Dollhouse
Episode Two: The Target
Much has been made of the creative differences that creator
Joss Whedon initially had with the FOX network in regards to Dollhouse.
Those differences resulted in diluted engagement-of-the-week plots while
Whedon struggled with balancing the story he wanted to tell with the
series Fox wanted to air. Although that makes the first few standalone
episodes very “vanilla” in flavor, there is still enough
around the edges for astute fans of the show to enjoy. “The Target”
is a prime example.
The episode
begins with a flashback to three months earlier. All the actives are
being instructed to get into their sleeping pods while Laurence Dominic,
the head of security, is seen leading a heavily armed team through the
Dollhouse. It turns out that one of the actives, code name Alpha, had
a “composite event,” which basically means that all the
previous personalities he had been programmed with were somehow dumped
en mass into his brain. As the security team continues its sweep of
the facility, they find Echo sitting on the floor of the shower, bloodied
but uninjured, surrounded by the dead bodies of other actives.
The Alpha
storyline was actually alluded to at the end of the pilot episode when
Dominic and Adelle DeWitt discussed a “bigger problem” centering
on a file with the rogue active’s name on it. The sequence then
shifted to a video of pre-Dollhouse Echo/Caroline on a television screen
while a man sits in a hotel room holding her picture. He puts the photo
in an envelope addressed to Paul Ballard with the words “Keep
Looking” on it. Whedon perfected the use of a primary “Big
Bad” in his previous television outings—most notably on
Buffy the Vampire Slayer—and has apparently incorporated
the concept into Dollhouse as well.
In addition
to being a more fully-realized introduction of Alpha, the flashbacks
in “The Target” also center on Echo’s handler, Boyd
Langton, and his relationship to both his active and the organization
that now employees him. Little pre-Dollhouse information is given in
regards to Langton, other than that he used to be in law enforcement,
but the flashbacks do relate his first experiences with (and impressions
about) the Dollhouse. “So the stories are true,” he says
to Mr. Dominic and Adelle DeWitt during his initial tour of the place.
“Programmable people, made to order.”
“It’s
a little more complicated than that,” DeWitt responds. “Science
is very seldom exact; being on the cutting edge invites a certain element
of risk.” Which is the reason Langton has been offered to join
the organization: after the Alpha incident, the Dollhouse has decided
to hire handlers who have a “more intensive background.”
Alpha was also responsible for the job opening, as Echo’s previous
handler was killed during the in-house murdering spree.
Langton
requests to see his predecessor’s dead body, which was sliced
by a single-blade knife. He displays keen police skills as he examines
it, quickly ascertaining the “what” and “how”
of Alpha’s attack. “He knew exactly where to cut to cause
the most damage,” he tells Dominic. “And pain. Whoever did
this took their time.” When Dominic replies that it took only
eight seconds, Langton is in disbelief. “The cuts are meticulous,
almost surgical,” he remarks. “I wouldn’t have thought
it was possible to carve up a man like this so fast.” Dominic
agrees—unless, of course, that person had been imprinted with
the necessary skills. “You programmed one of your dolls to be
Jack the Ripper?” Langton asks. Dominic explains that Alpha somehow
“accessed multiple imprints, personalities, that should have been
erased and one of them did this.” He then adds, “And slaughtered
everyone around your girl before pulling a smoke and mirrors.”
Which of course raises the question: why did Alpha spare Echo?
Despite
his willingness to work at the Dollhouse, Langton shows an intense distaste
for the place during the flashbacks. This is obviously a different Boyd
Langton than the protective, even fatherly, figure we have previously
seen. In “Ghost,” for instance, he showed genuine concern
for Echo, asking if everything had gone correctly with her “wipe,”
i.e., the erasure of an active’s imprinted persona. But we also
saw in that episode the first suggestion of doubt on his part regarding
the Dollhouse when Echo tells him, “You’re good people.”
The comment makes Langton uncomfortable as his poise and smile fades
into a simple response of “Right.” Still, the reaction isn’t
so much about “distaste” but something more along the lines
of a “concerned cynicism.”
In “The
Target,” however, Langton displays nothing but disinterest and
contempt towards Echo, especially during the handler/active imprint
that connects the two. “It isn’t about friendship, it’s
about trust,” Topher Brink tries to explain. “From this
point on, Echo will always trust you, without question or hesitation,
no matter what the circumstance.” Langton is unimpressed and just
wants to get the procedure over with as quickly as possible. “This
is art, not an oil change,” Topher replies, and encourages the
new handler to hold his active’s hand during the process.
“Everything’s
going to be alright,” Langton recites.
“Now that you’re here,” Echo responds.
“Do you trust me?” continues Langton.
“With my life,” Echo replies.
The main
storyline of Echo’s current engagement compliments the flashbacks
as they show just how far Boyd Langton has progressed since his first
days on the job. The client, Richard Connell, is an arrogant first-timer
who is looking for the perfect weekend with the perfect companion. “I’ve
been with a lot of women,” he tells Adelle DeWitt, “and
not one of them turned out to be who they said they were. Your services
may be expensive, but at least this time I’ll be the one telling
the girl what to lie about.”
“She
won’t lie to you,” DeWitt corrects, again focusing on the
seemingly “positive” nature of the organization. “Everything
you want, everything you need, she will… ‘be.’ Honestly
and completely.”
Although
Connell promises to keep it “low key,” the engagement is
anything but. Kayaking, rock climbing, power bow-and-arrow shooting,
the requisite wild sex—it’s all there, with Echo more than
keeping up with her male counterpart. It takes a turn for the worse,
however, when Connell announces that he is giving Echo a five minute
head start and then he’s coming after her, bow-and-arrow in hand.
Connell has a creed, given to him by his father: “Shoulder to
the wheel. Do the work, earn your way. If you can bring down something
bigger than you, you’ve proved you deserve to eat it. If it gets
away, you proved it deserves to live.” Obviously he plans on taking
the credo to the next level by hunting his dream girl and killing her.
To make
matters worse, the local ranger has been replaced with a man hired to
delay any sort of Dollhouse intervention by killing Echo’s handler.
Langton is able to outmaneuver his would be assailant but is then shot
with an arrow by Connell when he goes looking for Echo. Their roles
now become reversed as the injured Langton has to trust Echo, even though
she doesn’t have the necessary imprint skills to track-and-defend.
He senses something is different about her, however, when she doesn’t
give the proper response to “everything’s going to be alright.”
“No
it isn’t,” Echo incorrectly answers. “Everything’s
not going to be alright. He’s not going to stop unless he’s
dead.” She then adds, “Do you trust me?” A taken aback
Langton responds, “With my life.” He then gives her a gun,
and Echo proves she is worthy of that trust when she succeeds in killing
Connell. As the injured Langton sits propped up against a tree, Echo
curls next to him and rests her head on his shoulder. The handler then
puts his arm around her in a display of both protective affection and
fatherly respect. During the flashbacks Langton had told Topher Brink
that Echo wasn't “even a girl, just an empty hat,” something
he obviously now no longer believes.
“He
was right about you,” Connell cryptically tells Echo before dying.
“You really are special.” To add to the mystery, Richard
Connell turns out not to exist. “Nothing in his jacket is real,”
Mr. Dominic later explains to Adelle DeWitt. “His entire background,
from birth to college to his referral here, all of it was fabricated.
I’ve never seen anything this intricate.”
So what
happened? Who was this man? Who is the “he” of his dying
words, the one who apparently set up the entire engagement? The answer
is revealed at the end, when the dead body of the fake ranger is examined
by Dr. Claire Saunders and Boyd Langton. Although he was shot twice
in the leg, the imposter was very much alive when Langton left him to
find Echo. Someone else then killed him.
“Caused
by a single non-serrated blade,” Saunders explains of the wounds.
“The lacerations are precise. Almost surgical.” Langton
understands immediately—Alpha. The doctor disagrees, however,
pointing out that in the “official” version of events, Alpha
was tracked down by the Dollhouse after his escape and killed. “They’d
never lie to us about something like that, would they?” Langton
replies. He then sums up the situation: “Alpha could have killed
Echo when he escaped but he didn’t. A wake of bodies but he left
her alive. Now someone hires some nut job to hunt her down in the woods.
Maybe it was Alpha, maybe not. Only thing I really know is, it all leads
back to Echo.”
Boyd Langton
is not the only one who has connected the dots. In the final scene,
Mr. Dominic runs into the doll-state Echo. “Awful lot of people
seem to end up dead around you,” he tells her. “How does
that make you feel? Oh, right. You don’t unless we tell you how
and what and when. If it were up to me, I’d put you in the ground.”
He then looks into her eyes and says “Yeah, there’s nobody
in there” before walking away. Echo doesn’t turn to leave,
however, but simply stares as Dominic walks away. She then makes the
same fist-to-shoulder motion Connell would make when talking about his
“shoulder to the wheel” credo.
When he
was hunting Echo, Richard Connell said to her, “Prove you’re
not just an echo.” While another active might not have survived
being a human target without the necessary imprint skills, Echo indeed
proved that she is something a little bit more adaptable than her code
name would suggest. And apparently the enigmatic Alpha is aware of that
fact as well.
Anthony
Letizia (January 4, 2010)
