Season 2, Episode 4:
Belonging
With Echo's help, Topher realizes Sierra has been committed to the Dollhouse under false pretenses. DeWitt confronts the man who put her there, Nolan Kinnard, whose advances she once denied, but the latter blackmails her into imprinting Sierra and sending her to him for good. Meanwhile, Boyd realizes Echo is growing as a person in her doll state when he surprises her reading a book.
Tropes present in this episode:
- Call-Back: Topher brings up the fact Priya/Sierra paid a visit to Nolan during Dr. Saunders' experiment.
- Cassandra Truth: No one believed Priya about being kidnapped and drugged when she was in the mental institution, thinking it was just a delusion of her paranoid schizophrenia.
- A Day in the Limelight: Priya/Sierra is the focus of this episode.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- The morally challenged Topher is absolutely horrified when he discovers the truth about Priya.
- For all her own moral ambiguity and decline, Adele (who didn't know the truth either) is enraged upon learning that Nolan made her an accessory to something so vile.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Topher and Boyd are grappling with the revelations about Priya and how DeWitt's going to react...and then they not only wonder if Adele already knows all this, but realize she's standing right behind them and heard all. However, it then gets subverted, as Adele didn't know either.
- Hope Spot: Adele knows the truth about Priya now and severs the LA Dollhouse's business connections with Nolan to protect Priya. Unfortunately, Nolan ain't taking no for an answer and plays his trump card...
- How We Got Here:
- The episode starts with a bloodied Topher lamenting he just wanted to help. The rest of the episode shows how this came to be.
- Also, the final flashback in Priya's origin story is her being imprinted with the Active architecture, a scene from the pilot "Ghost".
- Reveal Shot: When Boyd takes Echo's book out of her sleeping area, he assumes she's been writing everything she remembers in that book and takes it. As he closes the screen that covers her when she's sleeping, we see Echo has also written several things on the other side of the screen.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Nolan is able to block and override Adele's attempts to sever all ties between him and the LA Dollhouse thanks to his standing with Rossum.
- Tranquil Fury: Adele towards Nolan after learning what he did to Priya.
- Wham Line: ''She [knows] now." Adele didn't know the truth about Priya either...and is just as horrified as her subordinates.
- Wrongfully Committed: It turns out Nolan did this to Priya twice after she rejected him. First he arranged for her to be committed for schizophrenia (which she didn't have) and then for her to be brought into the Dollhouse.
