Welcome back to another Throwback Thursday. We’re continuing along with our rewatch of Dollhouse, season 1. This post was originally published on October 14, 2014 and has been lightly edited to better reflect our current style and views.
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Previously: Echo got hunted, meaning so far, she isn’t having very much luck on these engagements.
Stage Fright
Sweeney: This episode begins at a club with a girl dancing very sexily on stage on a cage. I assumed it was a strip club, but she’s actually singer. I had to Google her and it was a very confusing search because I was trying to avoid spoilers. The song is by Kimberly Cole but she is not acting in the episode, which is what I initially thought, because I’m stupid and identifying characters as a Snow is the hardest fucking thing.
Anyway, the character is Rayna Russell, and she is singing a song called Superstar in a diamond bra with on-stage fireworks and other snazzy pop star trappings. I was just about to say something about how dangerous those fireworks seem when ONE OF HER DANCERS CAUGHT ON FIRE. Shit. Rayna is rushed off stage.
Stephanie: The stage was like, “THIS SONG IS AWFUL,” and put an end to that. Thank you, stage.
Sweeney: Dollhouse. New friends Sierra and Echo are running on adjacent treadmills. Sierra gets off and stumbles a bit. Echo gets off and helps her stand. They have a weird stilted conversation about how they are friends and friends help each other.
Marines: I’mma go ahead and guess that will somehow be significant to the rest of this episode.
Sweeney: Dr. Saunders’s Office. Boyd is getting patched up and all but begs to be certified to get sent out again because he’s convinced that someone is after Echo. He also doesn’t believe that Alpha is really dead. If that’s the case, I’m not sure Alpha is necessarily a threat to Echo so much as, like, everyone near her, right? Alpha slaughtered everybody but left her untouched. And the latest thing rousing Boyd’s suspicion is that the guy who tried to facilitate Echo’s murder got murdered. The limited facts that I currently possess are that while Alpha’s a psychopath and a general threat to a large number of people, he doesn’t seem to be a threat to Echo, specifically. That math doesn’t work out. Regardless, Dr. Saunders reluctantly clears Boyd and adds that he needs to be careful because “someone else is watching.”
Speaking of suspicious someones, a guy in a black leather jacket and a hoodie tries to break into Agent Ballard’s apartment. His girl Mellie with the lasagna, oh-so-excited that Agent Ballard might be home, opens the door the instant Hoodie starts wiggling the knob. Mellie, girl, you need to calm down.
Mari: She spends hours making neighborhood lasagnas and has a 5 second window everyday to deliver them, man. Her plan in general is not a good one.
Stephanie: Her flirting technique seems solid to me. I would certainly be interested in an attractive person with endless pasta. She doesn’t have lasagna in this scene, but the promise of said lasagna is enough for me.
Sweeney: Her creeper tendencies are a win for Ballard here (and any time he wants lasagna): Hoodie is the Russian guy Ballard went after at that club. Mellie asks if the guy clearly trying to break into Ballard’s apartment would like to leave a message and so he leaves a card with a location for Agent Ballard to meet him at on Friday.
Dollhouse. Adelle is meeting with a guy who is a total THAT GUY in the purest sense of the phenomenon. For Crossover Magic purposes, he was “The Valet” in the episode where Angel went through some torture trials to save Darla only to have them be all, “LOL JK” at the end. (M: An oddly memorable episode!) I think that means this guy was the one doing the LOL JKing. He’s there because someone is trying to kill Rayna – it was pure coincidence that she wasn’t the one torched. He also grumbles about how moody she is about being stalked and threatened. Ugh, women! Anyway, The Valet needs an active to be a backup dancer/body guard. Don’t these engagements only last three days? It seems dubious that three days would be enough time to resolve this, but OK.
Cut to Echo singing for The Valet, Rayna, and some randoms. Eliza Dushku has an OK voice, but it sounds a lot better when Rayna joins her. (S: You’re being too kind. They should have imprinted her with better singing abilities.) (S: Nope, sorry, can’t do that. Topher’s powers are limited to asthma imprints.) The Valet fakes not wanting her hired so that Rayna hires her on the spot. The randoms begrudgingly applause.
Sweeney: LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAA
Dr. Saunders comes to yell at Topher for sending Echo out on a high risk engagement. After she almost got murdered, the doctor flagged her for “romantic” or “altruistic” engagements only. I’m sure your criminal enterprise gets all sorts of “altruistic” engagements. Topher notes that her last “romantic” engagement turned dangerous. Topher explains that their oh-so-brilliant system is to have Echo be a bodyguard who doesn’t know she’s a bodyguard. That only sounds… entirely destined to go wrong. (M: Pretty sure that’s the Dollhouse’s tagline.) Dr. Saunders is also worried about Boyd, and Topher does a whole bit that amounts to neener-neener Dr. Saunders and Boyd sitting in a tree, on account of how they both have actual morals and ethics in spite of working there. Topher assures her that they’re sending in back up and in walks Sierra for her treatment.
Elsewhere, Agent Ballard is meeting the Russian guy at a rooftop bar with a jacuzzi. Russian Guy is angry with Ballard for putting his life in danger with his question asking. He’s also insists that his family only engages in human trafficking, not human trafficking with a side of brainwashing. Totes clean, guys! (M: Even the Russian Mob is all, “brainwashing people? NEVER.”) Russian Guy did some poking around, but is convinced that the whole thing is just a myth. He looked into Agent Ballard and concluded that after a history of not closing jobs, he was handed one he couldn’t botch because Dollhouse isn’t even real. Agent Ballard waxes philosophical about how the fact that the tech was confirmed in some monkeys means humans are definitely using this shit on each other because, “We come up with anything new, the first thing we do is destroy, manipulate, control. It’s human nature.” Bleak. Russian Guy agrees that people are mostly crap, but that doesn’t mean there’s a Dollhouse. He’ll keep looking, though, probably because of how he’d like this federal agent to keep looking the other way on his human trafficking.
Backstage at Rayna’s show, Echo (Jordan!Echo? Guys, 10 minutes later I have already forgotten her other name for this episode and I’m probably going to give up trying to retain that information from this point forward.) goes to tell The Valet that she speculates that the freight elevator might be an easy access point for crazy murdering fans.
In his van, Boyd is monitoring Echo while talking to Topher back at Dollhouse. Topher informs him that Sierra’s coming on the scene soon, monitored by a guy named Joe Hearn, who Topher predicts he will hate. Topher teases Boyd for being nervous due to the fact that they were both almost murdered on their last mission and there’s a high risk for murder on this mission. Boyd adorably worries about Echo’s singing and nerves for being on stage. (S: I love this. Boyd is the cutest. Team Boyd forever.) (S: +1!) Topher wants the dirt on Rayna and is disappointed to learn that she’s a bit of a diva. He’s waking up a newly reset active: THE RUSSIAN GUY. DAMN. His name is Victor and this plot twist broke me out of my gotta-recap-all-the-things stupor. Well done, show. High fives, snaps, the whole bit. Nicely done.
Mari: AGREED. The show does moments like this rather well, so even though you are mostly asking yourself, “WHAT EVEN IS THIS?” once in a while it is nicely played enough that you keep watching. Sneaky show.
Stephanie: Double agreed. As ridiculous as this show can be, it’s a bit like Angel in that it has some cool memorable moments. You’ll notice that all of those moments happen when Eliza Dushku is elsewhere.
Sweeney: Backstage, Rayna gives Echo some tips for stage fright. The Valet introduces Rayna to Sierra, who is posing as a super fan from Australia who won a contest. We also get a bunch of shots of a ginger man with crutches hobbling around back stage. We see him climb up to the stage, decidedly unencumbered by any sort of crutches-requiring injury.
The show begins and we cut back and forth between the performance and Ginger doing something shady that I can’t quite follow, but looks like its part of the latest Rayna murder plot.
After the show, Echo stays glued to Rayna at her after party. Rayna starts to pitch a divalicious fit about Sierra being at her reserved table, until The Valet comes to calm her down. Sierra’s Australian accent isn’t very strong and it makes me sad because I really wanted to flail about her sounding like Kirsti. Disappointing. (S: I’m pretty sure that’s Dichen Lachman’s natural accent though.) Rayna tries to put Sierra at ease and is surprisingly cool for someone who was just a raging bitch. She encourages Sierra to drink champagne, a wise choice which endears her to me.
A guy comes running up to their table and without missing a beat, Echo gets up and takes his ass down, flipping him over a railing. He lands a floor below, relatively unscathed. He’s just a paparazzi photographer and his big, expensive camera that he seems to have landed on also looks unharmed. K. Rayna tells Echo to chill. Sierra gushes about how cool that was.
Agent Ballard gets a call from Victor. I realize now that we saw, in the pilot, that the treatment can just be reloading the same profile, meaning that my earlier speculation/concern for the time constraints is invalid. That is usually the kind of thing I’d edit, but for the sake of preserving all of my Snow confusion, I’ll leave it. Anyway, Victor is calling to give Ballard a tip about an abandoned hotel. He’s getting the information third-hand and is only sharing because Agent Ballard inspires terrible pity. (M: See? He’s meant for Mellie because same.)
Abandoned hotel For Throwing Federal Agents Off Your Tail. Ballard kicks open a door and heads into the basement. As he’s poking around, somebody comes at him with a plank. They fight, and eventually a shot is fired at Ballard, but the guy with the gun gets close enough for Ballard to seize control of his gun. More fighting and eventual confirmation that these people don’t know shit about the Dollhouse. Finally, Ballard calls 911 on account of being shot.
Stephanie: I’m positive that this nonsense only happens to show off Tahmoh Penikett’s cool fight moves.
Sweeney: Handler Van. The new guy, Joe, joins Boyd and is glib about him doing investigative work. Ugh, ex-cop, trying to do his job! That’s probably why he’s an ex-cop. From what I’ve seen on TV, police departments prefer their cops to be willfully incompetent.
Mari: And now look! He’s got to apply all this skill at a shady-as-shit corporation where things are destined to go wrong. It isn’t even his fault.
Sweeney: Backstage, Echo comes pounding on Rayna’s door. Rayna lets her in and Echo notices that the room is filled with flowers. Echo also notices that another deranged fan letter has made its way to Rayna and found its way into her dressing room. Echo realizes that Rayna is actually communicating with this guy. Rayna defends herself, saying that this guy is her honest and true #1 fan and that Echo doesn’t know shit because she’s a wannabe background singer. Rayna leaves to go on stage and Echo lingers to inspect the flowers. Underneath them are a series of red notes about how tonight will be her last.
Echo chases Rayna onstage, begging her not to go out there, but she realizes that Rayna knows this guy is going to try to kill her. As Rayna’s cage-elevator takes her up, she tells Echo that she’s not crazy – she just wants to be free. Um, well, while “crazy” is unduly pejorative in this case, “in need of the help of mental health professionals” is precisely how I’d describe her and her death wish.
After a Not Break, Rayna is on stage, down one backup singer as Echo runs around backstage. Stalker Ginger is loading a gun. Rayna is singing a song about a stalker needing to make a move. I’m maybe collapsing some words there. (M: Not too many! Maybe she writes her own music.) Rayna takes a break from singing to talk about how there’s a person in the crowd who reminds her why she does what she does. She’s clearly asking Stalker Ginger to show himself, but after some hesitation, she has Sierra come out on stage.
The show continues and Echo finds The Valet to tell him that she’s positive that Stalker Ginger is there. A bodyguard insists that this is impossible and then tries to stop Echo from going on stage even though she’s actually supposed to be there. He gets kneed in the groin for his trouble. Rather than joining the singers, Echo uses one of the lights on stage to try to scan the crowd. She spots Stalker Ginger just as he fires a shot and she tackles Rayna. Stalker Ginger flees his post. On stage commotion ensues.
Stephanie: This whole thing is such a weird way to show your fan-love for someone. Why doesn’t he download a tacky desktop wallpaper like the rest of us?
Sweeney: BEAUTIFUL. All you really need to be a good fan are some solid MS Paint skills!
In an ambulance, we see not one of the backup dancers, but Agent Ballard being treated.
Back stage, Echo follows Rayna into her dressing room where she is met not with a thank you, but with Rayna shouting that Echo shut down the show and disappointed all those people because she was going to give them a show. Yeah, I mean, I hate to make light of serious mental health issues, but bitch be crazy. Echo says that they don’t want to see her die, but Rayna disagrees – at 80 years old these people would be talking about being here. Echo says that Rayna is clearly very seriously unwell. Rayna expresses all her feels about having to be a manufactured version of a person – “everybody’s fantasy.” It’s #deep because she’s sharing all of this with “Jordan” who is a whole other level of non-real person. “I know you weren’t grown in a lab, but I was.” Rayna continues, crazy-eyed about how The Reaper is coming and she’ll have the rush of freedom. Rayna kicks Echo out and fires her.
Outside, Sierra is trying to get inside and is sent around back to find a guy with a clipboard. She has to walk down a dark alley to get there and is abducted by Stalker Ginger en route.
After a Not Break, Stalker Ginger is recording a video for Rayna about how she fucked everything up. He holds a gun up to Sierra’s head and asks who she is. We see Rayna and The Valet watching the video.
Echo returns to the rehearsal space to get her stuff. One of the other backup singers says she thought something happened to Echo, adding that it wasn’t a good idea to be seen with Rayna. Echo rushes upstairs to where Rayna is continue to watch the video of Stalker Ginger as he angrily wonders how she could declare Sierra her #1 fan. He says that him killing for her and her dying for him was their agreement and now Rayna has to meet with him in person in order to fulfill that bargain and keep him from murdering Sierra. He ends the video by telling Rayna that she has his number. The Valet looks at her suspiciously and realizes that she did this. Then he backhands her and Echo shoves him into a wall. Rayna runs off. The Valet wonders at Echo not being with Rayna. Echo confesses that she was fired, but when asked if that makes a difference, she says that it doesn’t because for some reason she can’t identify because mind control is insidious like that, she knows she has to help Rayna. Echo goes off to do just that.
Dollhouse. Laurence comes to tell Adelle that Sierra was kidnapped but that her handler is nearby and Echo is fine, still on task. Adelle seems to just be sitting in her chair staring off into space at this late night hour. There’s a shot where we can see her computer screen and its just showing her very sparse desktop. She was legit just hanging out in her office, pondering the meaning of life.
Stephanie: This explains so much about how the Dollhouse is run.
Sweeney: Stalker Ginger’s Lair. He orders Sierra to stand up for her time to shine. He shouts at her and she cry sings a Rayna song. It makes me really sad. Now I’m glad she doesn’t sound more like Kirsti because this would be even more depressing.
Rehearsal Space. Rayna is dancing in the dark. Echo comes to talk and ask how she can help. Rayna tells her to GTFO. Rayna’s only plan is to put on the next show. She’s #meh about Sierra’s life because they called the cops. I guess she’s unaware of their uselessness. Rayna says that since Sierra is a fan she’d want her to continue. Echo says that while Rayna doesn’t think she feels anything, she will when she helps this girl. Echo backs into the shadows and just as Rayna starts to balk at Echo’s insistence that she’ll help, Echo knocks her out with a chair. Then Echo crazies, “Friends help each other out.” YOU KNOW, ‘CAUSE SIERRA’S HER FRIEND. AND DOLL!ECHO SAID THIS EARLIER.
Mari: WOW THAT WAS TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.
Stephanie: But it was so subtle!
Sweeney: After a Not Break, a SWAT team breaks into Stalker Ginger’s Lair. It’s been emptied out and because of plot reveal magic, they instantly think to play his voicemails. There is only one: Echo telling Stalker Ginger that she has Rayna and wants to make an exchange at the place where the original plan was supposed to go down.
Dollhouse. Laurence comes in and slams Topher up the wall, furious that Echo has gone off task. Topher tries to explain that Echo is hardwired to protect the client and they just need to wait and let this play out. Finally Topher snaps and it’s awesome: “Enough. You’re in my house. Of the two of us here, one of us is a genius and the other is a security guard in a very lovely suit.” Boom. I love him. Unfortunately, neither of these two are smart enough to deduce that Echo could be bringing Rayna to Stalker Ginger as a setup.
Downstairs, we see Boyd arrive and look around.
Up above, Stalker Ginger says this isn’t about killing her but about giving her what she wants. He says that Echo can’t understand what they have, so Echo rips the tape off of Rayna’s mouth so that Rayna can explain. She screams and we see that Boyd heard the scream and came up there really fucking quickly. Like, unreasonably quickly. (M: Some more of those cop skills TV hates!) He radios back to Dollhouse to say that he’s in position and has a clear shot, but Adelle tells him to wait because there’s four more minutes of episode to fill.
Rayna panics and apologizes, saying that she doesn’t want to hurt anybody but also doesn’t want to be released to Stalker Ginger because he’s crazy. Stalker Ginger says she doesn’t mean that because he would never hurt her, but then he starts yelling about shooting people. Finally, Echo drops Rayna, sending her falling, but she’s caught by a rope. Stalker Ginger dives for her, allowing Echo to kick out his gun and knock him out. Then she goes to help Rayna, who shouts up that she does want to live. “I know,” says Echo. Later, Echo and Sierra are leaving and chatting about the story Sierra will have to tell back in Australia. Joe and Boyd come rushing in and Joe grumbles about not wanting Echo to to rub off on Sierra. He tells Sierra its time for her treatment and they leave. To contrast and show us Boyd’s superiority, he asks Echo if she’s ready for her treatment. Is a relatively irrelevant detail considering that he knows she has no actual free will in the matter, but whatever. Echo says she is but wants permission to kick that guy’s ass first. Boyd says he will seriously consider it. But not now because he doesn’t want to get fired.
Dollhouse. Laurence says that Echo is a risk and needs to be sent to The Attic. Adelle says that Echo was in control, but Laurence thinks the more important fact is that they can’t control her. Adelle doesn’t think she went off mission because she quite literally went after the person who wanted Rayna dead – it just happened to be herself. Everything Echo did helped to keep Rayna from being a danger to herself in the future. I mean, she should probably still get some therapy and maybe some good meds, but yeah, fair enough. “Echo took the mission parameter,” she says…
“and did even better,” finishes Boyd, talking to Dr. Saunders. He marvels at Echo’s ability to take all the pieces of the problem they give her and find a new approach. Boyd thinks she’s special and Dr. Saunders cautions that special isn’t always good here. Echo may be the best now, but that spot used to be held by Alpha. “Sometimes the best thing to hope for is ‘good enough.’” Given her background, that’s about all the can-do spirit I’d expect from Dr. Saunders. Therapy for everyone.
Speaking of people in need of therapy, we cut to Rayna on stage singing about freedom from struggles and misery. (S:It also transitions into Eliza Dushku’s awful rendition. Noooo.) She continues to sing as we cut to Mellie going to Agent Ballard’s hospital room. At Dollhouse, people watch as Sierra and Echo pass each other. Echo sees that they’re being watched and she shakes her head at Sierra, indicating that they can’t acknowledge each other.
END CREDITS.
This was heavy on contrivance, but surprisingly fun for a suicidal-murder-mystery plot. This whole premise is kind of dangerous territory because its all so fucking gross that even the characters they give us to root for – i.e., Boyd or Dr. Saunders – can’t really be exonerated because they remain complicit in the gross thing even though they at least know it’s gross. I find it a lot easier to get on board with the willing suspension of disbelief this show is asking us to commit to in terms of the possibility of everything that’s happening than the bizarre application of morality that they’re asking of us.
We’re a little ahead on writing these posts – I’m writing this in September, before the show has even been announced as on our lineup. I tweeted today that my current relationship with this show is that my emotions are a combination of confusion, anger, and just barely enough curiosity to continue. After having said that, I actually enjoyed this episode quite a bit more. This developing Echo/Sierra relationship is compelling and I’m curious to see where that goes.
My greatest concern right now isn’t so much with the contrivance factor (which is high) but with the fact that I think this show underestimated the scope of the ethical dilemmas it’s taking on. That said, it’s getting more interesting, which is a good sign. I remember someone in the Firefly comments forever ago saying that the experience of the way the network toyed with Firefly led to Whedon giving Dollhouse an entire season of pilots. So far that sentiment is ringing true, but not in an entirely bad way because so far this is my favorite of the successive pilots, and the first time that I’m actually eager to move on to the next episode.
Stephanie: It’s interesting to see that as a first time watcher, you enjoyed this episode. I’m pretty sure this was the precise moment where I was like, “am I seriously watching a Whedon show right now? What even is this?” and it’s probably my least favorite of the entire series. So I guess every episode being a pilot is successful in that we all get to pick our own favorite pilot. Hooray!
Sweeney: LOL, I mean, I could have done without Eliza Dushku’s singing, but this doll role definitely taxed her acting a lot less than the one in the actual pilot. (Although the last one was probably better in that regard, but I was too angry to enjoy that episode.) I liked the stuff going on in Dollhouse here, even as find the entire premise increasingly untenable.
Next time on Dollhouse: Echo gets sent on a heist but this job also goes badly when she’s double-crossed in S01 E04 – Grey Hour.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a miniature adult who still gets offered the kid's coloring menu at restaurants. I like to pretend I'm an illustrator, but mostly I spend my time complaining about TV on Twitter. My life dream is to have my consciousness placed into an android body so that I'll have more time to watch/read things.
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