Dollhouse 2.11: "Getting Closer"

“Hello, Carrie at the prom! Off the chart smart. Bet you could kill me with your brain.”

-Caroline

While I certainly had a very enjoyable viewing experience (yelling at my television, laughing hysterically, the whole nine yards) watching “Getting Closer” Friday night, the ultimate judgment on the quality of this episode can only really come after the final two hours of Dollhouse are broadcast. This episode did not really tell a stand-alone story- it was all about moving the pieces on the board towards the endgame and shocking us with unexpected twists and reveals. It’s the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix of the overall story arc, if you will. Whether or not this is an episode I will look back on in awe or with loathing will really depend on what comes of the shocking events that took place. There are a lot of directions the show can take from here to get through those final two hours, some undoubtedly genius, some trite and clichéd. At the moment, I’m right where Joss likely wants his viewers- anxiously waiting for more. No matter what, I will say this: no other show I’ve watched but Lost has pulled off big twists and shocking reveals quite so effectively.

There was more to “Getting Closer” than just mind bending twists, however. There were also very intriguing flashbacks into Caroline’s past and a couple of fun Firefly shout outs thrown in for good measure. The flashbacks explain Caroline’s relationship with Bennett in more detail, and I think these flashbacks do a better job than past flashbacks of fleshing out Caroline’s character. I still prefer Echo to original Caroline, even though it’s becoming apparent that some of what makes Echo able to do what she does is likely a bit of Caroline’s sheer force of will left in the brain Echo is using. The first flashback, which happens to contain the first Firefly shout out (the Quote of the Episode), takes place in Adelle’s office three years ago. Caroline has begun her vendetta against Rossum following the lab incident at her college, and she has convinced a security guard to let her into Adelle’s office. She handcuffs the security guard to the desk and starts going through Adelle’s files. She finds her own file and the file of Bennett, who at the time was just a promising neuroscience student and recipient of a Rossum scholarship to Tucson Institute of Technology.

Caroline thinks she can use Bennett in her quest to bring down Rossum, so she enrolls at Tucson Tech. She befriends Bennett by getting some mean girls to leave a cafeteria table so Bennett can eat. Bennett doesn’t seem to be used to people being nice to her. This is only reinforced by a later flashback to when Bennett and Caroline were roommates. Caroline is giving Bennett a bit of a make-over before Bennett’s first day of work at Rossum. Bennett remarks that nobody has ever taken an interest in her before.

It turns out that Bennett is pretty important to the current-day LA Dollhouse crew, too, and not just because of Topher’s residual crush on her. Echo’s plan to “meet Caroline” has run into a bit of a snag. The wedge with Caroline on it has gone missing. Or at least Ivy says it’s gone missing. Despite an extremely touching scene between Topher and Ivy (more on that later), I still don’t entirely trust her. Topher has a back-up copy, but it’s been severely damaged. The gang cooks up an incredibly devious and amusing plan to salvage the damaged back-up. Bennett has a reputation for salvaging severely damaged wedges, so Topher, Ivy, Paul, and Tony work together to abduct her from the DC Dollhouse. Topher and Ivy set up a “ghost chair” program so they have control of Bennett’s imprint chair in DC. They imprint an Active to hold Bennett immobile as Paul and Tony enter the DC Dollhouse to abduct her. I think what I like the most about the scene (other than Topher’s dorky concern for Bennett’s welfare), is when Tony quickly says “gingersnap,” and the newly programmed Active releases Bennett. Before they leave, Paul spots Madeline (now once again November) on the view screen. Paul decides she has to come back to LA too.

The middle of the episode is dominated by entertaining, kind of sweet character interactions. Sort of like we were all being lulled into happy complacency before the chaos of the final act. There’s also plenty of speculation (including by Echo herself) about what effect the incorporation of Caroline could have on the entity everyone currently acknowledges as Echo. Bennett certainly brings a different vibe to the LA Dollhouse. She describes the differences between the LA and DC Houses in a manner quite in keeping with the times. She says “You let them roam. They roam like free range chickens. We keep ours more like veal.”

The first pair of characters to lull viewers into happy complacency would be Topher and Bennett. Topher is happy and nervous to see Bennett again (the last thing she remembers about him is his punching her in the face, remember), and he goes out of his way to try and make her feel welcome. He wants to show her around the lab. It’s classy to show a girl some hospitality before you ask her to resurrect her arch nemesis, I suppose. Things are going well until Bennett realizes that the wedge Topher wants her to restore is Caroline. Guess she didn’t appreciate the classiness. Topher ends up with a split lip, and Bennett ends up in the interrogation room.

Topher’s injury leads to a big reveal and more happy, sweet romance. Dr. Saunders is back! And where has she been? Living with Boyd. That’s why he was so disinterested in the goings-on at the Dollhouse while Echo was Atticked. As they said in that one episode of Lost that would probably make my all-time worst episode list if I were to create such a thing, he had “something nice back home.” Claire patches up Topher’s injury as the rest of the Dollhouse crew express their surprise at seeing her again.

This episode once again showcases Topher’s amazing character growth over the past two seasons. Echo has realized that something is up with Paul. He doesn’t seem to be paying attention to her in the same way that he used to. Echo confronts Topher about it, and Topher is actually contrite. He’s not entirely sure what Paul lost in all the reconfiguring he had to do, but Topher suspects it’s his connection with Echo. Topher said he needed the brightest neural pathways to successfully rewire Paul’s brain, and he thinks those were all about Echo. What shows Topher’s character growth is how truly sorry he is that it happened. It’s even obvious in his body language.

On the other hand, I’m feeling the need to go on a bit of a rant about Paul. I feel like this “Topher took something away” plot has made the character completely regress. In season 1, there wasn't much to him. Paul was kind of pretty, but pretty dumb. Then, in early season 2, some layers were added. I loved his "I went to Quantico" exasperation at taking Kiki!Echo for wardrobe in “Belle Chose,” and I loved his kicking ass interrogating serial killer Terry in the same episode. His connection with Echo and the conflict he felt about that connection during the time they spent in Texas made him even more interesting. Now it feels like he's back to being the kind of oafish character he was before. The fact that he’s been paired back with the dull, doesn’t-do-anything-but-cook-Italian-and-moon-over-Paul Mellie (Adelle imprinted Madeline with Mellie so she would trust Paul implicitly) certainly doesn’t help things, either.

Things get more serious, but also interesting, when we get a new perspective via flashback about why Bennett hates Caroline. Bennett realizes Caroline’s been using her when she finds Rossum files among Caroline’s things. Bennett isn’t upset that Caroline is trying to take down Bennett’s employer, though. She’s upset that Caroline doesn’t want her help. Caroline does accept Bennett’s help, and while they’re trying to blow up Rossum headquarters in Tucson, Caroline makes a startling and grisly discovery. Rossum has a secret basement lab where they’re experimenting on people. Things go even more downhill quickly. Bennett’s already started the countdown on the explosives, and the delay Caroline’s discovery caused isn’t good at all. To make things worse, Adelle and Domenic and an LA Dollhouse security contingent have arrived. The bomb goes off before Caroline and Bennett can get out of there, and that’s where Bennett’s arm is injured. Caroline’s abandonment of Bennett isn’t as cruel as it appeared to be in The Left Hand, though. She wanted to get caught so that Bennett could be left out of the whole mess, considering Bennett had a legitimate reason to be in the Rossum building.

I think what makes the Rossum incident told from Caroline’s perspective interesting is the light it sheds on Bennett. Caroline wasn’t maliciously abandoning Bennett to some horrible fate. Bennett was just devastated that Caroline was abandoning her at all. A few years of time passing hasn’t changed Bennett’s feelings about it, either. After a pep talk from Boyd, Echo goes into the interrogation room to convince Bennett to help Topher restore the Caroline wedge. Echo succeeds, basically by offering to let Bennett torture Caroline again once they’re done saving the world.

Adelle knows too many shenanigans are going on at her House to escape Rossum’s notice, so she puts the house on lockdown. She wants to give every Active their memory back and set them all free. Before the lockdown can be completed, Echo escorts Tony and Priya out of the building. She wants them to have at least one night together before the “war” against Rossum really starts. Considering that Paul’s kind of a zombie and later events in the episode, it seems like kind of a bad idea that Echo sent away her two closest friends and allies. I’ll be interested to see if that comes back to haunt her next week. It turns out to be an especially bad idea that Echo sent her friends away when she closes the door and out of nowhere pops up Domenic, who has escaped from the Attic with a warning. Rossum’s on to Adelle’s little rebellion, they’ve killed Attic!Clyde, and they’re coming sooner rather than later. Adelle hears the warning, but she decides to send Domenic back to the Attic, figuring that’s where he’ll be safest.

Domenic isn’t wrong. Mr. Ambrose and some security goons arrive, and Mr. Ambrose basically tells Adelle that she’s fired and the LA Dollhouse is being closed. Since being “fired” in Rossum-speak generally means death or worse, Adelle’s not going quietly. Boyd shoots the security guards and Ambrose himself (probably not a big deal since Ambrose’s imprint is likely in several other bodies), but he gets shot as well in the process. Adelle’s new plan to escape from the mess is to blame everything on Boyd when she talks to Rossum higher-ups. Meanwhile, Boyd will go on the run and stay hidden. Boyd and Claire share a tearful goodbye, lifted almost exactly from “Epitaph One.”

Compared to Boyd and Claire, Topher and Bennett are better than ever, sharing kisses as they work on restoring the Caroline wedge. This is a Joss Whedon show, though, so the happiness can’t last for long. Topher goes to the next room to get a tool, and when he returns, Claire shoots Bennett and basically blows her brains out. It’s hard to tell just what Claire’s motivation was here. My current theory is that it was her ultimate way of lashing out at Topher, continuing her spiral from “Vows” when she just couldn’t deal with being a Doll. She was talking with Bennett about Topher’s love for Bennett (and mentioned that she hadn’t realized Topher could love) right before the shooting. Maybe she couldn’t deal with the fact that Boyd was leaving her while the person she despises most in the world was experiencing new love.

In the aftermath of Bennett’s death, Topher is in shock, childlike as in his iconic scene in “Epitaph One.” I thought this was the beginning of the end- that Topher was destroyed. He managed to pull himself together, though. This time, at least. I’m nervous to find out what horror leaves him in that state permanently. As the Rossum soldiers cut the power to the Dollhouse and begin their attack, Topher asks Ivy to leave, telling her that she has a remarkable brain and he thinks it should stay in her head. He then gets to work finishing the restoration of Caroline.

As Echo is set up in the imprint chair and the gunfire starts, Topher tells Adelle to escape too, saying she’s their general. She leaves safely thanks to Boyd randomly showing up again and breaking a security guy’s neck. We see a final flashback as Caroline is being imprinted upon Echo. She’s been brought “upstairs” at the Rossum headquarters in Tucson following the explosion. First Caroline meets Clyde, or some version of him at least. Then she meets the elusive co-founder of Rossum. It’s Boyd. And there’s really not much to say about that at this point, other than I can see a lot of scenarios playing out from here, and I can’t wait to see where this journey goes next.

Dollhouse 2.10: "The Attic"

“I don’t buckle. Occasionally I swashbuckle.”

-Topher

“The Attic” was by far the most artistic, abstract episode of Dollhouse to date. It was very much in the same style as “Restless,” the fourth season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Much of both episodes take place in a dream-like state. This lends itself to a story told more through visuals than dialogue, so my usual play-by-play recap style doesn’t nearly do it justice. I’ve wondered about the Attic since the concept was first introduced in Season 1, and it didn’t disappoint. Something that has been teased for so long could end up disappointing, but with a Joss show, there really isn’t need to worry. His shows are at their best with this sort of material- concepts that allow for very surreal visuals. I take issue with some of the character motivations (or lack of motivation) in the episode, but the visuals are so stunning that I rank this episode pretty highly in the Dollhouse lexicon anyway.

When we last saw our favorite Dolls, they were being placed in the Attic on Adelle’s order. As Topher helpfully explains to Boyd, the Attic is even worse than we thought. I for one thought the Attic was simply where the bodies of people whose minds had been completely wiped were stored. It’s actually much more complex than that. People in the Attic are kept in a state of fear so their brains will be under the influence of adrenaline. Topher thinks Rossum is trying to test the limits of the human brain, but it turns out to be more sinister. For the moment, though, Topher has bigger fish to fry. He’s still trying to figure out how to make Paul functional again after Alpha rendered Paul brain dead. He needs to install Active architecture in Paul’s brain if he wants to have any chance at success.

The Attic is quite a trippy place. Echo, Priya, and Tony’s “nightmares” all start sort of normal (and in Priya’s case, nice), only to change into something completely horrifying and strange. Echo’s is kind of horrifying the whole way through, although it most definitely takes a turn towards the strange. Echo sees herself awakening in her Attic pod, on a ventilator with probes in her head, and killing the Rossum employees who are checking on her. She sees herself free Tony and Priya (Rossum calls people by their “real” names, not their Active designations, in the Attic, but Echo insists she’s Echo, not Caroline), killing more Rossum employees along the way. Tony and Priya join in the fighting, and Tony’s soldier training comes in handy. Until things go wonky. Echo, by some sort of force field, is separated from Tony and Priya as Tony and Priya are brutally gunned down. When the scenario starts to repeat itself again, Echo realizes that whatever is going on is in her head. When the force field pops up for the second time, Echo turns her back on the soon-to-be-dead Tony and Priya and continues trying to escape, finding herself in an even stranger place- the main room of the Dollhouse with a big, white tree in the center.

Tony’s nightmare involves his time as a soldier. He is commanding a small group of troops in a Middle Eastern town. There is gunfire, and Tony wants to go on the offensive. Take “the high ground,” as he puts it. Tony makes his way into an abandoned building and realizes that the terrorist he’s fighting is himself. Played by Enver Gjokaj’s twin brother Demir, naturally. This isn’t the first time Joss Whedon has used an actor’s twin in one of his shows. In the fifth season Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “The Replacement,” Xander is split into two people, each possessing half of his personality. The suave, assertive half of Xander is played by Nick Brendan’s twin brother Kelly Donovan. I think that this tendency to give a nod towards his actors’ real lives shows Whedon’s respect and fondness for his actors.

One of the coolest things about this episode is that Reed Diamond is back for a reprise as the shady Lawrence Domenic, ex Dollhouse Head of Security. He was sent to the Attic himself back in late Season 1, specifically the episode “A Spy in the House of Love,” and he has the fairly unique ability to travel from mind to mind. He’s been tracking a creature he calls Arcane, a being who also travels from mind to mind, killing those whose mind he enters. He becomes a sort of guide for Echo, which is ironic considering Domenic was bent on killing Echo before Adelle sent him to the Attic for being an NSA spy.

There’s one more nightmare to be revealed, and I think Priya explains it better when talking to Tony than I could ever hope to. “In mine I was constantly making love to you. And then you’d turn into the rotting corpse of a rapist I killed.” That rotting corpse would be Nolan, the super creepy guy who put Priya in the Dollhouse in the first place. Tony has the brilliant idea to use Priya as a trap to catch Arcane. Apparently Arcane likes to feed of the fears of the newly Atticked. The plan is a success, and Arcane turns into a late middle-aged man as everyone is transported to the world of 2019 from “Epitaph One.”

Arcane is actually Clyde, co-founder of Rossum. He tells the others that the other co-founder betrayed him and put him in the Attic. Conveniently, the version of Clyde that was placed in the Attic is missing certain very important memories. He doesn’t remember who the other co-founder was, just that such a person existed. Clyde does have some more useful information, too. He knows the purpose of the Attic. The brains of the people hooked up to it are actually Rossum’s computer mainframe. They’re a human computer network. This jives with what Echo experienced earlier when she jumped into the mind of a Rossum employee from Tokyo who was Atticked for figuring out that Rossum’s mainframe was vulnerable. They’re all in the post-apocalyptic world because Clyde’s nightmare has been to run scenarios on where the Dollhouse technology he invented could go in the future. Only a minuscule percentage of scenarios don’t result in the apocalypse. Clyde says there’s only one person he knows of who might be able to unravel the mystery. Rossum brought a young woman in once who saw too much before her mind was wiped. Her name? Caroline. Too bad that the one person whose memories Echo doesn’t possess is the original inhabitant of her own body.

Meanwhile, things back at the Dollhouse are falling apart. Adelle is still being ruthless in her quest to regain control of the House, and everybody is pissed at her. Boyd has been spending more and more time at home instead of the Dollhouse, and Topher is in danger of losing his job to Ivy because Adelle found out about what he did to Nolan. Topher does make progress on his quest to bring Paul back from brain death, though. With a little help from Ivy, he routes the functions usually controlled by damaged parts of Paul’s brain through undamaged parts instead. Paul is eventually revived, and when his brain sorts itself out, he’s not happy. He first wants to attack Topher, but after Boyd restrains him and explains what happened to Echo, he grabs Boyd’s gun and head straight for Adelle’s office.

Echo has a plan to free herself from the Attic so she can continue the fight against Rossum on the outside. She’s going to reenact her nightmare. In other words, she’s going to make herself flatline so the computer can disengage and she can escape. She gets herself shot by a 2019 Butcher, and the plan goes into effect. She’s not alone, though. Tony and Priya are coming with her. Tony stabs Priya and holds her in his arms as she flatlines- it’s an absolutely devastating scene. Tony then goes out into the street, willing the Butchers to finish him off so he can flatline too.

At the end of the episode, Adelle briefs a revived Echo. It turns out that Adelle sent Echo to the Attic not to punish Echo, but in hopes that Echo could uncover whatever secrets Rossum was hiding there. The rest of the gang is there, too- Tony, Priya, Topher, Ivy, Boyd…and Paul. Who isn’t anywhere near Echo. Topher said he had to take something away from Paul to reroute other parts of his brain, and I’m wondering if what Topher took was Paul’s feelings for Echo. Echo is too preoccupied with something else to really notice. She says they need one more soldier for their mission to take down Rossum. It’s time she meets Caroline.

Early in this post, I mentioned unclear character motivations. I was specifically talking about Adelle, and I think I had a similar complaint in my post about “Stop Loss.” I can’t figure out what specifically made Adelle change her mind, if she ever really changed her mind in the first place (could she have been playing Rossum the whole time?). One thing is certain though, the reveal of the co-founder of Rossum is sure to be explosive, and I am most definitely excited to see where this ride goes in the final three episodes.

Wasting Away in Dharmaville: My Five Favorite Lost Characters

As a lot of the shows I usually cover here on MTVP are on an extended hiatus due to next month’s Olympics in Vancouver, and Lost, one of my all-time favorite shows, will be entering its final season soon, it only seems natural that I supplement my usual recaps with a little extra Lost content. I need to get through more episodes in the Great Lost Rewatch before I feel prepared to do a Lost equivalent of my 15 Most Legendary Episodes of HIMYM series or do any “Classic” Recaps of my favorite episodes, so I figured I’d start small. Ryan McGee over at the fabulous Zap2It.com Lost blog (go there for seriously nerdy, seriously interesting in-depth Lost theorizing . . . I mean it!) got some pretty nasty comments for his Top 25 Characters List, but I figure I have an advantage. Even though my list is sort of unconventional, none of the few people I know who actually read this blog are Lost fans, so I probably won’t catch much flack for it!

First things first, I’ve got to hand out an honorable mention. Initially, a list of five characters seemed like it would be easy to compile. Then I got to thinking about it, and I realized that I just couldn’t limit myself to five- the depth of compelling characters on Lost is just too great. I did, at least, manage to confine myself to only one honorable mention, unlike in my Desert Island Discs post. That honorable mention goes to jumpy physics genius Daniel Faraday. Even though by the end of his character arc in “The Variable,” it’s obvious that there’s a lot more going on in Daniel’s radiation-addled brain than he lets on, most of the time I just want to give him a hug.

5. Juliet Burke

Juliet is by far one of the more successful new character introductions on Lost (with the infamous Nikki and Paulo on the other side of the spectrum). Her introduction to the series in the Season 3 premiere is iconic. It’s the first time we get to see the Oceanic 815 crash from the point of view of the Others and the first time we see how the Others truly live. It’s a massive fake-out, as Juliet appears to be preparing for a normal, suburban book club meeting that is interrupted by what at first seems like an earth quake. I like that Juliet has a clear character arc (up until The Incident, that is, but I’ve already ranted about that numerous times here). Back home, she was a push over, completely controlled by her ex-husband. On the Island, she was able to become more of her own person. She still sometimes found herself manipulated by Ben (most tragically when he purposely sent her lover Goodwin to his death), but Juliet learned to take a stand. One of the things that make her so fascinating is that until the time skips start in Season 5, you never know which side she’s truly on. One second, like when she sends a creepy video message to Jack, she seems to be on the side of the Losties. Next thing you know, she’s leaving a message for Ben telling him that Sun is pregnant. She has learned to be cunning and tough on the Island, and she’s a more interesting character for it.

4. Danielle Rousseau

I imagine this would be my most controversial choice if many Lost fans actually read this blog. Danielle isn’t an especially frequently recurring character, after all. I am just always amused by her particular brand of crazy. I prefer the present-day, portrayed by Mira Furlan, version of Danielle (not surprising considering the crazy is what I like about her), but the Young Danielle of season 5 was intriguing as well. Two late season 3 episodes cemented me as a die-hard Rousseau fan. The first was “The Brig,” where she was responsible for one of the biggest laughs Lost ever got out of me. You may question why I would laugh during “The Brig,” considering its biggest moment is the extremely disturbing tableau of Sawyer killing Anthony Cooper via strangulation with a chain. Before all that, though, there’s Danielle Rousseau looking for dynamite. And running into Locke. Rousseau and Locke totally could have been Crazy King and Queen of the Island had they not been unceremoniously killed off. The scene made me laugh because my initial reaction was that a crazy “French chick” looking for dynamite just couldn’t end well. I also liked the bit that I refer to as the “Dysfunctional Family Portrait” in “Through the Looking Glass,” the season 3 finale. Danielle is finally reunited with her long-lost daughter Alex, who had been kidnapped by the Others just days after her birth. Ben, who raised Alex as his daughter, is harassing the Losties, and one of the first things Danielle does upon meeting her daughter is ask Alex to help her tie Ben up.

3. Ben Linus

Although Ben’s importance to the series seems to be waning (it looks like there’s a bigger battle going on above his pay grade between Jacob and the Man in Black), he is right at the center of all the drama and intrigue in my favorite seasons of the show, seasons 3 and 4. He even manages to make quite an impact in season 2, my least favorite season. The scene at the end of “The Whole Truth” where Ben casually asks “You guys got any milk?” after describing in detail how he would kill the Losties that went out in search of Ben’s true identity, is creepy perfection. Ben has a tendency to be both a petulant child and a master manipulator, which is a dangerous combination for sure, and it’s probably why he’s my favorite TV villain. In his heyday, he was truly frightening. No matter how docile he appeared at any one moment (especially when held in captivity by the Losties), it was obvious that some scheme was being formed in his head. He certainly could never be trusted, and if you got on his bad side, you were in trouble. It was especially fascinating to watch him in season 3 when he was actually fully in command of the Others. He deftly moved all the pieces in place to manipulate Jack into performing surgery on his spinal tumor, and until he started taking things personally at the end of the season and decided that the new plan to combat the Island pregnancy dilemma should be to kidnap every Lostie woman, he had the respect and obedience of the rest of the Others.

2. James “Sawyer” Ford

Josh Holloway is certainly nice to look at, and he has chemistry with any actress the Lost producers decide to pair him with, but that’s not why Sawyer is so high on this list. I believe that Sawyer has the most clear, satisfying character arc of any character on Lost. For most of season 1 he’s the outsider and nobody, except maybe Kate, cares to deal with him, and they certainly don’t trust him. Sometimes the other Losties have good reason not to trust Sawyer. He certainly is very protective of his stash, for instance. There’s also the pesky matter of his “long con” in season 2, but that can be explained by my next point. Sawyer has invested a lot emotionally in his “Sawyer” persona. As Kate astutely observes as far back as season 1’s “Confidence Man,” Sawyer wants people to hate him.

This all starts to change in season 3 when Jack is still with the Others and Kate has taken Sayid to rescue him. Hurley gently convinces Sawyer that the remaining Losties need him to step up as a leader. I think that’s when he really starts to value his community. The fact that he gets past his “Sawyer” baggage by killing Anthony Cooper, the “original Sawyer” in “The Brig” certainly facilitates this transition as well. At first I wondered how the character of Sawyer could continue on from a storytelling perspective after he achieved the goal he revealed way back in early season 1, but I needn’t have worried. We see in season 4 that he has close connections with Claire and Hurley, and he’s willing to die for either of them. In season 5 we see the full manifestation of James Ford as leader when he becomes LaFleur, Head of Security, to the 1970’s Dharma Initiative. He’s a fairly cerebral, as opposed to impulsive, leader, which makes sense considering he’s always been a bookworm.

1. Desmond Hume

After realizing just how wonderfully crafted Sawyer’s character arc is, I’m having trouble justifying why Desmond is here in the top spot on my list, but I’ll give it a shot. Just about every Desmond-centric episode will likely make it into my Top 15 episodes of Lost series that I intend to start in a few weeks. Two Desmond-centric episodes, “Flashes Before Your Eyes” and “The Constant” (especially “The Constant”) work especially well as stand-alone episodes and are therefore more accessible to new viewers. Desmond-centric episodes, because of Desmond’s propensity to find his consciousness traveling through time, are some of the more thought-provoking, mind-bending episodes of Lost. I adore the Desmond/Penny romance. It’s a refreshing counterpoint to what I’ve dubbed the “Love Quadrangle of Doom.” Desmond and Penny truly love each other, and even though they most certainly go through a heck of a rough patch, they work hard and find their way back to each other.

Other characters keep calling Desmond a coward, but ultimately, he’s a pretty heroic character. He turns the failsafe key, risking almost certain death to save the people he has met on the Island. When faced with an impossible ethical dilemma, to save his good friend Charlie or be reunited with the love of his life Penny, he chooses to save Charlie and accept the consequences. In season 5, when Ben threatens Penny, Desmond physically bests Ben and makes sure that Ben will not be a threat to his family again. There are still things I want to learn about Desmond, such as why he was in that military prison, and I want to see why Daniel said Desmond was uniquely special. I hope that Henry Ian Cusick’s legal troubles don’t prevent these stories from being told, although if Desmond’s absence from the second half of season 5 is any indication, I have a sinking feeling that Desmond might go the way of Walt or Libby. And that would just be a shame.

Dollhouse 2.09: "Stop Loss"

“I’m sad too. But not for us. For him. He’s not ready to be by himself.”

-Sierra

Although I wouldn’t rank “Stop Loss” among my very favorite episodes of Dollhouse (really none of the first episodes of any of Fox’s two hour Dollhouse marathons have achieved that status for me), it was certainly a decent quality episode. Most importantly, it divulged some long-awaited backstory of one of my favorite characters, Victor, aka Tony Ceccoli. Enver Gjokaj, most certainly the stand-out actor to have emerged from Dollhouse’s too-short run, got to show that he excels at more than mimicry- he can handle big action sequences, too. Echo also continued to come into her own, although she became marginally more unlikable in the process. She sees her friends as puzzle pieces to be used in the fight against Rossum. I still, however, find her to be much more fully developed than her alter-ego Caroline. The episode dipped into wells Joss Whedon has used in his work before, but the emotions evoked are timeless and work as well here as they ever did in projects such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

In “Stop Loss” we get another look into what happens once an Active’s Dollhouse contract is up. We got some idea of what happens via November/Madeline, but now we get the chance to see what happens immediately after an Active is released. Victor is nearing the end of his five year contract, and Adelle has rented him out (using her pseudonym of “Miss Lonelyhearts,” of course) to have one last fling with Roger. When Roger humiliates her by saying he’s in love with another woman (Sierra, of course), Adelle is incensed, ordering Victor released from his contract immediately.

Topher stumbling over his words after he finds out that Adelle is Miss Lonelyhearts is one of the most amusing parts of this episode. Topher has really gone from squirrelly creep to a truly endearing character. Despite Adelle accusing Topher of setting up a practical joke, he has no idea why Roger broke up with her. The answer is clear when Victor is woken up, and instead of starting the “Did I fall asleep?” patter, he says “Has anyone seen Sierra?”

Echo is not at all pleased with this news, mostly because she had been planning to use Victor as part of her overall scheme to free all the Actives from the Dollhouse. Adding to Echo’s frustration is the fact that Adelle has moved Paul (who has no brain activity, by the way) to a location Echo can’t get to with the key card Boyd smuggled to her. Echo begins her plan to get Victor back by approaching Sierra at dinner. It’s a sad and thoughtful scene (like much of Joss Whedon’s work overall). Sierra tells Echo that she’s waiting for Victor to have dinner, because he always comes back for his treatments. Echo tells Sierra that Victor isn’t coming back, and she’s upset because she was going to use him to help free everyone from the Dollhouse. Sierra’s response is much more interesting. She isn’t worried about herself- she is worried about Victor being able to survive by himself.

Sierra has good reason to be worried. Tony, now returned to his body, is kind of disoriented in his new life, even if Boyd did set him up at the Hyperion. I love the shout-out to Joss Whedon’s series “Angel,” by the way, even if I did prefer their small Season 1 headquarters to the Hyperion- what does a vampire need with an entire hotel, anyway? Anyway, while at a club that plays Lady Gaga just like the club from the pilot episode (which was responsible for my mildly embarrassing love for Lady Gaga’s music), Tony unsuccessfully hits on a woman that looks like Sierra. He also ends up finding it more comfortable to sleep in the shower of his hotel room instead of the bed- the shower is more like a Dollhouse sleeping pod.

Thankfully Tony’s instincts, honed while he was a soldier, survived his time as an Active in tact. He is awoken when he hears noise coming from the next room. Several guys in full SWAT-team gear have entered his hotel room. Tony admirably holds them off for a little while, but it’s three-against-one, and before long, he’s been abducted. Throughout this episode, I was consistently impressed by how believable Tony was as a former soldier. Enver Gjokaj managed to inhabit the role perfectly- I think it was something about how he changed his physicality once he was Tony. The way he carried himself was completely different, and it made me buy the transformation. Tony finds himself in a starkly lit room, like the typical TV/movie interrogation room. He is confronted by a solder he served with, and this soldier has an offer he can’t refuse. He is part of a unit of “broken soldiers” that operates outside the US Military. Tony jumps at the chance to be a soldier again. A chip is implanted in his neck, and he becomes part of the unit’s group mind. It’s sort of The Initiative from the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets the Borg from Star Trek.

Boyd and Echo are hard at work sleuthing in an effort to bring Victor back to the Dollhouse. They find out that someone had been accessing Tony’s records on a regular basis to make sure his release was still on schedule. His records are also now associated with Scytheon, Rossum’s defense contractor subsidiary, particularly a project called Mind Whisper. With a little help from Topher, they find out the bad news. If they don’t rescue Victor soon, Victor (and Tony) will be lost to the group mind forever. Adelle could care less about Victor’s fate- in fact she appears to not be in favor of any rescue attempts when she’s coherent enough to string a couple of sentences together. She spends most of the episode falling down drunk. Confrontations with both Echo and Boyd don’t seem to do any good, although it appears that a quick dip in the communal shower might. I figure that the Shower of Reflection was supposed to be some sort of visual short-hand for Adelle’s thought process, but it was a little too abstract to work for me.

The rest of the Dollhouse crew, thankfully, is much more proactive about the situation. Topher and Ivy load up Echo with any imprint that could possibly be helpful, leaving only “Naughty Pirate Wench” unused. Echo now has military and acrobatic training. There’s also one final step. They have to turn Sierra back into Priya. Priya is outraged that Topher brought her back without erasing her memory of Nolan, but she calms down after a beer and an explanation. Echo thinks that Priya might possibly help Tony regain his sense of self. Priya remembered Victor, so they hope that Tony remembers Sierra too.

Echo and Priya manage to infiltrate the Mind Whisper bunker by purposely getting caught. Tied to a chair and blindfolded, Echo uses her imprint of the blind woman from “True Believer” to successfully fight off the soldiers holding her in custody. She then frees Priya, and they’re off to try to figure out how to free Tony. Tony catches up to them pretty quickly, because as part of the group mind, he saw Priya when the other soldiers saw Priya. His first instinct is to attack, and he comes close to strangling Priya before he can break free of what the group mind is telling him to do.

Once Tony gets back in control of himself, Echo sets a new plan in motion. She wants Tony and Priya to hold down the hallway while she goes and tries to figure out how to overcome the group mind. Tony and Priya find themselves in battle pretty quickly, and one of my favorite moments of the episode is when Tony sweetly introduces himself to Priya in the middle of the fight. Victor and Sierra, now Tony and Priya, will always be one of television’s most adorable couples, surpassed only by Ned and Chuck of Pushing Daisies. While Tony and Priya are getting to know each other, Echo implants a chip in her own neck so that she can try to contradict the orders of the group mind.

Tony and Priya manage to stay alive thanks to an old Army buddy of Tony’s who remembers Tony long enough to disobey his orders and get killed by the other soldiers for his trouble. Echo helps too, of course. Since she’s hooked up to the group mind, she starts issuing contradictory orders, trapping the soldiers in a sort of paradox. It reminds me of the classic sci-fi way (used to hilarious effect in Futurama) to subdue a robot- give them an unsolvable paradox. Echo tells the soldiers to go home just as they’re about to fire on Tony and Priya.

Echo, Tony, and Priya take an SUV for their trip back to the Dollhouse, with Echo driving and Tony and Priya chatting happily in the back seat. Listening to Tony and Priya talk about what they remember about each other from their time as Victor and Sierra (Tony knows Priya likes pancakes with strawberries, for instance), something clicks in Echo’s mind. Perhaps it’s remembering her time with Paul, but whatever it is, Echo softens a little and relents from her “I need to use people to achieve my goal” mindset. She wants Tony and Priya to leave right then and there and start their life together.

Tony and Priya agree, and Echo is just about to tell them how to look her up after she frees everyone else from the Dollhouse when the three of them all slump over, noses bleeding. Adelle has been made aware of the situation and has used the Disruptor to get her Actives back. It’s a classic example of what Whedon fans lovingly call a “Jossing.” Tony and Priya only had minutes of true happiness before everything was taken away from them again. Such moments are fairly typical of Joss Whedon’s work and are too numerous for me to list here. I would criticize relying on the same trope over an over, except that somehow it manages to work on me every time.

Adelle has had it with being out of control of her House, and she takes drastic measures to quell the growing insurrection. She’s sending Echo, Victor, and Sierra to the Attic. Topher and Ivy aren’t at all happy about the idea, and Topher has to be threatened with the Attic himself before he goes ahead with the procedure. Boyd has to be hauled off by security guards. I think it’s safe to say that although Paul is still a vegetable and unable to weigh in on the matter, if he had been able to, he probably would have used some of his muay thai skills on Adelle right then and there. The Attic is a visually disturbing place. It’s very stark, and its inhabitants are placed in metal boxes that are covered over with what looks like Saran wrap. This clearly isn’t the end of the adventure, though. After Echo is sealed in, her eyes open.

New Years Resolutions 2010: How TV Characters Plan to Change in the New Year

It’s 2010- the start of a new year and a new decade. At times like this, we tend to reevaluate our situations and resolve to do better at something. I have personally noticed that my TV has been inundated with diet commercials for the past few days. I even saw a special diet book table set up in the front of the local Borders near my parents’ house yesterday. Because it’s the holidays and I’m too lazy to continue working on my recaps for the two most recent episodes of Dollhouse (those will be coming soon, I promise), I thought it might be fun to think for a bit about the New Years resolutions of some of our favorite television characters. Being the dedicated TV blogger that I am, I went and collected some of these resolutions for your enjoyment.

To no longer listen to Sarah when she tells me to “stay in the car.” Okay, I know I’ve never really listened to her when she told me to stay in the car in the first place, but now I’m really never going to listen. I mean, dude! I know kung fu now! I think I can handle myself. And maybe then Sarah won’t feel like she always has to protect me
-Chuck Bartowski

I need to turn that fickle donkey wheel again. Then I can have another crack at killing John Locke. And I have got to remember not to trust him when, after I’ve killed him yet again, he claims to be resurrected. That didn’t really end well for anyone. Live and learn, I suppose, especially when there are endless possibilities for resetting the timeline
-Ben Linus

I should do some pro bono work- maybe provide legal services to a nonprofit organization. Just because I’m a corporate tool and not saving the world for my day job doesn’t mean I can’t save the world at night. Like Superman. Or any of those guys who hunt Nessie or Sasquatch. Or is that their day job? That would be awesome!
-Marshall Eriksen

I will use the unfathomable number of political favors I have accumulated over the years to have legislation enacted that will ban the use of hair gel and other similar products by men. Overly gelled hair on a man disgusts me. Oh, and I should probably destroy Will Schuster, too. But that really shouldn’t take much work.
-Sue Sylvester

I intend to successfully petition Dr. Gablehauser for a raise. Subsequently, I would be able to cover the entirety of apartment rent on my own, Leonard would move out, and I would finally have the Fortress of Solitude that a true super genius like me needs and deserves. Someone with my superior intellect should not have to mingle with riff raff.
-Sheldon Cooper

When you have lived for a thousand years, there’s really nothing to change. Maybe I’ll pick up some teacup humans for the bar. Provide the customers with some novel entertainment. And they could provide a new challenge to Pam as well. Buying new shoes gets old eventually. I should know, considering I’m a thousand years old.
-Eric Northman

I want to be my best. And has anyone seen Sierra? I saved her half my breakfast. She likes pancakes. I like pancakes, too. They are sweet. Especially with fruit. Fruit is sweet as well. And sometimes sour. I enjoy fruit. Dr. Saunders says fruit is nutritious. It helps me to be my best. Dr. Saunders is nice. Where is Dr. Saunders?
-Victor

How about I try not to get caught in ethical dilemmas anymore, considering the last time ended with me dismembering a body. Oh…I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that. How about refusing to give into curiosity? The last time I did that, I invented technology that could end the world. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that, either. Damn.
-Topher Brink

I want to reclaim my rightful high score on the Frogger game I just installed in the Psych office. Gus beat my high score earlier this week, and we all know he cheats. Oh and Abigail beat my score too when she stopped by the office yesterday. Beginner’s luck. It’s like Dad and the Duck Hunt high score all over again.
-Shawn Spencer

I need to move on with my life after the death of a good friend. Her name was Sophie. She died in an explosion a few weeks ago, and I could barely get through the eulogy at her funeral. I think she misses all of us. She sounded kind of lonely when I called her at her flat in London yesterday.
-Parker