To the end, that is.
Spoilers under the fold. And if you haven’t watched it yet I strongly advise you to not click through.
I don’t have much to say about this episode because I was flabbergasted at the end. Boyd? Boyd is the evil head of Rossum? And Boyd was in on getting Caroline into the Dollhouse at the beginning telling her no one would hurt her because she was special? WTF?
Hopefully next week’s episode will explain more. Like … maybe he’s not evil. After all, Clyde in the attic wasn’t evil. So when they took Clyde’s personality and put it in another body there isn’t any reason why that personality couldn’t have been as equally horrified by what was going down as the real Clyde.
By the way, Does anyone besides me think it’s weird that members of Rossum Corporation’s Board of Directors actually go out into the field and do dirty work? I’ve been thinking this for a while now. In my experience board members show up at board meetings and collect their checks. They don’t do anything. Occasionally when they oust a CEO one of them takes over temporarily, but mostly they just collect their director’s fee and wait for the dividends to roll in. The actual work is done by officers. This had crossed my mind before but until we found out that no one knew what the co-founder looked like I hadn’t really focused on just how strange the whole structure of Rossum Corporation was.
Hurray, Amy Acker was back in this episode as Dr. Saunders. And blew away Summer Glau. Now THAT was unexpected. But unexpected in a normal Joss Whedon kind of way. The way that makes me sit up and say wow! Didn’t expect that!
So was that part of the plan? Whiskey has been hanging out with Boyd all these weeks so maybe she’s in on it. And if she’s in on it maybe that explains why Alpha slashed her. Or maybe that explains why she never got surgery to remove her scars and stayed “inside” as the doctor. On the other hand, I like the idea that she isn’t in on it and just hates Topher so much that she wanted to take something he loved away from him and the opportunity just presented itself.
All of this made Epitaph One even more confusing.
With those two big unexpected events, the rest of the episode is mushy in my mind. I liked the flashbacks. I like that they explained Caroline and Bennet’s relationship. I liked Caroline better than ever before but that may be because I didn’t see much difference between Caroline and the new Echo – except the new Echo has superpowers.
I’m always happy to see Reed Diamond.
Olivia Williams was particularly good this episode and whoever did her makeup did a great job of moving her through time periods and making her look younger at points. She plays ambiguity so well.
But … Boyd? I’m still thinking about that one.
I have to hand it to Joss, this Boyd plot turn will be a great way to sell DVD’s. All the Joss Whedon fans pouring through episodes looking for clues in earlier episodes …
Truthfully, I have a cold and I think watching this episode with lack of oxygen to the brain makes the whole thing even more mushy than it should be. So I’m going to shut up now and just think about it . And maybe I’ll watch it again when my head is clearer.
