Ship Manifesto:

Adelle Dewitt and Laurence Dominic.

 

When I signed up for the Dewitt/Dominic Celebration Week, I was unsure about what I wanted to write. I eventually decided to compose a Shipper’s Manifesto of Adelle Dewitt and Laurence Dominic’s relationship (in a similar format to those at http://community.livejournal.com/ship_manifesto) whereby one gives a brief outline of the two (or sometimes more) characters involved and then gives an overview of their entire relationship piece by piece. I didn’t recall seeing something similar located here yet so I decided to give it a go. This is actually my first attempt at anything fandom related which isn’t reviewing.

Adelle Dewitt

Adelle DeWitt is a bit of a mystery. On first glance, she seems graceful and welcoming, as she assures customers or prospective volunteers that their needs can be met by the Dollhouse. However, underneath there is ruthless steel when she feels that circumstances require it. Adelle began her career with Rossum working as the head of a department that used stem cells to create new organs. At some point, she was promoted to being the head of the Los Angeles Dollhouse which is a far cry from heading a steam cell division. Aside from that, nothing is known about Adelle’s background or personal life.

Adelle is responsible for overseeing the Dollhouse and its staff, insuring that the Actives are taken care of, meeting clients, recruiting actives, and generally seeing to the administration of the Dollhouse. She initially rationalizes the services that the Dollhouse proves as helping individuals that either cannot help themselves (prospective actives) and by helping those having issues getting what they need (clients). However, this mentality doesn’t last. When she is unable to justify her actions anymore, she turns more and more to alcohol and then turns ‘Big Damn Hero’ by taking control of the situation in forming a resistance army against Rossum. Unfortunately while their initial stand works, Rossum and the imprint technology eventually create the dystopia seen in Epitaph 1. Years later, they find a way to reset anyone who was affected by the imprint technology thereby undoing the chaos Rossum had created. However, since it would also reset anyone with active architecture (including the main portion of the resistance), it’s left to Adelle to rebuild the world.

Laurence Dominic:

If not much is known about Adelle, even less is known about Laurence Dominic. Laurence Dominic was the head of security for the L.A. Dollhouse and at the same time an undercover agent with the NSA. He also appeared to be responsible for the dolls when they were on engagements, and running background checks on prospective clients.

Dominic also has a ‘slight’ hate on for Echo, the most popular active, (attempting to kill her twice) although, it’s completely job related. In Echoes, Dominic is affected by a drug and when he encounters Echo, he apologises for trying to kill her, and begs of her to understand that he was doing what he needed to ensure the safety of the Dollhouse. Confused, Echo forgives him, in an attempt to humour him.

When he is revealed as a spy in Spy in the House of Love, he argues that contrary to what it looks like, he was actually sent to help the Dollhouse sustain control over the technology and avoid the problems that would occur should Rossum be allowed to run wild with uncontrolled power with the imprint technology. A goal which may have been accomplished if Echo hadn’t outed him resulting in him being sent to the Attic (because really, having an entire agency helping to protect the tech would have really  helped. Way to miss the big picture Echo).

Dominic, like Adelle, turns ‘Big Damn Hero’ in the Attic in attempting to bring down Rossum from the inside. First by hunting Arcane where he chases him through minds without intentionally doing so and then by helping free the people of the Attic. Plus, interesting to note that when he escaped from the Attic, he must have died but revived himself on his own (something only Echo had done as both Tony and Priya needed resuscitation).  After Dominic is released from the Attic a second time in Epitaph 1, he is enlisted to help Adelle bring about a block to the imprinting with a cure in Caroline’s back. However, it’s not known whatever became of this as he isn’t seen in the series finale, Epitaph 2, however, following the rules of scifi: one is alive until proven dead...and sometimes there are exceptions (hello Margaret from Haunted). So, in lieu of having no mention of him in the finale, I think it’s safe to say that Dominic is out somewhere being awesome.

The relationship

From the beginning of the series, Adelle and Dominic have been working together for three years. Not much has happened to note except that it establishes the relationship between them; it shows the trust, how in sync they are with the other as evident by their flawless powerwalking and the strange amount of personal space between them, which if ever breeched, has always been by Adelle.

I always wondered why she sauntered all the way over there only to stand for a few minutes and then saunter back. There was no need Adelle, unless you wanted to assert your sexiness in front of your Head of Security.

However, the most noteworthy occurrences in the first few episodes have been that despite Dominic’s gruff demeanour with most individuals, he is quite the opposite when it comes to Adelle, often sending her adoring gazes when she isn’t looking. There is more than just boss-employee relations here.

The Adelle and Dominic action really begins to pick up with Man in the Street; when confronted with the knowledge that Hearn, a handler, has been raping Sierra, the active in his care, and that the discovery had been made by Boyd without anyone’s knowledge; Adelle is, needless to say, disturbed and attempts to thank Boyd for his actions by wiring a large bonus to his account. After Boyd is dismissed, leaving only Adelle and Dominic, Adelle visibly relaxes and slumps into her chair, an action she wouldn’t have done with anyone else (as VictorFreud had told her, she is “very tightly controlled”). Dominic then, with open concern, asks her if she has an exit strategy as this could reflect badly on her. She is momentarily surprised but quickly rebuffs his concerns with a sarcastic remark. This is the first of two occurrences where concern is openly shown between the two with both members present and both on Dominic’s part, every other time wasn’t in the other’s presence and with Topher as the only witness (plausible deniability perhaps? Who believes Topher?). When engaging in their (routine as we later learn) torture session, Adelle is questioning Hearn when he asks if he’ll be wiped and used as one of the Dollhouse’s fantasy boys. Adelle responds that considering he isn’t anyone’s fantasy, that won’t happen. When Hearn suggests that Adelle is “a little sweet” on him, his response is a hard back hand to the ear from Dominic as a defence to Adelle’s honour. Adelle’s reaction is a small amused smile; you know she’s enjoying this. The second expression of concern when the other is present occurs when Adelle asks Dominic to leave the room (where she will tell Hearn to attack Mellie and thereby have him executed) and Dominic is incredibly reluctant and attempts to disagree with her before she presses the issue with a smiles and a “I’ll be perfectly safe, please”.

After Mellie executes Hearn, Adelle and Dominic meet in her office to discuss the security tap of the events where Dominic admits that he did replay the tap to which Adelle replies “more than once, it did not lack for poetry” (oh, you guys and your love of violence). The conversation then turns to Ballard’s suspension and whether or not to end Mellie’s engagement, Adelle decides against it with a “besides she loves him” with quite a pointed stare at Dominic. The moment gets awkward and they both turn to the front of the elevator. She tells him to contact the other houses regarding what had occurred with Sierra regardless of how badly it will reflect on the LA Dollhouse. Thankfully Sierra seems to be recovering well with no lasting memories of the events. Adelle, standing side by side with Dominic, sums up that in this situation “perhaps ignorance truly is bliss.” Oh God, more than you know!!

In Echoes, when Adelle gets a phone call from Special Agent Victor from the NSA about Dominic becoming compromised by the drug; she becomes very worried and while pacing asks Special Agent Victor to “please keep me informed....please take care of him”. Aww Adelle, you and your repressed concern for Dominic. However, it is the last scene that is the most interesting for me (and actually, the one that made me take full notice of D/D, I noticed before but not so predominately). Nothing much happens aside from the two being all tight smiles, declining drinks and Adelle snapping “for God sake, quit calling me ma’am. We got drugged, we behaved like idiot children, it’s over.” Here are two people acting incredibly awkward (like having drunkenly slept together) but have had absolutely no contact in the entire episode. What happened? Why so awkward, kids? I actually thought we missed a scene or perhaps something did occur between this scene in Adelle’s office and returning to the dollhouse? Oh questions never answered. Damn, where’s Joss when you need him?

Now, let’s talk about the game changer: Spy in the House of Love. dollsome did a phenomenal meta on the episode, so I’m gonna attempt not to rehash everything she said (seriously you guys, if you haven’t read it: http://community.livejournal.com/dewitt_dominic/78922.html ). The main plot point in Spy in the House of Love was the reveal of Dominic being an NSA spy. For the record, I don’t believe Dominic was the mole altering the imprints, it doesn’t fit with what we know of him and he does seem genuinely surprised when Topher brings the discovery to him. The episode opens with Dominic being his incredibly gruff self with Topher and Echo regarding the system being backed up due to Echo damaging the chair in Needs; however, he immediately changes demeanours when he sees Adelle. He smiles, he slows his steps and he quietly, as oppose to his gruff snapping only a moment ago, asks her why Rossum was calling her in (they aren’t, she’s just going on a surprise holiday) and she tells him that it’s probably to reprimand her regarding the spectacular series of insane issues that they have been having lately. After which, she leaves but not before leaving the Dollhouse to him. I’m not going to touch on Roger but in my opinion Roger was Dominic or at least created in response to Dominic intentionally or not. I have no real proof but the idea occurred to me in Briar Rose which I will touch upon later. Anyway, while Adelle was on mini-sabbatical, NSA technology was found in the chair which has been the cause of glitches with hidden messages in the imprints. Dominic attempts to call Adelle about the situation but can’t reach her and he becomes quite concerned when the GPS in her phone doesn’t register either (a side effect of being underwater, thank you Victor. God, wouldn’t that have been an awkward visit?). He lets out a quiet “if anything happened to Dewitt” and then becomes violent when Topher suggests that he think happy thoughts. Yeah, don’t joke about Adelle’s personal safety to Dominic.

Everything comes to ahead with the meeting between Adelle and Dominic after she learns about Dominic’s loyalties. He is tied to a chair in her house with her livid beyond belief. I don’t recall ever seeing her this emotional. She questions him about his involvement with the NSA when she pretty much snaps at him. To her, this isn’t just another employee issue, this is a personal betrayal. He attempts to convince her that he wasn’t sent to destroy Rossum but instead to protect the technology (aka: the job he was already doing for her just with added security measures). Regardless of his reasoning, Adelle isn’t listening and he snaps with “it’s embarrassing how naive you are. You believe in the Dollhouse and it’s mission, just like you believed in me. Look how that played out. You were wrong.” And it hurts. Adelle almost flinches, closes her eyes and takes a breath. This is all because he wanted a response from her that he wasn’t getting and because I think he was convinced that if he got her to see past the initial anger, she would either go easy on him or understand his methods and use his relationship with the NSA to her advantage because it was him. Needless to say, it didn’t work out so well and she sentences him to the Attic and says goodbye. If the sequences in the episode were watched in chronological order, we would see that the scene which immediately follows is of Adelle entering her bedroom and sobbing over what had just occurred, this hasn’t happened when she lost any other employee (even Topher). Dominic was definitely more than just a Head of Security to Adelle.

Back at the Dollhouse, Dominic is prepped for the Attic and strapped into the chair where he manages to grab a gun from one of the handlers to shoot himself in the head. He is stopped but in the struggle to get the gun away from him, he accidently shoots Adelle in the side. She waves aside Boyd’s concern and orders Topher to complete the process and Dominic is wiped. However, the entire scene, including his wipe, took place with their eyes locked. The last conscious thing Dominic saw was Adelle. Quite telling.

Now one would think that betrayal and mind-wiping one half of a pair would be the end of the relationship. Not true.

Haunted opens with Margaret, a Dollhouse client and close friend of Adelle’s, waking up in the chair in Echo’s body and remarking on how terrible Adelle looks. Normally, this would meet my scorn but Adelle really does look depressed. Turns out, Margaret is dead. I gather from Boyd’s difficulty in letting Echo go on this assignment and his not quite able to grasp what his job description really is, that this takes place quite soon after Spy in the House of Love. While this episode seems to be of the ‘Echo’s Adventure of the Week’ variety, I actually found it to be a good coda to Spy in the House of Love and how one deals with loss, specifically, how Adelle deals with loss. Not the loss of Margaret (bad timing though) but more so the loss of Dominic. I gather this (again I will attempt not to rehash what dollsome has said) based on Adelle’s behaviour throughout the episode. First was in her office while lunching with Margaret. She’s laughing and having a good time with a friend when they begin discussing funerals. Adelle immediately becomes sombre when she says “to see what the world really thought of us. To count the number who love us?” This is a massive throwback to Dominic’s “It’s embarrassing how naive you are” from the previous episode. That must have stung a great deal for her to bring it up again. When prompted about the sudden change in demeanour by Margaret, she responds with “well let’s see, my friend just died.” Yeah, she’s not talking about Margaret. Again when talking to Margaret about the issues pertaining to her family and how she died believing that everyone had loved her, Adelle tells her that “illusions aren’t worthless, they are at the heart of most relationships”. Ouch! Another throwback to Dominic’s “just like you believed in me, look how that played out. You were wrong.” Here is Adelle practically admitting that Dominic was more than just an employee (someone with that much trust has to be) and that the illusion he created about their relationship was precious to her, which I think is why she (emotionally) reacted so strongly in Spy in the House of Love (as she didn’t with Hearn). Haunted also marks the beginning of Adelle’s binge drinking which will continue for the remainder of the series. Alcohol was always present but never this prevalent. She spends most of the episode with a glass in her hand (or in her vicinity) and later is caught drinking in the dark by Boyd when he tells her the truth about Margaret’s death and how he could have been more help with Echo. She concludes the discussion with Boyd regarding his protectiveness of Echo and snaps with “She has a new handler, you’re going to have to get used to it” which could loosely translate to ‘You are not Mr. Dominic, I am going to have to get used to it” and Boyd, awesome at subtext that he is, seems to get it. Then he happens to confronts her about Topher’s use of an active. She responds to his concerns with “loneliness leads to nothing good, only detachment. Sometimes the people who most need to reach out are the people least capable of it”, clearly speaking not only about Topher but also herself. So while not being present in the episode itself, there are undertones of Dominic all through it.

Briar Rose marks the first time that Adelle and Dominic have come into contact since the events in Spy in the House of Love. A package arrives addressed to Dominic believed to be from Dominic’s handlers at the NSA. Getting Dominic out of the Attic is out of the question, so they break out the ‘unabridged Laurence Dominic’ wedge. When Dominic first awakens (in Victor’s body), he is greeted by Adelle, who for all her anger in Spy in the House of Love is remarkably cool about the entire situation. Aloof definitely but not seething in anger as she was before. After the realization that he is in Victor’s body and not his own, he begins to freak out (understandably so) and it is this that cements my Dominic = Roger theory as in this exact moment, Roger is Dominic, at least physically anyway (and you bet the thought had crossed Adelle’s mind at least once). During his freak out, Adelle orders Dominic to be sedated and he begins to beg whoever would listen to reconsider; even Adelle with “Adelle, please, come on” which marks the first time that he ever called her by her first name. Every other occasion has been either “Ms. Dewitt”, “Dewitt” or “Ma’am” and in response, Adelle momentarily cannot meet his eyes and looks away. However, the most interesting interaction is to follow. After he is administered the drug to make him more receptive to questioning, When confronted about the package, he responds with “no, we (the NSA) didn’t communicate that way, we used phones” and it’s little throwaway lines like this that really makes me believe that Dominic really wasn’t the mole altering the imprints. Just because the technology was NSA (or resembles NSA) doesn’t mean Dominic was involved. When determining who the sender was, Adelle and Dominic come to the same conclusion simultaneously, complete with shared looks and a synchronized “Alpha”. Even when betrayed, they still work together better than anyone else in the Dollhouse. When asked about the password for the document, he replies with ‘Alpha’ but the others don’t believe him, aside from Adelle who orders them to try it anyway, convinced that the information is good. Interesting coming from someone not willing to believe his methods or intentions regarding the Dollhouse not so long ago. Only when told that the wrong password could erase the whole document, does she try another tactic to ensure that what he is saying is true. She leans over him and coos in his ear in order to verify the information. Why? Because she knows that this will work and given by his (not unpleasant) flinch and quick response, she’s right. The proximity throws him off balance (and it’s difficult to lie when unprepared) but it’s not unwelcomed. After which, he is shelved.
 

Getting Closer is divided into two parts on the D/D front. The first in the flashback portion set just before the series began and the second in the present. The flashbacks portrayed Adelle and Dominic in a different light. It showed them as the cohesive unit they were before A Spy in the House of Love. There was no deceit and instead it showed them powerwalking, laughing over the torture of the security guard that dared enter Adelle’s office with Caroline and just how generally competent Dominic was as an advisor to Adelle. After learning of a security breech in the main building, he reviewed the logs, gleaned information from the correct security guard by torture, had Judith inventory all of Adelle’s files to see if any were missing and then followed up on those leads and determined that Caroline was rooming with Bennett Halverson at Tucson Tech. All work that Adelle didn’t have to do and when she was informed, all that was left was for them to board the jet and get the job done. When has Boyd ever done this? (I know I’m hard on Boyd. I do love him...he just wasn’t a good Head of Security. Seriously, Dominic was perfect.).

In the present, Dominic escapes from the Attic and manages to get himself down numerous flights of stairs to locate Echo just on pure badassery (after reviving himself, I might add). When Echo tells the newly formed resistance army about Dominic telling her that Rossum was after them, Adelle (like in Briar Rose) automatically assumes that the information is good. It’s interesting considering that she has absolutely no reason to believe him as he provides no evidence but does anyway. When he begins to go into shock having exerted himself too quickly after exiting the Attic, Adelle suggests putting him back in as the best way to save him. Dominic grabs her arm (the first time aside from Epitaph 1 that he actually touches her) and tells her that he’d rather die. She, holding on to his hand, tells him that she’s rather he didn’t. I automatically read it as genuine based on her behavior in both Briar Rose and Epitaph 1. However, it was reading the shooting draft that it was cemented that she genuinely doesn’t want him to die and would rather have him avoid being another casualty. (link to the shooting draft here: http://www.dollverse.com/2010/01/dollhouse-2x11-script-getting-closer/)

 Epitaph 1 is the last time that Adelle and Dominic meet on screen. It is not determined how much time has passed since Getting Closer but going on the length of Adelle’s hair, it’s been a while. Adelle has sent for Dominic to be retrieved from the Attic and he greets her by barging into her office and pinning her to her couch with a gun to her head. If it weren’t for the gun, I’d be thinking this was a different scenario based on Adelle’s position.

The two discuss the state of the world brought on by Rossum and Dominic begins to go on a tangent regarding Adelle’s previous siren’s song about the Dollhouse giving people what they need. It’s not the tangent that’s interesting, it’s his wording: “Everybody needs to get away...the girl they couldn’t have, the pretty princess they never got to be. Did I miss anything?”. Most of the tangent was said in Adelle’s general direction but not necessarily aimed directly at her except for the last part. It interests me that this was the part that he aims directly at her and then shoots the decanter to punctuate his point. However, during this exchange, Dominic was rather hostile. Adelle on the other hand, was passive, almost as if she doesn’t have the energy to be angry at him anymore or decided that holding on to her anger now just wasn’t worth it.

Due to this, I think that their relationship does eventually mend. Especially because if people can make peace with Alpha, a little espionage and atticization between two friends never hurt anyone.
 

I'm sorry about earlier, LJ hated me last night an attempted to 'correct' my LJ cuts by deleting them.

Credit for images:
Caps by Emma. Dollhouse:Season 1
http://disparue.org/gallery/4/dollhouse/1/