Glee 1.13: "Sectionals"

“The kids are completely freaking out. Artie keeps ramming himself into the wall, and I’m pretty sure Jacob Ben Israel just wet himself.”

-Emma

I thoroughly enjoyed the fall finale of Glee, and I wish I didn’t have to wait until mid-April to see more (although I suppose the return of Chuck and Lost will keep me occupied until then). True, it was almost like a checklist of all the things that needed to be resolved, but it all happened in an organic way, and it was very satisfying. Not only did it provide satisfying conclusions (for now, at least), to lingering issues, but it also opened doors for some stories that will probably be told in the spring. It accomplished everything I could have hoped, plus there were some fantastic musical numbers. I can’t really ask for anything more than that.

Really, the only thing that, as they would say on the Brady Bunch, stuck in my craw was how most of the group utterly disregarded Finn’s feelings and well-being in the beginning of the episode. Mercedes has told most of New Directions the truth about Quinn’s baby daddy, and now it’s all Operation: Don’t Let Rachel Find Out. They rightfully figure that if Rachel knows the truth, she’ll tell Finn. Their rationale is that if Finn finds out the truth now, it will completely ruin their chances at Sectionals. That rationale doesn’t make things better, though, because it’s extremely selfish.

Thankfully, Rachel is figuring out the truth on her own. She notes that when Quinn tripped the other day, Puck was unusually concerned about her welfare. She has a rather brilliant plan to find out the truth. She mentions to Quinn that she might want to have a genetic work-up done on the baby- one of Rachel’s cousins was a Tay-Sachs carrier, and Rachel remembers how scary that was. Rachel quickly mentions that Quinn probably doesn’t have to worry about that, considering most Tay-Sachs carriers are Jewish. As predicted, Rachel overhears Quinn ask Puck to take her to the doctor to have the baby checked for “Jewish diseases”

There’s plenty of drama still going on among the adults as well. Will needs to find a new faculty advisor for New Directions, and Emma volunteers. Emma tells Will that Ken was okay with it, but he’s really not. Will doesn’t press the issue- he’s just grateful for the help. The reaction to Emma as the new advisor is mixed among the Glee kids. She does a good job handling the first “crisis,” though. The kids need to finalize their Sectionals set list, and there’s a typical argument between Rachel and Mercedes over who gets to sing the ballad. I could go on a post-long rant about how Rachel is constantly vilified for her diva behavior while Mercedes is encouraged, but I digress. Emma sensibly suggests they have a sing-off.

Mercedes sings “And I’m Telling You” from “Dreamgirls.” She knocks it out of the park, but on rewatch, I was so annoyed by her behavior that I couldn’t enjoy it. Rachel has about the best possible attitude about the whole thing, though. She acknowledges that Mercedes was great, tells her she can sing her song as the ballad, and even gives her the hug. Rachel Berry has really come a long way since her days of storming out every time she didn’t get a solo.

After rehearsal, Finn tells Rachel that he really hopes they win Sectionals. He feels like it would make things in his life all right again. Things have been just so stressful with Quinn and the baby. Rachel takes her chance and spills what she knows. The aftermath of the reveal is absolutely superbly acted by Cory Monteith. Finn goes to the choir room and just starts wailing on Puck. After Will breaks up the fight (I guess Emma must have called him when it went down), Finn storms out, saying he’s through with all of them.

Rachel, again showing an emotional/moral compass of some sort, genuinely apologizes to Quinn, and says that her motives for revealing the secret were selfish- she wanted to break up Finn and Quinn. Honestly, though, I don’t think her motives were entirely selfish, and even if they were, Finn was genuinely hurting, and it was high time someone told him the truth. Surprisingly, Quinn isn’t mad. She commends Rachel for doing what she herself didn’t have the strength to do. Her reaction to Puck was more troubling, though. She still doesn’t want him to be part of the baby’s life- she wants to go it alone. I appreciate her desire for less stress, but it’s really not just her involved in the situation. The child is Puck’s daughter, too, and he should have the same opportunity to try and be a parent, especially since not all teens in his situation would ask take on that responsibility.

The bus rolls off to Sectionals without Finn or Will and with Jacob, the creepy blogger guy who first outed Quinn’s pregnancy. The kids aren’t happy at the news they will be performing third out of three groups. Rachel tries to cheer everybody up by saying that either first or third is a good position, but all she gets for her trouble is insults. Have I mentioned that I can’t stand how the rest of the group (except Finn) treats Rachel?

The kids do actually have a legitimate reason to freak out when the competition starts, though. The Jane Adams girls perform “And I’m Telling You” and “Proud Mary” complete with wheelchairs. The kids are all at their wit’s end, and Emma places a panicked phone call to Will, telling him that the kids need a leader. After confronting Sue (who has gone beyond funny and is now just hateful), Will finds Finn in the locker room. After essentially telling him to man up and be a leader and that “you can’t always get what you want,” Finn agrees to try and help the Glee Club. I correctly guessed at this point that we’d be hearing a little Rolling Stones before the hour was through.

Emma wages her own battle against the faculty advisors from the two other schools. I really liked seeing Emma stand up for herself and be extremely competent. It seems like she actually somewhat gets through to the other educators. She makes them feel guilty for teaching their kids that they have to cheat to get ahead.

The New Directions kids are having their own conference in the green room, trying to figure out how to possibly save the competition. It turns out Brittany gave the set list to Sue, by the way, but everybody forgives her because she’s Brittany and obviously didn’t know any better. Mercedes gives the ballad baton back to Rachel (yay for some humility from Mercedes!), and Quinn suggests they perform “Somebody to Love.” That leaves one more song, and Finn arrives right on time with a solution. And I do believe I’ve already alluded to that solution. He’s still not cool with Puck or Quinn, but he’s willing to take one for the team. And he trashed the Cheerios copy machine after copying the sheet music. Which is awesome.

Also awesome is the performance by New Directions at Sectionals. So awesome that it makes Will cry as he listens to it via cell phone. Rachel opens the set with a jaw-dropping performance of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from “Funny Girl” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was also entertaining. The audience gives a standing ovation, but the judges don’t really seem to be that moved. The judges are a beauty pageant wash-out, a local news anchor, and a disgruntled state employee. The faculty advisor from Jane Adams approaches the judges’ room to confess to all the Sue-induced shenanigans, but it’s too late- the judges have made their decision.

Will is back at his house, getting ready for Emma and Ken’s wedding, when he is forced to confront Terri. He is actually a gentleman about it, and handles the situation in a fairly adult manner, which is refreshing. Terri tells him she’s been seeing a therapist at the community center, and Will is genuinely happy for her that she’s getting help. When he looks at her, however, he doesn’t feel love or family anymore. He says he doesn’t know if those feelings will ever come back, and I’m really, seriously hoping that isn’t foreshadowing a Will/Terry redux. At the wedding, however, it’s Emma who acts more the grown-up. Emma and Will are the only people at the reception hall because Ken called off the wedding. Emma going to Sectionals was the final straw. Emma is embarrassed about how she’s been acting, and she’s sent her resignation to Principal Figgins. Will tries to convince her to stay, telling her that he just left his wife. Emma smartly responds that yes, he did just leave his wife. She’s got a good point. Leaving Terri was a big life decision, and he needs time to process that.

Will’s professional life at least seems to be taking a turn for the better. The other show choir directors confessed to Figgins about the whole set list stealing scheme. Sue, ridiculously, continues to try to deny it, but Figgins fires her. It’s been a week, but I believe I actually squeaked at that moment (couldn’t scream because I didn’t want to freak out the neighbors). I know we aren’t done with Sue (she even says as much), but it’s nice to see her at least temporarily get her comeuppance.

The kids have a few surprises in store for Will in the choir room. First is their Sectionals trophy. It’s a really freaking huge trophy- I’m wondering if they win Regionals and Nationals, how those trophies will even fit in the room! Second is a bit of a choreography montage set to Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You.” Considering I have a bit of a dance background, I’m a bit embarrassed that I didn’t get what they were trying to do with this scene the first time around. I was like “Why are they using cowboy hats?” when they were actually recreating bits and pieces of choreography from throughout the season. This is all interspersed with Will running after Emma as she’s about to leave McKinley High for good. Emma protests for about half a second before she and Will kiss, and everything is right with the Glee world, at least until April.

HIMYM 5.10: "The Window"

“Oh, hell yeah! It’s my overalls! I wore these babies all throughout high school. These were my jam!”

-Marshall

Although not my favorite episode of this season of HIMYM (I believe “Duel Citizenship” takes that title), “The Window” was definitely one of the better episodes of the season. And thanks to an ill-timed Ravens/Packers game, I still haven’t actually seen it on television- luckily the episode was uploaded to cbs.com in time for me to write this blog post. I think what I liked about this episode is that it has heart, which is something HIMYM has sometimes lacked in its later seasons. In this episode, Ted, Marshall, and Lily all confront their pasts in a way, and Barney and Robin supply some comic relief.

The episode opens in Ted and Robin’s apartment, where Marshall brings in a box sent to him by his mom. This doesn’t really make sense considering Marshall and Lily live in another neighborhood now, and I would imagine Marshall’s mom would know his new address, considering Marshall participates in the weekly family dinners via web cam. Anyway, Marshall’s mom has been trying to clean Marshall’s stuff out of the family’s Minnesota home, and she sends him these “care packages” of random stuff from his childhood/teen years now and then. Marshall’s walk down memory lane is suspended when Ted gets an important phone call from an elderly woman informing him that “the window is open.”

Ted rushes out the door, and cheered on by Lily along the way, winds up at the apartment of a woman named Maggie. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend, and she agrees to spend the evening hanging out with Ted at MacLaren’s. Saget!Ted fills us in on the details. Ted met Maggie in college, and apparently she’s a “man magnet.” Ted has only had three “windows” of opportunity with Maggie since she and her college boyfriend broke up. Every time he heard about a break-up, he went to ask her out sooner and sooner, but it was never quick enough. And when she was with a new guy, she’d be with him for several years before another window presented itself.

Back at MacLaren’s, after Ted brings Robin and Barney up to speed on the whole “Maggie is perfect” thing, Marshall continues opening up his care package box. In it is a pair of overalls. Barney thinks this is ridiculous, and before you know it, there’s another “challenge accepted!” Barney will wear the overalls and not take them off until he gets laid. Later on, Robin creates her own challenge: to make as many farmer jokes as possible at Barney’s expense.

I must admit I’m more than a bit peeved at what the HIMYM team has done to Barney and Robin- and it’s not just the break up. It feels like they did a huge reset and the characters regressed. Barney seems to be the kind of lame comic sidekick he was in Season 1 (and really, we learned even during Season 1 that he could be so much more than that). To underscore my point, two of Barney’s catch phrases were used in just the first five minutes of the episode alone. There was a “What? Up!” and as I already mentioned, a “Challenge accepted!” What really twisted the knife for me was when Barney was in the middle of his overall silliness and Robin expressed her disbelief that she ever dated a guy like him. Honestly, I don’t think this show would have survived as long as it had without the major character development Barney experienced through Seasons 3-4, and to throw all that away because writing Barney as a more well-rounded person who is still funny is a bit difficult is quite a shame.

Josh Radnor’s performance somewhat overcame my general irritation. After Ted sets up the date with Maggie, Robin reminds him that he has to teach a night class that evening. Maggie isn’t interested in observing the class, so he leaves her in the care of Marshall and Lily, instructing them to keep her from having contact with any men. Although I find it lame and stretching credibility that Ted would have just up and forgot that he had to teach, I cracked up as Ted said very seriously, “I left my tab open. Don’t abuse it.” It also amused me when Ted’s class would rather hear him lecture about bridges than blow class off for the night, mostly because of Ted’s reaction. He gets this big, stupid grin on his face and says “Really?” in a tone of elated surprise. Never underestimate Ted Moseby’s love of talking about architecture.

Maggie ends up with a sort of revolving door of handlers as she waits for Ted to return to MacLaren’s. One of the items in Marshall’s box was a letter he wrote when he was 15 to his thirty-year-old self. Marshall has not done anything his fifteen-year-old self was hoping he’d do. The thing that stings the most is that Marshall has become a corporate sell-out instead of trying to “save the world.” He tells Lily he needs to do something at work and runs off. Lily is afraid he’s going to quit his job, so she runs after him, leaving Maggie in the care of Robin. When Maggie starts talking to her co-worker, Jim, Robin tries to save the day by distracting Jim with her own “man-magnet” qualities. Jim only has eyes for Maggie, though, which irritates Robin to no end. Robin ends up going to an art exhibition with Jim, just to prove she can win him over, and she leaves Maggie in the care of Barney. What was she thinking!

It actually turns out not to be such a bad thing. Barney says that Ted has ten minutes to get back to MacLaren’s before he makes a move. He really wants to get out of those overalls, and Maggie is kind of digging them. After a pep talk from his class (which is kind of adorable), Ted is on his way. One of the best moments of the episode was when Ted ran down the street yelling “I hate Barney Stinson!” and a random woman off camera yelled “Me too!”

Robin (who has returned from a failed attempt to seduce Jim at the art exhibit) ends up sending Maggie home because Ted, Jim, and Barney are circling around her like vultures. Instead of being dignified about it, the three guys make a mad dash for Maggie’s apartment. I love how through this whole sequence, Barney is trying to help Ted out more than he’s trying to advance his own agenda. He trips Jim up at every point possible during the race to Maggie’s. It turns out the guys were too late, though. Maggie has found somebody else- her childhood sweetheart. Saget!Ted describes it as the “second greatest love story” he’s ever heard. Ted realizes he’s ready for a relationship like that himself- he doesn’t want to be Barney’s wing man anymore.

I also liked the resolution to the Marshall/Lily plot, because it was very in character. Lily discovers that Marshall wasn’t going to GNB to quit his job, he was going to the employee basketball court to try and dunk again. Lily tells him that what he’s accomplished in his life has earned him a basket that’s one foot lower, but Marshall still can’t make the dunk. Lily offers to have sex with him right there on the court, and Marshall instantly feels better. The tag of the episode was silly, but very true to HIMYM. Marshall writes a letter to his 60-year-old self and assures him that if he’s still with Lily, he’s doing just fine. He also asks for a sign if time travel is possible. At that moment, Lily comes back to the table with a plate of wings that somebody had returned for being two spicy. It turns out they were from 60-year-old Marshall, who was observing from across the bar.

White Collar 1.06: "Free Fall"

“I’ll admit I’ve done a lot of things in my life I’m not proud of. No…no that’s not true. I’m proud of most of them. But what I’m about to do today? This is going to be good.”

-Neal

It’s been over a week, and I still haven’t quite worked out my feelings about this episode of White Collar. The final scene was certainly shocking, but I vacillate between thinking it was exciting and brought new life to the show and thinking it was a hackey gimmick. Either way, it definitely made me take notice and think. We got to see a lot of silly Neal antics in this episode, which I certainly enjoyed. Also appreciated was the fact that there was actually a legitimate reason Neal might go to jail if the case wasn’t solved- he was the prime suspect.

The episode opens with Neal and Mozzie walking to breakfast and talking about how Neal learned to that man holding Kate captive is with the FBI. It turns out Mozzie is a total conspiracy theory nut which is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the fun is interrupted by a call from Peter. There’s been a jewelry heist at a high end clothing store, and Neal and Peter are on the case. Before Peter leaves for the crime scene, Elizabeth provides us with a little exposition. As a big promotional event, the clothing store is displaying the world’s most valuable pink diamond.

A visit to the store confirms that the pink diamond (set in a gaudy, platinum necklace) is indeed the issue. The shop owner believes that the diamond they’re currently displaying may actually be a fake. She wants to keep it on the down-low because the promotion is so important for the store. Peter is pretty exasperated when he sees why the shop owner suspects a forgery, though. There’s security video of a masked man hamming it up and entering the vault. Something’s been stolen? You think? Neal confirms that the diamond is indeed fake. And he has a little fun with the model wearing the diamond in the process. Which is to be expected, since it’s Neal.

Peter and Neal have an unpleasant surprise when they get back to the office. The Office of Professional Responsibility (the FBI’s Internal Affairs unit) is in town, and Fowler, the head OPR agent, wants to talk to Peter. Fowler suspects Neal of the jewelry heist. Only a few NYPD and FBI guys even knew the details of the store’s promotion, so it must have been an inside job. Even worse for Neal, data from his GPS tracking anklet is missing from the night of the heist. It’s not that the GPS tracker itself was tampered with, but the database where the tracker’s information was stored was hacked.

Meanwhile, Neal is putting together his own list of suspects. He’s thinking of everybody he knows with the skills to pull off the heist and, more importantly, make the fake diamond. One suspect stands out above the rest- a man by the name of Adrian Tulane.

Neal makes list of people capable of making forgery and pulling off heist- Adrian Tulane. Peter and Neal visit Tulane, who lives quite the lavish lifestyle. Neal is starstruck, which is quite entertaining. He tells Tulane, “I love your alleged work. Big fan.”

The visit isn’t all that productive, otherwise. Tulane produces plane tickets that supposedly prove he was in Europe while the heist was going down.

After the failed interview of Tulane, Peter and Neal both end up investigating each other, in a way. Peter remembered that Neal once told him that he included a signature in some forged bonds he created. Peter wants Jones to look at the bonds under polarized light to see the signature and compare it to the forged diamond. Meanwhile, Mozzie has pulled files on most of the FBI crew, including Lauren (which gets a bit of a protest out of Neal) and Fowler. One thing that’s interesting is that I don’t believe he pulls a file on Peter.

The FBI crew is meeting at the office when the unfortunate results from Jones’ investigation come in. There is a small “NC” inscribed on the fake diamond, just like a small “NC” that can be seen on the forged bond under polarized light. It’s nice, and interesting, given the shocker at the end of the episode, to see that Peter is still looking out for Neal, even when it seems like Neal has betrayed his trust. Peter wants to be the one to make the arrest, and he puts his jacket over Neal’s handcuffed wrists in an attempt to minimize embarrassment as he is walked out of the office with all his coworkers staring.

By far the best thing about the “Neal is being framed and gets arrested again” plot is that Mozzie acts as his lawyer. Mozzie’s explanation for how he became a lawyer (he has an online JD from University of Phoenix) is completely incorrect (only California will allow graduates of online, and therefore unaccredited by the ABA, law schools to sit for the bar exam, and White Collar takes place in New York), the result is amusing enough for me to overlook that problem. Mozzie manages to get the judge to order the FBI to turn over all of their records on Neal, and Mozzie catches Fowler shreading some documents before the FBI complies with the order. Mozzie probably should have gone all Rule 37 on the FBI after that one (asking for sanctions for not complying with discovery), but he does at least recover the documents, now in pieces. Neal manages to put the documents back together and realizes that they are transcripts of phone calls between himself and Peter. He also wants Mozzie to buy a bakery, which seems kind of random at the time but eventually makes sense.

Neal concocts quite the elaborate plan to escape from custody yet again. The bakery he instructed Mozzie to buy is right below the Judge’s chambers. He also makes sure the air conditioning in the Judge’s chambers is on the fritz. Neal then tells the judge that he’s prepared to confess, but because he’ll be naming names, he can’t do it in open court. Instead of actually confessing once he’s in the Judge’s chambers, he jumps out the open window on to the reinforced canopy outside his new bakery. Peter, out on the street, sees this go down. Neal gives him a “well what did you expect?” shrug, then runs off and jumps into a van. Police chase down the van, but Neal’s not in it. Peter knows Neal must have only been in the van for a few seconds before escaping via a pre-loosened floor panel. I love how smarmy and full of life Neal is throughout this sequence. He’s doing what he does best, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.

Another thing I find interesting and entertaining about this episode is that when Neal is in trouble, he looks to the Burke family for help. He calls Elizabeth first after his daring escape, and she sneaks him in to her house. Peter’s not thrilled about this when he gets home and sees Neal there, but he’s willing to give Neal a minute to explain himself. Neal does more than that- he exposes the fact that OPR has been bugging Peter’s phones, and he also shows Peter the picture of Kate and the man with the ring.

Peter has Jones distract Fowler’s OPR goons (who had been pretty blatantly following Peter) so he could meet up with Neal at the clothing boutique and they could figure out how the thief pulled off the heist. They notice that a fluorescent light panel by the vault entrance is flickering, and it wasn’t flickering on the security video. Prying away the very loose panel leads to a prohibition tunnel, and the exit of the tunnel just happens to be watched by a security camera. The video from the camera reveals that the real thief is indeed Tulane. Fowler is not thrilled to see that Peter has continued the investigation, and he sits in on part of Peter’s interrogation of Tulane. Tulane intimates that somebody else was his benefactor and gave him all the information necessary to complete the crime. As he says this, he shakes his head at Fowler.

Even though all the loose ends aren’t tied up, Neal’s name has been cleared at least, and during a little celebration at the FBI office, Neal gets a call from Kate. Kate still won’t say what her captor wants, which seems mighty suspicious to me. When he gets home, Neal finds out that Mozzie’s got a theory based on what he’s learned from the FBI files. Fowler and his team had a hotel room in the area long before the official OPR investigation started. Neal rushes off to the hotel, thinking he’ll find Kate, but it doesn’t quite work out that way. Fowler explains that his steam has actually been investigating Peter, as part of an operation called “Mentor.”

Then comes the huge twist I’ve been alluding to. Kate enters a darkened hotel room to be greeted by a man sitting gregariously on a chair wearing a pinkie ring. It’s Peter, of all people. Tim DeKay is trying his best to be menacing, but he’s not quite pulling it off. I have a pretty strong feeling that all is not as it appears and Peter isn’t holding Kate against her will, or if he is, it’s not out of malice, but we’ll have to wait until January to find out.

Desert Island Discs: A Celebration of 100 Posts and The Great Lost Rewatch (Pre-Season 6 Edition)

Late last week, I started once again what has become a sort of winter ritual for the past two years- something I like to call The Great Lost Rewatch. Lost is back for it’s sixth and final season starting February 2, and before then, I’m hoping to rewatch all five currently released seasons. This made me think of a fairly obvious question. If I was stuck on a crazy, messed-up Island like our Losties, what five TV on DVD sets would I most want to have there with me? Because the Dharma Initiative would totally supply the electricity to keep a DVD player running. And, yeah, I’m overlooking the pesky fact that all Dharma facilities are equipped with 1970’s technology, so I’d have to hope a DVD player survived the crash.

Because I am most definitely TV-obsessed, I couldn’t limit myself to just five picks. So here’s my list. My Top Five Desert Island Discs…and five more honorable mentions.

The Honorable Mentions

10. Futurama: Season 2

The politics junkie in me adores the episode “A Head in the Polls.” Where else would a show respect its viewers’ intelligence enough to make a passing joke about how Gerald Ford was never voted into office, not even as Vice President?

9. Lost: Season 4

Two words: The.Constant *tear*. Okay, that was actually three words, but there is no way you won’t be teary by the end of my all-time favorite episode of television that just happens to be part of Lost Season 4.

8. Firefly: The Complete Series

A show with a unique aesthetic (Space Western…literally) and skillfully developed characters (would you expect anything less from a Whedon show) that died way too soon, after just fourteen episodes.

7. True Blood: Season 1

The beautiful, high quality production values transport you to a sleepy Northern Louisiana town with a decidedly supernatural twist. Toss in some good, fun over-the-top camp, and you have quite an enjoyable way to spend your TV-watching time.

6. How I Met Your Mother: Season 1

I like to think that if my closest friends from college and I all lived in the same city, this is sort of what our lives would be like. Since we’re actually spread out all over the East Coast, from Baltimore to Boston, I live vicariously through the HIMYM crew.

The Top Five Desert Island Discs

5. Friday Night Lights: Season 1

The first season of Friday Night Lights is really a beautiful example of television as art. It tells the story of one high school football season in the small town of Dillon, Texas. The theme of the season is captured most succinctly by the song "Devil Town,' originally written and performed by Daniel Johnston and performed by Tony Lucca for the show. The song bookends the season, appearing in both the second and the final episodes, first as the town of Dillon anticipates the first Panthers game without star quarterback Jason Street, who suffered a devastating spinal injury, and last as the Panthers enjoy their State Championship parade. The song symbolizes how the town is so obsessed with football that it sucks the life out of the players. The kids on the football team are defined solely by their performance on the field, and many will have trouble finding their place in the world after high school.

There are several things that really make Season 1 of Friday Night Lights stand out. One is that it includes one of my favorite episodes of television, “Eyes Wide Open.” Matt Saracen has just become QB1 of the Dillon Panthers because of Jason Street’s injury. If Coach Taylor wants to keep his job, he needs to whip Matt into shape, both physically and mentally. The scene where Coach takes Matt for a nighttime practice is haunting and memorable. Coach asks Matt if, when he threw the winning pass to end the game where Jason was injured, his eyes were open or closed. Matt replies with a smile and a look of wonder, “My eyes were wide open.” If you don’t cry at that moment, you have no heart.

Friday Night Lights, especially in its first season, has a wonderful sense of place. It’s filmed around Austin, Texas, a few hours from where the fictional West Texas town of Dillon would be located. I spent a little time in Austin back in 2000, and I’ve been to the town of Pflugerville. The Pflugerville High School stadium was used to film the football scenes in season 1, and the Dillon Panthers’ uniforms were based off the Pflugerville Panthers’ uniforms.

I place season one of Friday Night Lights above the rest of the series because it is structured in a very satisfying story arc. The action built throughout the season until it started to reach a crescendo in “Mud Bowl” and didn’t let up until the end. The major characters each went on recognizable emotional journeys. It is possible to track the development and changes in each character as they deal with what life brings for those few months. Finally, the State win ends the whole thing on an extremely satisfying note. Because the characters are so developed and everything was plotted on an overall season arc, you really feel like you have been through it all with the Panthers. Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose!

4. The West Wing: Season 2

The second season of The West Wing is widely regarded as Aaron Sorkin’s masterpiece. It has the snappy, rhythmic dialogue you would expect of Sorkin’s work, and it has a wonderful mixture of drama and comedy. It’s fascinating to see how each individual member of the senior staff reacts to a terrible betrayal by their boss. President Bartlett was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis long before his campaign for President, and nobody knows except his wife. For now.

Before we get to all that, though, there’s the fall-out from the shooting that happened in the Season 1 finale. We begin the season with flashbacks to how each of the major characters became part of the Bartlett for America campaign, and it’s really fun to see who they were before they got sucked into the crazy, hectic world of the White House. It turns out that Josh was the member of the staff who was injured in the shooting, and in the early parts of the season, we see him struggle to recover both physically and mentally. This arc culminates in “Noel” as Josh meets with a therapist in an effort to recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Another notable early episode is “Shibboleth,” my mother’s favorite episode, where the “Thanksgiving Pardon” turkeys are at the White House and wacky hijinx ensue.

My personal favorite episode of West Wing Season 2 is “Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail.” The use of Don Henley’s song “New York Minute” as a framing device definitely sets a unique tone for the episode that is hard to describe. Somehow it gives everything more gravity, maybe because it’s so different. The episode takes place during one of the Bartlett Administration’s infamous “Big Block of Cheese” days. Staffers are meeting with groups like “Cartographers for Social Equality” and a Sea Turtle society. Several members of the staff are forced to confront personal demons or ideas they thought were fundamental truths. On the lighter side, CJ learns that the projection we usually think of when we think of a world map is horribly distorted. On the heavier side, Sam recently learned that his father had an affair that lasted 28 years. When he’s asked to recommend a suspected Cold War spy for a pardon, someone whose probable innocence was the subject of his college thesis, Sam finds out that the man was actually a spy and betrayed his country. It hits a little too close to home considering he’s dealing with his father’s betrayal of his family. It’s compelling character drama with plenty of the Aaron Sorkin brand of wordplay humor sprinkled throughout.

The drama builds in the last third of the season as the President, now considering reelection, must share his diagnosis with his staff, and his staff are left to figure out how to personally deal with this betrayal and clean up the mess caused by it. “Two Cathedrals,” the season finale, is widely considered one of Sorkin’s greatest triumphs, and the image of President Bartlett in the National Cathedral yelling (and probably cursing at) God in Latin is iconic. The season ends with the cliffhanger of whether or not President Bartlett will seek reelection, but if you pay close enough attention to his quirks, especially quirks that are explained in “Two Cathedrals,” you’ll know his answer before you pop the first Season 3 disc in your DVD player.

3. Lost: Season 3

Probably the most controversial of my choices, the third season of Lost, when looked at overall, really is an exceptional season of television. Most of the ire people express over Season 3 comes from the six episode “mini-season” that was aired in the fall. It featured Sawyer, Kate, and Jack imprisoned on Hydra Island by the Others. I enjoyed the Hydra plot. It was really Ben at his peak, and Evil Ben is always entertaining. Sure there was a bit of a narrative hiccup caused by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s desire to leave the show (why have Locke go on the seemingly super-important “we must save Eko!” mission in “Further Instructions” only to kill Eko off two episodes later in “The Cost of Living”), but there are some pretty iconic episodes in the mini-season, too. “Every Man For Himself” has Ben and his numbered bunnies and Sawyer and Ben trying to out-book nerd each other. “I Do” ends on a wonderful cliffhanger, the infamous line “Kate, damnit, run!”

Season 3 offers a master class in how to, and how not to, introduce new characters. On the one hand, we have Ben and Juliet of the Others. Ben was introduced in Season 2, where he was plenty creepy and intriguing (somehow he manages to make asking for milk sinister), but he really came into his own in Season 3 through his mission first to save himself from a spinal tumor and second to protect the island from the incoming freighter ship and her crew of mercenaries. Ben is devious and in charge, and starting to go a bit nuts. Juliet is a completely new character to the series in Season 3, and we see from the beginning that she’s no push over. It’s hard to tell what side she’s on- sometimes she seems to want to help Ben, and sometimes she seems like she wants to help Jack. She’s become a strong woman during her time on the Island, though, and you’ve got to respect that. At the other end of the spectrum is Nikki and Paulo, the writers’ failed attempt to provide the perspective of the “redshirt.” Fans just generally found Nikki and Paulo to be irritating. We weren’t subjected to them for long, though. They got a most satisfying death- burial alive while paralyzed by spider venom.

After the mini-season, the show is really firing on all cylinders. We learn more about new characters, such as once meek, now ruthless Juliet in “Not in Portland.” There’s wonderful, mind-bending time travel and exploration of Desmond and Penny’s backstory in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” The Losties get one last, light-hearted respite in “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” before the season, and the show overall, delves deep into the mythology and doesn’t look back. “Enter 77” and “The Man Behind the Curtain” give us glimpses of what the Dharma Initiative was like. On a less serious note, I love the camaraderie between the B-Team guys, Hurley, Desmond, Jin, and Charlie, in “Catch-22.”

Season 3 really benefited from showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse negotiating a definite end-date to the series part-way through Season 3’s run. With an end in sight, they knew they could start hitting certain marks, and hit them they did, none more so than the final moments of Season 3’s finale, “Through the Looking Glass.” “We have to go back!” is a line that will be associated with Lost for a long, long time.

2. Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1

This is the season of television that made me the diehard TV fan I am today. It was, at one point, the only one-hour drama DVD set I owned (I had all four seasons of Futurama, too). During senior year in college, I’d marathon it on weekends when my roommate was off looking at grad schools, and I kept up the tradition when I moved to a new city for law school and didn’t quite know anybody yet. I loved the characters and the close bonds they formed with each other.

The patients in Season 1 were generally pretty closely tied to things their doctors were going through in their personal lives, which isn’t something that can always be said about more recent seasons. Sometimes the connection is obvious like in “The First Cut is the Deepest,” where a rape victim was wearing the same shoes Meredith wore to work that day. Sometimes, the connection is a little more subtle (although never really that subtle), like in “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” where a patient comes into the hospital with a massive tumor because she kept avoiding seeing the doctor when the tumor first started. Many of the doctors are in full avoidance mode at that point, and it’s a bit of a wake up call to stop putting things off.

The small group of interns under Dr. Bailey’s supervision becomes a little family, and I do love shows that center around a “found family.” I especially love the moments when the interns, especially Meredith, Izzie, and George are just hanging around Meredith’s house. One particular scene comes to mind, I believe it’s from “Winning the Battle, Losing the War,” where Meredith comes home to find Izzie, George, and Cristina watching tapes of Meredith’s mom performing surgery. Meredith is at first a little perturbed, because she has a rocky relationship with her mother and specifically told Izzie and George earlier in the episode not to touch those tapes. She ends up sitting down with the rest of the gang, though, and joining in the play-by-play.

My favorite episode of Season 1, and the episode that really cemented me as a Grey’s fan, was the season finale, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who.” It has a nice blend of comedy and drama. The “George has syphilis” plot is absolutely hilarious, even though it doesn’t seem like it would be. T.R. Knight’s portrayal of George’s humiliation has me laughing every time I watch the episode. There’s also the more serious plot of Dr. Burke discovering that his best friend’s wife has been cheating and is pregnant with a baby that isn’t her husband’s. The final scene of the episode is absolutely iconic. Addison Montgomery-Shepherd walks into Seattle Grace just as Derek and Meredith are about to go out to dinner. She waltzes right up to Meredith and, after telling Meredith her name, says, “And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband.”

1. Pushing Daisies: Season 1

Pushing Daisies is my all-time favorite television show, and I fell in love with it right from the beginning. I’d choose Season 1 over Season 2 mostly because the long break between seasons due to the writers’ strike resulted in me watching Season 1 many more times than I have Season 2. I can name each of the nine episodes and tell you, in detail, what happens in each. And I can probably tell you a few choice quotes from each, too.

I fell in love with Pushing Daisies right from the “Pie-lette.” I loved the bright colors, the bizarre premise (a characteristic I would later come to associate with all Bryan Fuller shows), and the adorable romance between childhood, star-crossed sweethearts Ned and Chuck. Every episode, with the possible exception of the season finale “Corpsicle,” left me with a big, stupid grin on my face. There’s just something about the world of the show that warms your heart, even as the themes of the show can get quite morbid. Considering the story is about a piemaker whose touch can raise the dead, including his murdered childhood sweetheart, it can definitely get morbid.

As for favorite episode, it’s a toss-up between the “Pie-lette” which manages to tell a beautiful story with cinema-quality visuals in just 45 minutes and “Pigeon,” where I love the sheer joy of Olive and Aunt Vivian singing along to the song “Birdhouse in Your Soul” as they drive down the road on a beautiful day. “Pigeon” also features the adorably ridiculous story of Lefty Lem and Elsita (Glee’s Jayma Mays) whose love blossomed via carrier pigeon correspondence while Lem was in prison.

With just nine episodes, thanks to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike, there wasn’t much of an opportunity to really build much of an arc for the season, but Bryan Fuller and his talented team of writers did manage to keep the plot twists coming. Chuck found out that her dad died when Ned tried to save his own mother without realizing the full implications of his powers, and Aunt Lily was revealed to Olive to actually be Chuck’s mom. These were two pretty big developments, and they were thrown out there for us to enjoy pretty quickly.

Ned and Chuck are a shining example that a couple that is absolutely going to stay together can indeed make for compelling television. Chuck says it best in “Pigeon” when she happily tells Ned, “See? Isn’t this neat? Here we were thinking all we had is one big problem, when in actual fact we have hundreds of little problems that we gotta sort out before we even get to the big problem! Which means, we’re like everybody else in the world!” It’s apparent that while Ned and Chuck won’t always see eye to eye, and there’s that pesky fact that they can’t touch (one of the rules of Ned’s power is “first touch life, second touch dead again…forever"), they’re always going to do their best to work out their differences and talk things through. Usually their talks happen while they’re working on an investigation with PI Emerson Cod, much to Emerson’s chagrin.

Dollhouse 2.06: "The Left Hand"

“I’m not up to this. I suffer from acute agoraphobia. Or I plan to.”

-Topher 2.0/Victor

“The Left Hand” is all about the DC intrigue, and it’s quite an entertaining episode. Not surprisingly, it features yet another stand out mimicry performance by Enver Gjokaj. The episode also delves much deeper into the questions of identity that animate the series as a whole. Adelle and Topher are in DC trying to figure out how to undo whatever the DC Dollhouse is cooking up. Who is minding the store back in LA you might ask? Well, Boyd’s there, but Topher has also left, as he describes it, the only person he can trust. Himself. Imprinted in Victor, that is. And of course two Tophers are twice as snarky as one.

The action starts at the DC Dollhouse, where Cindy is confronting her husband/Active Senator Daniel Perrin. She knows his mind is going to be wiped in twenty minutes, so she does the typical villain thing of spilling her entire “evil plan” as Topher would say. He’s going to use his office to completely exonerate Rossum of any wrongdoing and any connection to the Dollhouse. Also, she can’t stand him. It disgusts her that being his handler also requires her to be his lover.

In the next room, Bennett, the DC Dollhouse programmer, is confronting Echo. Bennett knew Echo before she was a Doll, when she was still Caroline. Something traumatic happened back then, and it’s lead Bennett to send searing waves of pain through Echo. Then she wants to follow up the torture by giving Echo a memory of their last encounter.

Adelle’s mission in DC is to try to get Echo back, and Topher’s mission is to try to send Perrin’s brain scan to Victor in LA. Each have to meet with their DC counterparts to get the job done. Mr. Lipman, head of the DC Dollhouse, first tells Adelle that it’s going to be a long process to get Echo sent back to LA, considering Echo interfered with an important Dollhouse operation. Adelle manages to change his mind, though. By pretending to flirt with him, then grabbing his balls and threatening to have him castrated if he doesn’t let Echo go. Yeah, Adelle DeWitt doesn’t mess around.

Topher and Bennett are quite charming together in a super socially awkward nerd kind of way. And, hey, I’m a pretty socially awkward nerd myself, so no judging here. Topher is actually more capable of carrying a conversation than Bennett is, which is amusing. At first he didn’t believe that the woman he was talking to could actually be Bennett. In fact, he finds her so attractive that after Bennett shows him how she modified the Disruptor to be directional (like a TASER), Topher tries the device on Bennett to be sure she isn’t actually a Doll. This is followed up with a hilarious phone call from Topher to Victor!Topher where Topher goes on about how great Bennett is, and Victor wishes he were there.

The memory Bennett imprinted on Echo was rather odd, and kind of out of place. The setting was stark and looked like it belonged more in 2019 than in Caroline’s past. I could theorize for quite a while on what this means. Was it during the years Caroline was running from Rossum, following the incident where she broke into their lab and her boyfriend was killed? Was it actually the future and there’s some time wonkiness going on? I guess we’ll find out soon enough, since there are only a few more episodes left. The scene was of Bennett on the ground with a large pillar crushing her left arm (the arm is now dead because the nerves were severed), and Caroline leaving Bennett there so Caroline herself won’t get caught.

Daniel wakes Caroline up out of the memory, and her arm is dead like Bennett’s. They leave the imprint room, and Bennett watches them escape on the TV monitor. She then smashes her head into the monitor. It’s a very sudden burst of violence, it’s shocking, and it shows just how unstable Bennett is. Bennett approaches Topher, and when he sees her injury, he freaks. Bennett blames it on Echo.

Echo and Daniel are out on the street when Echo mentions that the Dollhouse is never going to stop coming after them as long as they still have GPS chips implanted in their necks. They go into a store bathroom, and they’re going to cut the chips out. The whole thing has a rather strange vibe, almost sexual, and I’m not sure whether or not that was intended. Cindy and her minions rush to the shop where the cutting has been taking place, but thankfully they don’t get there in time. All that’s left is two bloody chips in the sink.

Topher and Bennett go to see Adelle and Lipman about their new plan. They’re going to configure the Disruptor to use the biolink to take out the two specific Actives they’re looking for without actually having to locate them. Topher quick throws in that to do this, he needs Perrin’s brain map. Adelle sees he is still on mission and is very pleased. The next scene where Topher and Bennett are sharing their work (Perrin and Echo’s brain scans) was awkward and kind of sweet. Silly too. Both Bennett and Topher are hiding things from each other, though. Bennett is trying to send extra data to Perrin in the Disruptor blast, and Topher is trying to send Perrin’s brain scan to Victor.

Echo and Daniel find themselves at Daniel’s childhood home. They have an interesting and lovely conversation about who they were versus who they are now Echo admits that she’s afraid of Caroline. She doesn’t ever want to “fall asleep” again. Daniel says that they’re both awake now – something the Dollhouse didn’t expect. No sooner does Daniel say that he wants to go to Senate hearing to bring Dollhouse down, then he collapses. Topher immediately realizes something’s up–Bennett has made Perrin an assassin, and he’s attacking Echo. Daniel has Echo pinned when she finally regains her sense of self. She tells him, “You don’t have to be what they tell you to be,” and she regains control of her arm.

This doesn’t stop Daniel from continuing to attack, though.. Victor confirms that Bennett triggered Daniel’s sleeper assassin programming, and he doesn’t think Echo can match him. Topher’s got to get Bennett to turn him off. Bennett says she was Caroline’s best friend, which I thought was an interesting fact. Topher thinks Echo is different from Caroline, but Bennett says they’re the same. She calls out Topher for saying Echo is his friend. Bennett is convinced Caroline has some strange power over people. Topher doesn’t let her finish her tirade- he punches her out as he says, “You were so close to perfect.” I was pretty proud of Topher for taking a stand like that.

Cindy and the minions arrive at the Perrin compound. Echo is hiding, and Perrin stalking her. They end up fighting again, and the whole thing takes me back to the two episodes of the first season of Angel where Faith showed up and tortured Wesley. Guess good old Wes is finally getting his revenge. It doesn’t last long, as Topher succeeds in zapping Daniel’s brain again. Echo kicks him out a window, and he starts attacking minions. Echo runs into Cindy. Cindy punches her out gets minion to watch her. Cindy looks for Daniel and tells him she loves him. At that moment, I wanted Daniel to kick her ass. Daniel says “ever after,” then grabs her. Echo sneaks up and brains the minion who had been watching her. She finds Daniel about to kill Cindy and tries to stop it. Victor stops the assassin program, but it’s too late. Daniel is horrified at what he’s done. He wants to forget he killed her.

The end of the episode is quite surprising. Perrin walks into the Senate hearing and announces that his wife is dead. He does exactly what Rossum wanted him to do. He says Rossum’s competitors are responsible for all of it. There is no Dollhouse. He also says that Madeline was manipulated and had been institutionalized in the past. Echo’s gone missing, and the LA Dollhouse has still heard no word from Paul. They failed in their mission- Perrin’s going to make Rossum friendly laws now. Topher wiping Victor provided one last bit of humor. When Victor asks “shall I go now?” Topher replies, “for the love of God yes!” Adelle wants to find Echo, but Madeline’s lost cause. We see Madeline being wiped by Bennett, perhaps as preparation for the Attic.

Dollhouse 2.05: "The Public Eye"

“I think her bad guys are badder than my bad guys.”

-Echo

First, some housekeeping business. My good laptop had a close encounter with a cup of hot tea last night while I was working on this post, and I’m waiting for it to dry before I attempt to recover any data. If this post is missing some important plot points, it’s because the tea-induced computer crash destroyed my notes, and I don’t really have the time or inclination to rewatch the episode yet again at the moment. I’m currently using my fairly beat-up Dell that I got through my law school’s laptop program back in 2006, so delays in blog posting for the foreseeable future should be expected, either until my HP laptop miraculously comes back to life or my unemployed self somehow comes up with the money to buy a new one.

Anyway, Friday marked the beginning of Fox’s Mid-season Burnoff Theatre airings of Dollhouse, my favorite show currently on the air. Since I gravitate towards quirky genre shows, it should come as no surprise that I’m no stranger to Burnoff Theatre. I became familiar with the Summer variety when ABC aired the final three episodes of Pushing Daisies on three Saturdays in June. It was wonderful to be transported back to the magical world of Papen County one last time. It was bittersweet then, and it’s bittersweet now, because both shows certainly don’t pull any punches on the way out. “The Public Eye,” was not the stronger of the two episodes shown this past Friday, but it was by no means bad. It was mostly set-up to the payoff in the second episode, “The Left Hand.”

The episode opens with a major press conference called by Senator Perrin (played by Whedon alum Alexis Denisof). Senator Perrin, who has made it a top priority to police medical research companies, believes he has definitive evidence linking the Rossum Corporation to the Dollhouse. Up until now, most people regarded the Dollhouse as an urban legend. That definitive evidence is one Madeline Costley, aka November, aka Mellie. Madeline tells the world about how she lost three years of her life to the Dollhouse, and she says they made her do things so horrible that she never could have even dreamed of it.

Boyd, Paul, Topher, and even Echo are watching the press conference on TV in the LA Dollhouse, wondering why Rossum is allowing such an event to take place and surprised Perrin and Madeline haven’t been taken out already. A bit of news footage provides a lightbulb moment. Senator Perrin is talking about his wife, Cindy, and he says “it’s like they made her just for me.” Echo adds “she’s not right” when looking at the footage of Cindy. Adelle says what everybody’s thinking: Cindy must be a sleeper assassin Doll, like Madeline was when she was Mellie. In fact, it’s seeing pictures of her work as an assassin that got Madeline to come forth and participate in this press conference. She’s horrified at the idea that she killed someone.

Madeline’s motivation is mildly surprising to me. I mean, I’m sure it is a horrible thing to realize you’ve taken a life, but the guy she killed was a rapist Dollhouse handler who took advantage of his Active (Sierra) when she was in her vulnerable Doll state, plus he was attacking Mellie when her assassin mode got switched on. It’s not exactly a huge loss. I think Adelle felt the same way. Paul wants to infiltrate the Perrin safe house, and to bring him up to speed on the capabilities of a sleeper assassin, Adelle shows him the video of Mellie’s attack. Adelle quickly tries to take the moral high ground by saying “he was a serial rapist.”

Adelle has a different mission in mind for Echo, and it’s one she doesn’t plan to tell Paul about, even though Paul is Echo’s handler. Boyd offers to take the job, but Adelle says that any interim handler will do. I’m wondering why, except for the second episode of the season (which really should have been the third), we haven’t seen Paul acting as Echo’s handler. There’s always some excuse to have Boyd or an interim take over. It may have made more sense to leave Boyd as Echo’s handler, since that was one of the best dynamics of the first season, and make Paul head of security. On the other hand, that would be too sensitive of a position for a fairly untrustworthy rookie Dollhouse employee. Either way, it would be nice to see how successful (or unsuccessful) Paul is at his actual job. I’m curious.

Echo’s mission is soon apparent. She’s been imprinted as a prostitute, Bree, and she’s supposed to embarrass the Senator. He had gone to sleep after a phone conversation with Cindy that ended on their ridiculous call and response about how he’s her “white knight” and she’s his “beautiful damsel.” There’s a reason behind the patter, but it’s still cheesy as all get out. The Senator wakes up in the middle of an…interesting…situation. Echo/Bree is videotaping him. Perrin quickly realizes that Rossum sent Bree and she’s really a Doll. He wants to take Bree to his wife, which sort of confuses Bree. She’s not used to Johns wanting to take their hooker mistress to meet their wife. Bree’s cool with it, though, as long as Perrin realizes she charges extra for threesomes.

Paul’s mission isn’t going as planned, either, even though he’s armed with a new device Topher likes to call a “Disruptor.” Topher’s demonstration of the Disruptor was great, by the way, and featured writer/actor/wife to Jed Whedon Maurissa Tancharoen as “Kilo.” Madeline doesn’t go quietly when Paul infiltrates the safe house and finds her. She knows Paul had something to do with what happened to her while she was a Doll, and she doesn’t trust him. She screams, and soon Paul is surrounded by Cindy and some handlers.

Just as the standoff is going down, Perrin and Bree pull into the driveway of the safe house. Paul hits the button on the Disruptor, and Dolls start going down. Madeline, Echo…and Senator Perrin. Cindy is still standing. Paul is confused by this. Cindy takes away the Disruptor and remarks that it’s tech she’s never seen before. Outside, Echo is driving away as fast as she can with the Senator in the car too. Topher, Adelle, and Boyd see what’s going down, and they’re not pleased. They figure out some important information, though. The Senator is actually a Doll of sorts, and Cindy is his handler.

Daniel Perrin was indeed born Daniel Perrin, but that Daniel Perrin, although part of a major political dynasty, was in danger of becoming a complete wash-out. He was a party boy well into his thirties. He barely made it through Yale. I personally enjoyed the rather blatant comparison to our most recent ex-President, although I realize your mileage may vary. It gave me a chuckle. So when Perrin goes a bit nuts and insists that he must be Daniel Perrin, he’s not wrong, technically. Echo sees the situation getting out of control and calls Adelle, as she’s been programmed to do. Perrin takes over the phone conversation, but before Adelle can convince him to come into the LA Dollhouse, Cindy shows up.

What follows is one of my favorite fight sequences of the series to date. After getting Daniel out of the way (there’s still a part of him that loves Cindy, even though he knows it’s all programmed), Echo gets into a knock-down-drag-out fight with Cindy. Each of her moves is tied to a flashback of a past fight, and the editing work to make it all come together is really amazing. Echo and Daniel manage to get away, but not for long. Cindy catches up to their car and uses the Disruptor on them.

Meanwhile, Paul, who was quite badass himself getting away from Cindy’s minions (she had instructed them to dump Paul in the LA River), makes a last ditch attempt to save Madeline. He approaches her at the airport, and Madeline agrees to talk to him, even though there’s no way she’s going with him. He tries to explain their relationship as best he can, emphasizing that he was actually an FBI agent when she was Mellie, and the Dollhouse played him too. Madeline questions why Paul would work for such an organization. Madeline’s best point is yet to come, though. When Paul tells her she’s making a mistake by going to DC to testify before a Senate subcommittee, she reminds him that people who are free are allowed to make mistakes.

Daniel and Echo end up at the DC Dollhouse, which has some very interesting differences from LA. The design is sort of classy and more upscale when compared to the LA Dollhouse’s new age spa look. The Active names are all Greek gods, instead of the LA Dollhouse’s NATO phonetic alphabet. The programmer, or “Topher,” of the DC Dollhouse is a woman named Bennett, played by none other than Summer Glau, another Whedon alum (she had a guest spot as a cursed ballerina on “Angel” and was River Tam on “Firefly”) who is fast becoming a genre icon. Bennett seems normal at first, but it’s quickly apparent that she’s not quite all there. She gets very upset when her imprint room isn’t set up exactly as she requested. When she sees that the second Active brought in along with Perrin is the woman who was once Caroline, she gets devious. Apparently Bennett and Caroline have some sort of history, and Bennett can’t wait to continue their story. By using the imprint chair to cause Echo horrible, horrible pain.