- In the future, the imprinting technology is rampant. A few people stumble on the Dollhouse.
- In the year 2019, a small group of survivors stumble upon the underground complex of the disused Los Angeles Dollhouse. The group, Mag, Zone, Griff, Lynn, along with a little girl named Iris and her mind-wiped father are "actuals," actual-minded people struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic society where a tech mind wipe has turned most of Earth's population into "scavengers" or "butchers." Mag and her team struggle to unlock the secrets of what brought on this disaster where the Dollhouse's mind imprinting technology was discovered and abused by the world in which the answer lies within the active Whiskey, who still resides there and who may know where the former active Echo/Caroline is and whom may lead the group to a place called "Safe Haven," while a mysterious and lethal evil lurks among them. Periodic flashbacks show how Paul Ballard became Echo's handler, and how DeWitt realized that Rossum used the imprint technology in their capacity to bring on the end of the world though a remote mind-wipe through EVERY telephone, radio, computer, TV sets, etc, in order to bring about a new order of humanity...and how it failed.—matt-282
- In the year 2019, Mag (Felicia Day), Zone (Zack Ward), Griff (Chris William Martin), Lynn (Janina Gavankar), a child named Iris (Adair Tishler) and her mind-wiped father (Warren Sweeney) get into the sewers to escape from a rampaging mob of people and find a hole into the underground complex of the L.A. Dollhouse. Here the group restore power and find the tech chair. Attached is a tablet with a simplified interface and a number of sets of recorded memories. The father is placed into the chair and is given several sets of memories, one at a time. Through this method, events leading to the current apocalyptic state of the world are revealed. The group quickly realizes that the Dollhouse is the origin of the imprinting technology that has turned the enire world into mindless kill-crazy zombies (called 'butchers') through a mysterious signal sent by an unknown source through every telephone, radio, and TV set some years earlier.
The first set of memories shows Topher's introduction to the Dollhouse with DeWitt and Dominic, and his creation of a new imprinting system that used a different approach to the technology, leading to the development of the chair found in this episode. The old technology used analog cables, which took two hours to upload into an active. Topher brags that he can do it faster using waves instead, and laughs off Dominic's warnings that such an upgrade could easily go out of control.
In the present, Lynn takes Iris to use the bathroom, but is distracted by the possibility of having her first hot shower in a year. She is attacked and killed by an unseen figure.
A memory is shown with Echo in the chair, being imprinted for a client. Paul Ballard is now her handler. When Ballard and Echo are alone in the elevator she discusses her ability to maintain her own personality in parallel with her imprint but laments the terrible headaches this process gives her.
Meanwhile, Iris finds Lynn's body and her screams bring the group to investigate. They all retreat to the chair room.
In another flashback, Boyd is preparing to leave the Dollhouse, collecting weapons, clothes, and food. He believes that he has placed Echo in danger and does not wish to place Dr. Saunders, with whom he is now romantically involved, in the same position. She gives him medicine and bandages, indicating that he has been recently injured. Before he leaves, he promises to return for her. (This scene is later expanded upon and further explained in the Season 2 episode "Getting Closer").
Back in 2019, Mag and the survivors decide to give Iris what they call a "birthmark" a tattoo on her back that allows people to distinguish actuals from imprinted people. Dr. Saunders suddenly appears on the Dollhouse's main floor; but it seems that she has regressed to her doll persona, "Whiskey". The survivors surround her, weapons aimed, accuse her of killing Lynn, and are about to execute her when she says she can lead them to "Safe Haven," a rumored place away from imprinting and "tech." Whiskey states that the memories in the tablet would lead them there.
In another imprinted memory Victor, who has been imprinted with Mr. Ambrose, a high-ranking executive in the evil Rossum Corporation, informs DeWitt and Topher that the company is going to begin selling the bodies of the actives for "a lump nine-figure sum." Select clients will have immortality (similar to that discussed in the episode "Haunted.") Topher is visibly upset but says nothing. DeWitt is shocked and protests about the legality of such a procedure, but Ambrose informs DeWitt that it will be legal in a year, as everyone in a position of authority is either a client or "one of ours." When DeWitt threatens to reclaim Victor's body, Mr. Ambrose tells her that she can opt out, but that he is currently in ten other dolls talking to ten other Dollhouse administrators, and that Rossum will know if they choose not to cooperate.
Back in 2019, the little girl Iris suddenly kills Griff, then frames her father, still in the chair, by shoving the gun in his hand and screaming to attract attention. While Zone takes the father to the bathroom and executes him, Whiskey imprints herself with another set of memories....
Mr. Dominic is retrieved from the Attic by DeWitt and Topher; by this time, much of the general population on Earth had already been imprinted by the tech mind wipe going through every phone and communication device in the world, beginning the apocalyptic events leading to the current situation. Dominic gloats about how he was right about them losing control, but DeWitt asks him to join them. They have a way to fight back: Caroline is now immune to imprinting.
In 2019, Whiskey is given another memory in which Victor and Sierra are seen with their original personalities back. Victor shows Sierra hidden hard drive wedges with copies of everyone, while also showing that Sierra is the one who began the ideas of tattoos to be placed in order to remember who they really are. She also mentions for Victor to be careful when he leaves to go to the surface, stating "Don't forget what happened to November" (something that is explained in the Season 2 episode "The Hollow Men").
The survivors find the wedges and decide to imprint Whiskey with Caroline's personality. With the loss of Griff, Zone decides that it's time for Iris to have a gun to protect herself. Before long, Iris turns her gun on them revealing that she is an imprint assasin hired by the Rossum Corporation. Iris claims not to know how she ended up in a child's body but she is going to take Mag's, and Zone's usefulness is at an end. When she fires her gun at Zone, she finds that it is unloaded. After a brief struggle, Zone puts her into the chair and they activate the chair, overwriting Iris' personality. Zone explains to Mag that he figured out that Iris was not who she claimed she was when he executed her so-called father: he had a tattoo but it did not match Iris' surname.
In the memory set in Iris' imprint, the Dollhouse has isolated itself from the butchers and scavengers. The actives have all been given their original personalities back. Topher, now mentally unstable, explains to DeWitt that a phone call could be made to send out the signal, and anyone who picked up the phone would be imprinted (similar to the way Echo was wiped in "Gray Hour"). This would create an instant army of people ('butchers') programmed to kill everyone who isn't imprinted ('actuals'). Topher realizes that this is happening because of the technology he made possible: imprinting people with waves rather than the slower, analog method. The guilty realization of the part he has played in causing Armageddon has driven him mad. DeWitt tries to comfort him but they are interrupted when a series of crashes is heard from elsewhere in the Dollhouse, which turns out to be someone trying to break through a block wall sealing off the entrance to the complex. The residents take up arms and prepare to defend themselves as the wall comes down, revealing Caroline and Paul, who have returned to take the actives to a compound, which is a place where they will be safe from imprinting, thanks to Alpha. Caroline requests that Topher make a copy of her personality to help others find the way there in case she's killed or another group of people finds the Dollhouse. Saunders explains that Topher no longer enters the imprinting room, but she volunteers to make the copy herself. As preparations to leave the Dollhouse are underway, DeWitt notes that Echo has returned to save the actives, but asks what her plans are for the former Dollhouse administrative staff. Caroline cocks her pistol and the memory ends.
In 2019, Caroline is imprinted into Iris' body. She quickly agrees to take them to the compound she mentioned in the memories, which is now being called Safe Haven. An explosion erupts from a device that the survivors left in the shaft that leads into the Dollhouse. The noise tells them that the imprinted butchers have reached the Dollhouse and that the group must leave immediately. Mag implores Whiskey to come with them but she says she must wait, as she is waiting for 'someone' (something that is explained in the season 2 episode "The Hollow Men"). Caroline, Zone, and Mag shoot their way across the Dollhouse to the elevator shaft and start climbing; once they're inside the shaft, Whiskey activates a gas system rendering the imprinted butchers either dead or unconscious. With the survivors safe, Whiskey sits down on the balcony, her fate is left unknown.
Mag, Zone, and the mind-imprinted Caroline (formerly Iris) climb up the elevator shaft and arrive in DeWitt's old office. Through the broken window they see Los Angeles in ruins. A large collage of photos is assembled on the wall under the words "To Remember." Photos of Whiskey, Victor, Sierra, November, and Caroline are amongst them. Caroline picks her photo off the wall, saying she hopes she'll find herself alive; then she puts the photo back. The group then climb out the window onto a ladder to get to the ground and set off for Safe Haven.
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