The Dollhouse Family #6 Review

ALL YOU EVER HAD TO DO WAS ASK

Writer: M.R. Carey
Layouts: Peter Gross
Finishes: Vince Locke
Colors: Cris Peter
Letters: Todd Klein
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 18th, 2020

It's the conclusion of the brilliantly done Dollhouse Family and although I'm sad to see it end, my sweet lord does it pay off by continuing the same path that it always has: going where you least expect it to. 

Una has been brought into the Dollhouse and introduced to the Dollhouse Family, but Jenny being Jenny is being a total bitch. And that's why we love her. She drags Una up to the stairs so they can go to the Black Room, and when brought there Cloax pulls these strands of flesh or blood or whatever out of Una's body, and we see that these strands are being added to a body within the Black room. Jenny asks if that's enough but Cloax says that she needs the mother too. Jenny, knows that Alice is on her way to say her daughter, says that she's not surprised that the mother isn't there yet.

Back to Alice and the cat, where we left off in the last issue. The cat is Aparadon, the force fighting Cloax since the first issue. He tells Alice that they fell to Earth in a battle millions of years ago. His staff that was made to kill demons like Cloax was shattered and pieces were spread in the Earth, which is the metal that Joseph Kent was collecting. He was able to trap Cloax with wards and have a cave build up around them to protect the world from her evil. But she was able to sedate Aparadon so he's just laying there sleeping and useless. Then she lured Joseph into the cave and impregnated him with her essence, and then he, in turn, impregnated his wife with her essence. The placenta of their child, Cordwainer, became the Dollhouse. 

Every generation of Joseph's family has carried a piece of Cloax. So the Dollhouse lures a member of each generation into the house and takes that piece of her essence back, and when she does she builds herself up from outside of the cave. When she's built back up again, she's free. Piece by piece, with patience, she's escaping the cave. I'm not sure why Aparadon has to be a cat, but in his slumber, he's able to occupy the body of a cat outside of the cave.

In a break away from all of this, we see the Dollhouse family having dinner. Cordwainer tells Beth that he doesn't remember most of his life. That would explain why they said at one point that they didn't know each other before the Dollhouse, even though Beth is Cordwainer's daughter. I just assumed that it was because Cordwainer was a terrible father that paid no attention to his family and they left him when the children were young (which is what happened, I'm not making that up). 

Alice comes back from Scotland to her apartment and Jake is there waiting for her... as well as the cat. And he knows the cat talks because it told him everything that happened. She needs pockets sewn onto her jacket for some reason and Jake tells her that he can do it because his mother used to make him fix his socks. I'm the sewer in my family because  I used to make puppets when I was a kid, and it's probably one of the most useful skills you can know as a dad. The dog got your doll? Daddy is going to fix it.

Alice says the words. "One by one, go down, be weighed. Be weightless. Come up, only one", and the Dollhouse appears. She begs to be brought inside so she can be with her daughter, the house responds with "All you ever had to do was ask" and she gets sucked in.

The happiness of seeing Una and the family doesn't last long because there's Jenny being awesome as ever. But even in front of Jenny's face, Alice takes out the metal and asks Cordwainer if he can melt it down and manipulate it. Jenny's like "What's this now? Are you looking for a spanking, little dolly?" and starts walking down the stairs. Cordwainer asks what the metal does and Alice simply takes it into her fist and puts it right into Jenny's chest... and Jenny lights up and disappears. Cursing, of course.

They get to work on Alice's plan and melt down the metal, and they use it to seal up the door to the Black Room. And that's a stupid idea. The whole house is Cloax, and Cloax tells them that. Why would she need to come through the door? And suddenly there's this huge multiple eyed monsters (Cloax's actual form) just tossing them aside and causing destruction. Una runs up to it and uses her prosthetic arm to slash its face. Is... is her arm made from the same metal? When Cloax pins done Una and it looks like she's done for, Alice points the gun from Joseph's lockbox right up to its face... and shoots.

That's when Jake, from outside of the house, uses a pick and hammer to split the house in two, and Aparadon rips Cloax out of it and just effing kills her. Now, here's the thing. The job is done. Aparadon has destroyed the demon, and he should destroy this world too. But he's grateful for the help and "strangely reluctant to end them." So what does he do???

Bits and Pieces

Damn. This was such a good final issue and at moments completely effed up! It not only continued the theme of taking you completely by surprise but wrapped it all up perfectly. I have zero complaints about that ending. As always, the art fits the story so well. As I've said for this entire run, Dollhouse Family is a must-read.

9/10