If anything, the pace quickened.
I assume this is Bernard’s voice (outside chance, Stubbs'?).
Either way, that’s the big question, isn’t it?
Credit: John P. Johnson
Dolores steps outside and digs up a gun.
Was this planted here for her to find?
First the fly, and now she’s armed.
They’re the TV show’s versions of the protagonists of theWestworldfeature film.
William is greeted by a Scarlett Johansson-esque hostess bot who takes him into a private set of changing rooms.
“Are you real?”
“If you could’t tell, does it matter?”
That’s a stunning linethe show’s central conflict wrapped up in one zinger comeback.
She presents him with an array of clothes and weapons, all fitted to his size.
She’s oozing seductive allure this whole time, and we’re wondering what’s going to happen next.
This moment is William’s first choice: the initial A-or-B option in his Choose Your Own Westworld Adventure.
Does he fool around with this host?
To paraphrase the host: If they’re not human, is it really cheating?
NEXT: So, what would YOU do here?
There have been weekly headlines lately about the development of so-called real-life sexbots.
But wait, hold on again.
Because in a way, this scene is the mirror of last week’s Man in Black-attacking-Dolores scene.
It’s a very deep rabbit hole.
On his way out, William chooses White Hat, of course.
He meets up with black-hat Logan and they enter what comes off as a narrow saloon.
It’s a neat trick when the saloon is revealed to be the train that takes guests to Sweetwater.
On the streets of Sweetwater, we learn this is the park’s safest and most family-friendly area.
The more you venture toward the park’s edges, the more “intense” the experience gets.
William spots Dolores, the world’s most klutzy carrier of canned goods.
We want to warn him to stay away; her story never seems to end well.
There’s a series of scenes as Maeve gets put through the wringer, programming-wise.
NEXT: The maze runner
First Maeve tries to seduce a guest and then suddenly spaces out with a… of being attacked by a Native American in war paintthe first sign she’s caught Dolores' virtual cold.
The tech team is annoyed: How dare a host fail to give a guest a boner!
They threaten to decommission Maeve down into cold storage if she doesn’t become more bang-able ASAP.
They put Maeve out in the saloon again.
This time she’s way too pushy, grabbing a female guest’s crotch.
The guest is creeped out by thisDonald Trump-ian seduction tactic.
Okay, so that didn’t work.
Next time, savvy programmer Elise steps in.
She thinks Maeve is not hopeless, just getting a poor script.
She also casually reveals that the hostsdon’tdream, pointing out dreams are “mainly memories.”
This basically confirms the hosts' nightmares are indeed their past lives.
Yup, that’spreciselywhat we’ve imagining.
She bumps Maeve’s “emotional equity” and sends her back into the field.
Meanwhile, there’s also a debate whether to pull Dolores from duty after the events last week.
They worry she might have a virus and could be contagious.
They’re also still unsure as to the exact source of the glitch.
Elise’s theory is that Dr. Ford screwed up and that Bernard covered for him.
Elsewhere, the Man in Black is playing his own version of Red Dead Redemption.
The MiB kills Lawrence’s gang.
They’re told the MiB “gets to do whatever he wants.”
The MiB is very much a VIP, it seems.
The MiB gets Lawrence’s wife and daughter and orders them to reveal where the maze is.
NEXT: Gunfight at the OK Computer corral
The MiB kills Lawrence’s wife.
Suddenly when the daughter breaks character, we’re reminded:Oh yeah, she’s a robot.
She’s not young or old, she’s a machine.
So how do we feel now about what just happened?
Does this maze mystery represent something that a guest is supposed to be able to find?
Or is the MiB somehow hacking the game?
Who set up this deeper level?
“The maze isn’t meant for you” … is it a hosts-only maze?
“I’m never going back.”
So the MiB plans to stay inWestworldforever?
With his consciousness uploaded into a host-body, like we speculated last week?
Or working there, somehow?
Backstage, Bernard and Dolores are finishing a chat.
We’re not sure what it was about.
Dolores then asks a very interesting question: “Have you done something wrong?”
Bernard tells her to delete their conversation.
Can Google yo hire Jeffrey Wright to become a Waze navigation voice?
But Dr. Ford is decidedly not impressed: “No,” he says.
They want a glimpse of who they could be.
The only thing your story tells me, Mr. Sizemore, is whoyouare."
Instead, Dr. Ford ventures into the park and meets a boy.
We watch the kid closely, playing the “real or not real?”
Everything else is artificial in the park, why not the flies?
Dr. Ford finds what he’s looking for, an odd structure with a church steeple.
This represents Ford’s plan to evolve the park, his next story line, something “original.”
Another Mystery for the pile.
Back in Sweetwater, more violence.
A guest kills Teddy, again, just for the hell of it.
Say it with me now: Oh my god, you’ve killed Teddy!
The MiB enters to kill her.
She takes the advice she gave earlier on how to wake herself up.
She counts backward from 3… 2… 1.
She’s not Analysis Mode Maeve, but fully conscious as her 19th-century brothel owner self.
She grabs a scalpel, slipping in her own blood, and freaks out at the repair techs.
She stumbles onto a room that’s used for stripping down and cleaning “dead” hosts.
Teddy is in there, and many others she surely recognizes as well.
She collapses in horror, overwhelmed in shock by the true nature of her world.
Many were upset by last week’s Dolores scene (understandably).
One of my colleagues was most upset instead by the mass shooting scene (also understandably).
I found this scene the most disturbing.
I think a lot of it is due to Thandie Newton’s performance.
She’s so believably wounded, traumatized, and lost here.
After the techs recapture Maeve, they decide not to report what happened out of fear of being blamed.
Exactly why she woke up and whether she’ll remember any of this is still unclear.
One thing is for certain: The hosts arenotback to normal.
