Dollhouse – True Believer

While for me this episode did not continue the upward trend in quality, it was at least not a backslide from last week.  In other words, it was another good episode of the caliber I expected going into the show.

Echo’s assignment this week was one that really made sense for her to take on.  What I mean by that is that it was a job that could not have been done by someone who was not what she claimed to be:  in this case a blind “true believer” who had dreamed a message from God that led her to join a quasi-religious cult.  For the second week, we saw a reason for someone to pay the fees the Dollhouse collects in order to have an active who will be exactly what they need to be.

Echo–as “Esther”–is implanted with the latest technology for allowing the blind to see again, eye lenses.  Except that instead of routing the images to her brain, Topher routes them to recording devices so that her blind eyes are cameras for the ATF officers who believe the cult leader is involved in gun-running or human trafficking or something worse. 

Jonas Sparrow, as the cult leader calls himself, is an understandably paranoid man.  He is using an alias and has been convicted before, only to serve just 2 years in prison.  If Esther had not really been blind, he would have killed her.  And if she had not been in perfect ignorance of what her real purpose there was, she would probably have given herself away and been killed. 

Instead she is accepted as one of their own by the cult members, just in time for the hot-headed ATF agent in charge to swarm the compound on strength of what her eyes see in the first few hours:  an interrogation room full of illegal firearms.

Sparrow decides to go out in a blaze of glory and sets fire to the building where he and all his followers are hiding from the ATF.  When Sparrow’s casual slap to Esther’s face results in a “miracle” that restores her sight, Esther must choose if her purpose from God had been to go there to die…or to save Sparrow’s followers from his cruelty.

The larger Dollhouse plots are advanced by Agent Ballard catching a glimpse of Echo–his Caroline–in TV news footage from the compound showdown, and by our learning that at least one U.S. Senator knows of the Dollhouse (he is the one who comes to Adelle to place an active within the cult compound).  Laurence Dominic’s growing dislike and distrust of Echo becomes more pronounced and an actual plot point instead of texture.  He first speaks with Adelle about Echo’s condition, warning her that she is displaying the same signs Alpha did prior to his rampage.  Then he shows up at the compound like Esther’s savior from the fire, only to knock her on the head to “take care of the problem.” 

Boyd finds her and carries her out, Dominic admits to Adelle only that he had gone to offer support covering up anything that needed to be covered up.  At the end of the episode, the Tabla Rossa Echo hints that she might retain some lingering sense of what Dominic did when she remarks while looking at him, “I see everything.”

In all, a tense and interesting episode that has almost made a true believer out of me about this series.  Almost.  Two more episodes of this caliber, to swing the weight of numbers from less-than to realizing my expectations, and I’ll be officially hooked.