Middle evil, not advanced evil !
First off, may I have a marking doll, please?
I should be marking instead of posting about Dollhouse but I have to write down some thoughts before I forget them. I usually use my Paul Ballard icon for such posts but my Medieval Demons icon seems to fit in today, since Tim Minear's script could be read as a palimpsest from The Canterbury Tales.
The episode worked because it was a lot of fun while being a lot of smart. There were good lines, amazing performances, depths, and of course a daring way to revisit the Whedonesque theme of Female Empowerment. Does female power lie between their thighs( "The same power all women have", as Professor Gossen says...)?
Paul's reaction when seeing naked Echo in the shower seems to confirm it. He's left powerless. Fortunately there are serial killers!
Why did Fox not respect the order of the episodes? "La Belle Chose" made sense after "Vow"!!! Showing this episode after "Instinct" was stupid. Firstly because the prologue of "The Wife of Bath's Tale", is about marriage (Alisoun has been married five times and stands as an authority on the matter) so this episode of course had to follow "Vows", secondly because the beginning deals with Paul being Echo's new handler and how he is new to the job, how awkward and ill at ease he is about it (hence his difficulty to voice the "would you like a treatment?"question). Seeing "La Belle Chose" after "Instinct" makes no sense at all in terms of narrative!
Anyway this episode is tied in to the great scheme of Dollhouse things with the remote wipe that Topher performs, but it's mostly an episode that moves Paul's journey on. At the end of "Vows" he made an oath. But does he live up to the job? So far he's been mostly following his own agenda, his own demons. Does he really know what Echo wants, what women want? In a way he is the knight from The Canterbury Tales, the one the queen sent on a mission in the" Wife from Bath's tale". The queen here is of course Adelle...
I like the Chaucer stuff, not only because I'm a medievalist but also because during season 1 there was a controversy on whether Dollhouse was antifeminist or not, especially given Whedon's notorious feminism. I believe that the Wife of Bath chapter raises similar questions. Like Joss, Alisoun the storyteller uses anitfeminist material in her tale but she also attacks antifeminism through her behaviour. In Chaucer's time, readers were supposed to see her behaviour as the opposite of the proper one. Was she really an anti role model in Chaucer's mind?
I think that Dollhouse has been playing with ambiguity from day one, when it comes to feminism, but Joss might be doing the exact opposite of what Chaucer did. Tim Minear delivered a twisted script here by switching the imprints.
I loved the continuity element when Kiki and her teacher are talking about female power and being "the whippe"(from the famous passage in which Alisoun points out that she rules in the bedroom). In season 1, Echo had an assignment in which she was a dominatrix and held a whip.
I loved that Victor, as he has been switched into Kiki mode, recited the "wicked filthy" bit from Chaucer : "As help me God, I laughe whan I thynke/ How pitously a-nyght I made hem swynke!"
The imprint-swap had a twist value in terms of narrative, when Echo stabbed the professor it wasn't somethingt he audience was supposed to expect, and it added to the drama angst given that we know that Echo keeps all the imprinted personae inside of her (something that the final scene and her " goodness gracious" had to recall), but I think more interesting and ironical the fact that suddenly it was a male Active, the vaginaless but penis-owner Victor(for whom the phrase "man reaction" was created on the show!), who suddenly embodied "La Belle Chose". By the way Victor makes me think of another Alison from the Canterbury Tales, the one from the Miller's tale, innocent and joyful, showing her booty through a window.
And speaking of continuity, here I can't help quoting another extract from the tale myself, in which Alisoun talks to one of her five husbands: "Is it for ye wolde have my queynte allone?/Wy, taak it al! Lo, have it every deel!/For if I wolde selle my bele chose/I koude walke as fressh as is a rose;/But I wol kepe it for youre owene tooth."
Of course this is the origins of the episode's title, "La Belle Chose" meaning the female genitalia, and in this extract from the Wife of Bath's prologue it is about the matrimonial duty -herein perceived as a "deal" and therefore compared to a sort of legal monopolistic prostitution which is connected in the episode to the essay on "the economics of love" for which Kiki got a F that she could turn into a A (inside irony!)-but above all, for me, it echoed a conversation between Paul and Echo in "Vows"!
For the Active hired by Paul as a FBI agent, helping Ballard to catch a gun runner, sleeping with her fake husband was just sex, it meant nothing, she walked from it as fresh as a rose indeed. Of course it also echoed the fact the dolls often have sex assignments, and Adelle is nothing but a pimp (something that Paul hinted at when interrogating Victor/Terry).
Apart from the Canterbury Tales reading there are many things I liked:
-the scene in the makeover area, with the supervisor being a sort of Topher's counterpart. They share the same sort of humour/dark irony and he talks about his art the same way Topher praises his own genius. The waiting area wherein the handlers seat and read magazine made me smile too and there's the "I was trained at Quantico" line.
-anything Victor did from his first line when he hears the name of Dr Saunders to point out that there's a man "who isn't his best", to his final "good day". Of course he was so convincing as Terry and hilarious as Kiki. Enver deserves an emmy, period.
-seeing Michael Hogan on screen again, especially with Tahmoh. I realised how much I miss Saul Tigh and Karl "Helo" Agathon, two of my favourite tv characters.
- the way Paul behaves in the shower scene and how he is relieved when he finally gets it right and Echo tells him "yes I enjoy my treatment". Tahmoh managed to convey Paul's awkwardness and his newbie's tentative steps. It isn't only that he is troubled (maybe aroused) by Echo's nudity, he is also lost and trying to learn his job as a handler. He used to be a FBI profiler!
-"Serial killer? Thank god!" was perfectly delivered by Tahmoh.
-Ivy saying aside "she is not wrong" when Kiki points out that her "body is sort of programmed to do this"
- Echo/Kiki bouncing near Ballard and saying "Thanks Paul!" which sort of foreshadowed the nightclub scene with Victor throwing himself in Paul's arms. Plus Eliza looked so short next to Tahmoh. But who wouldn't?
-"You need to free Victor of him". It wasn't only about preventing a new abduction, the way she phrased it...Adelle everybody is going to notice how much you care about Victor!
- Victor/Kiki knocking out the guy on whom he had hit and who tried to hit him! Victor is a pretty thing but isn't a helpless damsel in distress. Wicked indeed!
-Victor's "Oh Paul. Paul!" and Ballard's "you got a problem" after Victor/Kiki buries his head in his chest, and how Paul strokes Victor's head. Priceless.They were soooooo cute together!
- Boyd repeating Topher's name after saying "Topher has ethical problem". By the way, until now Topher has often been called a sociopath so it took a real serial killer to point out that he may not be empathy-deprived. Of course the Topher/Claire scene from "Vow" had already set that path of humanization. .
- Adelle asking Boyd not to translate everything she says. Well, actually the episode was all about translating or decoding stuff. This is meta television my friends!
- the croquet scene at the beginning.It was creepy and a nice variation on the doll theme. The croquet game also makes me think of Alice in Wonderland, Terry being like the Red Queen, but for using the mallet instead of yelling "head off". Joss has always borrowed from Lewis Carroll and Dollhouse makes no exception.
- and my favourite scene of the episode: Paul interrogating Victor/Terry. You can tell he feels at home this time. Tahmoh was wonderful in that scene and even more gorgeous than usual, if it's possible. Enver rocked of course, but he nailed every character he has to play. "The Terry Marion Karrens- any part of it a boy's name?" line was a good one but takes even a new sense when you think of what happens to Victor later...and that Terry, the woman hater, will find himself in Echo's body eventually.
What I love the most was Adelle watching the scene on screen, the look on her face, the fact she seemed to understand that Paul might be talking about her actually(and about himself!), alienating everyone in her life, making copies of real persons, being the one in charge, controlling fake people around her. She was sort of fascinated by Paul's way too. I'm sure she wouldn't mind enjoying some time with both Paul and Victor/Roger. Alas, I'm afraid that, even though he was quite flirty with Adelle (saying how smart a move her sending uncle Bradley downstairs was!) Paul is a bit too prim and proper to consider such a threesome though.
Things I didn't like much:
- Terry's victims delivering anvil (we're people, not his toys etc), and the one playing the mother suddenly using the croquet mallet as if she has been activated by Willow's spell in "Chosen". Female empowerment needs more background.
- Echo's glitches and the flashes during the scene with the victims. It's getting old and boring.
Those scenes looked forced and lack subtlety.
- I assume that Paul followed Adelle's wish and unplugged Terry so he wouldn't wake up. I don't like that. Not sure that Paul's journey needs that kill in cold blood on top of everything.
PS: Echo sounded like a possessed person, fearing that one of the voices in her head would overcome when she asked the victims to kill her in order to stop Terry from doing it again. It reminds me of Alia aka The Abomination in Dune.
I should be marking instead of posting about Dollhouse but I have to write down some thoughts before I forget them. I usually use my Paul Ballard icon for such posts but my Medieval Demons icon seems to fit in today, since Tim Minear's script could be read as a palimpsest from The Canterbury Tales.
The episode worked because it was a lot of fun while being a lot of smart. There were good lines, amazing performances, depths, and of course a daring way to revisit the Whedonesque theme of Female Empowerment. Does female power lie between their thighs( "The same power all women have", as Professor Gossen says...)?
Paul's reaction when seeing naked Echo in the shower seems to confirm it. He's left powerless. Fortunately there are serial killers!
Why did Fox not respect the order of the episodes? "La Belle Chose" made sense after "Vow"!!! Showing this episode after "Instinct" was stupid. Firstly because the prologue of "The Wife of Bath's Tale", is about marriage (Alisoun has been married five times and stands as an authority on the matter) so this episode of course had to follow "Vows", secondly because the beginning deals with Paul being Echo's new handler and how he is new to the job, how awkward and ill at ease he is about it (hence his difficulty to voice the "would you like a treatment?"question). Seeing "La Belle Chose" after "Instinct" makes no sense at all in terms of narrative!
Anyway this episode is tied in to the great scheme of Dollhouse things with the remote wipe that Topher performs, but it's mostly an episode that moves Paul's journey on. At the end of "Vows" he made an oath. But does he live up to the job? So far he's been mostly following his own agenda, his own demons. Does he really know what Echo wants, what women want? In a way he is the knight from The Canterbury Tales, the one the queen sent on a mission in the" Wife from Bath's tale". The queen here is of course Adelle...
I like the Chaucer stuff, not only because I'm a medievalist but also because during season 1 there was a controversy on whether Dollhouse was antifeminist or not, especially given Whedon's notorious feminism. I believe that the Wife of Bath chapter raises similar questions. Like Joss, Alisoun the storyteller uses anitfeminist material in her tale but she also attacks antifeminism through her behaviour. In Chaucer's time, readers were supposed to see her behaviour as the opposite of the proper one. Was she really an anti role model in Chaucer's mind?
I think that Dollhouse has been playing with ambiguity from day one, when it comes to feminism, but Joss might be doing the exact opposite of what Chaucer did. Tim Minear delivered a twisted script here by switching the imprints.
I loved the continuity element when Kiki and her teacher are talking about female power and being "the whippe"(from the famous passage in which Alisoun points out that she rules in the bedroom). In season 1, Echo had an assignment in which she was a dominatrix and held a whip.
I loved that Victor, as he has been switched into Kiki mode, recited the "wicked filthy" bit from Chaucer : "As help me God, I laughe whan I thynke/ How pitously a-nyght I made hem swynke!"
The imprint-swap had a twist value in terms of narrative, when Echo stabbed the professor it wasn't somethingt he audience was supposed to expect, and it added to the drama angst given that we know that Echo keeps all the imprinted personae inside of her (something that the final scene and her " goodness gracious" had to recall), but I think more interesting and ironical the fact that suddenly it was a male Active, the vaginaless but penis-owner Victor(for whom the phrase "man reaction" was created on the show!), who suddenly embodied "La Belle Chose". By the way Victor makes me think of another Alison from the Canterbury Tales, the one from the Miller's tale, innocent and joyful, showing her booty through a window.
And speaking of continuity, here I can't help quoting another extract from the tale myself, in which Alisoun talks to one of her five husbands: "Is it for ye wolde have my queynte allone?/Wy, taak it al! Lo, have it every deel!/For if I wolde selle my bele chose/I koude walke as fressh as is a rose;/But I wol kepe it for youre owene tooth."
Of course this is the origins of the episode's title, "La Belle Chose" meaning the female genitalia, and in this extract from the Wife of Bath's prologue it is about the matrimonial duty -herein perceived as a "deal" and therefore compared to a sort of legal monopolistic prostitution which is connected in the episode to the essay on "the economics of love" for which Kiki got a F that she could turn into a A (inside irony!)-but above all, for me, it echoed a conversation between Paul and Echo in "Vows"!
For the Active hired by Paul as a FBI agent, helping Ballard to catch a gun runner, sleeping with her fake husband was just sex, it meant nothing, she walked from it as fresh as a rose indeed. Of course it also echoed the fact the dolls often have sex assignments, and Adelle is nothing but a pimp (something that Paul hinted at when interrogating Victor/Terry).
Apart from the Canterbury Tales reading there are many things I liked:
-the scene in the makeover area, with the supervisor being a sort of Topher's counterpart. They share the same sort of humour/dark irony and he talks about his art the same way Topher praises his own genius. The waiting area wherein the handlers seat and read magazine made me smile too and there's the "I was trained at Quantico" line.
-anything Victor did from his first line when he hears the name of Dr Saunders to point out that there's a man "who isn't his best", to his final "good day". Of course he was so convincing as Terry and hilarious as Kiki. Enver deserves an emmy, period.
-seeing Michael Hogan on screen again, especially with Tahmoh. I realised how much I miss Saul Tigh and Karl "Helo" Agathon, two of my favourite tv characters.
- the way Paul behaves in the shower scene and how he is relieved when he finally gets it right and Echo tells him "yes I enjoy my treatment". Tahmoh managed to convey Paul's awkwardness and his newbie's tentative steps. It isn't only that he is troubled (maybe aroused) by Echo's nudity, he is also lost and trying to learn his job as a handler. He used to be a FBI profiler!
-"Serial killer? Thank god!" was perfectly delivered by Tahmoh.
-Ivy saying aside "she is not wrong" when Kiki points out that her "body is sort of programmed to do this"
- Echo/Kiki bouncing near Ballard and saying "Thanks Paul!" which sort of foreshadowed the nightclub scene with Victor throwing himself in Paul's arms. Plus Eliza looked so short next to Tahmoh. But who wouldn't?
-"You need to free Victor of him". It wasn't only about preventing a new abduction, the way she phrased it...Adelle everybody is going to notice how much you care about Victor!
- Victor/Kiki knocking out the guy on whom he had hit and who tried to hit him! Victor is a pretty thing but isn't a helpless damsel in distress. Wicked indeed!
-Victor's "Oh Paul. Paul!" and Ballard's "you got a problem" after Victor/Kiki buries his head in his chest, and how Paul strokes Victor's head. Priceless.They were soooooo cute together!
- Boyd repeating Topher's name after saying "Topher has ethical problem". By the way, until now Topher has often been called a sociopath so it took a real serial killer to point out that he may not be empathy-deprived. Of course the Topher/Claire scene from "Vow" had already set that path of humanization. .
- Adelle asking Boyd not to translate everything she says. Well, actually the episode was all about translating or decoding stuff. This is meta television my friends!
- the croquet scene at the beginning.It was creepy and a nice variation on the doll theme. The croquet game also makes me think of Alice in Wonderland, Terry being like the Red Queen, but for using the mallet instead of yelling "head off". Joss has always borrowed from Lewis Carroll and Dollhouse makes no exception.
- and my favourite scene of the episode: Paul interrogating Victor/Terry. You can tell he feels at home this time. Tahmoh was wonderful in that scene and even more gorgeous than usual, if it's possible. Enver rocked of course, but he nailed every character he has to play. "The Terry Marion Karrens- any part of it a boy's name?" line was a good one but takes even a new sense when you think of what happens to Victor later...and that Terry, the woman hater, will find himself in Echo's body eventually.
What I love the most was Adelle watching the scene on screen, the look on her face, the fact she seemed to understand that Paul might be talking about her actually(and about himself!), alienating everyone in her life, making copies of real persons, being the one in charge, controlling fake people around her. She was sort of fascinated by Paul's way too. I'm sure she wouldn't mind enjoying some time with both Paul and Victor/Roger. Alas, I'm afraid that, even though he was quite flirty with Adelle (saying how smart a move her sending uncle Bradley downstairs was!) Paul is a bit too prim and proper to consider such a threesome though.
Things I didn't like much:
- Terry's victims delivering anvil (we're people, not his toys etc), and the one playing the mother suddenly using the croquet mallet as if she has been activated by Willow's spell in "Chosen". Female empowerment needs more background.
- Echo's glitches and the flashes during the scene with the victims. It's getting old and boring.
Those scenes looked forced and lack subtlety.
- I assume that Paul followed Adelle's wish and unplugged Terry so he wouldn't wake up. I don't like that. Not sure that Paul's journey needs that kill in cold blood on top of everything.
PS: Echo sounded like a possessed person, fearing that one of the voices in her head would overcome when she asked the victims to kill her in order to stop Terry from doing it again. It reminds me of Alia aka The Abomination in Dune.