Please allow me to introduce myself
Wyatt by name, “skin the faces of your adversaries and wear them as masks” by nature. Westworld’s new villain is not quite a man and not quite a devil, but he’s ferocious and mysterious and all part of Ford’s grand plan to take his park in a bold new direction. And now, only Teddy stands in his way. Well, Teddy and a human who’s a pretty good aim with a shotgun.
Last week, Ford rejected a new narrative designed to inspire terror in the park’s guests. This week it seems he’s replaced it with something even more horrible. Wyatt’s backstory is that of a Yankee soldier who heard the voice of God – and that voice told him to start killing. Believing that the land belongs not to the homesteaders or the native people but “something yet to come”, he set about clearing the terrain for their arrival. In the company of a gang who like to skin their victims or, more simply, just torture them and tie them to trees for the flies to munch on.
Teddy remembers Wyatt from the war. At least he does now Ford has uploaded a backstory into our gunslinger. Until now, Teddy has been a simple bounty-hunter, with an unfulfillable desire to be with Dolores and no past beyond an indefinable sense of guilt. Ford has now tied that guilt to Wyatt and the enmity between the two is personal. Teddy has no choice but to hunt the man down. This, in turn, means he must leave Dolores. He says he will return “some day”. The loop has been ruptured.
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Teddy’s not the only one who’s strayed from the beaten path. Elsie and Ashley (such cute names) spend much of this episode on the trail of a runaway Host. He’s a woodcutter by trade but has abandoned his work mid-chop and appears to have developed ideas beyond his station. He’s been crafting maps of the stars on to ornamental bears, which may have been the inspiration behind his dash for the edge of the park. Such activity, it seems fair to say, is a worry for Westworld HQ. After all, as Ashley puts it, even at their most high-functioning, “all that’s stopping [the hosts] from killing us is one line of code.”
The duo eventually find their man trapped in a crevasse. He’s waving his arms at them, in a way that’s either an appeal for help or an audition for a part in The Walking Dead. Ashley goes to set him loose and starts sensitively hacking away at his body parts. But lo, the escapee isn’t fond of that and goes berserk. He escapes and for a minute it looks like he’s going to brain Elsie with a huge rock. Only at the vital moment does he have a change of heart and brain himself instead.
When I saw it was time for a change
So we’ve characters being rewritten and characters rewriting themselves. But of all the hosts in tumult only Dolores is conscious of change. That’s all thanks to Bernard interfering with the programming of our wild west Alice in Wonderland. He’s allowed her to ask questions, of herself and of an existential nature. As a result she now wants to leave Westworld, preferably with Teddy, but the look on her face when he leaves to fight Wyatt suggests she might just have to go whatever. Later she tells Bernard, “when I discover who I am I’ll be free.” It seems like she’s on that path already.
Dolores has been remembering past circuits of her loop – events that should have been wiped from her memory. But not only are they coming back to her, she is using them to shape her future actions. After digging up a gun last week, she chooses to hide it in her chest of drawers. But while it’s there one minute, the next it’s not, and by the end of the episode it’s hidden in a haystack where the abhorrent Rebus is about to assault her. She picks it up and at the instruction of a voice in her head, and overriding her programming, shoots Rebus dead. With that she flees the ranch and ultimately collapses into the arms of Newcomer William.
What’s puzzling you, is the nature of my game
Three weeks in and there’s a lot going on. But there are also a lot questions hanging in the air. The first time I watched the episode I kept wondering why Teddy and Dolores spend so much time by themselves. For whose benefit is it? Not the guests it seems. And not for the hosts, because they have no feelings that aren’t programmed. The second time of watching, it seemed to be just one of several lacunae. The death of Bernard’s son is a backstory as awkwardly levered into play as Teddy’s. And in a less than convincing scene, we see Ford apparently explain to Bernard that the root of all the unusual activity in Westworld is the fault of his former partner Arnold, who always wanted to create conscious robots because he was a bit lonely. Arnold’s not there to explain (unless he’s the piano player in the room as Ford and Bernard speak) so all we’re left with is a splurge of expositional dialogue and a passing mention of the “bicameral mind”. Quite frankly I was confused, but the upshot is, I think, that robots are becoming conscious and there’s not much anyone in the park can do about it, even if they wanted to.
Notes from the prairie
Kudos to the effects department for the mapping of a young Anthony Hopkins on to the face of a young Ford. It was convincing enough for me, and I remember a time when it never was.
And while we’re at it, I’m a big fan of the 3d iPad. I’d like one by Xmas 2025 please.
Our nerdy newcomer William claimed his first kill this week. Or in the words of his obnoxious future brother-in-law Logan, he “popped his cherry”. In one brief shot before this announcement, Logan is shown emerging late from bed either adjusting his crotch or scratching it. Which raises the important question: do the hosts carry crabs now?
Questions for next week
Is the map the escapee following related to that on the gunslinger’s acquired scalp?
What does Ford want from Wyatt?
Is Bernard a ‘bot?
