Dollhouse 2.04 "Belonging" Recap

Oh. My. God.

Dollhouse was phenomenal last night. Words cannot describe the mind rush I got while viewing the show and I just want to say to all the naysayers: If you still feel that Dollhouse is not going anywhere story wise, then there is something seriously wrong with you in the department of storytelling.

Sierra’s backstory answered a lot of questions, posed more questions in the process, and almost clearly laid part of the foundation for “Epitaph One”.

The show starts with a disillusioned vision of a bloody Topher repeating the phrase “I was just trying to help her…” a couple of times.

One-Year Prior

Then we flashback to Sierra in her pre-Dollhouse days, where we knew her as Priya, working at a novelty stand taking pictures and selling her art. A guy walks up to the stand and we recognize him, as the guy who Sierra went to confront during Dr. Saunders/Whiskey’s “wish fulfillment” experiment. His name is Nolan Kennard (guest star Vincent Ventresca) and he has a big interest in Priya and her art. He offers to set up an art showing that would showcase a large painting he wants Priya to do for him. The flirting is heavy, blatant, but friendly and she accepts his invitation.

At the art show, Priya realizes that she is out of her element in terms of Nolan’s guests, who are the cream of the crop when it comes to white-collared sleazebags. While looking into a room where there is a lot of heavy petting going on, Priya runs into Echo, who is on assignment as an unnamed girl that we will call Darling.

Darling/Echo tells Priya that she best utilize her skills as an artist and stick close to Nolan, because he can take her places that she could only imagine, but Priya is not looking for any of that. Meanwhile, Nolan talks with Harding (guest star Keith Carradine), who both has ties in the Rossum Company and the Dollhouse. Harding doesn’t understand Nolan’s extravagant spending to woo one girl, which Nolan says was necessary since Priya is a “free spirit” and can only be captured through her art. Harding then offers to build a “perfect woman” for Nolan, who declines disdainfully.

Harding later introduces Priya to an art dealer named Luca, who is actually Victor on assignment. Luca/Victor wants to know more about Priya’s painting, which consists of a lot of birds. Luca/Victor wonders if the birds have a symbolic meaning to Priya, which in his matches Priya’s freedom and easy-going nature. Priya, easily wooed, snaps Luca/Victor’s photo with her camera and decides to leave with him, but is stopped at the door by an irately, jealous Nolan. Luca/Victor is taken away for his treatment during the debacle and Nolan makes a huge scene about loving Priya, despite her telling him that the feeling was never mutual on the level he wanted it to be. The incident should have sent red flags to everyone in the place that this man is one synapse short of harming someone. But no one does anything and Priya leaves declaring that nothing will ever make her love Nolan

Present Day

Match cut the doorway and we see Sierra on assignment as a date for Nolan, who snaps her picture (with her old camera, mind you) and sends her own her way. He takes the photo and stashes in a drawer with other photos he took of Sierra from previous arrangements, each photo a different personality.

And the creep factor goes up even another notch…

Back at the Dollhouse, it is painting time and Victor tells Sierra that he likes the bird she is drawing. Sierra responds that she doesn’t like the color black, which she is using to draw a large daunting presence over the bird. When Victor asks why does she still use the color, she says because it’s always there. God, the symbolism was beautiful last night. Echo notices all of this, but doesn’t say anything.

Topher is in the Imprint Room trying to replicate Alpha’s technology when Echo startles him. She presents to him the picture Sierra took and she tells him that Sierra hates “the bad man” who repeatedly makes her sad. Topher says that he can’t make much out of the “primitive rendition” of the bad man and Echo says that he isn’t looking hard enough and that he never does.

WHAT??!?!

Topher goes to Boyd to ask about Kennard’s repeat arrangements with Sierra and from the outskirts of things, Boyd’s files turn up nothing out of the ordinary. Topher reveals that he helped Sierra, who was a paranoid schizophrenic when she came into the Dollhouse. He also reveals that Echo brought the issue to his attention, which interests Boyd. Topher decides he needs to find a pattern between Nolan and Sierra, but despite Boyd saying that Saunders/Whiskey was Topher’s best help on that subject, Topher finds out himself that Nolan is not the model customer. He tells Boyd that since Nolan is an expert in neuroleptics, he doped her up to the point that she became psychotic. Plus, Topher reveals that Sierra went to confront Nolan during the “wish fulfillment” exercise. Adelle gets all of this and confronts Nolan, telling him that the services of the Dollhouse are no longer granted to him and that Nolan can pretty much go to hell. But Nolan demands that they give Sierra a permanent imprint and release her to him at once or Adelle will be out of a job.

Meanwhile, Boyd follows up on Echo’s newfound “awareness” as he monitors her actions. He spies Echo and Victor picking up all of the black watercolor paints, where Echo tells Victor that he has to take charge and hide the paints. Boyd later catches Echo reading a book with no pictures in it and plucking a leaf from a bonsai tree in a suspicious way.

Harding lays the gauntlet down on Adelle by ordering her to do as Nolan asked, because Rossum doesn’t want to lose Nolan as a valuable asset to the company. When Adelle puts her foot down saying that she doesn’t run a slave factory and was hired to take care and protect the people in the building, Harding reminds Adelle of her alter ego, “Miss Lonely Hearts”. Adelle’s moral code goes out the window with that bitch-slap of a comeback. Harding then adds that Victor’s services are the least of her moral implications and that Adelle better do her job the way they tell her or she will not have one and that “early retirement plan” is not kosher.

Victor dumps the paints in the shower and Sierra walks in on him while he does it. After he says she doesn’t have to use the paints no more, the two start smearing the colors on each other’s faces. While doing so, Victor has a flashback of him being in the army and a soldier asking him what to do. Victor collapses and repeats that he doesn’t want to be in charge, while Sierra cradles him.

Back in Adelle’s office, Topher is outraged that he has to permanently imprint Sierra for Nolan, but Adelle has her hands tied. Gone is the Good Bitch of the North and in her place is the Wicked Bitch of the West as Adelle shoots down Topher’s questions about moral ethics and his claim that Dr. Saunders would never have let it happen. She then takes her bitchiness into overdrive by saying that while everyone working in the Dollhouse was chosen for employment due to “his or her morals being compromised”, Topher, on the other hand, was different.

He was chosen, because he didn’t have any morals.

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Sierra and Victor sit looking at a picture book holding hands. Topher, on the verge of a breakdown, approaches the two and somberly tells Sierra it’s time for a treatment. Sierra asks Victor to join her and Topher has to tear their hands apart and tell Victor that he cannot go. Victor offers to sit and wait at the base of the steps for Sierra’s return. Hearts are breaking all over America at this scene. If not, then you’re cruel, man, cruel…

After Boyd finds the book Echo was reading and the leaf she took as it’s bookmark, he gets a call from Adelle asking him to make sure that Topher does his job. As Boyd leaves, we see that the glass cover to Echo’s pod has scribbling etched on the bottom of it to help Echo remember everything. WHOA!!!!!!

Sphere: Related Content

Next >>

1 2