Dollhouse Season 2 Episode Recaps

[Buffy Summers]

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Episode 2.01 - "Vows"


Music in this episode:

Hazy by Rosi Golan
The World by Earlimart


Echo is in the chair, her new handler beside her. Ballard is also there, and asks Topher if she’s okay. Topher tells him yes, that all the personalities have been wiped away. Topher’s computer monitor flickers and start showing scenes from the Bride of Frankenstein. Topher says, “Saunders…”

Adelle and Boyd are walking across the Dollhouse floor. He feels Echo’s latest engagement poses a risk. They pass Victor, and Adelle stops to comment on how nicely his scars are healing. She touches his face, while resuming her conversation with Boyd. She tells him that they made a deal with Ballard, and that they either honor that deal or he exposes them. Boyd is suspicious of Ballard; Adelle says she has plans for him.

Adelle: Why in particular does this engagement bother you?
Boyd: You know, after that news anchor.
Adelle: Which one?
Boyd: The one who wanted to be rolled in eggs and flour and dipped.
Adelle: Ah, Tempura Joe. Such a lonely soul.
Boyd: I thought I’d seen it all, but this engagement. Honestly? This one’s sick.

We cut to Echo walking down the aisle in a wedding dress.

Opening Credits.

Back at the Dollhouse, Topher gets up from the cot he was sleeping on and walks back to his office, where Ivy has been working.

Ivy: We are backed up like LAX at Christmas.
Topher: It’s the autumn rush: temperatures plummet to the high 60s, the leaves fall off that one tree on Wilshire…people need comfort.

Sierra interrupts them (dressed like Jackie Kennedy), asking for a treatment. When Ivy moves to do it, she asks if she could have “the other one” because she’s “not comfortable with Orientals”.

Sierra: I suppose I’m at your mercy. In fact, if you were to tie me down and spank me, I could hardly be expected to resist, could I?
Ivy: I’ll keep that in mind.

Topher: How many more today?
Ivy: Well, the Jonas Brothers are back in town.
Topher: Say no more.

Topher opens a cabinet in the kitchen and a bunch of rats fall out. He is freaked out, and jumps up on the railing. He grabs his phone and calls Saunders, asking if this is her idea of a joke. She responds that he’s the one who designed her.

Saunders: Put the rats back in the maze, Topher, before one of them bites you.

As they hang up, Boyd enters Saunders’ office, bringing her a copy of the results on Victor. He tells her the scars are almost gone, and that one more surgery and they’ll never know they were there. Saunders says she’s surprised that Adelle would authorize such an expenditure for an active. Boyd finishes for her, when she didn’t before. He suggests that the same surgery could now be done on her face. Saunders says that without her scars, she might as well be an active, and that sooner or later Adelle would realize she was more valuable as an active than a doctor. Boyd tells her, “There’s no way on earth that I would allow it.” Saunders is surprised at that.

Saunders comments that before they knew she had been an active, that Boyd hadn’t liked her much. Boyd says she seemed to be having a hard time.

Saunders: My entire existence was constructed by a sociopath in a sweatervest. What do you suggest I do?
Boyd: Have dinner with me.

Boyd tells her he thinks she needs to get out of the dollhouse for a while. Saunders says she doesn’t leave the dollhouse, that she’s afraid to leave.

Boyd: Every person I know is pretty poorly constructed. Everyone has an excuse for not dealing, but eventually that’s all they are: excuses.
Saunders: What’s yours?

Back at the wedding, the bride and groom eat cake, as one of the groom’s lackeys takes a call and says that the shipment is delayed one day.

The bride and groom dance, seeming very in love. We find out that Echo’s name in this engagement is Roma Clar.

Paul is working, restless.

The newlyweds make love.

We see a business called “Spirituals on Larchmont”. Echo enters and goes to a back room where Paul is waiting. She is imprinted currently as his FBI partner, trying to take down arms dealer Martin Clar. The marriage is part of the case. She thinks they’ve been partners for 3 years. Echo’s handler arrives and takes her for a treatment because long term engagements are “tricky”. Paul says he wants her back as soon as she’s checked out. Echo’s handler says, “You’re the client.”

Dr. Saunders is examining Echo. Echo has flashes of her and Whiskey on an engagement together. Echo sits up and says, “Whiskey.” Saunders asks if someone told her to call her that.

Echo: You were number one.
Saunders: Yes.
Echo: I don’t remember the rest.
Saunders [with bitterness]: Alpha cut up my face. Do you remember that?
Echo: Why?
Saunders: So you could be number one.
Echo: Am I?
Saunders: You are.[/i]

Saunders looks down at the medical tray in front of her, her hand grazes a scalpel. She looks up, a lollipop in her hand, and tells Echo she’s done, and to go be her best as she sticks the lollipop into her own mouth. Echo replies, “No one is their best in here.” That stops Saunders in her tracks.

We then see a press conference. A politician is speaking out against the Rossum Corporation, accusing it of withholding medical advances. Adelle and Boyd watch on tv. She asks him what he thinks, and Boyd says that someone had to have put them on his radar recently. Adelle asks if he has any idea who, and Paul walks in. Boyd says that they were just about to talk about him. Adelle asks if he’s seen the Senator’s press conference. Boyd and Paul face off.

Boyd: Have you ever talked to Senator Perrin?
Paul: Have you?

Boyd leaves. Adelle tells Paul that Perrin reminds her of him. Paul says she should be looking at Boyd, because he knows why he’s (Paul) there. Paul says he’s there to catch a gun runner the FBI couldn’t touch now that the FBI kicked him out.

Adelle wonders why Paul never asks about November. She says that initially she thought he really cared for her, but that now she thinks he was just done with her. But that he still needs Echo for something. She says that Echo is special, that she was evolving even before Alpha. She goes on to say that SOP would be to send her to the attic, and that she still will if she gets out of hand. Paul comments that they want to study the rat before they slice it up. Adelle says what they learn from Echo will fuel Rossum’s research. We learn that Echo has 3 years left on her contract. Adelle wants Paul to be Echo’s handler, and tells him to think about it.

Back at Clar’s house, Echo comes home, hands full of shopping bags. She tells Martin that she had to shop for honeymoon clothes. They’re very lovey dovey.

Meanwhile we see Clar’s henchman flipping through photos of Paul and “Roma” together.
Topher is again sleeping on hit cot at the Dollhouse, when we see a hand reach over him and venture under the covers. We see that it’s Dr. Saunders snuggling up to him as he sleeps. He turns over dreamily, then seeing her there, jumps up and out of the cot, freaking a bit. He asks her if she’s drunk and she tells him she’s just trying to be her best. Topher is super uncomfortable as Saunders is coming on to him. She tells him that he designed someone to hate him so that she could learn to love him. She tells him that she loves him – he pushes her away. She slaps him. He tells her that she needs a treatment.

He then starts telling her about when she was made into Dr. Saunders. He says that he designed her to be a person. That if he had made her to agree with everything he said, they would miss something and someone would get hurt. Saunders says that he doesn’t care if people get hurt, and Topher replies, “You don’t know me!” He tells her that that’s the contract: he doesn’t know her and she doesn’t know him, not fully. Not ever.

Topher: I made you question. I made you fight for your beliefs. I didn’t make you hate me. You chose to.

Saunders sinks down to the floor, crying.

Saunders: How do I go through my day knowing everything I think comes from something I can’t abide?

Topher asks her why she never found out who her real self was. He says that maybe Adelle would even imprint her with that identity. She responds, “Because I don’t want to die.”

Saunders: I’m not better than you, I’m just a series of excuses.
Topher: You’re human.
Saunders: Don’t flatter yourself.

Meanwhile, Roma wakes up in an empty bed. She dresses and goes to Martin’s study – he seems to be nowhere to be found. She starts going through his desk, and finding a locked drawer tries to jimmy it open. We see Martin on the other side of a French door, looking in at her. He enters, surprising Roma. She tells him she was looking for clues as to where they were going on their honeymoon.

Martin suddenly and violently smashes her head against the desk. We see Echo having flashes of her different actives. Roma is shocked, confused, crying. He shows her a picture of her and Ballard. More flashes. He questions her. She tells him she’s never seen him before. She lashes out at Martin for doubting her. She tells him she loves him, that she is his wife, that she will always be…Mrs. Eleanor Penn. She gets a confused expression on her face and asks, “Who did they make me this time?”

We’re now at the airport, cars pulling up next to a private plane. In the limo, Echo sits next to Roma, who shows her a briefcase full of bombs. He tells her he never lied to her about anything that mattered.

Paul watches with binoculars. He takes out a cell phone and dials Topher. He says that Echo’s handler said she spiked two hours before. Topher checks it out, and says it wasn’t excitement like the handler thought, but pain and panic. He think she could have a concussion. Paul tells him if they move in now, Clar will kill her.

Topher: You got a better plan?
Ballard: No, but I do have a much worse one.

Paul walks into the hangar. He tells Martin to let Roma go. Martin hits him and Paul goes down. Echo has more flashes. She starts talking in a southern accent like the active from Omega, asking where Donnie is. Then she flashes to the rich dead woman active. Paul starts acting hostile towards her, walking towards her, telling her that she’s failed, to give it up. She starts flashing to Paul. He starts hitting her and choking her. He mentions the Chinese restaurant. Echo starts flashing to that engagement. She takes on that active’s personality and then proceeds to start beating the crap out of Ballard and all of Martin’s henchman. Martin grabs the briefcase and tried to run but Paul stops him. The briefcase comes open and one of the bombs rolls across the floor. One of the henchman starts shooting at Paul, allowing Martin to get in the car and start driving away. Echo jumps onto the hood of the car. He can’t shake her. He tries shooting her throught the windshield. Echo suddenly has one of the bombs in her hand and throws it into the open window of the car. She jumps off and Martin leaps from the car before it explodes. He pulls a gun on her but she kicks it out of his hand and throws him to the ground.

Echo: Honeymoon’s over.

Back at the Dollhouse, Echo has her treatment. Adelle walks in to tell Ballard that Martin was arrested.

Boyd walks into Saunders’ office. He sees a folded note on the desk. It says, “I am running out of excuses.” We then see the doctor driving in LA. Cut to Topher sitting on his cot. Next we see Victor and Sierra walking towards each other on the Dollhouse floor. They smile, hold hands, and continue walking together.

Echo sits watching the Dollhouse. Paul comes up to her and apologizes to her.

Ballard: And maybe I should have gotten you out of here first thing. Instead I put you through- Well I know you don’t remember it but-
Echo: I remember everything. Sometimes I’m someone else, and then I come back. But I still feel them, all of them. I’ve been many people. I can hear them. Sometimes suddenly. I’m all of them, but none of them is me. [looks at Ballard] Do you know who’s real?
Ballard: Caroline.
Echo: I want to find her. I want to find all of them. Real them. They can be found. We are lost, but we are not gone. Will you help me? [takes Ballard’s hand]
Ballard: I swear, no matter what, I’m with you. Everything’s going to be allright.

We have now cut to Ballard in a suit looking down at Echo in the treatment chair. Looks like Echo has a new handler…

Echo: Now that you’re here.
Ballard: Do you trust me?
Echo: With my life.

The End.

 

[msfantastico87]

Dollhouse Season 2 Episode 2 "Instinct" Recap

2.02-"Instinct"

Ballard is alone in the treatment room. He runs his fingers along the chair, looks at it, sits down"¦ Topher comes in and asks if he wants a treatment. They talk about Echo's new engagement. Topher says how he made code for the brain that changed the physical body, how this opens up a whole new world to them. That he could in theory program the brain to fight cancer.

Meanwhile, Echo (Emily Jordan) is lying awake, next to a man. She gets up and tiptoes out of the room and down the hall to another one. She picks up a baby from the cradle, and sits down, rocking him. She begins to breast feed while singing a lullaby.

*Opening Credits*

Emily is back in bed. She is awoken by the baby crying over the monitor.

Cut to Emily carrying the baby into the kitchen. She puts him down and starts to make coffee. She calls to "Nate" and asks him if he wants some coffee. He comes out of an home office, locking the door behind him. The baby starts to cry, and Emily asks him to hold the baby. Nate looks nervous, she hands him the baby. He holds the child at arms length and puts him back in the portacrib. He's then out the door to work. As he drives off, Emily notices a black van parked in the driveway (one of the Dollhouse vans).

We see Emily pushing baby Jack in a stroller in the park, and talking to Sierra (who has been imprinted as her best friend Kaylee). She tells Kaylee of her concerns about Nate not engaging with the baby.

Emily: I can't believe how much I love this little boy, and I don't even know if Nate likes him, or me for that matter.

Sierra reassures her, but Emily tells her she thinks he's having an affair. Sierra tells her it's just her hormones and lack of sleep. She tells her about the black van "“ that she thinks they're being watched.

When they get back home, Emily breaks into the office and starts going through everthing. Time passes, and Nate comes home that night. Emily sits at the kitchen table in a dark room. She startles Nate and he turns on the light. Emily asks, "Who is she?" There are pictures of Nate and another woman spread out all over the table. Nate tells her that it's his wife, that she's dead. Emily apologizes, telling him that she's just tired. Nate sends her to bed.

Upstairs, Emily wakes up and notices Nate hasn't come to bed. She goes down the hall to the nursery, and Emily overhears Nate talking on the phone. He tells the other person to "get rid of her" and that he'll "get rid of the baby".

Senator Perrin is at home, discussing the press conference with his wife. He tells her that all his evidence is anecdotal about Rossum's illegal medical procedures and experiments. The doorbell rings, and Cindy comes back with a file, saying no one was there.

Adelle visits November (Madeline) at her apartment. Madeline gets her some tea. We learn that she is wealthy enough to not have to work (and she describes herself as "idle rich"). Adelle reassures her that her obligation to the Dollhouse is complete, but that she needs to come back for a diagnostic. Madeline asks why Adelle let her out of her contract years early. She just tells her that "circumstances changed".

Emily hurries downstairs with the baby, telling Nate they're going for a walk. Nate tells her that her car is in the shop, and persuades her to go upstairs to take a nap. Emily calls Kaylee and tells her she thinks Nate is trying to kill her. She asks her to come get them, and Kaylee agrees.

Kaylee drives up as Emily watches from the upstairs window. She sees Ballard and Sierra's handler drive up in the van and escort Sierra into it. Emily goes to the front door, then the back, then heads upstairs and out the window, taking the baby with her and driving off in Sierra's car.

A fuming Nate is in Adelle's office. She explains that Echo believes that she is Jack's mother. She reveals that Nate came to her for a mother to bond with his child, because he could not bond with the baby himself. We learn that Nate's plan B was to put Jack up for adoption.

Emily is walking down the street. She turns and goes the other direction as she sees the Black Van. She sees two policemen on the street and goes to them for help, saying her husband is trying to have her killed. They take her to the police station.

Emily is telling a female detective her story, when she sees Nate and Paul at the police station, talking to the police captain. The detective goes to see what's going on. Emily picks up the baby and tries to leave. Nate says that that is his baby but not his wife. They all close in on Emily, and they take the baby from her as Emily fights and yells.

Madeline is in the treatment chair. Topher gives her a clean bill of health. As she is leaving, Paul brings a struggling Emily in. She gets away from him and pushes past Madeline, knocking her into some glass. They sedate Echo.

Madeline is a little shook up. Paul takes her to get the cut on her forehead looked at. He reassures Madeline that no one took anyone's baby, that it wasn't real. Madeline points out that to Echo, it is. That she feels all the emotion and pain. Madeline asks if she was ever like that. Paul remembers a crying Mellie when he broke up with her, but only tells her that he hasn't been there that long. Madeline tells Paul that Echo will be okay, that he seems to worry about her, but he doesn't have to.

We find out that Madeline's child died of cancer and she couldn't handle it. That Adelle came to her and offered her a chance to make the pain go away. Paul asks her if she's happy now, and she replies, "I'm not sad."

Emily begs Topher to do something, to help her. He gives her her treatment. Echo asks him if she fell asleep. Topher replies, "for a little while" and Echo punches him out. She looks down at him unconscious and says, "Shall I go now?"

Sen. Perring is looking over some files with his wife Cindy about the dollhouse. Some of the things that catch his eye are human trafficking, prostitution and maybe murder. She mentions to him that this file may help him with his career. They both agree that now that they have proof, they can bring Rossum and the dollhouse down.

Echo is walking out into the parking gareage and gets in the passenger seat of a car. After realizing that the car is not voice-activated, she turns on the engine and gets in the drivers seat.

Adelle, Ballard and Topher walk into her office after the incident between Topher and Echo. They search her GPS and realize that she is heading towards Nate's house. Adelle asks if Topher wiped her and he says he is sure he did. They then realized that because Echo was changed in a glandular level, her maternal instinct is way stronger than her brain, thus Echo feels that strong connection to the baby. Adelle then tells Ballard to go after her.

Nate is changing the baby's diaper and sets him down in the crib. He then goes downstairs to make him a bottle. Lightning strikes outside the home, and Nate looks out the window and sees the sillhouette of a person right outside his door. The phone rings and he gets startled, dropping the bottle. It's Adelle, telling him that it is imperative that he and his son leave immediately and lets him know that Echo is on her way there. As soon as he asks why, the power goes out and the phone line goes dead.

Nate realizes the baby isn't crying anymore and rushes upstairs to him, and realizes he is not in his crib. He starts looking around the house frantically and then turns around to see Echo standing there with baby Jack in one arm and a knife in the other hand.

Echo: "Mommy's home."

Echo tells Nate to get out, but Nate tells her he won't and that Jack isn't her son and that he's afraid she will hurt him. She then tries to take a stab at Nate.

Nate starts to explain that Echo is not real, and that she was made to love him because he needed someone to love Jack after the real mother died in labor, mostly because he couldn't od it himself after blaming the baby for the death of the mother Karen. Echo asks if she can be the mommy and Nate says no, because she is not a part of the baby like Karen was and he is all that is left of Karen. Nate tells her not to hurt the baby, and to do whatever she wants to himself.

At that point, Ballard and his team walk in through the front door. Echo then willingly hands baby Jack over to Nate, and drops the knife on the floor. She walked past Ballard and the team and out the front door.

Ballard meets up with her at the park, and he asks if she is ok. She replies by saying that she feels sad because she no longer has a baby, and she can feel everything that has ever happened to her. She then asks Ballard why everytime she goes in for treatment, they make it so real. All the emotions she has ever felt were so real. Ballard tells her that he can bring down the dollhouse on his own if she doesn't feel like she can complete the task, and promises to take her out. He even offers to tell Topher about what is going on so he can figure out a way to wipe her memories of the whole thing.

Echo: "Feeling nothing would be worse.I'll be likie before, asleep. I'm awake now. I don't want to go back to sleep."

*end credits*

 

[msfantastico87]

Dollhouse Season 2 Episode 3 "Belle Chose" Recap

2.03-"Belle Chose"

We begin the episode with a young man making sure the girls in his basement are properly dressed. He looks like a nerd, and the women are all standing completely still, like manikins. You can see the fear in their eyes. One falls over and tries to escape. He administers a shot on her leg and drops the needle. She grabs it and injects it right back at him. He grabs a crocket hammer and bashes her in the head while saying:

“Dammit Sheila, this is not how we play the game”

After killing her, he realizes he needs a new girl, so he leaves his place and heads out into the streets, staring at every woman, analyzing if she is the right one. He sees one girl come out of her car from across the street and starts to follow her, but then ends up getting hit by a car

<opening credits>

At the Dollhouse, Ballard is walking around the showers looking and calling out for Echo. She comes out, fully naked, and he offers her a towel, then gives it to her. She goes to get dressed after Ballard offers her a treatment.

Meanwhile, Adelle and Boyd walk around the Dollhouse talking about Dr. Saunders. Viktor over hears and tells them to send a man to Dr. Saunders because he is not “his best”. Then they head over to Topher and ask about a man laying in the chair. The same man, at the beginning of the episode that got hit by the car. Adelle mentions that the man had a medical condition.

Echo is given her treatment and is given the name “Kiki”, a student interested in her teachers lectures. The client, is the teacher.

Topher finds out the man’s name is Terry. Topher shows Adelle Terry’s brain xray and tells her that a part of his brain is no longer being used. That part of his brain, is supposed to give you empathy and that it’s what most serial killers brains look like. He then tells her that Terry is in a coma.

Paul and “Kiki” head over to the Dollhouse salon/dressing room, where the receptionist where they prepare Kiki for her engagement.

Adelle walks into her office to find Bradley, Terry’s uncle. She asks him why she brought Terry to them and not to a hospital. He explains to her that the doctors told him that Terry would not be able to be revived on time and that he came to the Dollhouse for their superb science. He tells her that Terry had some kind of record. He had run ins with the law, and that there were issues with female “survivors”. Adelle agrees to help him, but only on her terms.

As Echo dresses up for her role as Kiki, Boyd walks in and tells Ballard that he is no longer going to tag along with Kiki for her engagement, and that instead, he will go. When told this, Ballard asks why. He is needed for his FBI profiling, so that he can interrogate Terry.

Viktor then wakes up from the chair, having been imprinted with Terry’s personality. Adelle says hello to him, and has the bodyguards wrap a black cloth over his head. When he wakes up, he is sitting in an interrogation room asking for what he is being charged. Ballard asks Bradley why he thinks Terry is connected to the missing women because he doesn’t see a pattern, and asked him who were they to Terry.

At the university, Kiki is sitting in on her class while Professor Gossen (the client) is giving his lecture. At the end of the lecture, he has his assistants pass out the student’s papers, and Kiki receives hers with an “F” labeled in red ink. Upset by it, she rushes towards Gossen and asks why she got such a low mark. He then explains to her that they can talk about it in the privacy of his office, while saying under his breath how remarkably like her they made Echo.

Meanwhile, back at the Dollhouse, Terry and Ballard are in the interrogation room. Ballard tells Terry that he is not with the law, so he has no rights. He lays down a bunch of photographs of missing women that apparently have come in contact with Terry, and asks them who they are. Of course, Terry denies knowing them. Ballard makes the connection that the 3 women that have gone missing, all resemble Terry’s female family members. He asked himself if he may have killed them, but no. Terry’s family members are all still alive. Terry claims to have everything under control, and that is when Ballard shows him through a tablet Terry’s body, in a coma

“Does this look like someone who’s got it under control?”

After seeing himself in the chair, he starts to worry. He sees his uncle Bradley move next to his bed, worried. Ballard tells Terry that he needs to tell him where to find the women. Terry points out one woman in particular and says it’s her fault. He claims the women don’t let him do what he wants, they don’t let him play. They are too busy with their lives and with their boyfriends to care about him. He claims they are whores. When Ballard goes to give Adelle a report on the interrogation, they learn that the real Terry was going under cardiac arrest. They run down there and see it was a false alarm, someone tampered with the wires. This throws them all into a panic and Adelle and Ballard go looking for Terry. Adelle calls Bradley in his car and we learn that Bradley took Terry with him to do it his way. Terry seemed to disagree and thrashed Bradley’s head into the steering wheel while he was driving, causing them to crash into a parked car.
At Terry’s basement, the three women that are missing are locked up in a cage, just waking up.

At Gossen’s office, Kiki is reading him a passage from the book they are studying. She then asks if he has a radio, and she turns it on. She asks him if he wants to dance and he agrees. While dancing, she whispers in his ear what they can do about the “F” he gave her paper.

Meanwhile, Viktor as Terry is out in the streets with one thing in mind, trying to find more women. At the Dollhouse, Topher attempts to do a remote wipe, which proves to be successful, as Terry goes blank in the club he is in. However, this causes Echo to be wiped, and having her stab Gossen in the neck, and grabs his keys and drives off.
At the Dollhouse, Topher and Adelle start to talk about the remote wipe and how it backfired, instead of being wiped, Viktor and Echo swapped personalities, and the electricity went out in the Dollhouse. Kiki is now in the dance club, dancing like a maniac, and Echo is off as Terry driving away after he wrote “Whore” on Gossen’s mirror. At the dance club, Kiki starts to dance provocatively and starts to try and seduce the men, but as the men only see Viktor, they are highly confused. Kiki puts her arms around one man, and asks him to buy her a drink, and the man then punches her.

Back at Terry’s, the women find a way out of their cage to be confronted with Echo. Echo then bashes one of the girls with a hammer and tells them all she is Terry. Terry starts to tell the girls that he is not stupid, that he knows they tried to kill him. Of course, the women don’t know what is going on, and one of them suggest they take the other one to the hospital. Terry calls her “mother” and she simply responds “I am not your mother”. Then Echo has a flashback giving her a headache, getting more flashbacks. As Terry is about to bash another one of the girls in the head again, Echo gets another flashback and asks “Did I fall asleep?” Echo realizes what is going on and drops the weapon and walks away, while still having flashbacks. The woman tells her to back away from the door and Echo tells her that he won’t let her, that he won’t stop what he does The woman takes the weapon and starts beating Echo with it. That he had been watching them all, watching them from their houses, at the malls. As the woman is about to hit her again, Ballard comes in and stops her and offers Echo a treatment.

Ballard is looking at Terry in bed at the Dolhouse. Adelle walks in and informs him that his uncle Bradley, will be taking him to the hospital instead.
Echo walks around the Dolhouse, passes Viktor, and walks stand by the door watching Ballard and Terry. As Ballard leaves, she walks in. stands by Terry, and says
“Goodness gracious”.

<end credits>

 

[Taake]

2.04 - "Belonging"


"Belonging"

Music in this episode:
"Drones" by Jed Whedon
"Travelling Woman" by Bat for Lashes


The lense is out of focus and blurred, we're closed in on a mans face, he looks distraught and bloody. "I was just trying to help her" he says.


There's a bright flash, we're on at the beach someone "“ Priya "“ is just taking a picture. She's happy and talking to another seller at the Venice Beach boardwalk.
A man approaches (Dr. Nolan Kinnard), he looks shy, he wants to buy another one of her painting. He's been there before, buying her work, and he expresses admiration with great humility. He requests Priya to make him a custom piece, he's a 'collector' he says. She seems flattered but stand-offish. He offers to arrange her a show.


Priya:"Is there anything specific you want?"
Nolan (with intensity): "Yes, you."(then adds in an awkward hurry) "To do your thing."


Cut to a large painting. It's Priya's art show at Nolan's apartment. Priya seems miserable in the crowd and wanders. Spots a dark room where she peers in and sees several people in compromising positions and an ashtray of cocain on the table. Echo, imprinted with unknown confident girl, comes to turn her away from it. Their conversation is based on Echo trying to persuade Priya to get together with Nolan.

Across the room Mr Harding is talking to Nolan this 'expensive seduction' offering any of their dolls in Priya's stead, as gratitude for the work Nolan does with them. Nolan dismisses it saying that he only wants Priya.

Cut back to Echo talking to Priya about power, in the background we see Viktor (imprint: Luca Pallidio, art dealer) entering the room to greet Mr. Harding.

Echo: "Let them think they have the power. Our time will come."

They're interrupted when Mr. Harding brings Viktor/Luca over to greet Priya. The attraction is instant and obvious from Priya's side. Viktor/Luca pulls her away towards the painting, they seem to get along very well and both seem drawn to each other. Priya spontaneously takes a photo of him and asks if he wants to leave the party. Viktor/Luca says yes but seems to remember his imprint in the last moment, adding that they can "talk some more about Nolan."

When they start to leave Nolan notices and hurries up to stop it. He turns forcefully after Viktor's been ushered off to get a treatment. The mood turns intense and disturbing, the party goers awkwardly look on as they argue and struggle against the glass door. Nolan backs off but says that he's "not going to take no for an answer." Priya slaps him.

Priya: "You disgust me. Nothing in this world could ever make me love you."
She runs out.


Cut to present time.
Sierra throws herself into the arms of Nolan, kissing him heatedly, requesting to see him again. When she's about to leave he takes a photo of her with her camera. "I love you" she calls as she runs off.

We see Nolan toss the picture of her into a drawer full of pictures with Sierra in different costumes/ assumably personalities.


DOLLHOUSE Theme/Credits


We're in the Dollhouse. Echo and Sierra are painting, Viktor comes up to regard Sierra's work and Echo listens attentively to their conversation with a worried look in her eyes as Sierra tells him that she doesn't like the color black but uses it ''because it's always here''.


Cut to Topher through a magnifying glass he's talking to himself. Echo appears from behind and scares him. She's brought him Sierra's painting. He's flippant but Echo insists that "Sierra hates the bad man" and hands him the painiting.

Echo: "You're not looking hard enough." (walks away) "You never do."

In the background Topher looks noticeably stricken.


Cut to Boyd's office. Topher is there for advice, claiming he has a 'hunch' about the repeat engagement. Boyd scoffs at the notion of something bothering Topher but looks up Nolan and the engagements while Topher stares down into the pen. He sees Sierra and with a thoughtful look on his face tells Boyd about how he's helped Sierra.

He shows Boyd the painting of Sierra's that Echo brought him and seems thoroughly engrossed in it and what it might mean, taking no note that Boyd seems more interested in the fact that Echo brought it.

Boyd points out the connection Topher is looking for between the paintings and the engagements which is Saunders.


Cut to Topher staring at an assortment of Sierra's paintings. The dark shape is always present on them. He's reading the reports Dr. Saunders has written about them and looks stricken again as he reaches the end of the page where it says (about the dark shapes) "... they must represent an extreme sense of anxiety and rage associated with Topher Brink."

Topher looks up, horrified, half-whispering: "I'm not the bad man."


Cut to Viktor stealing all of the black paint from the art room with Echo helping him and spurring him on, telling him he's "taking charge". Boyd is watching them from above wondering out loud what Echo is up to.


Cut back to Topher's office. Topher enters in a rush, frantically going through papers and searching for Nolan on the computer screens in front of him. He's onto something.He walks through a barren corridor at the end of which they keep the dolls original selfs. Zoom in onto Priya's.

Body is watching Echo on a monitor. He sees her reading a book just as Topher rushes in excitedly tearing him out of the room and into his own office. He's figured out that Priya wasn't psychotic inspite of her medicines but because of them and that it is Nolan's field of work. He links it back to the wish fulfillment excercise ("Needs" s1) where Sierra went to confront Nolan.

Boyd: "How did this get past DeWitt?"
Topher: "We've got to tell her. She's going to flip her biscuits... unless you don't think she already knows?"
Adelle: "She does now."

The men turn around and find her leaning against the doorway with a grim look on her face.


Cut to Adelle's office. She's called Nolan in for a meeting. He seems pleased with himself and tells her he's not interested in any other Actives.

Adelle: "Oh that's a non-issue. I would no sooner allow you near one of our Actives than I would a mad dog near a child."

Nolan looks peeved, he knows somethings wrong now.

Adelle: "Given that you're a raping scumb back one tick shy of a murderer."

Nolan seems awkwardly flustered and ask what's going on. Adelle announces that his dealings with the Dollhouse is over seeming disgusted by his mere presence. Nolan turns cocky again, taunting her with her powerlessness, and tells her that she's going to imprint Sierra permanently and send her to him at the end of the day.


Cut to Echo wandering with her book, she pauses by a plant to rip off a leaf.

Cut to Adelle's office again. She's having a heated discussion with Mr. Harding whose all for permanently imprinting Sierra and sending her to Nolan, whereas Adelle is noticeably upset at the suggestion.

Adelle: "And if we do this what does that make us?"
Mr. Harding: "What are we already?"

Adelle gets defensive and protective over her Actives but get cut down to size when Mr. Harding reveals knowledge of her own Miss Lonelyhearts engagements (see season 1). Adelle turns away embarrassed trying to apologize for her own actions but still intent on protecting Sierra. Mr. Harding cuts her short, tells her 'they' don't care and threatens her by letting her now that the house is their business and that if she doesn't run it like they want her to then they will find someone else who will. Adelle looks more than a little frightened at this.

Mr. Harding: "And I promise, you would't like the early retirement plan."
He tells her to imprint the girl and close the accounts.


Cut to Viktor in the shower, he is washing away all the black color. Sierra finds him and tenderly asks him what he's doing. He tells her it's so she won't have to use the color anymore. She walks up to him and playfully, like children, they start to paint each others faces with the watercolor.

Viktor has a flashback to his past. We see a war scene where a solider is asking panic struck, asking him what to do, and collapses onto the floor.

Viktor: "I don't want to take charge."

Sierra cradles him in her arms, lovingly reassuring him.



Cut to Adelle's office.

Adelle and Topher are discussing what needs to be done with Sierra. Topher is upset and against the idea of sending Sierra to Nolan, Adelle (drinking brandy with a sour look on her face) bitterly tells him that they have no choice. Looks scornful when Topher claims they're supposed to help people.

She throws his imprinting of Whiskey with Dr. Saunders person in his face and Topher, looking very dejected, sits asking "how can you expect me to do this?"Adelle's voice turns softer as she tells him that he has to do it. She approaches him and in a chilling scene explains his role in the house to him.

Adelle: "The cold reality is that everyone here was chosen ecause their morals have been compromised in some way. Everyone except you. You Topher, were chosen because you have no morals. You have always thought of people as playthings. This is not a judgement. You always take very good care of your toys. But you're simply going to have to let this one go."

Zoom in on Topher's face. He looks aggrieved at what he's just heard but says nothing.


Cut to Topher approaching Sierra and Viktor at a table. He chokes out that she needs to have a treatment. Sierra invites Viktor to come, forcing Topher to have to explain that Viktor cannot come along. Topher walks up the stairs, looking back as Viktor sits down against a plant, dutifully waiting for Sierra's return.


Cut to Boyd looking through Echo's pod. He finds the book and the bookmark. "So she can remember."Adelle calls him. Tells him that Topher is having problems following commands and for Boyd to make sure he does.


Cut to a year earlier. We're in Topher's office, Echo is in the chair being imprinted, Adelle enters. Echo leaves with her handler (this is before Boyd) and Adelle lets Topher know that they may have found a replacement for their previous Sierra.

Adelle: "I think you might be interested in this one. Mental health case. Paranoid schizophrenic."
Topher: "Cool."


Cut to Topher visiting the mental health clinic Priya is locked into. He's walking outside with a doctor, going through her files and her medical history. We see Priya inside, sitting with Nolan, the specialist the first doctor refers to. When he sees them approaching Nolan steps away from Priya and comes outside to greet them. He watches them enter.

Priya is clearly deranged as Topher approaches to greet her. She speaks a lot of truth but in an incoherent sort of gibberish that makes it easy to dismiss because of her paranoid delusional behaviour. Topher offers her to leave and we see a spark of hope before she pleads him to help her get out.

Priya: "I'm a prisoner, I'm a prisoner."
Topher: "Not for long."


Cut to a music sequence, "Drones" plays as we see Priya struggle with the ordelies who are carrying her. Then we see Sierra, happily leaving the Dollhouse with her new imprint. We see Topher in his office, Adelle in hers drinking, then we cut back to past Priya struggling against the men holding her strapping her down and sedating her.

We see Sierra arriving the Nolan's apartment, then cut back to Priya's first day at the Dollhouse and we see Echo entering the room as Priya is wiped out in order to create Sierra. The women's eyes meet.

We're back to Nolan's apartment, Nolan is greeting Sierra/Priya at the door, asking if she's really there to stay. She replies "I'm all yours" and he grins. We see Viktor waiting by the plant for Sierra to return.


Cut to Topher in a dark room, putting imprints away, he looks desolate as Adelle comes to make sure everything has gone according to plan. They both look wretched at the knowledge of what's been done, Topher especially.Adelle tells him they had no choice. Topher looks at Priya's original self and says "No, I didn't."


Nolan's apartment. Priya is playfully confronting Nolan making him slowly realise she is her real self again.

Cut to the Dollhouse: Boyd confronts Echo about her bookmark and that she's reading and remembering. She plays stupid but he sees through it.

Boyd: "Your pushing, the Actives, the staff. What you're doing could have consequences you can't predict or control."
Boyd: "Some people are not ready to wake up"
Echo: "I don't care"


Back to Nolan's apartment and the confrontation between Priya and Nolan. She's taunting him and during their confrontation she realises that she's even as Priya is in love with Viktor. The confrontation turns aggresive.

Priya: "I love him. So much more than I hate you."

Priya ends up stabbing him several times. We see her rise in an eerie shadow form in front of her own bird painting.

Cut to Topher's office. We see him get a call but can't hear what's said.

Cut to Topher arriving at Nolan's apartment. Finding the body. He calls out for Priya who's hiding. Tells her they have to run but before they do someone comes. Topher peers out and sees Boyd.
Boyd takes control of the situation, he's come prepared to take care of the consequences.

Cut to Nolan wrapped up in a plastic sheet being dragged into the bathroom, Boyd hands Topher tools, Priya is in the bedroom packing up Nolan's clothes, Nolan is dumped into the bathtub. Topher is forced to take care of the body. Priya wanders and finds the photos of herself tat Nolan has taken after all of their engagements.

We're back to the start of the show. In the bathroom, a bloodied Topher is horror-struck, rocking back and forth saying "I was just trying to help her."

Topher: "Priya does not belong in the Dollhouse."
Boyd: "She does now."

Priya drops the photos of herself into the acid in the tub.

We're back at the Dollhouse. Boyd is lying to Adelle about Nolan's "disappearance". They both know it's a lie and decide to leave it at that, knowing Sierra is 'home' with them.


Cut to Priya in Topher's office at the Dollhouse where she's recounting her day and her feelings; "I woke up from a nightmare only to live in one."

Priya: "You were supposed to help me."
Topher: "I thought I was."

Priya sees Viktor and wonders if her feelings for him are real. Topher tells her they are. Willingly Priya wanders over to the chair to get wiped and requests that if woken up again she wants the day she's just had erased from her memory.

Priya: "This secret we have, can you keep it?"
Topher: "I can keep but I don't know if I can live with it."
Priya: "I know I can't. But I don't have to."


Travelling Woman plays while Priya is wiped again. Topher looks on, clearly troubled. Then he leads her down to the waiting Viktor. The two walk off hand in hand.

Cut to Echo by her pod. In her book she finds a note left to her with a keycard to the Dollhouse's doors. In Sierra's pod Sierra and Viktor are resting together.

*end credits*

 

[Taake]

2.05 - "The Public Eye"


Episode 2.05 - "The public eye"

We start on Senator Daniel Perrin preparing for a press conference together with his wife. They're discussing taking on the Rossum corporation and putting an innocent woman up to testify against them in front of the press.

Cindy Perrin: "Remind me why I love you so much."
Senator Perrin: "I'm your white knight"
Cindy Perrin: "And I'm your beautiful damsel."
Senator Perrin: "Ever after."

The press conference. Senator Perrin claims the "Dollhouse" to be real. He brings out Madeline Costly/November as a witness before the crowd and she makes a statement to them about having been a doll.

Madeline Costly (on those remaining in the Dollhouse): "They don't even know they need help. So that's why we need to help them."

Cut to Adelle's office. Mr Harding is watching the press conference with Adelle and Paul. He is not pleased with Madelines early release from the Dollhouse but he tells them to do nothing about it because Rossum already has a plan. Previously unconcerned Paul immediately steps up but gets no reply to his question about what will happen to Madeline. Paul stares in to the freeze-framed television image of Madeline's face and Mr Harding leaves.

Cut to Paul and Adelle exiting the elevator. Paul is worried about Madeline and Adelle tells him there's reason to worry but that they are taking action. She does not like a former active being used against herself.

Paul: "So what's your next move?"
Adelle: "To discover what game is being played."

Cut to Boyd, Paul and Topher watching one of Senator Perrins' press conferences on several TV-screens . They're discussing it as Echo appears, declaring that November "is sad." And expresses a wish to help her.

Paul ushers her out as Echo looks at the screen again and says "she isn't right."
Topher dismisses it but Paul realises that she is not referring to Madeline but Mrs. Perrin.

(On the TV screen) Senator Perrin: "She's perfect. It's like they made her just for me."


Dollhouse THEME / CREDITS


We're back to the same interview with the Perrins, this time view on Adelle's computer. Paul is telling Adelle about Cindy Perrins records and transcripts and how they're too perfect and that she appears to be a doll. A sleeper Adelle believes, an assasin Paul clarifies.

Adelle: "Mrs. Perrin's going to be activated when things get too hot."
Paul: "I'd say things are warmish."

Adelle dismisses his worries, saying Rossum won't take out a Senator but Paul's worry is that Cindy will take out Madeline.


Cut to Boyd in the surveillance room where he and Paul are figuring out how to get into the Senator's safe house where Madeline is being kept. Paul believes he can get her if Boyd only gets him the adress, Adelle enters and tells him it will be more difficult than that. She shows him the surveillance tape of Mellie/November/Madeline being activated to assassinate Hearn. Paul looks disturbed but determined as Adelle explains that Madeline/November could easily dispense of him.

Adelle: "Any concern for Mr. Hearn would be displaced. He was a serial rapist."
Paul (looking subdued): "I wasn't thinking about him."

Cut to Madeline looking distraught to the point of nausea, she's at the safe house looking at a print of the footage Paul has just viewed. Cindy Perrin enters and tries to comfort her while Madeline flips through different prints of her together with Paul. Madeline is terribly upset that she killed someone but Cindy defends her. The phone rings and Cindy goes to pick it up.

Cut to Senator Perrin in his hotel room asking them how they are. He tells his wife to take care of Madeline while he stays at the hotel to work. Before they hang up they say:

Cindy Perrin: "Remind me why I love you so much."
Senator Perrin: "I'm your white knight"
Cindy Perrin: "And I'm your beautiful damsel."
Senator Perrin: "Ever after."

Cut to Topher seen through a magnifying glance, he's creating something, while a skeptical Paul and a curious Adelle looks on. Topher explains that it is a 'disrupter', based on Alpha's remote wiping tech, he starts explaining in technical and neurological jargon what it is supposed to do when Adelle interrupts and demands "less tell, more show."

Topher beckons Active Kilo into the office. He demonstrates how the disrupter works on her and we see her grab her head in pain, her nose starts to bleed and finally she collapses onto the floor. It is supposed to work on any doll within a 10-foot radius Topher says. We see a doll collapse and tumble down the staircase outside the office. Topher quickly corrects himself and makes it a 50foot radius.

Paul instantly wants to head off to save Madeline. Topher and Adelle hesitates. When Paul lingers and Adelle explains that Madeline still has Active architecture in her head and will be affected as well if the disrupter is turned on in her vicinity.

Paul ( resentfully): "No one ever really leaves here, do they?"


Cut to Echo looking at a book, Boyd appears to take her for a treatment. She wonders if she gets to help November and worries that if she's made someone else she won't be able to. Boyd reassures her she will help.

Cut to Echo in the chair being imprinted. Boyd and Adelle talk about Paul being disatsfied with Echo being sent out without him, Boyd wonders if he should cover for him but Adelle shoots him down. She wants him on point and declares that Echo will be fine with any interim handler.


Cut to Senator Perrin pouring himself a drink in his hotel room. He's on the phone, working, he downs his glass and starts to blink heavily. He hangs up the phone right before the room starts to spin before him.

Senator Perrin wakes up hearing giggling. We see Echo in bed with him, wearing revealing lingerie holding a camera, she's playful and introduces herself as "Brie". The Senator visibly upset gets out of bed while she offers to show him the replay of their sexual encounter. He figures out that he's been drugged and that she's from Rossum.

Echo/Brie gets up to leave but gives him the message "Back off" before heading towards the door. The senator forcefully stops her. He seems fascinated as he looks at her and he realizes.

Senator Perrin: "It's amazing. So real. You're a doll."
Echo/Brie: "Thanks. You're cute too."

He takes her to see his wife, Echo/Brie seems excited and brings the camera as they head out.


Cut to Paul sitting in a car outside of the safe house. He calls Boyd to take out the 'eyes'.

Cut to Boyd's office. While Adelle watches he uploads malware and tells Paul that he's clear to move.

Cut to Paul getting out of the car and sneaking behind the house.


Cut to Senator Perrin in his car, driving Echo/Brie to the safe house while trying to explain to Echo/Brie that she is a doll. She does not believe him but seems amused by the thought that he's crazy.

Senator Perrin: "And I need you. You're evidence."
Echo/Brie: "Sounds like overtime for me."

Cut to Madeline standing in front of a mirror, gathering her things into her purse, we see Paul sneaking into view and he rushes up to put his hand over her mouth while she protests. He begs her to listen and releases his hand trusting she believes him. Immediately Madeline pushes him off, screams and tries to run away, he's following her struggling to hold onto her. When they're in the hallway Cindy Perrin comes running.Paul raises the disrupter in to the air.

Paul: "Don't come any closer. You need my help as much as she does."

Cut to Senator Perrin and Echo/Brie driving up onto the driveway.

Inside Paul clicks the disrupter, Madeline instantly screams and tears at her hair, outside Echo behaves similarly, while Paul lowers Madeline onto the floor he looks up to see Cindy unaffacted by the device.

Paul (shocked): "You're not a doll."

He's tackled by security and Cindy gets a hold of the device, turning it off while curiously looking it over. "This is new," she mumbles.

Outside we see Echo look up. She has a nosebleed and looks confused and a bit scared. On the side of her we see Senator Perrin stand up as well. His nose is bleeding.

Senator Perrin: "What the hell was that?"


Cut to Topher's office. Screens are blinking and beeping wildly, Adelle and Boyd comes bursting in, Topher asks them if Echo is near Ballard and tells them that Echo's neural architecture is cascading meaning that she's just been hit by the disrupter. Echo's GPS tells them she's at the safe house and they bring up the surveillance footage where they see bloody nosed Echo as well as senator Perrin get up.

Topher: "Okay, either they just got into a fist fight, in which case, "Go, Echo," or..."
Adelle: "Senator Perrin is a doll."

They realise Cindy is Perrin's handler and the tension rises as they don't understand why a doll has been engaged to publicly act against the Dollhouse. Topher, viewing the screen, announces that "Echo just kidnapped the conspiracy" as Echo drives off with Senator Perrin.

Cut, it's morning, we see the senators car in motion. The senator wonders where Echo is taking him, she is frightened and panicked refusing to go back. Experiencing a series of flashbacks from her doll history Echo nearly drives them off the road. Regaining control of the car she seems terrified to realise that what the senator previously told her was true.

Echo: "There are gaps. Things that aren't filled in."

Echo: "I'm not real. I'm not who I think I am. I am a doll."


Cut to the safe house. Madeline is being escorted out by security, Cindy Perrin is overseeing it but stays behind to question Paul. Both of them try to figure out what the other is up to without revealing anything about themselves. Cindy has the disrupter still, she tells one of her men to pack it in a 'secure' suitcase that will get through airport security.

Paul: "So why does Rossum want one of their ex-Actives to testify against them?"

Cindy doesn't answer but tells her men to make sure Paul ends up face down in the LA river. As she leaves Paul smirks a little.

Cut back to the senator's car where Senator Perrin is trying to convince Echo that they can't keep running. She wants to know how he can help her. Senator Perrin has his first flashbacks, demands for her to stop the car, he gets out and is very disoriented and confused. The flashbacks persists, befuddling him further. Echo tells him she thinks he's a doll but he vehemently denies it, then he pleads:

Senator Perrin: "Please tell me I know who I am?"


Cut to Adelle's office, she's standing in the window looking out as Topher enters. He has figured out that Senator Perrin is in fact Senator Perrin, a doll version of himself.An improved version of the person he used to be chosen because of his esteemed name.The phone rings and we see Adelle answer it.

Cut to the safe house where Paul mockingly offers Cindy's security men a bribe. When he gets up however he easily over powers the men with only a few moves and gets out of the house.


We see Adelle and Topher entering the surveillance office again. Adelle is wondering if everything is all right as they are trying to track Echo down. The retrieval team appears to have been stopped but then the phone rings. It's Brie calling her 'escort company'. We cut back and forth between Echo and Adelle during the call.

Echo wonders what they did to Senator Perrin and Adelle tells her that she did not do anything to her but that she can help. Offers her a treatment.and Echo seems willing to accept it but gets interrupted by Senator Perrin who refuses and grabs the phone. Adelle tells him that he's not, strictly speaking, a doll and tries to convince him to come in.

Adelle: "If I wanted to kill you I would, you'd be dead already."
Senator Perrin (sarcastically): "Hey, you don't want me dead. Wow, I feel like we're really bonding."

Just as Adelle says "Let's discuss bonding shall we. Let's discuss your wife." Cindy Perrin comes driving up.She gets out of the car and acts innocently clueless to everything, asking Senator Perrin to go with her. Echo, insiting that Cindy isn't right, does the same and the women pull at the senator who grows agitated and pushes Echo off. He stands by his wife, vulnerably looking for reassurance.
But when she says:

Cindy Perrin: "Remind me why I love you so much."
Senator Perrin: "I'm your white knight"
Cindy Perrin: "And I'm your beautiful damsel."
Senator Perrin: "Ever after."

He has a flashback to this being read to him as a part of his imprint and looking mournful and disturbed he steps away from Cindy, realising with some pain that it is all true. He turns back to Echo, wanting to go with her now, but Cindy points a gun at them.

Senator Perrin: "You won't shoot me. You're my handler."
Cindy: "That's true." (turns the gun on Echo) "But I'm not hers."


The scene fades out but returns to the same moment. Cindy strikes Echo while trying to get the Senator to come with her still, telling him that neither him nor Echo will remember any of this. Echo on the ground has flashbacks of previous imprints. Senator Perrin, backing away picks up a rock to strike his wife with, while she cajoles him not to working on his weakness (his love for her) but when it looks like she's succeeding Echo is back.. She hits Cindy Perrin and gains the upper hand.

Echo: "You just woke up a lot of people, and they all think you're a bitch."

They women fight, Echo clearly on top has flashbacks of fights from previous episodes ("The target", "A spy in the house of love") but Senator Perrin pulls her off. "I'm on your team," Echo objects.

Senator Perrin: "I love her."
Echo: "I know." (harshly adding) "But I don't have that problem." She strikes the Senator and goes after his wife/handler again. They fight and Echo wins (flashbacks to "Man on the street" fight) then she rushes up to get the Senator and ushers him off with the intent of getting help.

Senator Perrin: "You wanna take me to them? They're all bad guys, Brie."
Echo: "I think her bad guys are badder than my bad guys."

The senator hesitates ut goes along with her.


We see a car drive up to the curb, Madeline steps out she's greeted by one of Senator Perrin's employees, he spots the approaching Paul first and expresses a desire to call for security. Madeline says no, deciding to face Paul.

They walk up to each other and it is clear that Madeline believes she was a doll hired by Paul to fullfill his fantasy. He's trying to convince her to get away but she's resolute in wanting to her an explanation and he gives in, telling her about their history together and explains that he didn't know she was a doll. That he was working for the FBI and against the Dollhouse, something she scornfully returns with a "and now you work for them?"

Paul looks resigned but reveals that it was part of the deal he made to get her released early. Madeline looks confused but not completely convinced. Paul tries to tell her that it's a trick, that the Dollhouse wants her to testify.

Paul: "Mellie, if you do this, it would be a mistake."
Madeline: "I'm not Mellie."
Paul: "I know that."
Madeline: "You said you freed me.When someone's free they get to make mistakes. Am I free?"

They stare at each other for an intense moment, then she turns around and walks off, the camera lingers on Paul as he watches her leave.

Cut to the Senator's car again. Echo is behind the wheel their aim is the Dollhouse but before they get far we hear the hum of the disrupter and both Actives cries out and the car comes to a completely stop.

In the distance we see Cindy Perrin,bruised and battered device in hand, determinedly she strides towards the vehicle.


We're back in Topher's office. He's explaining to Adelle that Echo's vitals and GPS are gone, something that shouldn't be possible. They're visibly upset. Adelle calls Boys. He's on the street where we last saw Echo and the Senator. No one is there.

We see Paul, he gets a call from Boyd, he looks at his phone and ignores it. Walking off into the crowd.


Cut to Adelle's office. Adelle is drinking as Boyd enters and they're estimating the damage that has been done to them. Adelle bitterly believes to have figured out what Rossums plan is.

Adelle: "The senate subcmittee will clear Rossum of any contact with us and Perrin will be hailed as a conquering hero who has rescued all these poor souls. He'll have the political capital to pass whatever laws and regulations Rossum's prgrammed him to"

Boyd: "They'll be unstoppable. So what do we do?"
(Zoom in) Adelle: "Stop them."


Cut to an outside view of Washington, classical music is playing, we see a computer screen showing an image of a brain. We're at the DC Dollhouse and see Bennett Halverson with her assistant discussing what is going on. It is clear that this young, beautiful Bennett is as brilliant as Topher but perhaps even more eccentric.

The phone rings. It is Bennett's superior, she assures him that she will take care of Senator Perrin once she gets his body, explains what kind of memories they will 'fill' him with. She inquires about the other female Actives before hanging up. Walking into the imprinting room Bennett's strangeness becomes more apparent as she gets visibly angered by the Active 'Hades' presence on the table. Her assistant hurries to take care of it while Bennette mutters to herself.

She turns to a screen where she sees Echo and Senator Perrin unconcious and strapped down onto gurneys. She smiles. Seeing the Senator unconcious she announces she will put in 'the woman' first while he comes to.

Cut to her office again. Cindy greets Bennett and they discuss how to explain Cindy's external damages. Cindy gives Bennett the disrupter which clearly excites her and she quickly identifies the tech as being a product of Topher's. She seems delighted by it.

Cindy reminds her to refocus and they walk into another room where the Senator is still resting on his gurney, starting to come to. Bennett easily wakes him up and he grows quickly frightened at the sight of Cindy. He pleads for them not to erase him, that it's his mind.

Senator Perrin: "Who are you?"
Cindy Perrin: "She's God honey. And you've heartily offended her."

Bennett, seemingly OCD with her repeated questions, sends Cindy off and tells the senator they will start working in a minute then she walks off.

We see Bennett outside of the printing room and slowly she saunters into it, a chilling look on her face as she approaches Echo n the chair.

Bennett: "Caroline. You always promised you'd come back to me."

She half smiles as she says it, then looks deadly grim, "Lets play" she says turning on what seems to be electrical shocks causing Echo to writhe and scream in pain on the slab. We cut to a monitor where we see the horrifying scene and see Bennett walk up to the monitor, turning it off.


End credits

 

[msfantastico87]

Dollhouse Season 2 Episode 6 "The Left Hand"

2.06 The Left Hand


Bennett: "What's interesting to me is that you don't cry out to God."

Echo lying down in Bennett's chair. She continues getting tortured by Bennett.

<Dollhouse Opening credits>

Senator Daniel Perrin is laying in the chair with his wife/handler. She keeps telling him why he was chosen to be a doll. Telling him she can't stand him and his touch and being his "wife"

Adelle and Topher are riding in a limousine. She's giving him instructions, but Topher is not paying attention as he is far too amused to be in the limousine. He tells her that he doesn't like leaving his comfort zone. She responds by telling him this is important and that he needs to be comfortable getting out of his comfort zone quickly.

Bennett gives Echo some water and asks her what her real name is

"Caroline."

Bennett pulls out a wedge. Echo asks if Caroline's memories are in there, where Bennett responds, "No they are mine. I am going to show you what you did to me. To my arm." She inserts the wedge into the chair and starts the imprinting process.

Adelle and Topher are sitting in an office when a man walks in. Stuart Lipman. Head of the DC Dollhouse. He asks her what she is doing out of her jurisdiction. She asks for Echo to be returned to her but Lipman refuses as it's not part of regulation. He insists he will return Echo to her once her gets the OK and asks Adelle if this will be ok with her and she agrees with the condition that Topher examines Echo, making sure she is ok. Lipman agrees and asks Topher who is in charge at their Dollhouse.

We cut to their Dollhouse and we see Viktor acting exactly the same as Topher. Its clear Topher imprinted him with his own personality. Boyd is trying to calm him down but Topher keeps telling him that he thinks Bennett is a genius, which means something coming from him. Langton then instructs Viktor as Topher to just run the Dollhouse until the real Topher calls.

Bennett receives a call letting her know that Topher is on his way. She seems excited and lets him up. As she goes to meet him by the elevator, she injects Echo with something that makes her fall asleep. Topher walks in and claims their office is different than their and is surprised when the woman he is talking to is in fact Bennet. He starts gushing about her work and then realizes that her arm is broken and asks about it, at which she dismissed. He asks about Echo and she tells him he can't take her but will allow him to examine her.

Lipman pours Adelle a drink and asks why she flew cross country for just one active. He suggests that she should just walk away from it as she clearly cannot control Echo. Adelle then proceeds to try and seduce Lipman and puts her hand down his pants
"If you don't send me my active, I will send someone to cut these off. You will be killed horribly over a long period and never be found."

Topher examines Echo and learns she was tranquilized, and Bennett slyly says it might have been one of the handlers. She then asks Topher about the disruptor. She then gives her input on improving the disruptor into making it more into a Taser.
As Bennett prepares Echo to hand her over to Topher, Topher calls his own Dollhouse and checks up on things. He places a tracer of some sort to allow Viktor to see whatever he sees. They then proceed to talk about Bennett and how much cuter she is than expected. They talk about her personality, her glasses and her dead arm.
Senator Perrin wakes up next to Echo and tells her to breathe. Echo starts to have flashbacks of Bennett trapped under a chunk of a fallen ceiling. She gets up and starts to leave with Perrin. Meanwhile, Bennett smashes her head against the glass containing wedges while whispering "Caroline". She walks out in a daze, barely able to stand and heads toward Topher. Topher sits her down and asks her what happened.

Bennett:"It was that girl."
Topher:"Where is she?"
Bennett:"She took Perrin."

Perrin and Echo are walking out in the streets, barefoot. Echo gets another flashback of herself leaving Bennett behind in the rubble. She knows that Bennett wanted her to know what she did. Perrin insists they leave but Echo says they will always be found no matter what and makes him feel his neck and tells him they have a gps. They walk into a café and she instructs him to cut it out of her.

Madeline (November) is sitting in an empty courtroom with Perrin's handler, Cindy. Cindy gets a call from Lipman informing her about Perrin's escape with Echo and that neither of them have been wiped.

In the meantime, Echo and Perrin are in the café restroom. She hands him the knife and he removes her gps. Cindy and some bodyguards arrive at the café only to find an empty restroom and the gps' in the sink.

Echo:"They won't stop looking."
Perrin:"We won't stop running."

Bennett and Topher propose an idea to Lipman and Adelle on how to find the dolls. They decide that the best way to find them without actually locating them is to tweak the disruptor to send a signal to their specific brains, instead of sending a wavelength randomly to a diameter of 50 miles. Pretty much plug in the disruptor to that specific Dollhouse and send the signal from there. They proceed in doing this, all the while Bennet seems to be implanting some specific personality traits into Perrin for when they use the disruptor.

Perrin and Echo go back to Perrin's "home" to hide out. Perrin flashes back to when he met Cindy. He doubts if ever really happened, or if it was all a program stuffed into him. Echo tells him that she's afraid of her real self, Caroline. Perrin tells him they could expose the dollhouses and become who they wanted to be, whether it be stay as the personality they are, or go back to being their original selves.

When the disruptor is activated, Perrin starts to spaz out, and then automatically snaps out of it and attacks Echo. Topher can sense what is going on by looking at Perrin's brain activity and then noticing that nothing at all happened to Echo's brain. He then immediately turns to Bennett and asks what she did. We cut back to Perrin and Echo. Echo manages to get out of his grasp and runs away. She finds some gardening tools and reaches for a hoe. By that time, Perrin has already reached her and she tries to hit him but it's no use. He smacks her so hard, she falls to the ground. He pins her to the ground and she tries to tell him he can be who he wants to be and that it's all in his head, while she grabs a shovel next to her and hits him in the leg with it and escapes his grasp yet again and he follows.

Topher demands Bennett shut down Perrin but she refuses. She claims she did it because she knows Caroline and this is payback for what she did to her arm. Topher then refers to Echo as a friend, and punches Bennett unconscious.

Topher: "You were so close to being perfect!"

Topher calls Viktor and they proceed to converse about what just happened.
Echo runs into the greenhouse and hides behind some plants while Perrin comes rushing in after her and stop in the middle of the room. Cindy arrives with her guards and proceeds to instruct them to split up. Back at the green house, Echo keeps trying to avoid beign caught by Perrin. She lines herself up with him and shoves a plant at him. He catches her by the arm and pulls her towards him and begins to thrash her around the greenhouse. He pins her down, yet again and she manages to spray him in the eyes with insect repellant and manages to kick him through the glass door and on to the patio. While Perrin is lying there, Echo makes a run for it. One of Cindy's bodyguards finds Perrin and helps him up and goes to try and find Echo, but then Perrin snaps his neck and kills him. Echo keeps running, and runs into Cindy who has a gun pointed to her. She punches Echo down to the floor and tells her other bodyguard to keep an eye on her while she goes and looks for Perrin.

Perrin is standing in the middle of the greenhouse when Cindy walks in. She tells him how she never meant to hurt him and how he was programmed to love her, but she wasn't programmed to love him, but that she does in fact love him. She places her hand on his face and caresses it. He asks for a happily ever after and she agrees right before looking behind him and seeing the body of the bodyguard. He grabs Cindy by the neck and starts to choke her. The other bodyguard goes to investigates, leaving Echo for a moment. She wakes up and hits him in the head with a flower pot. She runs into the greenhouse to find Perrin holding Cindy up in the air by her neck.

Back at the DC Dollhouse, Topher and Viktor are on the phone figuring a way to deworm Perrin. Viktor finally finds a way and they can rest easy. Perrin lets go of Cindy and snaps out of it. He looks at her body lying there unconscious and starts freaking out. Echo tells them they have to keep moving if he doesn't want to get caught.
Back at the courtroom, Madeline (November) and her lawyer are sitting, waiting. In walks in Senator Perrin and photographers start taking photos of him. He explains how Rossum is a corporation of liars and that when I found out the truth, they placed a bomb in his car and that's what killed his wife. He looks at Madeline and claims she is a victim of their absurdity. He goes against her and says that are no dollhouses, no sex slaves, nothing of which Madeline was talking about. He tells the press that Madeline spent the last 3 years in a mental institution in Canada. When Madeline attempts to defend herself against the claims, Perrin points to a box that he says has proper documentation backing up his claim. Then he leaves the courtroom leaving everyone in an uproar.

Back at their own Dollhouse, Langton and Adelle walk into the imprinting room and find Viktor on the chair right before being wiped. He starts to argue and begging to stay longer to help Topher with anything. When he least suspected it, Topher wipes him clean.

Viktor: "Did I fall asleep?"
Topher: "For a little while."
Viktor: "Shall I go now?"
Topher: "For the love of God, yes!"

Adelle then instructs Topher and Langton to continue searching for Echo as she is still missing. Back at the DC Dollhouse, Madeline finds herself strapped into Bennetts chair getting ready to be imprinted. Bennett tells her they will find Echo and that she know's what it's like to feel betayed and that no one should be alone. She then begins wiping Madeline.

Bennett: "No one should be alone."

Echo is walking the streets, unsure of her destination.

<end credits>

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.07 - "Meet Jane Doe"

2.07 Meet Jane Doe

”Bennett has twice the resources I have...” A grave sounding Topher is looking over the Dollhouse. He turns to face Ivy while talking about Bennett, the programmer of the DC house. He's clearly bothered.

Ivy: ”Topher, what happened in DC?”
Topher: ”It's confidential.”

Ivy requests for him to trust her and tell her things in order for her to learn and a dramatic Topher claims that he will never trust another woman again. He's clearly scorned. When Ivy rolls her eyes and turns to leave he reveals Bennett's betrayal – sending a sleeper assassin after Echo. He continues to rant about Bennett until Ivy presses him for information about what happened to Echo.

Topher: ”Oh... we don't know.”


We're in Adelle's office and a worried looking Boyd enters the scene. He's worried about Echo's where abouts and doubts she's still in DC. He and Adele discuss how she may be getting around and frustrated clearly Adelle urges Boyd to find Echo as Rossum is watching and Ballard is still missing.

Adelle: ”Paul Ballard is still AWOL. Find him, find Echo. Even if it's in a ditch somewhere.”



Cut to Echo rummaging through garbage for something to eat. She looks worse for the wear and bites in to the leftovers of an apple that she finds. Quickly she spits it back out.

*Opening credits*
'

We're in Medina Texas. A scruffy looking echo is watching people outside a grocery store which she enters. People turn to stare after her as she approaches the fruit stand and merrily grabs an orange. The shopkeep notices and informs her that she has to pay. Child-like Echo agrees ”with money” she says as if she's not quite sure what it is and asks where she can get money.

The shopkeep tries to get her out, pushing her towards the ATM in indication of where she can get money, and Echo approaches it trying to get money by using words. She over-hears a conversation by the cashregister where a Spanish girl isn't allowed to buy food for her food stamps. The Spanish girl begs while Echo, looking concerned, watches.

When the girl leaves Echo grabs some food and rushes after her, pushing it onto her.

Echo: ”There. You don't have to be sad anymore.”

They introduce themselves to each other, the girl's name is Galena. The police show up and the shopkeep send them after Galena and Echo. Galena is quickly caught but Echo is chased down an alley but the deputy and gets knocked onto the ground. When he pulls his gun on her Echo flashes through several of her old imprints and starts fighting back, quickly immobilizing the officer. She runs away.


Three months later.

We're back at the Dollhouse where Harding is interviewing a new client, Mr. Caveziel, while Adelle serves them tea.It is clear that Adelle has been demoted to an assistant of sort to Harding and she walks out on his orders.


We're back in Texas, at a hospital, where Echo appears to be working as a nurse. She talks to one of her co-workers and appears to be talked into taking the jail run, giving flu shots to the inmates in County lock-up.


A headshot of Echo is show on a big computer screen. Boyd is trying to locate her still. Adelle walks into his office, where hers appear to be too now, and they brielfy discuss the new engagement she has been sent to arrange and Adelle's distaste is obvious, for the engagement as well as her own lack of power.She looks over the actives wandering about the house.

Adelle: ”Feels like ages ago that we actually we weighied a request against an Active's chance of survival, let alone well-being.”
Boyd: ”We've always put them at risk. We just don't lie to ourselves about it now.”

Adelle looks sore at the comment. ”You sound like Harding she says.”
Boyd:”I can never tell if you're bent out of shape because you're no longer in control of the welfare of our Actives, or because you're no longer in control.”


We're at the County Jail in Medina. Echo introduces herself to the sheriff as Jane and denies having met him before while being taken into the inmates she's going to give shots to.
Galena is brought to her by the deputy Echo beat up only a few months earlier at the same tie as Galena got arrested

Echo seems detached and the deputy shows his intolerance by shouting in Galena's face and forcing her clothes off her. Echo discoveres a big bruise on the girl's side when he puts her on the bench.

Echo: ”Do you speak Spanish?”
Deputy: ”No. It's not like we're immigration.”

Taking the chance Echo speaks fluently to Galena in spanish, asking her if she remembers her and tells her to stay away from the guards to avoid getting hurt. When the guard asks if their done Echo's cellphone rings and she apologizes but picks it up and quickly snaps a photo of the girl in front of her. Then she declares that the jail is out of painkillers and that she'll have to bring a new supply tomorrow and in the meantime she gives Galena a jar with pills, telling her in Spanish to take one the following day before lunch time and that it's very important.

”I'll be back”, she promises when Galena gets taken back to her cell.


Back at the Dollhouse Ivy seems grumpy with Topher, she's unloading Sierra from the chair and seems irked by Topher's presence and tells him to stop looming.. He tells her that he wants to brainstorm and a clearly flattered Ivy smiles and asks about what.

”Not with you,” Topher mutters as Sierra gets out of the chair. She's been imprinted with a scientists mind and walks out with Topher into his office, dressing in a labcoat while doing so, discussing EEG while walking past a similiarly lab-coat clad Victor. Sierra and Topher discuss what they see on a computer screen, Victor glancing at Sierra but then showing Topher what he's been doing. Burning CPLDs trying to cool polycrystaline diamond composites. At the objection of cost Topher dismisses it loftily as Mr. Harding has told him ”anything in the name of progress.”



We're back in Texas. Echo enters an apartment carrying two grocery bags while wearing a smile on her face. She walks in but she's not alone. Someone grabs her from behind but quickly she grabs her attacker and throws him off her in an instant He tumbles to the floor.

Echo: ”Are you okay?”

Her attacker is Paul, chastising her for not being on the offensive as they have practiced but waiting for the attack. Echo reaches out her hand to help him up. ”Sometimes a girl just likes to be chased. Hungry?”

We see Echo and Paul conversing while unloading the groceries in the kitchen. They seem to have a routine down and they're discussing the stomach bug that Echo gave her co-worked Deb in order to be able to take her place as the jail nurse. Paul is concerned that it's too soon but queries about Galena's health. Echo suspects the guards are beating her up. She pulls two boxes of mac and cheese out of the bag and hands to Paul who grins.

Paul: ”36 personalities and not one of them can cook?”

The touch on the subject of sex and Paul quickly backs away, uncomfortable by the thought of Echo in sexual engagements, he changes the topic back to ask if she got the layout of the jail. Then he asks about her headaches. Echo says they're not too bad and reveals what she had to access during her time in jail – the nurse stuff and Spanish was a breeze, but casing the jail was difficult for her.

Echo: ”That imprint was borderline Rain Man. Doesn't play well with others.”
Paul: ”We can take it easy tonight.”
Echo: ”No I wanna get physical.”

She wants to train but then asks for candles. It's their last night together. Paul objects but Echo insists, she can't train forever she says and tells him they have to go back to the Dollhouse after they have resqued Galena.


We see them having a candle light dinner. Echo is explaining how her imprints came over her like a wave when she took out the deputy three months earlier. She seems serene, 'collecting herself' she describes it. ”Why then?” Paul wonders and Echo reveals her theory – that it was because of Bennett and the memory of Caroline she recieved through her. Echo didn't like it.

Echo: ”The idea that Caroline might be... I've been saving this body for her. But I'm not her.”
Paul: ”You don't know that.”

He reveals that it was Echo who tracked him down months earlier even if she didn't remember his name and instinctively knew that he would help her and keep her from Adelle. He claims that Adelle was Caroline's enemy, not Echo's.

Echo gets mad. ”I'm not her!” She looks deadly serious. ”My name is Echo.”

Paul backs off and quickly Echo leans forward taking his hand, telling him he's her best friend, she tries to rub his arm but he rebuffs her advance. She's hurt but he tells her he doesn't think he has the right, she insists that she is her own person – that she feels what she feels, not that the other personas are involved.

Echo: ”There's a lot of noise fro the chorus girls but they're not me.”

Paul looks unconvinced but conflicted. He's tempted.

Echo: ”There is a me. This is me.” She puts his hand on her cheek and closes her eyes.

We see Echo in a mirror. Then Paul. They're both getting undressed. They come to face each other... but it's not romantic. They sparr, violently fighting each other, training to make sure Echo is ready.

While a score plays we cut to Echo cutting up the printed pictures of Galena that she took. She's making a fake ID. Then she, with both hands draws the layout of the prison while Paul watches in fascination.
Paul lies down on the couch, he glances at Echo lying in bed, and we cut to the sparring with each other again the sexual tension obvious. Paul looks aways.


Cut to the Dollhouse. Adelle knocks on Topher's office, she needs him to sign off on an engagement and wonders about the ”improvements” Harding has him working on. Topher tells her that's on a need-to-know basis and she claims that she needs to know. Harding appears questioning why, a flustered Adelle claims to be curious due to her own science background. Curiosity created the Dollhouse she says and Harding agrees, adding that Topher will 'bring it to the future'. Adelle quickly looks to Topher who sees happy as can be as Mr. Harding continues to flatter his know-how. He invites Topher to a meeting, Adelle mistakenly thinking it was her being invited, and Harding dismisses her. ”Don't you have a ghost to chase?”

Adelle leaves. And walks into Boyds office. ”Topher's finally showing his true colors,” she mutters angrily. Boyd's on the phone though and quickly catches her attention. He's talking to Paul and wants him to come in. ”Soon” Paul tells him, watching Echo behind the shower curtain. ”I'll bring her in soon.”

We're back with Adelle and Boyd trying to get Paul to bring Echo in. Then Boyd tells them it might not be the best time to bring her in and Paul says that they have no choice. Echo is getting smarter but it's taking it's toll. Boyd says he'll wait for Paul's signal and gives him a good luck.

Echo comes out of the shower. ”Who was that?”
Paul: ”Boyd. And he's ready when we are.”


In the county jail we see Galena popping on of the pills Echo told her to take.
We see a guard leading her down a corridor and she copllapses onto the floor. She's rushed to Echo in the medical room where Echo declares her to have a ”epidural hematoma”, head trauma, and tells the officers in a short tone ”wonder how that happened.”

She takes the girl's blood pressure and tells her, in Spanish, that she will give her something that is going to put her out for a few minutes. Then she orders one of the deputies to give her the syringe from her bag, labeled manitol. But really it's something that slows Galena's heartrate to a near dead state, faking a cardiac arrest to start and then allows Echo to declare her time of death. The deputies are stressed, they can't have a dead girl on their hands, Echo tells the she'll make it go away and give them her silence about their inmate abuse in exchange for their promise never to do it again. The sheriff looks torn but agrees.

Echo and the deputy wheels Galena out. Time is running out for Echo, only 45 seconds to go before Galena wakes up, which she does as their trying to get out of the prison. The deputy squeals in horror ”oh my God she's a zombie” but then quickly realizes something is fishy.


At the Dollhouse Adelle enters her office where Harding and Mr. Ambrose is entertaining Talik Raj Amin, the head of their new Dollhouse in Dubai. A few Actives are planned to be transferred to the new house and Harding requests for Adelle to compile a list of recommended people. Then he sends her off with Boyd.

In the elevator Boyd, looking resolute, tells Adelle: ”You need to take this house back.”


We're back in the county jail in Texas where Echo and Galena are tossed into an interrogation room by the deputies. The sheriff threatens them and tells them they're staying untill he's figured out who they are.

When alone Galena asks off Echo if it's part of the plan and trying to console her Echo suddenly looses her ability to speak Spanish. She gets a bad headache and tries again to speak Spanish, and agan she fails.

Echo: ”This isn't good.”


At the Dollhouse Topher is demonstrating before a crowd how he has made the imprinting chair obsolete by a remote wiping device. His audience claps and Victor and Sierra, looking on, turn to each other and start kissing. Rolling his eyes Topher remote wipes them just as Harding walks up to him to commend him on his success. In the background Victor and Sierra walk off, holding hands.

Harding, upon noticing wonders if they're grouping, it happens all the time he tells a flustered Topher and tells him it's easily dealt with, suggesting for Sierra to be sent to Dubai.


In Texas Galena is hitting the windows, trying to get Echo some help, when it doesn't work she takes Echo's hand and promises it'll be okay. Looking at her Echo then turns away, another wave of imprints washing over her. ”Blue skies,” she says, having accessed Taffy's imprint and suddenly she's up again – ready to break out of the prison. She gets the door unlocked by the use of the underwire in her bra. They make their escape.

Running into a few guards Echo accesses another imprint and easily takes them both down with a few punches. The girls run off. Echo has to focus to slip into the right imprints in order to get them through the doors while being chased.

She beats up the same deputy who first got her imprints to wash over her three months earlier and it's taking it's toll on her. ”I don't think I can keep this up,” she says but manages to get Galena out. Running outside they steal a motorcycle from a guy on the sidewalk and as the officers come out to follow a car rolls up to block them.

Paul gets out. ”FBI,” he says. ”I'm working with Department of Corrections investigating allegations of inmate abuse.” He plays a recording of the sheriff telling Echo how sometimes his boys gets 'out of hand' and tells him that if the sheriff tries to get Galena or Echo Paul will make sure to get the tape to every prison official in the state.



At the Dollhouse Adelle is in Topher's office, she's rather apathetic and uninterested in his new device, tells him she's sure it's impressive but that she doesn't need to see it and that she's suprised it took him this long to invent it. She follows him as he leads her to his little private area/functioning bedroom.

Topher reveals that he finished the remote wiping device two months earlier and clearly distressed tells her that he spent the rest of the time trying to think of another way to do it. A less effective way, something that wouldn't lead to anything else, anything bad. Adelle, looking alarmed, asks him what bad he's referring to.

Topher tells her there are twenty-two houses (twenty-three she corrects) and that they're all working on their own small, specific, relatively harmless technology. Adelle gets what he's saying. They're making a component. He tells her that he suspects they're trying to build a portable device that can imprint anyone, even without Active architecture implants.

Adelle: ”That's unnerving.”
Topher: ”No. What's unnerving is... that I figured out how to do it.”

He takes a roll down from it's hiding place and shows her the plans he has drawn up for the device. Tensely Adelle looks at him and tells him that it's something that Harding must never know.


Cut to Echo in casual clothes talking to Galena who asks why she did all this. ”Because you deserve to be free,” Echo says as Paul enters. Galena's taxi is there. With the fake ID Echo made her, dubbing her 'Lisa' instead, Galena says thank you and departs.

Echo: ”One down.”
Paul: ”This was just a test run. Things are gonna get a lot harder when we're back at the Dollhouse.”
Echo: ”I can handle it.”

She kisses Paul passionately, asking him to be with her just this one time while it's still only the two of them. Paul looks critically at her questioning whether or not it really is only the two of them. Echo, wounded looking, releases him just as Boyd enters.

Boyd: ”Hello Echo, are you ready to go home?”
Echo: ”I try to be my best.”

She walks out first, Boyd puts his gun away and exchanges a tense glance with Paul before they oth follow her.


At the Dollhouse Topher heads for his private space, he seems tired and edgy and quickly discovers that his plans for the portable device they feared have been taken. Frantically he searches for it ut quickly realizes who must have taken it.

Cut to Adelle in her own office. She has handed the plans to Harding who seems pleased. ”This has the potential to change everything,” he tells her.
She smiles and agrees telling him that she understands now how it works, how much is at stake and that she's onboard. Adelle has regained the power of the Dollhouse and she seems pleased.


Back in Topher's office a more than a little upset Topher is yelling at her, telling her she's out of her mind. She insists it was with the best interest of the house but he will not be calmed.

Topher: ”I trusted you!”
Adelle (coldly): ”Well who thought that was clever scheme?”
Topher: ”You are the coldest bitch on this planet.”

She slaps Topher, demotes him to programming and forbids him from ever speaking to her like that again.

Adelle: ”I rule the house. I won't let anyone challenge that. Not ever again.”


The elevator opens and we see Echo walking back into the house with Paul and Boyd by her sides. The other Actives gaze up at her as she strides on with a little smile on her face.

In Topher's office Boyd claims that Paul has been looking for Echo the whole time and only just recently found her.. Adelle is not buying it, she coldly suggests a treatment, but upon reveal that Echo is having severe headaches she changes her mind and orders Echo to be placed in isolation, not treatments, in order to ”see how much she can bear.”

Paul protests. Echo is in pain. Adelle smirks and leans closer. ”She looks fine to me,” she says before looking up and around at the three men around her. They all look discomfited with her decisions and smirking still she tells them in a menacing tone: ”Oh come on, we all know Echo's special. Let's see what she's capable off.”

Then she leans in towards Echo and whispers; ”It's good to have you back, love.”


End credits

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.08 A love supreme
Music: ”One life away” - M. Ward


”One life away” plays as we open up on a sun-drenched rural looking road in Riverside county. We see a cactus, the worn parts of old motorhomes. We zoom to an old radio, playing the music, we hear Clay speak before we see him.

”Glad I got this second chair,” he says to his company as he sits in an old fold up chair, drinking beer looking worse for the wear. We see parts of his companion, a snappily dressed man, holding a beer bottle as well. Clay is talking about his current life situation.

Clay: ”Still broke, still love a woman, still can't have her”
It becomes clear he's talking about a Doll. ”But what's still a surprise is how much you love her. I loved her to abstraction. To destitution. I blew my fortune on engagements. Now, only my love sustains me, love for a woman who doesn't exist.”

While Clay speaks empassionately about the woman/doll he loves his companion has gotten up during the scene and saunters a little. ”That's my sad story,” he concludes looking troubled.

His companion – Alpha – finally comes into full view. ”You want to know the saddest part?” He puts on his jacket. ”The ending,” he says, taking a blade out of the innerpocket.

We hear Clay groan as a large amount of blood splashes up against the side of his trailer.

Alpha: ”It seems like maybe, love wasn't enough.” .


*CREDITS/ THEME*

We're in the Dollhouse. Zoom in through the little window of an isolation cell. Echo is in side, curled up in a corner, strapped into a straightjacket. The image is blurry and she seems thoroughly unwell. Viktor/Dr Gholsen is questioning her about the headaches she's been having and if she remembers her three month absence from the Dollhouse.

Echo's answers are not coherent and she starts keeling over, looking as if she's in great pain as she tries to answer the questions put to her. Her expression clears a little when she is offered a treatment, we see a smiling bespectacled Viktor, speaking in a soothing voice, he tries to question her once more but Echo holds fast and tells him no.

Viktor: (sighs) ”You choose pain.”

He turns away from her, looks through a window on the other side of which Adelle is standing, looking something between amused and manipulative. Paul and Boyd are also present, watching the interrogation of Echo. Adelle is taunting Paul, mockingly questioning him about Echo, it is clear she knows that he and Echo are lying about how Echo survived outside the Dollhouse and his involvement in it. Paul is clearly agitated.

Paul: ”You're punishing her for surviving?”
Adelle: ”You're wrong Mr Ballard. I'm very sorry for Echo's suffering, but we must have answers.”

Adelle dismisses the session, saying it will be resumed the next day and so forth until she has her answers then excuses herself to consult with her expert (i.e. Viktor/Dr. Gholsen) leaving Paul and Boyd alone.

Paul is agitated, the distant Boyd comes closer telling him that it is not Echo who's being tested, it's Paul and that his behavior is too obvious. The men have words and Boyd grows agitated.

Boyd: ”Today, protecting her means not reaction while DeWitt tortures her. So man up!”


We're with Adelle and Viktor/Dr Gholsen, walking up the stairs and headed towards Topher's office. She is questioning him about his conclusions about Echo and whether or not she's aware of what she's done outside of the Dollhose. The doctor seems convinced that Echo is completely unaware and in a perfect doll-like state. He gets momentarily distracted as a fancily dressed Sierra walks by.

Viktor/Dr Gholsen: ”She, however is naughty and completely aware of it.”

Adelle rolls her eyes and leads him into Topher's office and then to the chair where Toper is waiting. Their conversation meanwhile circles around sexuality and the doctor offers his theory to why Adelle doesn't like Echo. Adelle impatiently humors him until offering him a treatment

Viktor gets into the chair and Adelle complains to Topher that it was a ”tiresome” and unnecessary exercise, she is not happy with the doctor's findings. Topher seems unsurprised and a little gleeful about it. He agrees with the doctor though that there's nothing physically wrong with Echo that might explain her headaches. It's all in her mind.

Adelle: ”So she's perfectly normal?”
Topher: ”Normal as anyone else around here.”

Adelle, looking unimpressed, guesses that there are some 'nonsensical looking scans' that will back up Topher's opinion. Cheerfully smiling he raises a bunch of them, offering her to view them. Adelle leaves without word while Viktor is wiped and the chair raises him up again


Cut to a computer screen showing Echo's image and a very distressed Topher comes into view.
”These are the craziest scans I've ever seen!” He exclaims to stony-faced looking Boyd and Paul.

Topher: ”I know a conspiracy when I desperately try to avoid seeing one.”

Boyd asks if he told DeWitt and Topher tells that he did not and demands to know what's going on. Boyd reveals that Echo is not a blank slate anymore. She's a person. Topher seems shaken but skeptical at first, not comprehending how it could have happened, and is shocked when Paul tells him it's not only a few people in Echo's head but all the imprints she's ever had (thanks to Alpha), that the wipes only push them down and that she can control them now.

Topher: ”She can control?” He sits down, looking rattled. ”What does that make her? What is she?”



Cut to Adelle's office. Adelle is pouring drinks as Paul enters. They have words about Echo and Adelle's method. Adelle is trying to force the truth out of Paul by now trying a different tactic. She is putting Echo back out on to the field, knowing it will disturb him, on a romantic engagement no less. They smirk a little bitterly at each other – Paul knowing he can't object too loudly though he looks as though he wants to.

”I thought you might need this,” Adelle says, handing him a drink, watching him attentively as he drinks it down.


We're back in the interrogation room where an employee has just helped Echo out of her straightjacket. She looks up as Paul enters, soothingly announcing it's time for her treatment. They walk out together.

Paul: ”We never meet like this anymore.”
Echo: ”I missed you too.”


Back in Topher's office, ”Is she still Eleanor Penn?” Topher is inquiring off a sighing, tired looking Boyd. This has no doubt gone on for a while.Topher keeps questioning, he's clearly distressed by this and cannot wrap his head around it.

Topher: ”Does she still trust you with her life? And is that because she's programmed to or because you're a swell guy with a trust-worthy brow?”
Echo: ”I like to think both.”

Echo and Paul enters, Topher greets Echo who mocks him a little, and he laughs but only seems further unnerved. Leading her towards the chair he explains her up-coming engagement, wondering if it's okay with her. ”I do work here,” Echo smiles.

Topher gets ready to prep the chair with the imprint. We zoom on Echo's face as she goes into her mind to find the print she needs. When Topher requests her to sit in the chair she turns and she is already Susan, the girl she's supposed to be imprinted with.

Echo: ”Got her. Repeat engagement. Had her filed away.”

Topher is unsettled by this and looks to Paul who smirks and walks off to the elevator with Echo, he looks to Boyd who only looks troubled. Topher turns thoughtful as he nods to himself; ”I am obsolete,” he concludes.


Cut to the outside of one of the Dollhouse's vans as it's driving down a freeway. Paul and Echo are inside, she's dressed up as Susan, but they're discussing what it's been like since their return to the Dollhouse. Paul is not happy and he tells her he's thought of this moment for this is the moment when they'll make a break for it and escape. Echo tells him he's not that stupid and that they would only end up in the attic.

Paul: ”I don't like this. I don't like being your pimp.”
Echo: ”I don't like it either.”

She seems far more matter of fact and emotionally distant than him though. She tries to console them both perhaps by assuring him it's not a bad engagement and that she will be Susan not Echo while she's with the other man. Speaking of Frank (whom Susan loves) Echo's control slips and she turns into the other woman in front of Paul's calm but worried eyes.


We cut to the floor of a house where rose petals have been strewn in a circular pattern. Echo/Susan enters calling out for Frank. She finds him in the dining room where he is by the table waiting. Running up to him she instantly starts screaming horribly, grabbing her face and hair. The camera swoops around and onto Frank – he's dead and appears to have been so for quiet some time.

Fade out.


We're back and we're in the same room. Echo/Susan is not alone anymore, Paul and Boyd are there, but she is clutching her chest, still crying miserably. Paul can't 'snap' her out of it and Boyd tries but not even the offer of a treatment seems to settle her.

Boyd and Paul inspect the body of Frank Pearce. They conclude that it's been decomposed for at least a week and that there's no blood. The engagement had been made only the day before. They deduce the whole thing has been staged and that they were meant to find it.

Echo is back. ”No I was,” she speaks somberly, picking at the big rose arrangement. She turns – holding a note which has a message for Echo.

”For my number one”, Paul reads and Echo explains to him that Whiskey used to be number one and that now she is. The note is from Alpha.


Cut to the opening of an elevator. Adelle is in the front, stepping out, with Paul and Boyd following closely behind. She seems skeptical that Alpha might be involved, note or no note. She wants Echo back in solitary, claiming that if it is Alpha then Echo is involved too. She heads off demanding them to find Alpha and keep Echo locked away.



We're in Boyd's office. Boyd is putting up pictures of Alpha's latest victims on glass board, explaining who they were and what relationship they had to Echo, while Paul watches and listens attentively. We see Frank, Clay – the billionaire who blew his entire fortune on Echo, Brian Chu and Megan Krantz, two clients who one tried and the latter did marry Echo. All now dead. Murdered.


They conclude that it's romance engagements. Alpha is murdering these clients not because they loved Echo but because Echo loved them.

Paul: ”So who's next?”


Cut to the opening of elevator doors. We see the end of a silver colored dress and a big white fur. Sierra is back from her engagement and gets into the chair. She has not had a happy engagement and is complaining about the client she's just been with; ”'The dolls hold all thecards,' he said. Well this is one doll who's gonna fold.”

She goes into the chair. ”I never wanna hear his name again... Alpha.”
”Excuse me?” Topher flinches and instantly brings her back up.



We're back in Adelle's office. Boyd and Adelle are seated, Paul standing while Topher nervously paces. They're discussing the Alpha situation. The client Sierra was with - Mr. E Hap Lasher – doesn't exist. ”Alpha's here” Adelle quickly unscrambles the letters into understanding, she does not look pleased.She decides that all the dolls need to be put through the chair to be wiped, just to be sure that whomever Alpha may have 'contaminated' will be cleaned.

Topher reminds them that Sierra had a message for them from Alpha; ”The next lover ages well”
Boyd and Paul decides not to disappoint their foe and to be present next time.


We see a video screen showing Dolls being wiped one by one. The line is long. We're in Boyd's office where he and Paul are trying to figure out who the next target is. They come up with Matt Cargill, a client who books Echo once a year on his birthday.



Cut to men dressed in SWAT like clothing, running with automatics in their hands, securing the area of a rooftop. Paul comes closely behind them, armed and alert.He claims the party area to be clean but then sees something and demands for Boyd to get up there.

The SWAT men and Paul run up to the helicopter landing spot where we find Alpha and Matt Cargill the latter strapped onto a chair with explosives. Alpha seems gleeful about it all talking about their wardrobe. Paul and Boyd try to plead with Alpha to put down the trigger device as Matt asks them for help.

Boyd: ”Alpha, do not do this. There's parts of you that know this is wrong.”
Alpha: ”There are many parts of me that know this is wrong, none that care, and six (laughing) that just find it funny.”

Alpha is not entertained by the fact that Echo loves about the clients and that they're just using her, a piece of her, wasting her. So he's going to waste them... the tension is rising as they can't get closer nor reason with Alpha. At a forced pun from Matt Paul orders everyone to fall back, foreseeing the coming explosion.

They all run, including Alpha, after the trigger has been tossed into the air. We see Matt blown into pieces.

Paul, Boyd and their men run up again to find Alpha but he's gone.


Cut to the Dollhouse, they're back in Boyd's office, going through Echo's romantic engagement clients (most have been put into safehouses) only one is left. Joel Mynor, the internet guy. But they can't find him. Boyd realises that Rebecca the dead wife and the imprint might know where he is and if she does then Alpha does.


Cut to a serene looking beach. Joel Mynor is walking down it. Suddenly Paul appears from behind. Joel is upset and demands for him to leave but Paul explains that he's no longer FBI but with the Dollhouse now. .

Joel: ”You're with them now? Wow. You're a little bit of a freak aren't you? I don't even know what to say to that.”

Paul explains that they believe he's in danger and that he has to come with them. Joel is reluctant, claiming that part of his life to be over, he's moved on, he's getting married. Paul glances to the side. Echo/Rebecca appears. Joel turns, clearly moved by her presence, and they hug. Paul standing in the distance.


Cut to all of them in the Dollhouse. Adelle greets Mr Mynor and takes Echo away from him. She is not happy and scolds the men about the fact that Paul and Boyd took Echo out of solitary and that they brought Mr. Mynor to the Dollhouse. She doesn't want clients to running around.

”Consider yourself on a very shot leash,” she barks before leaving.


Cut to Topher's office, Topher is jabbering on while Mr. Mynor sadly looks out into the pen where Echo is heading. Joel is realising that Rebecca didn't stop existing just because he stopped being a client and it troubles him. He inquires about Alpha after Topher brings him up and wonders why he wants him dead.

Topher: ”In a nutshell, he's this super-genius serial killer who imprinted himself with a bunch of personalities and then escaped.”
Joel Mynor: ”Wait. What?”
Topher: ”Nutshell! Nutshell.”

Joel is distressed by these news and the fact that Alpha does not only know where the Dollhouse is but he's broken in there before.

Cut to Echo being locked into solitary.

Cut to Adelle in her office trying to find a hotel room for Mr. Mynor. The toilet flushes and Alpha exits.

Cut to Adelle's office again. She's looking somber but unnerved while Alpha asks for her opinion about his dapper looking suit. ”You're quite the dandy,” she answer to his delight.

He freshens her drink. ”Are you scared?”
Adelle looks truly frightened: ”Out of my mind.”

Alpha speaks of his mind and how he can't be out of one because he has so many, and that she is the one to thank for that. Adelle offers to send for Echo, claiming to have moved past chivalry and to self-preservation. Alpha, circling her chair, declares that it's not Echo he wants. ”She's not ready for me yet.”

He dismisses Adelle's attempts of bargaining and instead pulls out an envelope with something he wants to 'share' with her.

Cut to Boyd's office. Paul is watching Echo in solitary through a screen. Boyd tries to comfort him with the fact that she's safe and that no one she loves has died that day, small comfort Paul thinks.

Boyd: ”There is no comfort. Not for Echo”


Cut back to Adelle's office. Alpha is showing her photographs of how he spent his summer. Again Adelle tries to bargain, offering to bring Joel Mynor up to them, but Alpha dismisses her once more. They're going down he says, taking the executive elevator, and reaches for her hand.


Cut to Paul watching Topher and Joel Mynor on a screen in Boyd's office. He sees the pen. Then the screen shows Alpha and Adelle in the elevator. He alerts Boyd who goes for DeWitt, ordering Paul to Mynor's saftey.

Cut to Alpha forcing Adelle out of the elevator. He looks down into the pen and the Actives there. He's guessed their move of putting all the Dolls through the chair after Sierra's message.

Paul and Boyd enter the scene. Alpha releases Adelle, telling her to ”go to your man” then looking mischevious brings a remote out of his coat pocket. ”

Alpha: Time to send in the clowns”

He pushes the button, releasing a high pitched note that turns all the Actives violent and they turn brutally on the Dollhouse staff.


In solitary we see Echo wince and hold her ear as the tone reaches her. ”Alpha,” she says.

Back in the pen, the Actives are efficiently fighting the staff, it's mayhem.

Alpha runs off.

In solitary Echo turn's the camera away from herself.


Adelle runs into the doctor's office to hide but she's followed. She locks the door.


In Topher's office Viktor is just getting out of the chair. Joel Mynor wonders what the noises were and as Topher offers a suggestion he turns and is punched to the ground by Viktor. Joel flinches and looks up as the door opens and Alpha enters. He looks to Viktor who is now standing down then to Joel. ”Hiya Joel.”


In solitary Echo is using a piece she's pulled off the camera to carve into the window of the interrogation room.


Paul meanwhile is fighting his way to Topher's office. He wakes Topher up and sends him off.

Echo get's out of solitary, crushing the glass and running.

Paul goes into the imprinting room. Joel is in the chair, Alpha behind him, ”Bait meet switch,” Alpha says just as Viktor comes up from behind. Pushing a syringe of some sort into Paul's neck. Causing him to stumble and fall to the ground.

Alpha: ”Hello loverboy.”

Fade out.

We're back in the imprinting room. Paul is in the chair, a lot of electrodes attached to his head, Alpha has dressed down to a mere tank top and is blathering on about love and feelings and how what Echo felt for the clients was manufactured but that what she feels for Paul is real.
Paul tries to feign ignorance but Alpha has photo's to show him. Photo's of Paul and Echo during their three month absence from the Dollhouse.

Alpha: ”You and my immortal beloved. Playing house. That's probably my fault. I'm the idiot who introduced the two of you!”

Alpha is upset, he wants to know how Paul managed to get feelings out of Echo that weren't 'put there', Paul tries to claim that they were but Alpha denies. It's not Active/Handler chemistry he claims. It's something else. Could be love.

He is sure it is love because Paul never slept with Echo when he had the chance.

Alpha: ”Are you gay?”
Paul: ”No.”
Alpha. ”Then it's love. DeWitt thought so too.”

He pushes the button and Paul writhes with pain in the chair.


We see Adelle in the doctor's office, running up to a back door someone's trying to open, she grabs a statue to guard herself. Echo bursts through and ges her out before the other Actives break through.

We see Topher help Boyd by striking an Active with a book. Adelle and Echo come running. ”Bedchamber,” Echo hastily decides and they all make a run for it. Running through a corridor and to the bedchamber Topher explains that Sierra carried back a computer virus that infected the system when he wiped her.

Echo establishes that he used the tone to remote wiper her but to active her.

Echo: ”I'm like him, but not.”
Adelle (in a short tone): ”Isn't that ljucky.”

They're chalked off from the rest of the house, Echo asks Joel how he got away and he tells her that Alpha wasn't after him. He was after Ballard and has him in the imprint room.

Echo's expression changes and with muffled screams in the back she rushes instantly to the door, wih Boyd's assurances that they can protect themselves. Before leaving she pleads with him to try not and hurt them, ”they're people.”


Cut to Paul being painfully wiped in the chair, flashes going on as he writhes and groans with pain. Suddenly his face falls to the side. Completely blank.
Alpha comes nearer, inspecting the screen.

Alpha: ”Now there's something going on here... but nothing more than in the avareage bear. So why do yo get to be her honey?”

He leans over Ballard, looking angry, shouts at him and pokes him. No reaction from Paul. Alpha looks to the screen where we see a ”Subject: Inactive” and Alpha, a bit stunned turns back, asking the blank Paul; ”When did you die?”


In the bedchamber Adelle, Joel, Boyd and Topher are trying to figure out how to get out. Topher suggests they use his prototype remote wipe device and he and Boyd hurry off towards the manufacturing room to get it.

Back in the imprinting room where Alpha is bringing out a disc for imprinting, disdainfully watching Paul he puts it in the chair before grabbing Paul and tossing him off it.


We cut to Topher and Boyd running into the manufacturing room, having made it there unscathed. Boyd keeps watch while Topher, to his dismay, puts the device together.

Topher: ”It's the manufacturing room! Not the 'it's finished' room.”



Echo enters the imprinting room, Paul lies dead on the ground and she stares up with wide eyes as Alpha sits up in the chair. He looks blasé.

Alpha: ”Boyfriend's dead. Wanna snuggle?”

Cut out.

Cut in to Echo kneeling by Paul on the floor, she's upset, accuses Alpha of killing him and gets the explanation that Paul is brain dead at least. ”You're upset,” Alpha says, ”I can see your upset”
We zoom onto Echo's grieving face which twitches with defiance.

Next scene Alpha is tossed out of the imprinting room and through Topher's office. The argue while violently fighting each other.

Echo: ”He's 10 times the man you are and you're like 40 guys.”

Alpha (about why Paul didn't sleep with her): ”This isn't like footprints on the moon. Many, many men have come there before.”

The fight, he tosses her down and into Topher's couch area, she attacks him when he tries to cajole her into loving him instead of Paul and throws herself upon him. Both of them fly through the window, crashing down onto the floor below where Echo instantly rolls on top of Alpha and starts punching him.

Alpha: ”To love me is to love yourself. We're the same.”
Alpha: ”Playing in the mud won't make you any animal. You were meant for a love supreme.”

Echo headbutts him and throws herself to the side, reaching for a rock from the pond. She raises it to bludgeon but then a groaning Alpha turn's to her and suddenly speaks with Paul's voice; ”Do you trust me?”

To Echo's horror she realises Alpha has imprinted himself with Paul. Paul pleads her to kill him but her hand is shaking and she cannot for she loves him. Alpha gains control again and pushes her to the side. He walks off, stares balefully back at her as she tries to gather herself, but then disappears.


Up stairs Topher and Boyd have left the manufacturing room. An Active comes rushing towards them but Topher aims the device his way and instantly he becomes serene and doll-like once more. They turn to Sierra beating up a man twice her side and wipes her as well.

Then they run into the imprinting room where they find Echo crying, cradling Paul's dead body in her arms.

”Your Ghost” starts playing. We see an overview of the Dollhouse then we're in the infirmary section. Echo is on screen, she looks desolate. Joel Mynor comes to tell her he's leaving. He calls her Echo. She closes her eyes and is Rebecca for him, they talk about his new bride to be. Joel explains that neither of them (Echo or Anne-marie) could ever replace the 'real' Rebecca and that he knows that. Echo consoles him.

Echo/Rebecca: ”You don't get past it. It just becomes a part of who you are.”
Joel: ”You live on for me. And I'm so glad for that.”

He walks off, she stares off lovingly, then her expression changes into grieving again and she walks up to what she was staring at before, Paul in his hospital bed.

Echo: ”And you live on for me.”


Outside the infirmary Adelle is watching them, the expression on her face is hard to place. It's something between anger, excitment and fear.


Cut to end credits.

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.09Stop-Loss
Music: ”Bad romance” - Lady Gaga

Viktor/Roger and Adelle are in Adelle's bedroom, kissing and undressing, Adelle wants to 'roger' Roger but he pulls on the breaks, telling her that he cannot carrying for he has fallen in love with another woman. Scornful Adelle queries about it mocking the person she has created for him. ”Who do you think designs your life when you're not with me?” she says and even goes as far as telling him that he is a doll and reveals that his contract is up. She was just getting in one last go with him before he is released.

Viktor/Roger doesn't believe her and tells her he doesn't believe she would ever get a programmable love-doll. Adelle breaks down and cries.

We see Paul Ballards profile shot next to his brainscans on Topher's computer screen. Topher is showing it to Boyd, revealing that there's nothing left on Ballard's head and that he's a zucchini, useless for the rest of his life.

Boyd leaves to tell Echo and Adelle enters in a huff. She's upset about Roger's rebuff of her advances and believes it's a practical joke set up by Topher. He tries to joke it away until she asks how he knew the identity of ”Miss Lonelyhearts” and he realizes it's her. He's flustered and assures that Roger's imprint was not altered on their end as they walk into the imprinting room where Ivy is wiping Viktor.

Adelle: ”Then where did the mystery woman come from?”
Victor (wiped): ”Has anyone seen Sierra?”

Walking out of the office Topher tries to console Adelle that it was Victor who rejected her not Roger and that it was lucky it happened to her and not someone else. Adelle does not seem consoled.


Downstairs Echo is trying to use the keycard she's been given to see Paul, Boyd interrupts her and tells her it's a bad idea. He tells her that Victor is being released the next day and that she should say her goodbyes. She's not happy, she doesn't like the feeling of things slipping away from her. Boyd promises to talk to DeWitt about Paul.

In Adelle's office she is refusing to change her mind. Blaming Paul's brain-wipe on Echo. Boyd tries to blame Alpha but Adelle insists that it all starts with Echo. Boyd tells her Echo isn't a blank slate anymore, she's a person and that being away from Paul is torture to her.

Adelle: ”Pain reveals who we really are. Let's she who she is.”

She then pushes the release of Victor onto a surprised Boyd, detaching herself from him, while turning to a screen to look at Victor and Sierra having breakfast. ”He wouldn't know me from you,” she tells Boyd.


Downstairs Victor is giving his strawberries to Sierra, Echo is watching from another table, and a woman comes to get him for his treatment. Sierra requests for him to sit with her at dinner and he agrees then stands to leave. Echo tries to warn him that he's not coming back and that he needs to say goodbye. Victor seems confused but then turns and innocently says a casual goodbye and heads off.


In the imprint room Topher is telling Ivy about who Victor really is, how they cured his PTSD and that the last thing he remembers is reclining in that chair five years earlier. The light turns off and Anthony sits up, he doesn't realize until reminded that five years would seem like five seconds.

Topher: ”Welcome to the future. Where cars fly, robots serve our every whim and genetically engineered dinosaurs rule the Earth.”
Ivy: ”It's pretty much the same as when you left.”

Anthony seems pleased to have five years past him. Soon he's in Boyd's office, signing his release papers, while Boyd tells him there's a trust in his name and that they have for-now reserved a suite for him at the Hyperion hotel and found several employment opportunities for him. He explains that Anthony will have to return for check-ups for a while and we see physical tests being done and then how Anthony gets possessions back.

Boyd: ”This whole processes was made so you an slip into your old life without realizing you were gone.”

They shake hands. Victor is a free man.


Victor is out on the street, walking with his bags, looking around with a slightly unsure look on his face, someone is watching him. Someone is taking pictures of him.


*THEME/CREDITS*


Victor enters his room at the Hyperion. He puts his bags down and sits down. He seems rather blank. We see him watching the news on the TV looking torn at the fact that the war is still going on, he looks at an old picture of himself and compares it to what he sees in the mirror then silently he sits at the edge of his bed. Staring at nothing. He doesn't seem happy at all.


At the Dollhouse Sierra is in the dining hall, her plate untouched as she waits for Victor to arrive, dinner is long tie over. Echo joins her and tries to tell her that Victor is not coming back. Seirra is sad but then quietly accepts that he's gone, astutely noticing that Echo is not happy for him.

Sierra: ”I'm sad too, but not for us. For him. He's not ready to be by himself.”


Victor's in a night club, ”Bad romance” plays in the background and standing at the bar he looks over to a couch where he sees Sierra sitting. He approaches her and asks her if they've met before. The girl turns her head and it turns out she's not Sierra. Awkwardly he walks back to the bar and looks at his dogtags.


Back at the hotelroom he tries to lay down in bed but seems to find no rest. Grabbing the pillow he lays down in the bathtub, similar to his sleeping-pod at the Dollhouse.

In the Dollhouse we see Sierra lying down to sleep in her pod. She lays on her side, hugging a pillow to herself.


Echo gets out of her pod and uses her keycard to go see Paul. He's been oved and panicked she rushes up to Adelle's office, demanding to find out where he is. Looking worse for the wear and a bit drunk Adelle pours them both a drink while scornfully assuring Echo that Paul is safe, receiving top-notch care, but is out of reach of Echo's illicit keycard. They verbally spar until Adelle tells Echo that she knows all of her personalities because she was the one who put them there. Echo defiantly claims to be self-made and boasts with forty more brains.

Echo: ”So I think we can agree that I'm smarter, tougher and a whole lot scarier than you could ever hope to be.”
Adelle: ”If you're so powerful why are you still in my house, sneaking around trying to find your comatose boyfriend?”

Echo gets to the heart of the matter and declares that the time for playing both sides is over. Either Adelle is on her side, or she's on Rossum's. Adelle looks unsure.


We're back at Victor's hotelroom. A group of dark clad men with guns are breaking in and looking for him. He wakes up and fights time but there's more of them and eventually they get him on the floor, puts a bag over his head and the next time we see him he is bound and trapped inside a vehicle.

At the Dollhouse Topher is informing Boyd that something has happened to Victor, he could tell because of his biolinks disappearing. There's no more signal from them at all, they can't even get a GPS. Toper tells him it was a 'fight for your life' neural topography before the biolinks disappeared.

Boyd goes to the gym to get Echo to help him find out what happened to Victor.

At the Hyperion we see Echo and Boyd searching through the room, looking for clues, Echo tells him that she's always Echo even though she can slip in and out imprints at her desire. The notice signs of a struggle and Boyd has a theory.


We see Victor bound to a chair, a bright light is on him and he's surrounded, the bag over his head is ripped off and agitated he demands to know who's kidnapped him.

Hagan: ”Anthony Ceccoli, Sergeant, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment...”
Anthony: ”Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's me.”

Hagan steps into the light and it appears that he and Anthony know each other. He apologizes for their methods but claims them necessary, then he explains that he's part of a special force, that the army was supposed to fix them but that they have all been made empty. Why – because they're soldiers.

Hagan: ”We need something to fight for. We can give you something to fight for.”
Anthony: ”You want me to be a solider? Where do I sign-up?”


At the Dollhouse Echo and Boyd are looking up Anthony/Victor's file on the computer. Someone has been hacking into it regularly since three months back. Echo takes the wheel to hack herself into the account of whoever did this.


At the base Anthony is lead into a room where something is going to be put into him. Hagan tells him he'll never be alone again. Victor sits down into a chair and gets a chip put into his neck. Suddenly his mind is almost computer like and he can hear to voices of all the other soldiers.

All: ”Group mind. Engaged.”


At the Dollhouse. Echo asks Boyd about Scytheon and we learn that it's Rossum's military contract wing. Their answer to Blackwater. They have been following Victor and taken him, placed him in a special operations called ”Mindwhisper” that operates out of a bunker on the California-Nevada border.

Boyd discovers that more than a dozen Actives have been recruited to this force due to the Active architecture in their minds which allows them to be linked via neural radio.

Boyd: ”They hear what everyone hers. See what everone sees.”

At the bunker Victor is marching with the others, training in perfect sync with them all, their voices clear in his head.


In Adellle's office Adelle is staring down a glass of scotch when Boyd storms in and reveals that Rossum is building an army. She sits back, apathetic at the news, and simply informs him that things didn't go well last time they poked their noses where they didn't belong. She has no interest in doing so again. ”It's what he wants,” she says in regards of Victor and seems little concerned when Boyd leaves.


In Topher's office Echo is consulting with Topher who is looking over the file they've discovered. He tells them that neural radio is the short bus of this tech and that the end game is much worse. Individual ceases to exist as they integrate into the group mind and time is running out for Victor/Anthony as a person.

We see Anthony at the bunker, assembling a weapon, he looks down at his dogtags. Pauses. Then rips them off and throws them onto the floor.

Echo, Topher and Boyd stride into the imprinting room. ”This wasn't on the schedule,” a big-eyed Ivy says. Echo, full of determination, sits down in the chair,

Echo: ”Load me up. We're going to war.”


Next we see her being loaded up with anything else that could be useful for the coming fight, Topher and Ivy bickering a little as they work, Boyd enters and tells them that DeWitt is out cold so they've got at least half the day. Echo gets out of the chair and closes her eyes and searches through the new imprints when Topher asks if they all took.

Echo: ”Locked and loaded. But I need one more thing to pull this off.”

She and Boyd leaves the room without further explanation.


We're back in the imprinting room. Sierra is in the chair, but when she sits up she's been restored to Priya and she's upset with Topher. She wanted to forget about her day with Nolan as he promised her he would make her do. Topher tells her it was necessary for her to remember because he needed her to remember Victor.

Topher: ”Before I wiped you, you told me you knew. You saw Victor and you told me you knew.”
Sierra: ”That I loved him? Why what's going on?”

Echo and Sierra/Priya are in a car on their way to the bunker. Echo is explaining to Priya what is going on and how they need her in order to save Victor/Anthony. She tells her that he's met Sierra, ”Think Priya with all the complications stripped away.”

They arrive at the bunker and Echo tells her that to get in, they get caught, she shoots at one of the surveillance cameras.

At the Dollhouse Topher is by the computer and tells Boyd they just lost Echo's GPS. That means they're inside the bunker.
Topher: ”You really think we'll be able to pull this off without Cruella DeWitt finding out?”

We see Adelle passed out against the top of her desk, still holding her drink.


At the bunker Echo and Priya are taken into a room by two soldiers. Echo, with a bag on her head, easily takes the two of them out and they head off to find Anthony. Leaving Priya to wait behind a wall Echo heads off on her own. Suddenly Anthony appears and Priya is relieved, until he takes a choke hold on her aiming a gun at her stomach.

Anthony: ”Anthony's gone.”

Fade out.


We come back and Priya is pleading for Victor inside of Anthony. He's trying to resist but she's insisting. We hear voices of soldiers murmuring in his head as Echo appears and pulls a gun on him, ordering him to lower his. Anthony is starting to look conflicted.

Anthony: ”They don't want me to remember. They want me to kill you.”

He puts his gun down and lets Priya go. Echo asks if he's in control and he says that he is as long as Priya is there because it helps him focus. The other soldiers are not happy and they plan how to get out. Then Echo knocks him out. What he says and sees all the other soldiers says and sees. While she goes to figure out how to change the group mind she gives Priya a weapon and tells her to hold down the hallway.


Adelle is woken up the ringing of her phone. She's hungover/drunk and not the least bit happy. It's Mr. Harding, he's telling her about what's going on at the bunker and she promises him to have her Actives recalled. Putting on her shoes she stumbles off.


Anthony wakes up on the floor. Priya trains her gun on him and he assures her that he's in control. He hears what the other soldiers are thinking and protects them from his attack. They introduce themselves in between the shooting.

Anthony: ”So you're from Austrailia?”
Priya: ”Maybe we should save the small talk until after the gunfight.”


Adelle, still carrying her drink, blunders into Boyd's office. She's belligerent about his decisions but Boyd calmly scolds her for her own actions. He tells her he'll be the one knocking down her door when she looses control of the house.


At the bunker Echo gets herself to the infirmary and get the chip-implanting device ready.

Anthony and Priya are running down a hallway, trying to get away from the soldiers. Anthony suddenly comes face to face with Hagan. He tries to remind his old friend of the old days, Hagan lowers his weapon and tells them to get away. The other soldiers arrive and to Anthony's dismay they shoot Hagan on the spot. Priya pulls Anthony out of their sight.


At the Dollhouse Adellle strips naked and walks into the shower with a few of the dolls.


At the bunker Echo fights off another couple of soldiers and then implants herself with the chip.. She's engaged with the group mind.

Anthony groans. ”We just got company. A whole lot,” he tells Priya and rubs his head.

In the infirmary Echo is fighting a few soldiers with more difficulty now that they can predict her moves. She takes them out and rushes out to face four other soldiers. Weapons trained on each other orders are shouted from both sides; the soldiers want to eliminate target, while Echo is telling them to stand down. It's a battle of wills.


Anthony and Priya are sitting behind their corner. Anthony senses that Echo is down and that they're on their own. They step out to face the soldiers waiting for the. Shoots are fired but the soldiers miss and then turn and march off. Echo appears, she has changing their marching orders and told them all to go home.


In the car Anthony and Priya are talking about what they know about each other, they kiss and when Priya asks if he thinks it was their first kiss Echo stops the car and tells them to get out of the car. She can't take them back to the Dollhouse. They have their original personalities and she wants them to go free and start their lives together.

They're about to say goodbye when they all groan in pain. They're being remote wiped.


The elevator doors open at the Dollhouse and a black clad rather scary looking Adelle walks out. Boyd is taken past her. ”You can't do this to her!” He says while being forced away. Adelle walks into the imprinting room where Echo is strapped down to the chair. Rossum is impressed by Echo's victory at the bunker, Harding wants to turn her into a weapon, but Adelle deems Echo far too dangerous she says.

Echo: ”But you're still going to hand me over to him.”
Adelle: ”No. You've disrupted countless engagements, brought Alpha into my house, deceived me, with the help of Paul Ballard, dragged Topher and Boyd into the fun, and now Victor and Sierra. You leave a wake of destruction wherever you go.There's only one place for a doll as irreparably damaged as you.”

Echo (fearful): ”The Attic.”

Ivy and Topher are watching Boyd being dragged away. They are not happy about this.

Ivy: ”She shouldn't be able to do that.”
Topher: ”Welcome to the conspiracy.”

Angrily Adelle calls them to work and they set to it. Topher begs for another way to do it and is threatened in return. Regretfully he puts a tube between Echo's teeth and says I'm sorry before wiping her completely clean. Adelle seems thoroughly unsentimental as she tells them to send Echo to the Attic and then to do the same to Victor and Sierra.

We see all the dolls being hooked up to peculiar plastic tubs filled with blue liquid in the Attic. They're dressed in white body suits and are covered in plastic. The last thing we see is Echo opening her eyes.

*end credits*

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.10 – The Attic

Music: "No I don't remember" - Ana Ternheim


We're in the Attic a woman's voice says ”Welcome to the Attic, we're so glad to have you.” And we see Echo encased in plastic and a woman putting needles into her forehead and a tube into her mouth. There's a beeping in the background and on a screen we see Echo's vital stats. The woman leaves. Suddenly Echo starts trembling, shaking, her heart rate speeds up right until she flatlines.

A woman and a man enters again, they seem unconcerned that Echo has 'expired' so soon. The man leaves over, lamenting the shame that one so young and fit is gone. Suddenly the heartrate monitor beeps, Echo wakes up and grabs the man's throat, she strangles him with one hand, rips the needles from her forehead and shoves them into the woman's. Then she goes to find Victor and Sierra.

She saves her friends and they make a run for it together. Running down a corridor they take out some guards, managing to get guns and to keep running. Echo takes the lead. She gets to the end of the corridor but when she returns to get her friends there's a glass wall separating them from each other. Victor tries to shoot at it but is unsuccessful. From behind a two guards appear and before Echo's eyes her friends are gunned down.

But it was all in Echo's head. We see her in her plastic prison in the Attic, the same welcome message robotically playing in the background.

*Theme/Credits*
'

At the Dollhouse Topher and Adelle are standing over Paul's hospital bed discussing their lack of options, trying to restore Paul to his former self. Topher explains that his only option is to try Active architecture and not even that is a sure thing. Adelle orders him to go for it, she doesn't want her investment in Paul to have been a waste and should he not succeed in bringing Paul back she points out that they do need a new Victor for the house. Topher looks incredulous as she leaves.

Topher walks into his office where Boyd is sleeping on his couch. Topher is cranky, Boyd explains that he has 'stuff going on at home' but they soon get to the topic of the Attic. Topher explains what the Attic is about and that no one comes back.

Topher: ”I think they're testing the limits of the human mind. The brains is kept in a fear-induced, adrenaline-fueled overdrive state. Like a problem you can't solve... either the nightmare lasts forever or...”
Boyd: ”It doesn't last at all.”


We're in Echo's brain again. She's re-living the dream we've already seen her have but this time she releaizes before Victor and Sierra are gunned down that it is a dream. She tells herself to not be afraid and while her friends die in the background she calmly walks away and to the stairs. Someone is there though and quickly she climbs a ladder in order to get away. When she gets out on the top she climbs out of the root of a big tree, it's snowing.

Echo: ”Well that's new.”


Topher is watching Paul's brainscans, discussing with Ivy what to do about Paul. Ivy comes with the solution in form of a sports analogy ”the wildcat formation”. Adelle calls before they have time to further discuss it. She wants to see Ivy. There's an awkward tense moment between Topher and Ivy.

We're back with Echo under the tree. She's looking around. A light goes on and she sees the croquet playing scene serial-killer Terry in her head tried to constantly re-enact with his victims. Turning she sees and old couple in front of a TV, turning again she sees a little girl by a dead horse.

Echo: ”I think we can all safely say that this isn't real.”

A shadow moves behind her and she flips around but no one's there. But someone is following her. Suddenly she's a little girl walking towards Dr. Saunders office at the Dollhouse. Approaching she's herself again and she sees Boyd who advices here that it's not a good idea but soon starts laughing and turns into the paedohile who tortured Eleanor Penn. Suddenly we're with Echo and Paul in an elevator, they're getting ready for an engagement, talking about her headaches. Someone grabs her from behind and she's back at by the tree. She flashes through memories of being wiped and being put into the Attic.

Turning she faces someone big and black whom she claims isn't real. Then he punshes her and she falls to the floor but makes a quick escape. Again grabbed from behind this time by Mr. Dominic. Sure it's him Echo fights him fiercely.

Echo: ”You just can't stop trying to kill me.”
Dominic: ”I'm not trying to kill you! It is!”
Echo: ”What it?”

The black man appears again and he fights them both with ease at first but soon makes a jump upwards and goes away.

Dominic mutters about Echo's presence in his nightmare, dubbing her ”Rossum's rising star”.

Echo: ”No, I was a defect and I'm pretty sure you're in my defective head.”

The argue about whose mind it is until Dominic cuts it short. He's accepted that he needs to chase Arcane (the black shadow man) to try to stop him from killing... Echo proves to him that it is her mind and they figure out that all the minds in the Attic must be connected somehow as they are both real, not memories.

Echo: ”So you travel from mind to mind?”
Dominic: ”I guess yeah.”

Echo wanting to find her friends asks him to show her how. They walk together to the imprinting room where a dream Topher mumbles in the background, putting what looks like brains into a tank by the chair. Dominic cautions Echo that they need to go together in order not to get lost but she gets into the chair and disappears.


A sliding door opens and we're face with a beautiful Geisha in a Japanese restaurant. Echo is sitting down at a low table with a Japanese man who greets her cheerfully.


At the Dollhouse by Paul's bedside Topher wants to continue to discuss the wildcats formation with Ivy who returns from her meeting. She's unresponsive and sullen while he babbles. She tells him not to speak to her when he tries to touch her arm.

Next we see Topher in Adelle's office, asking what she said to Ivy. Adelle explains that she has prepared Ivy to take over Topher's position at the Dollhouse. Coldly Adelle challenges Topher's ability to operate under pressure, she also points out to him knowing about what he did to Nolan Kinnard earlier in the season.


We're back at the restaurant with Echo and the business man who tells her he can't leave, he needs to stay and enjoy himself or he'll end up in the Attic. She tries to tell him that they're in the Attic and that she needs to find her friends. He's untroubled.


We see Sierra and Victor, in bed, kissing. They whisper their I love you's but suddenly blood starts dripping onto Sierra's cheek and suddenly Victor is Nolan Kinnard, whom she killed. She crawls away, wearing the hospital gown she wore when she was locked up in a psychiatric ward.

Victor is back in Afghanistan, under fire with a few of his company, he sneaks into a house to attack the enemy who looks an awful lot like himself. They fight.

Back with Echo and the business man who tells her that he found that Rossum's mainframe was both fallible and vulnerable when he investigated the matter. And that knowing this is why he's in where he is, because he was a point of weakness, but it's better than being in the Attic he claims.
Their conversation is interrupted by a woman's scream, blood is spattered on the wall, Echo tries to get the calm man to leave but finds his legs have been chopped up. He doesn't seem bothered.

In the kitchen she finds Kabuki painted chefs cutting up the legs and cooking them. She also finds Dominic and tells him that all the Attic's in the world are connected. We see Arcane's shadow sneak up on the business man and cut his throat. Echo and Dominic are trapped in his brain.

At the Dollhouse Adelle is putting Boyd through an interview/interrogation similar to the one she had with Topher. Accusing him of dragging his heels and wondering if he's still upset about Echo.

Boyd (upset): ”We all are.”

Adelle: ”You work for Rossum, and that means your options tend to slim to three. Carry out Rossum's work without question, the Attic, or death.”

Adelle: ”I have seen the future Mr Langton – and it is not for the weak.”


Dominic and Echo are trying to get out of the business man's brain. In order to do so they need to do what he feared the most – enjoy himself. They both look at the chopped off legs on the cutting board and know what they have to do.

In Victor's head he's still repeating the same scene where he's under gunfire and sneaks into the broken down house in order to take out his foe. It is himself they fight each other fiercely until Arcane appears with a sword. He raises it but is blown out of the way by Echo and Dominic blasting their way in with automatic weapons.The two Victor's questions their presence. Echo and Dominic tries to explain that they're in the Attic and that Anthony/Victor needs to stop being afraid. It's all in his mind.

They sit and talk over the Arcane and the Attic situation outside. All the soliders are now gone. Anthony/Victor strategizes what they should do but gets distracted upon finding out Priya/Sierra is in the Attic too.

We're with Priya, re-living the nightmare of Nolan's corpse coming to life. She tries to tell herself that it is all in her mind and while Nolan appears to be dead again Arcane appears to attack. Priya/Sierra's friends though lie in ambush and attack Arcane, trapping him and pushing him through a wall.

They appear to be out in an alley. Arcane is transformed into a small Caucasian male who introduces himself as Clyde. He tells them, upon the question, that it isn't his nightmare they're in. It's the shape of things to come. We see rioters out in the street of a broken down city.


At the Dollhouse Boyd is sneaking a drink from a flask. Topher apppears in his office he looks kind of small and boyish.

Topher: ”Does that take away the fear?”
Boyd: ”Pain too. Sometimes.”
Topher: ”That's what we're gonna do to Paul, you know. Take something away.”

Boyd tosses the flask to Topher who takes a chug.

Topher (about DeWitt): ”That woman is gonna drag us straight to hell.”


Back in Clyde's mind the gang runs for cover from the rioting. They hold Clyde at knifepoint demanding to know who he is.

Clyde (shocked): ”How do you do that? You people are aware?”
Dominic: ”Why do you call yourself Arcane?”
Clyde: ”It sounded bad-ass.”

He explains that he's trying to take down Rossum and that trying to kill them was a necessary evil in order to weaken the mainframe computer of Rossum. He goes onto explain that they, the people, are the mainframe. They're human computers and that by killing them he was putting them out of their misery and taking out as many of Rossum's CPU's as he could in order to prevent the post-apocalyptic world they seem to be in.

Echo: ”How do you know this is true?”
Clyde: ”Because it was my idea.”

They run to find cover as people come to attack them and finds an old office to hide inside. Victor tells Sierra what his nightmare was about, how he was fighting to get home to her, she tells him hers was making love to him – until he turned into the man she murdered. Echo demands answers from Clyde.

It turns out he's one of the founders of Rossum. One of two. Clyde discovered ECC – encephalic communication and coding – but his friend was the one with the plan for it.Clyde himself ended up in the Attic because he was the first test subject – someone was to imprinted with a simplified version of his persona – after which his friend betrayed him. Clyde 2.0 was kept and the real Clyde was the first ”Doll” in the Attic. That was in 1993. His nightmare has been to run statsitic possibilties on where the tech might lead. All but 3% include the end of civilization. Finding out it's the year 2010 Clyde is hopeful about their chances of stopping Rossum. He's unable to name his co-found though, this has been erased.

We find out one woman has seen the founders of Rossum and that she could identify them. It's Caroline.

They're shot at and while discussing plans of how to escape Echo realizes she knows how to get them out. She stands up and gets shot by a random bullet.

Echo: ”I know a way out.”

At the Dollhouse Ivy, Topher and Boyd are by the imprinting chair. Paul is just getting out. He screams in pain and runs around the room like a wounded animal. Standing up he struggles to speak but it's all coming out gibberish. It takes a while for his brain to organize. He's angry and wonders what the hell they've done to him. He's horrified finding out he's been made a Doll. He's himself, but it's an imprint. He's told that Echo, Sierra, Victor have all been put in the Attic. Without word he takes Boyd's gun and storms out.

Boyd: ”At some point he's going to figure out what we took from him.
Topher and Ivy look shame-faced.
Topher: ”I know.”


Paul storms into Adelle's office pointing the gun at her, she has one already trained on him.

Adelle (calmly): ”I don't want to die.”
Paul: ”Then only one of us will be disappointed.”

In the Attic Echo is dying she explains them that the way out is to flatline and un-plug because the computer disengages then in order to avoid corrupt data. Sierra wants to do it as well pointing out that they're just as abnormal as Echo is. They go together they declare. Dominic decides to stay as does Clyde.

Echo (dying): ”Here goes everything.”

”No I don't remember” plays as we see Echo flatline and execute her dream as we saw it in the beginning. We see Victor stab Sierra after a tender embrace and we see her flatlining in the real world and Echo coming to save her. Then Victor walks out into the street h drops the bloody knife, is over-taken by rioteers.


We see Echo. ”We got it,” she says solemnly, ”The information we were looking for. Maybe more.”

We zoom out, she's in Adelle's office, talking to Adelle. It turns out it was her plan all along. We flash back to the scene were Echo is readied for the Attic but now get to see Adelle lean in telling Echo that she suspect the Attic is where Rossum keeps it's darkest secrets.

Echo: ”And you want me to go in?”
Adelle: ”I need you to go in. Far more importantly I need you to come back and bring the secrets with you.”

Adelle's plan is to bring them down with whatever Echo's found.

We're back in Adelle's office. They're all there Echo, Victor, Sierra, Boyd, Topher, Ivy and Paul. Adelle believes she has impressed upon them the dangers they're all about to face.

Adelle: ”We're ready.”
Echo: ”No. We're one soldier shy.” She stands. ”It's tie for me to meet Caroline. It's time to win her war.”


End credits.

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.11 - ”Getting closer”


Three Years Ago

A giggling Caroline is pulling a Dollhouse employee into Adelle's office. He's trying to dissuade her from this particular office but she persists, she's been promised a 'tour'. The man tries to get his keycard back, insisting they go to the roof instead, but Caroline questions whose office it is and then heads for the bar.

She starts to seduce the man and as she's gotten half-naked up against the wall she uses cuffs and chains him to one of the lamps on the wall and heads over to the computer.

Man: ”Oh, God! You're a thief? I let thief into the building?”
Caroline: ”Relax.. I'm not a thief. I'm a terrorist.”

She wants information about Adelle DeWitt and finds a folder full with pictures of herself and then one with pictures of Bennett whose gotten a full scholarship. She asks the man what's in Tuscon but gets distracted when she sees the screens on the wall showing the inside of the Dollhouse – the imprinting room amongst other things is on the display.

Man: ”That can't be in the house.”
Caroline: ”Then lets bring down the house.”


We're back in the present were we left off the last episode. Topher is clearly upset that his technology will lead to the end of civilization. Echo claims it doesn't matter where the tech comes from, the important thing is that they cut the head off the snake. I.e the founder of Rossum.

Ivy voices her concerns that adding Caroline to Echo's body will change everything as she's real, not just another imprint. Topher agrees postulating that Caroline might fight back. Echo is secure Caroline would lose.

They put Echo in the chair and prepare to load her up with Caroline as well. Paul straps her in as Ivy goes to get Caroline's hardcopy. Echo tries to connect with Paul but he seems oddly distant to her. Ivy returns to reveal that Caroline's wedge is missing.


*Theme/ Credits*.


Flashback - A few years earlier we're at the Tuscon Institue of Technology, a bespectacled Bennett Halverson is walking around the outside seating area, looking for a free space to eat her lunch. She approaches two girls who seem finished but who are taking up four spaces. They're very rude to her, enter Caroline who comes to the rescue to scare them away and asks Bennett to take a seat with her. They seem to instantly bond.

At the Dollhouse, present time, Echo is watching the old college video footage of Paul's that shows a seemingly happy and care-free Caroline. Adelle joins her and informs her that Caroline wasn't as innocent as she seems.

Echo: ”Are you saying she's evil.”
Adelle: ”Worse. An idealist.”

Echo reveals that she was glad when she heard that the wedge was missing but that she didn't take it.


In the imprint room Topher and Ivy are discussing the missing wedge. Ivy suspects Echo could have taken it and why. Topher doesn't seem convinced. They load up the chair, ghost-chair they call it.

We see the house in D.C were Bennett is imprinting a doll. Something beeps and she realizes the imprint has been corrupted from the outside. ”This reeks of Topher Brink.”
She turns and the doll is up, grabs her in a chokehold and opens the door just as Paul and Victor/Anthony exit the elevator. They're talking to Topher who, at the Dollhouse, asks for assurance that she's okay and demands for them not to hurt her.

Victor/Anthony goes up to the doll gives a command and takes over control of Bennett. Paul spots November on a tv-screen. They're not leaving yet.


Back at the Dollhosue Adelle greets a less than pleased Bennett.They walk towards Topher's office and the imprint room while Bennett glances around at the space and the dolls.

Bennett: ”You let them roam. They roam like free-range chickens. We keep ours more like veal.”

In the imprint room Topher is glancing over his shoulder, waiting for their arrival, that he's smitten by Bennett is obvious. He greets her warmly but she backs away from him and says she wants to file a formal complaint against him for assault from last time. While Adelle lays down the law of the land Topher gesticulates behind Bennett but tries to appear casual when she turns. At first given chance he seems far too eager to please the other programmer.

Adelle and Boyd walk out and spot Paul leading November through the house. ”Damn romantic fools,” Adelle complains.

Downstairs Paul hands November over to a care-taker and artclass. Echo appears, telling him he's done a good thing, which he questions. She promises him they'll fix it. He doesn't seem convinced.

In Topher's office Topher puts Caroline's old damaged wedge in front of Bennett, he flatters her, trying to get her to fix it for them. They both sit and inspect the wedge, Topher asks for forgiveness for hitting Bennett and she seems mollified at first. He leans in for a kiss but she interrupts by asking who's on the wedge. Topher evades the question.

Topher: ”It's not like it's Stalin or something.”

He swallows hard as she looks down to see Echo walk into view.


We're in a flashback seeing Caroline and Bennett at college, dying Bennett's hair in preparation of the new job Bennett has landed. It's with Rossum, we see her ID tag, which is of clear interest to Caroline. Bennett clearly admires her friend and her fearlessness.


Present time Boyd comes home, he's talking to someone, wanting to bring them in. We see Claire Saunders, dressed in a beautiful dress with dinner prepared for them. They kiss.


At the Dollhouse Topher is going through the infirmary, he's been struck by Bennett. Echo confronts him about what he's done to Paul. He had to take the healthy brain-tissue, meaning he took away the connection and feelings he felt for Echo.

Echo goes to help Topher stop his bleeding lip but Boyd and Dr. Saunders walk in and she dresses in her old labcoat to help fix Topher.Adelle appears, at first she talks to Topher, seemingly unaware of the doctor's return. She leaves but soon comes back, stunned.


We're in a flashback were Dr.Saunders is Whisky the doll, being treated by the real Dr. Saunders, under supervision of Adelle. Mr. Dominic comes to get Adellle telling her about stolen security footage stolen from the main building. They find out it's Caroline Farrell who broke in and stole her own file and Bennett's and that she is now rooming with Bennett in Tuscon.

At the Tuscon tech institute Bennett faces off with Caroline. She's found the file Caroline has on her and she's really upset. Caroline explains to her why she's done what she has. Bennett is upset but not for the reasons Caroline thinks.

Caroline: ”You're not pissed that I used you?”
Bennett: ”I'm hurt that you won't.”
Caroline: ”Do you wanna blow up a building?”


At the Dollhouse Echo is watching Bennett in an interrogation room. She discusses their need for Caroline with Boyd, who claims that they need her Echo.

Boyd: ”You're stronger than everyone here, Echo. Even Caroline.”

They hug, then Boyd goes to put the house on lock-down. Echo asks for three minutes.

Next we see her running in a staircase. She's trying to get Anthony and Priya out, she wants them to get out and start their real lives with each other. She tells them it's okay if they forget the way back. When she turns around to head back in we see Mr. Dominic looking worse for the wear. He's in his Attic costume. He falls onto Echo, dying, telling her that Clyde is dead and that Rossum is onto her. They're coming.


In the infirmary Dr. Saunders is looking over Mr. Dominic while the others discuss his message.

Topher: ”Okay am I the only one thinking we're getting maybe a little too much of our intel from the Matrix? Or possibly TRON, given the outfits.”

Adelle declares for them to restore all the current Dolls with their real personas and to set them free. She doesn't want to leave anyone behind. They're going to Tuscon.


Flashback- Rossum Headquarters, Tuscon, Arizona.
Bennett and Caroline are breaking in, planning to low up the building, they split up – Bennett is by the computer guiding Echo where to put the bombs. But on the way Echo finds a lab that's not on the schematic, she breaks in, even though she doesn't have time. She finds humans being experimented on, and wants to abort the mission in order to save the people in there. She tells Bennett to run. We see Echo sprint as an explosion sounds.


At the Dollhouse Mr. Dominic is going into shock, he needs to go to a hospital or he'll die. Adelle tells to put him back in the Attic, his best hope, he seizes her wrist and refuses to return there. She doesn't care. Paul chases after her and tells her he could take Dominic but Echo backs up Adelle's plan, they could use someone on the inside she says to an incredulous looking Paul.

Paul: ”I don't know you anymore.”

Adelle interrupts their awkward moment by greeting Paul's former neighbor Mellie, preferring her over November's real life persona, because she trusts Paul completely. Echo is jealous. Boyd appears, whispers something to Adelle and they leave.

In her office we see Mr. Ambrose and a few of his goons waiting. Adelle greets them cordially. Their house is being taken over but Boyd steps in and shoots them all, Adelle semms unphased until realizing Boyd's been shot too.

Flashback – Rossum's Headquarters in Tuscon.
Caroline tries to save Bennett from where she's trapped. When she can't, seeing Adelle and Mr. Dominic arrive on a screen, she puts Bennett's ID on her and tells her to pretend she was working late. Then runs off to get caught.

We're back at the Dollhouse Echo faces Bennett, telling her that she's going to get Caroline back. Her offer is that Bennett will get to do whatever she wants to Caroline after Echo has saved her friends.

In Adelle's office Adelle serves Boyd a stiff drink, informing him that he will now be a target to the Mr. Ambrose whose personality is surely not only in one body. She tells Boyd to run because she's going to tell him.


In the imprint room Ivy and Topher are restoring Dolls and sending them off. There's only one left. They look over to the office where Bennett is working on Caroline's wedge under Echo's supervision. When Topher joins them Echo goes for a walk leaving the two alone.

At the infirmary Boyd is packing for flight, Claire is giving him meds, tearfully wishing they had more time. Boyd promises to come back for her.

At Topher's office Topher is swooning over Bennett while working. Ivy declares them officially evacuated but then walks away with a little smile as the romance in the air is obvious. Topher kisses Bennett multiple times.

Topher: ”More of that if we prevent the end of the world?”
Bennett: ”Yes.”

Breathtaken Bennett sits back while Topher goes off to get something. Claire Saunders appears. ”He's in love with you,” she says, sharing that she used to be number one. Then she asks about the wedge and whether or not Bennett can restore Caroline. She walks closer. Just as Topher returns, mumbling about Dewey pins, Saunders takes out a gun and shoots Bennett straight in the head, spraying Topher with her blood. Blankly she looks a Topher then walks off.


Flashback – Mr. Dominic catches Caroline at the Tuscon Headquarters and she faces off with Adelle. They get a call that the head Rossum wants to see Caroline and shove her into an elevator.

Adelle: ”Trips to see our director are generally one-way. Enjoy the ride.”


At the Dollhouse Adelle is holding Topher asking him to focus, Paul covers Bennett's dead body with a blanket on the couch. They're figuring out that Saunders is a sleeper assassin. Echo wants to go after her but the power starts to shut down. Broken looking Topher rambles about bringing Bennett back but Adelle insists that the only person he should be bringing back is Caroline and sets him to work by the wedge. Ivy comes to join him. Looking at the blood spatters of Bennett, Topher stops her, he doesn't want her to die.

Topher: ”Then live. You have a remarkable brain, I think it should stay in your head. Ivy, don't become me.”

She runs. Explosions are herd in the background, they've been breached, armed SWAT equivalents are arriving. Topher finishes the wedge and they put Echo in the chair, loading it up. Topher tells Adelle to leave through the service tunnels, she's their general, she takes a gun and Mellie and leaves.

Echo is lowered into the chair just as an agent enters the room, beating Topher down and aiming his gun on Echo. Boyd appears from behind, snaps the mans neck, and walks up to Echo putting his hand on hers. We see several of her memory flashes and suddenly we're back at in Tuscon at the Rossum Headquarters. A flashback.

Echo meets Clyde 2.0 who tells her the name Rossum is from a play about robots. He tells her he's like the fifth Clyde and that he and his partner have been excited to see her. Boyd steps out of the shadows. He's the head of Rossum. He tells Caroline she won't be harmed in anyway, she's far too valulable.

Caroline: ”And I'm just gonna trust you?”
Boyd: ”With your life.”

End credits.

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.12 - ”The Hollow Men”


Two Years Ago

We pick up were we left off in the previous episode, Caroline is meeting with Boyd/Rossum. He tells her about the research Rossum is doing and about their facilities getting to the point shortly – they have Caroline's blood because she once had it drawn to see if her bone marrow was a match with her sick cousin's. He has her medical records and on a microscopic level she's ”interesting”. All he wants from her is a few years of her life.. or it's federal prison for her. At best.

Boyd: ”Believe me when I tell you Caroline – this is your only chance. You are special. You have amazing potential. I want to see exactly how far you can go. And I promise you. I will protect you.”


Present day

Priya and Anthony are back inside the Dollhouse, albeit reluctantly, they want to help their friends. They find the house deserted with knocked out/dead Rossum hitmen all over. Anthony quickly arms himself .

Anthony: ”Looks like the war started without us.”

Credits / Theme


Paul, Adelle and November/Mellie is on the roof waiting. They're waiting for a helicopter to take them away. Boyd, Topher and Echo arrive. Echo is out of her mind until Boyd sedates her with a shot. They argue about why Echo is this way and if it's the wedge or Caroline herself causing the trouble. Boyd is adamant that they still go to Tuscon to destroy the mainframe of Rossum, despite the others pessimissm now that Echo is out.


Inside the Dollhouse Anthony and Priya are checking things out, no one seems to be left alive and the hard drives have been taken to cover the tracks. In the imprinting room they find a note on the chair, a post-it that says ”Press Enter” with a smiley underneath. Priya is hesitant, the chair turns you into someone else, Anthony thinks it could help them, that it's the only thing they can do. He gets into the chair.

When he gets out of it Priya fixes her gun on him and he jumps up – he's Topher.


Tuscon, Arizona
Rossum Headquarters


Adelle and the company all walk straight into the headquarters and they're soon met by Whiskey/Claire. Boyd quickly tells them that she's not Claire anymore and wonders what has been done to her. Unsentimentally Whiskey declares that she is now Clyde Randolph 2.0, co-founder of Rossum, and very excited to have Echo delivered to his doorstep.

Whiskey/Clyde: ”This world is for people who can evolve.”
Adelle: ”And does that include us?”


Back at the Dollhouse Topher is lamenting the loss of his own body, Priya watches patiently and reminds him only Topher would have left a Topher wedge behind, and informs him that they're at war with the Rossum corporation and that all the security footage has been stolen. Victor/Topher realizes that he has a hidden security camera that no one could have known about.

They watch Echo get imprinted with Caroline. Boyd enters and leans over her. They re-watch the tape, seeing Boyd toss something in the trash. Quickly they dig up a syringe.

Victor/Topher: ”He drugged Echo. I don't get it – why did he drug Echo?”
Priya: ”Not Eco. Caroline. She was gonna tell us who the founder of Rossum is.”
Victor/Topher: ”Boyd is working for Rossum.”


At the headquarters Adelle is in Clyde 2.0's office having drinks being thanked for her involvement and credited for Caroline's growth. She's their savior. It doesn't matter if Echo/Caroline is scrambled at the moment. The mind doesn't matter, it's the body they want

Adelle: ”Caroline's going to save the world?”
Whiskey/Clyde 2.0: ”No not the world. Just a deserving few.”




We see Boyd and Topher are trying to short circuit the lock of a door, they're in some kind of interrogation room, behind them we see Paul and November/Mellie. Boyd tells Topher to back off and then, discreetly, uses his Rossum keycard to open the door. Much to Topher's astonishment. They make their escape separating in the process. Boyd tells Paul to find the weapons cache while he and Topher goes after Echo/Caroline.

At the Dollhouse Victor/Topher is freaking out about being betrayed by his best man-friend Boyd. Priya is trying to find Mellie but her chip has been deactivated. She wants to get moving, she wants them to fight.

Victor/Topher: ”That's so Ripley of you and super sexy but can I make a suggestion?”

He offers to give back Anthony and 'then some' – i.e mad combat skills. Priya is hesitant to the idea of more imprints.


At the headquarters Boyd and Topher are sneaking around looking for Echo. Topher is sure that Bennett fixed the wedge, he's sure it's something else, Echo's reaction is similiar to Sierra's when she was drugged by Nolan. He tells Boyd he left a Topher 2.0 back up at the Dollhouse for Victor and Sierra to find.

Boyd: ”Thank you for confinding in me Topher.”
Topher: ”Of course bros before others who aren't bros.”

They hear a noise and hide, a security guard walks by, Boyd tells Topher to stay while he goes to get the guard's firearm.

At the Dollhouse Anthony gets out of the chair. He doesn't feel any different, maybe it didn't take he says just as the elevator doors open and he – without a seconds hesitation – takes out two fully armed hitmen with two strikes.

Anthony: ”Looks like somebody from Tuscon knows we're here. What do you say we take the fight to them?”


At the headquarters Echo is lying in the infirmary. She's flashing through Caroline's memories and a few of Echo's, piecing it together. Suddenly she sits up. ”Boyd,” she says.


Boyd and Topher are still sneaking around. They're by the research lab, Topher is practically foaming at the mouth looking at the technology in there, like a kid in a candy shop. He recognizes his own tech, the one DeWitt gave to Harding. He's horrified to find that the schematics he thought would take Rossum years to assemble they have already gotten through. They have a gun like weapon with which you can wipe and imprint anyone, one zap and you're a doll, and they're set up for mass production.Topher starts to smash things but Boyd intervenes, they can use this he insists.

Boyd: ”If the tech stays in our hands we control it. We can stop Rossum and get out of this building without taking another life. All you have to do is fix one of them. Can you do it?”

Topher is convinced.


At the weapons cache Paul takes out a guard and arms himself and Mellie, who is reluctant but agrees. She wonders why she's there. He tells her that he couldn't let her go.

November/Mellie: ”I'm a program.”
Paul: ”So am I. And I decided it doesn't matter anymore. We feel what we feel.”

They go to find the mainframe.



In the research lab Topher fixes the zapper in ten minutes, something a team of engineers haven't been able to do. Boyd pats his shoulder.

Boyd: ”You truly are amazing. I'm glad I chose you.”
Topher: ”Chose me for what?”

Echo/Caroline appears she starts kicking Boyd's ass and doesn't stop, despite Topher's objections, until Clyde 2.0 puts a gun against her head. The reveal has come, Echo tells Topher Boyd is Rossum's founder and Adelle supports it. Echo wants to know why they were brought there, all of them and not just her.

Boyd: ”You really don't know? You're here cause you're my family. I love you guys.”


Paul and November/Mellie have found the cooling system. Mellie figures out they can break the mainframe by ruining the cooling system.


In the research lab Topher is coming to terms with the new discovery about Boyd and that he is in fact responsible for Bennett's death. Boyd is unrepentant, everyone has had to sacrifice. He takes credit for their personal growth.

Topher: ”Wow Boyd, you're right. I'm the Tin Man, she's the Lion, and you're the head of the Lollipop Guild who's a traitor!”



Boyd: ”We have to face the facts. The technology exists. It can't be un-invented. Once it gets out there, it will be abused. None of us can prevent that from happening.”

He tells them they can chose the side they want to be on.

Boyd: ”Do you want to be destroyed or the destroyers?”

He tells Echo that he allowed her to grow because she's the Key. The one who'll save them all. She threatens to kill him. He's unconcerned by this, inside of her body there's evelasting life. They're going to use her spinal fluid to create a vaccine against imprinting. He tells her he's sorry then uses a stunning device to make her pass out.


At the cooling system Paul and Mellie are wondering where to start.They start smashing machines.


Boyd get's a call, orders the second cooling system to be activated and requests for Adelle to say the phrase that'll awaken the sleeper in Mellie. She refuses so he uses the old security footage where she says it.

At the cooling system Mellie and Paul prepare for company, he shows her how to use the gun, before Adelle's voice is heard, activating Mellie. Paul runs to hide but tosses his gun, refusing to shoot Mellie while she hunts him down.

Paul: ”Listen to me. You're not a killer. Remember us. Remember what we had.”

Mellie puts a gun against his chin but seems to come to grips with herself. He tells her to fight it.

Mellie: ”When we were together you made me feel like a real person.”

She backs off and shoots herself. Her blood splatterso ver Paul's face.


At the infirmary Echo is being strapped into the machine that will harvest her spinal fluid. Boyd tells her not to be scared, the process won't kill her. She tells him to go to hell. The extraction beings.

We see a weak, clearly suffering Echo in the machine, someone knocks on the door. When the doctor opens Anthony and Priya arrive to save their friend. Echo tells them to find Adelle and Topher in the research lab then to move onto Paul and Mellie and to get them all out. Echo herself is going to finish Caroline's work and try to shut Rossum down for good.


At the research lab we see guards watching Adelle and Topher. Topher is mournfully coming to terms with his role in it all. Adelle claims to be just as culpable.

Topher: ”I'm the one who brings about the thought-pocalypse.”

The door opens and Priya is taken in by guards, she's the distraction before Anthony attacks and takes out the guards with flash bombs and his enhanced combat skills. Topher decides that what they're to do now is destroy the prototypes and all that has to do with the tech.


In another corridor we see Echo facing off with Whiskey/Clyde 2.0. Echo tries to reason with the previous imprints but Clyde is stronger and the two of them start to fight.

We see Boyd. He's on the phone, displeased about Echo's escape, as he rounds a corner he comes face to face with Paul who's holding a gun on him. Still smeared with Mellie's blood, a grief-strucken Paul, tells Boyd that she killed Mellie. He believes Adelle is Rossum's founder. Boyd plays along pretending Paul is right and tells him that he knows just where she is.


Echo and Clyde are still fighting they burst into a room while doing so, Clyde is confident but Echo prevails in the end. She takes the gun and circles the the glass encasement where something that might be the mainframe is.

Boyd and Paul enters. Paul finding out a the last second that Boyd is the traitor as Boyd puts a gun to his head.

Paul: ”What did I miss?”


Boyd wonders who Echo is – Echo or Caroline. She tells him she's everything he made her. This is good news, to Boyd, that means she still trusts him. Paul urges Echo to shoot.

Boyd: ”She can't. Caroline doesn't know you. But Echo loves you, she'd never...”
He's cut short by Echo shooting Paul in the leg. Boyd pushes him forwards and attacks, the two of them fight and Boyd gets the upper hand, he trains his gun on her.

Echo: ”I loved you.”
Boyd: ”I know.”

Just as he gets ready to shoot we were electronic hissing. Boyd's face goes blank. Behind him we see Topher with the imprinting tech he wanted to destroy. Boyd sits up. ”Did I fall asleep?”


We see Echo approaching Boyd, she looks sad but determined, she hands him a handgrenade. She tells him to take it and to – when she's left – walk into the glass room and pull the pin out. Doll Boyd agrees without objections. We see that he's strapped with explosives as she leaves. He gives her a trusting smile.


Paul is getting everyone out of the building, they're all getting out. We see Echo running through the corridors as the explosions begin. Her friends are waiting for her outside. Suddenly she's walking towards them.

Paul: ”So, did we save the world?”
Echo: ”I guess we did.”

They walk to their friends.


Ten years later

It's mayhem. The chaotic future the real Clyde Randolph forsaw in the Attic has become real. We see people running, Paul is shooting at them. Echo tells him to let them go. They have to keep moving.

End credits

 

[Taake]

Episode 2.13 - ”Epitaph two: The Return”

Music:
”Peace” - Apocalyptica
”Everywhere I go” - Lissie


Los Angeles 2019

We open up with with a series of clips from ”Epitaph one”, seeing Zone and the gang decide to go under ground to protect themselves from the tech. We see their encounter with Whiskey and how this leads to them imprinting a small girl with Caroline in order to find Safe Haven.


Now:

A dumbshow is stumbling through the desert, suddenly an angry mob of butchers comes running, beating him down. Zone wakes up in the car, he starts shooting the butchers getting child-Caroline and Mag into the car and taking off. They're far away from any city and are running low on gas and water. They need to find Safe Haven but they're running low on hope.

Caroline: ”We still have a chance to make a true world.”
Zone: ”A true world? Look around tiny-messiah, half the world has been wiped. The rest have turned into crazies trying to kill the other half. There's only a handful of Actuals left, which you, by the way, ain't.”
Caroline: ”We are lost. We are not gone.”

They drive up to what looks like a ranch, driving into a barn to hide the car, they're making small
talk when they're taken.


The trio is tossed into a cell with a bunch of other people. Ambrose is watching over the process, they're 'merchandise' now. Caroline explains that they're in ”Neuropolis” the city of minds, what was once Tuscon where Rossums headquarters were.

Zone: And you just didn't think to mention that Safe Haven was parked right next door to the fricking Death Star?”


In an office we see a rotund Mr, Harding smoking a cigar, he's clearly enjoying the good life, and Ambrose walks in offering him a 'new suit'. A few naked dumb shows are lead into the room, Paul Ballard is among them, and Mr. Harding recognizes him and immediately heads down to the other prisoners.

In the cell the guards start looking through the prisoners, Mag and Zone are worried – this is worse than butchers to them – but Caroline is not worried. ”She” has got a plan. A disguised prisoner gets up – it's Echo – and easily she takes out the guards just in time for Mr. Harding to arrive.

Mr Harding: ”Do you ever think that if you hadn't cut off Rossum at the head, the tech might never have gotten out of control?”

Echo kills the body, despite knowing Harding is backed up and will return. Paul enters, now dressed, and Echo goes to do her 'medical thing' while Paul goes to look for Topher. Child Caroline means Echo/Caroline.

Paul finds a crazy looking Topher, he has clearly deteriorated in his captivity and tells Paul that Mr. Harding and company killed one person every day in front of him if he didn't invent what they needed. Echo appears, tells Paul one of the prisoners is her and then bends to talk to the rambling Topher, telling him they're getting him out. Topher reveals that he's close to inventing what they most want – something that can bring back the world.


At Safe Haven.
Adelle and a little boy called T is picking strawberries from a garden. He runs into show his mother – Priya – who dotes on him. The house is sitting down for dinner when Paul and Echo arrive along with the trio and the news that a malnourished Topher has collapsed and needs help getting to the house. Adelle seems relieved they've found Topher.

Next Echo explains to the gang what Mr. Harding had Topher do – trying to create some kind of bomb that would wipe everyone, but that he believes he can do the reverse – bring everyone back.
But it means that anyone with Active architecture would go back to their original personality too – forgetting everything. Something they can't all afford. To avoid the blast and any reverbration, as well as get Topher what he needs, they'd need to go underground for a year or so. Back to the Dollhouse.
.
Zone: ”Oh come on! Hey, hey we just left that party. That party was on fire!”

Zone does not want to go back to L.A and he's arguing his point when a sudden rumble interrupts the group, who fearing capture arms themselves.

Outside we see a large truck drive up to the house. We see three men and a girl disarm the gang, speaking a foreing language, and then out of the truck comes Anthony – tattooed and carrying portable imprinting devices. Him and his gang are there to help.

Paul and Anthony are loading up the truck while Priya is agruging with Echo about wanting to keep T, her son, away from the tech and her unwillingness to go back to LA

Outside Anthony pushes his fellow tech-head Romeo up against the car for having shown T some tech previously. No tech in front of the kid, he threatens.

Mag tells Zone he can stay behind while she acts as a guide for the group but he's come around, yelling is just his process he says. He gets what's at stake.

Zone: ”Who doesn't want to spend some quality time with these awesomely-normal people?”
Mag: ”I don't know, could be all right. Little Asian's kind of cute.”
Zone: ”She's a tech head Mag.... she's a girl, Mag!”


The truck drives off, leaving the other Actuals at the farm, while the original gang and the tech heads head for LA. Topher is working on some tech while Adelle and child-Caroline watches.

Zone talks to Kilo getting some insight into how the tech heads work as opposed to Echo who can store all of her personalities. In the front Anthony is driving. Priya wakes up and sits next to him, they talk awkwardly about their son, Priya is bitter, very bitter at the tech and this is way they've kept T away from Anthony. There's a lot of pent up frustration between the former lovers.

Priya: ”I stopped fighting long ago.”
Anthony: ”I was fighting to protect you I would do anything for you. For both of you.”
Priya: ”Except the one thing I asked you to do.”

In the back Echo is moving about restlessly which Paul comments on. He's optimistic about their chances, Echo isn't. She is guarded with Paul, she claims he doesn't know her, doesn't want to let him in (plays it off in a sexual way) and he points out to her that if they succeed she won't have to fight anymore, and what will happen then?

Paul: ”I think you've got 100 people living inside your head, and you're the loneliest person I know.”

Later we see Echo going through maps and plans with the gang and how they're going to make it into the Dollhouse. The truck drives into the city and we see mobs of butchers racing towards them.
In the truck the tech heads load up and they all arms themselves, preparing to leave the vehicle.

Echo: ”Ready?”
Anthony: ”We were born ready... well, not technically.”

Apocalyptica's ”Peace” plays as the gang shoots their way towards the entrance of the Dollhouse, making their way through the butchers racing towards them. Mag is shot in the legs, Paul runs to help and is consequently shot in the head. Echo runs up, sees this and coldly orders Zone to take Mag and then runs to the tunnel herself.

Echo: ”That's all of us. Seal the doors behind us.”
Anthony: ”What about...”
Echo: ”That's all of us!”


Following a map they go through the tunnels finding an entrance to the Dollhouse. Zone points out the last they were there the place was packed with butchers and that they need to blow them up first. Anthony assures them that any butchers there would already have torn each other apart.
By rope they go down into the Dollhouse – Anthony and Echo first – they turn around and it looks – exactly like it did when they were dolls there. Dolls are wandering carelessly about.

Echo: ”Ah, hell.”
Alpha: ”No. You'll have to keep digging if that's where you want to end up.”
Echo: ”Alpha”

Echo and Alpha embrace. Alpha has clearly come over to their side, apparently they've fought together, but he lost the stomach for the fight and he's cleaned up the Dollhouse.

Alpha: ”Where's big bad Ballard?”
Echo: ”We lost him.” (she leaves)
Alpha: ”Man, I'm sorry. When did that happen?”
Anthony: ”Ten minutes ago.”

In the Dollhouse, in Topher's lab, Adelle and Echo is trying to help him look for what it is he needs. They worry they came for nothing – Romeo and Kilo appears turning their guns on them. They are not interested in restoring their original personalities, they just want new tech to put into their heads Yankee points a gun at Topher. Anthony enters, trying to dissaude them, Alpha arrives. Anthony/Victor tries to convince his gang to put the weapons down and give up the tech.

Romeo: ”Sorry boss, that means you stand with the Luddites.”
Alpha (laughing): ”Did he just call me a Luddite?”

Alpha attacks, Echo and Anthony help and easily they disarm the tech head gang. Adelle comforts Topher. He's tired she says, he's much worse then. Topher lights up; ”Tired? Bed time!”

We see Topher running to the sleeping pods where his old 'lair' is still set up He jumps into the pod, wraps a blanket around himself and finally seems at ease. Alpha and Adelle follow.

Topher (patting a statue's head) ”Kill your idols. There's a piece of truth.”

Adelle: ”I'm very glad you didn't clean up.
Alpha: ”Well, spoke to the schizoprenic in me. Well, both of them actually”

We see Topher grab a note book and a pen and ferverently he starts to write. Adelle realizes that he didn't come back for technology, he came back for an idea.


In another room we see Priya using the butt of an automatic to smash Anthony's portable imprints. Echo is impatient with her, then she gets mad, furious in fact and it becomes obvious that it's not about Priya and Anthony but about her grief over Paul.

Echo: ”Kill it! Shut it down! Lock him out! Give him nothing! You can string him a long for years! You've had years together, and what did you do? You waste it! Never tell him that you love him! Never tel him that you're grateful for him! He's dead!”

Priya tries to hug her but Echo pushes her off and collapses onto the floor.

Echo: ”He's just dead and I never told him. Paul's dead and I'm alone. I'm all alone. I'm always alone!”

At Topher's lab we see Topher watching a video of Bennett that helps him with the tech he's building. Alpha is helping him build the device and they finish. They need to set it up high up – Adelle's old office. An explosion that will bounce off the startosphere. Adelle is upset, Topher's told her the device has to be activated manually, she understands what this means.

Adelle: ”You're not coming back.”
Topher: ”Small price to pay.” (whispers) ”I didn't wanna cause anymore pain.”

They embrace. Alpha interrupts. ”Is now a bad time to ask for a favor?”


Down in the pen Anthony is sitting by a fire, burning his remaining tech. Priya arrives along with T. She introduces the boy to her father. There's evident love in their exchanged gazes.

Up in the lab Adelle, looking every bit like a grieving mother, is trying to convince Topher not to kill himself while setting off the advice, they could find another way.

Topher: ”I'll fix what we did to their heads. You fix what we did to the rest of the world.” (whispers) ”Your job is way harder.”

In the infirmary Mag is watching Kilo rest. Zone approaches her, telling her he's leaving along with their 'tiny-messiah' who'll need someone to look after her, they say their goodbyes in a bittersweet manner.

Upstairs Adelle and Echo are talking about Alpha. He's left – fearing what he'll become when he gets his original self back. Echo is sure he won't. Not really. He's evolved and he will again.
Adelle will lead the rest of the 'dolls' out, make sure they make it through the pulse all right.

Echo: ”Ever the shepherd, huh?”

Adelle: ”Funny that the last fantasy the Dollhouse should fulfill would be yours.”
Echo: ”I don't have any fantasies Adelle.”

Adelle embraces her then leaves but turns to give Echo one piece of important information. Alpha left her a message to dismantle all the tech in the building. Starting with the imprinting chair.

We see Topher up in Adelle's office. He looks out at the ruined city while downstais Adelle is ushering the people together to lead them out. Echo waves goodbye to child-Caroline.
Topher sets up the machine as we see the Dolls being lead out into the daylight. Topher finishes his set up and turns the device on. He turns to look at the ”remember” wall, smiles just as the bomb goes off and the pulse is sent out.

”Everywhere I go” starts to play as the people are getting up outside – their original personalities restored to them.

In the Dollhouse Echo walks to the lab and towards the chair. There's a gift from Alpha there to her a harddrive. Plugging it into the chair Echo lays down and imprints herself with... Paul. In her head we see them meet.

Echo: ”You wanted me to let you in?”
Paul: ”You sure you got room? I got a ot of baggage. Childhood stuff.”
Echo: ”We'll work through it.”

”We've got time” we hear her say as she smiles and gets out of the chair. Downstairs we see Anthony, Priya and T snuggled up on a couch together. They watch as Echo goes by them and to the pods. She lays down in one of them. Looks peaceful as she turns her head and rests.

*end credits*