"Dollhouse": "Ghost" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Caroline

Caroline (Eliza Dushku) is clearly in a desperate situation; she insists that she was just trying to help people, and it's clearly gone terribly wrong, although we get no sense of just who or what is after her. Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams) has clearly seen situations like this before. She's trying to get Caroline to sign some sort of a contract, and tells her it's her best chance: she can have a "clean slate."

Caroline is not impressed: "You ever try and clean an actual slate?" she argues. "You always see what was on it before." Of course, a slate can be wiped clean - but, as we'll discover later, the same does not appear to be true of the human mind.

Answer: Into a restaurant where a birthday party is being held

The restaurant is lavishly decorated with East Asian art and a "Happy birthday" banner. Strangely, no one seems to react much when the motorcyclists come riding straight in - this dramatic entrance is apparently par for the course. Echo wastes no time getting into a rather provocative dress so that she can dance with Matt, the birthday boy.

It quickly becomes clear that they're in the early stages of a relationship, and she's surprised and pleased when he gives her a little gold heart on a chain. So it's all the more odd when, after he leaves for a drink, she gets up and walks away - out of the restaurant, down the street, and into a black van waiting at the curb.

Answer: "Did I fall asleep?"

We see later that this is her response after every treatment - she's been programmed to follow a script. Topher Brink (Fran Kranz), the scientist who developed the technology used by the Dollhouse to wipe the dolls' personalities, does his work - cleaning her slate after every engagement - and, as the docile and incurious mind-wiped Echo comes back up, she asks, "Did I fall asleep?" Topher replies, "For a little while," and she leaves, satisfied.

Topher is clearly uninterested in Echo as a human being; she's merely a convenient vessel for what he obviously thinks of as his genius. We see here, though, that her handler, Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix), is much more protective of her and concerned about how the Dollhouse is using her - too concerned, perhaps?

Answer: Negotiator

Gabriel Cristejo (Kurt Caceres) is a desperate man. A Mexican businessman, he and his daughter Davina live in a well-patrolled U.S. mansion in part to avoid the risk of kidnapping - so this is a longtime nightmare come true. He's willing to pay the money (five million dollars) that the kidnappers have asked for; he's willing to obey their instructions not to go to the police; but, terrified of losing his daughter, he seeks a negotiator who will make things go "like clockwork." Adelle, while warning him of the risks, says that they can provide.

Answer: They think that he is indulging in paranoid fantasies.

The meeting with his superiors is not going well for Agent Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) - and in case we were having trouble telling from the dialogue alone, the scene is interspersed with quick cuts to Ballard fighting hard in a boxing ring. He's been on the "Dollhouse" case for over a year, and he doesn't have much to show for it. (In fact, as one of his superiors drily notes, despite harassing lawmakers and disrupting other investigations, "The only legal action you've successfully followed through on is your divorce.") The other agents believe that the Dollhouse does not exist; it's an urban legend, and Ballard's intense inquiries are starting to interfere with other, more believable investigations. They're only letting him continue because someone higher up believes in the Dollhouse, too, but they're warning him to ease up on the investigation.

Of course, this is television, and their warnings naturally go unheeded.

Answer: Stress-induced asthma

Apparently, "Eleanor Penn's" nearsightedness comes along with her new personality imprint, which changes the way her brain processes the information coming from her eyes. The stress-induced asthma works in a similar way. Each one is a souvenir from one of the many personalities that Topher wove together to create Eleanor, the perfect negotiator (despite Gabriel Cristejo's initial doubts on seeing her).

As we'll see later in the episode, it might have been a good idea for Topher to do some more filtering.

Answer: Find out where the Dollhouse is and inform Ballard

Coming up behind the young man - whose name is Anton Lubov, and who is played by Enver Gjokaj - when he's in a vulnerable position, Agent Ballard holds a gun to the back of his neck and begins by insisting that he say the word "dollhouse." Unsurprisingly, Lubov cooperates: "Dollhouse! Dollhouse! It's fun to say. Dollhouse!" Knowing that the Borodin family is involved with human trafficking and that Lubov is involved with the Borodins, Ballard believes that Lubov can get the information he needs and help him crack the case.

Ballard likes to call Lubov by his last name, which is more interesting than it might seem. It might be what Ballard does to everyone, or it might be a way to assert dominance - since Lubov is most commonly seen in Russia as a woman's first name. Curious, that ...

Answer: She recognizes one of the kidnappers.

One of the personality profiles that went into creating Eleanor Penn was from a woman who was herself kidnapped as a girl, at the age of 9 - and she recognizes one of Davina's kidnappers as the man who abused her terribly during that time. He'd killed his co-conspirators to take the girl for himself, hurt her for months, and left her for dead in a river. Seeing him again, Echo is sure that the self-styled "Ghost" intends the same thing for Davina.

Unfortunately, her stress-induced asthma kicks in as soon as she recognizes her abuser. She grabs for her inhaler, drops it, can't function - but when Gabriel tries to help her, she manages to tell him not to let them back on the boat, because they aren't going to return the girl. He tries to stop them, but is shot, as is the lead kidnapper; Boyd, whose primary mission is always to preserve the Dollhouse's secrecy, swoops in to extract Echo.

Answer: Davina's science teacher

Earlier in the episode, Echo had managed a phone call with the kidnappers, and they put Davina on the line. The little girl had mentioned that one of the kidnappers wore a mask whenever he was with her - leading Echo to surmise that he must have been concealing his face out of concern that he would be recognized. One of the kidnappers had also mentioned a schoolteacher. When this insight is shared with the Dollhouse higher-ups, they put their considerable intelligence-gathering team into play and discover that Davina's science teacher has not been to work in over two weeks. Interesting!

Boyd is deeply worried that "Eleanor Penn's" personality will be erased before the child can be saved, and he makes an emotional appeal to Adelle to let Echo remain Eleanor for a little while - after all, he points out, she likes to say that the Dollhouse exists "to help people." When he arrives in Topher's lab to find Echo just rising from the chair, he fears the worst - until, in a very nice touch, she reaches for her glasses. Perhaps she was wiped and re-imprinted (with a touch less asthma, maybe?); perhaps it was just a placebo treatment; we never find out.

Answer: She tells them that they've put Davina in the refrigerator.

Apparently, the Ghost's modus operandi is to get involved with the kidnapping of a young girl; wait until his companions are distracted, usually by counting the money; and then kill the fellow kidnappers and make off with the girl. But there was one, Echo explains, whom "he dumped in the river before he was sure she was dead" - and this girl, who eventually committed suicide, is the part of "Eleanor Penn" that remembers her abuse at the Ghost's hands and provides the detail about keeping the child in the refrigerator.

The Ghost hits her, but she is unfazed: repeating the line he once taunted her with, she tells him, "You can't fight a ghost." The other two kidnappers, persuaded by her tale, turn their guns on him, and Echo runs to the refrigerator to free Davina. They're almost out the door when another Doll - Sierra, whom we saw receiving her initial personality wipe earlier in the episode - shows up with a full combat team and kills the other kidnappers.

Job well done, Echo and Sierra return to the Dollhouse for their "treatments," and we learn that Davina's father looks likely to survive. And that's a wrap! Thank you for joining me for Episode One of "Dollhouse"; I hope you've enjoyed the ride!