Dollhouse s02e03 ‘Belle Chose’
Does it pass the Bechdel Test?
Yes, once.
How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?
Five (41.66% of cast).
How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?
Seven.
Positive Content Rating:
Three.
General Episode Quality:
I wish I could like it - I almost could.
MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:
Passing the Bechdel:
Robyn passes with Megan as they wake up. I think they only manage to pass when they exchange names; otherwise they talk about Terry constantly (including when Terry/Echo shows up).
Female characters:
Echo.
Adelle DeWitt.
Ivy.
Megan.
Robyn.
Male characters:
Terry Karens.
Paul Ballard.
Boyd Langton.
Victor.
Topher Brink.
Edmund Gossen.
Bradley Karens.
OTHER NOTES:
Oh good, just what this show needed! A misogynistic sociopath!
Everyone is talking like this is Ballard’s first time as Echo’s handler (including Ballard), but as far as I can tell, the episodes aren’t out of order, so...I don’t know why this is happening.
The good news is, Michael Hogan.
We’re also doing a thing this episode about how Ballard is distracted by how ~hot~ Echo is and it’s tedious.
UUURRRGGGHHHH, I get that the whole ‘hot for teacher’ cliche is a Thing and Kiki is supposed to be a terrible paper-thin male fantasy, but DAMN, I would feel better about it if the show actually acknowledged it directly, explicitly. They’re drawing a parallel here with Terry Karens’ attitude toward women (Gossen desires what Karens abhors, but both perceive women as objects for their gratification), however, since the show has done such a poor job of condemning objectification-in-fantasy in the past, I don’t feel like I can trust the parallel as intentional: there’s an alternate interpretation whereby we’re supposed to see Gossen’s fantasy about sexually-empowered women as the OPPOSITE of Karens’ hatred, rather than a variation on the same theme. I ASSUME that the parallel is intentional and that the writing is trying to directly imply that Gossen is rubbish, but with a paltering track record of excuses and softening comparisons like this show has got, they can’t afford to be subtle. They gotta try being clear and unequivocal for a while before they earn back the right to subtlety.
Victor as Kiki is delightful though; that’s all Enver Gjokaj.
Echo gets beaten in the head several times with a mallet. That’s two of three (and twelve of sixteen).
Yeah, this episode would play a lot better in a different context, i.e. on a show that was less gleefully hostile to women to begin with, wherein the misogyny could be treated as a truer horror instead of just an intense shade of the desensitising status quo. Even outside the misogyny problem, it’s a bit rich to have moral outrage from pretty much any of these characters; maybe if the show had done better to build the complexity of the ethical code of any of the Dollhouse staff (that thing I was talking about in the season one review, about playing the moral ambiguity too hard to really take a stand on anything? This is a consequence). Funny as it was to have Boyd emphasise that even TOPHER had ethical concerns here, the reality is that all of them are throwing stones in glass houses, they’re just stones of different descriptions. This show could have had all sorts of interesting discussions about the way that the Dollhouse staff justify their own actions to themselves, but they went for ‘but what if sex trafficking could have altruistic purposes?’ as if that’s a genuine question, instead. So, here we are. With Kiki.
