweeney: (1) Your existential crisis and Buffy hat tip = grounds to revive “let’s talk about souls baby” and, by extension “The Ever Growing List of Words We Never Want to Discuss Again.” #memories

(2) I had those same basic thoughts throughout this episode and I think that’s kind of the point – this is totally an invitation to think big thinky thoughts about what constitutes you. There wasn’t space in the episode to see Margaret!Echo really delve into what that it would be like to be that approximation of someone else, but they hinted at it nicely throughout. For all the big ethical stuff this show tackles, this was a nice new philosophical angle that I really didn’t see coming. Which, you know, as we approach the end of the season, is a very neat thing this show gets to do to balance out what is functionally a filler episode to tie us over until the finale.

Mari: It makes perfect sense to me, Steph and I think that basic point got lost to me while recapping because they hamfisted a couple of other things and it ended up drowning this much nice, more subtle, “what makes you you” point. You start to really just spin your wheels when you think of this next scene where Margaret!Echo, what are functionally just Margaret’s memories and personality, expresses happiness at still being.

In Adelle’s office, Margaret!Echo says the last thing she remembers is coming into the Dollhouse three weeks ago for that dreadful process she had to endure to make this possible. Adelle hasn’t spoken to her since, and can’t offer any information about the weeks she can’t remember. Margaret!Echo isn’t too worried about that, though, because it means she can’t remember how she died. She’s feeling up Echo’s body because she’s really pleased with it, even if it is a loaner. She sits to eat and drink with Adelle, excited that she’ll get to go to her own funeral. Adelle doesn’t look like she thinks that’s a good idea at all, to hear what people thought of you and count the people that love you. Margaret!Echo is all, “aw, girl, what’s wrong?” and some how Adelle holds it together and doesn’t yell, “I’M TALKING TO MY DEAD FRIEND IN ANOTHER PERSON’S BODY, GOD.” (S: But is it really her friend? IS IT REALLY???) Margaret!Echo doesn’t have time for sadness, though, because she has to wrap this all up. And by “this” she means her murder. She gives a really dramatic blink so we know this murder thing is a big deal.

Sweeney: This is a really great example of what Stephanie was just talking about too. The emotional chasm between Adelle and Margaret!Echo is that of an actual person and a walking snapshot of somebody frozen in time a month before Margaret’s death. A fiction and something of an aberration, removed actual Margaret’s finality. THIS SHOW.

Mari: After a not!break, Margaret is explaining to Adelle, as they walk into her funeral, that duh she got murdered because she had a massive heart attack even though she was perfectly healthy. Plus, she was mega rich, meaning lots of less rich people wanted to kill her. Adelle realizes that Margaret always suspected someone was going to murder her, which is why she had the scans done in the first place. Because the police are so incompetent in Traumaland, you have to plan to come back to life to solve your own murder. (S: A+ AMAZING OBSERVATION.)

Adelle and Margaret take a seat as she continues to reveal just how far she’s thought this through: she started mentioning “Julia” when she started the scans. She wrote herself into her own will and told her family to expect “Julia” should she die. Adelle calls her a spy, but Margaret says she isn’t. She’s a ghost. I gotta say, I’m not hating Eliza’s take on Margaret!Echo so far.

Steph: Agreed. I think this is some of the best imprint acting we’ve seen from her so far. I also really liked her as Patton Oswalt’s dead wife (who was totally not really his wife). I guess Eliza’s good at doing undead. 

Sweeney: +1 to all of the above.

Mari: The priest starts the eulogy, but apparently Margaret doesn’t want to hear that at all. She introduces Adelle to her family, including her children in the front row, her drunk bother against the wall and the house staff behind him. Jack walks in late and Margaret muses at how lucky she was to land him.

Dollhouse. Topher is doing his evil genius thing, the crackling of the imprinting chair ever present. There is a tense moment as it stops and Sierra rises from her reclined position. Topher smiles as Sierra greets him with a, “tell me you got Speed Force 3.” Topher’s got it, plus the pizza’s on its way and beer is in the fridge.

They keep bro-ing out as Sierra parks herself on the couch and Topher tosses her some chips, happily babbling about a new type of Battleship game he created, with real explosions. Topher comes over with two beers and they prepare for their day of this-doesn’t-look-like-an-annual-diagnostic-to-me.

  Steph: I want to hang out with them. 

Sweeney: SAME.

Mari: Paul and Mellie are having a mostly silent dinner. She asks if he’s okay and he does his best to say everything is totally okay. He kind of snaps when she asks about the Dollhouse, but reigns it in again, saying he’ll be fine and Mellie is beyond adorable. Paul offers to clear up after dinner and when he’s alone in the kitchen, he empties her wine glass and puts it in a plastic Ziplock.

Steph: I’m so appalled by all the wine they’re getting rid of. There’s practically a full glass there. Can I have it?

Mari: Wasted wine in the name of evidence.

Murder Mansion. Drunk Brother is questioning “Julia” (you know, Margaret in Echo’s body) about how she could possibly be an old friend of Margaret’s. “Julia” says she was backpacking in Morocco when she met Margaret and they kept in touch since. “Julia” goes on to say that she was very close with Margaret, who was always gushing about her loved ones. Drunk Brother, Son (Nicolas) and Daughter (Jocelyn) are all, “uh? Are we talking about the same woman?” They talk over each other, describing Margaret and my favorite things I hear are, “stern look stuck on her face?” and “liked horses?” Drunk Brother says Margaret liked to push people off.

There’s a lot more semi-drunk chatter that reveals that Nicolas slacks off and Jocelyn works real hard at her photography. “Julia” insists that while Margaret was guarded, she did have a soft side. She fell in love with Jack, after all. Her family laughs at that. Apparently, Jack has been little seen after Margaret “slapped him down” by leaving him none of the money and all of the horses. “Julia” tries to explain that they were treasured horses, and she left them to him because she trusted him. Nicolas tells “Julia” that she’s being charmingly loyal, but while she may be there to mourn Margaret, the rest of them just live there.

We cut to Julia outside taking deep breaths. Nicolas comes to find her and tries to explain a little more about his mother. She used to say that sentiment made you cloudy and wouldn’t want a bunch of flowery tributes that no one meant. He tells a story of his mom riding him about working on Wall Street when he was 12. “Julia” insists that Margaret wanted what was best for him, placing a comforting hand on his arm. Nick leans in and kisses “Julia.” She breaks away and starts dry heaving and it’s pretty hilarious. Nick is all, “well, you sure? You checked out my body?” and “Julia” throws up in her mouth. She blames it on too much wine and runs away.

Sweeney: Aaah, and there’s the requisite toying with incest to quality this as a Traumaland show! It always creeps up so unexpectedly.

Mari: It gets real creative too. “I kissed my kind-of-mom in another woman’s body!” is certainly one we’ve never seen before.

Inside she heads straight for her room. Jack is in there drinking and when she realizes her mistake, she pretends like she got lost. “Julia” takes this opportunity to explain to Jack that the horses were a gesture of trust. Jack keeps drinking as he says that Margaret’s real loves, the horses, are now his reward. “Julia” tries to insist but Jack pushes her out of the room and asks if the others were calling him a killer. She asks why they would and he’s all, “I DON’T KNOW. I GOT THE STUPID HORSES.”

“Julia” goes to her actual room and later calls Adelle to complain about what crap it is that no one really loved her and maybe someone in her family killed her. “Julia” says she should’ve stayed dead and hangs up (WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE). We see that someone is watching her from outside her window.

The next day, Boyd visits Adelle to ask about the life after death thing, but mostly to speechify about how seriously, for real for real, this is the line that should not be crossed. This is definitely it. Adelle says it’s a one time deal and should Margaret try to pull a fast one in a her new body, she’s got a new head of security to handle just that sort of thing. Adelle says he can still help Echo, though, by presumably helping to solve the murder. Boyd’s already been looking into it, starting with following the money, which is with the horses after all. One of her horses was a derby contender not too long ago. Boyd sends a interested buyer out to the stables to take a look around.

We see Victor (S: On account of how he needs weekly projects too!) looking real cute in some flannel and I think I hear a little Southern accent but then it’s gone? IDK. (S: I heard it too.) Point is that Jack comes out to meet him and they walk off to see the horse.

“Julia” finds Jocelyn crying over a picture of her mother. “Julia” is kind of happy someone is actually mourning Margaret, but that lasts a second before Jocelyn starts talking crap again, especially about how her mother never came to one of her photography exhibitions. Margaret was always talking about being practical and then she fell in love with someone Jocelyn’s age. Jocelyn thinks Jack was spending Margaret’s money and cheating, and tells “Julia” to go test the theory herself.

FBI. Paul snuck into Loomis’s office and entered Mellie’s prints for her to run. All he needs is authorization. Loomis is hesitant but Paul does his intense thing and she gives in. The search returns a result for “Annabeth S” with a picture of Mellie. Another pops up for “Polly Keller.” Another one for “Amanda James” followed quickly by another 5-6 more. The screen goes blank and all the search results are erased. Paul asked WTF just happened and Lomis says she just started to believe him.

Dollhouse. Sierra and Topher are playing catch while she lists classic sci-fi errors. Sierra asks if they can play with “the sleepies” perhaps setting them to battle against each other, or making them act out skits and putting the results on YouTube. Topher shoots those ideas down and suggests chess instead. Or some variant that involves flying chess pieces and drinking.

Steph: I can’t imagine how flying chess pieces would make the game anymore interesting. Chess isn’t exactly a game filled with lots of movement and action. 

Mari: Only when:

 

Murder Mansion. “Julia” finds Jack and he’s packing his bags, convinced now that Margaret is gone that he doesn’t belong in Murder Mansion. “Julia” asks if it was hard for him to be married to an older woman when a guy like him would have options. They get real close together but Jack is onto her. He says he knows a spy when he sees one. He grabs her arm and walks her out of the room, wondering if Nick or Jocelyn hired her and what they are trying to uncover. The only reason he’s selling the horses is because he can’t stand the constant reminder of the woman he loved. Also, probably, money. Jack suggests that she turn her focus on Drunk Brother, who appeared the day before Margaret died. Margaret never told Jack what he showed up for, but Jack is guessing he wanted to borrow money and Margaret said no.

Victor is outside checking out the fancy horse. Nick shows up and is all, “THAT’S MY MOMMY’S HORSE. STOP IT.” He says the horse is not for sale.

“Julia” finds Drunk Brother and it’s his turn to tell Ye Olde Stories and reminisce about Margaret. They hadn’t spoken in 13 years but fate led him to just come knocking on her door one day before she died. They reconciled. He finishes his story with, “but Jack. That Jack sure does look mighty guilty.” Something like that. “Julia” looks very pensive.

Dollhouse. We see that the dolls are in their pods. Topher and Sierra meanwhile are playing laser tag. Sierra wins this round, they trade puns, and decide they should play many more rounds. I’d be one pissed off Doll if everyone expected me to be my best and there was laser tag being played at God knows what hour right outside my sleeping pod. Rude. (S: I’d like to think that the Dollhouse is high tech enough to have some sort of noise canceling feature in the pods.)

  Paul’s Apartment. He gets home and finds Mellie waiting for him all dolled up with candles and wine. She’s being nervous and chatty and he’s having a hard time even looking at her. She tells him they have to talk (or rather, she has to talk at him). She loves being with him. She’s asked if he’s okay and he says he is, so she’s going to stop asking. She can be with him while everything is not okay. He can take from her and if he wants to give back, he can. But it doesn’t have to mean anything. She repeats it and Paul is kind of entranced by those words.

Very rough kissing and brief shot of dem abs follows.

Steph: Yes. Very good. 

Mari: Murder Mansion. Margaret!Echo rides horses.

Later, in the stables, she’s tell her horse she misses him and she’s caught by Nick. “Julia” asks who’s there and Nick comes out of the shadows (murderer) to ask if she really thought he wouldn’t recognize his own mother. After a not!break, Margaret!Echo is so relieved someone knows the truth. Nick tells her all the little things he picked up on as clues (she knew where a light switch was! She got gaggy after kissing him! She’s real good with horses!) and he knew it was possible because of the Dollhouse. He’s a customer himself, you see. These two move onto their touching moment as Margaret says a mother is supposed to bear her kid’s burdens, even if they do lose everything. Nick tells her about his gambling addiction and how he lost millions of dollars. Nick says he wants his mommy back and that she was taken from her too soon. Margaret calls him a smart boy for suspecting that too. Nick cocks his head like maybe that wasn’t what he was getting at.

Those two hear voices and run. Victor comes into the stable yelling because Horse for Sale has been juiced. He looks race ready now, but will actually die soon without the drugs. Victor storms out and Jack is pissed. He picks up a shovel and starts banging on the stable and hits an electrical outlet, causing the lights in the stable to cut out. Someone needs to calm down. (S: Jack and Paul would make very good friends. Margaret screams. Jack opens one of the stable doors, thinking someone might be in there, but gets horse trampled for his trouble. Margaret and Nick run out and into another stable. She’s convinced Jack killed her now because he did look awful murder-y with that shovel. We all know what Pretty Little Liars taught us about shovels. (GUILTY.) Margaret guess that whatever Jack was using on Horse for Sale is also what killed her.

Jack finds them and Nick stabs him with some sort of hook that I’m sure outdoorsy and horsey types know the name for. It looks painful, though, I know that. Margaret runs off and Nick follows.

Steph: I don’t blame Margaret for thinking Jack is the murderer. He starts swinging that shovel around and chasing them down for NO REASON AT ALL other than they just happen to be in the stable during his failed horse sale. 

Sweeney: Yeeaaah that reaction was super weird.

Mari: Adelle is sitting in the dark when Boyd enters her office. He tells her about the horse/murder drug that killed Margaret. He lightly suggest going in after Echo, but Adelle shuts him down because Echo has a new handler. Boyd asks if she knows about the Topher situation and she smiles. She does know. She allows him one of these diagnostic tests every once in a while because loneliness leads to nothing good. Better to use a doll under their noses than to secretly use a doll, HUH ADELLE?

We cut to Sierra bringing Topher a Twinkie with candles, as Adelle’s voice over tells us that sometimes the people most in need of reaching out are the ones least capable of it. Someone whose face we can’t see is watching footage of them wasting Twinkie.

    Steph: I love that when given the opportunity to use a doll in any way he wants, Topher’s imprint isn’t romantic. He just wants a friend to hang out with. FEELS.

Sweeney: Many, many feels. It also calls back to Adelle’s big visions of how this place can truly be helping people. If you set aside the fact that Sierra’s been brainwashed, it’s hard to see this as anything but innocent. (The trouble is, of course, that you’re setting aside something really major.)

Mari: Murder Mansion. Margaret!Echo and Nick run into her room. He says they need a letter proving Jack killed her and suggest writing a letter in Margaret’s handwriting and planting it somewhere in the room.

Jack breaks into house.

Margaret finishes writing her letter. As she reviews the details of the horse/murder drug, realization dawns on her. Jack didn’t know much about the horses at all. Nick tries to think of a lie on the spot but he’s no good at it, so instead he reveals that he’s got a syringe in his hand. Nick asks WTF he’s got to do to get his mother off his back. Traumaland could probably start a “When Murder Isn’t Enough” club. Fish Mooney could head it. Nick pushes Margaret down on the bed and tries to inject her, but somewhere along the way, Jack picked up a gun. He shoots the lock out and the bullet also grazes Nick. Jack and Nick fight and Margaret jumps in at the end, causing enough of a distraction with her very punchable face so that Jack can knock Nick out. Drunk Brother comes running in and Margaret tells him to call an ambulance and the police.

Jack is so sad his wife was murdered and hopes Margaret never knew her son was a murderer because it would’ve killed her. Um, weird. It killed her anyways, dude. Margaret burns the letter she wrote saying Jack was the killer.

We end with Drunk Brother reading a letter from Margaret, claiming her suspicions that Nick was going to kill her and amending her will so that he was left with nothing. She also left some last words for everyone, but Margaret!Echo walks out before we hear them.

Paul is taking a shower of steam, tears and guilt.

Mellie is picking and saying she liked the crazy sex, but she giggles nervously as she says she wouldn’t like it all the time. She casually asks if he’s going to do more hunting for Dollhouse clients. “I found one,” Paul says to himself. (S: About himself.)

Jack and Margaret!Echo stand together and watch her horses running around. Jack gets all teary as he says that he tried to show Margaret that she was his favorite person, but he’ll never know if she believed him. Margaret!Echo says she has a feeling Margaret did believe him. Margaret!Echo leaves him with a note and walks away.

Adelle says goodbye to Margaret!Echo, who says that she was a little tempted to keep the body, but her loved ones are moving on and her time is up. Plus, she knows Adelle wouldn’t have let her get far. Adelle gets choked up as Margaret asks if she’ll see her whole life flash before her eyes. “Every single moment,” Adelle promises as she holds her hand. The chair lights up and we leave the episode with that burst of images that always means a wipe.

There were moments of this episode that were poignant and some that could’ve been, had they been played a little subtler. I liked the Sierra/Topher stuff, though I thought it a little over the top to have the Adelle voice over about loneliness while Topher had his Twinkie. The moment and image were powerful enough. Same with the Paul Shower of Emotion. The whole Margaret plot wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely a step down from some of the main action across the last three-ish episodes. The idea of life after death is another huge Dollhouse problem, though again, they may have played that a little too obviously.

Steph: Not obvious enough for me, clearly. I still don’t know if I’d consider this life after death as much as brand new person with duplicate personality of dead person… after death. 

Sweeney: This was definitely a little weaker than the last couple, but not by much and I think that’s partially because the big mindfuck was enough to offset the heavy handed bits.

Mari: To clarify like I did above, you guys are right about it being a little deeper than I first saw while I was recapping. What was obvious was the repeated, “LIFE AFTER DEATH!” throughout the episode. It didn’t let the underlying implications breathe. It wasn’t a big issue in the end, but it could’ve benefited from a little tightening up.

 

Next time on Dollhouse: Paul finds the Dollhouse architect and uses him to plan a break in. Find out more in S01 E11 – Briar Rose.