History YMMV / Dollhouse

* MisaimedFandom: The series was intended partially as an Eliza Dushku vehicle, but it seems a lot of fans and critics now know about [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Enver Gjokaj's excellent acting skills]]. Given what [[Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles happened]] [[Series/{{Castle}} to the]] [[Series/{{Chuck}} people]] in Joss' [[Series/{{Firefly}} last series]], his prospects are pretty good.

** "[[Recap/DollhouseS01E03 Stage Fright]]" & "[[Recap/DollhouseS01E06 Man on the Street]]": Joe Hearn is TheHandler for the doll Sierra, and at first seems nothing more than a callous {{Jerkass}} who doesn't care when the dolls under his care die. He proves himself to be far more evil, however, when it's revealed that he's been taking advantage of the blind trust dolls are implanted with towards their handlers and, while Sierra is in her neutral child-like state, has repeatedly forced her to have sex with him. His crimes close to being discovered, he tries to convince his superiors that the doll, Victor, is the true perpetrator and argues to have him sent to [[AndIMustScream the Attic.]] When Hearn himself is revealed to be the culprit, his boss Adelle [=DeWitt=] issues him an ultimatum, either be sent to the Attic himself, or rape and murder [[HeroAntagonist Paul Ballard's]] girlfriend Mellie to deter him from investigating the Dollhouse. Hearn chooses the latter, and sets to the task with apparent glee. However, it turns out to be a set-up planned by [=DeWitt=] who was so [[EvenEvilHasStandards repulsed by Hearn's actions]] that she had arranged it so Hearn would be killed by Mellie, who is a doll herself.

* CompleteMonster: A good BlackAndGrayMorality setting requires a good MoralEventHorizon or two, as well as some really evil bastards to interact with the story's morally questionable protagonists -- and Dollhouse follows this philosophy with enthusiasm:

** "[[Recap/DollhouseS01E03 Stage Fright]]" & "[[Recap/DollhouseS01E06 Man on the Street]]": Joe Hearn is TheHandler for the doll Sierra, and at first seems nothing more than a callous {{Jerkass}} who doesn't care when the dolls under his care die. He proves himself to be far more evil, however, when it's revealed that he's been taking advantage of the blind trust dolls are implanted with towards their handlers and, while Sierra is in her neutral child-like state, has repeatedly forced her to have sex with him. His crimes close to being discovered, he tries to convince his superiors that the doll, Victor, is the true perpetrator and argues to have him sent to [[AndIMustScream the Attic.]] When Hearn himself is revealed to be the culprit, his boss [[EvilBrit Adelle DeWitt]] issues him an ultimatum, either be sent to the Attic himself, or rape and murder [[HeroAntagonist Paul Ballard's]] girlfriend Mellie to deter him from investigating the Dollhouse. Hearn chooses the latter, and sets to the task with apparent glee. However, it turns out to be a set-up planned by [=DeWitt=] who was so [[EvenEvilHasStandards repulsed by Hearn's actions]] that she had arranged it so Hearn would be killed by Mellie, who is a doll herself.

* MoralEventHorizon: In 2x11, "Getting Closer," [[spoiler: Whiskey/Doctor Saunders murders the show's newly minted Woobie, Bennett Halverson, in front of Topher Brink, probably the only man to ever love her, mere minutes after their first kiss. Why? Because Boyd implanted Clyde, his second in command and personal assasin into Whisky's head.]]

** Joe Hearn is TheHandler for the doll Sierra, and at first seems nothing more than a callous {{Jerkass}} who doesn't care when the dolls under his care die. He proves himself to be far more evil, however, when it's revealed that he's been taking advantage of the blind trust dolls are implanted with towards their handlers and, while Sierra is in her neutral child-like state, has repeatedly raped her. His crimes close to being discovered, he tries to convince his superiors that the doll, Victor, is the true perpetrator and argues to have him sent to [[AndIMustScream the Attic.]] When Hearn himself is revealed to be the culprit, his boss [[EvilBrit Adelle DeWitt]] issues him an ultimatum, either be sent to the Attic himself, or rape and murder [[HeroAntagonist Paul Ballard's]] girlfriend Mellie to deter him from investigating the Dollhouse. Hearn chooses the latter, and sets to the task with apparent glee. However, it turns out to be a set-up planned by [=DeWitt=] who was so [[EvenEvilHasStandards repulsed by Hearn's actions]] that she had arranged it so Hearn would be killed by Mellie, who is a doll herself and has a code phrase only Adelle can trigger that turns her into a stone-cold killer.
** Nolan Kinnard was one of the {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s behind the Dollhouse program, and a psychotic {{Yandere}} who formed a [[StalkerWithACrush disturbing obsession]] with a young artist named Priya Tsetsang. When his increasingly expensive attempts to seduce her fail, [[AttemptedRape he tries, and fails, to flat-out rape her instead.]] In [[DisproportionateRetribution retribution]] for Priya's rejection, he arranges for her to be abducted, imprisoned in his hospital and regularly pumped her full of drugs which stopped her brain from producing adequate amounts of serotonin and dopamine. This caused Priya to suffer from visual and aural hallucinations, [[ChemicallyInducedInsanity making her seem to the outside world like a paranoid schizophrenic]]. He then convinces the Dollhouse to take Priya on as an "altruistic" charity case, turning her into the doll Sierra, and, once they do, Kinnard frequently hires her out, having her imprinted with a personality that was hopelessly in love with him. He then uses this imprint to rape her over and over again, taking a picture of her after each engagement as a trophy of what he's done to her. When [[AntiVillain DeWitt and Topher Brink]] discover the truth behind Priya's transformation into the doll, Sierra, they are horrified and try to keep her away from Kinnard, only for him to use his pull with the Dollhouse to order her permanently imprinted with the love-struck personality to keep as his SexSlave for the rest of her life. When Sierra is "delivered" to him, however, she reveals that she is imprinted with her original personality, slaps him across the face and tells him how much she hates him. In retribution, Kinnard beats her and comes after her with a knife, only stopping when Priya kills him in self-defense.

* LesYay: Bennett and Caroline have plenty of this in the flashbacks:
-->'''Bennett:''' I wish I could see your amygdala.
-->'''Caroline:''' You'd have to buy me dinner, first.

** Wait... Victor? Sierra? How...? [[spoiler: It's AllJustADream]] [[spoiler:taken UpToEleven]].

* ShockingSwerve: The reveal that [[spoiler:Boyd Langton]] was the head of the Rossum Corporation, which turns the character into a lunatic with a [[GambitRoulette stupidly impractical master plan]] and, in retrospect, makes a lot of their earlier actions in the series unnecessary at best and nonsensical at worst.
** {{WordOfGod}} is that the series pending cancellation forced the writers to [[{{ArcWelding}} improvise a Big Bad to both give their main enemy a physical presense, and a threat to go up against.]] Hence the reveal that [[spoiler: Boyd was]] was the [[{{EvilAllAlong}} mastermind behind everything]] despite certain [[{{FridgeLogic}} plot holes..]]

** Ballard has a thing for pushing Lubov against walls and leaning in close... though this doubles as FoeYay.

* FoeYay

** At least on the fanfic side of things, Dewitt/Dominic seems to be quite a popular pairing

* RetroactiveRecognition:
** One of the guest stars was Mehcad Brooks, years before he became famous as James Olsen on ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}''. Another episode featured Janina Gavankar, from ''Series/SleepyHollow'', ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', and ''Series/TheMorningShow'', among other series.
** Quite a few guest stars from other Whedon shows fall into this as well.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: In one of the flashbacks in "The Target" (1x02), we see [[spoiler: Topher carrying out the handler-active imprint between Boyd and Echo, giving Boyd a script and saying "Alright, Brando, let's see what you got." Then it turns out Boyd has been a magnificent actor throught the entire damn series...]]

* RetroactiveRecognition: One of the guest stars was Mehcad Brooks, years before he became famous as James Olsen on ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}''. Another episode featured Janina Gavankar, from ''Series/SleepyHollow'', ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', and ''Series/TheMorningShow'', among other series.

* WhatAnIdiot: A client requires a competent negotiator to facilitate an exchange between himself and the men who have kidnapped his daughter... so he makes Echo question whether she's a negotiator at all? ''Fantastic'' idea, sir. It's especially bad because [=DeWitt=] herself explicitly told him to ''not'' challenge the Actives' identities or their perception of self, as that would confuse and potentially render them useless.

** Bennett and Caroline have plenty of this in the flashbacks:

** But on the other ''other'' hand, season two's ratings kept diving from the already abysmal season one numbers. It may just be a victim of DarknessInducedAudienceApathy taken to its logical endpoint.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Bennett. She only appeared in three episodes [[spoiler: and later giving instructions on a screen in "Epitaph Two]], but the fan reaction has been ''enthusiastic.''
%%** Ivy

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Rena in "Stage Fright". The episode's villain is an obsessed fan that's planning to murder her on stage. The twist comes that Rena is fully aware of his plans, and has been responding to his letters and encouraging him - because she's so [[DrivenToSuicide broken by her career]]. In the episode's climax she suddenly does an about face and decides she doesn't want to be killed after all, with the fan being treated as if he were 100% responsible. Rena becomes a KarmaHoudini and faces no consequences at all for manipulating a clearly mentally disturbed young man - who was convinced that killing her was what she wanted (because she had told him as much). The end of the episode has her resuming her music career and the episode trying to present her as a victim.

** "[[Recap/DollhouseS01E01 Ghost]]": The unnamed, [[WouldHurtAChild pedophilic]] kidnapper is a SerialRapist and [[SerialKiller killer]] of little girls. When twelve-year-old Davina Crestejo is abducted by him and his cohorts, the doll, Echo, is implanted with the artificially constructed personality of a hostage negotiator named Eleanor Penn, and sent by the Dollhouse to negotiate Davina's release. The personality of Ms. Penn was constructed partially from the memories of a little girl who was kidnapped as a child herself. When the time comes for the kidnappers to collect the ransom, however, Ms. Penn has a nervous breakdown upon seeing the face of one of the kidnappers and recognizing him as the same man who kidnapped her as a child. She then reveals this kidnapper's modus operandi. Kidnapping little girls, he ransoms them to their parents, then, after the money arrives, murders his partners and keeps the girls as his {{Sex Slave}}s, killing them when they grow too old for his tastes. When Echo informs his fellow kidnappers about what their partner's planning for Davina, [[EvenEvilHasStandards they are so disgusted that they immediately try to kill him]] before allowing Echo to leave with Davina.