Epitaph One: The Unaired Series Finale of Dollhouse, Summary… Spoilers!

Joss Whedon must have been really skating on thin ice with his latest series Dollhouse to have actually made a series finally. And that is exactly why this unaired episode from last season was never put out. There is no reason to have a finale to a show that is not over, it would give away all kinds of tasty plot that would have been in the subsequent seasons. All the better, now we can see just what is on the horizon for the little show that could. In the episode entitled Epitaph One, a name making reference to oh so overness of the show, starts off in Los Angela’s date 2019. A world more reminiscent of James Cameron’s bleak Terminator future, but instead of killer robots, we have instead… killer actives… correction many killer actives. As the plot unfolds we come to understand that a similar technique used to program the actives of the Dollhouse is now being used as a weapon. Kind of like how the people in the Matrix could turn into Agents, ordinary people are taken over by simply taking a phone call. After that, bam! you’re a crazed solder/killing machine ready to kill anyone who is not imprinted. Imprinting unlike how it was used in the show as a means of creating a kind of ideal operative for any occasion, has now been turned into a weapon. This point will definitely, be coming up in the second season as a key story point and source of moral dilemma for the cast. Throughout the episode we flash between the present and ten years in the future. The story regarding the dolls of the dollhouse tells more about the initial downfall of the world, and has tender moments between dolls who have had their own persona’s reintegrated. Also, we see that Topher went mad because the innovations that he made to the doll making process eventually led to the destruction of the world, and his former boss has become, in part, his nurse maid.
The storyline surrounds a few people who have yet to be stripped of their own personas looking for a safe haven, only to stubble upon a seemingly uninhabited subterranean health spa, at least that is what they initially think it is. Funny point is seems that in a very new future Road Warrior attire is all the rage and new speak Whedon Style, has become the popular form of slang speech. These survivors find the imprinting chair, a lonely Whisky (the person not the drink) and eventually leave in the direction of a safe haven lead by… Caroline (the persona that the Echo doll belongs to).