Dollhouse - “Ghost”

The first episode of Fox’s eagerly-anticipated ‘Dollhouse‘ opens with Echo (Eliza Dushku) looking a tad cagey inside a very corporate-looking conference room. She’s being lectured by the slick-suited, smooth-talking Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams), who is speaking in lawyer-ish terms. (Oh, and Adelle is referring to Eliza as “Caroline.” Not “Echo.” Not yet.) Adelle is talking about a clean slate for Caroline, and adds that after five years, Caroline’s “obligation” will be fulfilled. Caroline isn’t buying it. One, she doesn’t think slates get clean, because……have you ever tried to wipe a chalkboard clean before? There’s residue and stuff. The second point she would like to make: it’s not fair! She was just trying to make a difference, make her mark in the world. Adelle says actions have consequences

Ah, but Adelle posits another possibility: what if your actions didn’t have consequences?

Sing it, Adelle! Begin the ballad of this whole twisted Joss Whedon adventure we’re embarking upon!

Cut to two speed racers on bikes, tearing down a city street at warp speed. One takes a turn too sharply, falls off the bike, and then courteously whips off her helmet, so we can see who it is. (Plus, it seems as good a time as any to throw in a Charlie’s Angels hair flip.) It’s Caroline! Only…..something tells me she’s “Echo” now. Echo takes off after the other racer. Their grudge match concludes in a hotel convention room – literally, as their bikes tear through the hotel lobby en route, just to show they are reckless, balls-to-the-wall daredevils, with utter disregard for the well-being of bell boys everywhere! At the finish line, a birthday party for “Matt” is taking place, or so claims the banner overhead. The speed racer reenactment wasn’t a pursuit so much as a friendly race, it turns out. Echo accuses her competitor of cheating. He’s quite good-looking. This must be “Matt.”

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Matt and Echo party. Her dress is criminally short. They finish gyrating in suggestive fashion and exit the dance floor. He knows they said “no strings” in the beginning, but the boy can’t help it…..he’s giving her a necklace with a little heart-shaped pendant on it. And technically, that’s not a string so much as a chain. They smooch. He goes to grab a drink.

She’s smiling and floating as only a girl who’s been given a heart-shaped necklace by a no-strings guy can. Then her facial expression goes blank. Paris Hilton blank. She walks outside and climbs into a van. The man riding shotgun in the front seat asks Echo if she had a nice time. He also mentions something about a “treatment.”

Back at the party, a friend of Matt’s asks where his cute, motorcycle-demolishing, criminally-short-dress-wearing “friend” went. Matt murmurs something about Cinderella having to catch her coach before it went all pumpkin-like

Echo arrives at a place where another hot babe – this one a geisha – is walking out of a building and being loaded into a similar van as Echo is walking in. Could this be the Dollhouse? Or Charlie Sheen’s place? No, there are no cops around to bust up the party……it’s definitely the Dollhouse. Echo asks her chaperone if he could take her back to the party after her treatment. His response is of course noncommittal and vaguely ominous. As she walks in, he ponders. This man is Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix). Echo’s “handler.” “Pimp” is too harsh a word, really

Inside, Echo is changing outfits and chattering away about whether she should or shouldn’t return to the party. It’s a complicated “Play hard to get, or do the mysterious and elusive thing?” internal debate, only Echo forgot to hit the mute button. A woman in a white lab coat helps Echo with her wardrobe. Echo continues to yap away about Matt, oblivious to the computer geek who is manning a bunch of high tech monitors in the room, and proceeds to make herself comfy in a souped-up dental chair as she continues with her girlie ruminations. Yap yap yap, “he’s cute,” yap yap yap, “I’ve found something real,” yap yap yap.

This resident I.T. whiz, Topher Brink (Fran Kranz), tells Echo that this treatment may “sting” a bit. He then juices her up with some seriously high voltage. Her memories flash before her – but not just from that evening – from the three no-strings attached days of a long weekend with Matt, and then, still farther back ….to a childhood home………

Topher greets our post-treatment doll with a chipper “Hello!” Echo looks a little flummoxed. Did she fall asleep, she wonders? She wanders off. Clean slate? More like blank check. One that obviously is gonna be cashed again.

Topher gingerly handles a disk and carries it to the next room, where Boyd is waiting. Boyd remarks that Echo might have met the right guy. Although given Echo’s current condition, had she still been in the room, her response might well have been, “Matt who?” Topher is more practical than romantic. He points out that they gave two people a perfect weekend, which is totally humanitarian of them. Ah, but these humanitarians would spend the rest of their lives in jail if “this place” was ever discovered, Boyd points out. Which isn’t taking the spring out of Topher’s step in the least. “She’s living the dream,” he says. “Whose dream?” asks Boyd. Topher responds with, “Who’s next?”

Cut to a cute little girl talking to her dad on the phone. Dad is being squired around in a limo. He’s telling his daughter to do her homework, not watch crappy reality television. His car stops – there’s a roadblock ahead, and a cop raps on his window. He ends the call. Back home, his daughter lays down upon her bed to ponder parental despotism, when suddenly two masked black-clad baddies pounce on her and stuff her inside a bag.

Her dad – a gentleman by the name of Gabriel Crestejo - is now sitting in an office with Adelle. Adelle asks how much they want. Five million, he says. In the manner of an important man who has five million to spare, he does not stutter. Kidnapping’s a thriving business in Mexico, he explains, which is why he moved his family here to the States. The kidnappers said no cops. He doesn’t want Rambo, either. He needs a negotiator. Adelle says, “Our actives aren’t robots, but…..” (“……they kind of are, anyway” is implied.)

Only, he mustn’t tell the active operatives where they come from, Adelle adds. That’ll only confuse them.

Back at the swank Dollhouse, the actives are being tortured with hot stones! No, wait…..that’s a hot stone massage underway. Indeed, heinous acts of massage and yoga are being committed upon the operatives! They are all but forced to lounge around on fluffy cushions and drink calming tea. This is one rough plea bargain! Surely they would be cursing their fates, if they weren’t so relaxed……

Within this context, Echo is having a medical checkup, and in particular, having her leg tended to – it’s bruised, only she can’t remember how that happened. Weird. The lady doctor tending to her is Fred from Angel! I mean, Amy Acker. I mean, “Dr. Claire Saunders.” Doc Saunders looks like she’s been in a bar fight or two, if the scars on her face are any indication. “We’ll look after you,” she assures Echo. “Does someone look after you?” Echo asks, with a keen interest in those scars. Doc promises to set up a massage for Echo and have that knee feeling right as rain again. She asks Echo to wait in the massage area.

Only Echo notices some weird flashing lights upstairs. She goes upstairs to investigate further and stumbles across another doll named Sierra (Dichen Lachman), who is in the process of getting wiped. Wait a minute – this treatment doesn’t look especially spa-y! “It’s her first time,” Topher explains, lamely. But pretty soon Echo will have a new friend to play with, and won’t that be fun?

Doctor Saunders is lurking in the doorway, unseen. Hmmm……it’s almost as if she wanted Echo to stumble into some high-voltage-imparted enlightenment. Topher is annoyed that Echo got an eyeball-full. Doc Saunders pauses for another beat or two before materializing and telling Echo that it’s time for her massage.

We next meet handsome federal agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) at headquarters. He’s also getting treatment. The “You’re an impertinent upstart with authority issues” treatment, as delivered by his superiors. They are talking about all the upstart-y run-ins with authority he’s had. They think the Dollhouse is a myth. Besides, why would a billionaire would go to illegal lengths to rent the perfect date when he can afford a good old-fashioned whore? Stop pissing off powerful public figures without any evidence, they instruct! And stay away from the Bordains! And fairytales!

Echo is being led to the chair again.

Adelle is briefing Boyd on the kidnapping of Davina Cristejo. Echo’s next assignment is to “facilitate the exchange” between the kidnappers, and her irate, wealthy, important father. Boyd asks, “So who does she think she is?”

Eleanor Penn, hostage negotiator extraordinaire! Echo/Eleanor visits the house of Gabriel Crestejo. Echo looks authoritative in her spectacles and business suit……in a “hot secretary from a porn vignette” sort of way. Crestejo doesn’t think a hot babe is right for the job. Gorgeous women make people uncomfortable, he points out. A calm, fatherly type would have been more effective. “They came into your house in order to prove they could,” Echo retorts. Things are waaaaaaay past uncomfortable, hombre! She’s speaking Spanish now and talking tough.

Boyd is looking on nearby. The glasses Echo is wearing aren’t a prop – she’s actually been imprinted with near-sightedness. Which should come in handy when it’s time to spot those kidnappers! Wait, uh……why is she near-sighted? Topher explains that the personality imprints are modeled after real people. It’s not a cut and paste thing, for pete’s sake! The file also says Eleanor Penn has asthma – what are ya gonna do?

Echo talks to the kidnapper on the phone with Señor Crestejo listening in. She offers to pay the kidnapper eight million large ones when they merely asked for five. This shows she means business! Gulp. Crestejo doesn’t like the way she does business! Echo instructs the kidnappers to call back and let Davina speak to her father.

Elsewhere, Agent Ballard sits in a bar, watching some dude. Singe we’ve already established that Ballard is an impertinent upstart rogue with authority issues, something tells me he’s now up to something that is impertinent and rogue-like and won’t be going over particularly well with the authorities.

The young kidnap victim, Davina, is put on the phone with her dad. She’s scared. Echo asks about the kidnappers. There’s one guy in a mask, Davina says. But she’s seen the faces of the others. They are arranging the pay and exchange. Echo stops the girl from revealing too much about her captors. Davina’s dad doesn’t get it, but Echo explains that Davina shouldn’t piss off the kidnappers. They get off the phone.

Señor Crestejo says Echo needs to convince him she knows what she’s doing, what with her having just cost him an extra three mill or so. He asks, “Did something awful happen to you?” “Yes,” she says. Was she kidnapped herself? Echo falters in telling Eleanor’s story. He prods her about the Dollhouse. Maybe they put bad memories in your head, he suggests. She has a flashback to Sierra on the table. She stumbles.

Back at the bar, Ballard’s target is a playa’, y’all. He’s in a club making sure the babes at his table are being plied with only the finest liquor. He goes to the men’s room. He finds a gun pointed at his head, courtesy of Ballard. Ballard wants to know about the Dollhouse – and which of this guy’s clients might be in the doll-stocking business? “You wanna mess with the Bordains?” the guy asks. No – he just wants to know about the Dollhouse. And, OK, he probably does wanna mess with the Bordains a bit, judging by the look of things.

Echo and Crestejo are preparing to meet the kidnappers at the docks. The bad guys materialize. Only Echo starts freaking out when she sees one of the henchmen. Alas, her imprinted personality, Eleanor, has that asthma condition, which throws a wheezy wrench into the proceedings when Echo falls to the ground. She tells Crestejo not to let the kidnappers get on the boat with the money - they have no intention of giving Davina back. Crestejo demands his daughter back immediately. One of the bad guys shoots him. Boyd shoots the shooter. The bad guys speed away on a boat with Davina and the ransom money. Boyd rushes to Echo’s side and promises treatment. She says, “You can’t fight a ghost!”

She’s freaking out and mumbling about how, “He doesn’t give them back,” and “He’s older now…..”. Boyd realizes this must be the same kidnapper who abducted Eleanor when she was a child. Doh! There’s some unexpected overlap.

Echo thinks back to what Davina said about the one kidnapper who wore a mask. This must be a person who was in her life prior to her abduction, she reasons. It’s the only thing to explain why the other kidnappers wouldn’t take a similar precaution. Either that, or they were so poor prior to receiving the ransom money that they could only afford one mask. But it’s probably the first reason.

Boyd reluctantly takes Echo back for treatment. He then barges in to speak with Adelle. He’s sure Echo can find Davina - if they don’t wipe her. He blames them for giving Echo an imprint from an abused girl. Adelle says Echo botched the job, and there are no do-overs. Only she’s too classy to use a word like “do-over,” but that’s the gist of her stance. Besides, they don’t have a client anymore – he got shot. Boyd says they still have a mission. Adelle prefers to call them “engagements.” Because she’s a cold-hearted corporate creep.

But…..

Boyd’s logic prevails. Echo and Boyd discuss the case. Echo remembers something strange the kidnapper said to her. “Oh, you’re the schoolteacher now?” She tells Boyd to go through Davina’s regular routine and figure out if any caretakers or trusted employees are missing from it. Especially schoolteacher types.

Meanwhile, they’re gonna jump into a helicopter and cruise the general area where the pay drop went wrong, looking for signs of the bad guys. Dominic (Reed Diamond) – one of Adelle’s henchmen - tells Boyd he’s not coming along for the ride on this one.

Echo and Dominic are out for a joyride until Boyd radios them and explains that a male schoolteacher of Davina’s has been out sick for the past 12 days. Even more interesting, this guy’s sister owns a house in a conveniently isolated area. They decide it couldn’t hurt to drop Echo down in a field near the house in question and let her go rogue in its general vicinity.

Topher and Boyd are back at the Dollhouse, killing time. Topher looked into the background of the real Eleanor Penn. She killed herself. Seems someone at the Dollhouse needs to be a bit more thorough with the background checks.

Echo approaches the house in the middle of nowhere. She knocks on the door, which interrupts the kidnappers, who are counting their big pile of money. The schoolteacher pulls the mask back over his face. Echo announces herself, and says she’s alone. They pull her inside. She calls the masked schoolteacher by his real name and says he left a trail – and if only that was his biggest problem……but it’s not. She looks at the big mean henchman whose ugly mug caused her to go all twitchy when the ransom exchange was going down the first time around. She knows him all too well. And she informs the other two kidnappers that this bad hombre is gonna kill them and take all the money. Because that’s his thing.

The kidnappers insist Davina isn’t here. Echo begs to differ. She’s pretty sure Davina is in the fridge – because that is another aspect of Bad Hombre’s M.O..

OK, OK….they can’t outwit our Echo. But they swear they were going to reveal Davina’s location once they escaped. These kidnappers are pretty naïve, for kiddie-snatching criminals. Bad Hombre was going to kill them and abuse Davina - duh! He’s a psychopath like that. He always kills them afterward. Except for the one he dumped in the river once. The one who wasn’t actually dead. Don’t ask Echo how she knows this. It’s a touchy subject.

The other kidnapper shoots the big mean one. Echo finds Davina in the fridge – still alive. The remaining two kidnappers tell Echo to take Davina and get the hell out of there. Only, change of plan – Sierra comes busting into the room in a fit of Rambo pique and dusts the last two kidnappers. Davina? Check. Ransom money? Check. And we’ll soon learn that Señor Crestejo is on the mend. So, it all turned out just fine. Not for the kidnappers, but besides them.

Back at the Dollhouse, Echo gets wiped. Everybody wins, says Dominic! Whew – that was easy!

Adelle hates to break it to Dominic, but it just doesn’t work that way. Especially not in a Whedon show. She hands him a file labeled “Alpha.” Whatever – or whomever - Alpha is, it or he or she needs to be “contained,” according to Adelle.

Meanwhile, the Barbies are being led into their deluxe dreamhouse bedroom.

Elsewhere, a man watches some video footage of Echo, when she was just Caroline, a carefree college co-ed. Not far away lay two unidentified corpses, freshly plugged with bullets.

We are left with one last glimpse of Barbie, and Ken, and Skipper, and the rest of the gang, being put away for a restorative, memory-wiping, soul-obliterating, consciousness-sucking sleep. Sure, tequila would probably serve the same purpose…..only those high-tech coffins they’re being tucked inside of look much cooler.

Next week: the very intriguing-sounding Dangerous-Game-with-a-crossbow episode…..

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