Oh, it was good! Kind of. I liked the song at the end.
So Echo played a midwife for all of three seconds before her actual mission of pretending to be a prostitute so as to gain entry to a hotel security man's room, from where she and the gang can blow a hole into the wall and get to the basement of a high-security firm and steal some shiny art during its 'grey hour' when security systems are offline. The only problem is that the art expert on the team makes a break for it, leaving Taffy (as we're calling her?) to call in Boyd and get remotely wiped by Alpha, leaving her a newborn baby in a mess. Shenanigans ensue with Sierra being rebooted as Taffy, but without enough time to get them out so she tries to tell Echo what to do over the phone, but Echo cocks it up. She gets out eventually though, supposedly through an extremely effective smoke grenade(?).
In other news Victor comes to Ballard saying that the Russians are trying to kill him and he needs protection. Ballard gets a clue and eventually kicks him out of his apartment saying he's on the list of every service in the business. Apparently he knows exactly how Russians kill people, so if Victor shows up dead any differently it's all a bonus. Topher has a relatively cool assistant, even if she does seem to think it's appropriate to come to work in a shiny minidress and patterned fishnets.
My quick aside about the midwifery will probably be longer than the actual scene, but, really, why was it there? Unless it becomes useful later (and I suppose the mountain house did reflect the pretty mountains in the painting later - but I have no metaphors to fanwank*) I can't think of any other purpose for it than a shout-out to the idea that the Dollhouse also does humanitarian sorts of things. But, what I want to know is, if that couple could afford the Dollhouse's prices, why the hell couldn't they find a midwife? There seems no reason for the Dollhouse unless you're doing shady deeds or are in a delicate situation security-wise and need to be able to trust people. Couple in the mountains? Chucking their money away.
As for the main plot, let me start off with this: they're going to steal a missing piece of the Elgin Marbles. The Elgin Marbles. The Elgin Marbles. Points for mentioning the debate over whether they were 'stolen' or not, and that there're both metopes and a frieze, but major loss for practically wanking over the sculpture "Michaelangelo said that there's a statue inside every block of marble...". So not the point. Also, not sure I entirely agree with your interpretation of Picasso, tech guy.
My fangirling of Sierra/Dichen Lachman continues and grows because taking the character ED had created in what, about half an hour, and selling me that that character was alive again was damned impressive. Didn't even need the repeated lines (which actually felt kind of silly - they belong in the exposition pile of Jenny's four brothers). Having said that I think a trick was missed as far as exploring how much each active brings to the role they play. Is it absolutely nothing? It seemed that way.
And I think that's my basic criticism of this episode: I don't think it said anything. Which isn't a problem in itself, but apart from moving a few pieces around the Monopoly board it was pretty filler-tastic. Granted, it moved the pieces further than I expected for this stage in the proceedings (making me think that there is going to be rather a big climax at the end of this season with S2, if it comes, being rather different - I just hope we don't get Caroline/Echo on the run and unable to trust anyone she meets because they might be part of the sooper sekrit spy army dolls) and that kept the general pace feeling quite high. But I'm not sure what the concept needs is pace, rather than gritty little puzzles of episodes teasing out ideas. I suppose it does need pace to some extent to get picked up for another season... But can we get to the comfortable risk-taking stage nao, plz?
*ETA: [POTENTIAL FUTURE MILD SPOILERS] Having read the draft script for the pilot (from someone who should feel free to pipe up if they don't mind me linking them), it seems that there might be a link between altruistic engagements and actives' physical performance - and presumably their general well-being. I'll probably babble about that if it ever comes up properly, but I suppose that is a possible link between the painting and the midwife scene. If Echo liked being a friendly midwife and that stuck with her it's possibly not surprising that she likes sky and mountains. If that is what we're supposed to see I'll take my hat off to Joss for being more gentle with the symbolism hammer than usual. Keep it up.