Actor Alan Tudyk is no stranger to working with Joss Whedon. Tudyk starred as Wash on “Firefly” and later the big-screen “Serenity.” Last Friday, Tudyk turned up in a pivotal guest role on Whedon’s current series, “Dollhouse.”
If you haven’t seen last Friday’s episode, you will definitely want to stop reading now. We’re about to give away some huge SPOILERS for the episode, which will definitely ruin the fun.
In the episode, Tudyk helped Agent Paul Ballard break into the “Dollhouse.” Tudyk’s character was supposed to be an environmental engineer who helped design the Dollhouse in order to keep it off the grid. However, in the final segment, it was revealed that Tudyk wasn’t playing the engineer–instead, he was the mysterious and dangerous Alpha. Alpha then uploaded a new personality to Echo and left the building with her, setting up things for this week’s first-season finale.
“We take it on the road,” Tudyk told SciFi Wire. “There may be a kidnapping or two in the episode, but for Alpha it’s about fulfilling his plan, which is just the last step. Getting Echo was the second-to-the-last step of his ultimate plan. He’s got one more thing in place before they can really go on their worldwide-domination killing spree, ruling-the-world spree. It’s about making her in his own image, really, as far as he’s a god. In his mind, he’s a god, and he wants to bring her up to his level of multiple personalities.”
Tudyk was asked if he though Alpha envisioned a scenario with he and Echo riding off into the sunset and living happily ever after.
“I think that’s Alpha’s plan, sure,” said Tukyk. “You know, everything that Alpha’s done has been to get Echo. Whenever you see Alpha, he’s screwing with the Dollhouse, and it’s always around Echo and his obsession with Echo. It was his plan all along to come get Echo, and that’s what it was all about. Now he has her, and he gets to fulfill his plan now, which is to make her like him. What Alpha is is this composite of people. We understand that he’s a bunch of people crammed into one. He’s 43 people in one, and he’s ascended in his mind to a godlike place.”
As for what the finale holds and if Alpha might be back should FOX give the show a second season, Tudyk was tight-lipped.
“I can’t say, because Alpha may not make it through the next episode. He does have Echo, and Alpha is a formidable person to deal with, but he has Echo, and that’s playing with fire. It could blow up in his face,” he said.
Fans can tune into the season finale of “Dollhouse” this Friday at 9 p.m. EST on Fox.
This REALLY reminds me of Seventh Son by J.C. Hutchins, what with the memory uploading, and the villain named Alpha. It’s different enough though. I just saw some similarities. If it turns out that Tudyk’s Alpha has his own version of the chair though, or if he’s been implanting his own personality into other bodies, then I’m gonna wonder…
@ Billy Uno – We know he has his own version of the chair from the previews. We also know that he has no problems uploading Caroline’s personality into someone else from the same preview, so in theory, there could indeed be many different Alpha’s out there. In fact, from the Alan Tudyk statements, it could be inferred that Alpha is just narcissistic enough to have uploaded his own multi-personality into Echo. That way he can really LOVE himself all the more…
Dear god I’m a sick person…
The similarities to 7th Son have been observed by many, but they’re different in some key concepts and the execution, so I’m not gonna give ’em hell about it.
I thought Alan Tudyk’s performance in the latest episode was *brilliant*, the best he’s ever given, both at the beginning and at the end. Alpha is a scary mo-fo.
When I saw the preview the week before, I should have known that Alan would have to be a bad guy. Just look at what Joss has done with the other Firefly alums, Nathan on Buffy and Gina on Angel.