Dollhouse 2.02 "Instinct" Recap

Friday night’s Dollhouse raised the bar in the creepy factor, but left us even more perplexed on the subject of Echo/Caroline and if she knows when she’s coming or going.

But we had a lot of funny!

Maternal Instinct

After catching Ballard checking out the Wipe Chair, Topher goes into another spiel about his self-genius and Ballard being Echo’s handler. Topher quickly loses Ballard when he starts to talk about the mechanics of wiping, but goes creepy once he talks about his new breakthrough in the wipe technology. Topher can now trick the brain into thinking that muscular glands can do things that they previously couldn’t do, such as telekinesis (cool!) and making women lactate (wait… what?!?!).

The latter of the two is discovered since Echo is on an assignment involving her mothering a newborn baby named Jack. While Echo is breast-feeding little Jack, I can’t help but think about how lucky that baby actor is. Anyway, Echo (whose name is Emily for this assignment) tries to be the perfect wife for Nate (guest star Kristopher Pahola), who is a very secretive man (he locks all entrances to his office) and is repulsed by Jack. Echo/Emily gets suspicious and confides in Kelly, who is Sierra’s imprint for the week. Sierra/Kelly thinks that Echo/Emily’s assumptions of a cheating/criminal Nate and the big black van outside Echo/Emily’s house are nothing but delusions of grandeur brought on by Echo/Emily’s lack of sleep. But Echo/Emily’s imagination gets the best of her and she breaks into Nate’s office and discovers a boatload of pictures of Nate with another woman. When confronted, Nate declares that the pictures were of a woman who was in his life before he met Emily. Of course, Echo/Emily believes this and I can’t help but think if Topher makes some of the female dolls docile as hell. Later that night, Echo/Emily over hears Nate talking to someone about getting rid of Echo, while he gets rid of Jack. The maternal instinct kicks in and the next day Echo/Emily tries to escape, but is stopped by Nate, who is a bit more sociable than before. When Nate tells her that her car is in the shop, Echo/Emily calls Sierra/Kelly to come and help her. But that plan is busted when Ballard and others appear to come to pull Sierra out the assignment. When Ballard and the other Handlers enter the house, Echo/Emily escapes and runs to the police.

Meanwhile, Adelle tries to calm an extremely irate Nate, who feels that the services of the Dollhouse are not up to par since a complete stranger has kidnapped his son. But Adelle reminds him that instead of a baby-sitter or nanny, Nate asked for a mother. Not a pale imitation of one, but a mother who feels that they actually birthed Jack and nursed him. Adelle also reminds Nate that he was planning to give Jack up for adoption anyway, which makes me ask then why even hire the Dollhouse if that was what he was planning all long? But I loved Adelle in this scene, because she just displayed that no matter how bizarre, idiotic, or neurotic the assignments might be that the Dollhouse might sound like Burger King where you get what you want, but there is a high price other than that of monetary value.

During making a police report with a detective, Echo/Emily see Nate, Ballard and some Handlers show up and she freaks. Thegroup tells the detective that Echo/Emily is not the mother of Jack and in a highly emotionally charged sequence, the cops take Jack away from Echo and the Handlers drag her out the building.

When they get back to the Dollhouse, they sedate an aggressive Echo, but Topher says he can’t wipe her while she is sedated. When Echo comes to she tries to plead to Topher about baby Jack, but Topher panders to her cries and wipes her. After the wipe, Echo says her standard dialogue, but knocks Topher out and escapes.

Echo is pretty much still in Doll state, but with the maternal instinct running through her body and mind she is a loose cannon, but not on Alpha level. Ballard easily deducts this and attributes it to Topher’s “genius” of tricking the brain that he elaborated at the beginning of the hour. Adelle calls Nate, who is bonding quite nicely with Jack now, and warns him of Echo’s impending arrival. The phone line is cut and it’s showdown time. Echo has Jack and wants to kill Nate for trying to harm her and Jack. Nate manages to talk Echo from hurting him and Jack, but instead of converting back to a Doll-like state, Echo leaves and sits in the park that ‘Emily’ remembers going to with Jack. Ballard approaches and it seems as if Caroline is now in the driver’s seat of the vehicle that is Echo. She wonders why would they do that to her, that being pretty much giving her the instincts of a mother and then take them away. Damn good point, everyone. Ballard feels bad for Caroline/Echo and says that he doesn’t think she will be able to help him bring down the Rossum/Dollhouse company, but will get her and every one else out. He also offers to have Topher do an extensive wipe of her mind so she won’t forget. But Caroline/Echo doesn’t want to forget the feelings that’s going through her body and mind, because that’s worse than not feeling anything at all.

Deep. Deep. Deep.

The Check-Up

Adelle checks in on Madeline/November to see how life is for her, which is pretty damn good if you ask me. Adelle tries to throw the girl talk game on Madeline, who sees clear through it. Adelle comes clean and says that while she is genuinely worried about Madeline, she still wants Madeline to come in for a diagnostic, basically a check-up. Madeline is leery, which would make sense given that Madeline was released from her contract two years earlier than scheduled. In other words, she’s scared if she goes back then she won’t becoming out. That’s how I interpreted it. Madeline agrees to go back and is given a clean bill of health, but witnesses and gets hurt in the melee during Echo’s return to the Dollhouse. Ballard sees her and demands why is she back. Madeline doesn’t recognize him off the bat, but still doesn’t know him fully. Ballard is shocked that Madeline says that the Dollhouse helped her out a lot in getting over the death of her daughter. Like Topher says, she would be a great candidate for the brochure.

The New ‘Big Bad’?

Senator Daniel Perrin (guest star Alexis Denisoff) worries that his attempt to bring down The Rossum Corporation is for naught since he only has a nutcase for a witness and financial records. He and his wife then receive some anonymous files that contain phone conversations and other damaging evidence that gives the Senator newfound hope, but the wife is worried about the depth of this conspiracy and wants Perrin to be careful. But we know in the Whedonverse that being careful is almost a sure fire way of something bad happening soon.

So I think this was a great episode to extend the mythology of the show and to bring more questions into the ethics of the Dollhouse, Ballard’s true purpose, and the “diagnostic”/check-up of a past Doll. Despite people calling for Dollhouse’s demise, I think that the show is here to stay for a while.

Deal with it.