DOLLHOUSE 2x12-Hollow Men Grading, Discussion, SPOILERS

[Joe Washington]

Another great episode in a series of great episodes this season.

I had a feeling Mellie was going to die. She just had that tragic look to me from the moment she was revealed to be an Active. Like that was the only ending she was headed towards.

I found Boyd's twisted motivations about bringing Echo and the others to the facility interesting and though he did turn out to be a bad guy, I can't help but recall all the father/daughter moments between him and Echo and feel sorry for him in the end when he was turned into an Active suicide bomber.

It makes sense for the Dollhouses to be taken over by a rival corporation if the show had continue into Season 3. Stepping into the vaccum left by Boyd and Clyde. Clyde will obviously fight for control of Rossum since there are more than one copy of his personality. The Dollhouse will probably side with the rival corporation aganist Clyde until they find out that the corporation is no better than Rossum and intends on pursuing the plans made by Boyd and Clyde. They'll probably have some of that revealed in flashbacks in next week's episode. I can't wait to see how it all ends.

[Captain Craig]

Really liked it but found it less excellent than last week.
For most TV it's still excellent.
By Dollhouse standards I voted: ABOVE AVERAGE

Why? The death of Mellie was all but predictable. She wasn't happy with the knowledge of who and what she was/had been. Plus, Whedon never lets happiness stay. Topher lost Bennet and Ballard had to lose Mellie. Frankly I kept waiting for Sierrea to die in all honesty as well.

Boyd was still a bad guy just one with some inkling of goodness. Trying to harvest a cure or innoculation is good but it sure was gone about in a bad way. Once you understand how Clyde was involved you can empathize some but it its not totally redeeming and yet you still hated seeing Boyd in full on "jihad" mode.

Hoping to get my Dominic and Alpha fix in with Epitaph Two since they weren't here in Hollow Men. I'm wondering how flashback heavy the episode will be. How much time between 2010 & 2020 will we get. I know Whedon says he's wrapping it up and doesn't intend to pursue "Tales of the Dollhouse" in novels or comics but that 10yr span is a lot of stories to be told. If only.

Can't figure out why they said the finale in 2 weeks? Why the change I wonder? FOX is killing me, if they don't air this episode I'll be mad.

[The Fatman]

Captain Craig wrote:

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Can't figure out why they said the finale in 2 weeks? Why the change I wonder? FOX is killing me, if they don't air this episode I'll be mad.

There's going to be a fundraiser/telethon/support show for Haiti next week, which is preempting the finale.

[StarshipDefiant]

It seems to be a tragedy all around for most people, which is something that I somewhat like of this show, in reality, many people have a miserable life for various reasons. While this is a bit...more complicated, it shows people in misery for various reasons. While it's a "evil corporation takes over the world" type story, in someways I feel it is different as such. I'll miss this show, and will wonder for some time what season three could have been. I also wonder what some of the other Dollhouses think of what is going on, and how they would react to certain changes or events.

[DarthPipes]

I think Amazon is having a one-day sale on Dollhouse Season 1 on DVD and Blu-ray.

[Forbin]

Captain Craig wrote:

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R
The death of Mellie was all but predictable.

That means it wasn't predictable. The opposite of what you meant, I'm guessing.

Anyhoo, yes, I was pretty sure she wasn't gonna make it thru the episode one way or the other. I was surprised she did it herself, though.

I'm gonna miss this show! One of the few genuine sci fi shows on TV.

[FredH]

Wait a minute. Echo's spinal fluid, presumably reproduced in greater quantities, was going to be used to inoculate the world's population against remote wiping. Why is this a bad thing?

[Too Much Fun]

I think it's not the idea of inoculating people that's bad...it's the exploiting her body like that (without her consent) and the fact that it makes the evil person doing the exploiting more powerful because it gives him control over who is inoculated and who isn't that makes it bad.

[StarshipDefiant]

Too Much Fun wrote:

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I think it's not the idea of inoculating people that's bad...it's the exploiting her body like that (without her consent) and the fact that it makes the evil person doing the exploiting more powerful because it gives him control over who is inoculated and who isn't that makes it bad.

Percisly, he wasn't going about this with noble intentions, he was going to let the world be destroyed first and let a select few be inoculated, while the rest of the world continued to kill each other.

With that revelation though, I am curious why November, Sierra and Victor were able to show signs of awareness and remembrance.

[Plain Simple]

A bit disappointing episode. As a normal episode it would have been an entertaining hour, but as the wrap-up of the "present day" Dollhouse story it left me with a bad taste. Boyd's motivations turned out to make no sense. So first he actively pursues the wiping technology and then, once he has succeeded in developing it, he uses the "it's out there now, we better use it before others will" excuse? That's just lame. And turning Echo into an anti-Rossum rebel was the best way of triggering her fancy schmancy spinal fluid mojo? Really?

Why did Boyd free Paul and Mellie from prison? Keeping `his family' around didn't make too much sense to begin with (he kept them at gun point all the time; why not keep them in prison, at least until he was done extracting spinal fluid from Echo?), but keeping `the relative he could do without' running around the building until he screwed up the cooling system and only then triggering sleeper!Mellie was not the best of ideas. Speaking of the cooling system... security?

Mellie's death was expected. It was a simple game of spot-the-Whedon-hints. Happiness with Paul? Carrying a gun for safety? Uh-uh. Bye bye Mellie.

Perhaps my expectations were raised too high by the previous episodes. I hoped they had something more cerebral up their sleeves then just "evil corporation wants to take over the world and gets blown up". The final scene gives me some hope that the series still will take a turn for the better in its final episode. I just hope that it won't turn out to be everyone shooting their way out of the thoughtpocalypse.

FredH wrote:

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Wait a minute. Echo's spinal fluid, presumably reproduced in greater quantities, was going to be used to inoculate the world's population against remote wiping. Why is this a bad thing?

But it couldn't be reproduced. Wasn't that the whole idea of why they needed Echo? I think they were only planning to use it for the select few. Not that that makes any sense either. What kind of life can you have when only a handful of people are sane and the rest is fighting their way through a post-thoughtpocalyptic world? Why would that be something worth striving for?

Edit: O wait, they didn't want the world fighting, they wanted them as slaves, right? Okay, that makes a little sense then.

[David cgc]

I think Boyd's story was that, after he developed the theory, he decided to develop the technology before anyone else could, with the intention of finding countermeasures to it as well. So he was effectively having an internal arms race. Of course, it also meant that he was creating the exact sort of corrupting infrastructure he'd wanted to head off in order to learn how to head it off. And it probably didn't help that the only thing he found out was one random girl's freaky bone marrow that couldn't be mass-produced. Between having to rationalize all the lousy things he was doing to for the pro-wipe half of the race (Pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way), and having to deal with the fact that despite all of that, he couldn't even stop it, and would have to settle for saving a handful of people, it probably unhinged him greatly. I'd expect he was relatively sane back in University, just somewhat paranoid.

[Captain Craig]

Forbin wrote:

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That means it wasn't predictable. The opposite of what you meant, I'm guessing.

Chalk that up to posting at midnight.

[StarshipDefiant]

Captain Craig wrote:

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Chalk that up to posting at midnight.

No biggie, I had it figured out to, mostly just before it happened but I did have it figured out. I think I am starting to get Joss a little to much, because right before the reveal...I figured out Boyd as well. And Bennett's death.

*sigh*

random, awkward question semi related to this show, what does it generally mean when someone says "A few years ago" is there a general meaning?

[Trent Roman]

My impression of Boyd isn't that he's the type of villain with the carefully laid-out, account-for-all-contingencies plan; rather, that he's the type of person who has great confidence in his ability to improvise and adapt situations to meet his eventual ends, very good at reading and manipulating people. So how was all this supposed to yield the desired result? Only in broad strokes, I'd say; if something went in a direction he didn't want--and for all we know, it did--he would just push the new paradigm back towards his end-game. He fostered Echo's rebelliousness because it emerged in tandem with her ability to break free of her programming, which was what he was testing for; take measures to stop for former, you would easily stop the latter. Although I was surprised by one thing (apart from his odd desire for family), which was that Alpha didn't come into it. Since we've still got one episode, I'll spoiler the speculations just in case...

I really thought Boyd was going to be shown to be responsible for Alpha. Boyd, after all, didn't enter the Dollhouse himself until some time after Echo had become a doll despite his promise to look over her--not, indeed, until after the incident with Alpha. I thought he would have surreptitiously messed with Alpha's programming to watch over Echo, the protector Boyd had promised; a directive that manifests as obsession in his doll state, and the interference eventually leads to the composite event that produces the madman we know. After that failure, Boyd decides that Echo will only be safe if he, himself, it watching over her, rather than a programmed agent.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

[StarshipDefiant]

Trent Roman wrote:

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My impression of Boyd isn't that he's the type of villain with the carefully laid-out, account-for-all-contingencies plan; rather, that he's the type of person who has great confidence in his ability to improvise and adapt situations to meet his eventual ends, very good at reading and manipulating people. So how was all this supposed to yield the desired result? Only in broad strokes, I'd say; if something went in a direction he didn't want--and for all we know, it did--he would just push the new paradigm back towards his end-game. He fostered Echo's rebelliousness because it emerged in tandem with her ability to break free of her programming, which was what he was testing for; take measures to stop for former, you would easily stop the latter. Although I was surprised by one thing (apart from his odd desire for family), which was that Alpha didn't come into it. Since we've still got one episode, I'll spoiler the speculations just in case...

I really thought Boyd was going to be shown to be responsible for Alpha. Boyd, after all, didn't enter the Dollhouse himself until some time after Echo had become a doll despite his promise to look over her--not, indeed, until after the incident with Alpha. I thought he would have surreptitiously messed with Alpha's programming to watch over Echo, the protector Boyd had promised; a directive that manifests as obsession in his doll state, and the interference eventually leads to the composite event that produces the madman we know. After that failure, Boyd decides that Echo will only be safe if he, himself, it watching over her, rather than a programmed agent.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

IN response to your spoiler...

Possibly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was something shown in like...season three or something (had there been a season three). This is from the impression I get that the actives becoming aware and "special" are because of Boyd's tinkering. Then again, maybe Alpha is just nuts and was able to do this on his own...