My shows have layers
May. 2nd, 2009 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniWith Joss, there's always the obvious, the less obvious and the least obvious. Dollhouse deserves a second season!
Having known for a while which role Alan Tudyk had been cast for spoiled my pleasure a little bit but there was enough in the episode to make me enjoy it still.
First the acting. It was good. Even Eliza Dushku.!
Alan quite overplayed his part as fake Steven Kepler, but I enjoyed Tahmoh's gravity, how serious he was during all the scenes (and his wonderful smile when he saw Echo!) and once again it's Enver Gjokaj who won the acting prize, either as Mr Dominic in Victor's body or as Victor. That actor is magnificent!!! "There were people fighting on me". He nailed the child state like nobody else! Tahmoh and Enver should have had more scenes together!
There was some humour despite the darkness. I loved the "Coffee from Hell" mug for instance. Alan Tudyk seemed to have borrowed some of Topher's mannierisms and gestures when he was playing Kepler, it was distracting. Sierra was again glamourous and effective, her line about smells seemed to echo Kepler's line. Much less glamourous. Joss clued us in...he was going to ruin the fairytale, to twist it big time: "everybody farts"!
I loved the recurring ankles stuff and the stairs joke, and how it foreshadowed the fight between Boyd and Paul. Everybody's got a talon d'Achilles!
And there's the Briar Rose plot and the various parallels. Who's Sleeping Beauty? Who's the Prince? Of course there's the obvious and the less obvious.
Echo was sent as Suzanne to help Little Suzanne(ETA: yes I spelled it the French way!)...basically Echo was her prince, getting closer and closer to her, not giving up, getting over invisible barriers, triggering her out of sleep. Except that she was also named Suzanne and Topher told us her imprint was similar to little Suzanne's, only healthier. Echo woke up from her Suzanne-imprint eventually and again we heard the line "Did I fall asleep?". She could have slept a hundred years, she wouldn't have known the difference.
Topher felt pride, showing off for Ivy. Topher is the sorcerer who hypnotizes the beauty yet he's also the misunderstood prince who never goes and fights in the field, but he is ALWAYS there when the Dollhouse Sleeping Beauties wake up, asking how they are feeling.
But who was the client here? Who provided the imprint Topher used to make the improved one, the grown-up Suzanne? Perhaps I missed something.
What I didn't miss was Echo saying that Briar Rose made the prince, and that as Suzanne, she often pretended because it was easier, and she sometimes felt like a big liar, maybe an accomplice in a crime. Joss, Joss you're playing with fire here, but you do it well! Victims and criminals, pride and guilt may be closer than one think.
Things are complicated and dialectical. I can't wait for Paul and Boyd to have another heart to heart about slavery, right and wrong, and such stuff.
Paul fought for a cause, he fought for a girl, like a champion. He saw himself as the prince showing up in the castle to free Sleeping beauty, but was he the prince?
He did what I'd expected him to do for a while: he followed Mellie, after he broke up with her, to find out the Dollhouse. By the way Mellie broke my heart when he broke hers. Didn't he get that he was indeed killing her?
Mellie considered committing suicide until her handler showed up, saving November from throwing herself from a bridge. Are the handlers the true princes in this story? Boyd might think so.
November is safe, but Mellie is dead now.
November was the first sleeping beauty Paul saw in the castle– and she did look like a sleeping princess, just as Echo did, but Paul didn't kiss November. It was predictable, but I enjoyed the scene nonetheless. It was necessary, as Adelle would say. Paul is a failed prince, he missed his chance, and he must know it now.
Maybe Paul Ballard was not a prince but was a Sleeping Beauty himself and that episode was his big awakening: "My whole life isn't real"
Echo woke up in her pod but she didn't trust Paul, and might have been waiting for another prince, less charming.
Prince Slashing enters. Poor Victor! I hope Alpha will bite the dust for hurting Victor. But as a doll wasn't he Sleeping Beauty too? A doll is like a child after all. Wasn't he like little Suzanne who suffered from abuse? A little Suzanne who didn't grow up well. I think that the most interesting parallel was there. Little Suzanne used to hide knives, she tears and strikes the pages of the fairytale book just like Alpha slashed faces. We saw her giving up the blade she had on her, but Alpha found Dr Saunders' blade. ETA: By the way I loved the fact that little Suzanne played the storyteller for us as Paul was breaking in the Dollhouse. Sleeping Beauty made the prince, creates the story. There's something meta again about the episode, soemthing dealing with storytelling.
Which imprint did Alpha use on Echo? Caroline's mind? I think it's unlikely since Echo is our heroin. I guess that they shared an engagement once upon a time and it backlashed. Victor and Sierra were not the first Adam and Eve in the new Eden. Alpha tasted the apple and got knowledge. Did Echo hand it out? Here enter Bonnie and Clyde. Did Alpha free Echo or did he just imprint her with the imprinted persona he fell for?
Sleeping Beauties should beware of princes (especially when they like playing with blades or make them sit down on certain chairs) for they just want to enslave them for ever.
By the way, Joss is recycling: there was something of Spike& Dru in Alpha & Echo in the end.
Having known for a while which role Alan Tudyk had been cast for spoiled my pleasure a little bit but there was enough in the episode to make me enjoy it still.
First the acting. It was good. Even Eliza Dushku.!
Alan quite overplayed his part as fake Steven Kepler, but I enjoyed Tahmoh's gravity, how serious he was during all the scenes (and his wonderful smile when he saw Echo!) and once again it's Enver Gjokaj who won the acting prize, either as Mr Dominic in Victor's body or as Victor. That actor is magnificent!!! "There were people fighting on me". He nailed the child state like nobody else! Tahmoh and Enver should have had more scenes together!
There was some humour despite the darkness. I loved the "Coffee from Hell" mug for instance. Alan Tudyk seemed to have borrowed some of Topher's mannierisms and gestures when he was playing Kepler, it was distracting. Sierra was again glamourous and effective, her line about smells seemed to echo Kepler's line. Much less glamourous. Joss clued us in...he was going to ruin the fairytale, to twist it big time: "everybody farts"!
I loved the recurring ankles stuff and the stairs joke, and how it foreshadowed the fight between Boyd and Paul. Everybody's got a talon d'Achilles!
And there's the Briar Rose plot and the various parallels. Who's Sleeping Beauty? Who's the Prince? Of course there's the obvious and the less obvious.
Echo was sent as Suzanne to help Little Suzanne(ETA: yes I spelled it the French way!)...basically Echo was her prince, getting closer and closer to her, not giving up, getting over invisible barriers, triggering her out of sleep. Except that she was also named Suzanne and Topher told us her imprint was similar to little Suzanne's, only healthier. Echo woke up from her Suzanne-imprint eventually and again we heard the line "Did I fall asleep?". She could have slept a hundred years, she wouldn't have known the difference.
Topher felt pride, showing off for Ivy. Topher is the sorcerer who hypnotizes the beauty yet he's also the misunderstood prince who never goes and fights in the field, but he is ALWAYS there when the Dollhouse Sleeping Beauties wake up, asking how they are feeling.
But who was the client here? Who provided the imprint Topher used to make the improved one, the grown-up Suzanne? Perhaps I missed something.
What I didn't miss was Echo saying that Briar Rose made the prince, and that as Suzanne, she often pretended because it was easier, and she sometimes felt like a big liar, maybe an accomplice in a crime. Joss, Joss you're playing with fire here, but you do it well! Victims and criminals, pride and guilt may be closer than one think.
Things are complicated and dialectical. I can't wait for Paul and Boyd to have another heart to heart about slavery, right and wrong, and such stuff.
Paul fought for a cause, he fought for a girl, like a champion. He saw himself as the prince showing up in the castle to free Sleeping beauty, but was he the prince?
He did what I'd expected him to do for a while: he followed Mellie, after he broke up with her, to find out the Dollhouse. By the way Mellie broke my heart when he broke hers. Didn't he get that he was indeed killing her?
Mellie considered committing suicide until her handler showed up, saving November from throwing herself from a bridge. Are the handlers the true princes in this story? Boyd might think so.
November is safe, but Mellie is dead now.
November was the first sleeping beauty Paul saw in the castle– and she did look like a sleeping princess, just as Echo did, but Paul didn't kiss November. It was predictable, but I enjoyed the scene nonetheless. It was necessary, as Adelle would say. Paul is a failed prince, he missed his chance, and he must know it now.
Maybe Paul Ballard was not a prince but was a Sleeping Beauty himself and that episode was his big awakening: "My whole life isn't real"
Echo woke up in her pod but she didn't trust Paul, and might have been waiting for another prince, less charming.
Prince Slashing enters. Poor Victor! I hope Alpha will bite the dust for hurting Victor. But as a doll wasn't he Sleeping Beauty too? A doll is like a child after all. Wasn't he like little Suzanne who suffered from abuse? A little Suzanne who didn't grow up well. I think that the most interesting parallel was there. Little Suzanne used to hide knives, she tears and strikes the pages of the fairytale book just like Alpha slashed faces. We saw her giving up the blade she had on her, but Alpha found Dr Saunders' blade. ETA: By the way I loved the fact that little Suzanne played the storyteller for us as Paul was breaking in the Dollhouse. Sleeping Beauty made the prince, creates the story. There's something meta again about the episode, soemthing dealing with storytelling.
Which imprint did Alpha use on Echo? Caroline's mind? I think it's unlikely since Echo is our heroin. I guess that they shared an engagement once upon a time and it backlashed. Victor and Sierra were not the first Adam and Eve in the new Eden. Alpha tasted the apple and got knowledge. Did Echo hand it out? Here enter Bonnie and Clyde. Did Alpha free Echo or did he just imprint her with the imprinted persona he fell for?
Sleeping Beauties should beware of princes (especially when they like playing with blades or make them sit down on certain chairs) for they just want to enslave them for ever.
By the way, Joss is recycling: there was something of Spike& Dru in Alpha & Echo in the end.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 09:05 am (UTC)I got the impression that whoever ordered Echo, it was Topher who was so proud that it might have been something he was doing on his own. One for play, one to give away.... something like that. But then who would be the little girl to anyone? What importance was she? Possibly the daughter of a doll?
Right now.... I'm actually rooting for the Dollhouse. Will Tahmoh now end up as a doll? Only not know he is one? Tweak his mind a bit....
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:15 am (UTC)And how Topher would have gotten the little girl's scan?
I expect something big about Paul Ballard. The way Adelle said he was a challenge was significant. I smell layers! I also think she was testing Boyd when she asked his advice about sending Paul to the attic.
Poor Victor. I love Victor!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 04:48 pm (UTC)I was spoiled, too, not intentionally, but I'd seen enough hints to know what was up. *grumbles* The boyfriend didn' know though - he was sold completely on Kepler and I kept him from having a bathroom break just before the big reveal.
I've seen it argued that Alpha was once Topher's birthday buddy, just like Sierra in the previous episode, and that's why he's so much like him - assuming that Topher's birthday buddy is modeled on Topher himself (and yes, Topher is exactly the sort of person who thinks that only someone exactly like him is good company).
As to the little girl: It seems like a pro bono thing - Topher's idea of assuaging any possible guilt and stroking his ego at the same time, but of course that doesn't tell us how he found the girl.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 05:53 pm (UTC)That's an interesting guess! And Alpha using "the style" of a previous imprint to fool Ballard is quite ironical.
By the way I forgot in my post above to point out the double irony of Paul playing with Kepler like kids play with barbies, dressing him up, and thus making Alpha impersonate a doll!