For old Btvs fans and Joss Whedon worshipers, this has been a long awaited show.
It’s starts off with a room that we see through a servelicne camera, two women sitting on either side of a table. It’s Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams) and Echo (Eliza Dushku, Faith from Buffy).
Adelle: Nothing is what it appears to be.
Echo: It seems pretty clear to me.
Adelle: Because your in the same part of it. I’m talking about a clean slate.
Echo: Have you ever tried cleaning and actually slate. You always see what was on it before.
Adelle: Are you volentering...
Echo: I don’t have a choice, do I? How did it get this far?
Adelle: Caroline. Actions have consequences.
Echo: God your loving this, aren’t you?
Adelle: I’m sorry, you don’t understand what i’m offering here. But what we do helps people. If you become a part of that it can help you.
Echo: Right. You’re just looking out for me.
Adelle: Perhaps better then you have. We can take care of this mess. After you five year term you will be free to..
Echo: I don’t deserve this. I was just trying to make a difference. Trying to take my place in the world, you know, like she always said.. and now... I know. I know. Actions have consequences.
Adelle: What if the didn’t?
Cut to two motorbikes speeding down the streets, passing ahead cars until one of the persons falls down with the bike. As she takes of her helmet we see that it is Echo, she just picks up the bike and continue to ride without a helmet. She catches up with the other person and they drive in to what seems to be some kind of restaurant with a banner saying “Happy Birthday Matt”. The guy that rides the other bike beats her to the finishline and as they get of their bikes she acuses him of cheating and he calls her a sore loser. They bicker a bit and Echo wants a rematch but the guy says “Let’s just dance”. So they do, to Lady Gaga’s Just Dance.
Woah, don’t know if that qualify as a dress!
Echo: Your having a good time?
Guy: The best. Listen i know a the beginning of the weekend we said no strings.
Echo: Mmm, we also said no ropes and look how long that lasted.
He gives her an necklage with at heart and now when now that it is he that is Matt. She thanks him and they kiss. They talk about another dance, but Matt goes to get drinks first.
Echo looks lovestruck as she proceeds to go to the dnacefloor. Suddenly she stops and her facial expression changes, and then she goes out from tha place and out on the streets. It’s like she is cinderella and the time is close to midnight. She walks up to a big black van and Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix)opens the door.
Boyd: Are you ready for the treatment?
Echo: I think it’s time.
Matt watches Echo leave and his Friend comes up to him.
Friend: Dude, where’s your friend?
Matt: It’s time for her to go. Had to get to her carriage before it turned in to a pumpkin.
Friend: What?
Matt: Struck of midnight.
Friend: Midnight?
Matt: The end of the ball.
Friend: Dude, it’s like five...
Echo is arriving at the place where she is gonna get her treatment. We see another girl dressed as a geisha step in to another black van. She asks Boyd if he can take her back to the party when she is done with the treatment.
Boyd: I’ll wait right here.
Echo: (steps into the elevator) Your good people. (The door closes).
Boyd: Right
Echo is changing and rambling about how she doesn’t wanna seems clingy and is still talking about how it’s true love when she is in the threatment room were Topher Brink (Fran Kranz) is waiting for her to lie down in the chair.
Topher: This is gonna pinch a bit.
It looks to hurt a bit more then just a pinch. We got to see all her memories of Matt and how they met and we also get to see what appears to be some childhood memories. She drops the heart necklage on the floor. The treament it’s now done.
Topher: Hello Echo. How are you feeling?
Echo: Did i fall asleep?
Topher: For a little while.
Echo: Shall i go now?
Topher: If you like.
Echo walks away and toper takes out a disc from the machine that wiped her memories. In the room next door he puts it in the computer and Boyd ask if if everything went alright with the wipe.
Topher: Why don’t you just ask Echo? Oh, that’s right, because she can’t remember. Of course it went alright. Inprints gone. The New moon has made her virgin again. Are there some reason it shouldn’t have? Something happend during the engagement?
Boyd: I think she finally met the right guy.
Topher: Haha, you're so jaded. That’s such a middle aged.. She had fun right?
Boyd: She thought so.
Topher: There’s nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so, man friend. We gave two people a perfect weekend together. We’re great humanitarians.
Boyd: We’ll spend our lives in jail if anyone ever found this place.
Topher: Or else we are missunderstood. Wich great humanitarians often are. Look at Echo, not a care in the world. She is living the dream.
Boyd: Who’s dream?
Topher: Who’s next?
Gabriel Crestejo is sitting in a limo talking to his 12 year old daughter Davina who is home alone. She says that she has done her homework and he think she is gonna get a present for that. Knowledge. A police officer stops the limo and he says to his daughter that he’s gotta go. As son as they hang up three men appears and kidnapps the daugher, and one of them are wearing a leather mask.
Gabriel is in Adelle’s office wanting some help to get his daughter back from the kidnappers. They want 5 millions dollars. Apperently is kindnapping a thriving buissiness in Mexico and that’s why they live in the U.S. while his factory is overthere. He hasn’t contacted the police yet. He say’s he doesn’t want Rambo he wants a negotiator. Adelle assures him that they will do thier best to make this situation work.
Adelle: Please remember, the active won’t know they came from here. Any discussion of this place will only confuse them and possibly send them right back. I know how importent it is that not happen.
Echo is with Doctor Claire Saunders (Amy Acker, Fred from Angel). Amy Acker looks good even with scars in her face. She is checking on Echos knee, and her bloodworks are apperently fine.
Claire: Whould you like a massage?
Echo: They are relaxing.
Claire: Yeah. I’ll set that up.
Echo: I don’t remember what fell on me.
Claire: Does that bother you?
Echo: Should it?
Claire: We’ll look after you.
Echo: (Reaching for Claire’s scars) Does somone look after you?
Clarie: (Takes a step back) why don’t you wait in the massage area and i’ll call for someone to work on that knee.
Echo wanders away and ends up outside the doors to the treatment room. We can hear screams and see blue light shining through the glasdoors. Echo walks in on what seems to be a very painfull procedure on Sierra (Dichen Lachman). “She’s not sleeping”. Topher quiqly ushers Echo out of the room.
Topher: Echo, w
hat are you doing here?
Echo: She hurts.
Topher: She does. That’s because it’s her first time and we have to do more extensive work on her.
Echo: Work?
Topher: We’re making her better. And in a little while she will be strong and happy and she’ll forget all about this and you will have a new friend living with you. Her name is Sierra.
Echo: Sierra.
We see Clarie lurking in the door.
Topher: Aren’t you supposed to getting your physical with Doctor Saunders, far from here right now?
Claire: We’re ready for your massage Echo.
Echo: Something fell on me.
Topher: I bet it was something great.
Echo leaves the room and Topher gives Claire a WTF look.
Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett, Helo from Battlestar Galactica) has been investigasting Dollhouse for 14 months and haven’t come up with anything good yet. We see clips of him boxing another man as we go back forth to the room where he has a conversation with his bosses. Apperently he has physically threatened the president and alot of other stuff and the only legal action he has succeded wit is his divorce. They ask if Paul really is convinced that Dollhouse excists, a dhe says that he is sure. They think it’s a joke, but apperantly someone that are above them think it isn’t a joke. One of the guys think it’s weird that people with loads of money will need to go to Dollhouse to get what they want, cuase when you are a millionare you aldready have everything you want.
Paul: Nobody has everything they want. It’s a survival pattern. You get what you want, you want something else. If you have everything, you want something else. Something more extreme. Something more specific. Something perfect.
He keeps talking about how people are walking around with no personalities and that’s the same as people that mas as well have been murdured. The other guy give him crap for messing up a trafficking case when he was looking for people who has been dissapering. They tell Paul that he needs to back off, and he says that he will.
Echo is back in the treatment room with Topher. She lay down in the device and gets her new personality inprinted. In another room Adelle and Dominic are updating Boyd on the assignment. They tell him if there is any thing that feels wrong he should Extract Echo from the assignment amidietly.
Echo, now know as Elenor Penn, arrives at Gabriel’s mansion. He wasn’t expecting a woman. She says she put’s people at their ease.
Gabriel: In my experience a beautiful woman never but anyone at their ease. Fatherly types do that, The’re warm and comforting. Make people feel safe. A beautiful woman distracts people, makes them nervous or jealous. I can’t afford that, knowing what’s at stake here. I think our friend sent the wrong person.
Echo/Elenor says she is the best person for the job, that she has been doing this her whole life.
She keeps on explaining that this is some serious people they are up against, the broke in to his house and kidnapp his daughter to show that they could. Gabriel eventualy understands that she might be the right person for the job.
Boyd is following all this through cameras and he is talking with Topher on the phone. He is questioning why Topher gave her glasses. Topher explains that they take te inprints from a whole person, with strenght and flaws, just not a greatest hits of a person.
Topher: Achivment it’s balanced by faults. Can have one without the other. Anyone that excel is over compensating. Running from somethin. Hiding from something.
As he say that we see Claire in the background signing some papers, and she looks a bit mysterious to me. Boyd ask about the past of the person Echo is inprinted with, Topher avoids the question and goes on talking about her experince with kinapping situation and that’s what asked for.
Echo/Elenor is answering the phone in Gabriel’s house, introducese herself to the kidnapper, saying that she is not a cop; she is just her to facilitate a private transaction and make sure that no one is hurt during it. And she wants him to call her Miss Penn. She then rises from 5 million up to 8 millions if Davine can speak with her father. The kidnapper doesn’t belive her, and then she just hangs up on him. Gabriel wonders about making it 8 millions instead of five.
You have the money, says Echo. But Gabriel thinks it would have been nice to be asked. Echo is all, they have to get used to do it my way and so does you, end of story!
Paul is in a bar with and is taking pics with his phone and sending it to somebody.
The kidnapper now wants 10 millions, Echo hangs up. Kidnapper calls back and this time Gabriel can speak with his daughter. Davina is apologizeing and saying that she is scared. She tells her father that it is dark and that they are yelling at her, except the man in the mask.
Echo interrupts asking Davine if the hurt her or feed her. They pushes her around a little and feeds her a little as well. Gabriel tells Divina how much he loves her. Then Echo talks to the kidnapper, telling him that she want Davina to be there when then hand over the money.
Kidnapper: Maybe.
Echo: There is only two ways for this to go. Either everobody gets what they want, or nobody does. We will not pay if she is not there. The kidnapper hangs up.
Gabriel is pissed of cause Echo cut in when his daughter tried to tell him something about the kidnappers, she defends her self making a point that a thing like that could have complicated the situation even worse. Then Echo tells him that he has to trust her that she has done this many times. This makes him laugh out loud, (or lol as many people type, but lol always seem to me like a little giggle and not a laughing out loud that it really stand for, weird i know, let’s leave this sidenote and go back to the recap), since he know that she has been jsu inprinted with this quality for this special mission.
Gabriel: Yesterday you were a nurse or a clown at the circus.
Echo: What?
Gabriel: You’re the best. The best one they could send. Why is that? What makes you so good at this?
Echo: I don’t have any hobbies.
Gabriel: No no, you’ll have to do better then that. You have to make me belive. Believe like you believe. Who are you?
Echo starts describing her resumé. Gabriel asks her why she did all those things, did something terrible happend in her childhood. Apperently she was kidnapped when she was 9 yers old.Boyd is now watching them on his screen, and he seems suprised to hear Echos backstory. Gabriel is asking questions and Echo doesn’t quite remeber it all. Gabriel suggests that it might all be made up. Echo then remembers that there was one man that got rid of the others afer they got paid. Gabriel makes another comment about why they put bad memories on her head. Sometimes bad things just happen, says Echo. Then she gets a majore flashback of Sierra in the treatment device, and almost falls over. Gabriel is apologizine, realizing he might had been pushing the limit a bit. Echo says she is fine, but would like to get some sleep, and the she takes a puff from her inhalator.
We are back at the bar with the guys that Paul was talking a picture of. He enters the bathroom. Paul comes up behind him and puts a gun to his neck. Her forces him to say dollhouse. He want him to find out who in his cooperation who is providing dollhouse with girls and their cooperation won’t be touched and he wont see him again.
Guy: I haven’t seen you yet.
Paul: You will. Wash you hands. And your shoes. Paul leaves.
Echo is ariving at the docks where the exchange is gonna take place. Boyd is on a roof with a rifle. Echo and Gabriel walks up to the kidnapper. He wants the money at first, but she says please, this is not your first time. So the bring forth Davina so they can see her, then they take her back in the boat again. Gabriel gets the bag and shows the kidnappers that there are money in them. Then some men come from the boat. One of them makes an impact on Echo and she start to get what seems to be an astma attac. Topher is seeing this change on his screen and asks Boyd what is going and that something is wrong with her. She reaches for her inhalator but drops it on the ground. The kidnapper thinks she is doing something to mess up things, but Gabriel explains that she has a condition and she is not looking for trouble. He reaches down to Echos level and she tells Gabriel to don’t let them on the boat while she is gasping for air.
Echo is back in the black van again along with Boyd. Echo is talking about the man she saw, and that he has become older and that she once was in Davinas age. Boyd realizes that Echo or rather Elenor knows this man, and he was one of the kidnappers that got away when she was young. Echo has been told that he was a ghost, and you can’t fight a ghost. But Echo says that goshts aren’t heavy. She soon switches in to negotiater mode adn tells Boyd that in six hours the man will kills his comapnions and take away with the girl by himself. Boyd and Echo starts to brainstorming on where they could have gone. Then Echo realizes that the man in the mask must be someone that Davina knows and that’s why he wanna stay hidden. If the found out whom he is they will find the ghost man.
They arrive at the Dollhouse, and Echo wants to do her treatment fast so she can continue to solve the kidnapping situation. Dominic is saying to Boyd that they are in big trouble with the client shot and that they may have been exposed. Boyd wants to go with Echo, but Dominic wants him to tell him all the things that went down that day.
Topher is explaning to someone that Elenor Penn has these memories because of the person or person that they used to put her identity togheter. Echo enters and tells Topher to do the treatment fast. In the meanwhile Boyd barges into Adelle’s office saying that Echo can find Davina, but Adelle says that Echo screwed this up, in comes Domonic and tries to pull Boyd out of there. Boyd thinks its Adelle’s fault. He tells her that Echo got memories of an abused girl and that she recongnice one of her kidnappers and that she is the only one who can find him. Adelle’s says that they don’t have a client anymore since they don’t know if Gabriel is gonna live. Boyd doesn’t want them to wipe her memory before they save the girl.
Boyd: We have a mission.
Adelle: We prefere to call them engagements. You have not been here as long as some of the others. So i will overlook the error.
Boyd: I have been here long enough to know that you like to tell yourself what we do helps people. And i would like to help this girl.
Boyd is running to the treatment room to stop Echo from getting hers. But it seems like it’s too late, until Echo asks for her glasses. Topher hands them to her, she puts them on.
Echo: I know how to find her.
Echo has remembered that the kidnapper said you’re the school teacher now when he first called, and this implies that there might be a teacher from Davinas School that are the man in the mask. She wants Boyd to check out who has been missing the last day. When they leave the elevator Dominic intruduces himself to Echo and says they have a chopper standing by and that Boyd will stay here, Boyd tries to pull i’m heree handler card, but Dominic doesn’r buy that and leaves him there.
The chopper drops Echo of somewhere in the wasteland. Topher and Boyd is following her on the monitors at Dollhouse. Topher tells Boyd that the person that he took the abused personality from apperently killed herself last year.
Topher: She never got away from him.
Boyd: What are we playing at?
Echo is walking up to a house with planks againt the windows. Inside the kidnappers is counting all the money. They get scared when Echo knocks on the door. They racognize her and she begs them to open the door. One of the guys drags her in there. The guys in the mask who knows where they are.
Echo: Everyones gonna know very soon, Mr Shepherd. You left i wide trail, but that’s not the problem. He is. (Looking at the ghost man)
Ghost man: What are you on about?
Echo: As soon as that’s moneys counted, he’s gonna kill both of you.
Ghost man: Don’t fall for that crap, turn us on eachother. Tell us how long untill they come. Talk, or i’ll found something to stuff thhat mouth up.
Echo: I think i’m a little old for you.
She gets out of his grip and tries to convince the others to hand the ghost man over and they can leave with the money, because the ghost man is the ring leader. She just wants Davina. One of the guys tells here that she is not here, but Echo knows that she is in the fridge. She starts to talk about what the ghost man wants more then 8 million dollars, and talks about all the girls he has kidnapped and especially one that he dumped in the river before he was sure she was dead. The other kidnappers are now pointing their guns at the ghost man.
Echo: It’s over. You can’t hurt me anymore. (The ghost man hits her) You can’t fight a ghost.
The ghost man takes up his gun, but the other guy’s shoots him before he shoots Echo. She runs out of the run and gets Davina from the fridge. They guys that shoot the ghost man say to Echo to go. But before she gets to the door it’s slammed open by Sierra that comes in and shoots the guys. They rest come in and takes care of the money while Echo carries Davine out and tells her repetly that she is okay.
Echo is now wiped of her memorys and is joining the other actives in the shower. Adelle and Dominic is discussing how they got paid from the client, plus that they got the 8 millions, and that both the actives did a great job. But the whole thing was on it’s way to blew up in their faces for a while, but the situation got contained.
Adelle: Yeah but how are we gonna contain this?
The actives go to bed. And then we to see someone are watching a homemade of Echo or whoever she was before she became Echo. The man watching the video has a envelope with Paul Ballards name on it, he puts a picture of Echo in it. As the camera swoops over the room we see two dead men while we hear Echo getting interviewed for the yearbook about what she wanna do, wich seems alot, and she wanna travel alot as well.
Echo: Well what can i say? I wanna do everthing, is that too much to ask?
- Ikke
1 comment:
really nice work:) can imagine it took a while:) anyways great work... though I wasn't a fan of the first episode, but I guess you'll have to give it a chance first:)
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