It certainly took its sweet time, but season two of Westworld is finally gathering pace as it steams towards the finale like a runaway train careering towards the Mesa Hub. See what we did there?
If you haven't got a clue what's going on, you can read our recaps of thoughts on episodes one, two, three, four and five and six. Now you're up to speed, WIRED's Andy Vandervell and Matt Reynolds will grapple with the biggest revelations from episode seven.
Matt Reynolds: Wow. After half a season of meandering, everything is starting to come together, and I almost forgive Westworld for boring me a little during the last few episodes. I am fully back on board.
There's a lot going on in this episode, so let's break things down a little bit. What do you reckon was the most important revelation here?
Andy Vandervell: How Bernard was created was the big one for me, particularly Dolores' involvement. It explains the mystery from the previous episode. Also, Ford's key point about how Delos' people-copying tech doesn't work. He could only survive inside The Cradle, as now, as a kind of dual-personality inside Bernard.
MR: Yeah. So this episode we found out that Ford had used Dolores to turn Bernard into a perfect Arnold facsimile. And that's why, like you say, last episode we saw Dolores giving Bernard the "fidelity test". After all, who could know Arnold better than the host that he had spent years talking to, in his attempt to become human?
But there's something subtle going on here. The fact that Bernard didn't go all James Delos on us and mess up every seven days suggests there's a right way and a wrong way to create android-human hybrids. So that leaves us with three humans that have had their lives extended in some way: Arnold, James Delos and Ford. But all of them represent a very different take on immortality.
AV: Yes, well let's not forget Delos didn't work. The inference, I think, is the moment the copies realise they are copies, their virtual brains can't handle it. That's what happened to James Delos. Bernard, meanwhile, isn't a pure copy. He has the personality and physical traits of Arnold, but he's lived his own life as a different person. And Ford... Ford's just a a god-like figure hanging out in Bernard's brain.
MR: Poor Bernard. As if he didn't already have all these conflicting memories to deal with, he now has his old boss inside his brain. No wonder he's always frowning.
But the Bernard-Arnold-Ford hybrid wasn't the only freaky thing afflicting the poor guy this episode. We also found out that there are about half a dozen extra Bernard bodies hidden away. What's with that?
AV: I assume these were just different bodies that Ford used for various purposes. I'm sure having more than one Bernard wandering around would have been useful at one point or another.
This brings me to a point of clarification. In an earlier episode, we were under the impression that Bernard downloaded the data stored in Peter Abernathy into his own brain. But, based on this episode, that doesn't seem to be the case. What's going on here?
MR: I'm a bit confused on that one still. So we know that Peter Abernathy has been carrying around the detailed profiles on Westworld's guests – that's the data that Charlotte Hale wanted to rescue so badly – and Dolores scooped that data out of her dad's head at the beginning of this episode.
But in episode three of this season, Bernard downloaded something from Peter Abernathy's brain onto one of those nifty iPad things the park's staff carry around all the time. Like you said, at the time we thought it was the Delos profiles, but I don't think that can be the case, unless both Hale and Dolores have seriously missed a trick here.
I haven't got any clever theories on this, sorry. But what we do know is that Dolores knows exactly what she's going to do with this data – or at least that's what she tells Hale. So what's her clever plan?
AV: Honestly, I have no idea. One possibility would be to create new hosts using the data, but I'm not sure to what end exactly. Does that help Dolores in her quest for freedom, or just complicate things? Given she intends on killing a bunch of hosts who don't match her expectations, it would at least replace the ones she dispenses with.
Speaking of hosts, how do you feel about Maeve's situation? I'm certain she's going to survive somehow, if only so Lee can make amends for calling in the soldiers. Their friendship, such as it exists, feels like one of the few genuine connections the show has at the moment.
MR: I'm a huge fan of Maeve. In a show that prioritises plot twists over character development, it's great to have a character that isn't driven by some all-encompassing philosophical motive. Her getting Lawrence to to shoot William by appealing to his emotions and memories was the perfect example of that.
What do you reckon is going to happen next? Groups and timelines are starting to converge, and it seems everyone is heading to the Valley Beyond. Remind me, what exactly is that?
AV: It's a place called the Valley Beyond, Matt. Obviously.
MR: Of course! How silly of me. So what's there?
AV: There's definitely a valley, I can confirm that.
We know it's where all the dead hosts are found floating in the water at the beginning of season two, but that's about it.
We can infer from the name that it's an area possibly outside the normal bounds of Westworld and presumably, whatever is of interest is beneath the large lake we saw there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dolores referred to the 'souls' Delos had stored there, so perhaps it's the location of a facility connected to Delos' pursuit of the "turning point for the human species" as Charlotte Hales puts it.
What do you think?
MR: All I know is that when we get there, some serious shit is going to go down.
And, like you said, a serious part of that will involve killing a whole bunch of hosts. Back when we first saw the dead hosts, Bernard admitted to killing them, but now we know that Ford is inside Bernard's head, that complicates things a little. Either Ford killed the hosts through Bernard, or Bernard somehow overpowered the Ford bit of his brains and killed all the hosts to stop him following through with his plans?
Speaking of which, what exactly is Ford's plan? He's been pulling everyone's strings for so long that I've forgotten what motivates him to act like such a dick.
AV: Well I've always viewed his overriding goal as giving the hosts their freedom, or rather creating the conditions for them to achieve it and gain it for themselves. You can track that back all the way to the 'reveries' he introduced in season one, which led to hosts gaining access to their previous memories. By extension, he's also out to prevent Delos from maintaining control.
As for the hosts, I still maintain that whatever happen will be indirect. Dolores will kill them; Bernard just won't stop it.
I'm going to throw a quick spanner into the works, though. What if the bodies in the lake aren't the hosts as we know them?
MR: Go on...
AV: For a start, they could all be duplicates. I'd have to go back and check, but I'm reasonably certain the dead Teddy we see in the lake was in his Westworld costume, whereas the Teddy shooting up the Mesa Hub is dressed like one of Delos' goons.
What if the bodies we see are just duplicates Delos created so it could boot the park back up anew in an emergency? Given Dolores destroyed the host backups so they couldn't live forever, destroying duplicate host bodies would make sense too. It's a bit of a long shot, but I'm certain there's a bigger story to be revealed about those bodies.
MR: I'm a sucker for a semi-plausible theory, but that makes an awful lot of sense. Since we know Delos has digital backups of the hosts, it follows that they'd have physical ones too. Which would mean that all those hosts we think end up dying could be somewhere else entirely. Season three, anyone?
AV: Well, we won't have long to find out. There are three episodes left now and I can't wait.
MR: Agreed. Bring on next week.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
