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Inspired by this question, How is the five year disappearance of a Doll/Active explained?, I wondered if a Doll has any backup programming to deal with a person who recognises them as another of their identities, or thier original identity, during a mission?

e.g. Active A as identity B goes to a business meeting with wealthy client C where they meet person D who talks with them extensively. Later, Active A as identity E meets person D again but displays no knowledge of the previous meeting or the previous identity.

What would the active or the handler do in such a situation?

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  • I seem to remember an episode where this actually happened. The way I remember it a part of DeWitt and Langdon's jobs was to "Vet" any potential interactions with the Active and non-clients. – Monty129 Dec 07 '12 at 13:32
  • Any idea which episode? –  Dec 07 '12 at 13:42
  • Yeah, I think it happened once, maybe. Chances are the handlers would just tell the person the active wasn't feeling well and had some kind of mental problem they needed treatment for. – Mark Rogers Dec 07 '12 at 16:11
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    Assume for a second the imprints are perfect. How would you react to somebody that seems to know you, but you don't know them? – Zoredache Dec 07 '12 at 17:04

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I guess she would not understand what's happening. An active assuming an identity has no knowledge this identity is not her true one, so she would have no memory at all of her previous encounter under another identity.

The person D would end all mixed up after that encounter, though. It would be like meeting a twin with a completely different personality.

Albert Mancko
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    Doesn't that confusion then cause problems for the active? I seem to recall, although I can't think of the specifics without rewatching all the episodes (again), that that sort of confusion about identity is the type of event that lead, in part, to Echo's 'breakdown'? –  Dec 07 '12 at 13:44
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    Echo has some specific capabilities (I dont want to spoil anything here), but the regular Dolls have their personality cleaned out after each mission, so they can't remember any detail of their previous missions, not to say about their true backed-up identity. – Albert Mancko Dec 07 '12 at 15:23
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    Echo's breakdown is because her brain is "special"; her mind retained information about previous personalities first, and that led to confusion during her engagements when old memories began to surface. I don't think it would happen the other way around for a normal active. – KutuluMike Dec 07 '12 at 15:24
  • While identity confusion for the active wouldn't normally occur as Albert pointed out, running into people from past engagements could still be dangerous for the active. E.g. if person D decided the active was untrustworthy, as they've seemingly adopted a new identity in order to conduct fraud, evade people, or other deceptive motives, and tried to harm them. Maybe as @Monty129 said, DeWitt & Langton would be screening potential contacts to avoid this, but it doesn't make sense that they'd leave them to stumble through it alone if it did happen (apart from having the handlers on call). – RuthP27 Jan 23 '14 at 09:17
  • When Echo goes back to the corporation when the drug is released, a professor recognizes her as Caroline, and she doesn't remember the professor (just started watching it, can't remember all the names) – Canadian Luke Jul 24 '14 at 17:03