Dollhouse – Omega
Meh. It wasn’t a bad episode, but for all the times over the course of the season when I said to myself “sure, this isn’t a resolution yet, but presumably they’re building to something” the finale was a bit of a let-down. A number of things remain unresolved, and quite a few more have been tied up, but in some of the least interesting or satisfying ways possible.
Things I liked:
* I loved the idea that what motivates Alpha is a desire to destroy the past. And that the crucial difference between him and Echo is that she is not similarly motivated.
* The Whiskey/Dr. Saunders stuff was good. I definitely wasn’t surprised to find out that she was a ‘former’ doll (though I wasn’t confident enough in that prediction to actually write it down here), but the way the scenes played out still gave it some major emotional resonance. And it’s one of the few instances where what happened in this episode forced you to go back and really try and see earlier scenes from a new perspective.
* I thought the Topher/Dr. Saunders stuff was well done, too. I’m still of two minds about Topher the character, but I think Fran Kranz is selling him for me. I see ambiguities there in ways that don’t really show up for me in some of the more ‘significant’ characters. I’m not sure I *like* him, but I’m definitely curious to see what’s underneath.
* I loved the way “who are you” was a major theme of this episode. It calls to mind one of my favorite bits from Babylon-5 of course. Especially since the competing questions in that show are “who are you?” and “what do you want?” – and the Dollhouse is about nothing OTHER than “what do you want?”
* I thought the concept of ‘having many personalities as opposed to multiple personalities’ was explored in a somewhat interesting fashion. By which I mean: I was not enthusiastic about what they DID with it (see below), but the background concept and some of the intial forays into the mind(s) of Alpha/Echo were intriguing. I’ve been reading a lot of Nietzsche for class lately, and I think the ham-handed references in the episode, while blundering in one sense (see below) actually do point to a deeper convergence. Alpha is not ‘the ubermensch’ in the sense that such a being would literally exist as the embodiment of the next step of evolution. But he does signify the possibility that if we could really, truly understand the fact of perspectives it would radically change our entire concept of the world.
They didn’t go in this direction, preferring to default to the painfully boring conclusion that Alpha was just always a psychopath, but I think the thing that is truly interesting about Alpha is the notion that he can no longer lend any credence to the mythic lives that we live in our day-to-day existence. Truth for him is a composite. It is nothing at all because he alone of all people contains within himself the incommensurable, unbridgeable gap between perceptions.
If we grasp for God out of a fundamental nihilism – a feeling of existential despair at the possibility that there is no meaning other than our own – then what does Alpha grasp for? He knows that there is nothing more than perspective, and further realizes that there is no escape from that abyss. I think it would be interesting to explore that. What happens when you finally and completely encounter the possibility that there is no purpose, but only necessity?
Sadly, they don’t really get into it. Which brings me to my complaints:
* So Alpha is just a psychopath? That’s it? The reason for his orchestration of all this stuff over the season is…wait for it…he thinks Echo is pretty? The build-up had me imagining a character that would give some depth to the gray areas of the show. Instead we got a stock megalomaniac who is obsessed over some girl. Lame.
* The ‘composite event’ was just a computer glitch? So if that hadn’t happened, Alpha would just be up in the attic and everything would be rolling on merrily? Meh.
* “Especially not now that we have a black president” is the most embarrassing line I’ve ever heard in a Joss show. It still makes me cringe thinking about it.
* The chase/fight at the power plant was silly. The Alpha/Echo fight was somewhat exciting but once the boys showed up it felt like a bad 80s cop show.
* How were they not able to QUICKLY figure out the details of the pre-Alpha personality? They had to literally go find the woman to see that her face had been cut? They don’t have access to a database?
* I am incredibly frustrated with the Ballard plotline. He gets to ‘save’ Caroline by catching her tape? He decides to work for the Dollhouse? He doesn’t come face to face with any of the darkness they implied over the rest of the season? He just reverts to form, as if all that stuff didn’t happen. As Maia puts it:
I would have been Ok if Ballard’s arc for this episode had been that he came to realise that actives were people, and his attitude towards Caroline was everything Joel Myner had said it was, and this led to his changed his attitude towards Mellie. It’s not where I would have gone with the character, but I wouldn’t have minded if they’d done it. But instead they just ended on him choosing Mellie, as a twist. In Haunted and Briar Rose, the character had gone to a dark place, but a necessary and inevitable dark place. But rather than develop that they just ignored it. It was a cheesy catch, a hand-shake with Madeline (sorry about that time I knew I was raping you) and that’s it.
* Why does Echo go back to the Dollhouse? “I signed a contract” is beyond silly. She has her tape and the machine that Alpha built. Why doesn’t she just go put herself back in her body and make her merry way? If there is an answer to this, surely they could at least suggest what it might be.
* The final scene was bad. Her whispering “Caroline” as she goes down to sleep is classic stupid-TV manipulation. Not to mention that it’s basically identical to the way they’ve closed 3 or 4 others episodes.
* I am not convinced by their treatment of the concept of ‘souls’ and the broader question of embodiment. I appreciate the idea that there is something embedded in a person that is not simply their mind. I would find the premise of the show to be pretty uninteresting if they stuck with the party line that it’s literally all just a disembodied mind that is written onto a disk and can be stuck willy-nilly into any body.
But…I want them to do something with this. Based on this episode, it almost seems like the conclusion we’re supposed to draw is the totally facile explanation that there’s a ‘soul’ which is inexplicable, ineffable, and which endures in some sort of eternal way. Which is not intriguing in the least, or different from any of the millions of other takes on this question. Maybe that’s not where they are going (well, where they would go in a non-cancelled world), but it seems like that’s what’s implied.
Concluding thoughts: I like the show, and it’ll be a shame when it gets canceled. But in a lot of ways it was a bit of a mess. And I’m not convinced they really know how to resolve any of the questions they’re asking.
Let me rephrase. I don’t even necessarily want resolution. I’m perfectly happy with ambiguity if it’s a constructed and meaningful ambiguity. That’s what they seemed to be cultivating at times, and it’s the reason why I wanted the show to succeed. But in the end the ambiguity mostly fell to either side. On the one hand, they offered simplistic answers (there is a soul, he was always crazy, etc.) which resolved the question but not in manner that gave the questions any weight. On the other hand, they turned ambiguity into vagueness and confusion.
What I really wanted was heavy questions that left me troubled. Questions that suggested a burden worth bearing. What I got were light answers to light questions. Not always. And not completely. But too often for me to consider this show a success on its own terms. It aimed at things and could not follow through.
I’ll still be sad when it gets canceled. I think it has a lot of potential, and even with the letdowns, I enjoyed watching it, and would have continued for a long time. If nothing else, it got me thinking in a way that few shows do. And you have to reward effort even if the execution doesn’t quite live up.