"Dollhouse": "True Believer" Trivia Quiz

Answer: They are loudly singing songs about God.

The ordinary denizens of Pleasant do not seem pleased at the singers' arrival: noticing that the group leader's shopping list includes electrical cables and duct tape, a mechanic tries to persuade the cashier not to serve them. It seems that the singers belong to a secretive cult outside of town, and the citizens of Pleasant think that something untoward is probably going on at the compound. Or maybe they just don't think the cult members make good neighbors: a sheriff's deputy observes that they're rather unsettling. "It's not so much the singing," he says, "as it is the smiling."

Answer: A client of theirs (a U.S. senator) hires them to infiltrate the cult.

The unnamed Senator is a frequent client of the Dollhouse, and his conversation with Adelle makes it clear that he's been very useful to them: senatorial help has kept the federal government off their backs. (Well, except for Agent Ballard, but even senators can't do everything.) It seems that the Senator is up for re-election, and wants to make sure that the federal investigation goes smoothly and finds anything there is to find: he doesn't want a public-relations disaster on his hands.

After an amusing aside in which the Senator explains -- to a Dollhouse head! -- that the problem with cult members is that they've had "their very wills taken away," he explains what he wants: someone who can infiltrate the cult without being given away as a covert agent or an impostor. "I need a true believer," he says, and the Dollhouse can make one to order.

Answer: It allows them to use her eyes as a camera, broadcasting images from inside the compound.

The technology appears to have been developed for people with real blindness; Dr. Saunders (Amy Acker) describes it as "a brain camera for the blind." Basically, the camera uses Echo/Esther's eyes for lenses, but in this case, the camera's images bypass Echo/Esther's own brain and are broadcast to the waiting federal agents. The feds have only a 48-hour legal window to "sneak and peek" and see what's wrong at the compound, and they're hoping that Echo/Esther will inadvertently send them enough evidence that they can go in for a real raid.

Topher finds the procedure extremely cool, and Adelle opines that they've determined the risks to be "acceptable," but Dr. Saunders is far less sanguine. It's "experimental," it's "highly invasive," and she isn't at all confident that they'll be able to restore Echo's sight after the engagement. Even worse, it carries risks of aneurysms, seizures and death. She is deeply upset to be overruled.

Answer: She saw Jonas Sparrow in a vision, and he told her "a place had been prepared for" her.

When Echo/Esther first meets Jonas (Brian Bloom), she touches his face and tells him she would know that face anywhere: in her vision, he had held her hand to his face so that she would recognize him when the time came. There are tears in her eyes as she tells them of the vision's promise that she would be "carried" from New Hampshire as if she were riding on the wind, and so she wasn't afraid to hitchhike across the country. Jonas's followers are deeply moved; his right-hand man, Seth (David Alpay), exults that this is all as Jonas foretold: "'We shall make a new garden, and fresh buds will flower there' ... It's happening!" Jonas does not seem so sure that Echo/Esther's story can be believed.

Meanwhile, back at the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) field office, the agents are picking up her secret signal just fine. Boyd, the Dollhouse's liaison to the government, hasn't told them anything about her except that she's "an extraordinary young woman," and he seems rather proud of her early success.

Answer: Victor has a crush on Sierra.

Topher is glancing at one of the Dollhouse's ubiquitous security feeds when he realizes that Victor is sweet on Sierra. He immediately (and very shyly) reports this problem to Dr. Saunders, who claims to have predicted this issue: Victor has been given the same imprint no fewer than eight times, for a repeated romantic engagement with someone known only as "Miss Lonelyhearts." A little more investigation of a lot of old security tapes, however, reveals that the issue is a real attraction to Sierra, rather than psychological residue from previous personalities. Perhaps this innocent, budding relationship will be explored in future episodes...

Answer: Firearms

We see the ATF field agents watching the feed from Echo/Esther's disconnected eyes: this hidden arsenal is exactly the evidence they need to get a warrant for a full-scale raid of the compound. They can't hear what Jonas is telling the young woman: "I want to believe you, Esther. I want to believe everything you say.

But the serpent also had a beautiful story, and the woman was deceived, and the man was corrupted, and they were forced to leave the garden." Jonas sees the compound of his sect -- the Children of the Temple -- as a modern-day Garden of Eden, and he thinks the members of his cult are as innocent as Adam and Eve were before the Fall. Jonas, however, is no innocent -- we know from the ATF agents' chatter that he's been convicted of some rather serious crimes.

As the one corrupted man in the garden, he sees his duty as protecting his flock from worldly influences that he doesn't think they can handle. He worries that Echo/Esther is one of these -- but, after she doesn't flinch from a gun pointed between her eyes, he decides that she is truly blind and truly believes.

He's right about Esther Carpenter, of course -- but what about Echo, the invisible woman under Esther's personality?

Answer: He sees her in television footage of the standoff at the cult compound.

As we discovered in the first episode ("Ghost"), Caroline is the original woman who became the Doll named Echo (who is now imprinted with Esther's personality). Ballard doesn't know any of this, of course, but based on a tip and a single photograph, he believes Caroline is a victim of the Dollhouse. Today, he begins his search by getting Agent Loomis (Aisha Hinds) to scan the FBI database for Caroline's face; initially, he tries to get his way by flirting with her, but she takes pity on him only because his efforts are so pathetic. Unfortunately, her search comes up empty.

A little later, Ballard receives a visit from his neighbor Mellie (Miracle Laurie), who is obviously sweet on him. She's there to deliver some homemade manicotti as well as the pills he's been prescribed for pain relief, but she also brings him a DVD, showing footage of Caroline expounding on how much she dislikes sorority girls. (Ballard observes, "She's just a girl!"; Loomis clarifies that she's "just a girl with a potty mouth.") But Mellie got the package from the mail cart; Ballard still doesn't know who sent it.

His final clue comes by accident. The ATF has moved in on the compound that Echo/Esther has been assigned to infiltrate, and the TV news is showing footage of the cult members fleeing from one building to another. There's a clear shot of Caroline/Echo's face -- but she's in Arizona, and Ballard is in L.A. Can he get there in time, before she vanishes again?

Answer: There's already been a miracle: Echo/Esther regained her sight.

Earlier in the evening, when it first became obvious that the feds were outside, Sparrow instinctively blamed new arrival Echo/Esther, and slapped her viciously across the face. It seems that this blow undid some of her optical surgery: now the ATF agents are no longer receiving her visual feed. As she says wonderingly, "I was blind, and now I see."

The other cult members immediately accept this incredible event as a miracle. Sparrow takes it further, seeing it as a sign from God that they shouldn't take up arms against the ATF agents, but should instead trust in God to save them. He instructs Brother Seth to set the chapel on fire, borrowing a page from the Book of Daniel -- where three believing Jews were thrown into a fiery furnace by the King of Babylon, but survived by the grace of God.

Well, there's a problem here: as Echo/Esther says, "You can't force a miracle." When Sparrow tries to prevent the other cult members from leaving before the building becomes an inferno, she knocks him out with a heavy candlestick and herds the rest out of the building, telling them she was brought there by God to save their lives. "I don't think God let me see again so I could just watch."

Answer: Laurence Dominic, Dollhouse security chief

Toward the beginning of the episode, Dominic had expressed concern about this assignment -- he thinks Echo's actions in the field have been "erratic," and he worries that she may be on her way to becoming another Alpha. When Echo's handler, Boyd, calls him for permission to pull Echo/Esther out before the planned ATF raid, Dominic sees his chance. He requisitions a company jet, makes it into the burning building, shoots the witness (Sparrow), and leaves Echo/Esther to die in the fire.

Fortunately for our heroine, Boyd shows up just moments later with a respirator, and carries her out. Later, in the Dollhouse, after her personality has been wiped clean and her vision restored, she seems to remember that Dominic is her enemy. Watch out, Dominic!

Answer: Federal Agent Lilly

Boyd, posing as a private contractor helping out the ATF, is the one who realizes that the "SAVE ME" note was a fake. Agent Lilly (Mark Totty) planted the note (we saw a glimpse of him outside the convenience store in the very first scene) because he had a grudge against Jonas Sparrow. (Lilly had helped put Sparrow away for illegal activities with young girls, but Sparrow's prison sentence was far shorter than anyone had expected.) So the agent faked the evidence because he was sure that something evil must be going on inside the compound, and he wanted to put Sparrow in jail forever. Of course, this creates a rather dangerous situation for Echo/Esther, not to mention all the other cult members!

Boyd threatens to reveal Lilly's misconduct if he isn't allowed to rescue Echo; Lilly then tells his agents that Boyd and Sparrow are in cahoots, and Boyd should be shot on sight if he's inside the compound. Luckily, they don't catch Boyd, and Lilly is left to pick up the pieces. We don't ever find out if Lilly faces the full consequences of his action, but when Ballard catches up with him the next day -- long after Echo is back in L.A. -- we do see that the disgraceful agent is in a foul and uncooperative mood.