Some more scattered thoughts:
I hadn't realized Espenson wrote a Firefly episode... I'll have to rewatch that one now...
Part of me hops it's not Victor, because I like what they've done with him. I didn't even realize he was the mob guy from early in the show, either. But now that he's scarred, that makes some sense, I suppose.
One thing I'm interested to see (backfire?) is DeWitt's desire to put anyone who learns anything about the dollhouse in the chair. It seems to me that this could become problematic (maybe even with Ballard himself).
I also can foresee him joining forces with the dollhouse for some reason... something that hasn't been revealed to us yet, but may come out of what we supposedly learn next week.
One thing that I'm worried about with that, though, is that the main story arc may shift, much as it did with Prison Break (I stopped watching after a few eps of season 2, because it just didn't feel the same) and I hope that doesn't happen with Dollhouse...