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Echo goes blind with belief as she infiltrates a religious cult.

This week on Dollhouse, there’s religious zealots, federal agents with a morally corrupt axe to grind, and some other issues… well, rising in the Dollhouse.

This week, it more-or-less diverts back from the mythology of the show into a pretty straight-forward stand-alone, and if it were written by anyone else other than Tim Minear (a veteran of all of Whedon’s shows, and the creator of two previous underservedly cancelled Fox shows, The Inside and Drive), I would have been pretty disappointed in a stand-alone coming in the midst of the beginning of developing a mythology that this show really needs. But it’s Tim Minear with some very clever and very tense and very funny moments that are the benchmarks of his style, and that’s what keeps this stand-alone great. We begin with a U.S. senator coming to Adelle to use one of her Actives to go undercover with a possibly dangerous and fanatical religious cult, which Adelle is very much of two minds about. She wants to keep her Actives out of the hands of the government, but she also wants the government’s protection, and a U.S. senator can go a long way towards making sure there’s no interference. The Engagement is very high risk to the Active in a few different ways. First off, the words “fanatical religious cult” are pretty scary as is. Secondly, once Echo is chosen as the Active for this mission, Dr. Saunders and Topher have some bleeding edge tech that they want to implant within Echo surgically that essentially make her blind, but that turn her eyes into remote cameras. Dr. Saunders is against it because it’s dangerous; Topher’s for it because it’s cool; Adelle believes it’s necessary for giving her the necessary imprint for the engagement. She’s not going to be some super-cool badass undercover agent for the ATF. She’s going to be a blind girl who is a true believer in the power of this group’s message, particularly that of their Koresh-like leader Jonas Sparrow (Brian Bloom, who you’ve seen in about 50 different TV shows, but the target audience for this show may recognize his voice better, since he’s got about 90 different video game voiceovers to his credits). Sparrow is a violent ex-con who found God and started his own cult, and of course as every good religious cult leader should have is a past with underage girls, guns, and one very hacked-off ATF agent, Agent Lilly (Mark Totty), on his trail. Lilly works with Langton, who is there in a support capacity, to get Echo in so that they can catch a look at anything that might result in getting a warrant for Sparrow’s arrest. But Sparrow would be able to sniff out a Fed, so the imprint has to be very specific. And it’s perfect for getting her in, but it may not be enough to get her out.

Back at FBI, Ballard is exhausting every resource he has to try and find anything that he can on the girl known only as Caroline, but keeps running into dead ends. But when the sweet neighbor-who-carries-a-serious-torch gril Mellie (Miracle Laurie) comes to bring some pain meds to Ballard, still recovering from his shooting, she also brings a special-delivery envelope with his name on it that contains a DVD of a home movie of Caroline that has some non-descript names, but maybe enough to get a lead. It’s a home movie that we’ve seen before in the first ep at the scene of a horrible murder of unknown people as an unknown man watched it. After all this time, we have to assume that it’s Alpha, who is set up as the Big Bad of this season. He’s trying to lead Ballard to the Dollhouse, but for what nefarious purpose? Also back at the Dollhouse, Topher notices Victor getting a very specific… reaction while in the group shower. He reports this to Dr. Saunders, who knows that this should not be possible, because the Actives while in the ‘tabula rasa’ state, have always been, well… limp. So the search is on as to why this might be happening to Victor.

Back at the cult’s compound, Echo gets the ATF the evidence they need to serve their warrant, but the breach is screwed up and Sparrow decides that it’s Echo that has led them to him. He smacks Echo around, but one of those smacks plays havoc with the cameras in her brain and suddenly she can see again. A miracle has occurred. And as the ATF closes in, this leads Sparrow to believe that it is indeed a miracle and if one can happen, maybe another miracle… such as flames not harming himself or his followers… will occur. Langton wants to move in to extract Echo, but Agent Lilly has some issues with that because Langton discovered that Lilly illegally manipulated the events that led to where they are now because of a grudge he has against Sparrow and his previous activities. When the time comes to save the day for Echo, it’s not Langton, but the extra-sleazy Mr. Dominic who believes that Echo is far too much of a threat to the Dollhouse because she is exhibiting behavior that Alpha exhibited before he went all crazy brilliant psycho killer on them. Also… yes, there’s more… when the media got wind of the siege on the compound, they went there, and while Ballard is watching the news, he sees some of the cultists running from one building to another, and he catches a glimpse of Echo.

While this ep doesn’t really do a lot to extend the mythology of the series, it does explore some deeper issues on a more intimate level, like Victor’s “impossible” arousal, Dominic’s firm belief that Echo is another Alpha waiting to happen, and the lengths that Ballard is ready to go to for more information about the Dollhouse. Aside from that, it’s going back to formula as far as the persona-of-the-week. And however this episode may seem like just another ‘ripped from the headlines’ work, Minear and director Allen Kroeker, another super-veteran of genre television with credits on everything from Roswell, Andromeda, Jake 2.0 (clap if you remember that short-lived show), Chuck, Tru Calling, Firefly, and BSG, they help to transcend that formula as we’ve seen it play so far and give a tight, exciting and dramatic episode with the requisite Minear twists and turns that make his writing some of the best in genre television. Helping it along is another really good performance by Dushku, and the supporters of Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, and Bloom as the charismatic but twisted Sparrow.

Man, has Tim Minear been screwed. Firefly, The Inside, Drive… three shows with a universe of potential cut down by the idiotic bureacracy of a network. So let’s hope that Fox keeps the Dollhouse open, because there’s way too much talent here to be squandered.

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