Dollhouse 1x12 Review: First Person Plural

“Omega”
Written by Tim Minear
Directed by Tim Minear
 
The Story
Alpha runs off with Echo imprinted as the same girl Whiskey was once imprinted as, because that imprint is the girlfriend of one of his imprints, which means she’ll trust him and go with him. Topher has no idea how to find Alpha, but Ballard thinks he can if he knows what kind of person Alpha was before he was a doll. Alpha imprints a random waitress with the mind of Caroline Farrell, because he wants Echo to murder her as a kind of horrifying rite of passage once he imprints her with ALL her imprints. But after he does that, she whacks him with a pipe, because being fifty people in one body isn’t what makes you a psycho, it’s the person you really are who does that. Alpha is one, Echo is not. Paul’s theory about Alpha’s past self was correct, and it leads him to where Alpha took Echo in time to prevent Alpha from destroying the Caroline hard drive, for which Echo is very grateful. In exchange for his help minimizing the Alpha damage, Paul gets November’s contract ended early, so she’s free to go as Madeline Costley. Dr. Saunders insists that knowing she’s not real doesn’t change anything for her. Victor is on his way to recovering from the horrible slash wounds Alpha gave him. Alpha is still on the loose. Echo remembers Caroline, or at least her name.
 
This finale is a lot of fun. (Technically it’s the finale, because “Epitaph 1” is a future story arc.) Alpha is mesmerizing to watch, and it was also fascinating to see Echo and Caroline having a conversation. I’m not sure how convinced I was by the other actress’s Caroline performance, but that could be because Caroline isn’t a very interesting character more than because she didn’t do a good job with the material. I like Alpha’s backstory, too, and I’m particularly happy with Ballard’s approach to solving the case. It’s about the souls! Excellent.
 
Things I Liked

• Dr. Saunders/Whiskey’s unfolding existential crisis as the certainty she’s not real creeps up on her
• Alpha’s conversations with himself
• The client crying as he tells Alpha he paid for this experience that resulted in him tied up in his boxers with lots of wounds
• Sad Victor who just wants to be his best
• Love at first sight for Alpha. Yikes. This feels so much different than Victor looking at Sierra.
• Most of Alpha getting super frustrated with the criminal imprint on Echo because she’s really stupid
• “Hello Alpha. Good—” *kiss* “—day.”
• I kinda ship Alpha/Echo
• The way Ballard pieces together Alpha’s plan from what he did before, and the way Topher is extremely annoyed by it but Boyd is intrigued. Boyd gets it.
• “It doesn’t tell me anything, and I’m smarter than everyone in this room!” [off Adelle’s look] “But less scary.”
• “Alpha...meet Omega.”
• “Right! New, superior people with a little German thrown in. What could possibly go wrong?”
• That we don’t need anything more from Carl Kraft’s past than to see his would-be victim to have proof that Ballard is right about the souls
• The way Echo isn’t all fragmented the way Alpha is. She seems to have all her people together where he’s constantly a dissonant cacophony.
• I wonder if Eliza Dushku had flashbacks to True Lies when she was crawling along that beam
• Echo reassuringly touching Topher’s shoulder

 
Things I Didn’t

• The, uh, evil lap dance from Whisky
• EYE HORROR
• The really corny reference to Obama
• I guess Madeline Costley (November) just has really horrible taste in clothing

 
The Characters
You can see it in Echo’s face that she has more sympathy for “Caroline”/Wendy than for Alpha, before he even gives her the über-imprint He saw her potential for compositing, but he failed to see what an empathetic person she is. She wasn’t going to react to it the same as he did.
 
The previous episode was all about how Boyd and Paul disagree on how to help Caroline/Echo, but this one is about where they see eye to eye. Adelle and Topher are both very pragmatic, but Boyd and Paul are attuned to more spiritual/emotional nuances. It’s cool.
 
Overall Rating
5/5