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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.
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.