Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: S.O.S, Part 2

"Yeah, and I thought my mom was bad when she started watching Fox News."

This is it, then. No more Agents of SHIELD for an awfully long time. This isn't the most dramatic of finales, but it wraps things up nicely and points towards a new status quo, although those never last long. And we end with quite a cliffhanger.

It starts positively, with Coulson managing to persuade Cal to go all Dr Jekyll again and help SHIELD against his wife; at last he picks a side. Cal also tells Coulson about Jiaying eating people, that elders used to sacrifice themselves for her, and that village in China was essentially a farm for her eternal life. 

In other news, Mack manages to free Skye, but Inhumans still control the carrier. Meanwhile, Ward and Kara have set up a trap for Huntet, trying to free the tortured Bobbi. Instead it is she who selflessly takes the bullet, and it's only at the very end that we discover that she will love. Kara is not so lucky, dying suddenly and randomly, realistic for a combat situation. There are parallels here between Hunter and Ward, both losing their woman. Ward is naturally devastated in an obviously character-shaping way; it's not surprising to see him take over HYDRA at the end, twirling his metaphorical moustache like a pro. His entire arc thus far has just been one big supervillain origin story. I hear he's to be next season's big bad.

Things are looking up, though. Both Skye and Lincoln are on board, and Fitz has a doohickey to deal with Gordon. May thinks things are bleak, though; she actually calls Andrew from a mission, for the first time since Bahrain.

We end with a big, exciting fight during which Cal finally kills Jiaying, Fitz kills Gordon and Coulson dramatically catches the Terrigen crystals before they hit the floor and kill everyone. He begins to die, from his hand outwards... until Mack saves him by, er, chopping his hand off.

The epilogue is long and dramatic. Coulson, arm in sling, briefs Skye on his plan for her to lead a team of "gifted a". Cal, in the episode's most featherlight scene, is found to have had his memory wiped. He will never again remember his daughter, or the best day of his life: the 2nd of July, 1988.

May is back with Andrew in what seem to be the stirrings of an actual personal life. Who'd have thunk it? Mack is staying, after persuasion by Coulson and his being put in charge of all alien artefacts.

Most dramatically, and heartbreakingly, though... earlier, Jemma Simmons tried to talk to Leo Fitz about what he said to her, a season ago, at the bottom. Of the ocean, and his irritated reply was "Why now?". The answer, of course, is that every day may be our last: carpe diem. We end with Fitz asking Simmons out on a date, walking out of the room... and said artefact swallowing Jemna whole.

That moment made my jaw hit the floor. This may not have overwhelmed, as season finished often do, but I was certainly sufficiently whelmed. It's going to be a long wait until Season Three...

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: S.O.S, Part 1

"I am capable of finishing my own..."

"Sentences."

Here we go, then. War. It's all very confused at the start, not least because Jiaying compounds her "provoked" killing of Gonzalez by instigating what looks like a SHIELD attack against her own people.  Oh, and you know that eternal youth thing? That's from killing and absorbing people. Just so we know.

Jiaying is thus, after weeks of ambiguity, firmly defined here as a baddie. That's good plot structure, but it's also, perhaps, a little troubling that the only character to advance the pro-civil liberties point of view about the compulsory cataloging of those who are different is now firmly defined as a villain. Could the programme be defining itself as in favour of authoritarian policies? Hmm. We'll see. And either way it doesn't detract from the quality.

Skye is the piggy in the middle here, but it is she who discovers what is going on and she, with naturally conflicting motives and, indeed, definitions of family, is both the hero and the emotional heart of the episode. 

Bobbi, it turns out, is alive, but she's in the nasty, torturing clutches of Ward and Kara and, noble though her defiance may be, there's little apparent hope for her, much as May and (of course) Hunter set off to save her. Her fellow one time turncoat Mack, it seems, is sticking around for a bit, but only for the duration of the current crisis. 

With SHIELD's various agents' positioning on the chessboard established, Jiaying further cements her villainous credentials by killing Raina; the precognitive, as the cliche goes, simply knows too much. The Inhumans are on the warpath, aided by a rather cool Inhuman lady who can make loads of copies of herself. Jiaying's lot clearly have the upper hand.

This doesn't mean that Jiaying is winning in the fight for Skye's allegiance, though; her daughter realises that Raina was murdered, and works out pretty much everything that her mother has done.  But things look bleak at the end; Bobbi is used as a fatal trap for Hunter, and Inhumans overrun the helicarrier as Mr Hyde takes a load of those serums and suddenly starts looking exactly as he did in the comics. 

Looks like a splendid season finale, then. Much of this episode, as ever for a part one, is set-up, but it had me riveted. What next,

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Scars

"I was expecting a raised eyebrow, but ok..."

I trust you've all seen Avengers: Age of Ultron in between blog posts?

We begin with a recap, retcon even, concerning what Coulson has really been up to over the past year. It begins well (Patton Oswalt! Yay!) and proceeds to drop the bombshell that the Theta Protocol was in fact Nick Fury's secret helicarrier as seen in said film, now the property of a more-or-less united, and now rather well-resources SHIELD.

The fallout from last episode proceeds, as Agent 33/Kara is un-brainwashed and Skye keeps watch at Lincoln's bedside. Lincoln, however, is a little dubious about his "rescuers", pointing out (correctly) that their wish to categorise him is more than a little dodgy on civil liberties grounds; this will run and run way past the episode's explosive ending and, I suspect, on to our cinema screens with Captain America: Civil War.

Cal and, indeed, the narrative, implored us not to trust Raina's claims about what she foresees, a clever bit of misdirection as Jiaying apparently learns of the mysterious Kree artifact hidden deep within the helicarrier- a stone that can liquefy itself in true modern CGI fashion. The narrative puts our sympathies with Jiayibg, particularly if the viewer happens to be a civil libertarian like myself, and we are full of foreboding when Hunter announces that he has located Afterlife; SHIELD are coming. 

Coulson and Gonzalez debate what to do. Ever the dove, Coulson gives some ground to the hawkish Gonzalez by accepting that he, not Coulson, should handle the diplomatic niceties with Jiaying. Revelations tumble after one another, with Skye admitting to Coulson that Jiaying is her mother while May tells him what really happened in Bahrain. But there is much foreboding: Raina foresees the coming of SHIELD, and Afterlife in flames.

This eventful episode also sees Mack's resignation, his differences with Coulson teaching breaking point, while Coulson realises that he, Fitz and Hunter have become a little too much of a clique. 

Things get dramatic as May, travelling with Bobbi, turns out to be Kara, still in league with Ward. Ward shoots Bobbi, and it really seems that she's dead, especially as Ward apparently shoots her again, several times, at the end of the episode. 

The negotiations between Jiaying and Gonzalez seem to start well, albeit with a certain veiled prickliness, with Cal being released to SHIELD as a sign of good faith. But it soon becomes apparent that Gonzalez wants all Inhumans to be catalogued- tyranny in Jiaying's boom. And mine. Despite what happens next, I'm with her on the principles.

But what she does next- murdering Gonzales and manufacturing a fake casus belli for a war with SHIELD- is both shocking and framed to make us side with SHIELD. But what is and is not justified in the pursuit of liberty...?

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Dirty Half Dozen

"I thought her gift was spinning really fast to collect gold rings..."

Things speed up for the finale as the opening moments strongly suggest that Raina's Inhuman "gift" is precognitive dreams, people overhear Jiaying saying that Skye is her daughter, and Lincoln is in HYDRA's clutches with Mike Peterson, both  at the mercy of their Dr Mengeles. 

(Incidentally, we get a reference to all previous experiments ending up with fatalities aside from "the twins" from Avengers: Age of Ultron!!!)

But much of this episode consists of negotiations for a merger between the SHIELDs of Coulson and Gonzalez, Cavalier and Roundhead respectively, as Coulson attempts to persuade a sceptical audience of his audacious scheme to send in s small squad to rescue the two captured "specials" from HYDRA. A squad that happens to include both Ward and Agent 33! Brilliantly, the casting vote goes to May, increasingly suspicious of Coulson in recent episodes, and this brings out all of her suspicions as he tries to persuade her. That's good character advancement.

Jiaying, meanwhile, is much less dynamic, deciding to abandon Lincoln to HYDRA's torturous clutches because HYDRA can trace Gordon's movements and a rescue would therefore be too dangerous for the majority. She is very protective of her charges, but cautious and definitely a Roundhead. Skye isn't; she's going on a rescue mission, behind her mother's back and per the advice of Raina, despite her suspicious behaviour. Cal, in particular, distrusts her deeply.

Heartwarmingly, Fitz and Simmons are connecting again; looks like the shipping is back on. Mack and Hunter make up and are friends again. But, now that the set-up is compete, the episode speeds up into the excitement of the mission itself, during which we just know that Skye and Coukson's squad are going to turn up at exactly the same time and bump into each other.

They do. It all gets very exciting. Skye uses her powers to save Lincoln, just as Raiba had foretold. Bakshi is killed. Ward escapes, leaving Kara to SHIELD. Gonzalez is still a dick. But the mission is a success and, in an obvious sign that this episode runs into a certain current movie, Coulson reveals that Nick Fury is alive...

More please. This season has gone lightning fast.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Frenemy of My Enemy

"Daisy Johnson. Huh."

Oh, such a complex web of allegiances: we have two competing visions of what SHIELD should be, Skye's loyalties to both SHIELD and her fellow Inhumans- and her complex relations with her loving yet Machiavellian mother Jiaying and her unstable yet honest father Cal, whom her mother plans to betray, and Skye knows it. Skye has a complicated lifestyle these days.

Fitz, meanwhile, at last joins up with Coulson and Hunter, still in possession of that prime MacGuffin, Nick Fury's toolbox. Coulson is doing a deal with the devil, working with Ward and Agent 33 in order to further his plans.

 Bobbi, in Gonzalez' rogue SHIELD, is beginning to worry that they may be somewhat neglecting the still operating HYDRA, which by the laws of television drama must mean that said baddies are about to do something nefarious.

But the heart of the episode lies in Skye learning to connect with her Dad in a Milwaukee that has changed, even though she realises she must betray him. There is much pathos in Cal's disappointment that so many of the things he wanted to show his daughter are no longer there as a sad metaphor of how time disappears. But we end the episode in a flurry of unexpected developments: HYDRA are tracking Gordon's teleports, and are able to arrive just as Coulson turns up to arrest Cal. Both Lincoln and Mike Peterson are captured, and Skye and Coulson fleetingly meet before Gordon takes her away.

If that wasn't brilliant enough for this fast-moving piece of television, we end with Coulson unexpectedly surrendering to Bobbi and Mack. What next? I, for one, am becoming obsessed.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Melinda

"I moved a mountain!"

At last we get the backstory to all this "Cavalry" stuff that Agent May did in Bahrain. The truth feels a bit like backtracking- what she actually did tends to underwhelm after all the hints- but this episode is nonetheless quite as brilliant as they all are at the moment. I'd expect nothing less.

What a difference seven years makes: Melinda was still with Andrew, and seemingly much more comfortable in her skin as she sets off with Coulson on a mission to retrieve a "gifted" individual in Bahrain. Unfortunately, things soon get out of control. This contrasts with the present day, in which Skye is slowly learning to tame her powers. She also finally learns that Jiayang is her mother, "put back together" by Cal after being vivisection by Whitehall, and also learns the circumstances of her birth right down to her actual birthday, which she now finally knows. It's a deeply emotional moment but one fraught with danger for Jiayang, who cannot be seen, as leader, to be favouring her daughter. I bet she will be outed as doing so by the end of the season.

Meanwhile, May impresses on Simmons that Coulson has been keeping many mysterious secrets, and she now wonders whether he should be trusted. Most prominent among these are the mysterious Theta Protocols.

There's a nice structural moment as Jiaying recounts to Skye of a woman, seven years ago, who stole Terrifen crystals and explored her powers without help, juxtaposed with footage, seven years ago in Bahrain, of May dealing with the fallout. The twist is that the powers- to gain power from others' pain- are not those of the target but of her daughter, whom May is forced to kill. This devastates her, damages her marriage, and leads her to abandon combat operations. She is now the distant Melinda that we know. All of this fits the facts as we know them, but it doesn't quite satisfy after all the build-up of the "Cavalry".

We end with Fitz proposing to join Coulson and Hunter, and he's bringing Fury's secret box of tricks... 

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Things We Bury

"Paddington and Time Lord are closing in!"

Well then. It's all coming out now. Daniel Whitehall is a hundred year old Nazi war criminal who seized eternal youth from Skye's (Inhuman?) mother, a timeless Chinese peasant who looks uncannily like Sierra from Dollhouse. And, much more importantly, Hunter and Bobbie finally shag. As my wife said, there was far too much sexual tension.

Things are looking much bigger in terms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe- we have many flashbacks featuring Hayley Atwell, preparing the way for her imminent spin-off and references to the Red Skull. We are told of "blue angels" in the distant past who wish to erase humanity- and, incidentally, I may not have read the comics for years but I know my Marvel comics continuity up to 1994-ish. I'm certain that this is a reference to the Kree genetically engineering the Inhumans. It looks as though Skye may be an Inhuman through both parents, although her father's notices become ever more interesting. We almost get told Skye's real name, and there's a strong hint that her father's true hatred is for Whitehall.

On the characterisation front, Fitz is coming along nicely, entrusted by Coulson with an important task and acquitting himself well. It's clear that his brain damage won't be a permanent thing. Bakshi, well, dies. And there's a fascinating scene between Grant and Christian Ward in which Christian finally confesses that it was he who nearly killed the youngest brother. And yet, by the end, Christian and their parents are dead in an apparent "murder-suicide" and Ward is getting pally with Whitehall. That's another person with a rather opaque agenda.

There's a big cliffhanger at the end, though... has this mysterious city been found? Whatever. Agents of SHIELD. On fire at the moment. You know the drill.

Dollhouse: Epitaph Two- Return

"I can bring back the world!"

What a very strange ending. Things are still a bit post-apocalyptic, and there are many individual tragedies (for me, the fact that Priya and Anthony split up us more heartbreaking than either Paul's or Topher's deaths), but Topher manages to unwipe everyone in the world. That's... A bit of a cheat. Yes, this means all of the Actives get reset, and "die", but still, the world is saved, however post-apocalyptic it still looks.

Not that it isn't a good episode character arc-wise, mind. It's just that the Miracle ending seems a bit if a cop out, however large a price is paid. It's impressive how well planned out it all is, though- this must all have been planned out from at least Epitaph One.

2020... Not too far in the future now, and not much further into the future back when this was made. And that's the point: this is the sort of science fiction that extrapolates from current trends and grounds the sci if concepts into present day reality.

Dollhouse has been an unashamedly political series, with a strongly pro-civil liberties and anti-corporate agenda. It may, as we discussed last time, end with a bit of a whimper in this episode, but that doesn't matter. It was magnificent, and this episode is just a postscript to last episode's brilliant season finale anyway.

We end with Echo, the worlds last Active, going to sleep in her old pod. And there's the temptation. I'm as guilty as anyone, writing this on a smartphone that can track my every movement, but our generation is choosing convenience over liberty, and we know it.

This is an extraordinary series. It knocks everything else Joss Whedon has done into a cocked hat. And that's saying a lot.

Dollhouse: The Hollow Men

"This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper."

For the first time ever (as far as I recall) I've broken my iron rule, and not used a quite from the episode. Instead I've quoted the end of T.S. Elliot's poem, The Hollow Men, as it's obviously a deliberate allusion and particularly, I suspect, with this being the season finale, to those final lines.

Interesting, then, that the imications should at first glance be so self-deprecating; personally, I think that this episode is a stunning triumph of a Seadon finale. Where, then, is the "whimper"? I suspect the answer lies in the fact that our heroes' victory is temporary, and the death of freedom is inevitable. This is the season finale, but it isn't the last episode. As with Season Four of Buffy and, more to the point, the first season of Dollhouse, there's another episode to go.

We begin with the inevitable flashback which has to follow the revelation, at the end of the last episode, that Boyd was the big bad all along. It's five years ago, and we see Caroline, in Boyd's office , being presented with a choice that is not a choice: life in prison for terrorism or five years as an Active? She's "special", apparently, and Boyd wants to be her handler himself. This makes sense of past events, but it ain't half creepy.

An unexpected pleasure is that we once again get to see Enver Gjokaj's performance as Topher, although it's also cool to see Anthony imprinted with ninja skills. Nice that they have time for such touches in this of all episodes.

I have to stop and praise Harry Lennix here, something I've shamefully neglected up till now. It's such a novelty to see him as an openly moustache-twirling baddie, but we can now see all his other performances in a different light. Like the actor who played Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (I shall name no names. Spoilers, as Rover Song would say!), I'm sure that, if I was to research those earlier episodes, his performances would appear in a very different light.

Horrifyingly, we discover that quietly, in Tucson, Rossum has been developing Topher's technology so that anyone, anywhere, can be wiped and imprinted. There are no longer such things as freedom or individuality; we are all Rossum's hive mind slaves. This is a concept rich with political overtones, and it's not hard to see a dig, here, at those right wing American "Libertarians", many of them in the so called "Tea Party", who fatuously cast "freedom" in terms of the state versus the private sector, and see corporate entities as "people" who must be protected from state oppression. In fact, as we are shown here, the concept of "freedom" only makes any sense when applied to individual human beings, not fatuous and overly abstract binary divisions into public sector and private sector. Corporations can, and do, assault people's liberties, and the truly libertarian thing is for the State to protect us from this through regulation.

There is, of course, no hope here, whatever temporary victory our heroes can bring about. The technology has been invented. It cannot be uninvented. It will be used. We are all doomed.

Still, we can at least hope for that temporary victory, and for Boyd to get his eventual comeuppance. It seems he controls Dr Saunders, and has done for some time. This means it wasn't really here who killed Bennet, which takes some of the poetry away. Still, this is a minor point, and these are the only words of slight criticism that you'll hear from me about this superlative episode of television.

Adelle, only a few episodes from appearing to be an utter bitch, is stoic and brave, refusing to co-operate even at gunpoint and willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Other characters are unfortunate: Mellie's death is truly tragic. And Topher's realisation at what he has allowed to happen seems to be a sort of harbinger of the broken Topher we see in Epitaph One; "I did all this. I'm the one who brought about the thought-pocalypse."

Langton gets his just desserts in the end, being wiped and ending up as a suicide bomber.  But, just as we think we have a happy endng, the epilogue skips a few years into the future and tells us that no, we don't...

Dollhouse: Getting Closer

"They roam like free range chickens. We keep ours more like veal."

Deep breath. Very close to the end now. And...oh yes. SPOILERS. BIG ONES. Seriously, if you don't want to know, look away now. Because this episode ends with a big, big reveal.

Right, they've gone. So... Wow. The big boss of Rossum is, in fact, Boyd Langton. He's been undercover as one of his own underlings all along. Thing is, it makes perfect sense.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First there's the small matter of Caroline's back-up wedge that needs repairing, for which our friends have to kidnap Bennet from D.C: cue some simmering sexual tension between her and Topher. On top of this, Dr. Claire Saunders is back on the team (more Amy Acker- yay!) and, as we know, she's been sleeping with Langton, who at this point we don't yet know to be a baddie. It's complicated.

If it wasn't for the bombshell at the end, the big event if the episode would be Claire shooting Bennet dead. That's how much she hates Topher. He's distraught, of course, but it's lovely how Adelle mothers him.

What else? November is still an Active in Washington, but is freed and rejoins the team. Good. And much of the episode is given over to a big flashback in which we learn just why Bennet hates Caroline so much. Oh, and Clyde is dead. And Rossum know about the L.A. Dollhouse freeing all of its Actives and plotting against them. Oh dear.

There's going to be a final battle. Rossum are after them, but, touchingly, there's time for Priya and Anthony to spend one last night together.

Phew. Looks like we only get big, important episodes these days. There's a slight jiggle in that the pacing and shocks serve to distract us from how rushed it all is by slight of hand, but I just can't deny that this is excellent telly.

Dollhouse: The Attic

"My real name's Echo!"

Wow. This is at the same time a surreal, virtual reality themed episode, redolent of Part Three of classic Doctor Who story The Deadly Assassin, and a massive, massive reveal. This looks absolutely nothing like the rest of Dollhouse. Even the opening titles are different: this is big. Very big. It's not all over yet, though. Not by a long shot.

It's hard to know where to start. Dominic is back, of course. There is surreal stuff, and Echo, Priya and Anthony face their worst nightmares in the weirdest possible way. That Japanese bloke... I shudder at the memory.

But the big revelation is that the supposed big bad, "Arcane", is in fact a British chap called Clyde, the betrayed co-founder of Rossum, who has been languishing in the Attic since 1993! Clyde, with his cyber- superpowers, can see a terrible future that must be avoided or, to be a bit more meta, he's seen Epitaph One. He's a human computer, powering everything, and has been replaced in real life with "Clyde 2.0"...!

Echo, Anthony and Priya, being heroic and, more to the point, the protagonists, naturally escape back to our reality. At this point another bombshell is dropped: Adelle was a goodie all the time, and only sent our heroes into the Attic so they would find enough information to bring Rossum down. Well, well, well. This is not entirely uninfluenced by The Matrix, but it's excellent stuff.

Oh yes, and Ballard is back. He's a doll. Imprinted with himself. Weird.

There's one person who knows the identity of Clyde's partner: Caroline. And we end with Echo declaring an intention to "meet" her...

Dollhouse: Stop-Loss

"I'm Anthony, by the way."

It's clear that we're entering the final phase. Victor is leaving the Dollhouse, yet he and Priya are clearly still in love. But that isn't all, by any means, and Adelle finishes the episode seeming more if a total bitch than ever.

Our first doubts about Adelle's ethics surfaced last season, when we realising she was, in essence, using Victor as an escort which, like all other instances of this with Actives, is pretty much ambiguously rape. Except that this time it doesn't happen: although Victor's supposed to be imprinted, he "dumps" Adelle, and we know it's because of Priya. Victor (now Anthony) may have reached the end of his contract, but the mere fact that something like this can happen is a problem for Rossum. Love, it seems, is resistant to corporate control. How dare we pinko lefties have the temerity to feel such an emotion?

Echo, who is suffering quite a bit of nastiness from De Witt, is at pains to ensure that Victor says goodbye to Sierra before he leaves. At least one person cares.

So that's it. Victor is now Anthony, and he's free of both his contract and the post-Afghanistan post combat stress disorder that put him in the Dollhouse in the first place. But he's clearly institutionalised, perhaps by the U.S. Military as much as by the Dollhouse, sleeping in the same pose that he used in his pod. Things can't go on like this, and it's not surprising to find that he's soon kidnapped. So much for freedom.

There's an interesting contrast with Echo here. Echo is not free, but she has a personality that is, if not quite Caroline, her. She is, in a sense, freer than Anthony: what little freedom she has has been negotiated on her own terms.

Anthony has been kidnapped by Rossum's military wing in an act if outright kidnapping, and he's to become a member of a hive mind. This is totally outrageous, and the most heinous thing we've seen Rossum so far; they have as little loyalty to their promises to free people at the end of their contracts as they do to freedom itself.

Boyd tells DeWitt who, interestingly, is rat-arsed- stress at work, perhaps? Priya is brought back with her own mind- and Topher does not, as he promised, delete her day of abuse by Nolan, so she can remember Victor- and teamed up with Echo on a rescue mission. This mission is successful, and it's nice, although admittedly something of a cliche, that there's still enough of Anthony inside his body to asset himself. Wonderfully, he starts to chat up Priya.

Echo heroically deals with the group mind and saves all the individual, while an increasingly sozzled DeWitt seems to be having a personal crisis. But just when it seems she might have an attack of crisis, she becomes more of a black hatted baddie than ever; not just Echo, but Priya and Anthony too, are going to the Attic...

Dollhouse: Belonging

“You're a rapist scumbag just one tick short of a murderer. I've forgotten, do you take sugar with your tea?”

Before I go on to this episode and its rather harrowing events and themes, I can’t help mentioning that this episode is directed by Jonathan Frakes, Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He ain’t bad.

This episode covers some rather heavy themes and deepens our concerns about the ethics of what the Dollhouse is doing and whether, whatever Adelle might try and convince herself, the Dolls truly consent to what is being done to them. We also see an entrenchment of Topher’s ethical troubles. Most of all, we are exposed to the full horror and tragedy of Sierra, a character whose pain we had never suspected.

Flashbacks show us Sierra as she was before any of this happened: a free- spirited Australian tourist on Venice Beach, an amateur artist and easy prey for Nolan, a creepy and predatory pervert who, sadly, combines this with being rich and powerful. She is only an active because of his sexual abuse and disturbing machinations, and cannot be said to have in any way consented to being made an active. Most upsettingly of all, Nolan is still seeing her as a client, which can only be considered as rape. Yes, Adelle is furious and throws the book at him, but the episode ends with Sierra still as an active with a year of her contract yet to run. The only concession she gets at all is to get her memory wiped to remove the events of this day. It’s all very dark. Fortunately, all this is balanced by the very sweet love between Sierra and Victor, which makes this episode less harrowing then is otherwise would have been.

Topher, with his new found conscience, is left to face the full horror of what he has done to Sierra while recruiting her. He may have been ignorant of Nolan’s motives, but he is left with deep misgivings about his role and things he has done. He is intelligent but juvenile; this is the first time he has ever considered the ethics of what he does and he has to go through it alone. Adelle may be something of a mother figure to him, but she has he own ethical blind spots. He may collaborate with Boyd in covering up Nolan’s death, but this act of washing away the blood is an apt metaphor.

Oh, and did you notice the graffiti on the inside of Echo’s pod? The story arc proceeds apace.

Dollhouse: Belle Chose

“Lovely. So you're saying that we've imprinted an active as a serial killer and blindly let him loose upon the streets.”

Yes, the Dollhouse reviews resume. So, without further ado… on one level this is a story of the week about a misogynistic serial killer called Terry, his creepy doings and habits, and the fact that his influential father is able to use the Dollhouse to deal with his wayward son rather than leave things to the justice system as lesser mortals do. On another level, this advances the themes of the season and begins the acceleration of the plot threads towards the season finale. From this point, things are liable to move just a little too quickly, courtesy of Fox not being very nice to Joss Whedon, again.

This is also the point where Topher begins to have ethical issues with what the Dollhouse is doing, which at this point is so at odds with his character to date that Adelle reacts with mock amusement at his sudden development of a conscience. This is linked to the fact that this episode sees the Dollhouse, and active technology, being used in new ways. After Terry’s capture, which results in severe injuries towards him, his mind is put into Victors’ body. This is an acting tour de force from Enver Gjokaj, but we’re left a little uneasy at what the Dollhouse is doing. And this is before Victor escapes into the streets with the mind of a serial killer.

Linked to this is the fact that Terry himself acts as a sort of metaphor for the Dollhouse’s clients (remember, this includes Adelle) and their attitudes to the dolls/people. The character makes us, and them, think uncomfortable thoughts.

Things get even murkier when Adelle convinces Topher to salvage the situation by means of a remote wipe. The fact that only Alpha has previously attempted this hints at it not being a good idea in the long run; this is our first inkling that Active technology will eventually go too far.

Interesting things happen to Echo, too. She ends the episode with Terry still inside her head, unwiped and accessible to her. It is also bizarre to see Echo suddenly reverting to doll form in public, asking if she fell asleep.

For all of its thematic unity, this episode very much points the way forward towards the finale. This is where the pace picks up. Hold tight.

Dollhouse: Instinct

“The human mind is like Van Halen; every time you remove a part, it degenerates!”

Oh my God. There is soOoOoOoOoO much going on in this episode. The central concept is brilliant as always, and an ingenious development of the idea of the Dollhouse. Echo is hired by a bereaved husband to be mother to his child, but the maternal instinct which was imprinted into her remains real even after being wiped. There is an obvious point here about the power of the maternal instinct, is significant that this should happen to Echo at this point, where wiping is not removing everything.

That’s the plot, and it’s a bloody good one which further develops the core philosophical concepts of the show. But around this are threaded all sorts of things which are clearly going to contribute to the season arc. Adelle is still in contact with November who, although she has now left the Dollhouse, is still receiving aftercare and obviously still has a part to play in the overall arc as she’s still appearing in the series. We also learn more about Senator Daniel Perrin, who lives in a big, big house and really has it in for the Dollhouse: did he hire Dominic? He’s certainly researching Rossum, the company behind the Dollhouse which is receiving rather a strong focus in this new season.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but it appears that Doctor Saunders has left for good. Things are changing. Echo and Ballard are plotting together to bring down the Dollhouse. Already, this season is beginning to feel as though the status quo is no longer stable.

Dollhouse: Vows

“Who did they make me this time?”

So, a brand spanking new season. This first episode is so important that Joss Whedon himself writes AND directs. There are lots of exciting things to notice about the first day of term, not least of which is the new boy, Alexis Denisof. Already I’m excited.

There have been changes since last season and, while an episode of the week of sorts, the plot revolves around them. Agent Ballard is now Echo’s handler, but he and Echo appear to have an agenda of their own. She is first seen with her thirty nine personalities seemingly being erased, with some rather appropriate footage from Bride of Frankenstein. All is not as it seems, however.

Doctor Saunders, now that the audience is aware that she’s an active, has a particularly interesting episode. She hates Topher, apparently, and is full of exactly the sort of existential angst that we expect from her situation. It doesn’t help, either, that Victor’s scars have been fixed and hers haven’t. What’s particularly interesting is that she doesn’t want to revert to her original personality as she doesn’t want to “die”.

The basic plot consists of Echo pretending to be married to someone whom Ballard had been trying to catch for some time while working for the FBI; her handler is in effect also her customer. But behind all this lies a major recalibration of the character. We learn that she is well aware of her active status and retains memory of all her imprints while maintaining a coherent sense of self. She is, perhaps, what Alpha believes himself to be. She has two years left on her contract as someone who remembers all her experiences, obviously has some sort of agenda and is essentially the same person as the inquisitive and ballsy Caroline. Sparks are bound to fly.