...and then Ballard goes for Boyd's gun, which landed in the fountain in the middle of the atrium. Boyd grabs him by the leg, though, which stops Ballard from reaching it -- but what is within reach are numerous rocks under the water, and he grabs one and clocks Boyd in the face with it. As Boyd takes this hit, though, Echo flashes back to the time he got shot with an arrow, and remembers how much she trusts him. He again tells her to run, but again Ballard catches her, and with Boyd after them, there's a big pileup on the stairs and Echo goes tumbling down, and all I can say is that I hope the stunt people got paid some good overtime for this episode. The fight continues apace, but just as it looks like Ballard might deliver a decisive blow, Boyd gets an assist from The Echo Under The Stairs, who grabs Ballard's leg from behind and sends him falling brutally to the ground. Boyd wastes no time in handcuffing his hands behind his back and then telling Echo to wait there, as he'll come back to get her. She tells him she trusts him...

...as Claire and Victor enter the infirmary, presumably from a back entrance. Claire intends to treat Victor's minor cuts, and it's rather ironic that if she hadn't bothered, he'd have ended up in a lot better shape. Because with a menacing flourish on the soundtrack, Alan Tudyk suddenly steps into view and quickly slices Victor's face to ribbons as Claire fearfully breathes, "Alpha!" And even though I am terribly disturbed at what just happened to poor sweet Victor, who I think is everyone making this show's favorite whether they know it or not, Alan Tudyk still makes me laugh with the sardonic glower he gives Claire in response. Er... Bad Alpha! Don't do that again!

Alpha grabs a terrified Claire by the face and menaces her with the knife as he admires the scars he gave her, creepily referring to them as "gifts," before saying that they turn out differently every time -- Victor's, for example, are much deeper than hers. As if that's not enough, he boots poor Victor in the ribs, and the best I can offer you is that it at least looks like he's passed out from shock. Alpha then returns his attention to Claire, asking if she always wanted to be a doctor, but when she says yes, he tells her that's a lie, which is the other piece of evidence that makes it seemingly impossible to conclude anything other than that Claire is a Doll. And here's a thought that just popped into my mind from Alpha's referral to the scars as "gifts": The way the Dolls are supposed to operate is that they revert to the tabula rasa after each engagement, but Alpha, by having his composite event, became the antithesis of that M.O. Now that we know Claire's a Doll, it makes me wonder if he scarred her (and Victor, too) to leave a mark on her that the chair couldn't erase. In other words, it's not violence for violence's sake, but a way of spitting at the Dollhouse, like, "You can't erase these, just like you can't erase me." Just an idea. Anyway...