Daughter of the Ring of Fire » Blog Archive

Apr

2009

Dollhouse 1.10: Haunted

Posted on 22:24, April 24th, 2009 by EKSwitaj

Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

While the situation into which Echo was placed in this episode was quite cliché, this episode was, to me, the most disturbing yet. Echo receiving the implant of a dead woman’s personality had a lot of potential and served to create another warning of the dollhouse‘s apocalyptic potential (this time voiced by Boyd Langton rather than by a professor, though he was following a logic I don’t entirely agree with). That said, the character of a wealthy woman who comes across as cold to her loved ones but then learns to express affection after her death is simply not sympathetic, nor does her coming back in the body of an active rather than as a ghost add a sufficiently unique spin to make the storyline otherwise interesting. (Perhaps better acting would have helped?)

Of moderately more interest was Topher manipulating Boyd into allowing him to create a temporary friend. At least, I thought it was only moderately more interesting until Boyd’s conversation with Adelle DeWitt about the situation. When she says she allows him to have his “tests” because those who most need to reach out and that it only happens once a year (while Sierra brings him a be-candled twinkie) I had to feel sorry for him. Given how obnoxious his character had been, I had never expected to feel that way, but you know? I’ve been there. I know what it’s like not to have anyone to celebrate your birthday with (which obviously doesn’t excuse violating another person’s autonomy).

The most interesting and most disturbing storyline this week, however, was that of Paul Ballard and Mellie-November. First there was the awkwardness of his trying to walk the line between not let her know that he knew she was an active, not taking advantage of her when the woman to whom the body really belong could not consent, and not hurting Mellie because even if she was created by the dollhouse, he cares for her. Then came her very troubling speech: “I will give you what you need and let you take it from me.”

I didn’t want him to respond the way he did; I couldn’t watch beyond a certain point. I would like to say it is an inaccurate portrayal, that it unfairly implied that men are animals carried away by lust, but the fact of the matter is that it was unblinkingly unrealistic. What Mellie said gave him the framework in which to believe, at least as long as he needed to believe, that it would be OK—and the dollhouse is precisely expert in giving people what they need in order to believe that rape is OK.

This was the closest to the sort of rape I experienced that I have ever seen portrayed on TV: a man who sees himself as a force for a better world allowing himself to believe the lies of rape culture. It bothers me that the only confirmation of it being wrong is his regret, evident in the shower the next morning, but given the show’s constraints, I’m not sure what more could be done.