Sunday 17 November 2013

Dollhouse: The Attic

"My real name's Echo!"

Wow. This is at the same time a surreal, virtual reality themed episode, redolent of Part Three of classic Doctor Who story The Deadly Assassin, and a massive, massive reveal. This looks absolutely nothing like the rest of Dollhouse. Even the opening titles are different: this is big. Very big. It's not all over yet, though. Not by a long shot.

It's hard to know where to start. Dominic is back, of course. There is surreal stuff, and Echo, Priya and Anthony face their worst nightmares in the weirdest possible way. That Japanese bloke... I shudder at the memory.

But the big revelation is that the supposed big bad, "Arcane", is in fact a British chap called Clyde, the betrayed co-founder of Rossum, who has been languishing in the Attic since 1993! Clyde, with his cyber- superpowers, can see a terrible future that must be avoided or, to be a bit more meta, he's seen Epitaph One. He's a human computer, powering everything, and has been replaced in real life with "Clyde 2.0"...!

Echo, Anthony and Priya, being heroic and, more to the point, the protagonists, naturally escape back to our reality. At this point another bombshell is dropped: Adelle was a goodie all the time, and only sent our heroes into the Attic so they would find enough information to bring Rossum down. Well, well, well. This is not entirely uninfluenced by The Matrix, but it's excellent stuff.

Oh yes, and Ballard is back. He's a doll. Imprinted with himself. Weird.

There's one person who knows the identity of Clyde's partner: Caroline. And we end with Echo declaring an intention to "meet" her...


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