We watched Westworld for the podcast and it just was screaming to also be recapped.
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The Original
Marines: Listen, I don’t plan how to mismanage my time and take on too many shows. It just happens. We picked Westworld to discuss on the podcast and about halfway through the first episode, I felt like I needed to recap. This is a show made for recapping—it’s intricate, pretty to look at, feelsy and it has COSTUMES like hello. (I’ll also add that it is grim and graphic. There is a lot of blood, death and nudity. Actual trigger warnings for rape and all kinds of fuzzy consent issues. If you can’t watch Game of Thrones, you probably won’t do well here.)
I’ll be joined in this adventure by Sweeney and Jessica! Jessica is a friend I met through an IRL book club and she is funny, brilliant, and writes amazing reviews for all kinds of romance novels. When I asked her if she watched Westworld, she said duh, so then I made her comment on these recaps. Welcome Jess in the comments!
Here we go!
We start with stunning credits and man are we suckers for good credits. Recently, I got stuck in New York because of snow and happened to crossover with Sweeney while she was also in town. We got to have drinks and catch up a little. I mentioned that I was way behind on starting Westworld and she was sympathetic because lol time but also because she was wary of me binging this show because it is A LOT. “It’s about robots, you know,” she said on her way to explaining some of the darker elements. And I nodded my head but like, no, I did not know it was about robots. I knew it was something about the West and everyone on the Internet was always yelling WHAT THE HECK???
Sweeney: LOL you are very good at pretending you know what people are talking about. Must be a useful HR lady skill. (M: Resume worthy!) Also sorry for the spoiler. But also my second time through the show I watched with friends and it was great because people were not just shouting that at the internet, they were also sitting on my couch yelling WHAT THE HECK irl. Westworld: WHAT THE HECK???
Mari: No actual worries because I’m glad I got the tidbit about the robots up front. It made these credits amazing even on first watch. We start with something that looks vaguely skeletal and then watch a robotic arm 3D printing piano strings. The 3D printing continues on the bones and tendons of a horse. A close up on an eye gives way to robotic hands on a piano, playing the credits song. Two robot bodies in a sexual position, more machines, a gun, half a finished face, the piano plays itself, and lots more little elements that I will now stop gushing about. Why am I like this with credits? I promise that from now on, I’ll only shout 3D PRINTED ROBOTS! at you in the place of the credits.
Sweeney: OK but these credits are VERY GOOD.
Jess: Having that spoiler beforehand must really change the game. I’m all about spoilers, but I feel like that would have changed the whole experience for me. Maybe for the better, BECAUSE I WAS CRAZY CONFUSED FOR HALF OF THE SEASON.
Mari: FAIR.
Black screen and a deep male voice starts the episode: “Bring her back on line.”
The screen lights up enough so we see a big, open room and a naked woman in the middle of it, sitting on a low stool in a vaguely uncomfortable position. The man asks if the woman (Rachel Evan Wood) can hear him. She says yes and apologizes because she isn’t feeling quite herself. The man tells her to lose the accent. He next asks if she knows where she is. In a “standard” accent (grumble at closed captioning), Evan Rachel Wood says she’s in a dream. We close in on her face and see her in better light. She’s answering, but her lips aren’t moving. Her face is perfectly still and smeared with blood. The man confirms that she (Dolores) (“pains” in Spanish…) (J: ooohhhhhh, why didn’t I put that together?! Probably because I was still trying to figure out wth is happening.) is indeed in a dream.
He asks if she’d like to wake up from the dream. She responds yes. She’s terrified. A fly lands on her face and still she makes no movement. The man tells her there is nothing to be afraid of as long she answers his questions correctly. The fly walks across her actual eyeballs and I tear up in sympathy.
Jess: I could not with all of the flies and the non-facial movement. My contact is burning in memory.
Mari: The man asks Dolores if she’s ever questioned the nature of her reality.
We cut to Dolores waking up in a bed, hair arranged about her beautifully. (S: #wokeuplikethis #justrobotthings) Her unaccented voice-over answers the previous question with a “no.” The man, continuing in voice over, asks her to tell them what she thinks of her world. The Western accent is back as she answers:
“Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty.”
We watch as Dolores moves about her house, up and dressed now with a folded easel. Outside on the porch, she greets her father and asks if he slept well. “Well enough,” he answers from his seat on the porch, cradling a mug of coffee. Her dad asks if she’s headed out to set down some of the natural splendor. I’ll admit that I didn’t understand that when I first watched this episode, though I didn’t realize that until just now. I know now that Dolores paints and was carrying an easel. He’s asking her if she’s off to paint.
Sweeney: I look forward to all of your Old-Timey-to-2018 translations.
Mari: This is like when we made you guess at the Mandarin in Firefly.
A player piano starts up. We cut to James Marsden on a train.
Jess: Personally, I was so excited to see James Marsden, like where have you been James. This is also a recurring feeling I have with other characters to come.
Mari: Voiceover man asks Dolores what she thinks of the guests. “You mean the newcomers?” she clarifies.
The men in front of James Marsden on the train are chatting. One man says the first time he came he went white hat. He brought his family and did the treasure hunting and stuff like that. The last time he came, he came alone and went straight evil. It was the best two weeks of his life.
Sweeney: It’s a throwaway moment and that guy doesn’t matter but I’m still gonna pause to say: Fuck that guy.
Mari: Dolores Voice Over says she likes to remember what her father taught her. That at one point or another, we were all new to this world.
Jess: Lots of foreshadowing from this intelligent Dolores since again, I barely understand what is happening.
Mari: Dolores knows, though.
The train arrives at the station as Dolores continues that the newcomers are just looking for the same things they are: a place to be free and to stake out their dreams. A place with unlimited possibilities.
James Marsden steps off the train. Behind him are a couple. The woman comments that the place is incredible and the man says it better be. They are paying a lot of money. It doesn’t matter because they are very extra-y extras, but I recognize the woman enough that I paused to look her up. Her name iss Brook Kerr and she was on the bestworst daytime soap opera of all time, Passions. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.
Sweeney: PASSIONS. Mari and I have joked about Passions rewatches/recapping/something??? for about as long as we have been making stuff on the internet together, but we haven’t yet suggested it as a podcast episode. This is me doing that now because I have to.
Mari: My brain says NO but my heart says yes.
James Marsden walks out into the town as the beautiful score swells. James bumps into a buff dude who grills him. James just smiles and walks on, passing the Sheriff who has a bunch of guys gathered around him. He’s pointing at a WANTED poster and explains that this murderer, Hector Escaton, is holed up in the mountains. The Sheriff tries to recruit James Marsden, but he says not today and keeps walking into a bar. He orders a drink and a prostitute walks up behind him. She’s played by the striking Angela Sarafyan, who had a bit part in Breaking Dawn and also in Buffy? She was a brief Dawn rival and I remember that exactly 0%.
Sweeney: I have also abandoned that information to the void along with most of my memories of seasons 6 & 7, but here’s the recap of the episode. I think she’s “the bitchy cheerleader.”
Jess: That’s where she’s from! (and duh I’m talking about Breaking Dawn).
Mari: Angela Sarafyan says that James Marsden must be new. She strokes his cheek and kisses her fingers while commenting that there isn’t “much of a rind” on him. She offers to give him a discount, but he declines, preferring to earn women’s affections instead of paying for them. (J: YASSS JAMES, keep your manners in the Wild, Wild West.) Thandie Newton joins them at the bar and tells him that everyone is always paying for it. The only difference is that their prices are fixed and posted on the door.
We pan past Thandie and see Dolores walking out of store. James Marsden spots her and heads for her. The Voiceover Man asks Dolores if she ever feels inconsistencies or repetitions in her world. Dolores answers that all lives have routine. Hers is no different. Still, she never ceases to wonder at the thought that any day, the course of her whole life could change with just one chance encounter. As she says all this, we see her stuffing bags into her saddle. She drops a can and James Marsden is there to pick it up. “Don’t mind me,” he says. “Just trying to look chivalrous.” Dolores is surprised that he’s back. He asks if he can see her home and she challenges him to a race there.
Jess: I shipped these two so hard right from this scene. But where the hell did he come back from, Dolores?! Just give me the answers already.
Mari: Not even close.
Horse race through more expansive, picturesque western landscapes.
They take a break from riding to watch a herd. James Marsden wonders how they keep them going in the same direction. Dolores laughs at his fake-cowboy-ness, explains what a Judas steer is, and finally just says that she just knows these things, same as how she knew he’d be back. “You saying I’m predictable?” James Marsden asks, a line that won’t give you feels on first watch, but damn on second watch. (S: OK thank you for saying this because I have actually typed and deleted “THIS GIVES ME FEELINGS” no fewer than half a dozen times already because this is my third time through and every fucking thing turns me into that MY EMOTIONS gif.) Dolores says there is a path for everyone. His leads him back to her. James leans in for a kiss, but Dolores breaks the mood by saying that she also knows her daddy still won’t be happy to see him.
Jess: Dolores’ foreshadowing and knowing things is like Ygritte’s Jon Snow knows nothing. Basically, we all know nothing, we get it Dolores!
Mari: It’s dark as Dolores and James Marsden arrive at her farm. Something is amiss as we almost immediately hear gunshots coming from the house. James Marsden grabs his rifle and tells Dolores to stay put.
At the house, a bandit stands over Dolores’s dad holding a jug of milk. Dad tells the bandit to go ahead and shoot, which he promptly does. And then the bandit pours milk over the body like pouring one out for the homies, but worse and weirder. (S: 1430.) Bandit 1 turns to his partner, who is lamenting the fact that Dolores’s mom was killed before she could be raped. Bandit 1 tells Bandit 2 that the body is still warm and passes him the milk. Bandit 2 takes a swig and starts to head inside.
James Marsden whistles and gets their attention and then guns both the bandits down. Inside, he checks the mom’s body. The Voiceover Man comes back to ask his last question: what if he told her that she was wrong. That there are no chance encounters. That she and everyone she knows were built to gratify the desires of the people who pay to visit their world.
Dolores does not stay put. She makes it to the house and spots her dead father. She starts wailing over his body. Dolores suddenly notices that someone is in front of her. She gasps and looks up at a man dressed all in black, played by Ed Harris, who does a good job just looking creepy and villainous. (S: There is so much wonderful acting on this show that happens when people are literally just standing there.) He’s also definitely wearing a black hat. He greets Dolores with a “hello again,” and taunts her with how quickly her father died.
She grabs a gun, points it at him and calls him a son of a bitch. He slaps her in the face and asks if that’s any way to treat an old friend. “I’ve been coming here for 30 years and you still don’t remember me, do you? After all we’ve been through.” Dolores cries as he bends to stroke her face and note that a nebulous “they” gave her a little more pluck this time.
James Marsden exits the house and tells Man in Black to take his hands off her. Man in Black groans when he sees James Marsden (Teddy! A name!). (J: I totally forgot his name was Teddy, he’s always James Marsden in my mind.) Man in Black taunts Teddy, asking if he knows any new tricks. He’ll even give him the first shot. Teddy does draw first and shoots Man in Black. Nothing happens. Teddy fires again. Voiceover Man asks what if he told Dolores that you can’t hurt the newcomers, but they can do whatever they want. Man in Black says he used to wonder why they pair some of them off. It seems cruel. But he realized that winning doesn’t mean anything unless some else loses. Teddy is the loser. Man in Black lifts Teddy’s gun to his own forehead, but now Teddy can’t even shoot. He just falls to his knees.
Man in Black [MiB] walks back to Dolores and pulls her by the neck of her dress. She struggles and cries for Teddy, who tries to shoot Man in Black a couple more times. Dolores begs for Teddy’s life, saying she’ll do anything if MiB leaves him alone. MiB slaps her and says he didn’t pay all this money because he wants it easy. He wants her to fight.
First official puke break.
Sweeney: We can start a counter for that. The reason I tried to caution against a binge of this show is kind of this, right here. I forget how quickly I watched the remaining episodes, but the first night I definitely stopped after one because this whole scene is just A LOT.
Jess: This was when I realized this show was freaking nuts. NUTS.
Mari: MiB turns back to Teddy and shoots him. MiB says it feels good to be back. He grabs Dolores and drags her all the way to the barn. Her cries are bone-chilling. It’s really, really tough to watch, even as it kind of fades out and Voiceover Man asks if anything he’s said would change the way Dolores feels about the newcomers. She says of course not. “We all love the newcomers.”
Jess: But are they newcomers if they keep coming back, Dolores?!
Mari: Technicalities!
We close in on Teddy’s dead face for a while, his pupil dilating enough so we see in its reflection MiB shutting the door to the bar. Dolores’s voiceover finishes that the newcomers remind her how lucky she is to be alive and how beautiful this world can be.
Player piano starts up again.
Dolores is back in her bed, looking angelic and serene as before.
The train whistle blows and Teddy wakes up back on the train. This time, two women are sitting in front of him, wondering at how life-like they are. “Look at that one,” a woman says about Teddy. “He’s perfect.” The other woman says perfect is boring and she’s more interested in the bad guys.
We pull away from the train and the mountains up into a room that houses a model of the world.
Mari: We travel out of the Hunger Games Room and down the hall where we see people working on robotic horses at different stages of completion. We move on to a bunch of naked robots, sitting on their low stools, being taken through a bunch of motor tests.
A man (whose voice we recognize! It’s Voiceover Man!) and a woman sit in front of a naked Angela Sarafyan. He (Jeffrey Wright) (BEETEE!) (S: Speaking of Hunger Games!) asks the woman (Shannon Woodward) if she saw something. They watch again as Angela Sarafyan strokes her face and moves her finger along her bottom lip. Shannon Woodward sees it now and says it’s a non-standard gesture. Jeffrey Wright noticed it last night and found a whole new class of gestures in the latest update, inserted by Ford. He calls them reveries: movements tied to specific memories, even though those memories are erased from their systems. It’s like a subconscious. Shannon Woodward jokes that she’s a hooker with hidden depths. Jeffrey Wright says it’s the tiny things that make them seem real and make the guests fall in love with them.
Jeffrey Wright’s tablet starts beeping. He grabs it and leaves. Alone, Shannon Woodward strokes Angela Sarafyan’s hair and kisses her. The camera pulls back on Angela Sarafyan’s half-lidded, empty stare.
Jess: I was so horrified at the treatment of the robots.
Mari: It’s a lot less violent than what happened to Dolores, obviously, and yet it adds another layer to our horrified feelings.
Jeffry Wright heads into the Hunger Games Room. A woman (Sidse Babett Knudsen) waits for him there, with arms akimbo, so you know something bad is happening. She tells him that there is some unscheduled activity in the cold storage level. She wants Jeffrery Wright to go investigate it with a fully armed response team. One of the Hemsworth brothers (no, not that one) (or that one) (J: Yes!!! It’s the short Hemsworth.) says he’ll take care of it. Jeffrey Wright says they must like playing dress up, with all this armor and stuff, because the hosts can’t hurt them, by design. Luke Hemsworth asks if Jeffrey Wright (Bernard!) has kids at home. He looks to the side and gives a heavy, “no.” Luke Hemsworth says that if he did, he would know they all rebel eventually. #foreshadowing
Sweeney: EVERYTHING IS FORESHADOWING.
Jess: EVERYONE KNOWS NOTHING.
Mari: Sidse Babett Knudsen asks Bernard to forgive the security guys for being uptight because every time an update is rolled out, there is a possibility of a critical failure.
Jess: This is what I think of whenever I have to do an update at work.
Mari: I hope you are this dramatic about it.
Bernard points out that they don’t update the hosts in cold storage and the park hasn’t had a critical failure in over 30 years. Sidse Babett Knudsen thinks that means they are due for one.
Jess: This show was a foreshadowing for when I turned 30.
Mari: A+
To get to cold storage, you have to take an elevator of NOPE with murder lighting down into a Basement of Don’t Go In There. Bernie looks judgey as all the security guys lock and load their guns. When the elevator door opens, they are greeted with a rush of water. The cooling system has been down for weeks. This is a weird detail. I don’t know if it gets addressed ever again or if they just did it for an added rush of water to the overall creep vibe of cold storage.
They walk through a room full of naked hosts, looking wan, pale and greasy. It’s like walking through a room of standing cadavers. At the back, there is a glassed off room. Luke Hemsworth pulls his gun, but Bernie stops him because it’s the boss in that room, talking to a host.
The boss (Ford) is played by Anthony Hopkins, in case the caliber of the cast hadn’t impressed you yet. The host he’s talking to is clearly an older model, moving with less ease and grace. We can even hear him whirring. The host asks if they should drink to the lady with the white shoes. Ford tells him that perhaps he better drink to a deep and dreamless slumber. Old Bot goes still.
Ford turns to the door where Bernie is watching. Ford says Old Bill (I was close) was always a good listener. He was the second host they ever built, back before Bernie’s time. Ford tells Bill to put himself away. We watch Bill climb into a body bag and zips himself in. Bernie compliments Ford on the reveries and the new gestures, calling them beautiful, and noting that the progress he’s made is remarkable. Ford says that’s a word for it, grabs his jacket and leaves.
Dolores is doing her morning routine, asking her father if he slept well. We get more of their exchange this time. Dolores says she might go paint, after she runs her errands. Her father tells her to be home before dark because the bandit who gunned down the marshal is still hiding in the hills. Dolores says she isn’t a child anymore and will be just fine. Dad jumps into a story about “when he was a lawman—“ one that Dolores clearly has heard many times before. Dad gets sappy and says that everything changed the day he became her father. Dolores says she knows (J: DOLORES KNOWS TOO MUCH) and promises to be home before dark.
The train arrives at the station and we watch as Teddy gets off and walks past the sheriff talking about murderous Hector Escaton. He asks a man to join him, but this time it isn’t Teddy. He points to a guest just arrived with his wife. The man looks thrilled at the prospect of this adventure.
Teddy is in the saloon and Angela Sarafyan greets him (“not much of a rind on you…”). His response is the same, but this time Thandie Newton is too busy with a bunch of other guests to engage in their conversation. Teddy spots Dolores walking out of the store, tries to follow her, but then gets stopped on the way there by some guests who recognize him from the last time they were at Westworld. If the previous scenes showed us their routines, this shows us ways they may be interrupted.
Sweeney: And how they course correct! That is, driving home that the park has thought through the various ways the human guests might alter the host’s loops. This little exchange does a tremendous amount of world building quickly and efficiently.
Mari: Dolores packs away her goods, drops a can, and this time it’s picked up by Man in Black. He tells her he’s got other plans for the night and wishes her a pleasant evening. It’s awful.
He walks into the saloon and Angela Sarafyan immediately “you’re new”s him. He waves her off and sits down to gamble instead.
Off on the adventure with the sheriff, Guest Wife is clearly not having it. They find a “dead body” and it makes her look even more unamused. Husband asks how much longer this adventure is going to take and as the sheriff starts answering, a horsefly lands on him. He glitches, getting stuck on a word, twitching and losing control of an eye. The wife freaks out and says she wants to head back to town NOW.
Sweeney: FLIES AND EYEBALLS ARE BAD FOR BUSINESS, WESTWORLD.
Mari: A voice asking “what the fuck is wrong with it” transitions us from the park to HQ. The man, played by Simon Quaterman, is demanding to know why the update ruined the sheriff. The sheriff is bloody and has a huge cut running along his forehead. The first time I watched this scene I didn’t really connect why, but now I’m guessing they lobotomized him in order to answer Simon Quaterman’s very loud “so what the fuck happened” question. Bernie admits that he doesn’t know but they haven’t finished the diagnostic yet. Sidse Babett Knudsen wonders if this has anything to do with the update. Bernie says it’s unlikely. Sidse Babett Knudsen wants to pull the updated hosts, 10% so far. Simon Quaterman flips over that too, because that means 200 hosts spread out through a bunch of active storylines that will all be disrupted. Sidse Babett Knudsen asks if the 1400 gusts in the park in any danger. Seeing as how by my math, they are outnumbered by the 2000 active hosts, IDK, PROBABLY. Bernie says that the sheriff’s core code is in tact in, which means he couldn’t even hurt a fly. Sidse Babett Knudsen gives in and says that Bernie can keep running his diagnostic. In the meantime, if there is even so much as an unscripted sneeze, she wants to know about it.
Jess: I loved this part because Bernie DOES NOT CARE. What a lovable weirdo.
Mari: Park. A bunch of bros are enjoying women, a bath, cigars and drinks. A first timer says the whole thing is wild, but the old pro says this is tame compared to how demented things get the further from town you get. That’s where Teddy, their guide, will come in. We pan a little out to see that Teddy is sitting out on the porch, staring at the scenery. First Timer says Teddy kind of freaks him out, but what they hey. He’ll lead them into the canyons and if they get bored, they will use him for target practice.
Elsewhere in the park, Dolores is painting. A family happens across her. She offers to give the young boy a closer look at the wild horses she’s painting. The boy looks at her and tells her she’s one of them. She isn’t real. Dolores gives him a confused little smile and then tells the family she’s got to go, and they should too. It’s almost sundown and there are bandits in these hills.
Dolores’s father is putting away his horses when he spots something in the dirt. He uncovers it and looks at it thoughtfully. Dolores gets home and he’s sitting on the porch, staring at the thing he found. He shows it to his daughter and we now see that it’s a picture of a woman standing in Times Square. Dolores looks at it but says it doesn’t look like anything to her. Dad wants to know where the woman is. Has Dolores ever seen anything like this place? Dolores repeats that it doesn’t look like anything to her.
HQ. Simon Quaterman finds Sidse Babett Knudsen smoking out on some kind of balcony. He awkwardly makes small talk, which Sidse Babett Knudsen calls him on, and tells him to get to the point. His point is that he wants to apologize “if he came across as aggressive” (cheap apology, mate) and he wants to talk about the update. Simon Quaterman (Sizemore) thinks there should’ve never been an update. Ford and Bernard keep making the hosts more life-like, but he wonders if anyone truly wants that. He thinks the guests want to know the hosts are fake as they rape and kill them. They should stop the updates and maybe even roll some of them back. He swiftly pivots into talking about eccentric Dr. Ford and suggests that when the changing of the guard happens, Sidse Babett Knudsen has his support. Plus, he knows that the corporation’s real interest in the park goes way beyond “gratifying some rich assholes who want to play cowboy.” Sidse Babett Knudsen wants to know what he thinks they are interested in, but he has no idea. She tells him that means he’s worthless to her.
Sweeney: The compositing on this scene was not my favorite but also: Sidse Babbett Knudsen does sassy badass impeccably well.
Mari: Player piano. The dealer asks Thandie Newton (Maeve!) if she’s turning in for an early night. She says she’s feeling a bit out of sorts and Angela Sarafyan (Clementine!!) can pick up the slack. The dealer (Kissy!) starts to leave, but the bartender asks if he’s forgetting something. Kissy turns back and the bartender searches his pockets, tossing out the few coins he pocketed. Kissy grumbles all the way out the door, but out there, worse problems are waiting for him. Man in Black sneaks up behind him, cuts his throat, and then drags him away.
Bernie is sitting with the healed up Sheriff who smooths over his mustache. Bernie says he envies the hosts’ forgetfulness. Shannon Woodward rushes in and says there is a serious problem with one of the hosts.
Park. Bandit 2 from the rape and pillage at Dolores’s farm has killed a bunch more people at a bar. He pours milk over some bodies and says he’s “not gonna die this time, Arnold. Ain’t nothing gonna kill me.” Bandit 2 takes a swig and most of it comes out of a bullet hole in his chest. Outside of the bar, we see the dead body of Bandit 1. Bandit 2 pours milk into Bandit 1’s mouth and shouts that he’s a growing boy. He freezes and we hear the beep that means he’s been powered down. Flood lights turn on as Luke Hemsworth announces that he’ll take care of the guests in the bar. Bernie and Shannon Woodward can deal with the host. Shannon Woodward says the hosts are supposed to turn on each other, but only if a guest takes them on the High Sierra Storyline. Sidse Babett Knudsen comes out of the dark to voice even more disapproval and point out the obvious: the sheriff wasn’t an isolated incident. Bernie says that’s good news because it means that it was the updates and they can just roll those back, clean up the hosts and get them back in service. Sidse Babett Knudsen is a hard pass for putting Bandit 2 back out there, with his milk murdering ways. Bernies tries to convince her that he’s homicidal by design, but like I said: hard pass. The hosts are supposed to stick to their loops with minor improvisation. This is not minor improvisation. Sidse Babett Knudsen turns to Luke Hemsworth and tells him to pull all the updated hosts and go through them one by one. They are moving the saloon heist up by a week and making it twice as bloody for a good cover. Bernie doesn’t think Ford will approve. Sidse Babett Knudsen doesn’t think he will either, so she’s giving Bernie the task of giving him the news. “This is your fuckup, Bernie. It only seems fair.”
HQ, down in the dipping and 3D printing room.
Sweeney:
Dolores wakes up. On the porch, she asks her father if he slept well, but he doesn’t answer. She realizes he’s been up all night, looking at the picture of the tourist. Dad cries that he had a question, a question you aren’t supposed to ask, which led him to an answer your aren’t supposed to know. Dad is stuttering and freezing up a bit. Dolores calls for help. Her father grabs her and tells her to leave. “Don’t you see? Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” Dad whispers something in her ear, but we don’t hear it. Dolores runs off to fetch a doctor from town.
In town, the Doctor’s door is locked. She spots Teddy and gives him a bug hug. She tries to get him to come with her back to the ranch, but just then, hooded riders are riding up into town. The player piano starts and Teddy tells Dolores that they should stay put.
Jess: My anxiety is HIGH.
Mari: It’s the hoods AND the music.
HQ. Sizemore announces that with considerable effort and lack of sleep, he’s managed to move the saloon robbery up a week and given Hector a chilling speech to deliver. They watch in the Hunger Games Room.
Park. A deputy confronts Hector, played by Rodrigo Santoro, and promptly gets shot dead. Hector and his band of bandits, including a woman with a snake tattoo on her face (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), start a well orchestrated heist. Ingrid Bolsø Berdal is in charge of shooting all the people outside of the saloon. It is quick and bloody.
Teddy and Dolores watch all this while hiding. The massacre continues, but Dolores wants to make a run for it because of her father. Teddy tries to stop her and gets shot in the process. As he dies, he delivers his “don’t mind me—just trying to look chivalrous” line.
Jess: Teddy’s gimmick is never ending.
Mari: In life or death.
Inside the saloon, Maeve calls Hector some names again while his team find the safe.
Back outside, Hector tells Ingrid Bolsø Berdal that the problem with the righteous is that they can’t shoot for shit. She says they do make a hell of a racket, though. Hector spots his own WANTED poster, grabs it and launches into his epic speech. “You wanted me,” he yells. “Well let this be a lesson.” And that’s pretty much as far as he gets because the Husband Guest who abandoned the Sheriff’s mission earlier shoots Hector through the neck. And then shoots Ingrid Bolsø Berdal. In HQ, Sizemore holds his face and whispers, “oh Jesus.” Husband is full of glee and Wife laughs and laughs over how a dying Ingrid Bolsø Berdal is wriggling. Husband sends Wife off to grab the photographer. And in HQ, Sidse Babett Knudsen tells Sizemore than maybe he’ll get to his speech next time.
Jess: The humans were the most horrifying part of the show.
Mari: I have a feeling we’ll say that a lot.
Dolores is still crying over a dying Teddy. She starts giving her lines about there being a path for everyone, but he dies.
Husband and Wife take pictures with the dead bodies of Hector and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal. It’s way darker now, but Dolores is still crying over Teddy. Shannon Woodward, in Western costume, approaches her. Dolores begs her to help. Shannon Woodward tenderly grabs her face and tells her that soon, this will all feel like a distant dream. Until then, may she rest in a deep and dreamless slumber. Dolores beeps and powers down as Shannon Woodward yells out that she’s got two more.
HQ. Sidse Babett Knudsen asks Bernie if everything is checking out okay with the hosts they brought in. Bernies says that most of them are fine. One is definitely not.
Dolores is naked and on one of those stools, her face still smeared with Teddy’s blood. Luke Hemsworth walks in with another lady. He asks her to bring Dolores back online. She wakes and is gasping for breath. Luke Hemseworth tells her to limit herself to cognition only. No emotional affect. Dolores stops gasping. He also tells her to lose the accent. Luke Hemsworth takes her through the series of questions Bernie asked her in voice over at the beginning of the episode. Has she ever questioned the nature of her reality? No. Has anyone around her? For instance her father? We hear her answer in voice over as we cut to her father also in an observation room, on a stool, being watched by Bernie and Sidse Babett Knudsen. Dolores says he was scared. He wasn’t thinking right. Was there anything odd about the picture he showed her? No, not at all. It didn’t look like anything to her.
Sidse Babett Knudsen (Cullen!) says that if Dad breached, he needs to be put down. Ford suggests that it would probably be wise to, you know, investigate first.
Bernie tells Ford that they run a full diagnostic, but the results are confusing. Ford asks the host what happened to his program. It shivers to life and replies, “when we are born, we cry we are come to this great stage of fools.” Ford asks if he has access to his previous configuration. The host accesses it and laughs a little. Ford asks what his name is and he smoothly and sweetly replies, “Oh, Mr. Peter Abernathy.” Ford asks what his drives are and Peter replies that they are to tend to his herd, look after his wife and protect his daughter Dolores. He starts to say that he wouldn’t have it any other way, but then starts freaking out again, realizing that he has to warn Dolores because of the things they do to her. He has to protect her. He has to help her. Bernie points out that they are miles beyond a glitch here. Ford asks the hots to access his current build and again asks for his name. “Rose is a rose is a rose.” What is his itinerary? “To meet my maker.” Ford tells the host that he’s in luck. And what does he want to say to his maker? “By most mechanical and dirty hand… I shall have such revenges on you both. The things I will do. What they are yet I know not, but they will be the terrors of the Earth.” The host jumps up and grabs Ford by the arms. “You don’t know where you are, do you? You are in a prison of your own sins.”
They power him down. Ford says he was quoting Shakespeare. A few configurations ago, he played a professor at a cannibalistic dinner party (for real) who liked to quote Shakespeare, John Dunn and Gertrude Stein. Bernie realizes that the reveries are just allowing the host to access fragments of prior builds. Ford is like, “see? Nothing worrisome here AT ALL.” The host creepily smiles on. We don’t believe you, Ford.
Sweeney: “See guys, they’re just remembering all the weird ominous shit we had them say in the past! It’s chill!”
Back with Dolores, Luke Hemsworth asks what her father whispered to her. She says that he said, “these violent delights have violent ends.” I call bullshit on account of that whispering being a lot longer than that. He would’ve had to dramatically recite that and it seemed more like a harried whisper to me. He asks Dolores if he’s ever lied to them. “No.” Would she ever hurt a living thing? “No, of course not.”
Peter is on a medical chair and gets a drill up his nose. (J: Lord Jesus.) The tech finishes wiping Dolores and worries about her her core code. “Not good old Dolores,” Luke Hemsworth exposits. She’s been rebuilt so many times, she’s practically brand new, even though she’s the oldest host in the park. Luke Hemsworth asks her to tell them what she thinks of the world. She smiles and her accent is back. “This world?”
We watch her wake up but there is a shade less smile to her face. I honestly question if I’m making that up or if Rachel Evan Wood is that good. Dolores heads downstairs. “Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray.” She greets her dad, but it’s a completely different host who asks, “heading out to do some more of that painting of yours?” Her original dad is taken down to the Basement of Don’t Go In There, alongside Bandit 2, and they are shelved. There’s no water dripping this time so maybe the cooling system was fixed? IDK, man.
Bernie leans in and whispers something to Original Peter Abernathy before he walks into the vault to take his standing position. It looks like his eyes fill with tears.
“To believe there is an order to our days.” Teddy wakes up on the train, but he puts his hand over the spot where he was shot.
“A purpose.” Man in Black looks at the underside of Kissy’s scalp and there is a maze/map with a man in the middle, spread in the way the 3D printed bodies are spread when they are getting dipped. Man in Black rides along in the park with the scalp tied to his saddle.
Jess: Seriously the most fitting thing ever.
Mari: Back in HQ, Dolores smiles and says she knows things will work out the way they are meant to.
And back on the ranch, Dolores looks happily out at the scenery. A fly lands on her neck and she kills it.
That was a bit of a telegraphed bit to end on, which is a good complaint to get out of the way because I really loved this pilot. You guys know how difficult it is to pilot, to set up world, characters, problem, motivation and to keep viewers invested and hook them at the end. I feel like this episode did all of those things, being weird as hell, but leaving enough within my grasp. The cast is amazing so far, especially those tasked with acting the nuances of the hosts in and out of the park. The settings are breath taking and the score was lovely and used incredibly well in a few spots, especially during the saloon heist. Overall, I am super impressed and can tell you that watching the pilot and coming back a few days later to rewatch and recap? Nothing was lost. I’m kind of gushing, and this has a lot to live up to in the season to come, but obviously I’m excited.
Jess: When I first watched this episode, it was all kinds of confusing. Did I feel like I should have researched before? Yes. Did this feel as heavy as my policy analysis textbook? Yes. But as the episode kept going, I may not have understood the plot or world building (I assumed it was some sort of western sex theme park) (…not that far off actually) but the intricacies of the characters were already presented in this first episode. Each of the robots and humans had many levels to them and I was dying to know what the hell was going on. So I kept going and I’m glad I did.
Next time on Westworld: Two bros arrive at the park in S01 E02 – Chestnut.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
Jessica Moro’s voracious appetite for books is matched only by her love for cake and reality tv. She’s always looking for new reads, especially books that have surprising twists and happily-ever-afters that are good for the soul. You can find her letting her reading freak flag fly at www.bookcrack.com, covering New Adult reads on USA Today's Happy Ever After, on Twitter and Facebook.
