Television: Dollhouse Episode 1.5: True Believer

Sorry for the late update, weekends aren’t easy when you work retail. But alas, I have come bearing greatness in the form of the latest Dollhouse episode, True Believer. Lately the episodes of Dollhouse have been getting progressively better and this episode held true to that theory, for the most part.

Echo gets sent into a closed religious community as a pawn of the ATF after they discover a note that says “save me” that supposedly came from one of those on the inside. It doesn’t help that the leader, who prior to his epiphany from God, was a wanted felon. Fun stuff. Echo however, doesn’t know she’s being used. She has been imprinted to truly believe she had a prophetic dream that brought her to the community… and she’s blind. Eliza really shows her range her, which is such a big sigh of relief! She is fantastic, playing just the right amount of innocence and wisdom at the same time. I’m really beginning to believe in her as our leading lady.

On the flip side, the actual story seemed interesting at first, until we find out that the ATF guy was an ex-cop who has a vendetta against the ex-felon, and planted the note in the first place as an excuse to raid the place. And so ex-cop is just as vile and petty as the ex-felon, *yawn*, and then Echo’s handler Boyd saves the day. Go Boyd! He’s like the newer generation of a Watcher, and totally has a Giles-esque relationship to Echo. And he kicks major ass. There’s nothing to not like about this guy.

But this isn’t before Dominic, head security of the Dollhouse, tries to seemingly take out Echo by knocking her out and leaving her in a flaming house. Ok, they really need to fire that guy. All he ever does is moan about how Echo needs to be brought to the ominous “Attic”, where it seems they take those dolls who don’t want to be played with anymore. I think he’s working for Alpha.

Speaking of, when can we finally SEE this guy? Apparently the next episode is the one that “changes everything” as the over-dramatic preview announced, and I’m hoping there’s going to be more on Alpha, what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. And also, Patton Oswalt guest stars. Well that’ll be interesting.

Sidenote: Whedon apparently has 5 years of this show planned out. Why does this not surprise me?

Until next time… another week, another imprint.