It was hard to be a Westworld fan this year. Season two didn’t shit the bed as hard as True Detective’s second season, but it came close. However, amidst a mess of convoluted plots, a show-offy narrative structure and lack of emotional connections, we were given ”Riddle of the Sphinx,” which is hands-down the best episode that Westworld has ever produced.
The episode begins with a close-up of a record playing The Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire.” The haunting tune soundtracks a slow camera pan around a circular room outfitted with minimalist, ‘60s-style chic-albeit-Kubrickian decor. Right away, it’s a strange visual for those of us who’ve gotten used to the alternating Wild West vistas of the park and the stark futurist laboratories below it. Then the camera pans to James Delos (Peter Mullan)—whose company owns the park—pedaling a stationary bike before setting upon his morning rituals. The record, the bicycle wheels, the milk swirling in Delos’ morning coffee all provide visual cues. Circles. The camera pans out: even the room is circular. We don’t know where he is, but it’s clear that he’s secluded, quarantined, under observation, a prisoner of sorts (LOST fans were fast to recognize how similar this was to Desmond’s introduction, too).
Delos’ son-in-law William (Jimmi Simpson) arrives bearing a bottle of whiskey. Delos pours two glasses; William refuses. “You aim to cheat the devil, you owe him an offering,” Delos says, downing his liquor. He tells William that he’s ready to get out. William says that he must administer a test to determine if Delos is ready. When Delos asks what they—William, or whoever’s observing him—are looking for. William responds: “Fidelity.”
The damnation of everyone involved with Westworld culminates when Elsie (Shannon Woodward) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) stumble upon the circular room. Long gone are the scientists, and this model of Delos has been left to deteriorate. A pulsing, red light renders the scene into a straight-up horror film. They find Delos on the bike, pedaling backward. He’s mutilated his face with broken glass; he’s killed a lab technician. By attempting to play God, Westworld has created hell.
“They said there were two fathers,” Delos says, after Bernard subdues him. “One above and one below. They lied. There was only ever the devil. And when you look up from the bottom, it was just his reflection laughing back down at you.”
Goddamn.
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