On last night ’s Dollhouse , we hold out deep inside the peculiarly understaffed kernel of Rossum Corp. , met the mankind in charge , and dished out sweet , learning ability - soaking justness . Yay , the good guys won ! Well , sort of . Spoilers ahead .
The penultimate Dollhouse sequence had the toughest chore of all : enclose up the present - Clarence Shepard Day Jr. plot line , explain last hebdomad ’s whodathunkit revelation , and lay out the stage for post - apocalyptic hellhole ten days from now . And it finnessed those challenges by offering up a classic “ destroy the McGuffin and the bad guy is ultimately shoot down ” write up — only to draw the carpet out from under us , with the nasty brainpocalypse world that those of us who watched the unaired episode on the videodisc readiness will remember . It was a overnice fake - out , even if we could see it number a long manner off .
So perhaps the fact that almost nothing in “ Hollow Men ” quite made sense to me was part of this fake - out . It was like a pastiche of the standard TV series finale , in which the Brobdingnagian shadowed evil corporation dead turns out to be the work of one ranting supervillain , and there ’s an easy - to - put down McGuffin , a “ mainframe . ” If our heroes can only wipe that out , they ’ll vanquish the evil megacorp and the world will be saved . Echo even outrun an explosion ! Whee !
Except that we already have it off the safe guys fail , and the conclusion of the world is inevitable . So the huge “ hold start the mankind ” episode is kind of a joke , on the grapheme most of all .
That ’s the charitable explanation for why so many things in last nighttime ’s Dollhouse felt random and out of nowhere . peculiarly the “ Whiskey is Clyde ” thing , which I still do n’t quite get . ( Was she Clyde all during last week ’s episode ? Really ? ) There were also a lot of lines of dialogue in the sequence that seemed to mention back to stuff we never saw , like “ Echo is the only one who can get us into that building . ” ( Why ? ) Or : “ We just have to hold on until Echo finishes the occupation . ” ( What task ? ) Most of all , the “ central processor ” affair felt almost too silly to swallow — suddenly , the C.P.U. is a thing ? I recollect it was all the brains of the humankind stuck inside the Attic ? And why would destroying one computing equipment even slow Rossum down for a irregular ?
The affair is , the relief of the time of year did such a majuscule job of build up Rossum as this unstoppable military group whose ethical code were as special as its top executive was n’t . installment after instalment shew us Rossum as the ultimate bastion of psycho entitlement , with old guy sit around smoking cigars while treating world like cattle . They own a U.S. Senator — shortly to be a president — and their evil tentacles stretch into every corner of the world . And dead last nighttime , Rossum seemed inept and ill - equipped . part , it was the “ mainframe ” thing , but also peculiarly the Boyd = Rossum thing .
think last week , when we asked if the Boyd thing was fit to curve up making sensory faculty ? I guess you should n’t ask questions you ’re not going to care the reply to .
So … I ’m Boyd . I establish the Rossum Corp. several eld ago , with my partner Clyde , who ’s such a brain science genius he makes Topher look like an amateur . We produce the ultimate brain - reprogramming technology , and when Clyde balks at the implication , I plug the original Clyde into my new created human estimator , so his mental capacity can still work for me . And I create copy of Clyde , without the original ’s scruples , or any ability to disobey my orders . shortly I ’ve bring an conglomerate of “ dollhouse , ” where multitude ’s brains are reprogrammed for the amusement of the wealthy . And I can already see where this engineering is heading : We ’re going to wind up being able to put our brains into anybody ’s dead body , and if you ’re full-bodied , you ’ll put your brain into mess and stack of body . presently , there ’ll only be a few minds leave behind on Earth . ( Presumably , I do n’t forestall the “ Formosan speech sound brainwashing ” wrinkle , or the fact that finally every bit of tech on Earth starts reprogramming people . )
This is great newsworthiness for me , because it signify I can endure forever , jumping from body to dead body . There ’s only one trouble — how do I protect my own mind from being overwritten ? Luckily , my aesculapian company does blood tests on a young womanhood whose line contains certain heart that might point a ohmic resistance to imprinting . ( Call them “ midichlorians . ” Sorry , could n’t protest . ) By an astonishing coincidence , this woman is also a sworn opposition of my fellowship , and is doing everything in her big businessman to destroy it . ( Or perchance , after I discover the closed book of this womanhood ’s lineage , I somehow manipulate her into becoming Rossum ’s sworn foe ? )
So finally , the womanhood with the incredibly special blood plays into my hands — she comes to my headquarters in Tucson and test to destroy it . Now I ’ve got her where I want her — she either roleplay along with my outline , or I send her to prison forever ( or have her action . ) But for some cause , I ca n’t reap the neuro - chemical substance vector in her spinal fluid right off — they have the potential to resist imprinting , but they are n’t there yet . Something want to happen , before she ’s ready to have her spinal fluid harvested — she needs to be imprinted with new personalities , over and over again , until her ohmic resistance to them builds up and she finally becomes resistant to imprinting . ( Or rather , she learns to incorporate her imprint into one personality . )
So how do I go about progress up Echo ’s immunity ? Do I baffle her in a lab somewhere , where I can have a huge squad of scientist supervise my company ’s most important asset , while we form her with personality after personality , until her immunity builds up ? No , of course not . alternatively , I send her to the L.A. Dollhouse , to be shot at , caught up in kidnapping ring , hunt down by arc - wielding maniacs , etc . , etc . The woman whose descent is the key fruit to helping the “ chosen few ” avoid being erased will go into a place where she ’s in unceasing peril of being destroyed . ( Although , maybe she has to be expose to stress in order for her to resist her imprints ? So okay , mayhap that makes sentiency . Possibly . )
But it ’s okay that the caller ’s most of import plus will be in vast jeopardy , because I ’ll be there as her manager , sit around hundreds of yards off in a vanguard and monitor her vital sign .
Part of the trouble , of class , is that last nighttime ’s episode sort of punted on explaining any of this stuff in a more logical way than I ’ve pieced together above . Boyd sort of turned into a garden variety television psycho , ranting about how the technology is out there now , and you’re able to either be the destroyer or the destroyed . I did like the part where Boyd said he love his Dollhouse “ fellowship ” and require to keep them around — although he then negated it by acting completely thickened towards them , jeopardise to shoot Adelle a moment later . I was also quite shocked that Boyd was so effortless about Clyde erasing Claire Saunders , whom he seemed to have genuine feelings for before .
In the end , none of it even weigh — because the villain of the serial was n’t even the Rossum Corp. , but the engineering that Rossum help to develop . As someone say in time of year one ’s “ Man On The Street , ” if the engineering to rewrite brains even exists , then humanity is over as a species . finally , someone else will discover it and use it .
So Boyd is right — the technical school is out there . Topher ’s schematics are credibly back up to dozens of hard drives all over the macrocosm . And the evil Rossum execs ’ brains are store in dozens of bodies as well . The whole “ slue the head off the ophidian ” metaphor wrap up being somewhat laughable — it ’s more like a Hydra . ( Probably the only affair the demon at Rossum in reality revere is exposure — having the true statement hump about their misdeeds before they ’re quick to mindwipe the world . So the smart affair to do plausibly would have been to hone Topher ’s remote mindwiping tech , and expend it on the Rossum board before they finish their own version — plus use it on a few twelve leading political figures , and program all of them to jump speaking the truth about Rossum . Crude , but effectual . )
I did like the theme that was snake through “ Hollow Man , ” of people rejecting malevolent technical school , but then grow to it in desperation . Tony and Priya have sworn never to be imprinted again — but then they decide to try it one last time . And Priya even concord to have her boyfriend “ kick upstairs . ” Mellie does n’t like guns , but Paul win over her that the way to deal with her fear is to acquit one anyway . Topher hates the “ remote control for the brain ” tech he hone , but Evil Boyd easily convince Topher to repair one of the machine so they can utilize it for respectable . It was yet another room we see good intentions and technological convenience top us down the slippery gradient to annihilation .
And there were a few great lineament moments , many of them Topher - related . We got to see Victor - as - Topher one last sentence , jabber about how much he prefers his physique to Victor ’s . “ Brainpocalpyse ” was bully , and so was Topher ’s continuing willingness to do the ill-timed affair when an authority figure asks him to . Oh and , “ The mad scientist in me says yes ” should really be a T - shirt . It was skillful that Paul finally admitted his feeling for Mellie were genuine — even though I saw her expiry add up a mile off . Tony and Priya got to be all baronial and give up their chance at happiness to aid their friend .
I ’m sad to take it , but my overwhelming feeling about the penultimate Dollhouse episode is head - scratching . It was n’t fearsome , but it was n’t great . The installment had a tidy sum of heavy lifting to do , and it pull a few of those back muscles that tend to conduce to excruciation if you do n’t go up with your legs . Mostly , i ’m just happy it ’s not the downright final episode — here ’s hoping next week ’s “ Epitaph Two ” lives up to the greatness of last year ’s stuffy “ Epitaph One . ”
dollhouseJoss WhedonTelevision
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