Instinct

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which the hand that rock the cradle is the hand that breaks Topher's nose.

What Happened

Ballard and Topher have a confab about Echo's latest assignment, all "It'll blow your mind, man" about whatever mental switch Topher has flipped this week. For all that build up, the answer is that Topher has prompted Echo to start lactating so that she can pretend to be some guys wife and nurse said guy's newborn son.

Unfortunately, would-be husband Nate is acting kind of weird around Echo, prompting her to decide that he's having an affair. When she goes through his stuff and finds all the pictures he kept of another woman, he calls the Dollhouse and wants to call the whole thing off. Believing that she and the baby are in danger, Echo takes the kid and runs. Suddenly, Nate is all concerned for his child - which he apparently was having trouble with after his wife died in childbirth.

Ballard retrieves Echo and brings her back to the Dollhouse in full freak-out mode. While Topher tries to wipe Echo, Ballard has an uncomfortable exchange with Madeline ("Mellie"), who is there for a check-up. She explains why she came to the Dollhouse: her daughter died and she was horribly depressed until Adelle offered a chance to forget her pain for a few years. Ballard tries to reconcile Madeline's calm acceptance of what she did with Echo's trauma.

Echo wakes up from her treatment, knocks Topher out, escapes the Dollhouse (seemingly without anyone noticing), and goes looking for Nate. As Ballard and the others take waaay too track her down, Echo menaces Nate over his attempt to separate her from "her" baby. He finally explains what is going on and Echo relents and hands the baby back to his father without bloodshed.

Afterwards, Ballard finds Echo and offers to have Topher truly wipe away her memories of motherhood, but Echo refuses.

What We Learned

• Leave the tech to the grown-ups.
• The human mind is like Van Halen. If you just pull out one piece and keep replacing it, it degenerates.
• Adelle doesn't take no for an answer.
• Nobody took anybody's baby.

What Did I Think?

I must admit to be a little underwhelmed by this one. I can see them moving the pieces around, but damn are they taking their own sweet time getting things into place.

In between all this, Senator Whatshisname gets more information on the Dollhouse, but that storyline is just irritating the crap out of me. Partly because Alexis Denisof needs to stop pitching his American accent through his nose. And partly because there is so far no real emotional connection between the him and the Dollhouse. If he's going to just flutter around the edges, he's going to have to get more interesting. Quickly.