Season 1, Episode 6:
Man on the Street
Ballard gets closer to exposing the Dollhouse when he manages to track down an actual client, and sees Echo in person for the first time. A traumatized Sierra sends the Dollhouse on the search of her abuser, which her handler assumes to be Victor, but Boyd thinks otherwise. Someone seems to be working against the Dollhouse from the inside, someone unrelated to Alpha.
Tropes
- Ambiguously Bi: One of the interviewees on TV seems to be very much bi-curious when he describes the kind of scenarios the Dollhouse could be used for. Cue his girlfriend smiling uneasily when he finishes talking.
- The Internet Is for Porn: After Ballard interrupts Joel's dream scenario, "Rebecca" pieces things together and assumes his suddenly lucrative internet venture is porn.
- Kitchen Chase: Paul and Echo's fight starts in a kitchen.
- The Mole: Someone from the Dollhouse communicates with Ballard by tampering with the actives' imprints.
- The Reveal: Mellie is an Active, and a sleeper agent to boot.
- Sexy Shirt Switch: Subverted. One scene has Mellie wearing only panties and one of Ballard's shirts... but said scene sees Mellie desperately fighting for her life when Hearn, Sierra's former handler, comes to murder her. Then the phone rings, Mellie's sleeper imprint is activated, and the fight becomes a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Trigger Phrase: Adele activates Mellie, alias November, by calling Ballard's phone and leaving the message, "There are three flowers in a vase. The third one is green."
- Turn in Your Badge: Ballard is suspended at the end of the episode.
- Urban Legends: The episode is interspersed with interviews of random people commenting on the idea of the Dollhouse. Most seem to think it is an urban legend.
- Wham Episode: Ballard sees Caroline in person (so to speak) for the first time; someone on the inside aids Ballard via Echo's imprint; Sierra's handler was sexually abusing her, Boyd catches him, and Adele sets him up to get taken out; by Mellie, who's actually a sleeper Active!; Oh, and there are several Houses around the world, with a wider-scope purpose than fulfilling people's fantasies or extralegal tasks for a price.
