Dollhouse 2x11

At the L.A. Dollhouse it is time to meet Caroline, Echo’s original identity before her brain got wiped blank and subsequently imprinted with a whole series of different personalities. We’re getting very close to the season’s end, but first we go back in time three years ... when Caroline Farrell (Eliza Dushku) broke into Adelle DeWitt’s office to discover information about the Rossum Corporation. Instead she found a file on herself, as well as on Bennett Halverson (that wicked smart, little hottie, played by Summer Glau)... Fascinating! Bennett was a genius neurology student at the Tucson Institute of Technology (very unfortunate glasses, darling), where she met Caroline and they became fast BFFs. Or is Carline simply trying to use Bennett’s access card to the laboratory?

When Bennett finds out about Caroline’s plans to bomb Rossum’s lab, she’s actually hurt that Caroline didn’t ask her to help. When they set out to blow up the lab, Caroline comes across a section she didn’t know about, with preserved bodies inside that come alive... During the explosion a piece of concrete dropped on Bennett (that will eventually cost her the use of her left arm) and Caroline has to leave her behind. She gets caught and send up to “Rossum” which, as it turns out is just a name. She meets one of the founders of the corporation, Clyde (in a different body from the Clyde she saw in the Attic) ... as well as the other founder ... no one other than Boyd Langton (Echo’s former handler, and now the L.A. Dollhouse’s Head of Security)! Whoa!!! That completely caught me sideways!

Back in the here & now, Caroline’s original memory dump, the hard drive that contains her identity is missing from the vault. In order to help them fix a backup that programmer Topher once broke, they abduct Bennett from the D.C. Dollhouse, in the course of which Echo’s handler Paul Ballard also retrieves Madeline. Topher and Bennett giggle uncomfortably around each other. Then Boyd Langton brings back Dr. Saunders a/k/a Whiskey, in the course of which they kiss (what the? When did they get romantically involved?). Later, former chief of security Laurence Dominic resurrected himself from the Attic to inform them that Rossum is sending the troops in. During the evacuation, Boyd is able to shoot Rossum’s gorillas that were sent to fetch Adelle, but he gets shot himself, too.

Now Boyd has to run for his life, while Bennett has to try and bring back Caroline from a broken hard drive. That’s when Dr. Saunders blows her brains out! (Aw, just when I was drooling with adoration!) Probably Rossum got to Saunders and made her a Sleeper (an inactive Doll waiting to be triggered for a mission). With the Dollhouse under siege, electricity failing, Topher sends away his assistant Ivy (another Asian cutie) in the hopes of saving her life ... and her brain from getting shot to pieces ... and now he has to revive Caroline’s memory wedge. Once Echo’s on the chair to get her imprint of Caroline, everyone else runs for their lives ... and then Boyd enters the room to get Echo/Caroline... (Stay tuned! We’re picking up the story next week.)