Somewhere in New Mexico, a man is mourning the fact that he loves a woman who never existed. He blew his whole fortune on her and now lives in a trailer.

Alpha, who up until now had been staying just outside of our line of sight, says “that’s very sad,” and slashes the man’s throat, getting strawberry jam all over the place.

Somewhere in the Dollhouse Puzzle Palace Head Quarters Nerve Center Fortress, Echo’s in a straight jacket having, a rough time. There’s a mysterious voice talking to her.

It’s Victor, imprinted with one those asshole doctors who is more about following orders than healing.

Just outside the room, Helo and Williams are arguing about weather or not Echo is special, and how is it she survived “on her own” for 3 months. Helo accuses Williams of punishing Echo for surviving, and that it’s lunacy. Williams says she needs answers, and decides to keep Echo in there longer, and leaves the room, with Lennix and Ballard in her icy wake.

Helo’s p***ed at Lennix, accusing him of abandoning her in her time of need. Lennix replies that, essentially, it’s time to nut up AND shut up.

LENNIX: I don’t like seeing her in pain. I looked into her eyes and swore to protect her, same as you. Before you. Today, protecting her means not reacting while Dewitt tortures her.  So man up.

Dr. Victor says there’s nothing wrong with Echo, and chastises Dewitt for hating her so much. Dewitt thinks he’s an ass, so she leads him to the treatment room and has him wiped. She asks Topher what’s going on with Echo, physically. Topher says nothing’s wrong and has the scans to prove it.

Cut to him telling Helo and Lennix those same scans are balls out crazy, leading Helo and Lennix lay it down for him: Echo is the Super Doll.

In Williams’ office, Williams tells Helo it’s time to get Echo back out in the field; effectively calling out he and Lennix’s little conspiracy. Helo gets Echo out of the loony bin and brings her to Lennix and Topher.

TOPHER: So, she’s a serial killer?

LENNIX: Only a little.

Echo uses her new ability, calls up the personality for the engagement Williams set for her, and we’re off!

She shows up at her engagement’s house to find the client rotting, with his throat slit. She flips out; and then gets together realizing it was probably Alpha.

Back at the DHPPHQNCF, Williams is sure that Alpha was helping Echo those months while she was gone. Solid theory, really.

Helo and Lennix have a sit down and discuss the facts oh the case. Four people have been killed, all of whom Echo “loved”.  Three men. One woman.

In Topher’s Office, Sierra walks in dressed and talking like it’s the 1940’s and she’s in a film noir private detective story. I don’t mind saying: it’s really damn sexy. Her engagement was with. . . Alpha apparently.

Williams gets all cross, wondering if they’ve had any engagements this month Alpha didn’t set up, and orders a preemptive wipe of all the dolls in the house…just in case Alpha did something tricky.  Helo and Lennix hit the books and do research, as Alpha dropped the hint to Sierra that the next victim “ages well.” Lennix figures that’s a man who knows how to celebrate in style, and wouldn’t you know it? His birthday is coming up!

Helo and Lennix grab their Dollhouse S.W.A.T. team and head over to the client’s apartment. Nothing there…except for Alpha with the client strapped with plastic explosive. Alpha is dressed in a really nice suit, with a shirt that looks like he got it at a thrift store. Oh, well, f*** it, he’s Alpha.

ALPHA: (to BALLARD) But you. You don’t work for the federal government anymore. Why not just a splash of color?

Lennix and Helo try to negotiate, but it doesn’t work. Alpha is more stable than ever, but unfortunately still a Sociopath. He detonates his victim right after Helo and Lennix run for cover. It’s impressive, really. Pop goes the weasel.

Back in his office, Lennix is keeping tabs on the next potential victim. The last guy on the list is Mynor, a.k.a. Patton Oswalt. Helo finds him on a beach somewhere, and Mynor insists he is over his dead wife (Echo’s implanted personality during his engagement), and is getting married. This is probably true…until he sees Echo again, wearing wifey’s memories. They wrangle him back to the Dollhouse to keep him safe.

Williams extends a warm greeting to Mynor and has Topher give him the tour. She also lets Lennix and Helo know she’s unhappy about the unauthorized freeing of Echo, and tells them they’re on a short leash.

In Topher’s lab, Mynor asks who Alpha is and gets the long-short answer. He’s noticeably freaked out that he’s the target of a super human serial killer. Mynor starts to get nervous. Echo gets locked up in solitary as they speak.

Williams is in her office trying to find a nice hotel that accommodates large numbers of discreetly armed me. The toilet to her private bathroom flushes, and Alpha walks out.

ALPHA: Tally ho then! In fact, let’s say we tally your ho’s?

Alpha goes round and round with Williams, toying with her and assuring her that the Dollhouse can’t stop him. It’s shame he’s so focused on just the one, isn’t it? He could save the world. . .

Our dandy villain gets into the executive elevator, taking Williams with him. Lennix and Helo see it on the security feed and spring into action! Just as they area about to engage Alpha, he lets Williams go, and pulls out and uses a little doodad, turning all the wiped dolls into rabid zombie mooks. Nice.

A mass mook-on-mook fight sequence-brought to us by Forever 21, Brooks Brothers, and Axe Shower Gel- ensues, with Lennix and Helo stuck in the middle like Stealer’s Wheel. Williams blockades herself in a room, and some dolls plaster themselves against the door, clawing to get in. Victor wakes up and clocks Topher, Alpha enters and stares at Mynor with designs of fashion menace.

Chaos everywhere, as Helo dispatches a Doll that should be imprinted with some decent running back skills and rented to this season’s Redskins, then heads for Topher’s lab. Meanwhile, Echo breaks through the two-way mirror to her cell and bounces. Helo enters the wipe room where Alpha is keeping Mynor, and Alpha, well…

ALPHA: Bait, meet Switch.

Victor shoots Helo up with a sedative, and you know it’s something potent because Helo is a tower of absurd masculinity and he still goes down like a bag of wet mice.

ALPHA: One of my imprints was an Eagle Scout, the other was a sailor. There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere.

Alpha hooks Helo into the wipe chair, ranting that Echo loves Helo, and shows him the pictures to prove it,. Helo does his best Han Solo and says it’s lens flair.

Williams, still harried by the zombie dolls, finds a secret passage way. Echo kicks it open from the side and gives the “Come with me if you want to live” speech. They link up with Topher, Mynor and Lennix, who are holding their own against the doll horde. Together they run down the hall to the bed chamber, as it only has one entrance (a.k.a. a choke point).

Topher explains that Sierra had a virus that uploaded when she was wiped, and that virus was spread when they wiped all the dolls. Mynor then tells Echo that Alpha has Helo, and not in a snuggly way.

When we see them again, Alpha zaps Helo to brain death, never getting the answer he’s looking for (why Echo loves an ordinary like Helo, and not an ubermeanch like him), and decides he needs to upload Helo into himself, rather than try to download love.

The Scooby gang holes up in the bed chamber, and decides to grab a remote wipe device from the manufacturing room. What?!? After seeing how bad things can go wrong, no one’s carrying one with them everywhere they go?

TOPHER: Just gimme a second to put this together.

LENNIX: You have to put it together?!

TOPHER: It’s the manufacturing room, not the ‘it’s finished’ room!

Echo rolls up on Helo’s brain-dead husk, and Alpha wants to snuggle. She throws him down the hallway…because that’s what you do. This weeks’ second fight sequence is brought to you by Express for Men and Microsoft.

ECHO: He’s ten times the man you are, and you’re like 40 guys.

During the fight, Alpha asks Echo why Helo never laid a hand on her during their three month interlude, adding the jibe that many men have “come there before.” The subtitles spelled it “come”, and well-network censors can’t ban a basic part of speech for it’s 20^th meaning in the dictionary.

The fight rages until Echo tackles Alpha out a window and pounds him like dog meat at an Asian market. Alpha conjures Helo and tries to get her to kill him, knowing he can only keep the Alpha personality at bay for so long. She won’t do it, and he leaves in frustration.

The dynamic duo of Lennix and Topher wipe their way through two dolls before they find Echo with Helo’s head in her lap, quietly sobbing.

Alpha killed Helo? YOU BASTARD! NOOOOO!

*ahem*

Commercial Break.

The dollhouse is pulling itself back together, and Echo and Mynor have a moment when she conjures Mynor’s wife and asks about his new fiancee,

ECHO: You never told me about her. What’s her name?

She then helps him put their relationship in perspective, so he can move on and have a new life-one that’s with a real woman, and not a doll. It’s a wonderfully human and quite well acted moment. Afterwards, Echo heads over to the medical ward, where we see Helo’s on life support.

WHEW

She leans over and tells him that he lives on, for her.

SUMMARY:

• Why have the episodes been called “Part 1” and then the second is a different title “part 2” What the hell is that? Post-modernism?
• Alpha is more or less this show’s Joker with no Batman. His plans don’t actually need to make any real sense, and they just throw him in to advance the plot when convenient.
• This episode was exciting, but up until Helo got brain-killed, it felt like a stop-gap. I have absolutely no clue what’s going to happen next, and that’s kind of awesome.
• Alpha has become to my eyes, that special brand of asshole that doesn’t believe women who have sex are worth loving, but wants them badly anyway. I’m always fascinated by that arbitrary line between “desirable” and “slutty.”