When I watched the preview for ‘Echoes’ the first thing I said was \u201cOh God, I hope they don\u2019t turn Caroline into an animal rights activist. I liked Caroline.\u201d This clearly says more about my issues than it does about the show. I had assumed that Caroline was an activist who had got into massive legal\/other trouble, but I hadn\u2019t actually expected to be right.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t expect this episode to be as brilliant as last week\u2019s, but I was hoping that it was going to be good on its own terms. Instead I found it the most incoherent episode of Dollhouse yet. While there were lots of individual scenes I enjoyed, the only thing that bound these together was a plot that was sometimes sense deficient.<\/p>\n
I think the writers gave Eliza Dushku a very difficult task this episode and she wasn\u2019t up to it. She had some very nice Alice moments ((And huge props to the costume department – Alice\u2019s outfit was hilarious. Matt is such a creep)) \u2013 such as the fists she tries to make when she thinks she\u2019s going to fight. But in general Alice didn\u2019t feel clearly delineated. I really didn\u2019t understand the boundaries between her and Caroline. I think the writer\u2019s should take most of the responsibility for this. I think a little bit more Alice before she started glitching would have gone a long way.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem I had with this episode was the drugged staff of the dollhouse. While I found a number of lines and moments very funny, ((So I thought the funniest line was \u201csay hi from me\u201d \u2013 which is possibly a sign I\u2019ve watched Innocence too many times (or as I like to think of it \u2013 almost enough times)) I think it was far too early in the run of the show to do an effective \u201ceveryone acts wacky\u201d episode. We\u2019re not familiar enough with how people act normally for this to be much more than generic wacky humour. ((Julie talked about this in the trouble with Topher<\/a>, go read that post. Although I don’t agree with her that Victor was in the army – anymore than Echo was an animal rights activist. Hmmmm with my confusion about Mellie I think I may have to write more about this. Why is it that no-one complains that Alas focuses too much on the Whedon issues at the expense of more important blogging? Does everyone really think that all Whedon all the time is the way to go?)) We saw some character humour with Adelle, but nothing like we could have seen from all the characters in the third or fourth season. ((I thought that they were going to do something with the Actives being the only together people while those who usually control them lose control, which might have been interesting. But that ended up going nowhere.))<\/p>\n I felt the active\u2019s reaction to the drug had a little bit more of a purpose, both on a character level, and on a philosophical level. On a character level it was really important to show the effects of rape and attempted rape on Mellie and Sierra. ((and that was the only use of sexual violence, or the threat of sexual violence in this episode. So that\u2019s two episodes of not using sexual violence to tell stories, and instead telling stories about sexual violence. Congratulations.)) On a philosophical level I love that brains, that people, don\u2019t work the way Topher thinks they\u2019re going to. I think the continual message that the Actives will resist their total colonisation, their total commodification (the metaphors are complicated I think) is very important.<\/p>\n I am really excited (and sad, and apprehensive) about Victor\u2019s backstory. While the comparison between the dolls and prostitutes has been explicit throughout the story, the parallels between the dollhouse and an army have been largely ignored. I\u2019m glad they\u2019re expanding their metaphors, and entirely positive that Enver Gjokaj can do everything they ask of him.<\/p>\n I was disappointed that we didn\u2019t get anything about Victor, Sierra and Echo\u2019s relationships with other. It would have been really easy to have, for example, the way Echo and murderer-dude escaped the frat house to have been a moment of recognition between Echo and Sierra (friends help each other). Particularly as the stupidity and success of \u2018run when their backs are turned\u2019 strategy undermined the idea that the actives had been created to do this job.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Mellie. I think I covered my conversion to all things Mellie last week. Mellie\u2019s scenes with Paul this week ran very true to me, emotionally (and Miracle Laurie was brilliant again). ((I loved November\u2019s very slow high five. I kind of want to see more of her, but not at the expense of Mellie (clearly I\u2019m having some issues accepting the concept of this show).)) I didn\u2019t think, while I was watching it, she\u2019s emotionally manipulating Paul, because that\u2019s what the dollhouse wants her to do. I still don\u2019t know if that was what was happening. Had they pre-loaded this parameter into her personality? Do they think that this will stop him investigating (because I think they\u2019re probably wrong). Or were we just seeing her emotional reaction, and was the dollhouse going to use that?<\/p>\n So at this stage half my brain is wondering exactly how much the dollhouse finely tuned her reaction, and the other half is \u201csee now he\u2019s waiting at his door for her to come out.\u201d I like that tension<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Caroline; I have so many thoughts about Caroline.<\/p>\n It\u2019s strange seeing activists on TV. They very rarely share my politics, and sometimes I resent this \u2013 that activists are shown as such flakes. But then there isn\u2019t necessarily a shortage of Caroline\u2019s around. ((Which makes me wonder if that\u2019s like John Cleese\u2019s accountant telling him he wasn\u2019t offended by Monty Python\u2019s accountants sketch because that was about chartered accountant, and he wasn\u2019t a chartered accountant))<\/p>\n I do like that her plan failed. There\u2019s a lot to admire about her as a person \u2013 I thought the difference between the Caroline that planned the break-in and the Caroline that talked to Adelle showed her strength in how much she had lost. But unlike Caroline I don\u2019t think a small band of people following \u201cthis is where I am\u201d changes the world. And I\u2019m glad Joss showed this, I think it was an important antidote to Serenity (great as that movie is). ((I know some people resent the constant comparisons to Joss\u2019s previous work. They think that it\u2019s not allowing what he does now to stand by itself. I think that analysing a writer\u2019s body of work is interesting and useful. Joss has themes, and I think it\u2019s interesting to explore them))<\/p>\n Despite the animal rights flakiness ((And, because I have friend\u2019s who are animal rights activists \u2013 just because I think Caroline\u2019s animal rights flakiness is realistic doesn\u2019t mean that I think all animal rights activists are flaky.)) (\u201cWhat you say they\u2019re experimenting on humans?\u201d But there\u2019s a cute dog over here\u201d), I am interested Caroline, I want to know more about her. I want her to be free.<\/p>\n If I was going to articulate what this episode was about I would say: showing us how people become actives. I loved the ending; I love that we will now know one of the actives as a person. I am glad that they\u2019ve made clear exactly that the dollhouse does not look for meaningful consent \u2013 they use coercion.<\/p>\n But most of the episode was superfluous to that story, and those scenes, for example the drug scenes, generally had no other character or thematic point. I wonder how much of the drug plot-line was constructed the way it was to justify the non-attic-ing of Echo. If the writer\u2019s thought so many other things were going wrong, then the viewer might forgive the fact that the dollhouse is keeping Echo around even though she walked off an engagement.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if that was the writers\u2019 logic. But whatever their logic was, this episode didn\u2019t work to me. And I think exploring how people become actives could have been an episode in and of itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I watched the preview for ‘Echoes’ the first thing I said was \u201cOh God, I hope they don\u2019t turn Caroline into an animal rights activist. I liked Caroline.\u201d This clearly says more about my issues than it does about … Continue reading