Twist and shout
So, as you may have guessed from my previous entry,I really enjoyed both "Public Eye" and "The Left Hand". It was Dollhouse at its finest, just like "La Belle Chose" and "Belonging", pure Whedonesque tv even though Joss didn't write the episodes himself.
I now understand the logics behind screening the episodes together. It was fun seeing Alexis again for this Perrin storyline. I am not used to his American accent but I enjoyed seeing him, and I liked all the winks at Angel fans.
Because as usual with Whedon shows, I love the very good stuff, the depth and acute writing, and the shallow funny details (and the dirty jokes like Victopher suggesting to take "the back door"!). The episodes work without any previous knowledge of Joss' work but there was also that connivance layer that makes it even more enjoyable, something Joss already did in Serenity with Buffy fans. Here we have Eliza playing a hooker-print suggesting that she could tie Alexis up and everybody remembers Faith torturing a tied-up Wesley...later as Echo is in bonds and tortured on Bennet's chair, we've got Summer Glau saying that it isn't a quesiton of FAITH!
I liked Topher's funny lines and Echo's memorable "Her bad people are badder than my bad people!", I liked the comic relief of the Topher/Victopher conversation, and how amazing Enver was once again, and how Topher creating a doll-version of himself actually echoed the fact that Daniel Perrin is both a doll and the real Daniel Perrin, that is a doll-version of himself.
To be honest, I am not completely convinced by Summer Glau's quirky character. She looks like a mixing of River Tam from Firefly, Cameron from TTSCC, Drusilla and a schoolgirl. Her mannerisms were sometimes a tad annoying and boring.
On the other hand (I couldn't help!) I liked the title of the episode and its polysemy. .
Above all I loved how Perrin's little arc actually plays on previous themes and writing tropes and eventually raises new interesting questions about identity and the whole process of dolling-up anyone.
First we had Perrin and his wife's little ritual joke that called to our mind the second half of season 1("Man in the Street", "Briar Rose"," Omega"), and how Ballard was supposed to be the white knight saving the damsel. As usual with Joss it's twisted, and here we've got twist to the power of twist. In season 1, the twist lied in the fact that Alpha(another doll) got the girl out of the dollhouse first and that Ballard actually didn't turn out to be Caroline's white knight but Madeline's, something that was echoed and twisted up again in these episodes.
Perrin's speeches at the beginning of "Public Eye" (either before the press or in his car) sounded like s 1 Paul's. Madeline was the Public Eye damsel and Echo was the Private Eye damsel that the white knight intended to save and protect from the Dollhouse. They were also both evidence he intended to use in his crusade. Being a Joss fan for years I can see a red herring when it's waved before my eyes so I didn't fall for the Cindy-is-a-doll trick, and since the Knight/damsel thing implied that one of them had to be a doll, I wasn't surprised by the big reveal about senator Perrin. I didn't expect Cindy to be his handler though and I found it quite neat.
Twist inside twist, it's now Echo who's trying to save and protect Perrin--btw am I the only one who find sexy the scene in which they cut off their GPS tags?-- while Paul and Madeline have a honesty moment in which he tells her his big gesture as his white knight and she isn't that thankful for it and even points out that she isn't necessarily free. Besides he knows now that nobody really leaves the Dollhouse so it's an awful moment of truth in Paul's journey. He had been walking the grey area for a while but at least his saving Madeline was something he could hang on. Now he doesn't believe in his knighthood anymore. The November/Paul scenes often bring Paul down and that one didn't disappoint.
But let's go back to Cindy and to "The Left Hand". The Cindy/Daniel thing is a perverted version of the usual tv romantic cliché and an interesting twisted reflection of the Mellie/Paul relationship, the real fake being now the one who isn't a doll. And Cindy is Daniel's handler which echoed the fact that Paul became Echo's handler!
New twist and mirroring when, thanks to Miss Bennet, Daniel the doll turns homicidal, echoing both Mellie and, to a certain extent, Alpha. Daniel now is trying to kill Echo, the girl he professed that he would save! I also loved how the writers mocked formulaic writing when they made Cindy try to fool Daniel using the "I didn't mean what I told you, our marriage was part of the scenario, you were programmed to love me but I was not and I do love you". Also for a few seconds I was back years ago and remembered the discussions we had about "Something Blue" and how Willow's spell had made Spike and Buffy get engaged with each other but the love element wasn't part of her incantation!
Daniel kills Cindy (an echo of Mellie killing another handler who is described by Adelle as "serial rapist") before Victopher can switch him off and eventually senator Perrin deserts Madeline. This is the moment where we want to warn any wannabe-damsel to beware white knights in shining suits! And as Daniel has just killed his wife Echo tells him the exact same thing that Cindy told Madeline at the beginning of "Public Eye" , that he didn't do it, but they did it.
Poor Madeline. We thought that Pryia's story was the big tragedy but Madeline's journey is truly heartbreaking. I so wanted Paul to show up and save her in the end...I guess I am not compelety cured of the romantic trope.
Daniel Perrin used to be a screwed up Bush-like wealthy boy, party boy with a pedigree but lacking in the success and ambition department. He needed to grow up, to become a real man. Rossum took that material and updated it, providing a beta-ed version of Daniel Perrin, a better version of himself. This case tells us that being a doll can be an enhancement!
Hey perhaps Victopher is a enhancement of Topher too!
Being a doll is obviously part of the characters' journey. Echo's awakening epitomizes it but all the characters experience it in one way or another. The dolls can't really return to their former selves (as Madeline they can't really" leave") and perhaps it's a good thing. Wiskey/Claire rejected the idea of leaving the driver's seat to her original persona and Echo confessed that she's afraid of Caroline. I stated in a previous review that the dollhouse was a sort of Purgatory, but it looks more and more like Dollhouse is telling something about growing up through a trial, like BtVS did.
Suddenly it reminds me of the Potentials and of Willow's spell activating them all, turning them into active slayers at the end of "Chosen".
The ending was a bit ambiguous. Did Perrin resume his original print when he cleared the name of Rossum? Perhaps he's just learnt to be a senator and save his ass. After all, he did kill his wife.
One last thing. If the Dollhouse is a metaphor of the tv business, it's interesting to see that these two episodes reminded us how pretending can be just as convincing as believing(or as "the method" if you prefer): Cindy had been a very efficient actress for three years! It is also interesting to see that she was able to switch off her wife persona even more easily than a doll after a wipe-out (if you compare her to Echo).
Now I'm off for I'm going to the cinema to see The Road.
I now understand the logics behind screening the episodes together. It was fun seeing Alexis again for this Perrin storyline. I am not used to his American accent but I enjoyed seeing him, and I liked all the winks at Angel fans.
Because as usual with Whedon shows, I love the very good stuff, the depth and acute writing, and the shallow funny details (and the dirty jokes like Victopher suggesting to take "the back door"!). The episodes work without any previous knowledge of Joss' work but there was also that connivance layer that makes it even more enjoyable, something Joss already did in Serenity with Buffy fans. Here we have Eliza playing a hooker-print suggesting that she could tie Alexis up and everybody remembers Faith torturing a tied-up Wesley...later as Echo is in bonds and tortured on Bennet's chair, we've got Summer Glau saying that it isn't a quesiton of FAITH!
I liked Topher's funny lines and Echo's memorable "Her bad people are badder than my bad people!", I liked the comic relief of the Topher/Victopher conversation, and how amazing Enver was once again, and how Topher creating a doll-version of himself actually echoed the fact that Daniel Perrin is both a doll and the real Daniel Perrin, that is a doll-version of himself.
To be honest, I am not completely convinced by Summer Glau's quirky character. She looks like a mixing of River Tam from Firefly, Cameron from TTSCC, Drusilla and a schoolgirl. Her mannerisms were sometimes a tad annoying and boring.
On the other hand (I couldn't help!) I liked the title of the episode and its polysemy. .
Above all I loved how Perrin's little arc actually plays on previous themes and writing tropes and eventually raises new interesting questions about identity and the whole process of dolling-up anyone.
First we had Perrin and his wife's little ritual joke that called to our mind the second half of season 1("Man in the Street", "Briar Rose"," Omega"), and how Ballard was supposed to be the white knight saving the damsel. As usual with Joss it's twisted, and here we've got twist to the power of twist. In season 1, the twist lied in the fact that Alpha(another doll) got the girl out of the dollhouse first and that Ballard actually didn't turn out to be Caroline's white knight but Madeline's, something that was echoed and twisted up again in these episodes.
Perrin's speeches at the beginning of "Public Eye" (either before the press or in his car) sounded like s 1 Paul's. Madeline was the Public Eye damsel and Echo was the Private Eye damsel that the white knight intended to save and protect from the Dollhouse. They were also both evidence he intended to use in his crusade. Being a Joss fan for years I can see a red herring when it's waved before my eyes so I didn't fall for the Cindy-is-a-doll trick, and since the Knight/damsel thing implied that one of them had to be a doll, I wasn't surprised by the big reveal about senator Perrin. I didn't expect Cindy to be his handler though and I found it quite neat.
Twist inside twist, it's now Echo who's trying to save and protect Perrin--btw am I the only one who find sexy the scene in which they cut off their GPS tags?-- while Paul and Madeline have a honesty moment in which he tells her his big gesture as his white knight and she isn't that thankful for it and even points out that she isn't necessarily free. Besides he knows now that nobody really leaves the Dollhouse so it's an awful moment of truth in Paul's journey. He had been walking the grey area for a while but at least his saving Madeline was something he could hang on. Now he doesn't believe in his knighthood anymore. The November/Paul scenes often bring Paul down and that one didn't disappoint.
But let's go back to Cindy and to "The Left Hand". The Cindy/Daniel thing is a perverted version of the usual tv romantic cliché and an interesting twisted reflection of the Mellie/Paul relationship, the real fake being now the one who isn't a doll. And Cindy is Daniel's handler which echoed the fact that Paul became Echo's handler!
New twist and mirroring when, thanks to Miss Bennet, Daniel the doll turns homicidal, echoing both Mellie and, to a certain extent, Alpha. Daniel now is trying to kill Echo, the girl he professed that he would save! I also loved how the writers mocked formulaic writing when they made Cindy try to fool Daniel using the "I didn't mean what I told you, our marriage was part of the scenario, you were programmed to love me but I was not and I do love you". Also for a few seconds I was back years ago and remembered the discussions we had about "Something Blue" and how Willow's spell had made Spike and Buffy get engaged with each other but the love element wasn't part of her incantation!
Daniel kills Cindy (an echo of Mellie killing another handler who is described by Adelle as "serial rapist") before Victopher can switch him off and eventually senator Perrin deserts Madeline. This is the moment where we want to warn any wannabe-damsel to beware white knights in shining suits! And as Daniel has just killed his wife Echo tells him the exact same thing that Cindy told Madeline at the beginning of "Public Eye" , that he didn't do it, but they did it.
Poor Madeline. We thought that Pryia's story was the big tragedy but Madeline's journey is truly heartbreaking. I so wanted Paul to show up and save her in the end...I guess I am not compelety cured of the romantic trope.
Daniel Perrin used to be a screwed up Bush-like wealthy boy, party boy with a pedigree but lacking in the success and ambition department. He needed to grow up, to become a real man. Rossum took that material and updated it, providing a beta-ed version of Daniel Perrin, a better version of himself. This case tells us that being a doll can be an enhancement!
Hey perhaps Victopher is a enhancement of Topher too!
Being a doll is obviously part of the characters' journey. Echo's awakening epitomizes it but all the characters experience it in one way or another. The dolls can't really return to their former selves (as Madeline they can't really" leave") and perhaps it's a good thing. Wiskey/Claire rejected the idea of leaving the driver's seat to her original persona and Echo confessed that she's afraid of Caroline. I stated in a previous review that the dollhouse was a sort of Purgatory, but it looks more and more like Dollhouse is telling something about growing up through a trial, like BtVS did.
Suddenly it reminds me of the Potentials and of Willow's spell activating them all, turning them into active slayers at the end of "Chosen".
The ending was a bit ambiguous. Did Perrin resume his original print when he cleared the name of Rossum? Perhaps he's just learnt to be a senator and save his ass. After all, he did kill his wife.
One last thing. If the Dollhouse is a metaphor of the tv business, it's interesting to see that these two episodes reminded us how pretending can be just as convincing as believing(or as "the method" if you prefer): Cindy had been a very efficient actress for three years! It is also interesting to see that she was able to switch off her wife persona even more easily than a doll after a wipe-out (if you compare her to Echo).
Now I'm off for I'm going to the cinema to see The Road.