wolfgang van halen

wolfgang van halen

If you're still watching Dollhouse, you already know where you stand on the Eliza Dushku issue. A lot of people we know like to complain that she's the show's fatal flaw. Sure, she was great as Buffy's rebel-slayer foil, but no way is Dushku riveting enough to hold down the center. And we kind of agreed until late last season, when we remembered that in Joss Whedon's world, there is no center. His shows always rely on ensembles, complicated choruses through which he weaves countermelodies of ambivalence and moral tension. Ballard looks unimpressed. Or maybe that's his excited look. In any case, he perks up a little. "So you can do all that to me with this chair?" He had been caressing the brain-zapping chair when Topher came in; maybe in his own creepily paternalistic way, Ballard wants to feel Echo's pain.

It took Whedon an entire season to fully set up his premise, by which time he had alienated many potential fans with the misconception that Dollhouse was just a show about a hot brainwashed chick lending out her body for cash, and then baffled the other viewers who actually wanted to see that hot-brainwashed-chick series. But the DVD-only "Epitaph" episode (which you should rent, if you haven't already) made the scope of Whedon's intentions clear. Now he's letting all the players loose, and Dushku's Echo has become just a cog among many in the dark wheel that is Rossum Enterprises (even if the opening credits — a slideshow of Dushku in every sexy pose imaginable — suggest otherwise).

Although this episode is structured around one of Echo's "engagements" — this time she has been imprinted with the persona (and breast-feeding abilities) of a newborn's mom — that plotline seems less compelling than the subtle friction between Dollhouse employees. Last week, Dr. Saunders/Whisky confronted Topher, who admitted that he programmed her to disagree with him — and to be turned off by his pheremones, so he wouldn't be tempted to take advantage of her (Perhaps Letterman could learn a little something from him?). This week's episode opens with a verbal pas de deux between Topher and Paul Ballard, who has now crossed the line from Echo's savior to Echo's handler.