I\u2019ve been meaning to thank everyone for the nice comments on my Dollhouse reviews. Particularly thanks to Felicity, who said:<\/p>\n
For some reason I can barely fathom, Alas\u2019s is the only Dollhouse response I like reading. Perhaps it has the perfect mix of Jossmania and critical analysis for me?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u2019m thinking of putting \u2018the perfect mix of Jossmania and critical analysis on my CV (resume for Americans).<\/p>\n
Another brilliant episode that really is much, much better unspoiled. I have learned how to hide the bulk of the post, so from now on I will include a brief spoiler free ramble at the beginning of each review. Don’t click on unless you’ve watched the episode. <\/p>\n
Just before watching the latest episode I was talking with my friend Betsy about the costumes on dollhouse, most notably Alice’s, and what a crazy job being in charge of the wardrobe for the dollhouse organisation would be (‘so for this engagement he wants her to be really naieve and innocent, but a sexual object. What’s your ugliest pair of white stockings look like?’). And then they showed us the dollhouse wardrobe – talk about giving us what we want.<\/p>\n
This episode had everything great television needs: it was hilarious, upsetting, character-centred, and thematically unified. Clearly \u201cthe dolls wake up\u201d is a great premise for an episode, and that premise was well utilised (\u201cwe\u2019re all going to die\u201d from Victor was my favourite line, but it\u2019s not alone in its greatness). But the writers weren\u2019t content just to milk that premise for its jokes about fruit, they took it much further, and much darker.<\/p>\n
This episode explored six characters needs: Echo, Victor, Sierra, November, ((After considerable thought I decided to refer to them with their doll names even though we know Echo and Sierra\u2019s actual name. I think the needs that were being explored in this episode were the needs of their doll-selves. I think the people they had been would have needed much more than they got in this episode)), Paul Ballard and Adelle Dewitt. I think it\u2019s very important that this episode extended its exploration of needs beyond the dolls that were being experimented on. Adelle tells Caroline that she signed on to escape her memories. Even though Caroline ran for two years, and was being held captive when she signed (which does away with any idea of meaningful consent). Adelle clearly needs to believe that people volunteer for this, and that they are benefiting from having their memories removed. I have wondered a lot about whether they really let people go at the end of 5 years, and it seems to me that if they don\u2019t, then Adelle must be able to maintain her belief that they do.<\/p>\n
Paul Ballard\u2019s needs were complicated, but they certainly make the character more interesting than they were previously. A few episodes ago it would have enraged me, that the only hope we got at the end of this episode was his message from Caroline. A lot about Paul Ballard is both boring and obnoxious – how dare he provide me hope. But I\u2019ve felt much more engaged with the character since Man on the Street acknowledged how creepy his obsession is. I felt that his dream at the beginning took that creepiness to another level (nothing like having making out with a corpse to up the creepiness). The ending wasn\u2019t so much hope as Paul Ballard also getting what he needed, or possibly just what he wanted \u2013 at this stage it really isn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n
Of the dolls, November\u2019s needs (and plotline) were least integrated with what we already knew. In fact I think her plotline didn\u2019t make much sense. We had seen Victor, Sierra and Echo grouping, and Echo going off task. Each of these were connected to what they resolved in this episode. But we’d only seen November glitching when she was remembering the trauma of being attacked as Mellie. The idea that she needed to grieve for Katie was not connected with anything we’ve seen of her up to this point. It also wasn’t at all clear to me why November was picked out as one of the four priority cases \u2013 she only glitched when directly injected with the drug, and previously her performance had been described as perfect. The writers included November in the dolls who woke up because the audience care about her, but did not do enough work for it to make sense within the story. That made her whole storyline less than satisfying for me (and I’m vocal about my Mellie\/November love and desire to know about her). I think it says a lot for my general engagement with the character, and Miracle Laurie\u2019s mad skills that I still felt for her. But the feeling was an abstract one, it wasn\u2019t feel connected with what I knew about her.<\/p>\n
Caroline\u2019s needs were neither new or a surprise. I don\u2019t have a lot more to say about them, although the scene with Topher and Dewitt was very satisfying. And the scene where the actives all walk out the tunnel is beautiful.<\/p>\n
I hope that Caroline or Echo realises that she can’t save the world be herself. That freedom isn’t won by the actions of one individual fighting alone for others, but everyone fighting collectively for themselves and each other. I’ve no idea if that’s where they’re going with this show. If it wasn’t a Joss show I don’t think I’d even bother to hope that the writers set up Caroline’s acting alone as a limit deliberately. But after Chosen, Jaynestown and The Chain, I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of possibility that that’s where they’re going. ((Although it’s probably beyond the bounds of possibility that we’ll never found out where they’re going because Fox is going to cancel the show. Anyone know anyone with a Nielsen box who accepts bribes?))
\nBut the heart of the show was Sierra, Victor, and their relationship. I could seriously spend all my episode reviews praising Dichen Lachman and particularly Enver Gjokaj. The first great moment of the episode was the scene of them going to bed. It\u2019s such a beautiful portrayal of love, and it doesn\u2019t need words. ((Also I swear Enver Gjokaj\u2019s ears stick out more as Victor than as pre-Victor \u2013 how is that even possible?)) The scene in the utility closet was just as powerful, because they articulated the role of their relationship when they\u2019re enslaved. Their relationship is about love and connection as resistance.<\/p>\nIt broke my heart when Victor went straight into bed, and didn\u2019t wait for Sierra.<\/p>\n
I do have one reservation about the way their relationship is portrayed, that was only exacerbated by this episode. So far Dollhouse has focused on Victor\u2019s desire for Sierra, and Sierra only as an object of desire. It is Victor\u2019s need to get the girl that Boyd and Dr Saunders discuss at the end of the episode. ((I\u2019ve gotten mightily bored of Boyd, who has done very little but punch people since Stage Fright, but there was a lot of depth in that scene.)) Even though she didn\u2019t feel closure until she\u2019d kissed him either. If all she needed was to confront Nolan, then she would have shut down once she left her apartment.<\/p>\n
Clearly they can\u2019t show Sierra\u2019s desire for Victor, using the same ways they\u2019ve been showing Victor\u2019s desire for Sierra. But the most powerful statement about his desire for her isn\u2019t his man reaction, or his recitation the Mets (or was it the Yankees) to avoid it, but that she makes him feel better. And we could see that from Sierra, we could see her desiring him. I think it\u2019s really important that we do. ((Oh and while I\u2019m constructing a wish list for future episodes (which have been remarkably successful so far: I wished for more friendship between the dolls and I got Stage Fright. I wished for the writers to take sexual abuse seriously and I got Man on the street). Echo and Sierra’s friendship was important to me. We have barely seen anything of them since episode three, and I am really disappointed that they didn’t take this opportunity to build the only friendship (at the moment the only relationship) between women on the show.))<\/p>\n
Obviously there was more to Sierra (and Victor\u2019s) plotline this week than that relationship. I am really glad that they\u2019re dealing with the issues of consent and the dollhouse head-on. It\u2019s now explicit that Priya (the woman Sierra was) did not give any kind of consent. I think it\u2019s important to acknowledge that not only can consent be coerced, but the very notion of consent can be ignored for people with enough power. Like \u2018Man on the Street\u2019 this episode didn\u2019t shy away from the horror of abuse. I think \u201cIt\u2019ll be ever better now\u201d from Nolan after Sierra left, might just be the most disgusting statement I\u2019ve ever heard. Despite this they still managed to normalise Nolan. Nothing about the music or the way the scene was shot implied that he was a strange psychopathic variation; it was made very clear that his abuse was a result of his power.<\/p>\n
I have duelling analyses in my head about the scene between Priya\/Sierra, Victor and Nolan. I find it frustrating that the show again showed another man punching the abuser as a solution to a woman being abused (and made the link explicitly in the scene between Dr Saunders and Boyd, although clearly Dr Saunders isn\u2019t as reliable a character by the end of the episode as she was in the beginning).<\/p>\n
But I’m really not asking that every rape survivor do their own punching. I think our limited visions of what it means to be strong can be really damaging; there’s strength in breaking down, strength in letting other people helping you, and strength in ignoring it all and finding a way to continue anyway. While I was rewatching the episode, I was wondering about the director\u2019s decision to have both of them in every frame in the conversation with Nolan, as I felt it didn\u2019t give Sierra space in her own story. But the other option would have been to have Sierra more alone.<\/p>\n
I think, in the end, that what makes me OK with what they showed, is that Sierra wasn\u2019t silenced by Victor\u2019s presence, or his punching \u2013 that it was her voice that rang out in that scene \u201cI\u2019m more of a human than you.\u201d I don\u2019t think it takes away any of the strength Sierra needed to confront Nolan, by showing her having support. And more importantly I think the show portrayed the strength Sierra had, and didn\u2019t diminish her through the support she had.<\/p>\n
But like I say I\u2019m not sure, and I\u2019d be really interested in other people\u2019s views. Does the desire for representations of rape survivors as strong put additional pressure and limited views on what strength is? Does his punching take away from her words? Could we have done without the punching?<\/p>\n
The show ends with a reveal, and what for me is quite close to despair. Amy Acker is an amazing actress, I was distraught when I discovered this whole, horrible, solution was her idea. It also felt very real to me, that is possible to control actives better by giving them some freedom. We appreciate that she sees actives as people not pets, but she is using that knowledge to deepen the dollhouse\u2019s power. Liberal control can, at times, be more effective than totalitarianism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been meaning to thank everyone for the nice comments on my Dollhouse reviews. Particularly thanks to Felicity, who said: For some reason I can barely fathom, Alas\u2019s is the only Dollhouse response I like reading. Perhaps it has the … Continue reading