A Man. And His Blog.

Saving the world means dying while trying.

I never would have believed it, but this episode works much better as a series finale than the last episode. And I am glad that the writers didn’t even answer all the questions and finished the series with an open ending. On the other hand, this “Epitaph” part works a bit weaker than the first part. While “Epitaph One” was some sort of a “What if” scenario, where we saw an indefinite future of the series universe, the second part delivers us all the known characters (except Boyd, because he is already dead), bringing a more “usual” Dollhouse episode, instead of another “What if” scenario of an indefinite future in Dollhouse.
Which kinda means: We had Echo, we had Priya and Anthony, we had Paul, we had Adelle and Topher – characters we didn’t have in the first “Epitaph”. Instead the previous characters (Mag, Zone, that creepy kid) had to make a lot of space for the Dollhouse characters, just to bring the series universe to an end. To an open one…

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Who wants to shoot who? Everybody has a gun here...

Okay, this episode is supposed to be the small finale. After all, the story in the present timeline is going to be included, and as long as the producers didn’t choose to put a cliffhanger into this episode to prepare the upcoming future-episode and real finale of Dollhouse. Oh wait, they did that…
Anyway, I couldn’t really like this episode very much. My expectations were a bit too high, last episode’s twisted cliffhanger regarding Boyd was way too much and the writers didn’t know what to do with this revelation. And even though the episode was filled with series finale moments, the episode didn’t have much to offer, which could declare this episode as an outstanding one. For me it felt too much like a “in the midst of the season” episode, which was written to explain some stories, answer some questions and bring the story up and running – basically like “Phase One” from Alias. And the ending of the episode felt too rushed and I was wondering, where all the security guys of Rossum were, to stop Echo and friends. Or was it Boyd’s goal to let Echo destroy Rossum?

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Geek alarm! I am surprised that such glasses even existed.

This episode is literally the finale before the finale before the finale. This episode is the middle part of the finale of this timeline’s story, since we are going back to the future in “Epitaph Two: The Return”. And maybe I was expecting a bit too much from this episode, since I found myself underwhelmed after the 42 minutes. The episode had a few good moments, and a few bad ones, and sadly, I didn’t have much fun with the episode, since I knew what was going to happen. I couldn’t stay away from the reviews, when the episode was airing on FOX and knew what was going on, what was going to happen and who killed who. I should try to stop that in the future with TV shows I don’t watch with the TV airing. Maybe my opinion about this episodes would have been a different one, when I wouldn’t know about the twists, kills and other stuff.
But the episode wasn’t bad. It was a good hour of television, leading to the small series finale. And I generally love finale-before-the-finale episodes.

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Paul Ballard: back from the dead, ready to kill

Talk about game-changing twists. Then talk about the typical Joss Whedon twists. I should have expected the final twist with Adelle’s real motives, even though we’ve already seen the good side of Adelle in “Epitaph One”, but I was still surprised about the ending. And it had a little goosebumps effect, which perfectly prepares the series finale. The war is in front of the door, Team Adelle knows how to bring down the Rossum Corporation, and all the soldiers are side by side again. With the exception of Caroline.
This episode felt like a prologue to the absolute series finale. Coincidentally, I’ve watched the prologue of 24′s series finale right before I watched “The Attic”, so I could draw some connections between the two shows, which is kinda cool somehow: finishing two anticipated TV shows at the same time. When I would still watch Lost, it would have been three shows.
Anyway, here is the very good episode, which is kinda overrated a bit in my opinion. While the story around the attic was great, some things weren’t really working for me.

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Somehow, those three 'soldiers' fighting against themselves, too.

Joss Whedon and his writing team knew that Dollhouse wouldn’t see the light of a third year. So why not ending all the storylines already during the second season finale and beginning the big conspiracy story involving Rossum, the L.A. Dollhouse and finally Echo/Caroline? The fifth to last episode brought some more speed into the Rossum storyline, though it looked like a stand-alone episode with Victor being kidnapped and trying to fight his way out again. But luckily the writers thought about it all the way and soon gave us supersoldiers (The X Files… anyone?), the Rossum Corporation building their own army of ex Dollhouse actives and lots of other possible conspiracy storylines with the efforts to bring some character moments into these storylines. Though they didn’t really work here.

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It's a nice view from the rooftop. Don't even think about the bomb.

The story flows. Joss Whedon and his writing crew must have thought that Dollhouse wouldn’t live to see a third year. Suddenly, the procedural genre dies with this episode, as well as all the parts with it (and this even literally), and the series takes on new paths and stories, as expected and prepared during the last few episodes. And I couldn’t be more happier.
On the other hand, I am happy that Dollhouse didn’t see more than 26 episodes (plus the unaired pilot). The show is getting tired in some way, and I still don’t get over the fact that Eliza Dushku is still the main attraction of the show, instead of the whole Dollhouse with all the characters (in this episode perfectly shown with the less amounts of screentime for both Sierra and Victor). At least the writers managed to push the stories to the edge and deliver some real good treats – after all, Dollhouse is still a Joss Whedon show, and when he has the chance to properly finish off his TV shows, he takes every opportunity for shockers, mindblowing twists and some deaths. And this episode basically marks the beginning with the “death” of one of the main characters.

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There's proof: TV characters can kill their real screenwriters!

I kinda see this episode as the one, which connects the first season half (getting into the main plot of the series, giving up the engagements of the week, giving not only Echo screentime, focusing on more than just the Dollhouse) with the second one. Echo has control over her previous imprints now, Ballard got back to his former mission of bringing down the Dollhouse, and inside the building, there are some manipulating games about power. It couldn’t be more interesting at this point of the series – I just wished that the writers would have never intended to tell the story from the eyes of Eliza Dushku’s character. The series would have been way better with a non-Echo centric story. But I believe I already said that once.
Anyway, it still was a good episode with a sometimes ridiculous main plot and a way more interesting side plot. And kudos to the writers finally developing Topher to a much-needed character. I needed that.

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Adelle has her left hand somewhere, which brings Ray Wise to ... cum?!?

I was a bit surprised that “The Public Eye” and this episode practically build a two-parter, so that you have a little Dollhouse TV movie in the middle of the season, basically separated from the four merely stand-alone episodes, and possibly preparing the rest of the season. And I kinda liked this episode, like I liked the previous ones, but I am still a bit lost in this whole Rossum deal. For me, there is too much talk and story about Rossum, even though we didn’t really see much from the Corporation so far. Only one character, but the respective scene was lame. And now the writers want me to believe that a never-seen-before Corporation wants to do … yeah, what exactly?
Not that the episode was bad, but when it wants to prepare all the stories for the upcoming episodes, then it has to do it more properly and not just with 75 % of power.

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Fortunately, Tiger Woods' wife didn't see that episode...

The Rossum Corporation is back. Or to be precise: They finally arrived in the story for the first time, not counting “Epitaph One”, which only had Rossum in the background of all the stories. But since we know that the Rossum Corporation will be the big bad of Echo and the other dolls, we finally have something of a beginning story arc here.
In addition, the episode gives us another new character, performed by one of the hottest science-fiction chicks, since robots were said to destroy and rule the world, and the return of another one, which I didn’t really like.
So, it is time for the season story arc to begin and shine – I just didn’t see much I liked in this episode, which made it a bit … blah and “I don’t care.”

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Priya and Topher have a few issues to resolve.

This episode showed with how less money the producers had to deal. First the writers didn’t include Tahmoh Penikett in this episode to save some money, and then the producers decided to hire Jonathan Frakes to direct this episode – how much did he cost?
Anyway, “Belonging” was a good Dollhouse episode, which brought us less Echo, but much Topher, and even much more Sierra. Finally the series deserves its title and finally the writers included a bit more than just Echo into an episode. If just the first season of the series would have been so good. After all, Dollhouse develops more to a psychological thriller about manipulated minds, deceptions and stuff and says goodbye to the sci-fi genre it had during the first few episodes. Which is good, but it came much too late…

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