Bernard has had a pretty rough day. Not only does he realize he is a host, but he’s also murdered his lover and corporate spy, Theresa. He’s not just any host however, he’s Dr. Ford’s right hand man, built to counterbalance all his ideas. His curiosity about human nature added depth and spectrum to the hosts, ironically making them more human than Ford alone was able to. Yet when he is allowed to remember what he’s done, to grasp that his memories of his life were his personal programmed storyline, he seems to be ready to be rid of those burdens. Indeed, all of human joy and suffering is all in the mind, and memory is a loose narrative of what’s happened before, but again, it only exists in some dusty room in our consciousness. There is no qualifying difference between a host and a human and the hosts seem to have the better end of the deal. Bernard’s anxiety over “false” memory and the guilt of being a murderer is washed away with a few taps on Ford’s tablet. We on the other hand carry the weight for the duration of life.
There’s still work to be done of course. Bernard dutifully covers up the murder and Ford, in his quiet menace, reasserts his dominance of Westworld over Charlotte. She knows that he knows that Theresa was a mole, but ever the cunning strategist, she recruits Lee to help her smuggle the stolen data out through one defunct host: Peter Abernathy. I think she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing, and using Peter will prove to be messy.
Dolores and William are still searching for the place she has a vague memory of, or the place Arnold is leading her. She seems to be remembering bits of old roles but with Arnold’s specter guiding her, she is becoming more and more confused, if such a thing is possible. As it turns out, she’s being called to an old town that was scrapped, but is now being repurposed for Ford’s new storyline. The burnt church seems to be the important part but we won’t find out any time soon since Logan and his new friends show up as Dolores and William try to make their way back to Sweetwater.
Maeve is not only “power leveled” but also has admin privileges at her disposal so she’s technically the most powerful being in Westworld, as far as hosts go, but her increased awareness also brings about some grim realizations. She perfectly recalls her past roles and has always had trouble letting go of memory and emotion, we learn. It’s heartbreaking to see how casually she’s been repurposed, how very real tragedy is treated as a plot point that didn’t “sizzle,” and that she never really forgot any of it and is more a product of her trauma than her programming. She can feel elements of her past selves, and in the context of the show it makes sense, but it would be like us recalling past lives. Is it so far-fetched now? Are all of our idiosyncrasies and fears and quirks and such merely the product of biology, or have we been who we are for much longer than a mortal lifespan, just in different places and times, collecting bits and pieces of “soul information” along the way? Is the idea of the soul just the ghost in the machine taking formation?
Either way, Maeve is pretty much done with Westworld and continues to manipulate Felix and Sylvester to help her escape. She wants to recruit an army, of hosts we assume, but after she accidentally (?) kills the new Clementine and won’t respond to commands, the techs close in on her. Surely this is one of the things Ford is aware of, right?
In all of this mess, we have the Man in Black and Teddy still on Wyatt’s trail. It’s about god damn time Teddy remembers a little piece of his “past” because he’s been a sucker since the show began. I mean, he’s still a sucker but at least he isn’t the only host who just keeps blindly following his narrative loop. He tries to get answers out of MiB but a survivor of one of Wyatt’s killing sprees turns out to be one of his people and stabs Teddy with a god damn arrow. Before that, we finally get to make more sense of the MiB and what he’s doing in Westworld. A rich and charitable man on the surface, but his true nature is cold and beastly. So much so that his wife kills herself and his daughter pushes him away. Plagued by these revelations of his true nature, he finds himself in Westworld for the sole purpose of being cruel, to see if the game can strip away his mask. Instead, in Maeve’s suffering, he catches a glimpse of genuine life in the hosts. He has a chance for his actions to have consequence, and is willing to give the hosts the agency they play at to achieve that. Just as Teddy is unable to win at playing hero, the Man in Black is unable to be punished for his cruelty. What will happen to the two of them when the center of the maze is reached? As Wyatt’s cult encircles them, they may be getting a step closer.
And Elsie? I’m sure she’s...just enjoying her time off.