elements

I ended up writing a long-assed comment riffing off of ideas in treewishes's post about this ep, so go read hers so this will make sense, though I've quoted a few key points inline.



Tree said: Victor has been slashed so dramatically that (a) he can't be returned to RL once his contract is up (assuming they ever really release people) and (2) could mean he needs a face transplant. Because we are all just cells in a bag, ya know. But in this case, it could mean another actor in the role.

They'd better not lose the actor playing Victor; he's pretty darn amazing. I see no reason not to keep him, with slashes; but it may also mean he ends up being forced into an "inside the house" role; he's unlikely to be sent on Miss Lonelyhearts style gigs again. He could also be used in security stuff - scars on a guy could signal stereotypical hardassed toughness outside the house, which could suit some imprints.

In a comment to Tree, lucitania mentioned what I take is an emerging fan theory that when Dominic said "whiskey" to Saunders he didn't mean "give me a shot of whiskey instead of a shot of sedatives" but "Whiskey," aka her Doll callsign.

I've been assuming for a while that Saunders is a Doll; makes sense that's what Dominic meant. I hope that's not the last we see of him. One question is whether Saunders is capable of realizing it. I think she's probably been in the Saunders imprint for some time, perhaps well before Alpha - though it's interesting that Alpha tests her memory by asking when she met him. Why would Whiskey have been created before Alpha? Working backwards through the alphabet? Clearly Alpha is trying to figure out how much Saunders knows about her own past. From his reaction I doubt that what she remembers is actually when they first met. It may not even have been when he was first wiped, either.

Tree said: My biggest suspicion is that Echo set Alpha up from the beginning -- that Echo somehow programmed him to get out and set stuff up, and then to get back in and reprogram her. Perhaps something Caroline set up before she even went into the Dollhouse. Because that was just very, very slick, wasn't it?

Why would Caroline program Alpha to rescue someone who isn't Caroline? Or has she, perhaps, created a program of a "better" Caroline, one who doesn't have the traumatic memories etc. that caused her to accept becoming a Doll in the first place?

This also brings up something they've so far glossed but has to be significant: When Adelle first meets Caroline, it's right after Caroline & her boyfriend break into the Rossum building on campus in fairly innocent, naive, animal-rights activist pursuits (not that activism is naive, but that they were). But in the first episode, we see Adelle telling Caroline that they've been going back and forth for two years. So something was up between the defeated Caroline Adelle meets in the hospital, the Caroline who's just seen her ambitious plan get her boyfriend killed, and the defiant Caroline in the opening scenes of the series that seem to depict her signing herself over into Dollhood. So what happened in the intervening two years?

I of course also love how Ballard finds the excuse of November's remote kill switch convenient for not rescuing her - how does he know Caroline doesn't have one too? It's pretty clear that Alpha intentionally created the degree of fixation Ballard has for Caroline specifically, in what he chose to reveal, sending pictures etc. When Ballard learns how he was played, will he realize the extent to which he's been played to believe Caroline is special?

Tree said: Also in retrospect, the break-in seemed a bit too easy, but there was this moment in the ventilation shaft where Alpha followed Paul even though - up until that moment, he should have just hung back - that I had a tiny twinge that something was wrong.

I initially assumed Tudyk was Alpha and that he was similarly being manipulated remotely - ie that he was crazy scientist guy by day, triggered unknowingly into Alpha at night kind of deal. So I figured he didn't know he was Alpha, and then when he revealed himself, that he'd been switched on by something on the computer as he was messing with it. That's maybe still possible, but I prefer the "Alpha is just a good actor" version of events. I LOVE how Alpha played not only the Dollhouse, but Ballard as well. It was a bit of a tell when he followed Ballard - the "carrots" threat shouldn't have been enough when jailtime for pot would be infinitely preferable to The Attic. I'm thinking Alpha got his layout knowledge by torturing the scientist, not by downloading him, though who knows.