This week’s “Previously: on Dollhouse” is mostly scenes from Epitaph 1 with some splices here and there.

Then we jump to 2020, somewhere near the California – Nevada border. Some guy is Romero-zombie-walking around in a nice suit. A mob comes out of nowhere and takes him down, 28 Days Later-zombie style, and beats him to death.

Welcome to the future.

Meanwhile Zone (Zack Ward), Mag (Felicia Day), and Little Girl Echo/Caroline (Adair Tishler )-all introduced in the fore-mentioned Epitaph-are just meters away from all the shenanigans. Zone calls out “Butchers!” and it’s time to bounce.

They’ve been on the run for weeks, and are trying to find “Safe Haven,” something promised by an implanted personality in (again) Epitaph 1.

• ZONE: Look around ‘Tiny Messiah’. It’s over! Half the world’s been wiped!

There’s a lot of intriguing back story implied through new word usage here; people who have never been imprinted are “actuals” people who are imprinted homicidal maniacs are “butchers,” etc.

The trio makes their way to one of those warehouses where almost all the plot exposition in prime time television takes place. They chatter about what it might be like for Little Girl Echo to meet real Echo (Eliza Dushku).

• ZONE: You’re one of those magically-delicious super whores. I bet you look great!

Of course, we need some direction now that nobody’s at the location they’re suppose to be, so the trio is abushed and taken to Neuroplis-which is helpfully explained as being the “City of Minds”-for those of you paid ZERO attention in school. There they are brought to a holding pen, and Zone gets buttstocked in the gut. Some young emo-rocker in an H&M suit chastises the guards, reminding them to not bruise the merchandise.

Really? The world is ending and someone’s still trying to make a buck? I know this show detests Capitalism, but how heavy-handed can you get?

Zone freaks out because Safe Haven is apparently parked right next to the Death Star. That’s not me being cute, he actually says just that:

• ZONE: And you didn’t think to mention that Safe Haven was parked right next to the freakin’ Death Star?!

See?

Mr. Harding, who has been implanted in a corpulent corporate type, is living all the luxury the apocalypse can provide in one of the old offices of Rossum HQ. He is surrounded by priceless antiques and pricey hotties-doing his best Vladimir Harkonen impersonation (seriously people, check out Dune-the more you know!). It’s very much like Gary Oldman’s character in Book of Eli.

Emo-Suit brings in new bodies for Harding to peruse and most of them look like the dude you see in the “After” photo on those protein powders at GNC.  Apparently, Harding’s current body didn’t start out fat, he made it that way by eating all day while the world burned. One of the bodies is, in fact Helo (Tahmoh Penikett ). Harding flips out when Emo-Suit tells him he was just with “some girl.”

Emo-suit is all: “A couple dumb-shows never hurt anybody.” At which Helo smiles a smile that says “I’m going to thump you” and the edit actually cuts with a “thump.”

Back in the holding cell, Zone and Mag are freaking out. One of the guards comes in, and Echo-who had been concealed under burlap- springs into action and beats the hell out of everyone who is armed-and-therefore-evil. She grabs some guns and shoots Fat Harding. They attend to the prisoners while Helo wanders off to find Topher (Fran Kranz).

Topher, as it turns out, is doing the over-worked, under-sane scientist thing. Apparently every day he hasn’t solved their tech-problem, they kill someone in front of him-which would leave anyone a little crazy. He says he’s close to putting everything back to the way it was. In case you’re wondering, this is probably how the episode is going to end. The only reason I’m going to continue to watch is to the benefit of you, the reader/viewer.

You’re Welcome.

Jump to what is apparently safe haven, where everyone has been inoculated against half-assed science. Olivia Williams is growing strawberries and smiling, and it’s quite nice to see. She tells the lad to go show his mom, who is, in fact Sierra/Priya (Dichen Lachman ). It’s a real shame since we’re only 10 minutes into the show at this point: Paradise can’t last.

Right on cue, Echo and Helo show up with the plot hot on their heels. Topher’s in a bad way, but Zone and Mag are fine. So much so that Zone can still talk trash about Topher, much to the chagrin of Williams…

WILLIAMS: Topher Brink is a genius and you will keep a civil tongue in this house or we’ll put it in the stew.

The Rag-Tag Band of Misfits Who Will Save The World^TM discuss how they are going to just that. It involves building a pulse bomb (of course it does) that will reset everyone on the planet. The catch is that anybody with an imprint and wants to keep it has to be deep underground when it goes off and stay there for a year, while the techno-babble shockwave rocks the world Star Trek-style. Oh-and all the tech they need is back at the L.A. Dollhouse home office (of course it is). Zone ain’t happy about this.

ZONE: We just came from that party. It was on fire!

And then

HELO: World still needs heroes, kid.

ECHO: Did you really just say that?

HELO: I was just trying to be inspirational.

ECHO: You are so corny. . .

HELO: Well. . you’re. . . fat. . .

Awwwww, they’re so cute!

Zone tries to say this is a no-go, but the perimeter alarm-which every post-apocalyptic safe house should have-goes off. A semi-rolls up with some extras from Mad Max spilling out speaking some funky cross between Portugese, Russian, and Aramaic. Then Victor/Ciccoli (Enver Gjokaj ) emerges with techno-face implants, uses some sort of hand-held doodad to switch over to English and tell Echo he got her message and where are these asses that need a’kicking?

There’s a brief argument that sets up Ciccoli’s faction as embracing the tech and using it to fight, while Echo’s has abandoned it. Ciccoli even roughs up one of his people for showing T-the little boy who is clearly Ciccoli’s son-his crew’s “mods.” But hey, if England and America can agree Hitler’s Germany was pure evil, the Tech-Heads and the Luddites can get a long. Off they go!

On the way there’s a great scene where Zone talks with the Asian Tech-Head. In order to know or do something, apparently the Tech-Heads have to load it, but when they do they have to take something out. When the Asian Tech-Head wants to load “weapons expert” from a thumb drive around her neck, she dumps “Mercy” onto another thumb drive make room for it. She explains all this with an adorable little chuckle.

As an aside: that idea would have made a great show in and of itself.

There’s more dialogue filling in the blanks between the last episode we saw, the flashbacks from Epitaph 1, and the current events of Epitaph 2. But if you haven’t been following, it’s all just confusing filler. Helo and Echo have a conversation that’s sub-textually about how they only ever have sex when Echo is sure they’re going to die, and well-that’s a bad relationship, Armageddon not withstanding.

The Rag-Tag Band arrives at their destination, and it’s crawling with Butchers. They make with the bullets to the soundtrack of some fusion of heavy metal and violin that sounds very much like the opening of Angel. Mag gets shot, and Helo stops to help her-but gets shot in the head and drops like a rock.

Helo.

Shot.

In the head.

Alrighty then, all bets are off! The team gets into the Dollhouse Puzzle Palace Head Quarters Nerve Center^TM, only to find a bunch of wiped dolls running around. Oh, and Alpha (Alan Tudyk ).

Echo and Alpha snuggle, because Alpha is either not crazy anymore or in a world-gone-mad, a homicidal looney is an asset. Turns out Alpha is a piece with his million brains now and all the better for it. He even asks where Big Bad Ballard is, and gets the lowdown.

Topher, Williams and Echo are trying to find the super-world-saving tech when the Tech-Heads throw down and decide they like the world the way it is, since they are the toughest in it. Victor is displeased with this and so is Alpha, so they all have a little talk about it. Leading one of the Tech Heads to essentially call the Übermensch a caveman.

• ALPHA: (laughing) Did he just call *me* a luddite?

To which he promptly begins the ass-kickery.

After the baddies are dispatched, Topher gleefully says “It’s bedtiiiiime!” And runs of to his sleeping coffin, which is surrounded by crap and such of all sizes.  Williams remarks that she’s surprised to find it all intact. Turns out, Alpha found it that way and left it.

ALPHA: It spoke to the schitzophrenic in me. Well, both of them actually.

Priya passes time by smashing thumb-drives with personality programs on them while ranting about what a jerk Victor is. Echo starts a Priya intervention, saying that Victor is clearly in love with her, and promptly has a really great freak-out that has nothing to do with those two wacky lovebirds:

ECHO: You have years together! And what you should do is waste it! Never tell him that you love him!

She collapses to the floor sobbing, and all props to Duskhu: she sells the moment with a power-train warranty.

Jump to Topher finishing up the device, which has to be set off manually (of course). Williams figures out what this means right away: Topher isn’t coming back.

TOPHER: I didn’t want to cause anymore pain.

There’s more touching moments like this throughout.

TOPHER: I’ll fix what we did to their heads. You fix what we did to the rest of the world. Your job is waaaay harder.

And. . . .

• MAG: Take care of her, Zone. Try not to have any influence on her of any kind.

Topher goes up stairs to Williams office, sets the bomb to go off, and sees the wall of photographs that is almost obligatory in fictional disasters since 9/11 (See 28 Days Later, Battlestar Galactica), and the thing goes off, killing him and saving the world.

Echo loads up Helo into her brain, and they talk.

HELO: Are you sure? I’ve got a lot of baggage. Childhood stuff.

ECHO: We’ve got time.

She lays down in her sleeping coffin and we roll the closing credits for the final time.

SUMMARY

• This feels the like final episode of a much better show.
• That being said, HELL of a show. Trimmed out the crappy acting, the plot was rather tight, but if you haven’t been watching the series-you were lost.
• I think and entire T.V. show based on the day after the apocalypse would … oh wait. Jericho. Nevermind.
• There are certain tools I’ve begun to notice a Whedon show’s writers will reach for over and over. Hot girls beating the hell out of people, hot girls beating the hell out of rapists (that one never gets old, though), men who adore damaged and/or compromised women (within the context of their own moral code, mind you), and women having relationships with dead guys.