Dollhouse: Season 1, Episode 6: "Man on the Street"

Dollhouse:
Season 1, Episode 6“Man on the Street”
Grade: 8.2

Wow. What a great episode. Its not something that completely blew me away but by “Dollhouse” standards this was a vast improvement from the other episodes giving us multiple intriguing storyline, minimal Topher, more plot development than the previous 5 episodes combined and many many new things to consider. Yay for episodes written by Joss Whedon. Easilt the best of the series so far.
The episodes bookends or rather interspersed segments involve an expose that is being done on the myth of the Dollhouse in which people on the street were asked what they feel about the myth. A lot of the responses were done by bad actors who sort of took me out of the proceedings but overall the questionable morality of the organization went under some scrutiny with the interviewees and we got to hear many different perspectives on the matter by random people.
Casting Patton Oswalt was a great touch. He is cooler than cool and I thought he brought a slight sense of humor with him as well as a weirdly touching story. The story behind his engagement was unique and it reminds us how much room there is on this show to come up with more interesting stories behind the engagements that feel as fully fleshed out as this one did. Oswalt does a great job with the material here bringing a memorable one time character that I feel left a mark on the show. Eliza is not in much of this episode but she does a good job as Rebecca, the internet mogul’s fake wife. Her “porn” outburst felt truly Whedon like in its humor. I did not expect Ballard to make such strides in his case this early into the episode but soon enough Echo is taken out of the situation by Boyd and Ballard talks to Oswalt about the Dollhouse. The conversation with Ballard and Oswalt built up this idea that Ballard is obsessed with Caroline in a sexual way. It was pretty unsubtle if they are heading in that direction.

I’ll talk about the Sierra storyline now. Basically she has been raped by someone in the Dollhouse but were do not know who. Victor was suspected and even though she screamed when he talked to her and he apparently “pretends they are married” whatever that means, I knew it was not him. Boyd figures out that it was Laurence and sets up a trap for him. I really liked the way this issue was addressed because it no doubt is something given the situation that we would have to deal with at some time. Adele instead of really punishing the handler, sends him out to kill Mellie, Ballard’s now lover. I have no idea what her motivations are here for anything because as he is choking her (great scene by the way with the use of opera), the phone rings and Adele is on the machine activating Mellie to kill the handler. She is an Active. I figured she might be based on the casting changes that the show had announced, and I knew something was wrong with her, basically that she was annoying but anyways. It was a really great scene.

Before all of this with Mellie, Ballard and her had sex and now they have a relationship I guess. I think its funny and a little ridiculous that he would so easily give up all of this information that he knows about the case to someone who he really only casually knew before he slept with her. But anyways, he goes out to bring them back Chinese food and meets Echo who has been assigned to kill Ballard because he knows too much. They have a frigging awesome fight scene. Seriously its so good and then we learn that someone inside the organization is working to bring Dollhouse down, that its not Alpha or the FBI, that he needs to let them win to eventually beat them, etc. I have no idea what the hell is going on here but I read a theory that someone on LJ write and I am going to have to jump on that bandwagon and say that Adele is the one inside the agency who fucked with the imprint. Why? Well while the person with the theory has a lot of evidence that might lead to her being the answer my evidence is that I have no idea why she does anything that she does on this show. Why is Echo still around? Why send specifically Echo to kill Ballard? Why send Laurence to kill Mellie and to then activate her to kill him in return? Why keep Ballard alive? Why send Victor to fuck with Ballard? Nothing she does makes any sense at all. So I am sticking with that person’s great theory.
Ballard turns in his badge because of the officer that was shot which he now has to take the blame for. Victor likes Sierra still. Echo knew her engagement was not finished because of the painting. Myner got to have his engagement. We learn there are 20 Dollhouses all over the world. We learn that the Dollhouses’ purposes go deeper than what is on the surface. So many interesting plot strands were started in this episode and the continuing ones were continued. Until next week which looks to be good as well...