open/close all folders
Dolls/Actives
November
November (Madeline Costley)
"When someone's free they get to make mistakes. Am I free?"
Played By: Miracle Laurie
November is another female doll in the LA Dollhouse. She spends much of the first season as a sleeper agent, imprinted with the personality of Paul Ballard's lovable neighbour Mellie.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She's a "sleeper agent" possessing lethal martial arts abilities when triggered by a code phrase.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Against Sierra's first handler, Hearn. Almost literally.
- Driven to Suicide: She shoots herself in the head when her Mellie imprint comes up against her sleeper imprint, saving Ballard's life.
- The Mole: As Mellie.
- Outliving One's Offspring: She had a daughter who died in unknown circumstances. She joined the Dollhouse to escape her grief.
Alpha
Alpha (Carl William Craft)
"I'm not kidding. He's not fooling. We're not bluffing. (I'm bluffing.) But the rest of us, we mean business."
Played By: Alan Tudyk
A former Active, he had 48 personalities downloaded into his brain during a "composite event." He proceeded to get stab-happy and killed his handler, Echo's handler and a dozen other people before escaping. He has an obsession with Echo. He remains a looming presence throughout the first season, and has been known to contact Paul Ballard with information concerning the Dollhouse.
- A God Am I: Proclaims himself to be one, especially in the Season 1 finale. Alpha constantly mentions how he's above others, and even mentions blood sacrifices during one of his rants.
- Arch-Enemy: To the primarily featured Dollhouse, specifically Echo, Ballard, and Adelle.
- Ax-Crazy: Even as an innocent doll, he still had the fortitude to slash Whiskey's face repeatedly with bonsai clips and later pull out all the stops on how to kill people with knives. He even calls his cuts art!
- Badass Bookworm: Can create and hack into Dollhouse tech with ease.
- Batman Gambit: His whole plot in Briar Rose.
- Big Bad: For the first season, even if he only appears in two episodes.
- Dead Person Impersonation: He impersonates Stephen Kepler in Briar Rose, when he had in fact murdered Stephen Kepler three days before.
- Faux Affably Evil: Alpha's primary persona is mostly this, as are several of the others inside his crazy noggin. It's a thin veil to hide behind, though.
- Greater-Scope Villain: For most of Season 1, since Alpha didn't get his hands dirty with the Dollhouse itself until the finale and until then is only mentioned, but on the other hand he fed information about the Dollhouse to Paul Ballard, getting him in the loop about it. More apparent in Season 2. Alpha was responsible for reawakening all the other personas within Echo in the Season 1 finale, thus causing the erratic events in the second season that led up to her being imprisoned. Though he makes a guest appearance in said season, his direct involvement with the plot ends there. Until Epitaph Two, where his Heel–Face Turn had apparently happened.
- Heel–Face Turn: Hinted at in Epitaph One when Caroline tells Claire that no one has been wiped at Safe Haven, thanks to Alpha. And confirmed in "Epitaph 2: The Return". In fact, it's because of this turn that he decided to leave at the end of the episode, fearng the return of his murderous Carl Craft persona putting everyone in danger. He did, however, leave an imprint of Ballard for Echo as a final, non-creepy gift, perhaps to atone for what he had done to the poor guy.
- I Hate Past Me: Interestingly played with. One of his first acts as a Rogue (after killing several people) was to destroy the wedge that held his murderous original personality. Could make him a Hypocrite, since he went on a silent killing spree of his own afterwards, hidden from the Dollhouse's prying eyes. An implied reason is that he hated Carl Craft because he went into his A God Am I perspective after the composite event, making him "better". Played straight(er), however, in Epitaph Two, since he was afraid of Carl Craft awakening after he helped liberate the other Dolls, prompting his exit.
- Insane Equals Violent: Averted; he was already psychopathic before the composite event drove him insane.
- Laughably Evil: Some of his lines would sound appropriate coming from The Joker.Alpha (with one of Echo's former clients as his hostage): We remember everything! Wh-wh-what were you saying, about you and Echo, about your time together. Tell them what you told me. You said that she was amazing, and that it was... What? Tell them.Client (strapped to several bombs): I said it was a blast.Alpha: Who doesn't love a pun?(Alpha tosses the pressure-sensitive trigger into the air and leaps out of the blast radius away from Ballard, Boyd, and the Dollhouse agents while the hostage is blown to kingdom come)
- Later, in the same episode:Alpha (to Echo, who finds Ballard unconscious and Alpha in the chair): Ah...boyfriend's dead. Wanna snuggle? Too soon?Echo: You killed him. He's dead.Alpha: Well, brain dead. You're upset. (Echo slowly rises and approaches him) I can see you're upset.(Smash Cut to Alpha getting his ass handed to him by Echo)
Alpha: (to Ballard who's strapped in the Chair with diodes and wires attached to his head) Easy, easy. You'll pull something. You're in for a ride. You're not gonna get loose. One of my imprints was an Eagle Scout, another one was a sailor...there's a dirty joke in there somewhere. - Later, in the same episode:
- Mad Scientist: Has built his own versions of Dollhouse tech in an abandoned power plant, though it's never seen or mentioned again after its debut. Alpha can even tamper with Dollhouse tech without even touching it; see the second example under the below trope.
- Manipulative Bastard: Sent information about the Dollhouse to Ballard, causing him to write up a whole conspiracy about it and get him in on the case, culminating in Ballard sneaking in Alpha (who was posing as Stephen Kepler, a designer of the Dollhouse), all to get to Echo. He also showed signs of this as he uploaded Sierra with a mind virus that would spread to any other Doll who sat in the mindwiping chair after and Alpha activated it when he let go of Adelle as his hostage, resulting in the Dolls currently in the Dollhouse violently attacking their handlers while he looked on and chuckled to himself. The Berserk Mode the Dolls were in lasted even after Alpha's defeat, up until they were given a specific codeword (or tased, either way).
- Many Spirits Inside of One: And they unsurprisingly contradict each other sometimes, though the primary Alpha personality is able to keep them in check most of the time.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: While pretending to be Stephen Kepler.
- Oh, Crap!: Tends to induce this upon members of the Dollhouse's inner circle, and with good reason. He was their first rogue, after all. He gets these reactions from (in chronological order) Victor, Dr. Saunders aka Whiskey, Ballard and Boyd, and Adelle.
- That last one came because he murdered several people, broke into her office without warning, and had used her restroom.
- Outlaw Couple: He keeps trying to replicate this dynamic by implanting one of the female dolls with a psychotic "Bonnie" persona to match his "Clyde" and go on a crime spree together, initially using Whiskey before moving on to Echo.
- Practically Joker: An Ax-Crazy Laughably Evil Serial Killer who makes it his business to get under Echo's skin and try to turn her into someone like him.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Alpha really likes cutting things, favoring a steak knife as his weapon. Though, in his first outing going rogue he used bonsai clips.
- Psycho Prototype: The Dollhouse at one point offered reduced sentences to prisoners in exchange for their service as a Doll. Thus, Carl William Craft opted to become Alpha, though some of his crazy and psychotic tendencies began resurfacing, such as randomly kissing Echo mid-sentence or stabbing Whiskey with bonsai clips. Eventually he had to be mindwiped for the latter event, but Alpha went mad and kicked his handler into a computer, causing the composite event and the carnage that followed it.
- Alpha has standard combat capabilities, something no other doll has (unless it was programmed into whatever persona they take on), implying further that he was a literal prototype doll. He's one-upped by Omega!Echo whenever they exchange punches, however.
- Serial Killer: And that was before he became an Ax-Crazy doll.
- As exemplified by the other tropes, this trait carried on from Carl Craft to Alpha.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: In A Love Supreme. He comments on the clothing of other characters and asks Adelle what she thinks of the suit.Alpha (after breaking into Adelle's office, emerging from her restroom as she tries to reserve a hotel room): Try the Franklin. It's got a ''terrific'' pasta bar. Also, you're
almost out of paper. (after commercial break) All right, now tell me the truth. What do you think of the suit?Adelle: (almost sarcastically) You're quite the dandy. - Split Personality: At least 48 of them. Two of which have multiple personality disorder themselves.
- Stalker with a Crush: For some reason is fanatically infatuated with Echo, which started when he first saw her as Caroline. The "stalker" part came in when he repeatedly kissed her mid-sentence, and later stabbed Whiskey during their bonsai session and demanded, "Let Echo be number one!" Heck, he was the cause of Echo remembering many of her past personas (even labeling her as the Omega to his Alpha) and later on, slaughtered several men she was in a "relationship" with out of jealousy, even going so far as to steal Ballard's personality and imprint it on himself to try and understand why Echo loved Ballard and not him. He goes to such lengths for that woman.
- Talking to Themself: Played with. Very blatant in the car scene and in his Supervillain Lair, where his other personas begin to chime in and urge Alpha to tell Echo the truth. He gives in and eventually does... in a Metaphorically True kind of way. The page quote comes from when he was threatening to blow Caroline's wedge to kingdom come. Surprisingly, this aspect of him wasn't seen at all in his (onscreen) debut episode, but come the first season finale it's brought to the forefront. Of course, it returns, if pulled back a bit, in his Season 2 guest appearance.
- Übermensch: He refers to himself as this. It doesn't help his case when trying to sway Echo, or as he calls her, Omega.
Whiskey
Whiskey
Played By: Amy Acker
One of the most popular dolls before being attacked by Alpha and then implanted with a personality based partially off the previous (male) Dr. Saunders.
- The Caretaker: Of the Dollhouse in the future, it seems.
- Creepy Monotone: In the future.
- No Name Given: Her original identity is never revealed or addressed in any way.
- Scars Are Forever: ...or almost.
