I Needed You – Purplespace
I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer – The Cardigans
Dollhouse – Needs
I missed reviewing the previous two episodes of Dollhouse, which is unfortunate because they were the only two so far that really deserved a lot of attention. Compared to what came before, they were better, more interesting, and suggestive that this thing might actually be going somewhere. The Man on the Street was legitimately great, answering a few questions but asking many more, finally putting Echo and Paul face to face, turning Mellie into a real person instead of a simpering, lovesick fool, and then turning Mellie into a doll. Even more, it started to pose some of the meta-questions about the Dollhouse in more sophisticated terms than the paint-by-numbers of the first few episodes.
Echoes wasn’t nearly as good, but I still thought it had a lot to offer. The premise was silly and felt forced, but there were quite a few very good moments.
For more thoughts on those episodes check out the links, because Hazel pretty much says what I thought about them.
As for this week…I’m of two minds. I think it was the best episode apart from “Man on the Street” and yet there are parts of it which feel quite unsatisfying. Particularly the ending, which implies that all of the ‘progress’ so far has been wiped away.
That said, I think this episode was very good as an example of how the desire to tell pessimistic stories can be achieved in good ways. Rather than simply killing off the most relatable characters (Tara, Wash, etc.) Joss seems to have trying out new method: burying the people we most want to know beneath the weight of the Dollhouse.
The very best thing about this episode, in my mind, is just how real the “true” personalities of the Actives felt. Now that we’ve gotten to know them in their doll forms, it was shocking – and enlightening – to see the part that’s been trying to escape.
And I think that they’ve started to do some fascinating things with the relationship between those emerging cracks and the heaviness of the Dollhouse’s influence.
It’s not a coincidence that the characters I most care about on the show are Echo, Caroline, Victor, and Mellie. Or rather, the characters I most care about are the amalgamations of those people and their real selves. Most of the non-doll characters have elements that are enjoyable but are also deeply troubling in a variety of ways.
Along those lines, this episode was also very good because of the way it played with the larger question of the morality of the Dollhouse. Things that we take for granted as an audience (even an audience attuned to the potential questions that ought to be asked) are thrown into sharp relief when the dolls are suddenly restored to consciousness. Their immediate sense that something is badly wrong – and the absolute shock and horror they feel as the truth unfolds – serves as a powerful reminder that the Dollhouse is not a Nice Place.
For me at least, I found some strange emotions. Even as the events of the episode were helping to solidify just how horrific the entire premise really is, I strangely found myself rooting for the Dollhouse. Or if not rooting for, at least worried about them. Topher sucks and if he got his mind wiped it would be nothing more than what he deserves. And yet, I didn’t want anything significant to happen. I was hoping that it would all work out with no major trouble and all the dolls would be returned.
Because I don’t want a single moment of revolutionary violence to destroy the Dollhouse. I want all the complications and intricacies to be given the chance to unwind. I want to hear the justifications. I want to know if Alpha was right to go on a rampage. I want to see it all happen.
But at the same time, there’s this awful kernel which says: you’re asking for these people to be restored to an unthinking slavery. And even though it’s not real, the voyeuristic element is troubling.
And then there’s the story that the Actives have voluntarily joined up in order to shield themselves from troubling memories. I don’t buy it, precisely, but I do think it’s interesting if nothing else as an example of how people will try to justify the terrible things they do to others. The coercion involved in the recruitment is obvious (it was clearly shown in the previous episode and it’s made pretty clear this time that Sierra was placed in there by a rich sexual harasser). Still, there’s something there in the idea. Surely some people *would* voluntarily join up.
Some would do it for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reasons (which invites another fascinating parallel between how that movie made this technology seem quirky while Dollhouse turns it into something shocking and horrible), while others would simply like the idea of an existence filled with happiness and no memory. What else is it but a dream of perfect immanence: an endless and eternal now, with none of the concerns posed by the possibility of duration.
And yet, that very idea is deeply deeply troubling to our basic notion of humanity. Our Enlightenment attitudes declare human to be precisely that which wills continuously. Does our society have a way for accounting humanity other than to resolve it through a consciousness which endures and connects the fleeting perceptions of a particular moment into an imagined history? What else could we possibly mean by justice or peace or happiness except that these are things possessed by a Self that is capable of understanding and appreciating them?
Is that why the concept of the Dollhouse is so troubling when you start to unpack what it entails? Is it because it represents something that appeals to a part of us that we don’t normally like to acknowledge? Not just in what it offers to its clients (willing slaves), but also because of what it offers to its employees (life without memory)?