April Showers, Marilyn

Light me up too, Georgie

Not even a hot shower can wash of Marilyn's lipstick.

April Showers, Midnight Express (1978)

April Showers

I've always been a little bit a lot perplexed by the famous shower scene in Alan Parker's Midnight Express (1978). I'm not exactly sure why it's in the movie. Midnight Express has, at its best, an expressive physicality and a gritty tactile quality. You often feel like you're right there in the grotty hellish Turkish prison, sweating and suffering along with Billy Hayes (Brad Davis). But the sexual vibes coming off of Midnight Express are at times unfathomable. Is it gay? Is it bi? Is it straight? Is it just horny? Or is its ambiguous eroticism simply a by-product of casting Brad Davis in the lead role?


As warm up to the famous shower scene we get a montage detailing the friendship of Billy and Erich (Norbert Weisser) a fellow prisoner. They've been in this hellhole for years. They do yoga together. They bathe each other. They even duet on a private meditation mantra...

Monastery. Cloister. Cave. Prison

They lock eyes while chanting this repetitive phase. Billy drops his head with sadness at the word "prison" and we dissolve to a shot of the intimate friends showering together. In the steam Erich tenderly grabs Billy's soapy hand, slides his hands up Billy's body and pulls him slowly into a passionate kiss. Billy hesitates and then fully reciprocates.


Here's the curious part.

Moments after he's begun passionately kissing Erich back, he pushes him away. Lifts his hand to kiss it, shakes his head in a strangely condescending manner (I love you but I'm not that way) and exits the shower. Despite his willingness to work out, chant, bathe and lock lips with his friend... he draws the line at sex.

Erich is understandably bummed.


Never mind sequential logic. Never mind that Billy has gone for years without sex. Never mind that he's already comfortable kissing, being bathed by and getting naked with Erich. Never mind that the real life Billy Hayes actually did have consensual sex with fellow prisoners according to his autobiography. In Oliver Stone's Oscar nominated screenplay, "Billy" isn't having it. This scene has always utterly confused me on a basic human level, sexual orientation being beside the point. I'm gay but if you threw me in a prison for years and my only option for human tenderness was sex with a girl I liked who was into me? I wouldn't shake my head and walk away. I'd be... 'how often, when, where and what position? Let's go!'

I recently saw the elusive picture Girlfriends (also from 1978) and there's an oddly parallel sequence: the lead character's new female roommate begins to caress her shoulder and tries to kiss and undress her. Our heroine gently pushes the misguided girl's hand away and quietly says "no." I can only come to the reductive conclusion that in 1978 this was exactly the way liberal Hollywood felt about the gays -- tolerated them, kinda dug them on an one-on-one basis, but were still totally weirded out by them. The sequence in Girlfriends is a throwaway and doesn't interrupt the movie's flow. In the case of Midnight Express, the filmmakers seem to be letting their own sexual prudishness get in the way of narrative logic. Answer me this: If Billy wasn't going to have sex with Erich, why was their foreplay still included in the movie?
*

April Showers, Rupert Everett

April Showers evenings @ 11

Have any of y'all seen Cemetery Man?


It's a schlocky Italian horror flick from 1994 starring Rupert Everett as the titular character who has to fend off zombies including his lover (the busty Anna Falchi) with some regularity. Despite my longtime Everett fandom (I've been with him since the Another Country/ Dance With a Stranger), I've never seen this one. Nick, who loves the movie, showed me the shower sequence while we were in Nashville on account of this here series.

Everett's character Francesco Dellamorte apparently takes a lot of showers and apparently he's used to getting attacked by zombies -- just part of the job. But on this night they come earlier than expected. The lights go out in the shower, he sees one approaching in shadow (shower curtains = scary in movies), and then the zombies, in what looks like boy scout uniforms -- tee hee -- begin to attack. He begin to shoot them in the head. The most hilarious thing about the gorey sequence is that Rupert is attacked in the shower but when he fights back he's suddenly wearing pants. How did this happen? Zombies move slowly but slow enough for their victims to slip on a pair of pants before finding a weapon? It's not for some no nudity clause either -- both Falchi & Everett get naked elsewhere in the movie.

This final post shower attack makes me giggle. Who can blame the little shit for wanting a nibble?

April Showers, Charade

April Showers evenings @ 11; with Dave from Victim of the Time.

Cary Grant usually sings a medley of old favourites when he's in the shower. Any requests?


Audrey looks stern, but she doesn't know what Cary's going to do yet. And Cary may look old, but there's some screwball zest in the man yet. Lest you think Hitch sucked it all out of him, but then Jimmy Stewart was the one who got mentally tortured, wasn't he? Cary just got terrorized by a plane and kissed by Grace Kelly. And Ingrid Bergman. Life is so unfair sometimes.

What were we talking about?

- How often do you go through this little ritual?

- Oh every day, the manufacturer recommends it!

- I don't believe it...

- Oh yes, it's true... Look... Wait a minute. Read the label! Look at the small print: "Wearing this suit during washing helps protect its shape."

I get the feeling that this scene is remembered purely for how bizarre it is- but then most of Charade doesn't really make sense. It's been said- exhaustively- that this is "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made", but he generally did make some kind of sense even if he never explained, say, why those birds were pecking everyone to death. (That was kind of the point.) But apart from that, when did Hitch ever make as chic and frivolous a movie as this? To Catch A Thief, I suppose, but that's Hitch on a bad day and it's hardly his signature style.

I do apologise. I've obviously got Hitch on the brain. Now, I love Cary. And his mannerisms in this scene are really quite amusing. But clearly the best thing about this scene- and indeed the entire movie- is my beloved Audrey Hepburn. Isn't she just a peach? Adorable. The third panel here is the highlight:

Aww.

Oh, and Cary gets wet some more. This didn't really work out very well, did it? Sorry. Feel free to dissect the goodness/failure of this cross-generational pairing in the comments.

April Showers, Home For the Holidays

april showers, evenings @ 11

One of the greatest disconnects I've ever had between consensus response to a movie and my own reaction was in 1995 when Jodie Foster's second film, Home for the Holiday debuted. It was mostly ignored by the public and the critics were out for blood. Maybe Jodie Foster had just been too successful and too lauded and it was time for the pendulum to swing back? Perhaps the undercurrent was along the lines of 'Does she have to be good at making movies in addition to acting in them?'

Even Robert Downey Jr playing Tommy got bad reviews for his performance. He was gay brother to Holly Hunter's Claudia. Though his performance is pretty out there, that needling rapid fire joking -- he's consistently pushing things too far -- is exactly in line with the movie's own sense of humor. Bonus points: the sibling chemistry between Claudia and Tommy is pretty damn credible.

If you're not familiar with the movie I urge you to rent it. You protest: But it's one of thousands of quirky dysfunctional family holiday comedies! I counter: it arrived before that ultra specific genre was wildly over saturated and it's actually very funny.

Holly's shower scene is fairly typical of the movies fast, funny and familial nature. Anne Bancroft, playing Adele the mother, is talking at Claudia but not really with her. Claudia is talking at Adele but not listening. They're on different pages and both of them don't shut up. The older woman exits the scene leaving her daughter showering in an open bathroom.

Mom, close the door behind you okay?

No? okay, no problem, I usually shower in public.
I have no pride.
I have no rights.
I'm only four years old.

I don't need to tell you that Holly Hunter is one of the funniest people in the movies and she was still in her incredible prime (roughly 1987-1998). She makes every pause and emphasis count in a line reading. So many laughs to be had in four sentences. After Claudia is done complaining about the unplanned exhibitionism, she gets down to business. She's vigorously shampooing, suds flying, until she freezes in place with a gasp. Her mischievous brother is lumbering towards the shower curtain like some comic monster.

I swear to god, Tommy, I'm naked in here and I am too old...

*FLASH*

Holly's blind recoil from the flash is the split second punchline and Foster immediately cuts to the next scene, no time to waste... more rapid fire joking to follow.
*

April Showers, Singin' in the Rain

april showers, evenings @ 11

If someone invokes the title Singin' in the Rain you're probably instantly transported to memories of the arguably the most famous dance in film history, as Gene Kelly joyously splashes through the streets, a fool in love grin plastered all over his face. But the greatest thing about Singin' in the Rain is that you don't even have to wait 67 minutes and 48 seconds for the title song and the joy it imparts. You don't even have to wait twenty seconds.


Singin' in the Rain is so generous of spirit that it just hands you the joy the moment the MGM lion stops roaring. And it hands you the title song as soon as the stars names have flashed on their umbrellas in its wicked fun gleefully literal intro.


Here's your stars. They're dancing and singin' in the rain. After all, why make the audience wait? If your movie is overflowing with classic sequences, perfect moments, and exuberant performances you can get away with a lot. There's no need to worry about peaking too early, outstaying your welcome.


It's bliss from frame one on. The bliss increases exponentially. Once Gene (♥) starts splashing around again sixty-seven minutes later, it's become the happiest movie of all time.
*

April Showers, Black Book

Dave from Victim of the Time again here... it seems I shower more at the weekend, for I'm supplying your Sunday night edition of April Showers too. We go from apparently unacceptable ass to... well, you'll see. I must atone for my sins after all.

When Nat posted on Changeling in this series, he gave you five types of "horror showers". We all know Paul Verhoeven's a bit of a nutjob, and in Black Book he can't just settle for one harrowing shower experience. He gives you three at once.

Ellis de Vries (the marvellous Carice van Houten), having spied from within on the Nazis, is now in a prison camp for collaborators, and, as you might expect, they aren't being treated nicely. Ever-resilient Ellis refuses to take off her clothes like the other obeying prisoners- which lands her in trouble with the drunken, angry officers. And beneath the drum full of excrement we've just seen the prisoners adding their bucket-loads to. Crouching on the floor after an aggressive beating, she thinks it's okay to rise... but the foreboding music says otherwise.


So beaten down by the sheer force of what just came from above, a bit like the blood-sodden Carrie, Ellis' face is covered by matted hair. Verhoeven, keen to emphasize the moment, even inserts a bird's eye view of the solitary, chalk-outline-esque posture of Ellis on the floor of the warehouse.

But the guards aren't done with her yet. The busty females on the balcony above gleefully pour their remaining spirits down on her head, barely rinsing the sludge off her.


Yet Ellis' punishment still isn't over with. Here's the familiar hose-down moment, complete with a close-up of the hose itself, and the humiliated Ellis shies from the blast of water even as it wipes the caked brown sludge off her. Her fellow former-spy Akkermans (Thom Hoffman) is here to rescue her, but, as Ellis looks up with as much pride as she can muster, you and she both know it's not quite over yet.

Black Book looks, from the outside, like another big WWII epic (except Dutch), but it strikes me as more Hitchcockian, in its strong, beautiful, deceptive heroine and twisting moralities. I've not explored Verhoeven's oeuvre beyond this and Showgirls- lament the heroine there, too, for fame's a bitch- but this scene, at the very least, is like Tippi Hedren being pecked half-to-death, or Janet Leigh getting chopped, or Marion Lorne getting strangled: she's had sex, she must be punished. Living in the 21st century as we now do, we don't need Ellis to suffer quite so much, and there's as much sympathy here as there is accusation- but this is still one of Black Book's key scenes, clearly a moment Verhoeven wants you to remember, and he probably had as much fun filming it as van Houten had annoyance at cleaning all the stuff off afterwards.

April Showers, American Psycho

This is Dave from Victim of the Time here again, with your nightly installment of April Showers. And regarding this one... well, someone had to do it, didn't they?

I live in the American Gardens Building on West 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself with a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.


After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

I can supply you with some critical commentary if you're interested? ... No? (It's clever to get the nudity out of the way immediately, though. Then when later he's running out nude with a chainsaw it's the chainsaw you're actually focused on. What, you're looking at his ass then too? What one-track minds you people have.)

April Showers, Brad Pitt as "JD"

april showers, daily @ 11

Tonight's shower is provided by mother nature rather than traditional indoor plumbing. That's appropriate since Thelma & Louise (1991) is elemental: all wide open spaces, blazing sun, dusty earth and women as hard driving forces of nature.

While the film belongs to Susan Sarandon's Louise, Geena Davis's Thelma is the maddening/adorable one. Among her many exasperating yet endearing qualities is her uninhibited horniness for one J.D. (early Brad Pitt). In the scene pictured to your left, Louise has booted the caddish hitchhiker out of their car since the friends are getting hotel rooms for the night. J.D. struts away into the rain shower, fully confident that Thelma's eyes are still on him. He even kicks up a boot heel, a private little show for her, as the car drives away.

There he goes. I love watching him go.

Wrangler butts drive her nuts... or something.

If you've seen more than two or three movies you'll know that this lustfully observed exit will not be J.D.'s exit from the movie. But Thelma apparently hasn't seen so many movies. She's surprised (and thrilled) when he comes a'knocking on her hotel room door later that same night.

J.D. is such a skilled charmer that the outcome of his neighborly call is never in doubt. The aw shucks grin is ease itself. He even knows just how to pose in the pouring rain so that the water runs, just so, off his cowboy hat. His 'I'll get out of your hair now' wet puppy act is all pretense. He's no puppy but a dog. He knows he's getting out of the rain. He knows he's getting into her bed.

April Showers, Carrie (Twice Over)

When I began the April Showers series I was frustrated that I'd already written about the famous opening sequence of Carrie (1976). But then, Eureka! Something more to say.

Though it might be impossible to choose one thing that's "best" about Carrie, I think the juxtaposition of its two shower scenes is definitely in the running. I've never read the Stephen King book so I don't know which of the film's strengths to attribute to the famed horror novelist but Brian De Palma unquestionably did a lot of things right in the transfer.


The first triumph is his undiluted understanding of Carrie's sexual development as adolescent terror themes. The second is his facility with cinematic language. In the opening shower sequence there's slow motion bodies and soft music. Carrie herself (Sissy Spacek) is completely entranced by the water, lost in the pleasure of it. Until her hand, soaping between her legs, comes up red with blood. Carrie raises her trembling hands up and out, staring at them in a confusion and disbelief that shifts quickly into pure terror. Her screams for help invite mocking from her classmates. Carrie crumbles into the corner until her gym teacher rescues her.

The second shower sequence, even more famous, is its twisted malevolent twin. Carrie isn't any where near a literal shower this time. Declared prom queen, she walks to the gymnasium stage in slow motion, that now familiar sad and soothing theme playing again. Carrie's eyes are entranced and wet, lost in the pleasure of acceptance and applause. Until, standing on the stage, her sadistic classmate drops a bucket of pigs blood on her.


Two showers of blood, then, the second infinitely more garish with the stuff. For the second time Carrie raises her bloodied hands up and out, staring at them in a confusion and disbelief. This time, however, her open mouthed shock produces no screaming for help (none that we hear at any rate in the expressive sound design) and her emotions shift to fury rather than terror.

No crumbling in the corner. No waiting for rescue.


Psychotic break time. (God bless the split screen!) This time it won't be Carrie doing the screaming.
*

April Showers: Irreversible

April Showers evenings @ 11 all month long

I like to think that this is the only part of the horrifically vile Irreversible (2002). It's a short film about sweet lovemaking and the marital bliss of one of cinema's sexiest couples, Monica Bellucci & Vincent Cassel. That's it, a beautiful short film!!! I pretend whenever possible that the rest of the movie did not attempt to show itself to me.


Tangent: Shower curtains in movies are always so sparkly clean. No mold, no stains, nothing. You can totally kiss through them without once thinking 'god, i totally need to clean this bathroom!' ...hypothetically speaking. My bathroom is impeccable. Um...

Occasionally my pretending fails me. I recognizable the structural potency (to an extent) of Irréversible but I will never ever ever ever ever subject myself to it again. Never ever.

Weirdly, I have never seen any of the other collaborations between the Bellucci-Cassels (and there's quite a few). Cassel will next be seen in the portugese film Á Deriva (Adrift) and the Andrew Niccol's next project The Cross which stars Orlando Bloom... but I'm most eager to see what David Cronenberg will do with Cassel's closeted self-deluding "Kirill" in the Eastern Promises sequel.

We'll see Bellucci in the ensemble cast of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee this year. After Pippa, she reunites with director Guisseppe Tornatore. He fawned over her beauty in Malena (2000) to such an extent that the film won a cinematography nomination for its DP Lajos Koltai. Koltai isn't joining the Bellucci/Tornatore reunion, though. Enrico Lucidi got the DP duties on Tornatore's latest, Baaria -La Porta del vento. Such a thankless task, pointing cameras at Bellucci ;)


Bellucci and Cassel celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary this year. The knot, still tied. Here they are at the Cesar Awards (France's Oscars) earlier this year. I can't stop looking at pictures of them, today. They're regulars: Vincent has been nominated 4 times, winning once and Bellucci was nominated once for their first film together L'Appartement.



*

April Showers, Sean Penn

april showers, daily @ 11

A mischievous devil sent me these snaps of Sean Penn showering for Oliver Stone's U Turn (yes I'm liable to use pics if you send any) I assume this is a hint to discuss it, but I haven't seen the movie.


What, pray tell, is with the canted overhead shot of his body? And why does Sean appearing to be swallowing the water in both shots? Is he washing out his mouth after offending someone? He's never been one to hold his tongue so it's a definite possibility.

<--- Penn all washed up.

Or maybe it's just an odd shot because it's part of Oliver Stone's lost period. Some people feel he lost his way after JFK, but I'm inclined to believe that NBK was even better and worked precisely because of its delirium, a filmmaker unhinged. But what's been going on since? U-Turn, Any Given Sunday, World Trade Center, Alexander? And why was "W." so weirdly tentative about so many of its impulses, both satiric and otherwise?

And Sean Penn. Do you fancy him gritty or cleaned up?

April Showers: Changeling

April Showers evenings @ 11 all month long

Showers in real life are comforting and cleansing. In the movies, they're often harrowing ... if you survive them that is. If my math is correct there are five types of shower/horror in the movies.

1. being murdered
2. being raped
3. being spied on (possibly for the purposes of #1 or #2)
4. seeing something you didn't expect to see (like blood or Kevin Bacon's penis)
5. being violently hosed down...
   

...is more specialized. It's generally spotted only in the wilds of prison movies or in the sub genre of Women's Pictures dealing with the martyred crusader. Think Meryl Streep in Silkwood or this recent demonstration from Angelina Jolie in Changeling.


Most of us will never experience the hose down (water fights on your childhood lawn don't count) so who knows if it's as painful as it always looks? The point is surely humiliation, rather than pain. It's another chance to build yet more sympathy for the heroine.

This isn't meant as a knock against Clint Eastwood (calm down) but why must workers in unfortunately dehumanizing facilities like asylums or prisons always be portrayed as evil themselves? This happens in a lot of movies, not just Changeling. When Eastwood grants these actresses shots of their own they're completely unforgiving and possibly malevolent.

Evil Worker #1 "spread your legs" she intones mercilessly
Evil Worker #2 has no voice. She wields her hose with committed intensity

Maybe these two ladies could just as easily have starred in a Woman's Picture themselves? Perhaps they're widows or hard up single mothers like Christine Collins? How easy was it for them to get jobs in the 1920s? Maybe at the beginning of their movie they were circling want ads just like Erin Brockovich did in hers. Maybe this is the first job they could find to feed their kids and they hate it with a passion? Surely not everyone who works at miserable jobs is evil themselves?

Hunger is the only recent film I can think of that understands that it can be even more emotionally potent and despairing to humanize the people doing the dehumanizing work. There was a brief shot of a crying prison guard after a particularly brutal "beat up the prisoners" sequence that was just devastating. Caricaturizing worker drones as evil simplifies your movie but it does dehumanizing work of its own.
*

How Green Was My Shower?

April Showers @ 11 PM all month long


Donald Crisp gets the old school shower treatment from Sara Allgood in How Green Was My Valley (Best Picture win 1941) while their dirty dirty* boys look on. (Robert Redford also did this manual labor shower trick for Meryl Streep in Out of Africa but he was more gentle/sexy about it. Sara is hardcore, she just douses her man).

This is a totally green way to clean. Your shower water becomes your bath water. Voila!

*What?!? They're coal miners.

April Showers: Ryan Phillippe

"Hello?"


So I haven't seen this movie all the way through but here's my question. If you were spying on Ryan Phillippe in the shower, wouldn't you forget to carry out your dastardly deed? Who could concentrate?

So Ryan wraps himself in a towel (shame) and moseys on over to his locker where he sees this photo.

You should complete the sentence in the comments.

"I KNOW... ___________________ "
*

April Showers: Miami Vice

In between Michael Mann (Public Enemies) movies I always forget that I really like his work. If you could reach into one of his movies you would be able to feel something... a cold surface maybe, vibrations from a loud noise or a drop of sweat hitting you. He has a real gift for atmosphere and texture. And apparently he has a thing for sex in the shower since two of Miami Vice's three big sexual scenes take place there.

The first shower scene is basically relationship detail. The music is soothing and we're just observing the easy intimacy of co-workers/lovers Naomi Harris's Trudy and Jamie Foxx's Tubbs.


The second shower scene is curious. We've spent several minutes watching Gong Li's Isabella and Colin Farrell's Sonny fall in love/lust (same thing in the movies on account of time is sped up). They've just realized that their relationship is a bad idea. Or maybe they've just decided it's a good idea to vocalize that obvious conclusion. The shower scene following this announcement begins oddly though it follows the same structure as the first shower scene. The man is lost in thought or zoning out, as one sometimes does when the hot water is drumming into one's skin. The woman enters and the intimacy begins. Only this time the music moves into ominous chords as we see Gong Li approaching the shower. She's all blurry like killers are as they approach shower curtains.

She tears open the shower curtain in a rather violent edit. It's the cinematic language of threat. Michael Mann is trying to ratchet up the tension in this dangerous affair (they're violent business partners and Sonny is also an undercover cop and could bring her down) but there's something about the shower entrance that feels little cheap. Like a 'Boo! Gotcha... she's just there for more nookie' red herring.

It probably shouldn't have tipped that threatening. After all, what's threatening about showering with Gong Li or Colin Farrell? Unless you have a heart condition, jump in and grab the soap!


But I love that Michael Mann is determined to keep the audience off balance. This next bit works better. He's been pulling us into the relationship and then suddenly, he's pushing away. The lovers kiss and stare and Isabella whispers something into Sonny's ear. See, we can ogle. We can practically touch the wet tendrils of hair clinging to hot skin but we're not allowed any closer. We're no longer privy to this conversation.

[Come see the new blog. We'll renew this series in April]
*

April Showers at the Bates Motel

april showers, weeknights at 11:00


Today I was going to write about what might be the most famous scene in cinema, or at least one of the most written about. I chickened out.

(If there's a shower scene you'd love to see covered in this series, I'm open to requests)

April Showers: Dollhouse 1.8

"April Showers" evenings at 11:00 all month long.

I'm killing two birds with one stone tonight, by starting the April Showers series with the latest visit to Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. [Here are thoughts on episode 1, 2 and 3 and 4 through 7 in case you missed them.] "Needs", the 8th episode, pleasantly dispenses with the usual three-plot structure. Hopefully the writers have realized that they've been leaning too heavily on the imprint assignment plots. The Dollhouse itself is the heart of the show. It's where most of the good potential metaphors lurk, this episode hinting that the writers might eventually find them. The Dollhouse could be entertainment itself (actors playing dress up / people as product) or a dysfunctional home (the executives as bad parents, the dolls as abused children, the handlers as elder siblings? enabling spouses?). If it keeps going in this direction Dollhouse might eventually be able to do what Buffy the Vampire Slayer once excelled at: illuminating universal emotional realities within outlandish genre trappings.

I love that this episode's plot essentially mirrors our own everyday routines: We wake up (for the dolls something's gone wrong. They don't know who or where they are), eat breakfast (The troubled dolls -- Sierra, Victor (Enver Gjokaj), Echo and Millie are terrified about the simplicity of the other dolls and their banal pleasantries about bananas), we shower to get ready for the big day ahead (for the Dolls, it's a co-ed experience. They didn't see that coming. The kids in the idyllic garden have finally realized they're naked).

What's so smart about this eighth episode is that each of these regular daily events fills the troubled dolls with fear and confusion. Essentially they're damaged children in adult bodies. Reality is going to be difficult for them. But the show, like all of Whedon's shows, has several tones to juggle. The shower scene is played for comedy but we've been prepped for it. Previous episodes have made the funny about Victor's "man reactions".

Victor walks by Sierra, averts eyes.

He's not supposed to pop a boner in the shower when he sees Sierra but he always does, which has caused much hand wringing among the staff. The dolls imprinting should be keeping them in a childlike state. The tingly parts are for paying customers only!

So Sierra and Victor enter the shower together. The newly aware Sierra warns Victor to watch where he looks and Victor tries to. He recites sports figures to stay calm. (I've been meaning to ask straight boys if this really works to prevent "man reactions". My equivalent would be Oscar statistics but I think that would just get me hotter. TMI!!!)

Mike (right) swims several laps every day. Sadly we don't watch him do so.

Weirdly none of the dolls get wet. Sierra looks a bit sweaty but that's it. The co-ed shower has more steam than water (It's network television. I guess steam comes in handy). The dolls have a weird encounter with "Mike" (adonis Teddy Sears) who's been reprogrammed. I love it when the dolls seem eerily vacant. The show is more fun when they tilt ever so slightly towards creepy and away from stupid.

Finally we move into the "get dressed" and "leave home" parts of the daily routine and here's where things really pick up, metaphorically speaking. The dolls find their wardrobes. The Dollhouse suddenly feels like a television set? Ooh, the places they could take this show, you know. Please be renewed for a second season. Pretty please.

Naturally the "leaving home" part doesn't work out well. (It's all been a test for the staff and a medical experiment with the dolls who've been showing memory glitches). They can't really leave. They're broken. Even if they escape the Dollhouse they're still dolls. Have you ever tried walking away from your troubles? Your troubles come with. B+