Ballard's in a restaurant waiting for his order, but when a waiter goes through the swinging doors to the kitchen, he suddenly sees Echo's reflection in the glass. Nice -- I was not expecting that. He goes in to investigate, but as he starts to draw his gun, Echo appears behind him and grabs it away. He promises he won't hurt her, and she breathes that she knows before pistol-whipping him to the floor. As he lies there, she stands over him with the gun in one hand and a knife in the other and adds, "I'm counting on it." Honey, when you hit someone in the face with a gun, all bets are off. Remember that for next time.

After another silly interview that really interferes with the pacing, Ballard and Echo throw, appropriately enough, everything but the kitchen sink at each other, eventually ending up in the alleyway. The imprint is pretty good, and Ballard gets extra helpings of Echo's elbows and feet, but after an extended sequence in which he gets knocked off his feet multiple times, he succeeds in pinning her -- but when he can't bring himself to deliver the haymaker, she head-butts him to the ground and steps on his back, gun trained on him. BUT! Instead of completing the setup, as the imprint was meant to command her to do, Echo tells him that while the Dollhouse is real and they know he's after them, "we" (I'm assuming Alpha is the mastermind, of course) have a person on the inside who corrupted the imprint while the programmer wasn't looking. Ballard asks if the person inside is the same person that sent him the video and photograph, but she says no -- this is the inside man's first communication, and security is very tight. Ballard asks where the Dollhouse is, but she tells him he can't know, and he's going about his campaign the wrong way, because there are over 20 Dollhouses in cities around the world and they have ties to every political power in existence, and he can't possibly stop them alone. Ballard asks if that means she's going to help him, but she clarifies that the person who sent the message will, because while the Dollhouse's business is fantasy, that isn't their purpose, and they need Ballard to find out what it is. Echo wraps it up by saying that he'll be contacted again, by her if possible, but "you have to let the Dollhouse win. Make them back off." She tells him he's got to trust her, and then when a cop appears behind them, she distracts him by screaming that Ballard has a gun before grabbing Ballard's hand and causing him to shoot the cop. She tells Ballard that the guy will live and Ballard will be blamed, which was the point of the whole setup, but the Dollhouse will never know the two of them spoke if he gets out of there now. She adds that they don't want him dead, but they'll do what's necessary to protect their information, and that's all Ballard needs to hear to realize Mellie might be in trouble and go running off...