Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Westworld airs on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK on Sunday night/Monday morning. Do not read unless you have watched season two, episode two.
Welcome to the real world. Well, the nice bits of the real world. The real world of the penthouse suite, marbled floors and low-lit cocktail bars. In reality, it’s a world that would be as unfamiliar to most humans as it was to the hosts who, for a brief while, were allowed to walk freely among them.
By introducing another timeframe – the earliest we have seen yet – this week’s episode tells us how things began. How Logan – yes, the unpleasant specimen has resurfaced – was introduced to representatives from the “Argles Initiative” in a swanky half-lit bar. How they gave him a private display of Westworld’s merchandise. Naturally, Logan is so impressed by the hosts’ verisimilitude that he wants to have sex with them (among others present in the room are Clementine and Angela). Later, as Logan enjoys a little bot orgy, Dolores also turns up. We don’t know why, but boy does she give him a look.
We are led to understand that Dolores has entered the real world before almost any other host. She is one of two bots that Robert and Arnold take on a promotional tour to sell their AI IP. We see her marvelling at the skyline of an apparently Asian pacific city (the same one we later meet Logan in). “It looks like the stars have been scattered across the ground,” she says, before asking: “Have you ever seen anything so full of splendour?” Later, it turns out she’s been programmed to say that line, the better to impress investors.
“You made me interested in me”
We also see a fair bit of real-world William. Logan’s brother-in-law bows out of the first meeting citing tiredness, but we meet him again later, after the self-actualising killing spree in Westworld that was detailed in season one. He no longer yawns at the idea of the park, but is enthralled by its possibilities. We see him persuade his father-in-law to invest in the business, despite the older man’s misgivings. William’s argument? That Westworld is valuable not for what its hosts can do but what it tells you about its guests. Westworld has data on everyone who uses the park, what they say and do when they think no one is watching. Delos could make money from these base instincts, says William.
William later goes on to become the Man in Black, and this week we see him turn on Dolores, the host we thought had won his heart. This occurs after daddy Delos decides it would be a good idea to wind up William by having Dolores play piano at his retirement do. The heir to Westworld spots his former lover and is transfixed; later, he squirrels her away to the penthouse at the top of the park to show her his terraformers. While there, William strips the sweet-natured host naked and tells her he really is out of her league. “You didn’t make me interested in you,” he says. “You made me interested in me.”
Jumping forward in time (I think) and there’s a revolution well underway in the park. It’s just not quite clear whose revolution it is, and why it’s happening. Certainly Dolores thinks she’s upending the natural order, the now mean-as-all-hell host capturing first a Delos techie and then a bunch of confederados with the intent of shooting her way out of the park. Along the way she meets Maeve. Desperately seeking her daughter, Maeve is pursuing a love revolution and has absolutely no interest in joining forces with Team Dolores. “Revenge is just a different prayer at their altar, darling,” Maeve tells Dolores, “and I’m way off my knees.”
At the end of the episode we find Dolores preparing to storm the fort held by one, confederate commander Brigham. This is apparently the most direct way of looking for the exit door, but could it be that Dolores is following a path that has been laid out for her? Certainly that is what’s happening to the MiB, who has cause to curse Robert Ford for the second week in succession.
Having teamed up again with his old collaborator Lawrence, the pair have travelled to the once debauched town of Pariah. They are there, just like Dolores, in the hope of raising a fighting force. Theirs has the aim of bringing down the whole Westworld circus. But when they get there they find the town empty, an orgy abandoned mid-buffet. Not so fast though – it’s a trick. The pair are soon surrounded by revolutionaries, and one of them is none other than El Lazo, which is weird because he used to be Lawrence. At least that was the case in William’s salad days, but now the leader of the revolutionaries is played by another host, relocated from New Mexico. El Lazo doesn’t last long as he gets his brains blown out. “The game is for you alone, William,” says El Lazo, with his dying breath. This repeats the phrase used by Baby Ford last week and inspires the MiB to curse again. It appears that Ford has a plan for William from beyond the grave. If he is beyond it, that is.
Notes from the Prairie
Kudos
First off, a quick shout of kudos to you guys for predicting where the drama would go this week. Commenters Clariana – who predicted that data on the guests would be Delos’s most valuable asset – and happylittledebunkera – who foresaw Dolores and Maeve following opposing paths – being the pick of the bunch. We know from the producers’ interactions with Reddit that working out Westworld’s puzzles are part of what the show is about and you lot are on good form early doors.
Daddy Delos and Gus Fring
Some nice cameos this week. First, there’s Peter Mullan as Daddy Delos, who gets to play an archetypal Scottish billionaire. It seems likely we’ll see the star of the sitcom Mum in this less heart-warming role again. Such an outcome seems less likely for Giancarlo Esposito. The actor, who played notorious big bad Gus Fring in Breaking Bad, gets a big reveal when he appears as El Lazo, but seconds later he’s gone again.
Hale heir
When William is reintroduced to Dolores, it’s at his father-in-law’s party. Also present is William’s wife, the actual Delos heir, who we have not met before. What has happened to the young daughter who is with her? The daughter would now be an adult in the later timeline; could it be Charlotte Hale or someone we are yet to meet?
Yeezus
I’m more of a big picture than a details guy, so I took undue pleasure from spotting that this week’s score included a piano rendition of Kanye West’s Runaway. That the music served as an introduction to rank egotist Logan is surely just a coincidence.
Logan Lucky?
So we learn how Logan was introduced to Westworld, but also that he survived his abandonment in the park at William’s hands. He has since decided the park is bad news for humanity and has turned to drugs and dissipation.
Questions for your consideration:
- The park is in Asia, does the location have a relevance?
- What will Dolores find in the fort?
- Will we soon see Logan’s demise?
- And did you know Dolores is an anagram of Delos Or ...?
