Dollhouse: Epitaph Two: Return

By Sonia Aurora

This is the second review I’ve had to do on a series finale. I knew Pushing Daisies would be difficult, because the writer’s strike and the network (or Powers that Be) shirked its growth and then pulled it like a weed, without nourishing it the way it needed to be watered and cared for.

I think, in some ways, Dollhouse didn’t get a fair shake either. The problems that existed in it creatively, however, did mark the downward spiral (something that Pushing Daisies never lacked). But when this show hit the mark it was on fire, really burning at its brightest the way great sci-fi stories do, rife with drama and technology and fantasy, with a little tongue in cheek humor as well. When this train rode right, it was a joy. There is a part of me that wished Sy Fy would have picked the show up and maybe stretched this final arc a little further.

But as endings go, this once was able to answer a lot. I knew, going in, there would be deaths of some Major Characters. Joss spares no expense in that, which I hate and love equally – because real life is that arbitrary. People die with little fanfare, because death doesn’t always come with the chance to gurgle that final goodbye. I wanted answers, I got many. And, more importantly, I got resolution.

The episode begins with a quick recap of Epitaph One. Mag, Zone and lil Caroline (from here forward known as Lil C, as it will get confusing when the real adult Caroline shows up later) are at the California-Nevada border and it’s 2020. A man wanders, possibly wiped, as he’s disoriented and his eyes are vacant. He gets attacked by a mob that run forward – the butchers that the gang in Epitaph One were trying to escape. Mag and Lil C climb into a Jeep while Zone shoots at them. Lil C is not sure where Safe Haven is, it’s been so long since she’s been there. She also resents Zone’s cynicism that the world can be saved: “We’re lost, we’re not gone.” They stop and hide on some kind of farm but they get hooded and taken away.

Neuropolis: much like out of a comic, looking like some, well, futuristic metropolis. Our trip gets put into a cell with others, and the man in black (who we learn is Ambrose) ask that the guards not manhandle “the merchandise”. Elsewhere, in an office in that same building, a large man devours food surrounded by beautiful , seemingly vacant women.

The new Mr. Ambrose walks in and lets Mr. Harding know that there is a new body suit they can get him. They parade in a chain gang of naked men and Ambrose freaks out when he sees Ballard and learns he came with a girl. Ballard stops that “dumb show” vacant look and head butts Ambrose. Meanwhile, Zone is pissed they’re in Neuropolis (formerly Tucson, where the imprinting originated) and that “Safe Haven is parked right next door to the freaking Death Star!” Lil C explains that they needed to be close because that’s where the treatment was. Security comes in looking for the girl Ballard came with, and when Zone asks Lil C if she has a plan, the real Caroline beats up the guards and Lil C responds “I guess I do’. She shoots Harding, even though he tells her it’s futile, since he has backups everywhere: “Why do you bother?” “Ask me again sometime” – Blam, right between the eyes.

Caroline tries to help a bleeding prisoner. When Lil C suggests some ways to help, Caroline figures out who the girl must be imprinted with.

Caroline and Ballard look for and find Topher, who has really lost it now. He’s blabbering on and on, but in the midst of his ramblings they realize in all the time that Rossum has held him captive in trying to find a way to create a device to wipe the world, he has figured out a way to fix the world – reset everyone to their original selves.

Back in Safe Haven, DeWitt shows a young boy named T something in a garden. He runs in to show his mom, who is Priya, and by his dark hair I deduce his father must be Anthony, though he doesn’t appear to be anywhere. I assume he’s dead.

At the dinner table, Caroline, Ballard, Zone, Mag and Lil C join DeWitt and the others to discuss Topher, who went even crazier because the Rossum gang shot someone in front of him every day while they forced him to work on this device. There are two main problems with the device: One is that it would wipe anyone with Active architecture, and they would forget everything. For some it would be OK. Others, like Priya with a son, and Ballard who got brain dead before he was “imprinted,” can avoid the blast by going underground, but they’d have to stay deep for at least a year.

The second issue is that they need to get tech from the original Dollhouse. Zone goes on a cantankerous “no way” speech, and Ballard tells him that “The world still needs heroes”. There’s a pause before everyone laughs at how corny he sounded; Lil C tells him that she (meaning Caroline overall) likes that he’s corny. They are also breached, and a tank comes in but it’s some tech heads, lead by Anthony, tattooed and leathered up. He’s got three gang members with him, Romeo (tall, bald and badass) Kilo (Asian goth chick), and Yankee (black militant dude). They’re also speaking in tongues, until Anthony holds something up to his head and switches himself. They have little metal triangles around their ear and cheek, and we come to learn that they can imprint different skills on a necklace full of flash drives they carry, depending on what they need on their call of duty.

As they prep to get ready for the trip out, Mag tells Zone to get used to the idea of fighting and getting to know their new friends. “Little Asian’s kinda cute,” she tells him. Zone freaks out twice – because she’s a tech head, and because she’s a girl: is our Mag a lesbian? And what is Joss’ fascination with having that a major character point? (Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it happens significantly in his stories that a woman is revealed to have Sapphic tendencies).

Priya and Anthony fight, as she’s upset that he chose to be Victor for their cause, abandoning her and T (still unsaid that he’s the father, but it’s pretty much a given by their exchange). He tells her that he would do anything for her and T, and she snaps back “Except the one thing I asked you to do.”

Caroline is a bundle of cabin fever twitches in the tank, dancing around in anticipation while Ballard looks on her teasingly. They banter sweetly, but it ends with him telling her that for all the 100 people inside of her, she’s the loneliest person he knows.

The tech head squad imprint themselves to fight and they run out to face the butchers and get into the Dollhouse. It’s a battle and race to get underground and safe. There’s a lot of shooting and in the midst Mag’s legs get shot up. Ballard tells her it’s OK, and when he goes to comfort her he gets shot in the head. I have to pause because the action doesn’t stop as I try to absorb this. When I resume play, Caroline’s gone over, calling Zone to grab Mag, not even looking at Ballard, and they leave his body behind to get everyone else to safety. She’s just hardened to everything, it seems. It’s sad how cold she’s needed to be

When they finally get to the Dollhouse, the whole place looks as it did, complete with Actives wandering around, asking if they fell asleep. “Ah hell,” sighs Caroline, and a voice from behind says,“No, you’ll have to keep digging if that’s where you want to end up.” It’s Alpha, as good guy, and the new old friends hug. He’s a “lapsed psycho” apparently.

When Alpha asks about Ballard, Caroline tells him he’s dead. He’s surprised to learn it only happened 10 minutes before.

Topher is still rambling as Caroline and DeWitt tear his office apart looking for what he might need. Great, they think they’ve taken the road trip for nothing. That’s fine by the Tech Head gang, who all draw guns – and point them at Topher. They don’t want to get their access to imprints eradicated, they like being able to switch on and off. Anthony tried to talk sense into them about how great it might feel to have those opportunities, but they really aren’t worth being able to rebuild the world by hand, by their own skills. Romeo tells him he then stands on the side of the Luddites. Alpha laughs at this label, and it shows something maniacal still lurks underneath, and it’s distracting enough for the three rebels to be taken down.

DeWitt calms Topher, telling Alpha that he’s worse when he’s tired. She’s become very protective and maternal with him, shouldering the responsibility of his breakdown, it appears. Topher peps up at the thought of bed time and they runoff to the bedrooms, where Topher had built a veritable fortress for himself. It also seems that he didn’t need any tech from the Dollhouse – he had all his ideas there.

Priya is pissed about Anthony and having chose tech over her, as she smashes at all the little flash drives, destroying them. Caroline is trying to calm her until she explodes at her that “He’s in love with you! That doesn’t come on a drive!” He always loved her, even when they wiped it from him he still always remembered her and loved her and in this impassioned speech Caroline breaks down about not telling him that she loved him, and she’s finally acknowledging her feelings for Ballard, and now he’s dead and she never will get to tell him, and that he was right: “I’m alone…I’m always alone.”

Bennett makes an appearance in a video about imprinting serving as introductory device to the technicians working at the Dollhouse. In it she says that things are “defined by the action of the moment.” Topher pauses the video and presses on her TV lips and thanks her.

They finish what they need to (they being Topher and Alpha, who’s helping) and that the device will need to be activated manually, and it will create an explosion in the stratosphere. Someone will need to go to DeWitt’s old office (it’s high enough) and sacrifice themselves, and Topher has decided it will be him. He doesn’t want to cause any more pain, and it’s so sad to know that he’s consumed all the burden of responsibility. His charming arrogance of intellect brought about his mental downfall. I think he really did think he was using his powers for good, and when they begat products of evil, the only thing his brilliant mind could do is break.

Adele is saying goodbye to Topher, who is readying to go and do what he needs to bring back the world. He asks her to “fix what we did to the rest of the world” and then leans in to whisper that her job is harder than his. They both share bittersweet, knowing smiles.

Mag, in a wheelchair, and Zone say goodbye; he’s going to protect Lil C when she wakes up from the wipe. He asks her what she was before everything; she was studying sociology at Berkeley. He was a landscape architect. She would’ve never guessed, and he walks away grinning: ”People are such a mystery”.

Alpha left – he wanted to be alone for the wipe, in case he reverted back to who he was. DeWitt will lead the wipes out, “ever the shepherd”, but this time she gets to lead them into the light. DeWitt’s amused slightly that the last fantasy the Dollhouse gets to fulfill is Caroline’s, but she (Caroline) has no fantasies. It’s sad to hear her say that, and even Lil C knows that she’s lucky because she gets to start over.

Topher looks out at the ruins of LA from DeWitt’s old office, huge duffel bag on his back. He starts to put it together as DeWitt and Zone walk out the all their Actives. I’m hoping Topher’s device works, and also that somehow he can survive, even though I know he won’t. He shouldn’t, at least not in the state he’s become. He turns and sees the wall of pictures of the actives, with Caroline’s smiling face looking at him. “Huh” he says, starting to smile, turning away from the device that explodes and sends a pulse across the land. DeWitt and Zone stand while the others have fallen.

Caroline goes to the imprint chair and there is a package for Echo: it’s a wedge. She falls into the chair and imprints herself with it. Then we get a scene in blackness with Ballard and Caroline. “Am I?” he asks, and we assume he knows that he’s dead. She tells him that he had wanted her to let him in; he’s not sure she has the room, he’s got a lot of baggage. It’s a sweet scene, but very sad. There’s a finality to Ballard’s existence, and though she now has a part of him in her, his memories, his emotions, Caroline never gets him, fully. It’s still a fantasy.

She goes off and climbs into one of her old Dollhouse beds, to sleep.

Overall, it was a great episode. It only faltered because of the lack of time Joss had to be able to end the story, so we didn’t get the evolution of how Alpha became friendly to them all, how DeWitt became so motherly, to see the progression of Topher’s madness, or the dissolution of Anthony and Priya, how they came across the technology to become “tech heads”, etc. Seeing this as the finale, I would have liked to see what other things Joss had in store, and, sadly, we won’t.

But I still come away from this series more satisfied than with most series finales. People died, people lived, people get to rebuild. And everyone gets a chance at a new life, an actual life, which is refreshing, that the simplicity of wiping tech forces us to be real again. This is a time where shutting off the electricity, forcing us back to a simpler time is invited instead of panicked about.

I’ve wondered a few times whether a real-life Dollhouse would serve a good purpose. My best friend, a few months ago, had to endure an excruciating week wondering if her newborn daughter would need to have brain surgery (thankfully, she didn’t). But I remembered wishing I could wipe that week away for her, as it was happening, to shut her down until they could have the answer, so that she wouldn’t have to suffer. Of course, knowing what the dangers of that could be make me breathe a sigh of relief that it isn’t possible…well, at least, not yet. But I still think that while I type this away on a computer, DVR recording my show as I write, my cell phone sitting next to my Kindle, my iPod plugged and charging, I wonder if tech hasn’t invaded us enough, whether we’re not getting a simplified version of the Dollhouse with these gadgets, or a greater example in virtual lives like SimCity and Second Life. Will we always want an upgraded version of ourselves? Is there or will there be a Topher Brink out there planning this out, for sport of genius? And, can this Dollhouse serve as cautionary tale, or blueprint?

Only the future will let us know for sure…

About Sonia Aurora: Aspiring screenwriter and seamstress, Sonia’s dream is to write life-changing films while product-placing her own line of handbags. In 1999, she wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the short film Dr. Lovestrange, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug, a satirical homage to Stanley Kubrick set amidst the panic of Y2K (Featured on ifilm.com & Coming Soon to YouTube!). While Sonia waits patiently for the Studios to call, she continues her selfless, humanitarian efforts (think Mother Teresa) through her scripts, short stories and sewing (a true triple-threat!), knowing all the while that someday her efforts will indeed save (or at least mildly tweak) the world. She still struggles with which picture to kiss before bedtime: her boyfriend’s or Bruce Campbell’s. And, in the interest of time, she’d like to start thanking the Academy now.

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