Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Westworld airs on HBO in the US on Sunday night. Do not read unless you have watched episode seven, which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday at 9pm.
Bernard you naughty little bot! Yes, everybody’s favourite bespectacled technologist has been revealed to be a host, and Ford’s ultimate inside man. Bernard’s cover was so deep he didn’t even know he was a host. Not that he had time to dwell upon the revelation: as soon as Ford told him who his real dad was, Bernard was ordered to murder his lover. And being a dutiful bot deep down, he did exactly that.
This was the twist many had been expecting and to say it was unfortunate would not be an understatement. Not just because Theresa is dead. Not just because she was the second female character of the week to be bludgeoned by a bloke. But because (barring a refurb in the lab) we are saying goodbye to Sidse Babett Knudsen, the best actor in this drama. Her character may have mainly been limited to barking corporate speak, but Knudsen managed to inject a bit of humanity into every line. For a case in point, look at the moment when – during an obtuse argument about the data leak – an apparently human Bernard asks Theresa if she is ok. He utters the line and she looks back at him. For a moment, the corporate badass dissolves and a woman appears just grateful for a genuine human interaction, her eyes glistening. It lasts just a couple of seconds, but it’s more moving than the entire confession of love between William and Dolores. She will be missed.
With the act of killing Theresa, Ford has declared war with the Delos board. Through their representative Charlotte Hale, the board were seeking to bring Ford to heel, to curtail his expansive new storyline and discover why his hosts were suddenly bearing grudges. To achieve this aim, they even sacked Bernard as a means of showing Ford his time was up. Now, Ford has had the most senior executive in the park killed. Ms Hale might be next, but either way a coup has been staged in Westworld and it’s been led not by a robot but a human being.
Who will stand against Ford? His most likely adversary would now appear to be Maeve. Yes, Ford insists that all the hosts are his creatures. Yes he does like to show that he can make them perform the mannequin challenge with a click of his fingers. But the new “woke” Maeve may be more difficult to control than your average host. This is a host with an “apperception” of 55. A host who already has some humans under her control, in the form of cartoon cat duo Felix and Sylvester. Her next step is to bust her way out of the park and into the real world, where she might cause some real damage. In a nice touch, she expresses this desire to her dorkish retinue while looking all Napoleon-ish in a half-worn lab coat she has picked up to cover her otherwise naked body. Hosts don’t feel shame or cold, Ford once observed. Well, it seems this one does.
Out where the mountains meet the sea, we have two more likely rebels: William and Dolores. Having made love on a train and survived an ambush by machine gun-wielding confederados, the couple have said no to war, ditched Lawrence and decided to head into a canyon from where no guest has ever returned. Could this path lead to the outside world? (Don’t forget that Teddy and the Man in Black are also heading somewhere unknown).
Finally in our list of grudge-bearing hosts, there’s Clementine. Maeve’s partner in moral crime is summoned from the Miraposa to take part in a sadistic show-and-tell for the benefit of Bernard and Ford. Under Theresa’s instruction, she is violently beaten by another host (though one designed to look human). She is then reset before the same activity is undertaken again, only with very different results: this time Clementine bashes her assailant’s head in. Sadly for Clem a life of cage-fighting does not await. Instead she is sent to the lab where Sylvester starts drilling into her brain. The aim is to reset her entirely, to make her the malleable host that Delos demands. But perhaps, given that Sylvester has now been co-opted under Maeve’s command, this may not come to pass.
Notes from the prairie
A quick word about violence. As mentioned above we see two female characters left in a bloody mess this week. One beating we see in unflinching detail. A lot of you have noted as the series has progressed that rough shagging and violence against women is something of an HBO house style. I wanted to add my voice to those who consider this to be unsettling and unnecessary. I believe the Clementine scene was gratuitous. It told the viewer nothing we didn’t already know (Elsie had made the point about grudges with reference to Walter in episode three). Neither did it serve any purpose with regards to the characters. Yes the big emotional punch came with Clementine getting “revenge” on her assailant. But, let’s face it, we were still being asked to cheer a woman indulging in brutal violence, an act which in itself is depressing. Ultimately, however, this revenge also served to justify in dramatic terms a scene in which the camera lingers on a powerful man beating a woman. I’m not sure that’s justification enough.
In lighter news, we have finally seen the outside world! In photos Bernard shows Hector (who is later chained to Ms Hale’s bed to show it’s not just men who like rough sex) we see lab technicians, bullet trains and a neon cityscape that could be any megalopolis IRL 2016. Will we see this city again soon?
As much as I think the William is MiB storyline shouldn’t work (chronological inconsistencies, you see) I’m beginning to wonder if it might not happen all the same. As we watch William declare his love for Dolores, we also see him ditch the woman he previously claimed to love. As much as his decision could be explained away by William being “truly alive”, it’s also a bit weaselly. Then he confesses he quite liked hurting Logan. What’s next: a change in wardrobe and a complete hole where a conscience should be?
Questions
How does Ford go about covering up Theresa’s death?
What do the board do next?
Sylvester says Maeve’s skin couldn’t leave Westworld. Do you think he means it literally?
There’s another Alice in Wonderland reference from Bernard this week. The first came when he was interrogating Dolores, now it’s in his memory of sitting with his dying son Charlie. Any Lewis Carroll fans able to suggest whether this book relates to Westworld in a grander sense?
