Inchoate Dollhouse Thoughts
The Madeline we see in this episode is so different from the one we see in Needs. Every one of the actives reverts who who they were, but without their memories, until they access them. In that episode, she was gentle, kind. Very human. In Instinct, she's cold with Adelle. Instead of telling Paul that she's happy now, she says she's "not sad."
And she's not. She can't be because Topher went in and took it away. But they've made it very clear to this point that to make a complete person, you have to have balance. If she can't be sad, can she ever be happy? Or is it just numbness, passiveness? The contrast between Echo's utter panic in the wiping room, while Madeline just stands there, frowning a little... It's pretty poignant. In Needs she went off on her own just to see her daughter Katie's grave. She needed to mourn and remember Katie.
Now she stares. She calmly relates to Ballard what happened. Did she even feel the cut on her head?
Ballard: Are you okay?
Madeline: I don't know.
The Dollhouse found this woman, this grieving mother, and sent Dewitt to swoop in during her grieving to tell her she could take the pain away. Wow. November was maybe one of our last hopes that some people consent to what they sign up to, and yeah, she seems okay at the moment, not happy, but okay. But if you had just lost a child and were out of your head in grief, are you really up to making the decision to sign up for them to use your body for five years? Are you in the state of mind where you'd be able to say, yeah, take my body, and as a reward, make me filthy rich and pull out the part of my mind that's sad?
Topher: The human mind is like Van Halen. If you pull out one piece and keep replacing it, it just degenerates.
And Topher later offers her an 'upgrade.' Which he just told Ballard was a bad idea.
Echo: Feeling nothing would be worse.
This episode has me flapping my lips now that I'm thinking about it. Once Whiskey is out of sight, Topher is giddy over the things he can do to the brain, the consequences be damned. Dewitt feigns sympathy but in the same episode is implicated in exploiting a grieving woman. Ballard confronts the woman he hurt and flat out lies to her about hurting her (could she care about that right now?). Dewitt and Topher have the evidence of Echo's evolution right in front of them, but Ballard is able to deflect them with the power of Topher's ego (If I think I can figure things out, is it curiosity or arrogance?).
I hope we see Madeline again, but I hope worse things aren't going to happen to her. :/
They can't cancel my show. Even the slower episodes are deeper than anything else Fox has to offer.
Okay, I'm tired now.