Fox has a history of messing with Joss Whedon shows, and while they respectfully gave him a second season for "Dollhouse," they still enjoy mixing up his episodes. Last week's episode 'Belle Chose' was supposed to be the second week, but they pushed it to the third instead. Why? Honestly I have no idea. This is a far superior episode to last week's Crazy Mama scenario, and it makes a lot more sense since it gets into Ballard's trouble with being a handler. What's done is done, but this episode is a sign that the show is picking up.

It starts out introducing the audience to a very creepy serial killer who kidnaps women and has them play out some weird fantasy of a family home life. He turns them into real life dolls (ha, I know) and then freaks out and kills one of them when she doesn't perform adequately. He goes out searching for a new victim and gets hit by a car, going into a coma. His uncle, played by Michael Hogan ("Battlestar Galactica"), doesn't own up to him being a serial killer until Topher figures it out. They take Ballard off of Echo's case so he can help them find where the missing women are. This is groovy by him because he's starting to get a little too infatuated with his charge. Echo's new mission is to be a dopey college student who sleeps with her professor, the client, for better grades. It doesn't become important until later.

No, this is more Enver Gjokaj's episode, aka Victor, and it's delightful to see one of the other Dolls get a spotlight. A lot of Victor's storyline from last season has been ignored so far, and Enver really is a fantastic actor. Let's hope this means they are going to branch out from Echo on the show. Anyway Victor is given the serial killer Terry's persona so they can question him. Ballard comes out as a fairly good profiler; he never seemed like a great FBI agent, but apparently he was hiding some great skills. Michael Hogan releases his nephew without their permission, which is soooo smart because then Terry-Victor's like 'meh' and gets them into a car accident. Leaving poor uncle dying in the car, he goes off to find a new victim for his collection.

Topher and Adelle decide to remotely wipe Victor because they don't have a GPS signal on him. Claire/Whiskey took it out to fix his face, and since she's gone they never put a new one back in. Glad to hear them talking about her disappearance; see, that's something that should've been in the second episode. Way to mess up the time line, Fox. Anyhoo, when they send out a signal some very bad things happen: the power at the Dollhouse dies, and Victor and Echo switch personalities. So while her bimbo goes into Victor, the serial killer switches to him, which is totally bad news for her client who gets stabbed fatally in the neck. The Dollhouse is going to get some very bad client reviews after this and last episode's baby drama.

It must be said that Victor is now Kiki and dancing wildly in a club. It's just as hilarious as it sounds. Enver gets completely into it and does some very girly moves, but he gets saved by Ballard when a few men don't take too kindly to his come-ons. Echo goes back to the warehouse to kill all of Terry's victims, who have now managed to escape somewhat. She starts short circuiting and realizes what is going on. She suggests they kill her so she doesn't kill them, but everyone is saved/stopped before that happens. Luckily she has a GPS tracker on her! So now Echo has a new personality to blend with all of the others, and a serial killer at that. Wow. Sucks to be her.

Echo (Eliza Dushku, R) takes a turn for the worse during an engagement in the DOLLHOUSE © Isabella Vosmikova/FOX

This was probably the best episode of the season so far, and not so much client-of-the-week. A very interesting aspect of the plot was that they made very distinct parallel's between the professor who hired Echo and the serial killer. Although the professor came off as respecting a woman's sexual power, it was really just so he could get a little something something and he seems to treat women as sexual objects not unlike Terry. It's just that Terry wants to kill sexual objects. But that was an interesting line to draw between them. Next week the spotlight is on Sierra, which is very exciting, and Summer Glau joins the cast in a few episodes.

"Dollhouse" is on Fox Friday nights at 9 PM EST.

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Story by Chelsea Doyle
Starpulse contributing writer

Follow Chelsea on twitter at http://twitter.com/mustbethursday.