Television Without Pity's Review/Recap of Dollhouse Episode "Stop Loss"

One of my three favorite tv series this year - full list here - and my favorite tv reviewing web site. What more could I ask for? Except, of course, for the show not being cancelled, that is.

A few early favorite comments from this recap:

. "This time tomorrow, you're not going to exist anymore." Roger, of course, does not buy this, and unwittingly gets in a good one when he tells Adelle that he doesn't believe for a second "you'd ever stoop to the level of those pathetic souls who have to hire your programmable love Dolls to get what they need." His words shoot through her like an arrow, and she collapses into unprecedented tears. Good thing "Roger" won't be around to learn that Sierra is a Doll too, because I don't know if Adelle is in any shape to take what he'd say to her then.

and

Adelle storms in and, thinking Topher @!$%#ed with her, asks about the "other woman" in Victor's imprint. Topher, of course, is clueless, but Adelle is so upset by her lost Roger/roger that she basically confesses to being Miss Lonelyhearts, prompting Topher hilariously to recount all the jokes he unwittingly made to her at "Miss Lonelyhearts"'s expense -- "octogenarian, walker jokes -- the thing about the early bird special!" It's funny enough by itself, but if you think about the "getting the worm" punchline that Topher no doubt added in there, the whole thing gets a HA! Topher says he didn't know, but Adelle barely allows herself to cringe before biting out, "If you didn't alter the imprint, I want to know who did." She stomps off, but Topher follows her into the chair room, wherein Ivy is just sending "Roger" down for his dirt-nap wipe, but not before she makes an offhand joke about the engagement ending early because Miss Lonelyhearts broke a hip, to which Topher hilariously makes an "ixnay" throat-cutting gesture and Adelle equally hilariously narrows her eyes. Hee. Topher chooses to accentuate the positive, pointing out that Ivy clearly was not behind any tampering, before checking the imprint and asserting that it's exactly the same as it's always been. Adelle asks where, then, the mystery woman came from, but the freshly-wiped Victor comes out of the chair with the answer: "Has anyone seen Sierra?"

and

Have you noticed how "Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA!" Adelle has been about Echo lately? \

Sorry I've been slow to get to these last two Dollhouse episodes but the plan is to watch them today and share some of my own thoughts on them tonite.
If I do that via an article will others add their own thoughts? Otherwise I'll just add my thoughts to the existing seeds here

and here

I'm thinking it might be easier to do it as an article.

Finally watched these two most recent episode. Wow. Both good ones.

A few favorites remarks from Television Without Pity's analysis, and me picking parts I found interesting too:

Apparently now that Echo's in the Attic, Adelle judged it safe to bring Ballard back to the lab, and he lies still as Topher tells Adelle that he's tried everything -- even "homotopic" and "heterotopic" stimulation. Adelle raises a playful eyebrow: "Haven't we all?" I KNEW it! As a classic nerd, however, Topher is squeamish about the thought of man-on-man reactions, so they move back to the topic at hand, which is that the fact of Ballard's "extensive cortical scarring" has left him with no options but to try to install the Active architecture, and Ballard becoming a Doll at some point was certainly on my wish list for the show, so it's again like they're at least giving me everything I want before the end. Adelle tells him to make sure the architecture takes, so Topher muses that Alpha mapped Ballard's entire brain (not the most demanding cartography assignment), and he'll try to reconstruct it, but Adelle tells him that might not be necessary -- she's making some changes to the House as of that day. "Perhaps his petulant personality is a good place to start. And we are in the market for a strapping new Victor, are we not?" How hard she is going to hit that if it works out the way she wants. Topher looks like he wants to quote Lando Calrissian's "This deal is getting worse all the time" line...

.but it's time to cut back to Echo in the snow. She gets a vision of her creepy serial killer's "family" playing croquet, and then an image of an old couple and one of a girl petting a dead horse, before she senses someone pass quickly behind her. After another whoosh by her, Echo has suddenly become a little girl. She walks up to the lab and sees, with her back to her, someone who looks awfully like Claire, and then Echo's back to her normal self as she asks, "Dr. Saunders?" When the woman turns, however, her face is all bloody and zombie-like, and Echo gasps and whirls away -- right into Boyd, who warns her, just as he did when she was going to use the keycard, that he doesn't think that's a smart idea. He continues to quote past dialogue when he adds that she might bring the storm upon herself, but when she asks about her friends, he gives a maniacal and electronically-enhanced laugh and says she has none, and then the image changes into some menacing bald guy as he tells her to shut up. A guy in a super-creepy black mask grabs her from behind...

... and then she's once again back at the tree. She tries to tell herself it isn't real, but she's losing the battle against the mental tricks until she remembers Adelle's speech from the end of last episode and realizes she's in the Attic. A rather well-muscled male torso appears next to her, and she tries to tell him he's not real, but from what I've seen, that would be a damn shame, so it's just as well when he punches her in the face. She amusingly notes to herself that that was real enough, and decides to run, but inside, she's accosted by LAURENCE DOMINIC!

YES! I mean, I figured this would happen -- as Joe R recently asked me in regard to the possibility, "What else does Reed Diamond have going on at the moment?" -- but it's nice to see for sure, and gives me hope that he'll also be around for the finale. Anyway, Echo is less thrilled to see Laurence than I am, if the way she starts beating the crap out of him is any indication, but she stops when Laurence tells her he's not trying to kill her -- it's instead the owner of the well-muscled arm, who actually appears to be a well-muscled man in a full-body black stocking [Snake Ey