In a way, I’m not sure why I’m bothering with this. I make plans to write a weekly post about some show I’m watching, and invariable I end up not making the time to follow through with it. This is usually because a.) I miss the show when it initially airs, have to watch it off the DVR later, and by then everything that can be said about the episode has already been said somewhere on the internet. Or b.) I’m busy.
I also can’t help feeling like I’m playing with fire if I start posting a whole lot of analysis about a show like Dollhouse which is ratings-challenged at best, and … well, no one will be surprised if the series isn’t invited back to the FOX schedule next season. Why put myself through it?
I wasn’t going to, but this week’s stellar episode “A Spy in the House of Love” changed my mind. This was easily, without question, the best episode of the series so far, and revealed a tremendous richness in the premise that wasn’t immediately apparent from the stand-alone episodes that aired back in February. All those people who are feeling abandoned by the end of Battlestar Galactica and don’t know what to do with themselves on Friday nights? “A Spy in the House of Love” provides the answer. Dollhouse is not the Aaron Spelling-style sexploitation show you thought it was going to be.
My favorite scene in the episode happens right before the first act break. Paul has just finished telling “Mellie” about all his new discoveries and theories about the Dollhouse, and I was thinking, “Man, what irony that he’s so obsessed with rescuing Caroline, and he doesn’t even realize that his neighbor and sort-of girlfriend is also a doll.” And then she suddenly comes out with a secret recorded message from the DH’s own Deep Throat. In a flash, Paul learns that Mellie is a doll, that she will inform the DH of anything he shares with her, and that he can’t let her know that he knows she’s a doll because she’s actually a sleeper agent who will kill him all kinds of dead if he does.
Sheesh! Then the message ends and Mellie is “herself” again, beckoning Paul to join her in the shower. Suddenly he is using her just as much as Patton Oswald’s software baron was using Echo a few episodes ago. He has to act like nothing has happened, but how do respond when you learn that someone you know and care about doesn’t actually exist?
So that floored me.
There were lots of fun revelations this episode, like the fact that “Miss Lonely Heart” is actually Adele! Yes, our own director of the DH has personally hired her own organization to make Victor her lover. We learned that Dominic is actually an undercover NSA agent who, rather than trying to bring down the DH from the inside as you might expect, has actually been trying to protect it from mismanagement. This nevertheless doesn’t endear him to Adele, who sends him to the Attic. And finally — and most importantly — we learned that Echo is unusual. Well, okay, we already knew that, but we got more details: it appears that Echo, even in a fully wiped state, still has a sense of…duty? Morality? She not only wants to fight for a cause (in this case, weeding out the person who has been spying for the NSA), but believes in her own ability to do it. And she does something kind of remarkable. “You make people different,” she says to Topher. “Make me help.”
Yet when Topher reveals this conversation to Adele later, she’s not disturbed at all. She’s grateful! Something tells me Adele wants to bring down the DH just as much as Paul does. I wonder if she’s really the person who’s sending him the secret messages.
I think Harry Lennix (Boyd Langton) is the weak link on the show. He seems to be the least capable of handling the dialogue, the most embarrassed to be involved in this ridiculous conceit about a secret agency that wipes people’s memories and then pimps them out. And the sooner they tone down the twitchiness of Fran Kranz’s Topher, the better. For one thing, he’s a cliche (see also Kevin Weisman as Marshall on Alias). But in general, this is a very nice ensemble putting out a very nice ensemble show. And this is the first genuinely fantastic episode of what I hope will be a long-running, genuinely fantastic series. But now I’ve probably jinxed it.
Rating: 
In light of that whole ensemble thing, do you think we could maybe do away with the tacky cheesecake shots of Eliza Dushku that comprise the opening credits and commercial breaks, and go with something a little more tasteful?
Oh, it is the FOX Network, isn’t it? Ah, well.
