Dollhouse

[lotesse]

I fucking love Joss Whedon.

The ep was wildly uneven, and the pacing and struture were pretty hacked up but Fox has this history of screwing with the guy's pilots, and this one felt mega screwed-with. But the emotional line ran true.

I really like and feel for Echo - I totally got a sense of her as a coherent person, and my heart hurt for her, and I want more of her. It doesn't hurt that Eliza is also just the most beautiful thing to ever be beautiful.

(omfg those promos with Eliza and Summer! Geekgasm!)

My women's studies prof tells me that we're all whores of capitalism, and that's what Echo demonstrates. I love love loved her opening scene - Caroline rang very true to me. She's someone who's so down that she's beginning to do unimaginable things just to keep body and soul together. I like that this doesn't seem to be a capture narrative, nor an atonement one. Instead, she's been slowly trapped, crushed, broken down until she has no choice and no dignity and no hope - and then they take everything from her that they can. Oh Joss.

The tech dude freaked me right the fck out - he's like a Xander-Warren smoosh, and eek! Because he's way too skeeve to be sweet, and yet sometimes too sweet to be that skeezy, and I get all jerked around. Maybe a little bit too jerked around? Unclear yet as to his purpose/meaning.

Amy Acker's character was fascinating - y hallo thar lesbian subtext!

The handler felt too virtuous to be true, and I think he got a few to many exposition dumps. But I'm also interested in this one.

Paul's intro, with the boxing match, was bloody genius.

The little girl rescue plotline grabbed me right hard, was really compelling. The little girl was beautifully established - tyrant! - and Echo's programming was lovely at bringing out the meaning of the scenes. It got all heart-clenchy.

I'm really in love with the Dollhouse sets - all that distorting, goldeny glass, transparent and yet lying. And I love that while Caroline seemed like a really busted down, disempowered Faith, Echo reminds me more of River.

Hopes for next week: that we get more Joss!lingo. That Paul is more organically integrated into the narrative. That we get a better handle on the tech dud and the handler. That Joss continues to be my god. Oh Joss. Mmmm.

eta: oh my god, there was a girl in a refrigerator! And Echo TOOK HER OUT OF IT UNHARMED! And even the sexual assault thing played right into it, and we had a REVERSE REFRIGERATION YOU GUYS OMG.