Plus: We go deep on that amazing Dr. Ford power lunch scene
Westworldis a story of incremental change.
Not just for the hosts, but the show’s own narrative style.
Every scene edges the characters and story forward.
Credit: HBO
This is more unusual than you might think.
The pace is not fast, and that frustrates some viewers.
Nowhere is the show’s incremental progression more clear than in the Dolores scenes that open each hour.
Every week we start with Bernard talking to Dolores and each week Dolores steps closer to true awareness.
He tells her there’s a game called The Maze.
More thoughts on this later).
I want to be free," Dolores says.
She was talking about fleeing after her parents were murdered.
Right after that she ended up with the guys' camp.
So when did this conversation happen?
Was she talking about a previous time her parents were murdered?
That this opening seems to be a flashback could be significant.
We’ve been assuming Bernard has been pulling Dolores out of the game to have off-record sideline chats.
But perhaps all this is actually prologue to the rest of the story?
But you never know.
Logan offers to kill Dolores to solve the problem.
“Can you yo stop trying to kill or f everything?”
William asks on behalf of the audience.
Logan lets drop some exposition: Their company is considering raising its stake in the Westworld park.
Let’s put a pin in that along with the The Maze reference.
We’re going to come back to it.
That’s a good one.
Or more accurately, she’s coming down from a trip she’s been on all her life.
But it also makes you wonder how long her awakening process has been going on.
We have the sense that everything we’re seeing is happening over the course of several days.
But then you wonder.
So is the time involved in this story not what we think?
Backstage, Elsie is trying to solve the riddle of the head-smashing robot.
SuddenlyWestworldfans who had all sorts of astrological-location theories last week feel rather stupid.
Perhaps it should be on the top level of Dr. Ford’s unfinished robot evolution pyramid chart.
There she finds Lawrence’s creepy prophetic daughter.
Dolores has a flashback to a past life in a church.
Her vision includes a memory of the moonour moon.
This is planet earth’s moon.
It could be a projection on someTruman Show-esque dome covering this world, though.
The producers keep teasing us.
The girl, meanwhile, is drawing The Maze in the dirt.
A sheriff tries to take Dolores back to her ranch.
William saying she’s with him and that stops her from being retrieved.
(Hosts are supposed to stick to their loops unless sidetracked by a guest.)
Dolores tells William, rather poignantly, she used to worry about the steers finding their way back home.
“It never occurred to me we were bringing them back for the slaughter.”
Remember what Dolores said to Teddy about the Judas steer in the series premiere?
Dolores might be the hosts' Judas steer.
Only he’s hit a roadblock in solving that riddle leading to the location of The Maze.
With Lawrence in tow, he’s followed the arroyo … but where does the snake lay its eggs?
(Or, in this case, it’s easter eggs).
“This whole world is a story.
I’ve read every page except the last one.
I want to find out what it all means,” he sort-of-not-really explains.
In general, the guests tend to look well-scrubbed and less stoic compared to the bots.)
Why doesn’t he just torture her like with every other host he wants something from?
Well, that gets tiresome.
There’s a bumpy transition to the MiB and Lawrence in the back of a stagecoach.
It almost feels like a scene was cut.
But we’re later told the duo simply surrendered to the sheriff.
Once again, I wonder about time.
We got the impression Wyatt was some new element.
But let’s get to the real juice of the MiB’s sequence.
First, a guest drops something very intriguing.
Apparently, the MiB is a celebrity of sorts out in the real world (whatever that is).
“Your foundation literally saved my sister’s life,” the nervous guest says.
The MiB angrily shoots back: “One more word and I’ll cut your throat.
This is my fking vacation.”
Don’t you dare break character around the MiB!
So he’s possibly some kind of philanthropic humanitarian outside of the park?
Which means no matter how real it seems, it’s still just a game.
Okay, there’s a lot revealed right there.
Will you bear with me for one more pin?
FINALLY: The Threat Matrix
Cullen meets Dr. Ford for lunch.
This is deliberately confusingwe don’t know what the Board wants or what Ford plans, exactly.
Yet this scene works marvelously anyway.
It’s not clear how exactly this works.
As Ford says, he’s a magician.
But he’s one who quite literally has more power in his little finger than Cullen seems to have.
Translation:Mess with me and I will shut this whole place down with no effort at all.
Ford recreated her childhood memory, only with himself in her father’s seat.
Confirms Ford: “We know everything about our guests.”
Translation:I know your secrets.
Translation:I know you’re sleeping with him.
Cullen shakily gets out a cigarette (her anxiety tell).
“The Board will agree with me,” she says.
“They’re sending a representative.”
Ford counters: “They already have.
I would have thought they would have told you.”
Translation:My relationship with the Board is better than you know, and better than yours.
The media has wondered whetherWestworldis the nextGame of Thrones.
This scene is as good as aGame of Thronessmall council meeting.
In this scenario I’m imagining Dolores as the T-Rex …
I’m not sure who Nedry is.)
Back in the park, Logan and William are bickering again.
Logan kills the sheriff host and horrifies Dolores.
Back in Sweetwater, Hector and Armistice come to rob the saloon of its safe.
Yes, we’ve seen this before.
No Rolling Stones this time.
But the outcome is very different.
Maeve has become obsessed with that hooded figure she remembers.
The Native American hosts know this figure as well, and worship it as a sort of deity.
They call him “The Shade,” the one who walks between worlds.
Maeve wants Hector to cut her belly open.
Remember her escape attempt through the backstage facility at the end of episode 2?
It’s still there and she can feel it.
For more, check out ourQ&A with showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joydiscussing “Dissonance Theory.”
And below is the new episode of ourWestworlddiscussion Sirius XM radio show:
