Dollhouse

Epitaph Two: Return

POSTED BY: RocketJock
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 07:44
VIEWED: 10962
PAGE 2 of 3

CYBERSNARK

Saturday, January 30, 2010 11:06 PM

And Xander's best friend Ted was killed in the first or second episode, despite being in the credits (as deliberate misdirection, mind, but still).

Joss kills folk. S'what he does.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

RAHLMACLAREN

Saturday, January 30, 2010 11:12 PM

Jesse not Ted. Ted (John Ritter) was a robot from S2.

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Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

TRAVELER

Saturday, January 30, 2010 11:23 PM

A little confused by the first few minutes of this final episode, but I give Joss credit for putting together the last few episodes of all the material he most likely wanted to do over a span of years. I had a tear well up to.

Select to view spoiler:

Goodby Topher

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

NBZ

Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:03 AM

While I did like topher, killing him seemed stupid even for the finale - it was forced. Just add a timer and live.

GILLIANROSE

Sunday, January 31, 2010 6:16 PM

I would like to have seen more of Alpha's journey from the last time we saw him.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, January 31, 2010 6:20 PM

I've never liked Ballard, I thought his obsession with Echo made their relationship really weird when he became her handler. I felt like, when she was a Doll, he used her to fulfill his heroic fantasies. Save the girl, and the first episode, second season, take down some gun traffickers... When she started becoming a person proper, it started to move into real relationship territory, but it was tainted for me still by all of the stuff before.

So when I saw the relationship they'd apparently rekindled after Ballard having to be reconstructed, I was ambivalent. I was sad when Echo had her post Ballard breakdown, but I had trouble feeling anything at the moment when I saw Ballard die. Echo should have reacted THEN, and then maybe that would have resonated with me.

And the resolution to that also didn't really strike me as great. Yay, he's another personality in her head. I guess in a way she now gets to keep him alive, but he's still gone. The Ballard in her head is just an echo.

Topher's ending was really good though. This is the thing people have to realize, Joss has been setting up for Topher's sacrifice from the beginning. It's a mark of a true writer, to take the LEAST likeable character, and make them the most likeable character by the end. Who didn't think Topher was selfish and inhuman and sick at the beginning, winced at his truly awful morbid geekily awkward jokes? He was mad science gone very, very wrong. But there's more to people than first impressions, and I think we learned through the series that when he was doing his whole chair thing, he was thinking not about what he was sending them off to do THEN, but rather about how he had helped whatever problem their ORIGINAL persona had, who they would get back. And he learned what he was doing was wrong, and realized he'd made a huge mistake, tried to destroy the technology he made that would destroy the world, and when that didn't work, he made something to reverse it. Something to give back the personalities he had mistakenly taken. And, of course, for the Heroic Sacrifice of a tragic former villain (?), Redemption Equals Death.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicSacrifice
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedemptionEqualsDeath

Hell, I'd even say by the end there, Topher was making a good play at being the Jerkass Woobie... Though honestly, yeah, I kinda DON'T want to hug him. Who knows where he's been?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JerkassWoobie

Anyway, I liked this episode more than I liked most of the series, which is to say I think this should have been it's OWN series. I feel like Dollhouse could have been just Epitaph One and Two. Let the audience puzzle out what all has happened, maybe deal with who the characters were and their important development points in flashbacks.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, January 31, 2010 6:25 PM

GR: Yeah, wasn't he kind of a face-slashing psychopath? When did he discover empathy?

Maybe the imprint with Ballard's "unselfish love" for Echo made him into a real boy. *gag*

Now THERE'S an interesting continuation, Post Ballard Echo x the Alpha she no longer hates. Who also has Ballard in his head. Weird. slightly disturbing... self love?

But I bet someone could theoretically do that credit. I mean, there's plenty of stories where the heroine starts off hating the romantic interest.

GILLIANROSE

Sunday, January 31, 2010 7:01 PM

Yes, before he was wiped wasn't he in prison for slashing people's faces? So when he leaves and Topher's reset bomb reinstates his original persona, he's back to where he was. Echo is confident that he'll evolve again like he did before, but I feel sorry for the people who cross his path before that evolution starts kicking in. That was my understanding of why he left, so that he wouldn't be a danger to those around him?

I think Alan could have done a superb job with a redemption arc, given the chance.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, January 31, 2010 7:24 PM

I was confused by that whole thing, I didn't realize they were talking about sending him out. Why? I thought he didn't WANT his old personality back? Which considering he turned good might have been a sign even way back when that he was trying to turn his back on his face-slasher ways?

That's all a little too deep for me. ._.

Redemption arc: absolutely.

ASARIAN

Monday, February 1, 2010 2:34 AM

Well, I'll probably stand alone in this, but I think Dollhouse ended the way it has been all along (a few episodes notwithstanding): it sucked. By the time we got to Topher's amazing rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick, creating a wave that can undo all people's memory programming and/or wipes, I knew Joss had basically given up on even trying to end the show with dignity. My God man, that was so incredibly lame! It was actually kinda sad, because Topher's role and acting were superb this time! But the hopelessly lame cop-out, and the overall chaotic way it all went down, was just too much.

I don't think I've ever seen a more disappointing series finale. Although I'd probably argue that, in reality, Dollhouse ended much earlier.

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"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam