Season 1, Episode 13:
Epitaph One
Ten years later, the world is in ruin. Imprinting technology has escaped Rossum's control and improved to a point where anyone can be remotely wiped or imprinted, sometimes with blanket signals affecting entire cities. Most of the population have been either reprogrammed into "butchers" (aggressive cannibals) or wiped to become "dumbshows" (people without any self-awareness, even less conscious than neutral Actives) , with only small groups of "actuals" (non-imprinted people) remaining.
The episode follow a group of "actuals" who come across the remains of the L.A. Dollhouse, where they learn what happened to the world.
Tropes present in this episode:
- After the End: The vast majority of Earth's population have been turned into either feral berserkers or completely blank slates.
- Apocalypse How: Class 2. The Dollhouse's imprinting technology has caused society to collapse, as large swaths of the human population were overwritten or just wiped remotely.
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: The little girl Iris. It's never revealed who's actually in her body, but at some point she was overwritten with another personality.
- Crapsack World: The imprinting technology has gone wireless and worldwide, destroying human society. Just being near any sort of speaker or transmitter puts you in danger of having your mind wiped or overwritten.
- Distant Finale: To season one.
- Driven to Suicide: It's implied that Dr. Saunders wiped herself instead of remaining in the Dollhouse forever.
- Exty Years from Publication: The episode takes place in 2019, ten years after it was aired.
- Future Slang: The post-apocalyptic survivors have their own terms for Dollhouse-related phenomena, like 'dumbshow' for anyone who's been wiped and 'actual' for someone who retains their original personality.
- It Works Better with Bullets: After her father is killed, Zone gives Iris a gun. She promptly attempts to execute him and steal Mag's body, whereupon it's revealed that Zone gave her an unloaded gun after seeing that her father's 'birthmark' didn't match what she said her name was.
- Laser-Guided Karma: 'Iris' gets wiped about thirty seconds after attempting to kill Zone and steal Mag's body.
- Lower-Deck Episode: With the regular cast relegated to flashbacks, the episode follows a new group of characters.
- Note to Self/Human Notepad: Actuals tattoo their original identities on their backs, in case they get imprinted.
- Technically-Living Zombie: The "butchers", who have lost all sense of reason and attack anyone on sight.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: This episode jumps forward to 2019.
