Plot
Pleasant, Arizona: a group of young people walks into a small grocery store, singing. They hand in their order. Of course this does not go unnoticed, and some of the locals start a quarrel. After a small incident the singing congregation is able to leave, and all that remains is their shopping list – with a message on the back: Save me!
Reason enough to smuggle Echo into this community, on behalf of a senator who wants to break up the cult. Echo becomes a young blind woman who truly believes in the cult leader’s teachings and claims to have found the community through a sign in her dreams. Cameras have been installed behind her blind eyes, through which the Dollhouse team and the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), which wants to arrest the cult leader Jonas Sparrow, can follow everything that happens. Much to the displeasure of Dr. Saunders, who was against the operation because it could lead to Echo’s death.
The ATF sets up a base a few miles from the cult’s farm, where Boyd is also present. The officer in charge explains that the team has only 48 hours to infiltrate the cult and bring it down. Echo is introduced to them as Esther Carpenter, who knows this cult well and, thanks to her special talents, will have no trouble getting into the group.
Boyd takes Echo – who has supposedly hitchhiked across the USA to the cult’s land – up to its gates. She walks straight up to the leader of the group and knows at once that he is the man she has been looking for. Naturally Jonas and the rest of the congregation are suspicious of the newcomer at first.
But when she tells them that she found the community with God’s help, who sent her a vision of Jonas, she is welcomed like a sister. Their leader, however, is not quite sure yet that Echo is who she says she is, and he talks with one of the brothers about how the “garden”, as he calls it, must be protected and how they must do everything to make sure nothing happens.
While Echo is taken into the cult, Agent Ballard is still looking for Caroline. He persuades a police officer he knows to run Caroline’s photo through a facial recognition database. She agrees somewhat reluctantly – but has to tell him that Caroline does not exist. She promises, however, to keep the search active and to get in touch as soon as she learns anything new.
When Mellie visits him shortly afterwards, she hands him an envelope that a man gave her in the hallway. Ballard immediately recognises the handwriting – it is the same as on the letter in which he received Caroline’s photo. His colleague confirms this. The envelope contains a DVD with a film of Caroline.
Ballard is instantly fired up and throws himself into the work. Mellie feels a little pushed aside and leaves the office.
At the same time a completely different problem is brewing at Dollhouse headquarters. Although the dolls in their wiped state (the doll state) should have no feelings, Topher notices that Victor, showering with Sierra, has “male reactions” to her nakedness. He turns to Dr. Saunders, who theorises that it is because Victor has been imprinted with the same personality several times, which could leave lasting traces (such as male feelings). She orders Topher to go through the surveillance tapes of the last three months for similar situations.
Together they do find further incidents and are able to work out that his behaviour has nothing to do with his imprints but really with Sierra: Victor seems to like her.
On the cult’s farm Echo is gradually introduced to all the members, until Jonas sends for her. He takes the young woman into a pitch-dark room and asks her questions – whether she works for a government agency, which Echo of course denies. Jonas makes clear that he does not fully believe her story and that he will do anything to protect the group.
He aims a gun at her, but since she shows no frightened reaction, his suspicion fades and he officially takes her into the congregation. Through the camera in Echo’s eyes the agents can see that the whole room she is in is stacked with weapons.
The ATF team gets ready to storm the farm. Boyd demands that Echo be brought out first, but the officer in charge refuses; he just wants to get his hands on the leader. Since this seems strange to Boyd, he digs deeper. The officer tells him that twelve years ago he worked for the LAPD. Back then Jonas Sparrow already had a kind of cult, which mainly attracted underage girls.
Jonas was arrested and sent to prison, but only for two years, because the judge at the time was on his side. Boyd calls Laurence Dominic and asks for permission to call off the operation. Dominic refuses.
Meanwhile a kind of initiation ritual for Esther is taking place in the cult’s main house. Jonas receives her in the circle of the group. Outside, several officers sneak up on the building, but they stumble over a trap and are noticed. Jonas immediately takes the initiative and arms himself and his right-hand man Seth.
He accuses Echo of bringing the police and strikes her. The blow damages her eyes, and suddenly she can see again – which lets her block a second blow from Jonas.
The agents now openly besiege the building and call on Jonas to come out. Seth also tries to persuade his leader at least to talk to the police. But Jonas twists the truth so that the police want to destroy their group. In tears he asks Echo whether the fact that she can see again was really a miracle, and she says yes. Jonas then says that he sees a deeper meaning in her arrival and now knows what he has to do.
At that moment the first TV crews arrive to report on the siege. Jonas leads his followers to another part of the farm, broadcast live on TV. The broadcast is also running in Agent Ballard’s office. When Echo comes out of the building, he recognises her at once – Caroline.
Meanwhile Boyd drives into town and questions the owner of the grocery store where the cult did its shopping at the beginning. He says the group comes in a few times a month, shops and disappears again. Boyd asks to see the store’s surveillance video and discovers that the agent in charge wrote the note on the last shopping list himself, so that he would have a reason to move against the cult and Jonas Sparrow.
Jonas has led the members of the congregation into another building on the grounds. Everyone is anxious and frightened. Jonas has Echo read a passage from the Bible while he sends Seth outside with orders to pour petrol over the house and set it on fire. Echo begins to suspect something when she notices that the passage she is reading says that believers can and will survive fire.
Jonas promises the members a new miracle, and they all realise that this miracle will be the fire. Trusting him, they stay seated in the house and wait. Echo knocks Jonas down and tries to persuade the others to leave the house with her, which they do. Jonas comes round and threatens Echo with a gun – but he is shot from an ambush.
It turns out that it was Dominic, who then knocks Echo down on the spot. But Boyd rescues her before the fire spreads completely.
When the fire has already been put out, Agent Ballard arrives at the farm. He asks the officer in charge, who has since been fired, what has happened to the cult members. He is told that they will be examined and then released. Ballard shows the officer a picture of Caroline, but he just says that she could be anyone. Ballard tries to talk to the survivors unofficially but is turned away.
In the Dollhouse, Adelle orders Topher and Dr. Saunders to wipe Victor completely, because his behaviour could spread like a disease once it gets among the dolls.
Afterwards Dominic talks with Adelle about Echo and says she is showing the same signs Alpha showed at the beginning and should therefore be eliminated quickly – but Adelle makes it clear to him that this will not happen.