"Dollhouse": "Stage Fright" Trivia Quiz

Answer: The stage pyrotechnics set a backup singer on fire.

As part of the number's complex staging, flash bombs are going off as the backup singers and dancers pass between them. On one of them, however, the timing is off and the explosive charge is double what it should be -- and one of the backup singers is caught in the flames. The fire is put out quickly, but it's something of a showstopper.

Answer: Backup singer

It seems that the pyrotechnics incident that left a job opening for Echo (as the security chief Biz, played by Jim Piddock, rather callously describes it) has not been Rayna's only near-death experience. The musical superstar, portrayed by singer Jaime Lee Kirchner, has received threatening letters from someone styling himself her "number-one fan" -- and then there is the matter of the mysterious dropping sandbag at a previous performance. It isn't just random mayhem, either; the malfunctioning pyrotechnic would have caught Rayna instead of her backup singer, if it hadn't been for a last-minute choreography change just before the show.

To protect Rayna, Echo becomes Jordan, an aspiring singer and dancer with hidden martial arts and tactical skills. The goal is for her to be a deep-undercover bodyguard, protecting Rayna with her life -- without really realizing that she's doing it.

Answer: Someone has eaten a mint.

When a pop star like Rayna turns up in a show like this, you have to expect some caricature. Rayna is a professional, running her own dance rehearsals; a perfectionist, insisting on the purity of her artistic vision; and a micro-manager, controlling her staff down to the last breath mint. Jordan/Echo is breathlessly excited to be here (and to be Rayna's new favorite), but even she is a little taken aback by Rayna's behavior -- and by the minute size of the costume she's expected to wear.

Answer: Lubov is a Doll.

Lubov has been spending the early part of the episode chasing after Ballard, trying to set up a rendezvous. (He tells a neighbor of Ballard's that he knew him in the Navy, and -- at her blank stare -- hastily amends it to, "Old Navy. I did retail, before. He would, um, buy slacks.") After he dangles a little bait for our favorite FBI fisherman, we learn that Lubov himself is not what he seems, in a quick cut to the actor in the Dollhouse's fancy chair just after a personality wipe.

When he turns up a scene or two later to phone in a tip to the basement of an abandoned hotel, it's very like the anticipation in a horror movie. No, Ballard! Don't go in there!

Answer: She is the winner of a fan contest.

Sierra/Audra is introduced to Rayna as her "number-one fan," winner of an enviable package that includes both plane tickets from Sydney to the U.S. and nearly unlimited backstage access. Audra is both nervous and thrilled beyond belief to meet her idol; Rayna, deeply unimpressed, has to be reminded to be polite to her. Jordan, however, seems to form an instant connection with Audra; could this reflect the gentle, shallow friendship shared by Echo and Sierra in their mind-wiped time at the Dollhouse?

Answer: He is ambushed by Russian mobsters, and is seriously wounded fighting them off.

It's an odd choice for Ballard to go to the Devonshire Hotel, alone, without back-up, and without anyone at the FBI knowing his plans. Hasn't he ever seen any television? But he does waltz in solo, and he's surprised by a group of three goons from the Russian crime family he's been investigating. They are not looking for friendship.

Despite his ill-conceived entrance (even one of the goons mocks him for not having back-up!), Ballard does have the scriptwriters on his side, which is why he's able to kill or subdue all three of his opponents despite being shot in the gut fairly early in the fight. By the time he manages to call 911, however, he's nearly passed out, and we get some suspense as the camerawork and music imply he might not make it. (He does.)

Answer: Rayna's dressing room is filled with flowers and notes from her would-be killer.

Rayna's dressing room is filled with orchids, all sent by her would-be killer, and they're accompanied by creepily written notes on red construction paper. Echo/Jordan realizes first that all of Rayna's fan mail is supposed to be going directly to the police -- and then she picks one up and realizes what they say. Rayna pouts, telling Jordan that she feels imprisoned by her life -- just another factory-made pop star, right down to her start in Disney's Mickey Mouse Club.

The killer, Rayna says, is her "number-one fan," and she just wants to give the audience a performance they'll never forget. "I'm not crazy," Rayna argues, despite all evidence to the contrary. "I just want to be free."

Answer: Sierra/Audra, because she's Rayna's "number-one fan"

We've seen in the dressing room that the stalker (played by Graham Norris) believes himself to be Rayna's number-one fan, and takes inordinate pride in being the one chosen to take her to the next level of stardom. (Yes, their plans are that twisted.) So it's not surprising that he's hurt and offended when Rayna introduces Audra on stage, in front of everyone, as her real "number-one fan," in order to cover for Echo/Jordan's disruption of the show.

He snatches Audra off the street as everyone is distracted by the aftermath of the shooting, and sends a threatening video to Rayna. "You gave her what was mine," the stalker accuses, and tells Rayna that she knows how to reach him in order to save her fan's life.

Answer: She throws Rayna off the catwalk.

Echo/Jordan, fired by the music star she's programmed to protect, goes off-mission as soon as she sees that Sierra/Audra is in danger. When Rayna isn't fast enough to take action, Jordan hits her over the head with a chair and drags her to the rendezvous with Audra and her kidnapper. There, Jordan summarizes the situation neatly: Rayna, in love with a romantic ideal of death at the top of one's art, wants to die. The stalker wants to kill her. And Jordan doesn't much care one way or another. So she simplifies things by throwing Rayna off the catwalk -- which is when we, and Rayna, learn that she has a rope harness, so that she dangles harmlessly below Jordan's feet.

In her brief plunge, Rayna -- facing mortality -- discovers that the real and immediate possibility of death is far less romantic than the idealized version she's been pursuing. She wants to live! And, in the ensuing uproar, the stalker is arrested, everyone is saved, and the Dollhouse breathes a sigh of relief that Jordan wasn't off-mission after all; she was just stopping the person who truly wanted Rayna dead, namely Rayna. It may not have been the best way of doing so, but this justification allows the Dollhouse brass to avoid asking themselves hard questions.

Answer: Echo warns Sierra off with a subtle head shake, and Sierra walks away.

Echo knows that the two of them are being watched (at the very least by their handlers, Boyd and Hearn), and seems not to want to let it show that they have a deeper friendship than the Dollhouse expects. (After all, it's been telegraphed that -- as Jordan -- Echo abandoned her Dollhouse mission in order to save Sierra, as Audra.) Sierra appears to understand, and moves away without making a scene.

This may not seem like much, but it's a much, much deeper interaction than we've ever seen between two mind-wiped Dolls. In the Dollhouse, they're limited to shallow, scripted exchanges about being their best and about friends helping each other. Any interaction with layers of meaning bodes well for a deepening mystery in the next episodes!