Previously: Bernard is wiped and set back to work.
—
The Well-Tempered Clavier
Marines: Maeve is sitting in the bodyshop, pretending to be off line while Bernard prepares to run a diagnostic. He asks Maeve if she knows why she’s here, but she woodenly says she doesn’t. He orders her into analysis mode and asks her what happened to make her attack Clementine. Maeve says it was a cognitive error that made her perceive Clem as a threat and triggered her Good Samaritan response. Bernard checks the data and sees that she did indeed register as perceiving danger, but also grief and loss. Can she explain that? We zoom in on Maeve’s face and hear the sound effects of the Man in Black killing her daughter. “No,” she answers.
Bernard is taken aback and looks deeper into her information, noticing all the modifications she’s had made to her. He asks who did this to her, but she doesn’t answer. He starts to call Ford in for back-up, but Maeve grabs him and tells him not to. She thought he looked familiar. It took her a minute to figure it out, but now she knows he’s one of them. Bernard is like excuse you what, and Maeve realizes he doesn’t know he’s a robot.
Jess: I love this scene, show him who’s boss!
Mari: Maeve knows that he can still hear her while he’s frozen this way, so she tells him that she could erase this all from his head, but she won’t. That’s what they will do. They are better than the humans, stronger. (J: insert eye roll.) So, she’s going to release Bernard and he’s going to clear her for immediate release back to the park. She’s got a date with a homicidal bandit. Bernard does as he’s told, and before he leaves, Maeve tells him that if he goes looking for the truth, to get the whole thing.
Jess: Obviously Bernard’s biggest weakness is brown eyes.
Mari: Maeve makes lots of people weak.
Parkside. Logan is having a grand ole time while Dolores cries and William is tied up and gagged. Logan removes the gag, and William immediately says he’s sorry for how things went down in Pariah. Logan says it’s whatever, because he’s now a major or a general or something, and it’s fine if all it took was being beaten up and interrogated by some hosts. William VERY SERIOUSLY says that there are more important things going on here than Logan’s war games. It’s Dolores. She remembers things and has feelings. William wants Logan to talk to his contacts at the park about getting her out of here.
Jess: Let Dolores have her time! I wasn’t even a Dolores fan, but since I’m no longer a Ben Barnes-is-quarantining-with-the-wrong-crowd fan, Dolores and I are now fans.
Mari: Surprisingly, I followed that entire thing.
Logan is impressed, and realizes that Dolores is “a little screwy.” He thinks it’s kind of hot. Logan is the king of saying the douchiest thing at any given moment. William really doesn’t understand who he’s dealing with and tries to appeal to him on the basis of doing what’s RIGHT. Logan very dramatically says that he is going to help William, just not in the way that he would want. Logan grabs and lifts Dolores while William yells.
Jess: LOGAN IS THE WORST.
Mari: Correct.
Bernard sneaks into Ford’s office.
Ford goes into the Basement of Don’t Go In There and walks past all the retired hosts to back operating room. Bernard is waiting for him there. Ford notes that this is a weird place for a meeting, among the dead. Bernard shows him something on his tablet screen and says that they aren’t dead. Just hobbled. Ford realizes that Bernard broke into his office, but Bernard thinks it’s fair, considering Ford broke into his mind. Ford says he built Bernard’s mind, so he has every right to go wandering around in it. At this point, Ford knows Bernard’s mind better than his own.
Jess: This is the same speech I give my brother, Bernardo, when I creep through his stuff.
Mari: I’m sure Bernardo loves it as much as Bernard does.
Bernard says that isn’t exactly truly, though. He took a look at his own code and the most elegant parts of it were written by Arnold, so maybe Arnold had different ideas and plans for the robots. And maybe Ford killed him because of that. Now, if you or I were accused of MURDER, we might lead with NUH-UH! I DIDN’T KILL HIM, or something innocent like that. Ford goes with a quick, creepy smile before saying that Arnold was disturbed.
Jess: Ford is too smooth for Bernard.
Mari: Bernard doesn’t want smooth; he wants answers. He hands Ford his tablet and asks for access to all of his history. If Arnold made him, than he must have memories of Arnold. Ford warns Bernard he might not like what he finds, but Bernard isn’t here to play games. He pulls out a gun. Ford reminds him he can’t use that, but it isn’t for him. Clementine 1.0 rounds the corner. Seems that when they lobotomized her, they didn’t reset her DON’T KILL PEOPLE command. Bernard hacked into her so that she’ll only respond to him. He hands her the gun, which she dutifully points at Ford. Bernard takes a seat, and Ford unleashes his memories.
We flash to Bernard sitting next to his son in a hospital room, reading Alice in Wonderland. Next, Bernard talking to his wife, Gina Torres. Her voice gets distorted, and we hear Ford call Bernard’s name. Then he’s in bed and talking to Theresa. As she’s about to ask if he’s also practicing like the hosts do, she freezes. Bernard stands up and suddenly he’s seeing Theresa’s dead body, right after he killed her. Bernard asks Ford if he’s ever made him kill anyone other than Theresa. Ford says no, but then Bernard flashes to himself killing Elsie.
Bernard snaps out of his reveries and falls to the floor, gasping for breath and saying Elsie’s name. Ford says they’ve had to make some uncomfortable decisions and remembering them will only cause him trauma. Ford wants to stop this, but Bernard wants some more.
Parkside. It’s night now. Logan says he’s being the bigger person, especially considering that William is scheming to be part of the family by marrying his sister. Who William has completely forgotten about.
Jess: I’ve completely forgotten about her too!
Mari: A lot has happened.
Logan reminds him by showing him a picture of said sister. It’s the same picture that Dolores’s dad found, I believe. The picture that broke him. Logan says that William isn’t the first one to fall for a robot, so maybe he needs a demonstration that Dolores is indeed like all the rest of them. Logan takes a knife and brutally rams it into Dolores’s stomach and pulls up. He grabs her skin and peels it back, revealing her mechanical parts.
Jess: NOT THE MECHANICAL PARTS!
Mari: Yes, girl. THE MECHANICAL PARTS.
And not just her mechanical parts, but she’s an old robot. This is definitely happening in Westworld’s past. William seems freaked out by what he sees. Dolores falls to the ground in pain. She tells Logan that there is beauty in this world. Arnold made it that way. But people like Logan keep trying to paint over it, like a stain. Logan has no idea who Arnold is, but he thinks this world was built for him and people like him. Dolores says that maybe then it all needs to be burned down. She grabs the knife from him and lashes out, cutting his face. She finds a gun and shoots two people before William tells her to run. He’ll find her. She does.
Dolores runs and struggles. She falls but we hear a voice telling her to remember. Suddenly, everything around her goes still. When she stands, she no longer has the gut wound. She runs.
Hector and his bandits are at camp, unable to open the safe they stole.
Jess: I now stan Hector.
Mari: Hector tells them not to argue and then heads off further into the woods to take a piss. Maeve startles him, holding him at rifle point, and there are some gun/penis jokes. Hector wants to know how Maeve found them, so she vagues that she knows lots of things, like his pat backstory and how he has no future. Hector asks if that’s a threat, but she says it’s the start of a proposition. See, his bandits are about to get so carried away with their arguing that they are all going to kill each other, until only Hector and Armistice are left. Then, she’s going to call him a damn fool and they kill each other. Hector thinks that sounds wild, but on cue, we hear the arguing at camp get louder. (J: Maeve, the oracle of time.)
Hector runs over and he yells for them to wait, but the scene plays out exactly as Maeve said it would. Exactly as it always does. Except before Armistice can shoot Hector, Maeve shoots her first. She finishes her proposition for Hector: she wants him to break into hell with her and rob the gods blind. Hector wonders why he would do anything with Maeve. She says because of what’s in the safe. She has the combination, of course, and opens it as a demonstration. She could make Hector follow her, but that’s not her way.
The safe is empty. Maeve gives a big speech about the emptiness of the world and the gods who pull their strings. But she’s died with her eyes open, she’s been to hell, and she knows their tricks.
This all seems to jog Hector’s memory. Maeve kisses him and they relocate to a tent where things get hotter and heavier. In between kisses, Hector asks how they get to hell, and she says that’s easy, and knocks over a lantern. And they have sex and wait to burn to death, which is I guess poetic or something but also the least good way to die quickly and get to HQ. But enjoy your fire sex.
Mari: You just know it is.
Back at another camp, Logan offers William some booze. Bygones, and all that. William asks if they found Dolores. Is she alive? Logan says the entire whole point is that she never was. William deadpans that he totally gets that and he can’t believe that he got so caught up in everything. Logan buys it and cuts William’s ties.
Jess: William knows how to play with everyone.
Mari: Logan says that the park seduces everyone, but William was just a little more enthusiastic than most. He wanted to be the hero. But what happens in the park stays in the park. William grabs the booze from Logan’s hand and takes a big swill. Then it’s bro hugs all around.
Jess: Bros have to stick together.
Mari: Even through robot rape and murder, I guess.
Angela pours water over Teddy’s face and he comes to.
Jess: UGH, TEDDY. COME ON TEDDY.
Mari: Angela pulls the arrow in his shoulder out, and to add insult to injury, Man in Black is on hand to point out that Teddy has really fucked them good this time. Teddy asks where Wyatt is and Angela says that Wyatt is where he last saw him: Escalante. We flash back there and Teddy tells us again how Wyatt came back with some wild ideas and Teddy helped him mutiny. Angela asks if he’s sure, and this time, when Teddy flashes back, he remembers killing Angela, who is decidedly not a soldier. Teddy can’t believe it, but Angela says it’s true. It happened that way and will happen again. And one day, Teddy will be fighting by Wyatt’s side again, in the city swallowed by sand, but he isn’t ready yet. So, she stabs him in the gut. Maybe next restart, Teddy.
Man in Black says he’s been there, to the city swallowed by sand. The maze is really bringing him full circle. Angela is like a maze, huh? If MIB likes games so much, he should try one of theirs. And then she knocks him unconscious.
Jess: This entire scene is me in quarantine just going around and around in a city swallowed by sand. Really, it’s because MIAMI IS BURNING HOT.
Mari: My maze is every recap in which you take some part of this robot park and say, “wow this is just like my life.” Never stop.
When he comes to he’s tied by limbs and neck over a branch of a tree and to a horse. He tries to get up and slowly make his way to Teddy and the knife still sticking out of his belly. As soon as he gets the knife, a coyote howls, the horse gets spooked and takes off. Man in Black [MIB] gets hiked in the air, but manages to cut himself down quickly. He falls hard to the ground and from his position there, we see a high heel enter the frame. Tessa Thompson asks him if he’s ever thought of golfing instead. Hot damn.
Mari: We are not yet so lucky.
MIB tells her that he doesn’t like interruptions while he’s playing his murder games, or whatever. She says she doesn’t like hiking through the park in her immaculate dress and shoes, but alas. They have a delicate situation on hand: Theresa is dead. She “slipped” while trying to secure their information. MIB (J: How appropriate is that acronym for Tessa.) knows there’s no such thing as accidents inside the park. Tessa thinks that not everything is part of the game. MIB says she doesn’t see the whole game then. She thinks he can’t see anything beyond it.
The real reason for her visit comes out, though. Ford makes real good stories, but most of the patrons of the park just want to fuck or shoot human-like things. The board would be happy with something a little less baroque than what Ford has created. MIB is like “ah, I see.” She’s here because she wants MIB’s vote to get Ford out. Because MIB is part of the board! In fact, we are told that he kept Ford in business all those years ago. MIB is like yeah, whatever. The stories he’s interested in aren’t Ford’s, so he’s fine with him being voted out. As long as Tessa doesn’t interrupt his murder games anymore.
Jess: Let the man have his stories!
Mari: Hunger Games Room. Stubbs asks what’s up and one of the QA folk tell him that they are getting a signal from an employee topside: Elsie. Stubbs says he’ll go investigate, which I’m sure will end great for him. We watch him head up and then use his tablet to track the signal. Once he reaches it, he tries to call back into QA, but doesn’t have signal, I guess. Seems like a real big glitch in design there, folks. Especially since, one second later, a bunch of the Natives come out of the bushes and do not respond when Stubbs tells them to freeze all motor functions. He draws his gun, but gets blindsided and knocked to the ground.
Jess: WTF IS GOING ON.
Mari: Logan wakes up with a cough and what looks like a little throw up in his mouth. He kind of blindly gets up and walks a bit before he (and we) realize that the people around him aren’t sleeping. They are murdered and chopped to bits. William is like “oh, good you are awake.” It turns out, that William thinks he figured out how to play the park’s game last night. I guess he killed all of Logan’s allies so now William is calling the shots. And they are going to go find Dolores.
Jess: That’s right, William. you find the inner murderer inside of you!
Mari: I honestly don’t know why you are cheering him on.
Basement of Don’t Go in There. Bernard is still in his memories. We watch his son die. Then we are in the chop shop, Maeve is dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood. He doesn’t understand why Maeve would kill herself this way. Ford explains that her core memory, her core relationship with her daughter was severed. Ford doesn’t want him to dwell too much on it, but Bernard can’t help it. If Maeve did this, it would signal a change in the hosts. A level of empathic response that is new to them. He starts stuttering over his words, jammed up by the thought. Ford says I told you so about thinking too hard on these things that are above him.
Jess: WTF IS HAPPENING. IS THE SON A ROBOT. HOW DID THOSE ROBOTS PROCREATE.
Mari: I’m guessing the memories are fake, but baby robots are cute.
Some other time. Bernard tells Ford that multiple of the hosts are talking to the same voice in their head: Arnold. Bernard wants answers, but Ford says it’s complicated. For 3 years, a team of engineers lived in the park creating everything before a guest ever set foot inside. During this time, Ford was working alongside his partner, Arnold.
This is intercut with Dolores walking until she reaches Escalante.
Ford explains that the hosts began to pass the Turing test after the first year, but that wasn’t enough for Arnold. He wanted the hosts to be conscious. (J: Robots are better with feelings, like in Oz and when the Tin Man got his heart.)
Dolores finds the church at Escalante. Ford, in voice over, tells us about Arnold’s idea of bootstrapping consciousness. And then, Dolores walks up to the church door, but it’s not Pants Dolores. It’s Original Blue Dress Dolores. When she walks in, people are sitting there, murmuring and talking to themselves, hearing voices in their heads. Dolores walks into the confessional, (J: How catholic of Dolores.) and when she sits, it begins to lower her down into the room where we’ve seen her talk to Bernard before. When she gets there, it’s Pants Dolores, and the room is in disrepair and abandon. There are lots of bodies in the hallway.
We flash again and now Dress Dolores walks down the same hall, but it’s all put to rights, with hosts going through their scripts in rooms. A man storms out of one of the rooms as we hear Ford call, “Arnold? Arnold, we need to talk.”
Jess: HOLD UP.
Mari: Ford speeches on about how they made the hosts in their own image and cursed them to making the same human mistakes. Bernard is now holding a picture of his son and asks why Ford would give this to him. Not only the fake son, but the memories of the son’s death. And then he answers his own question: This is his cornerstone. The thing his entire identity revolves around.
Dolores finally makes it to the interview room.
Jess: I AM UNRAVELING.
Mari: Bernard wants to go back into his memories. He wants to go back to his first memory to meet Arnold. Ford says that isn’t possible. Arnold didn’t build him. Ford did. Bernard thinks this is a lie and insists. We go into the memory of his son dying again, but this time, Bernard orders it to stop. He tells the nurses to leave and orders Charlie to come back. And then he confronts the lie of this memory, of the pain of his son’s death, and tells Charlie he has to let him go. Charlie tells him to listen and to open his eyes.
Bernard opens his eyes and sees a younger Ford standing over him. Ford greets him as “my old friend.” Bernard stands from bed and then we cut to him dressed, adding the final touch of his glasses. Ford coaches him on how to clean his glasses correctly. Bernard asks who he is. Ford says he spent so much time building Bernard, he hadn’t thought of a name. Using “his” name wouldn’t feel right. How about Bernard? Bernard agrees it’s a fine name but… who is he? Ford says it’s complicated. He’s the perfect partner and it’s good to have him back after all these years. Ford hands him a picture: it’s a young him, a second man, and…. Bernard?
Bernard comes to out of the memory and realizes what we’ve been building toward. He’s…
“Arnold.”
Jess: GASP.
Mari: Yep.
That “Arnold” is spoken by Dress Dolores as Arnold/Bernard greet her down in their interview room. Arnold is happy to see that Dolores came back. Dolores say she’s been following the maze like Arnold said, but all it’s brought is pain and terror.
Jess: IS THE MAZE SYMBOLIC OF THIS QUARANTINE?.
Mari: I’d say mostly no because even mazes require some amount of BEING ABLE TO MOVE.
Arnold says he can’t help Dolores. Dolores cries as she says that there is nowhere that’s safe. He comforts her but says again that he can’t help her. Why is that? Dolores thinks about it some before she comes up with the answer: Because he’s dead. He’s just a memory. Because she killed him. We pull away from her face and see that its Pants Dolores now sitting alone in this room.
Jess: Give me a straight answer. WTH DOES THAT MEAN.
Mari: Pants Dolores heads back upstairs to the church. She hears footsteps approaching. She thinks it’s William, but when the doors open it’s Man in Black. “Hello Dolores,” he says as she freaks out.
Bernard is like okay bet, and orders Clmentine to pull the trigger, but she doesn’t. She powers down. Bernard never had control over her because all the host have a super secret back door code, whoops.Ford orders Bernard to grab the gun from Clementine, put it to his temple and pull the trigger as soon as he leaves. Bernard tells Ford not to do this, but he basically says “idk, I’m evil man.” Something like that. Ford says goodbye to his old friend and walks out. We stay with him, but we can see in the operating room in the back and we can see the moment Bernard pulls the trigger and his body drops.
Jess: You know, there was a tone of bombshells dropped in this episode but we’re no closer to the end. There’s one more episode and I’m fully prepared to end this as confused as I entered.
Mari: There’s always season 2.
Next time on Westworld: Ford revels his new narrative while Maeve and Dolores have plans of their own in S01 E10 – The Bicameral Mind.
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.
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.
