hings will go in order of how easily I understood them, and I say “understood” in the very loosest definition.

William and Dolores continue their journey into dark territory with Lawrence. William has finally broken out of the shell he made for himself in the real world, becoming one of the characters he idolized in his books. In some backwards way, Logan was right about pursuing the Pariah quest line. Dolores on the other hand seems to be guided by the voice of Arnold to some unknown vista, one she draws on a canvas tarp after her and William spend the night together. One thinks that she’s with Teddy, but then one remembers they are programmed to be together, and the more Dolores loosens her bonds as a host, the more she can decide for herself. After the train gets ambushed by the confederados, who in turn get ambushed by the Ghost Nation, Lawrence, Dolores and William come upon the exact canyon she drew. They part ways with Lawrence and for them, things are uncertain. I wonder if William plans on staying in Westworld? Perhaps he thinks there are places Westworld staff can’t track him? Surely their stay is up at some point and he’ll have to face Logan and his fiancé soon enough. Then again, perhaps that’s why he’s taking things as far as they can go before he returns to the boringness and consequences “IRL”

Maeve has somehow woken herself up from the matrix and got a lot of answers from Felix and Sylvester, and even had them buff her stats quite a bit, so to speak. The result is that the game is a bit broken for her. She doesn’t fit in with the storylines and interactions anymore and the tech’s freeze commands don’t work on her now. The more she learns about how Westworld works and the true nature of her existence within it, the more she loathes what she sees. Still, she has her attachments, whether programmed or not. So when they take away Clementine to be used as an example of the danger of the reveries Ford programmed, she decides she’s had enough and recruits Felix and Sylvester to help her escape. I like Maeve’s story the most because of her reaction to all of it. We would be in awe to die and wake back up on a table, to find that we were in the process of being repaired and resurrected by faceless humanoids. Then to wake up again and again to find out that the world we know is crafted by these same creatures, down to the last blade of grass. Eventually we’d see these creatures for who they really are: mortal men who are subordinates to some hierarchy of corporate power. Men, regular low level jackoffs you’ve been dealing with your whole life. Would you go insane at the thought that your death and rebirth over oceans of time was in the hands of some kid who went to a for-profit tech school, and that all reality is, is a really complex experiment? Or would you be like Maeve and have those guys amp up your perception, dull your pain, and make them help you get the fuck out of Dodge?

Clementine was the victim of a staged interaction to show that the hosts remember, can hold grudges, and act violently against guests. It was a play designed by Therese and Charlotte Hale, the hotshot representative of “the board.” Not only did Bernard take the fall for the oversight, but Charlotte said there would have to be an unexpected blood sacrifice. Of course Ford is unflappable and Bernard can see through the bullshit. He calls Therese out on it, and on being the one sneaking data out of Westworld while taking her to the house where Dr. Ford’s creepy little family lives. Once there things start to become painfully clear. Bernard is a host, Ford made him lead Therese there, and the “blood sacrifice” was her own...and it was pretty unexpected. It was an immaculate scene in a series full of them. It was tragic and suspenseful, scary and brutal all at once. Bernard’s realization was rough, especially since memories of a son he never had plague his dreams. Before he is allowed to fully experience the moment and the emotion, Ford shuts him down. He once said that he wanted to feel the pain of his loss, and just when he was about to actually experience it, he is denied. Therese realizes she’s been played by everyone, including Charlotte and “the board.” She was just another pawn in an endless game of chess between Ford and the powers that be. And Ford himself, as chilling as Anthony Hopkins has ever been, reiterates that he built everything in Westworld and there is nothing he isn’t aware of.

Though he and Arnold designed Westworld, he says it was never about playing god. It was about telling stories and letting people live in them, in the way William has always wanted to and is now doing. The proprietary technology the hosts use, that I can only assume this Delos Corporation wants to weaponize or somehow apply to the “real” world, is merely a tool of storytelling. To want it for anything else is truly trying to play god.

The hosts themselves are free and while they don’t have a benevolent master in Ford, they are at least unburdened by consciousness in this strange Garden of Eden. Ford keeps them in, and keeps the outside world out. But there has to be an apple of wisdom at some point. Has Maeve already taken a bite? Will Dolores find it with William? Or is that what the Man in Black is seeking?

And where the fuck is Elsie?