Oh, but I do love layers. As the final moments of the Season 2 premiere of Dollhouse wound down, I realized that the early episodes of the series only hewed close to the lean, episodic formula of the show's ostensible premise because the story required it as a foundation for the much deeper, more satisfying plot that we have now. Dollhouse is not a show for idle viewers, but for dedicated fans who can appreciate the depth and subtly of the story as it is. What's more, I don't think this story could be told in any other medium but television. That's the genius of Joss Whedon and his team of writers.

"Vows" finds Echo on her first assignment after her run-in with Alpha. It's a long-term gig at the behest of Paul Ballard: Scowling (former) FBI Agent. He uses her to get close to a British arms dealer played by Battlestar Galactica alum Jamie Bamber. Echo's imprint is a deep-cover agent who pretends to fall in love with Bamber's character, even marrying him so she can get enough dirt on him to put him away for good. Because this is TV, nothing really works out as planned.

But the truly interesting thing about this episode, and I suspect about this series in general, is that it's not how things get broken, but what they do when they break that matters. Echo gets found out, at least in a manner of speaking, but it's her tendency to glitch that saves her and Paul from certain death. Paul puts his life on the line to save Echo/Caroline from the arms dealer and his thugs, pushing her concussion-prompted glitch even further with some key words and a few firm slaps. She begins cycling through past personalities until she stumbles upon the still-myterious secret imprint that fought Paul in the kitchen of Chinese restaurant last season. They bag the arms dealer and get home safely, but a wonderful closing scene reveals that Echo, even in tabula rasa, remembers her other imprints. Now Paul presumably has a mission to turn this glitch to his advantage.

As if this wasn't enough, there's another, equally incredible plot between Topher and Whiskey/Dr. Saunders. I desperately hope that Amy Acker gets to be part of the credited cast instead of standing in guest star limbo for the rest of the season. Ever since Whiskey discovered that she's an Active, things have gotten pretty interesting. She's exacting revenge on Topher, but it turns out her hatred towards him is just a part of her imprint. The two of them have what may be the best scene in the series so far as they decipher the bizarre emotional details of how Topher's imprints are designed to interact with him, their creator, and how being an extended Active relates to the existential concepts of life. For Dr. Saunders, being given her original personality means, in a sense, dying. All of a sudden, the ass-kicking Barbie and Ken dolls walking around the house's spa don't seem so inconsequential.

Best Moment: Topher and Whiskey's scene together. It's high time Topher got some character development and I absolutely adore Amy Acker as a serious actress. This scene was positively stunning.

Biggest Shock: Echo remembering her previous imprints consciously. I am downright giddy at the potential of that particular development.

Episode Rating: 5/5- Dollhouse didn't start out as the strongest possible series, but by Jove it has come into its own. What could have been a sci-fi Charlie's Angels for the 21st century turned out to be the best-scripted existential drama on television. Here's to a great start for the sophomore season.