Dollhouse is Finally Going Somewhere Interesting

Unfortunately, the “somewhere interesting” gets hijacked by about twenty minutes of episodic nonsense and Eliza Dushku channeling her inner Faith while wearing thigh high boots and a mini skirt. I realize that last bit could be seen as part of the “somewhere interesting” but that is a debate for another time – possibly a time that involves a dark room, fifteen minutes, and the unrated version of Bring it On.

Aaaaannnd we can now move onto last week’s episode. Spoilers after the jump!

Friday’s episode “Gray Hour” was, in terms of plot and character development, a kind of balm to Whedon fans who were scarred emotionally by the previous week’s terrifically terrible mini version of The Bodyguard with Echo playing Kevin Costner to a pop singer named Rayna’s Whitney Houston. I’m having a little PTSD myself, recounting even that small bit of plot so let’s just stick with “Gray Hour” for now.

I’ll sum up the plot quickly for those of you who missed it. Echo is hired to play Taffy the Hooker for a bachelor party. The bachelor party goes all gang rape-y and the nice security man working at the fancy hotel saves her and then takes her into the special, electronically locked security man room and bribes her with dozens of thousands of dollars to keep her mouth shut so as not to impugn the reputation of Hotel Schmancypants. And then things get interesting. Suddenly Taffy the Hooker goes all Jet Li on Security Guy and calls the “gang rapists” (who we now realize are in on the Taffy charade) on her cellphone to tell them that she’s in the special locked room and to get down there on the double. She then proceeds to school them all in what a bad ass she is and how she’s the boss of them and something about Taffy Standard Time and Taffy puts leather pants on, sets up a wall mine and boom! it’s vault full of expensive art heist time (which I’m assuming is different than Taffy Standard Time). So, blah blah blah, bad acting abounds and some story is told about Bonnie and Clyde and then one of the burglars goes rogue and leaves with the art they were supposed to steal and so Taffy calls her Handler to, uh, handle that situation, I guess and while she’s on the phone a fax noise happens in her ear and suddenly Taffy is Echo again and the gang is locked in a vault with only mind wiped Echo to help them get out before the police arrive and the Dollhouse has to figure out a way to reactivate her or something in order to finish the job for the client.

Phew!

Setting aside Dushku’s one note performance as Taffy the Cat Burglar/Hooker, I have to say that the moment Echo gets wiped via cellphone in that vault and becomes all little girl lost, I was able to relax for the first time since the series aired. Joss (I thought to myself), you’ve made me believe in your pretty magicks again.

As Echo, Dushku breaks out of her tough girl from the Bronx/Boston role she loves to play and actually emotes – just like a real actress! Overwhelmed and confused and childlike, Echo charms the pants off the other, more sensitive member of her gang with a conversation about modern art being about insides versus outsides that, while kind of stilted and boring, is a slightly less pedantic allegory to Echo’s predicament than the one from the pop singer Diva episode where the audience is bludgeoned to death with a “I’m a prisoner inside my own body” metaphor.

This episode revolved so much around Echo actually being Echo- instead of some lame character stolen from a particularly bad episode of Charlie’s Angels – and I think that’s the reason why I recommend everyone sticking with it and not abandoning it to be another television “failure” on Joss Whedon’s resume.

What I really like about Dollhouse has been the idea of Echo (and all the other Dollhouse personnel who, for all we know are Actives too) emerging as a sentient being who is different from the girl she was before entering the agency. I’m also CONVINCED that Alpha and Agent Paul Ballard are one and the same. In fact, I wonder if Ballard was one of the many personalities imprinted on Alpha – or if possibly, he was the original person Alpha was before his becoming an Active. We have no idea who runs the agency and a government conspiracy is very much in Whedon’s wheelhouse.

In any case, if the series can shed it’s ridiculous standalone plots about Echo’s stupid assignments and focus on the agency and it’s Actives, I honestly think Dollhouse has a shot at being some of Whedon’s best work to date. And that’s saying something coming from someone who has sewn her own Inara silk shuttle curtains and pillow cases.