[7.9/10] A superb end to a superb season. So much Season 2 of this show has been about showing change and growth for the better in our heroes at the same time the world was constantly changing around them, whether that meant teaming up with Michael, leaving The (Fake) Good Place behind, or sneaking their way into The Judge's chambers.
And in the finale, the show tries to test out whether that change was real. There's complex moral theories at play here, but the most basic are a few ideas: that a person can become good with just "the right push" like the one Michael tries to give Eleanor in saving her from that row of shopping carts; that good is not something you do because you expect a reward but because of who you are; and that morality, and by extension being good, is something inextricably tied to others, to "what we owe each other," an idea that brings Eleanor and Chidi together in the mortal realm at the end of this season just like it brought them together in The (Fake) Good Place in the beginning.
All the while, there's a lot of strong writing and character work. Using the eye-opening shot for Eleanor to montage her rise and fall during the course of a year back on Earth is a smart tack. The idea of old-timey stock tickers, with Michael and Janet reviewing, to indicate how our heroes are doing back in the moral realm is amusing. And there's plenty of great laughs like Eleanor using the term "diagonal word belt" to mean "sash" or the bar (tended by Ted Danson, who was experience from Cheers) being called "Sting's Desert Rose."
It's a testament to the creativity the show has shown all season, one where it's been constantly willing to smash the status quo and dive headlong into some new adventure. Now that adventure is seeing whether our four favorite humans can take what they've internalized from their time in the afterlife, the potential they've shown, and turn it into real change back where they started. It's another exciting turn, one that promises to continue to follow the moral trajectory of these four individuals, and their unlikely guardian angels helping them navigate what it is, and what it means, to be good.
Sad to Nikki die. I wanted her to get her revenge. I'm also kinda bummed Emmit died too. Mr. Wrench must of really be fond of Nikki and who wouldn't be. Side note how did Emmit drive away after the shootout with the cop, I thought his car broke down right before that? I kind of like it that they left it on a cliffhanger letting us decide what happens. Do we root for evil, manipulating the truth to get the facts they want and getting away or do we root for the good, the truth is the truth and you can't change that.
I think the theme of the season between good and evil, truth and lies, Gloria and Varga was very interesting. Looking back on the beginning of every episode where its says "This is a true story" and then true goes away and then it is just story really hits on this theme. What is being told is it the truth or is it just a story? I always thought it was just funny they did this like the movie but it has some real meaning this season. Truth vs facts.
I went back and watched the first scene of the first episode and it was very similar to the last scene. A man is accused of killing his girlfriend and he denies it. He's not the same name or age but lives in the same location as the dead girlfriend's boyfriend. The cop doesn't believe his "story" because he has proof of where he lives and they need to pin this on someone. So which is true, the story or the facts? It ends where we don't know who "won" there just like the end of the season.
[7.7/10] And we’re off! This was a great start to the show. Admittedly, there was a bit of gay panic stuff that I didn’t love necessarily, but for the most part, despite delving into racism and homophobia, the jokes were on the main characters, so it worked for me.
I particularly loved the clockwork nature of the writing, where you had a number of different story threads going on that were all tied together and intersected with one another by the end. The comedy struck the right balance of edgy, awkward, and absurd for my tastes, and the ridiculousness of the characters and their great dynamic with one another was evident early.
I’m still getting the characters straight, but my favorite story was probably Charlie(?) feeling unexpectedly at home among African Americans, but using that to try to impress the girl at the coffee shop. There’s something about him being so blithely wrongheaded about what he’s doing that led to some great comedy.
Dennis enjoying the attention when Paddy’s turns into a gay bar was also a good gag. Again, some of the best humor in the episode came from the gang’s reaction to awkward situations involving race, sexuality, etc. Them tripping over themselves when outside their comfort zones was good stuff, and Dennis being initially uncomfortable about being touched by people he’s unfamiliar with but then relishing the attention was a good bit. Again, I’m not crazy about the “you had sex with a man” finish, but Sweet Dee’s “I couldn’t get a hold of my actor friends” was, at least, a nice twist.
Mac getting Dennis drunk by pretending not to know how to do a tequila shot was an amusing bit, as was Sweet Dee not realizing Terrell was gay. Again, easy stuff, but plenty amusing.
Overall, this was a tightly written, fun show of insane camaraderie, that bodes well for the rest of the series. Only 123 episodes (and counting) to go!
[7.1/10] A bit of a weird episode, and one of the earliest where the show started to take its meta-ness to the next level. I like Jeff’s arc here though. He tries not to be uptight anymore, subtly manipulates things anyway, and then when push comes to shove, steps into the leadership-esque role of the group but finds that there’s good to be done in that. The progression of it is a little clumsy, but it evolves Jeff in a believable fashion, and Abed’s Hawkeye metaphor goes from silly to meaningful.
I’m just not on board with all the Jack Black stuff. I like Jack Black! He’s a fun guy and he does good work. But he just has a strange energy for this show. Granted, that’s the point here, but maybe Black did his job too well, as he didn’t even work as a misfit and there weren’t a lot of laughs from his presence. That said, I did enjoy the ending with Owen Wilson accepting him into the cool kids’ group, and Buddy admitting that the Spanish study group was his “safety.”
Overall, not the show’s strongest outing, with Black being a weaker presence, but Jeff’s arc lifts it into “good” territory.
I did a little research after finishing this episode to see if I could confirm my hunches regarding the critique @d2dyno posted a year ago.
Whether I should be surprised or not that I was basically right, I'm not sure.
My overall hunch was that Dollhouse went into the end of season one "on the bubble", with a threat of cancellation hanging over it. That would explain why "Epitaph One" seemed like a rushed, hasty closure kind of thing. I also speculated that it was ultimately renewed—too late in the season to do a "real" season ender. The true events are actually much more interesting.
Dollhouse did indeed spend its first season in the "ratings challenged" category, so there was considerable doubt surrounding its prospects for renewal. But this thirteenth episode didn't come from that. It came from the production studio, without involvement from the network. FOX ordered thirteen episodes for the first season, but the first pilot episode out of the chute was never aired. (In true television fashion, much of the unaired pilot was reused for the "real" first episode.) However, FOX considered that unaired episode to be one of the thirteen ordered, and only committed to airing the following twelve.
The production studio filmed a thirteenth "real" episode ("Epitaph One") anyway, for purposes of rounding out a thirteen-episode DVD set for the season (and for international broadcasts). This final episode eventually premiered at Comic Con, almost three months after the broadcast finale ("Omega"). But it's not really part of the season's continuity because it was, essentially, produced to fill out the production contract with as minimal a budget as possible. (FOX, again, considered that they had already paid for and received the episodes ordered for broadcast.)
I could go into a lot more detail and summarize more interviews, but the short version of the story is: It feels like this episode doesn't fit the show's continuity because it doesn't fit the show's continuity, and it wasn't produced to do so.
Sources consulted:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/04/dollhouse-omega-finale.html
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/04/dollhouse-joss-whedon-fox-eliza-dushku.html
http://armchairc.blogspot.com/2009/07/dollhouse-unaired-pilot-and-epitaph-one.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dollhouse_(TV_series)&oldid=800215447
https://tv.avclub.com/dollhouse-epitaph-one-1798217724
(I know these won't link, because Trakt only allows a small whitelist of domains, but I feel a need to cite my sources anyway for completeness—and maybe, my own future reference.)
