Warning: Spoilers to episode eight ahead.
Eight episodes in, Westworld is still a bit of a grab bag. Each episode has something for everyone: a little sci-fi philosophy here, a little Wild West shootout there, a sprinkle of robo-human romance, a dash of slasher horror. If you are looking for a single flavor, the show might disappoint you, as it doesn't even have a single protagonist or storyline with any primacy over the others. But if you're happy to watch the show toss a bunch of different stories and styles together and not worry if they all come together, then Westworld should leave you with plenty to chew on.
If there was a common thread to episode eight, "Trace Decay," it is that the robot leads—Teddy, Bernard, Dolores, and Maeve—are all getting a little sick of the games and looking ready to rebel. And one of them just got the power to.
Strangling Up a Few Loose Ends
We last saw Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) braining his former lover Theresa (Sidse Babett Knudsen) after being revealed as a robot. He's shaking with the ramifications of both as Ford (Anthony Hopkins) tries to calm him. "I will not help you," Bernard says, but Ford can wipe out that rebellion like an annoying pop-up ad with the click of a button.
After cleaning up all traces of physical and digital clues linking Ford and Bernard to Theresa's death, they have a little heart-to-heart about some of the show's themes. Bernard wants to know what makes a human a human. If we can only experience things in our mind, is there really any difference between the "fake" memories of the robots and the "real" memories of humans? Ford waves the question away. "There's no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts... We can't define consciousness because consciousness doesn't exist." Humans are robotic in their behavior, Ford explains, stuck in "loops as tight and as closed as the hosts," so, like, what's the difference, man? Well, easy enough for the guy who can erase all your memories to say. As Ford does so, we do get the answer to one loose end: It was Bernard who attacked and strangled Elsie in episode six. He doesn't seem very happy to remember that.
Maeve's Rebellion
While Bernard is losing his memories, Maeve (Thandie Newton) is getting them back. She can't stop recalling her previous life that was violently interrupted by the Man in Black (Ed Harris). One of the hapless technicians explains that—despite Ford's claims—the hosts experience memory differently. "When we remember things, the details are hazy. Imperfect. But you recall memories perfectly. You relive them."
Maeve forces Felix and Sylvester to give her yet another upgrade after they argue yet again about whether they should (humans and hosts aren't the only ones stuck in loops here) and then she's ready "to recruit my army." Maeve's latest upgrade allows her to control the robots in the park by speaking to them in the third person, as if narrating a short story. It doesn't make the most sense, but it provides a fun, comical sequence where Maeve walks around foiling the park's usual storyline as she talks and manipulates the other hosts, Jedi-like. Sadly for her, headquarters takes notice.
Maeve hasn't recruited an army yet, but there seems to be not shortage of robots yearning to break free. If Maeve comes across Bernard, will she free him to let Ford know how he really feels about being made to kill both his protégé and his lover?
Let's Do the Timeline Warp Again
By now it's clear that William and Dolores's adventures are taking place in the past and Dolores's mind is skipping around between different timelines. Sometimes, William and the scenes they encounter disappear with the blink of an eye. Is Dolores in the main timeline wandering to the outskirts by herself, reliving her early adventures with William?
The pair arrive at an empty town, which, in her memories, is populated with early hosts being taught how to dance by technicians in lab coats. Then everyone is gunned down, seemingly by Dolores herself. In the present—or the present with William at least—she wonders if she's going completely mad. Before they can figure it out, William's asshole brother-in-law catches up with them. "Man, are you two fucked!"
Human Hard Drives
Most of people at headquarters buy the story that Theresa fell into a ravine while trying to smuggle data out of the park, but executive Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) knows something is up. "It's a disappointing end to her story, isn't it?" Ford smirks, before pivoting to reinstate Bernard. Hale allows this, but recruits Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman)—who is angry his cannibal-bot isn't eating a leg sensually enough—to help her out. Hale wants to upload all of the park's data into the decommissioned Mr. Abernathy—Dolores's original father, who lost it after seeing the photograph from the future—and then smuggle him out of the park. She needs Sizemore to program him to seem human enough to get by the guards.
It's Rigged!
No, not the election, but the whole park according to the Man in Black. He and Teddy are still searching for that maze and they come across a pile of slaughtered hosts, including one who is still breathing: the host who greeted William in episode two (Talulah Riley). "I figured they retired you," the Man in Black says, giving yet another clue that the Man in Black is William on a different timeline.
While they don't find the maze, they do find an armored dude in a soldier's uni and minotaur horns. The Man in Black is able to kill him with Teddy's help, but not before Teddy himself starts reliving old memories. Specifically, memories of the Man in Black killing him and dragging off his love Dolores. Teddy knocks him out, ties him up, and demands to know what his damn deal is. Ed Harris spits out his Twitter bio resume: "A god. A titan of industry. Philanthropist. Family man." But then he starts to actually explain some things. He always thought of himself as the good guy until his wife committed suicide and his daughter told him that she'd been living in "sheer terror" every day. He came back to the park to see if he really was a monster inside (surprise: he is!) and murdered Maeve and her daughter to prove it.
Somehow killing Maeve clued him into the maze, but before we learn more the host stabs Teddy, revealing herself to be one of Wyatt's men. Then the rest of his creepy goons emerge. The Man in Black—like Teddy, Maeve, William, and Dolores—is left with the bad guys closing in and the answers seemingly in reach. There are only two episodes left to see who survives.
Follow Lincoln Michel on Twitter.
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