Gray Hour

General Impressions: Whoa Nelly. This episode is just so much better than the previous. It just more playful. From the first scene we can see... okay, not from the first scene. But there's a very wonderful Dollhousey scene in the beginning which really just inspires.

Echo: "I swam 30 laps today."
Sierra: "Good for you."
Echo: "I'm tired now."
Sierra: "It's important to exercise. I try to be my best."
Echo: "Are you?"
Sierra: "Excuse me?"
Echo: "Are you your best?"
Sierra: "I'm not sure how to know that."
Echo: "I think if you always try, that's best, right?"
Victor: "Every day is a chance to be better."

Pure fucking poetry.

And then we get a wonderful misleading scene that makes us think that Echo's on a sexual mission only... only for us to be proven so wrong. There's energy in this episode. Okay, so the greek government hiring thieves to get it's national treasures back from museums of the world is nothing new... but unlike the previous episode where the "same old" took too much of the episode's time, this episode really just kicks it quickly with Echo getting remotely wiped. Eliza was really awesome in this episode. Her Taffy personality was just pure fun, but she was just so poetic as wiped Echo. Especially in this moment.

Echo: "This one is broken."
Wounded Thief-Guy: "Look who's talking."
*Echo starts to touch her face*
Wounded Thief-Guy: "On the inside. So you like art?"
Echo: "It doesn't look right."
Wounded Thief-Guy: "It's not about looking right, art's about feeling right. And you... I have no idea what I'm talking about."
Echo: "She makes me feel... funny."
Wounded Thief-Guy: "Cause these other guys painted what they saw, but this guy painted what is. That's what art is for. Shows us who we are. And this one is saying how we start out as a whole and somewhere along the line, pieces start to slide... we are broken.“
Echo: "That's sad."

All these "I want to be my best" and "Broken" moments... God this episode is just full of Dollhouse goodness. And when Echo gets out of that safe and saves the wounded thief-guy, she then says "I'm not broken." Echo has made a conscious choice to be broken no more. Which brings us to my Echo's Journey to Enlightenment section.

Echo's Journey to Enlightenment: After the first 5 episodes we see Echo playing inside the Dollhouse system, but not as a doll but as an awakened person eliminating threats, helping friends, comforting her "prison guards" when they are broken... Echo giving out motherly care to all the people in Dollhouse... and that's what makes Echo beautiful. The "good guys" and the "bad guys" all need a hug, but Echo is still going to bring the system down. She starts to notice that all the people around her are broken - both the dolls and the dollmasters, prisoners and prison guards. So she starts hugging people all the time so they could be their best, while secretly searching for a way to bring down the world that keeps breaking her people. And it's in this episode where she makes that choice that she is not broken anymore. But all the other people are. But she is going to help everyone to be their best. God this show is just so inspiring and touching.

Foreshadowing: Remote wipes. The reason why the world went down the shithole in Epitaph One.

Grading: A for amazing.