Dollhouse: According To This Show, Your Brain Peaked in 1984

Hey gasmi, another week in the Dollhouse where we find out the brain is like an 80′s heavy metal band, and all you really need to know you can learn watching the Lifetime Network

Our episode starts with Agent Pucker Face (Paul Ballard) wandering into Topher’s office and accidentally turning on the chair. I hate to call shenanigans this early in an episode, but this had to be the least convincing accident I’ve seen since I “accidentally” opened up all of my Halloween candy for the fourth time this week. Hey, don’t judge me, if they didn’t want me to eat Kit Kats for breakfast they wouldn’t keep putting them on sale, f@#king Safeway.

Anyway, Agent Pucker Face settles down into the chair and wonders what it would be like to be totally without a personality. From where I’m sitting it wouldn’t be that much different from everyday Agent Pucker Face, but that’s just my opinion. Topher comes in and asks Agent Pucker Face if he’d like a treatment, which causes APF to jump like somebody came up behind him while he was checking out the weird German website again.

Topher and Agent Pucker Face proceed to have a little talk where we find out Topher really, really loves Topher, and he’s pretty jazzed about the latest thing he’s done to Echo, because he affected her on a glandular level. What the? When did this turn into The Letterman Show? Anyway Topher points out with his latest brain fiddling move you could get the human body to fight cancer or just about anything else you wanted to do.

Agent Pucker Face asks if Topher could do that to him. Topher says he’d have to wipe Agent Pucker Face’s brain first because as he so aptly points out the human brain is a lot like Van Halen. If you just keep pulling out one piece and replacing it, it just degenerates. I guess that’s one way of looking at it. For me it’s more Alex Van Halen is in my mind telling me to print counterfeit twenties in my living room. Not that I’m doing that, but if I did and got caught, I’d blame Alex. What? Yes, you’re right; I’m so going to jail. Anyway, back to TV.

Then after those words of wisdom, Topher treats Agent Pucker Face like a moron and blows him off with the always popular; “hey, okay, good talk, good talk!” Have I mentioned I like Topher lately?

We cut to some big McMansion out in the burbs where Echo is sacking out next to some guy who even asleep looks kind of like a creepy ex-frat dude. Echo wakes up because watching people sleep for any amount of time is a ratings killer, and wanders out of the room and into the hallway. I’ve got to admit at this point of the show I was really wondering just what sort of glandular change Topher had made on our favorite semi-brain wiped heroine. Okay, ugly confession time, all I could think here was if she went in the bathroom and peed standing up, I was changing the channel. Yes, I know I’ve got problems, but Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups make me happy, and they are on sale, yay Safeway!

Luckily for my peace of mind, Echo doesn’t go in the bathroom, she goes in a nursery and starts breast feeding a baby. Whoo, that was a close one, we’ve still got a recap for this week (if you keep making that face it’s going to stay that way), and we cut to the opening credits.

After the credits we come back and find out Echo is wonder mom. She’s plopped her non-crying, non-pissing-or-pooping perfect infant in a little crib dealee and is making a big pot of coffee. Wow, what a perfect family, I wonder where her prefect husband could be? Did you guess in his office that he always locks the door to and looking as guilty as OJ? No? That’s okay; maybe guessing just isn’t your thing?

Anyway Echo is trying to get Creepy Ex-Frat Dude to hold the baby, and call in sick to work so they can be the aforementioned perfect family. Sorry Echo, but Creepy Ex-Frat Dude apparently has made plans to spend the whole day looking shifty and he won’t be home until late that night because he’s planning Echo’s death, meeting with clients. In short, it’s just another day in the burbs.

We cut to later that day and Echo has taken the world’s littlest extra down to the park for a walk and to talk to her best bud Sierra, who has been brain washed to be another suburban mom so Echo will have someone to bitch to. Echo’s going on and on about how tired she is and how Creepy Ex-Frat Dude is a complete waste of space on bonding with the baby.

Well I can see why Echo is so tired, because not only is she caring for a new born (pressing its little face into her non-saggy boobs), but she has also found the time to do her hair, makeup, and slap on some high heels. I’m sorry, I know this is a TV show, but I’ve also spent some time around my sister, cousins, and friends’ wives when they’ve been dealing with new born infants, and a good day on the fashion front has usually been being able to wash their hair and get into a clean set of sweats. And don’t get me started on Echo having a perfect figure after supposedly just squeezing out the newest member of the screen actors’ guild.

Also maybe a mom could help me out here, but if you’re breast feeding are you supposed to be drinking coffee like your cramming for finals? Because Echo is sucking down the go-go juice like crazy in this episode, and as far as I know if mommy is drinking caffeine that means baby is drinking caffeine too, and that sounds like a recipe for disaster in my book. Think about it, a small bald person who pees, screams and poops, and who now can do it for 12 hours at a pop; it would be like being with Larry David on meth, and who would want that without at least getting a producer’s credit out of the deal?

Anyway, back to the show, Echo’s real beef is she thinks Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude is having an affair, or doing something illegal, or doing something illegal while having an affair. Luckily for the plot, Sierra is able to talk Echo in off the ledge because nobody else would sleep with Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude on a bet, her husband is a great guy and he loves her very much. Whatever, Sierra’s little talk seems to work and Echo is all calmed down.

That is until she gets home, where she immediately jimmy’s the lock to Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude’s office and goes in to do a little quality snooping. She brings little baby extra with her and tells the little guy, that she can go through all of daddy’s stuff because daddy shouldn’t have anything to hide. Well seeing as mommy supposedly just went through the no sex third trimester which means daddy probably has a minimum of a mountain of really disturbing porn in this place that he thinks is private, and if you add the fact he actually hired an evil corporation to bring him someone who has been brainwashed to think she’s the mother of his child, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say peace of mind isn’t going to be restored around the Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude’s house any time soon.

Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude gets home later that night after a long day of, shoot I don’t know, ex-rush activities? Anyway, it’s really late and he’s come in the house but hasn’t turned any of the lights on. He’s kind of freaked to see the door to his super private office wide open, but that being freaked is a perfect for being super freaked out when he finds out Echo’s been waiting in the dark for him to come home.

Echo has a whole bunch of pictures on the table and wants to know who “she” is. Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude starts to try to get ticked for Echo going into his super private office, before he realizes Echo is, to use a technical psychological term, “full on bugging out” because she’s got a whole mess of pictures of her husband with some strange woman mainly at the same place Echo thinks they went on their honeymoon.

Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude actually does a pretty good job of calming Echo down by explaining that he knew the woman in the pictures before he met Echo and the woman died. He apologizes for not telling Echo earlier and gets her calmed down enough to go to bed and promises everything will be better in the morning.

Everything is going great, until Echo wakes up in the middle of the night and Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude is nowhere to be found. She walks down the hallway and finds him in the baby’s room in full on creepy mode talking on the phone about how “he made a mistake” and “she just isn’t working out”, and somebody needs to come and take care of it right away. Oh and just for good measure, he mentions getting rid of the baby too. Echo freaks out when she hears this, because much like me she is trying to figure out just when this show turned into a movie on Lifetime.

It’s the next day and Senator Nosey Pants is hanging out around his house complaining to his wife how they don’t have any good poop to pin on the evil Rossum Corporation. His wife says that’s too bad because they were getting pretty good poop from somebody in the NSA for awhile, but that dried up. Senator Nosey Pants’s wife thinks this is too bad because they were all set to have a kickass crusade about it. Whatevers, she asks Senator Nosey Pants what he wants to do now, and he thinks this would be a great time to starting making a new little senator. The poor guy doesn’t even get to second base before the doorbell rings and his wife heads off to see who it is. When she comes back she’s got all sorts of records for the evil Rossum Corporation. Oh goodie, I love it when the plot fairy comes, don’t you?

Hey, we get two non-Echo scenes in a row! DeWitt stops by this fancy schmancy loft to talk to November. November was the active who spied on Agent Pucker Face last season and went by the name Millie, although from the moment I first laid eyes on her, she was The Big Face Girl.

DeWitt is all hey girlfriend, but The Big Face Girl isn’t really buying into it, and wants to know why a scary English lady is in her tastefully decorated loft. Dewitt says she just stopped by because they need to run a diagnostic on Big Face Girl. Big Face Girl kind of acts like a bitch and asks if this has anything to do with her getting let out of her contract early. DeWitt is all “we just want what’s best for you,” but she also shoots Big Face Girl a look that says keep acting up and I’ll eat your spleen right here. The Big Face Girl gets DeWitt’s drift immediately and gets with the program.

Over at Casa de Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude, Echo is all set to pull her great escape and duck out the front door. Too bad for her Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude has decided to hang out around the house and escape block, spend some time with his loving family. Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude thinks it would be a great day for Echo to just give the baby to him and go sleep. Echo ups him in the shifty department by suddenly announcing she needs to go feed the baby, upstairs, and alone. Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude knows she’s totally blowing smoke up his hoo-haw, but he tells her fine as long as she takes a nap right afterwards.

Echo goes upstairs and gets on the phone with Sierra and tells her the Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude is trying to kill her by making her scrambled eggs. Well he’s up to no good and Echo wants Sierra to come over and get her right away and because Echo is the star of the show, that’s just what Sierra does.

Thanks to the magic of editing, as soon as Echo looks out the window she sees Sierra pulling up, which is good. Too bad a big black van pulls up right behind Sierra and some guys hustle her into it which is bad. Echo bolts downstairs but she can see Agent Pucker Face and a bunch of bad guys in suits coming up to the house, which is also bad. She runs back upstairs which while it isn’t particularly good, definitely isn’t bad. Agent Pucker Face comes in and heads upstairs to ask Echo if she wants a treatment, but finds out she’s used this weird little escape ladder to duck out of the house and take off in Sierra’s car, which is bad for Agent Pucker Face, but good for Echo and the plot.

We go back to the Dollhouse where the Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude is pitching a pretty serious fit about how they are all a bunch of morons for letting their zombie run off with his baby. Too bad for him he’s fit pitching to DeWitt, and she slaps him down pretty quick and pretty hard, by pointing out Echo is exactly what he wanted, a mother for his child, and even as a zombie she loves and cares for the kid more then Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude (DeWitt pretty much maims the guy when she mentions he wanted to put his kid up for adoption like four hours ago), and besides it doesn’t matter because everything is going to be fine because they know exactly where Echo is at.

And they really do know exactly where Echo is at, because as soon as she hops out of Sierra’s car, boom, they are right there. Too bad for them Echo immediately spots them. Looking back on it, maybe buying a fleet of big creepy black vans wasn’t the best move at least on the recovering runaway fake mommies front.

Echo starts walking down the street and the creepy big black van just keeps slowly following her. That is until Echo turns the corner and spots some cops. Echo tells the boys in blue she is being chased by a big black van (which at this point has done a Houdini and is nowhere to be found) that was hired by her husband who wants to kill her and her baby. The one cop who doesn’t have any lines gets a look on his face like “this is why I don’t get out of the car,” but his partner who got lines tells Echo to come with them to the station.

Down at the station Echo is talking to this lady cop, who doesn’t have the slightest problem with Echo’s story about her husband using disappearing vans to try to kill her. It gets better because the lady cop tells Echo this sort of stuff happens all the time. Sure, to Tori Spelling on Lifetime, not in real life, also am I the only one who thinks the lady cop looks a little like Cloris Leachman in Young Frankenstein?

The lady cop tells Echo the important thing is that now that Echo has gone to the cops she is safe, and Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude can’t hurt her. And that is true for a whopping five seconds, until Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude and Agent Pucker Face show up. APF waves a fake badge around and Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude tells the cops Echo isn’t his wife and before you can say Dean Cain is evil, evil I tell you, the cops have taken away the baby, and Echo is getting dragged out of the station by Agent Pucker Face. See, the system works, well for Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dudes and evil corporations.

Over at the dollhouse Topher is finishing up running his tests on the Big Face Girl and after giving her a clean bill of health offers to implant something in her brain to teach her ventriloquism. The Big Face Girl passes, but Topher doesn’t get a chance to get properly bummed out because Agent Pucker Face brings in Echo who is in full freak out mode. Echo gets loose, knocks the Big Face Girl into a lamp and darts out of the room. Luckily some goons tackle Echo and tranq her like a rouge rhino at Lion Country Safari. Topher is kind of ticked because he can’t wipe Echo when she’s passed out, but this does give Agent Pucker Face and the Big Face Girl a chance to go off and have a little chat.

Agent Pucker Face tells the Big Face Girl not to worry because they didn’t really take Echo’s baby away from her; it was all pretend. The Big Face Girl points out it isn’t pretend to Echo, good point Big Face Girl. She asks APF if anything like that happened to her. Agent Pucker Face has a quick flashback of breaking up with her, and the Big Face Girl totally losing her poop. Agent Pucker Face totally weasels out and says he doesn’t know because he’s a new hire at the Dollhouse. Surprisingly the Big Face Girl gives Agent Pucker Face a little pep talk about how she became an active because her baby died and now it doesn’t hurt so badly anymore. Agent Pucker Face does get kind of cheered up but is still looks pretty guilty about the whole breaking up with her when she was an active thing.

Topher gets Echo settled down and tells her he is going to take all her pain away over losing her baby, and gets her in the chair and does the big suck on all her memories. Cool, problem solved, right? Weeeelllll, not exactly, Echo clocks Topher and takes off. So much for us getting out of here early this week.

We cut back to Senator Nosey Pants who’s finally finished reading to big bag of clues somebody dropped off on his doorstep. He hits all the juicy tidbits in the file, brainwashing, kidnapping, human trafficking, prostitution, murder, and recording baseball games for profit without the express permission of the Commissioner’s Office. These guys are some scary hombres, which is the first thing Mrs. Senator Nosey Pants points out. Senator Nosey Pants asks her if she wants to bail and she’s like are you crazy? Last week I was telling people about special offers at Red Lobster. Errrr, that is she thinks it’s too important not to quit. Senator Nosey Pants thinks this is awesome, because not only do they have all this cool dirt, but they have a name. What name? Who knows, because we immediately cut back to Echo at the Dollhouse.

Echo is busting out of the Dollhouse for if your keeping track at home for what feels like the 53rd time. Maximum security installation my butt; I’ve been to In and Out Burgers that had tighter security then this place. Anyway, Echo gets in a car, and even though she’s been wiped and is in sort of a child like state she has no problem driving away. This would be a good time to mention Eliza Cuckoo-For-Dushku-Puffs acting in this scene is flirting with what Robert Downey Jr.’s character in Tropic Thunder called “the full tard.” Anyway, Eliza exits stage right and our plot keeps chugging along.

DeWitt calls Topher and Agent Pucker Face into her office to find out just what in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is a going on around here. Topher tells her he did his job and got punched in the mouth, which is shocking because he didn’t even offer to teach Echo ventriloquism when he got popped. DeWitt wants to know if Echo is turning into what Alpha turned into.

Agent Pucker Face who knows damn well Echo is chock full of personalities tells DeWitt this is all happening because Topher is too good at his job. Being a mommy is the most pure instinct there is so there is no way that could get rid of it with a standard wipe. Topher likes this theory because it makes him sound hella smart instead of being the guy who couldn’t get his brain washing done right. DeWitt is like whatevers to this and wants to know where Echo is heading. Agent Pucker Face says it’s obvious; she’s heading back to the Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude’s house to get her pretend bebe back. That makes sense and APF exits stage right.

Over at Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude’s house he and baby extra are totally bonding. You know it’s like I always say, if you want to bring a family closer together have a brain washed person think the baby is hers and take off with it until you and some former G-man can hoodwink the cops into giving the kid to you and letting the evil corporation guys take the brain washed person off to get all their memories sucked out of her melon. Okay, I don’t say that, in fact nobody says that, because it’s really dumb. The important thing is daddy is finally bonding with his son.

Every thing is going great until the Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude goes downstairs to make baby extra a bottle and he gets a phone call from DeWitt. She gives him a heads up that Echo is on her way over to get all Hand That Rocks the Cradle on his ass and tells him he and baby extra better get the hell out of the house right now.

This is right when the power goes out along with Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude’s cell phone. If you’re wondering why the phone went out, it’s because it’s hella more scary when you can’t talk on the phone, although here it’s kind of more dumb then scary.

Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude hauls ass upstairs to get baby extra but he’s nowhere to be found. Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude heads downstairs because the kitchen seems like the best place to pitch a fit about losing his bebe. It’s also a great spot for him to get the poop scarred out of him by Echo when she shows up with baby extra and a big knife.

Echo is pretty creepy herself now, and waving that big knife around and letting Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude know she’s not the bestest sport when it comes to taking away her pretend bebe. Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude actually does a good job telling her about how his wife died in childbirth and he needed somebody to love his baby because he couldn’t because he blamed baby extra for killing his wife. However that’s all changed and he’s really sorry but Echo can’t be the mommy here because she really isn’t the mom and Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude is very sorry about that. Then he finishes up his little soliloquy by telling Echo she can do whatever she wants to him, but please don’t hurt little baby extra.

Echo drops the knife and gives Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude his baby back. Oh come on, you weren’t surprised right? There’s no way Echo is going to stab the guy even though he had all those pictures of his dead wife in his desk. The only person who stabs people on TV is Dean Cain, don’t you watch Lifetime?

Anyway, Agent Pucker Face makes his patented entrance two minutes after the action is finished and walks Echo out of the house. Then he and Echo head over to that park where they have a little talk about how it isn’t so much that Echo remembers every person they turn her into, but that she can feel what those people felt, and not surprisingly it kind of sucks. Agent Pucker Face tells her if she wants he’ll tell Topher what is going on and they can make sure she doesn’t have to feel anything like this again. Echo doesn’t go for this because that would be like being asleep and she’d rather feel pain then nothing. It also isn’t said, but the last time Agent Pucker Face was going to rescue her she came thiiiiiiiiiiiis close to getting her real personality permanently erased, so it couldn’t hurt for her to keep an eye on things. Then she and Agent Pucker Face pinky swear to bring down the Dollhouse. The End.

Another week, and despite a lot of silly stuff that I just spent about 4,000 words pointing out, there was some cool TV along for the ride, too.

I liked how the pain Echo felt over losing baby extra was juxtaposed against November becoming an active to get over the pain of losing her baby, and Creepy-Ex-Frat-Dude trying to do the best thing for his child even if it meant using an active to give the child love when he couldn’t. I’ve said it before, but this show does a great job showing that the evil of the Dollhouse is rarely black and white.

I really like Olivia Williams as DeWitt. She’s got serious acting chops and I hope the writers give her a chance to show them off.

“Perhaps triggering lactation was going a bridge too far.” That’s right up there for my favorite Topher quip of the night, with comparing the brain to Van Halen. Also the look DeWitt shot him when he said this was priceless.

Also, help me out here, does anyone under the age of 30 even laugh at Van Halen jokes any more?

Oh, a tip of the hat to baby extra who had to be the most well behaved baby in the history of mankind, I hole things work out for him as a child actor and he doesn’t end up on Celebrity Rehab, or dating Drew Barrymore.

Whose name do you think is in Senator Nosey Pant’s file? And come to think of it who is slipping him the goodies now?

Random thought I had while writing this post. Remember how last season somebody was using actives to send messages to Ballard without the Dollhouse knowing about it? Who was doing it? I know Dominic got exposed as the NSA spy, but would he have known how to run the chair? I had this crazy theory about it. Remember how they got the file from the NSA that said Ivy was the spy? What if she and Dominic were both spies for the NSA? The Dollhouse would catch one of them, but it would remove all suspicion from the other one. Yet another thing I love about this show, the fun little paranoid thoughts it can give me.

Anyway, I’ll see you all next week and thanks for stopping by.