Epitaph Two: Return
I don't often write much about my TV shows in here. Usually whatever I have to say, other people say it better. But the series finale of Dollhouse left a whole lot of thoughts in my head, so I'm going to dump them all out on you guys. ^_~ I really loved the episode. I loved the series. So sad it's over!
And I do think that the rush to get to the conclusion resulted in a lot of things being left out that I would have liked to see. I think the Powers That Be did a good job deciding what to leave out and what to cover, since I wasn't actually confused by anything, not to the point of being unable to follow the sequence of events. I was just left with a lot of questions and a lot of sadness that those questions will never be answered. Well, maybe in the DVD commentary?
- I've seen a lot of people ask, "What happened to Whiskey?" Not in the sense of "How did she get from the end of Hollow Man to the beginning of Epitaph One," but in the sense of she got no closure. Was I wrong in thinking she died in the end of Epitaph One? I thought we were supposed to infer that the gas she was pumping through the Dollhouse was poisonous, and that she died quietly as it killed all the invading butchers. If they'd decided to have her be alive and justify it, I would have gone along and been happy to see more of Amy Acker! But I was still surprised to have so many people seeming confused that she wasn't there. I thought her ending was very poignant, sweet, and sad, and couldn't have asked for more as far as closure for her.
Though I do wish we'd gotten to see how she got to the beginning of Epitaph One. When li'l Echo was imprinted, she seemed to be expecting to see Claire Saunders, which suggests that they re-imprinted Whiskey as Saunders after Hollow Man, before Echo backed herself up on that wedge, and then somehow Saunders was wiped again at some point after that.
It's also a little disappointing that we never got to know who she was before she became an Active. Especially given the fascinating scenes early this season when she was so afraid and conflicted about the possibility of regaining her original identity at the cost of her imprinted one. Maybe it was never important who that original identity was, but I was curious!
- Also wondering - what did it take, like, a week for the Epitaph One survivors to travel to Safe Haven and back again? Was that really enough time for Alpha to have moved in, cleaned up, and set up camp with all those Dolls? How did he happen to choose right then to bring them in? When our heroes arrived back at the Dollhouse, I was expecting them to find the Butchers', Whiskey's, Mr. Miller's, Lynn's, and Gryff's bodies right where they left them, along with all the mess. I wasn't sorry to see Alpha and his cadre of Dumbshows instead, but now I want a shred of explanation!
- Oh yes, and what were the survivors climbing up to at the end of Epitaph One? When next we saw them, they were in a Jeep. Were they taken to it by helicopter? The image of them climbing up into the golden sunlight was very poetic and stuff, but seriously. Didn't they just have to turn around and climb all the way back down the building again?
- Paul having his attachment to Echo 'removed'. I dunno, I never did manage to warm up to Paul, which makes me sad because Tahmoh Penikett was about my second favorite person in Battlestar Galactica. But when they do something as monumental and dramatic as remove from his brain his attachment to the person he's been obsessed with since the pilot, I expect to see some sign of it in his behavior! I could see how the relationship could have been rebuilt in the ten years before the Epitaphs, but even in the last couple of episodes he seemed as glued to Echo as ever.
Wish I could have been sad when he was killed. Either time, really. =Þ But I wasn't. However, the scene where Echo blew up at Priya and all her pain over his death just exploded all over the place - that was fantastic and so powerful. Quite possibly Eliza's most powerful scene in the entire series.
- While we're on the subject of Eliza's acting, she is not a bad actress. At all. She may not have Enver's chameleon-like ability to transform into an entirely different character, but on the other hand, the people she was imprinted with not as dramatically different as his. Also, at the center of the whole series was the idea that Echo, unlike the others, was never completely wiped clean. So it makes sense that there was always a thread of 'herself' in whatever persona she was imprinted with.
The fact that she wasn't able to, or was directed not to, make her characters as totally distinct, may have made those first engagement-of-the-week episodes a little weaker, but once the show got into what it was truly about, it didn't hurt things one bit. Echo was different from the other Dolls. We picked up on that from the beginning, and I think labeling it as subpar acting may have been a mistake.
- Joss Whedon Cribs Off Himself:
* Reavers/Butchers. (Mindless, berserk killing machines created out of normal people by soulless suits drunk on power are mindless, berserk... well, you get the idea.)
* "Wait, where's Wash?" "He ain't comin'."/"That's all of us." "What about-" "That's ALL of us." (I did think it was a little funny that while Paul was reenacting Wash's abrupt and senselessly tragic death at the hands of crazy savages [and Echo was donning Zoe's brokenhearted but stonefaced mantle], Alan Tudyk was right there. Wonder if he was relieved it wasn't him this time?)
- Alan Tudyk. The idea that Alpha was now on our side was introduced in Epitaph One, and I absolutely loved him in Two. "Did he just call me a luddite?" Hee! Oh, and the crack about Victor's face. ^_^ But I would really, really have liked to see how that happened! I also want to know why he decided to be wiped at the end. His original self was a crazy serial killer. He was clearly afraid that he would return to being that; that's why he left to go far away. But why didn't he just stay with the rest of them and remain what he was? He'd evolved past all the sadistic crazy of ten years ago, he even seemed fairly stable, so why? I wish they'd given him a scene to explain.
- I was a little bothered that even once they had a plan to restore everyone to their old selves, they were still making no attempt to avoid killing the Butchers, who were after all theoretically regular people once and soon to be regular people again. I suppose there was no avoiding it, if they wanted their group to come through alive, but it still seemed a little... yikes.
- The return of Harding wearing a different 'meat suit' (thanks, Supernatural) meant no return of Keith Carradine. Boo! =( I would also say it was difficult enough keeping all those evil Rossum bigwigs straight without them all changing bodies all the time. Unlike Topher!Victor, or the episode where Echo and Victor swapped imprints (LOVE), there didn't seem to be any concern about them being obviously the same person, in terms of distinctive mannerisms or speech patterns. Guess it really wasn't that important to tell them apart. Matthew Harding, Clyde Randolph, Clive Ambrose... we hardly knew ye.
- Topher. ;_;
Yes, I'm sure he could have rigged a timer or remote device so he could have survived. No, I don't think he wanted to. He was done. (Edit: You know, it might have been even more interesting had he told Adelle et al that he'd rigged a remote, and then after he set up the device just chosen to go ahead and use the remote from right next to it. Or set up a timer and then just sat down to wait.) One reviewer really wanted to know what he noticed on the wall altar that caught his attention, but I'm pretty sure it was the wall altar itself. They never did tell us who put all those pictures up, or when (I guess Adelle?), but I doubt Topher made it up there to see it. I loved that he came back for an idea. I loved his arc in the series, I love him, and I want to take him home and give him soup. Poor baby. The character started out like Wash without a conscience, and wound up like River.
- It was veeeeeeery interesting how passionately Priya hated Victor becoming a tech-head. Methinks there was some guilt there. After all, she was the one who gave Topher!Victor the okay to add a few upgrades to Tony's imprint back in Hollow Man. Slippery slopes, people. That's what this show was all about.
Thrilled to death with the way those two ended, by the way. Little T! "Can I help you burn stuff?" ♥ ♥ ♥
Also never found out where Victor, Kilo, Romeo, and Yankee got all their advanced tech from. Clearly not from Topher. Maybe Victor managed to access those Topher imprints? (Topher! ;_;)
- I didn't think Topher's device to reset the world was a MacGuffin. I know people did. But with all the advances in remote wiping and imprinting and reimprinting we saw within the confines of the show, which was less than two years, and the fact that then Topher spent years doing nothing but working on improving that technology around the clock while growing increasingly desperate to find a way to stop it... I didn't find it at all hard to believe that he came up with a way to fix everything.
That last glimpse of Bennett was nice. And Topher's light touch on her lips on the screen, and his soft "thank you." Sniff. She was still a psycho, but she and Topher were adorkable together.
;_; I'll miss you, Dollhouse. Our time with you was too short.
And I do think that the rush to get to the conclusion resulted in a lot of things being left out that I would have liked to see. I think the Powers That Be did a good job deciding what to leave out and what to cover, since I wasn't actually confused by anything, not to the point of being unable to follow the sequence of events. I was just left with a lot of questions and a lot of sadness that those questions will never be answered. Well, maybe in the DVD commentary?
- I've seen a lot of people ask, "What happened to Whiskey?" Not in the sense of "How did she get from the end of Hollow Man to the beginning of Epitaph One," but in the sense of she got no closure. Was I wrong in thinking she died in the end of Epitaph One? I thought we were supposed to infer that the gas she was pumping through the Dollhouse was poisonous, and that she died quietly as it killed all the invading butchers. If they'd decided to have her be alive and justify it, I would have gone along and been happy to see more of Amy Acker! But I was still surprised to have so many people seeming confused that she wasn't there. I thought her ending was very poignant, sweet, and sad, and couldn't have asked for more as far as closure for her.
Though I do wish we'd gotten to see how she got to the beginning of Epitaph One. When li'l Echo was imprinted, she seemed to be expecting to see Claire Saunders, which suggests that they re-imprinted Whiskey as Saunders after Hollow Man, before Echo backed herself up on that wedge, and then somehow Saunders was wiped again at some point after that.
It's also a little disappointing that we never got to know who she was before she became an Active. Especially given the fascinating scenes early this season when she was so afraid and conflicted about the possibility of regaining her original identity at the cost of her imprinted one. Maybe it was never important who that original identity was, but I was curious!
- Also wondering - what did it take, like, a week for the Epitaph One survivors to travel to Safe Haven and back again? Was that really enough time for Alpha to have moved in, cleaned up, and set up camp with all those Dolls? How did he happen to choose right then to bring them in? When our heroes arrived back at the Dollhouse, I was expecting them to find the Butchers', Whiskey's, Mr. Miller's, Lynn's, and Gryff's bodies right where they left them, along with all the mess. I wasn't sorry to see Alpha and his cadre of Dumbshows instead, but now I want a shred of explanation!
- Oh yes, and what were the survivors climbing up to at the end of Epitaph One? When next we saw them, they were in a Jeep. Were they taken to it by helicopter? The image of them climbing up into the golden sunlight was very poetic and stuff, but seriously. Didn't they just have to turn around and climb all the way back down the building again?
- Paul having his attachment to Echo 'removed'. I dunno, I never did manage to warm up to Paul, which makes me sad because Tahmoh Penikett was about my second favorite person in Battlestar Galactica. But when they do something as monumental and dramatic as remove from his brain his attachment to the person he's been obsessed with since the pilot, I expect to see some sign of it in his behavior! I could see how the relationship could have been rebuilt in the ten years before the Epitaphs, but even in the last couple of episodes he seemed as glued to Echo as ever.
Wish I could have been sad when he was killed. Either time, really. =Þ But I wasn't. However, the scene where Echo blew up at Priya and all her pain over his death just exploded all over the place - that was fantastic and so powerful. Quite possibly Eliza's most powerful scene in the entire series.
- While we're on the subject of Eliza's acting, she is not a bad actress. At all. She may not have Enver's chameleon-like ability to transform into an entirely different character, but on the other hand, the people she was imprinted with not as dramatically different as his. Also, at the center of the whole series was the idea that Echo, unlike the others, was never completely wiped clean. So it makes sense that there was always a thread of 'herself' in whatever persona she was imprinted with.
The fact that she wasn't able to, or was directed not to, make her characters as totally distinct, may have made those first engagement-of-the-week episodes a little weaker, but once the show got into what it was truly about, it didn't hurt things one bit. Echo was different from the other Dolls. We picked up on that from the beginning, and I think labeling it as subpar acting may have been a mistake.
- Joss Whedon Cribs Off Himself:
* Reavers/Butchers. (Mindless, berserk killing machines created out of normal people by soulless suits drunk on power are mindless, berserk... well, you get the idea.)
* "Wait, where's Wash?" "He ain't comin'."/"That's all of us." "What about-" "That's ALL of us." (I did think it was a little funny that while Paul was reenacting Wash's abrupt and senselessly tragic death at the hands of crazy savages [and Echo was donning Zoe's brokenhearted but stonefaced mantle], Alan Tudyk was right there. Wonder if he was relieved it wasn't him this time?)
- Alan Tudyk. The idea that Alpha was now on our side was introduced in Epitaph One, and I absolutely loved him in Two. "Did he just call me a luddite?" Hee! Oh, and the crack about Victor's face. ^_^ But I would really, really have liked to see how that happened! I also want to know why he decided to be wiped at the end. His original self was a crazy serial killer. He was clearly afraid that he would return to being that; that's why he left to go far away. But why didn't he just stay with the rest of them and remain what he was? He'd evolved past all the sadistic crazy of ten years ago, he even seemed fairly stable, so why? I wish they'd given him a scene to explain.
- I was a little bothered that even once they had a plan to restore everyone to their old selves, they were still making no attempt to avoid killing the Butchers, who were after all theoretically regular people once and soon to be regular people again. I suppose there was no avoiding it, if they wanted their group to come through alive, but it still seemed a little... yikes.
- The return of Harding wearing a different 'meat suit' (thanks, Supernatural) meant no return of Keith Carradine. Boo! =( I would also say it was difficult enough keeping all those evil Rossum bigwigs straight without them all changing bodies all the time. Unlike Topher!Victor, or the episode where Echo and Victor swapped imprints (LOVE), there didn't seem to be any concern about them being obviously the same person, in terms of distinctive mannerisms or speech patterns. Guess it really wasn't that important to tell them apart. Matthew Harding, Clyde Randolph, Clive Ambrose... we hardly knew ye.
- Topher. ;_;
Yes, I'm sure he could have rigged a timer or remote device so he could have survived. No, I don't think he wanted to. He was done. (Edit: You know, it might have been even more interesting had he told Adelle et al that he'd rigged a remote, and then after he set up the device just chosen to go ahead and use the remote from right next to it. Or set up a timer and then just sat down to wait.) One reviewer really wanted to know what he noticed on the wall altar that caught his attention, but I'm pretty sure it was the wall altar itself. They never did tell us who put all those pictures up, or when (I guess Adelle?), but I doubt Topher made it up there to see it. I loved that he came back for an idea. I loved his arc in the series, I love him, and I want to take him home and give him soup. Poor baby. The character started out like Wash without a conscience, and wound up like River.
- It was veeeeeeery interesting how passionately Priya hated Victor becoming a tech-head. Methinks there was some guilt there. After all, she was the one who gave Topher!Victor the okay to add a few upgrades to Tony's imprint back in Hollow Man. Slippery slopes, people. That's what this show was all about.
Thrilled to death with the way those two ended, by the way. Little T! "Can I help you burn stuff?" ♥ ♥ ♥
Also never found out where Victor, Kilo, Romeo, and Yankee got all their advanced tech from. Clearly not from Topher. Maybe Victor managed to access those Topher imprints? (Topher! ;_;)
- I didn't think Topher's device to reset the world was a MacGuffin. I know people did. But with all the advances in remote wiping and imprinting and reimprinting we saw within the confines of the show, which was less than two years, and the fact that then Topher spent years doing nothing but working on improving that technology around the clock while growing increasingly desperate to find a way to stop it... I didn't find it at all hard to believe that he came up with a way to fix everything.
That last glimpse of Bennett was nice. And Topher's light touch on her lips on the screen, and his soft "thank you." Sniff. She was still a psycho, but she and Topher were adorkable together.
;_; I'll miss you, Dollhouse. Our time with you was too short.