So now we know.  Now we find out what’s next.  Now we find out how it links to our future vision seen in Epitaph One.  But we haven’t seen it!  It’s the DVD only episode that was unaired.  It’s part of a show that’s been canceled.  A show that early on was well and truly horrible and unpalatable.  Why are we still watching it?

(I’d suggest reading Topless Robot’s Nerd Commandments, especially the parable of the Nerd Bastard and the Fox.)

Two years ago, Caroline fights back against Boyd and his smug assertion that she’s going to help him.  But now we find out what they want from her.  Rossum is in many bio research fields.  They provide MRIs and are tops in neural research.  Boyd says they have facilities all over the world and can tell if someone donates bone marrow to a cousin with leukemia.  Caroline reacts to that and Boyd says her medical history is interesting on a microscopic level.  Her options are life in federal prison (or maybe death) for terrorist acts or take the offer.

Anthony and Priya arrive back at the Dollhouse to find it dark and deserted.

Paul, Adelle and Mellie are waiting for a chopper and Echo.  Mellie leans in to kiss Paul but he dodges it.  Boyd and Topher arrive bringing a panicked Echo screaming that she’s on fire.  They sedate her and believe that her Caroline and Echo personae aren’t getting along.  But it doesn’t change the game plan.  Boyd is adamant about continuing and Adelle says they should walk in the front door.  While it’s interesting to watch Boyd now that we know who he really is, his allegiances and motivations remain unclear.

Anthony and Priya look around the abandoned house and find no hard drives, no security footage, but there is a sticky note with a smiley on it saying “Press Enter” stuck to the chair.  Priya is doubtful about using technology but Anthony talks her into it, arming her in case he turns evil (with a great “stay away from the junk” line.)  He gets in the chair and boots Topher into his body.  He sees the blood and thinks he’s dead.  In Tuscon, the ragtag and banged up group walk in the front door of Rossum where they meet Claire, but it’s not Claire, or Whiskey.  It’s Clyde in her body, but Clyde 2.0, the bad one.

Anthony/Topher tries to work out with Priya why a wedge of him was left behind.  He remembers he had a secret security camera installed.  They find the feed, play it back to see Boyd doing something to Echo while she was in the chair.  He drugged Caroline.  They figure Boyd is working for Rossum.  Clyde offers Adelle a drink and says she’s going to save the world, or at least a deserving few.  Besides, it’s not Caroline’s mind they want, but her body.  In holding cell with Paul, Topher and Mellie, Boyd pretends to be hot-wiring the lock, but ends up sneaking a proximity card over it to open the door.

Anthony/Topher is stunned it was Boyd that betrayed them.  He then offers to put Anthony back in with some enhancements.  Priya doesn’t like the idea, but A/T convinces her the good guys need a fighting chance.  The real Topher and Boyd are sneaking around Rossum and Topher tells him about the Topher 2.0 and his hope that Anthony and Priya saw it and are bringing help.  He also says the Caroline wedge was good and Echo’s acting like Sierra did when she was drugged.  Boyd doesn’t like any of this but doesn’t tip his hand.  Anthony wakes up and dispatches a couple hitmen, they decide to take the fight to Rossum.

Caroline is in a chair having a bunch of quick flashbacks, she remembers it’s Boyd.

Boyd “breaks in” to a research lab with Topher.  They find Topher’s tech fully realized.  A device that can make dolls without cranial architecture.  Boyd tries it on Topher but it doesn’t turn on.  Topher realizes they’re set up for mass production.  He starts smashing stuff but Boyd talks him out of it and into fixing one by saying they can get out without taking another life.  Paul smacks a guard down and gets some guns for him and Mellie.  They have a deep debate about self and how they feel for each other, then off to find the mainframe.  Topher fixes the Doll Gun and Boyd is impressed, saying he’s glad he chose him.  He walks off and Echo jumps in and beats him down.  Clyde/Whiskey is right behind her with a gun to her head and another to Adelle.  Echo tells Topher who Boyd really is.  Boyd asks if they really don’t know.  ”You’re here ’cause you’re my family.  I love you guys.”

Paul and Mellie make it to the cooling system.  She makes the wonderful suggestion to shut them down instead of trying to access the mainframe.  Topher ties Bennett’s killing through Claire to Boyd.  Boyd starts listing everyone’s good qualities and that he never liked Paul much.  He says the technology can’t be undone so they have to pick a side; the destroyed or the destroyers.  Boyd reminds Echo/Caroline that he protected her and that she will save them all.  There’s a neural chemical unique to Caroline that prevents imprinting, they’re going to harvest it.  He uses the Doll Gun on her.

Paul and Mellie smash some boxes in the cooling system, Boyd brings the secondary one online then tried to get Adelle to trigger Mellie’s fighting imprint.  She refuses.  In the cooling room, they hear Adelle’s voice with the code.  It’s Boyd replaying security footage.  Mellie starts hunting Paul and is about to kill him when she starts remembering.  She has him in a choke hold gun at his neck, she backs off and blows her brains out.  Caroline is strapped to a table and is lowered onto roughly 10 syringes.

There’s a knock at the door and Anthony and Priya come in to save Caroline.  She sends them to get the rest and says she’s going to try to shut the whole place down.  Topher says he needs to destroy it, just as Anthony and Priya set off flash grenades and take out the guards.  Topher says they have to wipe the tech off the face of the Earth.  Echo and Whiskey meet in a hallway and start fighting.  Paul finds Boyd in a hallway.  Paul doesn’t know, thinks the whole thing is Adelle’s fault.  Echo and Whiskey/Clyde fight right into the mainframe room.  Caroline knocks Whiskey out as Paul and Boyd show up.  Boyd pulls a gun on Paul who asks what he missed.

Echo shoots Paul in the leg so she can get to Boyd.  She and Boyd fight and he gets the better of her and at gun point she says she loved him.  Topher shoots Boyd with the Doll Gun.  He comes to asking if he fell asleep.  Echo says, “For a little while.”  A few minutes later, Echo gives Boyd a grenade to walk into the mainframe room.  We pan back as she leaves to see he’s strapped with explosives.  The building is evacuated and Echo makes it out just as the blast rips apart the research level.  Paul asks her if they saved the world, she says she guesses they did.

Ten years later.

Paul and Caroline are in a dark, screaming, gun filled future.

Boyd’s transformation weirded me out.  I can’t figure out why he wanted the gang all there.  Plus he was aloofly friendly, as though he was shocked his benevolence meant so little to the people he betrayed.  His taciturn, practical and gruff nature has been completely replaced with something of a hippie megalomaniac.  I understand he’s been playing a role, but my concern is we have to come to grips with Echo becoming Caroline, Topher’s tech taking over the world and the spinal tap cure for imprinting, but Boyd’s personality changed on top of it.  It felt like one thing too many.

We do see the beginnings of the resistance from “Epitaph One” with Priya eschewing technology.  This small group is the seedlings of the movement that tried to rid itself of imprinting that casued the world to fall apart.  I would love to recap what happens in “Epitaph One” as it will likely play a part in what we’ll see in the final episode, but in going over the notes I took from watching it, there are a lot of inconsistencies.  We’ll have to wait to see what “Epitaph Two” holds in store for us before making a final judgement and locking the whole timeline up for good.

“The Hollow Men” was action packed; a lot of fights, even a grand explosion.  There are a few things I didn’t like, namely that the mainframe central hub is a glass encased room with the Eye of Sauron in the middle of it.  I don’t know what technology exists where an arcade game that makes you stop a light on a number to get tickets is in charge of the entire corporation, but I wish they’d stop using it.  It’s like watching a Bond movie where the computer screens are like nothing you’ve ever seen before.  And what happens to all those people?  If they’re all linked through The Attic, what happens to them when that link dies?

This episode explained a lot, but it didn’t really make me stop and catch my breath or want to rewind and relive something.  It was what it was.  I also feel a bit confused as to who I should root for in the last episode.  I mean, the entire show was based on finding out who Caroline was, then who was behind the Dollhouse and then who was running Rossum.  We’ve done all that are left with one episode so we can find out what exactly?

Having seen the unaired episode, I’m going to make a few predictions.  Rossum may have lost its Tuscon lab, but who puts all their eggs in Tuscon?  My guess is Topher’s technology has already spread.  Clyde and Boyd likely sent it to as many houses as they could.  Boyd knew Adelle was coming to them, why take the chance?  What we see ten years from now is Rossum’s continued expansion thanks to Senator Perrin’s cover that Rossum was under attack.  Echo and Paul and Adelle’s bringing down of the Tuscon house likely did very little to stop them.

So they start using the remote technology to create armies of dolls, but it gets out of hand and soon the imprints become unstable and cause people to go crazy.  A few avoid it but no one is safe.  However, there is someone who has set up a bastion of normal humanity, Alpha.  He knows the cure and is using it to keep humans free from imprinting.  Now it’s up to Caroline and Paul and anyone else who can still fight, to stop the madness.  But the team will eventually lose and have to make contingency plans.  They’ll seal off the dollhouses and leave instructions with Caroline’s imprint.  She’s immune and anyone receiving her pattern can lead the rebellion again.

Don’t ask me why I think Alpha has the cure.  He didn’t leave Caroline in such a good state.  But perhaps he sorts out that her spinal fluid is the way people can be saved and in the end tries it on himself in order to free the other minds.  He’s smart enough to get the information from Rossum and test it.  I don’t know where he’d get the kindness to do so or the redemptive qualities to acknowledge what he’s done, but it’s one of the last strings not tied up.

We’ll know this coming Friday.

Four out of five creepy doll heads.