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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 21:47:50 GMT -5
Now we're getting there! "You wanted to forget." Won't tell her because that would be "violating the contract". "You couldn't live with the consequences of your own actions. And you no longer have to." Hmmmm. Adelle says that Caroline!Echo can't choose for the others, that they also wanted to not remember. Oh, wow. Now Sierra and Victor remembering when they were wiped!! And is this the reason why Mellie!November "volunteered"? The death of her child? Whoa! Is Caroline!Echo actualy getting them all released? No. No, they're all programmed to fall asleep when the "test" is done. And they all get gathered back up.  OMG! Was this Dr Saunder's idea? To give some of them "closure" on those persistant memories? Close the loops. Let the tide come in. It's the only way to wash it back out." Oh, and the sedative wasn't timed. It was set to go off when they got what they wanted. "She wasn't leading them to freedom. She was leading them into a world of terror and chaos that would have destroyed them." "She's not leading them anywhere any more." "You should be grateful." "Yeah. I'll work on that." Man! The layers and levels of people doing things for what they believe are right reasons are thick and complicated, aren't they? Oooooooooooooooh!!!! Caroline got off a call to Paul!! Man! Another exciting and complex and action-packed and thinky ep! |
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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 22:08:39 GMT -5
Ooh, more shirtless Ballard.  Mmmmmm, always a good start to any ep.  Oh! With the flickering lights and hiding and running around the house? Yeah, it sort of was, wasn't it? Oh, I never thought of sabotoage! That would fit with the idea of someone trying to take down the Dollhouses, a mole inside the organization and so on. So, there could be more to it than Dr Saunder's idea of loops that needed closing. |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 3, 2009 22:10:43 GMT -5
Thing's I'm confused about. Was this drill primarily to test the staff or provide catharsis for the dolls? Or both? Or did they just not inform the staff so that their reactions would be authentic? And why did the other dolls not revert or whatever? Was it just that one subgroup that was glitching? Why did they send Mike in for a treatment rather than let him work out his issues or whatever? Or was it just the other four who were glitching? And whoever thought this drill would be a good idea to do when the power was flickering?  |
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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 22:11:55 GMT -5
Oh, this is like a fire drill. Freedom must be earned. OK, then. The light at the end of the tunnel is... another tunnel. Blonde chick is Tango. Interesting that the inner sanctum part is all glass and wood paneling, while these outer parts are more standard dreary industrial. Part of making the inner world of the Dollhouse all soothing and easy on the wiped actives perhaps? Not stir them up or stress them, so they stay all bland and malleable? **nods nods nods** |
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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 22:13:34 GMT -5
Confrontation with woman from earlier. Ballard. Is this Allan Tudyk? It's a very fancy bug. Does Rossum do electronics as well as pharmaceuticals? It would fit with the robot thing, wouldn't it?  |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 3, 2009 22:14:42 GMT -5
Now we're getting there! "You wanted to forget." Won't tell her because that would be "violating the contract". "You couldn't live with the consequences of your own actions. And you no longer have to." Hmmmm. Adelle says that Caroline!Echo can't choose for the others, that they also wanted to not remember. Oh, wow. Now Sierra and Victor remembering when they were wiped!! And is this the reason why Mellie!November "volunteered"? The death of her child? Whoa! Is Caroline!Echo actualy getting them all released? No. No, they're all programmed to fall asleep when the "test" is done. And they all get gathered back up. OMG! Was this Dr Saunder's idea? To give some of them "closure" on those persistant memories? Close the loops. Let the tide come in. It's the only way to wash it back out." Oh, and the sedative wasn't timed. It was set to go off when they got what they wanted. "She wasn't leading them to freedom. She was leading them into a world of terror and chaos that would have destroyed them." "She's not leading them anywhere any more." "You should be grateful." "Yeah. I'll work on that." Man! The layers and levels of people doing things for what they believe are right reasons are thick and complicated, aren't they? Oooooooooooooooh!!!! Caroline got off a call to Paul!!Man! Another exciting and complex and action-packed and thinky ep! Wait, how and when did Caroline get a call off to Paul? Or was this something Adelle planned? Or the mole? Cause if it was Caroline's doing, I don't see how she'd know who Ballard was or how to contact him. |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 3, 2009 22:19:05 GMT -5
Oh, this is like a fire drill. Freedom must be earned. OK, then. The light at the end of the tunnel is... another tunnel. Blonde chick is Tango. Interesting that the inner sanctum part is all glass and wood paneling, while these outer parts are more standard dreary industrial. **nods nods nods**a Part of it's that, but I'm thinking its more about making it easier for the staff to justify what they do. "We're taking good care of them! See how nice their surroundings are!" And so forth. I doubt that the Dolls really notice or care, cause they don't know any different. It definitely gives things a Brave New World vibe. |
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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 22:19:19 GMT -5
I feel kind of vindicated to see Topher called to task for what he does. Topher just hacks the system. Show, don't tell. HA! Victor and Sierra. Oh, this must be the guy Sierra was talking about. Why is Echo/Caroline the only proactive woman we see here? 'Cuz she's the star of the show? Well, actually, I think we see all of them being proactive in their own way - Mellie!November remembers her life and insists on going to it alone; Sierra is very much the organizer, the one who keeps the plan moving forward. Echo!Caroline is just the one doing it in more classic "action hero" mode. He is really bad at it.  And is that true, I wonder? |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 3, 2009 22:21:14 GMT -5
Confrontation with woman from earlier. Ballard. Is this Allan Tudyk? It's a very fancy bug. Does Rossum do electronics as well as pharmaceuticals? It would fit with the robot thing, wouldn't it? That's true. And I supposed Rossum would have the tech to make the chair and computers and such too, so I guess that's not surprising. |
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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 22:23:22 GMT -5
Ah, this is Paul's fantasy/dream/nightmare, yes? "Save me!" "I'm trying to stop everything." Paul in a nutshell. Troubles at the Dollhouse. "This house is out of balance." Oh, that's what the problem is? "Don't think of them like children. Think of them as pets." Oy!  Dr Saunders is just as WTF about that as we are.
"If you're child starts talking for the first time, you feel proud. If your dog does, you freak the hell out." That is actually logical . . . horrific, yes, but logical.We're getting more info about the complex web of tech and drugs and what not that makes this whole thing work. And yeah, sounds like a house of cards on the verse of tumbling over, to me.Doc S and Boyd are the only ones speaking up for the actives, each in their own way. But I wonder if some of the other staff think the same and just aren't talking. Waking up in a box . . . shades of buried Buffy . . .
What you've got with Dom and others, however, is pseudo-speciation, which is dangerous thinking, psychologically speaking (witness attitudes towards the enemy of a nation at war as well as racial strife). Interestingly, we've seen Dom act rather antagonistically towards Echo and the Dolls in general, suggesting that he doesn't really see them as just pets. Or he has difficulties managing his aggression.His own version of the justification/lies each of the folks who run the place are telling themselves, maybe? |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 3, 2009 22:24:05 GMT -5
I feel kind of vindicated to see Topher called to task for what he does. Topher just hacks the system. Show, don't tell. HA! Victor and Sierra. Oh, this must be the guy Sierra was talking about. Why is Echo/Caroline the only proactive woman we see here? He is really bad at it. And is that true, I wonder? |
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Post by Lola m on Apr 3, 2009 22:25:14 GMT -5
Part of making the inner world of the Dollhouse all soothing and easy on the wiped actives perhaps? Not stir them up or stress them, so they stay all bland and malleable?**nods nods nods**a Part of it's that, but I'm thinking its more about making it easier for the staff to justify what they do. "We're taking good care of them! See how nice their surroundings are!" And so forth. I doubt that the Dolls really notice or care, cause they don't know any different. It definitely gives things a Brave New World vibe. **nods** Also, I'm thinking, this is the face they put on for the clients too. Look how high-end and beautiful - so worth the money you are paying!  |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 3, 2009 22:28:43 GMT -5
Part of it's that, but I'm thinking its more about making it easier for the staff to justify what they do. "We're taking good care of them! See how nice their surroundings are!" And so forth. I doubt that the Dolls really notice or care, cause they don't know any different. It definitely gives things a Brave New World vibe. **nods** Also, I'm thinking, this is the face they put on for the clients too. Look how high-end and beautiful - so worth the money you are paying! That also makes sense. |
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Post by artemis on Apr 4, 2009 12:35:18 GMT -5
Thing's I'm confused about. Was this drill primarily to test the staff or provide catharsis for the dolls? Or both? Or did they just not inform the staff so that their reactions would be authentic? i was confused about this, as well. adelle's words and actions seemed to change fluidly throughout the episode with no real explanation to the audience. maybe it was because she thought a mole might be listening, but if so, wasn't there some subtle way the audience could have been clued in on that fact? when the true purpose for the episode's actions was revealed at the end, i found it all somewhat confusing in retrospect rather than an "aha! now i get it!" kind of moment. at the end of the episode, in the flashback, they said they were only going to do the exercise for the "priority cases," those Actives that were "glitching" the most. (i've always thought it was funny that to them, actually starting to remember stuff is considered a "glitch") so it was just those four. my guess (and it's just a guess) is that mike was initially made to remember and then wiped so that the actives who were remembering would truly comprehend wiping. perhaps dr. saunders (and/or someone else) knew mike wouldn't be able to fake it successfully and picked him for that reason. (we don't know for sure that it's always the same five actives in the same sleeping chambers, right?) i don't know if that was to give the drill some credence with the staff, or what. (it seems like there are plenty of "errors" even without power flickering, and that the staff wouldn't need a reason to believe it.) i don't really get it. i also don't get, as others have noted, how caroline/echo knew who ballard was and how to contact him, especially how to contact him on such short notice (i mean, it's not like she had a lot of time to find his name & contact information in this episode!). no idea if it was a plant by the mole, or what else it could be. i also don't know if the mountain was a plant by the mole, nor what the significance of the mountain is to caroline and/or echo. i have to say (as may be obvious by now) that i didn't think this episode was as good as the previous two. there was a lot in it that confused me, for one thing. for example, we saw echo/caroline and november/mellie/? collapse first, and my first thought was actually that they had collapsed from the weight of remembering the grief for their loved ones who'd died and whose deaths they had temporarily forgotten. while i realized shortly that that wasn't the case, i didn't fully understand what was really going on until they verbally explained it on the show. i also found so many of the rationalizations of the staff very troubling (even more so than before!), and i am now having difficulty figuring dr. saunders out. initially i found her comments to boyd really harsh, but upon thinking about it more, i remembered how caroline/echo had said (when they were heading for the car, if i recall correctly) that she believed dr. saunders was a prisoner there too, and i wondered if that might be perceptive or perhaps at least somewhat closer to the truth than the way dr. saunders was presenting herself to boyd at the end, and then i ended up wondering if maybe her comments about the world out there being cruel were actually how she HERSELF feels about it - that even though she may not like being in the dollhouse, she finds it preferable to whatever she left behind/ran away from/whatever outside of it. i wonder if what adelle said in this episode is really what she believes, that she's giving people a new chance and that they are volunteering for the job and have better lives than they did before they came to the dollhouse. i kept thinking about how even someone in terrible grief (for example) isn't typically really making a rational choice, IMHO; who knows what they would have chosen if they'd been allowed to go through the grieving process instead of having it stuck, in static, at the very beginning. i guess it makes it much easier to do what you do if you really do believe that you're actually helping people "escape" from terrible things going on outside, though. and lastly, i guess it really was ballard's apartment that was bugged, which always made the most sense to me personally, but i wasn't sure at first whether it was his or mellie's, as i know many others weren't either. |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Apr 4, 2009 17:10:39 GMT -5
Thing's I'm confused about. Was this drill primarily to test the staff or provide catharsis for the dolls? Or both? Or did they just not inform the staff so that their reactions would be authentic? i was confused about this, as well. adelle's words and actions seemed to change fluidly throughout the episode with no real explanation to the audience. maybe it was because she thought a mole might be listening, but if so, wasn't there some subtle way the audience could have been clued in on that fact? when the true purpose for the episode's actions was revealed at the end, i found it all somewhat confusing in retrospect rather than an "aha! now i get it!" kind of moment. at the end of the episode, in the flashback, they said they were only going to do the exercise for the "priority cases," those Actives that were "glitching" the most. (i've always thought it was funny that to them, actually starting to remember stuff is considered a "glitch") so it was just those four. my guess (and it's just a guess) is that mike was initially made to remember and then wiped so that the actives who were remembering would truly comprehend wiping. perhaps dr. saunders (and/or someone else) knew mike wouldn't be able to fake it successfully and picked him for that reason. (we don't know for sure that it's always the same five actives in the same sleeping chambers, right?) i don't know if that was to give the drill some credence with the staff, or what. (it seems like there are plenty of "errors" even without power flickering, and that the staff wouldn't need a reason to believe it.) i don't really get it. i also don't get, as others have noted, how caroline/echo knew who ballard was and how to contact him, especially how to contact him on such short notice (i mean, it's not like she had a lot of time to find his name & contact information in this episode!). no idea if it was a plant by the mole, or what else it could be. i also don't know if the mountain was a plant by the mole, nor what the significance of the mountain is to caroline and/or echo. i have to say (as may be obvious by now) that i didn't think this episode was as good as the previous two. there was a lot in it that confused me, for one thing. for example, we saw echo/caroline and november/mellie/? collapse first, and my first thought was actually that they had collapsed from the weight of remembering the grief for their loved ones who'd died and whose deaths they had temporarily forgotten. while i realized shortly that that wasn't the case, i didn't fully understand what was really going on until they verbally explained it on the show. i also found so many of the rationalizations of the staff very troubling (even more so than before!), and i am now having difficulty figuring dr. saunders out. initially i found her comments to boyd really harsh, but upon thinking about it more, i remembered how caroline/echo had said (when they were heading for the car, if i recall correctly) that she believed dr. saunders was a prisoner there too, and i wondered if that might be perceptive or perhaps at least somewhat closer to the truth than the way dr. saunders was presenting herself to boyd at the end, and then i ended up wondering if maybe her comments about the world out there being cruel were actually how she HERSELF feels about it - that even though she may not like being in the dollhouse, she finds it preferable to whatever she left behind/ran away from/whatever outside of it. i wonder if what adelle said in this episode is really what she believes, that she's giving people a new chance and that they are volunteering for the job and have better lives than they did before they came to the dollhouse. i kept thinking about how even someone in terrible grief (for example) isn't typically really making a rational choice, IMHO; who knows what they would have chosen if they'd been allowed to go through the grieving process instead of having it stuck, in static, at the very beginning. i guess it makes it much easier to do what you do if you really do believe that you're actually helping people "escape" from terrible things going on outside, though. and lastly, i guess it really was ballard's apartment that was bugged, which always made the most sense to me personally, but i wasn't sure at first whether it was his or mellie's, as i know many others weren't either. I think that Sanders was doing a lot of transference when she was talking about the outside world being so terrible and all that. I wonder what happened to her that made working in the dollhouse preferable to just being a regular doctor somewhere in the outside world. |
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Dr Saunders is just as WTF about that as we are. 
