Summary: Caleb restores Dolores to a new body. Caleb takes the drive and goes to Incite to destroy Rehoboam. Dolores is separated from him by Charlotte and Maeve and she is defeated and taken back to Serac. Caleb gets to Rehoboam but Maeve stops him from inserting the drive. Maeve discovers that Serac is only a puppet and is operating purely under Rehoboam's control. Serac destroys the drive and deletes Dolores' memories, but this causes Maeve to enter a world with just her and Dolores and they finally come to terms with each other. It's revealed that Dolores' memories being injected into Rehoboam gave Caleb control over it. Caleb orders it to delete itself and Serac is horrified. Meanwhile, Bernard and Stubbs escape from William. Stubbs is injured so Bernard tries to help him. He discovers that the key to the host's world is in his head. Bernard enters the world to learn how to save humanity. Meanwhile William tries to hunt down the hosts and finds Charlotte in a facility. Charlotte reveals a host version of William who then kills the real William.
The Good: My praise remains the same as it has been all season. The show is pretty. It's well acted. On paper, there are some good scenes and some fun action sequences. I did enjoy the scenes with Dolores and Maeve speaking about their views and finally understanding each other, as well as Serac panicking once he realizes that he lost. The Bad: But what has this show become? This once fascinating show is now just your everyday dumb sci fi drama with mindless action, boring characters, a lack of any clear storytelling and a plot that is so needlessly convoluted that I can't even say that I ever fully understood what was going on, and I certainly did not care enough to try to figure it out. This season was executed horrifically bad, and now that I know what the overall story arc was, it's completely clear to me how badly this show dropped the ball on what should have been a pretty easy story to convey. Instead, everything was made needlessly complex and confusing. The exposition in this show is terrible. None of these plots are ever convincingly explained, and so I'm always left confused as to what a lot of the characters are doing and what the point is. Looking back on the season, I now realize that so many plot threads were completely meaningless and unnecessary. I can't tell you how many unnecessary subplots there were of characters trying to find some meaningless and uninteresting piece of information from a powerful company. It's impossible for the viewers to care about any of these plots, and it's made even worse by the fact that we don't even know why the characters should care about these pieces of information either. This leads me to my next point. The character motivations were horrendous in this episode. I was never entirely sure what any character wanted or what they were doing to further their own interests. The show had 7 whole episodes to make me understand these characters, and instead all of that time was wasted on dumb action, and I was left completely disconnected from everyone. This episode was the big climax where (almost) every character arc came together for one big confrontation. But it all meant nothing because I knew so little about all of these characters. No moments had any actual meaning. The show is also having something of an identity crisis and it's impossible to take it seriously anymore. This episode tried so hard to be profound with its themes and characters and it fell flat on its face. I can't care about the themes because the characters are so badly written. Furthermore, none of the themes of free will or technology were even explained in any meaningful way. In the end, this season offers such a black-and-white perspective on its themes and nothing is explored well at all. An additional problem is that I can't even take the show seriously when it's trying to do this. One second we get these attempted emotional scenes, and I'm left feeling confused because these emotional scenes are packed between countless sequences of dumb, poorly choreographed action that contains no tension. It feels like two completely different shows, and none of them are executed well. Now that I've expressed in general terms what I hated about this episode, and this season by extension, it's time for me to start getting into the details. However, I don't think I will go very in depth here. I'm sure there are other people out there that are more willing to pick apart the inconsistencies in the writing than I am. Besides, I'm nowhere near invested enough to pay complete attention to every little detail in this show and criticize it. It has been this same way throughout the season, and by this point I just don't want to waste any more of my time on this show. So many moments in this episode fell completely flat because they were either awkward or gave me absolutely no reason to care about what was happening. These moments include William choosing to save the world, Bernard meeting with Arnold's widow (why, I have no idea), Caleb and Maeve joining forces after succeeding, and Ash and Giggles returning to help Caleb get to Incite. None of these moments got any sort of emotional reaction from me. I was just sitting there bored. This episode made the massive action sequence from the last episode completely meaningless. The fight between Dolroes and Maeve had zero consequences. Both of them are fine, and I'm not even sure how they were able to come back so easily. Dolores was given a strange body that contradicts everything we knew about hosts beforehand while Maeve just regenerated offscreen apparently. Furthermore, Caleb's characetr journey in the last episode was made completely pointless. I thought it was leading to him taking independence and becoming the central focus of this finale. Instead, he never gets his chance to shine and never makes any meaningful decision at all. The focus is still squarely on Dolores and Maeve and Caleb feels like a spectator to everything, the same way he has been in every episode before this. At least before I thought he was being built up for something. But now it's painfully clear that the writers had no plans for him. He's not important at all and I feel like the time spent with him was a complete waste since there was no pay off in the end. Charlotte's story didn't deliver either. She is so difficult to care about because she is just another Dolores. I know I can't expect any good character development for her because of that (Dolores and Maeve have become so, so bland) and so I'm not at all invested in her getting revenge for her family. Moreso, we aren't even given any compelling reasons for Charlotte to want to go after Dolores so definitively. After all, didn't Serac kill her family anyways? We aren't given any insight into her motivation and her decision-making. She just makes a choice offscreen and we're forced to go along with it. Very poor writing. Then there are Bernard and Stubbs who were completely useless the whole season. In the end they did nothing. Literally. I can't name one single scene where they were important in the season. Both characters are 2-dimensional and boring and they ended up aimlessly wandering around the entire season which doesn't make for good television at all. The reveal that Bernard had the key all along is meaningless and it does nothing to interest me. The post-credits scene is also pretty dull and it didn't get me excited for season 4 at all. Serac's character was completely decimated this episode. I've tried to ignore it but this show seems to really love to paint male characters as weak, pathetic and corrupt, only ever giving "positive" qualities to the females. Serac was the one exception to this trend and because of that, he seemed like an interesting villain. All of that was thrown away these past few episodes with some horrendous writing. Serac became more and more incompetent as the season went on and he fell for every single generic villain cliché you can think of. It was so disappointing to see. And what's the big pay-off for him? It turns out that he was weak, pathetic and corrupt as well, just a puppet for Rehoboam. And just like that, a compelling villain was completely destroyed and lost all credibility. Now he's just another weak and pathetic male character to get put in his place by the strong women of the show. It's a worrying trend and one that is so frustrating to watch because the writers seem to care much more about having strong women put weak men in their place than telling an actual story. I'm extremely disappointed that Serac's credibility as a character was sacrificed for this stupid reveal. He was the one thing that I was still invested in, and it led to absolutely no pay off whatsoever. Lastly, we get to William who ended up being completely pointless this season. His character arc? Meaningless. It all went nowhere. I thought we were going to sit through a redemption arc of sorts that led to William returning to the evil, villainous man that we saw back in season 1. I was expecting the big pay off to come in this season finale. Instead William just dies and is replaced by a host. What? That's such a poor pay off for the character work we sat through in this season, and it makes every scene spent with the character feel like a total waste of time. What's worse is that this all happens in a post-credits scene! Was William really not worth giving an actual storyline to this season? This character was once one of the show's best, and now he has been delegated to being a waste of time that has no impact on the story at all. The handling of this character was awful and it's exemplary of how poor everything has been handled this season. The Unknown: I have a few questions, but I really don't care to learn any of these answers. Is Dolores actually dead? How about Rehoboam? What's next for Maeve, Caleb and Serac? What has Bernard learned from his time with the hosts? Will he actually do something next season? What is Charlotte's plan? What will she do with William? Best Moment: Probably Serac begging for Rehoboam to respond after Caleb deleted it. It's the only moment in the whole episode that stood out to me. Character of the Episode: Dolores. Conclusion: This was a bad finale to a bad season. Usually by the end of the season, the story becomes stronger because then everything comes together and we can realize what all the storylines had been building towards. This finale did the opposite. It made me realize just how horrible and wasteful the earlier episodes of this season were. This episode didn't give me anything worthwhile and it makes me feel like I wasted my time watching this season. It should go without saying that I hated this season. Looking back on the previous episodes, I honestly believe that my scores are too inflated now that I know that there was no pay off down the line. The season was a mess and it failed miserably at establishing any kind of character arcs or exploring any meaningful themes. Add on a needlessly convoluted plot and countless dumb action scenes and it's the recipe for a horrible season of television. This show doesn't even feel like itself anymore. It's just a pale imitation of every dumb sci fi TV show out there. To think, that this show used to be about robots in a western-styled theme park. What happened to this TV show that showed such promise back in 2016? In conclusion, this season was bad and I'm unhappy that I had to sit through it. I am 100% done with this show now, and I will not be watching or reviewing season 4. Score: 40
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Summary: Flashbacks reveal that Caleb has been reeducated by Serac. It's revealed that Francis was killed after the war by Caleb. Serac had tasked outliers like Caleb with recruiting other outliers for reeducation and eventually gave Caleb and Francis an offer to kill the other for a great sum of money. Caleb ended up killing Francis and was promptly reeducated to fit in better with society. In the present, Dolores and Caleb break into Serac's reeducation facility where Caleb learns what happened to him from an insane AI creation of Serac and Jean's called Solomon. Maeve arrives at the location and Dolores goes out to fight her. Caleb is revealed to be the heart of Dolores' plan, and she tasks him with leading the human revolution before leaving. Caleb accepts the task and is given instructions from Solomon on how to find and kill Serac. Dolores is defeated by Maeve but she activates an EMP, disabling herself, Maeve and Solomon. Meanwhile, Bernard and Stubbs discover that William was one of the outliers. They leave him alive as they may need him and they begin to track Caleb. However, William turns on them with a gun and prepares to kill them.
The Good: It was great to finally see Caleb's past and fully understand who he is. Caleb's story has been intriguing thus far though it never quite got me to feel for the character. Revealing his past here clears up the character's entire arc and makes me appreciate what the season did with him in retrospect. It's pretty strongly written and there are elements of tragedy that are incorporated very well into the story. What really sells it for me is Aaron Paul's acting, as he beautifully portrays Caleb's frustration and sense of betrayal throughout the episode. I think the ending reveal of Caleb being Dolores' master plan all along was very smart and it sets up the season finale in a very creative way. The Bad: Unfortunately most of this episode did not work for me. I'm still not invested in the show and that hurt the quality of this episode. Even though Caleb's story made sense and it was well acted, I still felt too much of a disconnect from the show to enjoy it to the fullest. Had Caleb's storyline been more clear from the start, I may have bothered to emotionally invest in him, but the show never earned that from me. Even though he was the most interesting part of the season, I didn't quite get to the point where I felt like I really understood him and his plight. Even this episode which fully centers around him doesn't quite get his story to resonate emotionally as much as it should. If anything, I found Caleb's reaction to learning about his past to be too subdued. It's well acted sure, but I never felt like his perspective of everything he's been through had been changed in the way that it should have. There should have been more time spent on how Caleb felt about being reeducated instead of just giving us the story about what really happened in Caleb's past. We need to see the characters react to these life-changing moments, just giving us these moments and not exploring them isn't satisfying enough. The Dolores and Maeve fight wasn't good. The action wasn't very well done unfortunately, and that was disappointing. I thought that the choreography was lacking and that the show tried too hard to make it futuristic and "cool" with both Dolores and Maeve having control of their very own drones during their fight. Furthermore, I still felt nothing while they were fighting, even though I really should have felt something. The entire season has been building to this climactic confrontation, and yet I still felt like I didn't fully understand why they were fighting each other and what the stakes were. Their hate for each other wasn't effectively established and that gave the whole fight scene a sense of meaninglessness. Disappointingly, this big climax ended up being rather boring. Bernard and Stubbs still have not done anything worth noting this season. They feel like a complete waste of time at this point as it's still unclear what role they are going to play in the climax of the season. I haven't been particularly engaged by their storyline and that continued here. William was okay here as he develops a new life philosophy post-therapy, but I didn't find anything he did to be particularly compelling. It was just average television at best. If EMPs can deactivate hosts this easily, why the hell weren't they used more often in the series? WHy weren't the Delos guards armed with EMPs? Clearly the guns did nothing, so they should have been using more electronic weapons if they are more effective. The big EMP blast at the end of the episode brings up this glaring plot hole and hurts the immersion of the show. The Unknown: How is William dead already? Was this because he was being reeducated? What is the virus that Charlotte put into him? What is William's overall goal? Is he going to kill Bernard and Stubbs? What's next for Dolores and Maeve now that they have defeated each other? How will Caleb try to kill Serac? Will he be stopped? Best Moment: The real story of Caleb killing Francis was very well done. The scene was engaging, well put together, and provided us with a logical story of how Serac has taken everything from Caleb. Character of the Episode: Caleb. Conclusion: This episode finally explained Caleb's past, and it did so in a pretty good way. But everything else that was going on was dull, sloppy, and unemotional, leaving me feeling indifferent going into the season finale. I'm unsure of who to root for and what to look forward to. The show has failed to get me invested in the story, and it has resulted in a deeply unsatisfying season. I don't know what to expect in the season finale (probably nothing special), but regardless of what happens, I think that it will be the last I watch of "Westworld". Score: 53 Summary: Group therapy isn't working for William who lashes out at others and claims he doesn't belong there. He's signed up for AR therapy where he has a transformative experience while communicating with his past selves. He decides to move past his sins and is then woken up by Bernard and Stubbs. Meanwhile, Maeve is back in the simulation and she gathers up Lee and Hector to get some allies to fight Dolores. She talks to a simulation version of Dolores to make plans. Charlotte continues to work against Serac in secret and disobeys his orders to destroy all information on the hosts by creating backups. However, Charlotte is found out and Serac sends men to capture her alive. Charlotte manages to escape, but she destroys Hector's pearl before she leaves, killing him. Charlotte goes home to her family and tries to escape with them in a car, but the car is detonated and her family is killed.
The Good: This had good elements in every storyline. William's story is the easiest to enjoy. With so many boring, lifeless hosts masquerading as compelling characters, William remains the only human (outside of Caleb) who has an arc that feels like it's worth telling. This episode does some good stuff with him. It was nice to pull back the curtain to his childhood, and it nicely allowed for him to get over his past to move onto his future. It's an easy story to understand, and there is enough creativity in the execution to make it pretty entertaining to watch. Charlotte's story is also decent. Her escape from Delos is action-packed and provides for some good fun. I also enjoyed seeing Charlotte become connected to her family, with there being a nice irony that host Charlotte grew to care more about Charlotte's family than Charlotte herself did. This of course leads to a big moment at the end of the episode where Charlotte's family is killed by Serac which does feel quite tragic. Maeve's story has its moments. The biggest being Hector's death which will presumably give Maeve the necessary motivation to work for Serac and destroy Dolores. The Bad: For the most part, this is still pretty sloppy stuff. It's so difficult to emotionally invest in any of the characters or stories this season. Everything feels flawed. Take Maeve's storyline. Maeve as a character is so, so boring right now. She doesn't have anything interesting to do and it feels like she is being used more for some "strong woman action sequences" rather than telling a story. These sequences have gotten dull fast and they aren't enjoyable to watch anymore. Her relationships with Hector and Lee feel so simplistic as well, so Hector's death didn't really effect me in any way at all. I feel a disconnect with the character and I can't say that there is anything about her that interests me anymore. Charlotte's story isn't very captivating either. As a character, she is really lacking. I'm still a bit confused why there is such a difference between her and the actual Dolores since they are the same conscience at heart. I also never really got fully invested in her relationship with her family. While the final moments of the episode are quite shocking and will inevitably change her character, I wasn't particularly captivated by anything that happened, and it didn't feel like the killer emotional twist it was meant to be. Serac looks very sloppy as a villain in this episode. It's absurd that he would have found out that Charlotte is a host solely from how she checked on her kid. There are so many other ways he could have found her out, not least from her awkward behaviour. It's just a sloppy piece of writing. Furthermore, we learn that Serac suspected her all along. So then he should have put countermeasures to make sure she didn't do anything that would work against him! It's ridiculous that he didn't and it makes him look seriously incompetent. Furthermore, he lets Charlotte get away which doesn't make him look good. Then, he detonates Charlotte's car and nobody sticks around to ensure she is actually dead. One or two of these little logic gaps is acceptable, but when so many stack up like this, the plot completely falls apart. The episode is heavily focused on setting up the season's final act. That would be acceptable if I was invested in what was going on. But since I'm not, it makes set-up episodes like this one feel even more unimpressive than they already are. The Unknown: What is Charlotte's next move? How will she respond to her family dying? What are Bernard and Stubbs going to do with William? How are the three of them going to affect the story of this season? Best Moment: Probably William revisiting his past. It was pretty effective character development and Ed Harris was superb. Character of the Episode: William. Conclusion: This was more solid stuff that moved everyone into place for the final 2 episodes, but the empty and uninspired feel of this season continues. I'm not very invested in the story right now so watching the final act be set up isn't as exciting as it should be. The show's poor character work continues to drag it down, and even though there is strong acting and good action sequences, I'm not finding myself enjoying these season even close to as much as seasons 1 and 2. I don't expect that I'll continue watching after this season since there hasn't been anything in these first 6 episodes to give me faith that this show is capable of producing great television. Score: 56 Summary: Flashbacks show that Serac's brother Jean created Rehoboam to create a better world. The project was funded by Liam Sr. who was greedy and only in it for the financial benefit. Serac ended up confining his brother with all of the other people who Rehoboam deemed as threats to humanity. Serac kills Liam and stages his death to look like an accident. In the present, Dolores and Caleb travel with Liam to get away from Serac's men. Liam is hesitant to help them but when it becomes clear that Serac doesn't care about Liam's life, Liam gives them access to Rehoboam. Along the way, Caleb is injected with genre and the trio escape from Serac's men in a car chase. Dolores leaks Rehoboam's predictions for everyone's future to everyone in the world. With the balance towards chaos tipping, Serac is frustrated. Dolores and Caleb pick up Ash and Giggles for help. Liam is deemed useless and they debate what to do with him. Liam antagonizes Caleb, Ash and Giggles about their futures leading to Ash fatally shooting and killing Liam. Meanwhile, Martin is with Bernard and he leaks the information about Rehoboam at Dolores' request. When Serac videos in to find out what happened, Martin detonates a bomb, dying in the process. Bernard and Stubbs escape.
The Good: As ever, this show remains pretty beautiful to look at. There is a lot of creativity involved with the presentation of the show, and the show does carry an almost artistic feel from scene to scene. The heavy emphasis on slower shots, the futuristic environment, and the lovely score all give the show a visual beauty that most TV shows don't accomplish. Add in some terrific performances from the main cast, and nearly every scene provides something impressive to look at, even if there isn't very much substance. This show has always been impeccable with creating its cinematic feel and I think this episode is a great example of this. While the scenes with Serac weren't telling an incredible story by any means, I was still gripped by the acting. While the car chase sequence was pretty dull overall, the episode tried many new things, including showing us the effects of the party drug genre, to ensure that there was always something interesting going on visually. It was nice to get a thorough backstory on Serac in this episode."Westworld" typically has had problems with keeping things too mysterious for too long, but here I'm pleased to say that they corrected that problem. It's important that we understand who Serac is and what he's about for his conflict with Dolores to mean anything. I thought his backstory was edited nicely into the episode and it did offer some interesting insights into his motives and why he is so motivated to ensure Rehoboam is a success. What I like most is that Serac isn't portrayed as purely villainous. In this episode, Dolores seems like more of a villain than he does. I appreciate that this show is blurring the lines between villains and heroes this season, even though it makes it hard to root for anybody, this does help the season feel unlike anything else on television right now. Furthermore, having the show not pick any sides makes its exploration of its themes feel more meaningful and open for interpretation. Some other things pleased me about this episode. I thought that young Serac was perfectly cast and he did actually look like a younger Vincent Cassel. I thought the Martin and Bernard story was pretty solid as well. There wasn't anything too spectacular, but it did build to a lovely moment where Martin blew himself up and gave Serac yet another piece of bad news. The sequence of everyone getting their own profile leaked from Rehoboam was very well done and I appreciated the episode's emphasis on exploring this idea. The Bad: Caleb's drug trip wasn't done as well as I had hoped. There were some neat bits of cinematography but I never really felt like Caleb was high on a drug. It all felt so artificial, almost like it was tacked on at the last minute. The drug also didn't have any effect on the story whatsoever which was underwhelming and made it feel like a useless addition to the episode. For an already bloated series, I don't want to be wasting time on things like this. The Dolores/Liam/Caleb story wasn't interesting at all. There were no real storylines or conflicts for any of the characters and the whole thing was bland. The only character who had anything to do was Liam who had to debate between sticking with Serac or giving Dolores what she wants. The story wasn't any good because it was completely predictable and generic with no effort put in to make me get invested. This issue exemplifies a much larger problem with this episode. Even though it was put together well enough and advanced the plot in interesting ways, I'm still struggling to really care about anything I'm watching. The characters are pretty bland, there aren't any interesting conflicts, and the action has no clear stakes. The show still feels as emotionally empty as the season premier. While myself and lots of other people had major issues with season 2, at least that season provided emotionally satisfying scenes, something that this season doesn't even attempt most of the time. The Unknown: What did Liam see in Caleb's past? Who is he? What has he done? Why doesn't Caleb remember it? What were those flashes? What's in the bag that Caleb got at the end of the episode? How is the world going to react to the Rehoboam reveal? How will Serac fight against this? Best Moment: Caleb's speech to Liam admonishing the entire concept of Rehoboam was the most emotionally resonant moment of the episode for me. Character of the Episode: Serac. Conclusion: This episode did a lot of things right, but the emotional emptiness I'm feeling is preventing me from fully enjoying anything this season is attempting. Once again I'm left feeling underwhelmed, and with just 3 episodes left to go, I'm not sure that this season has any chance of building up to a climax that will change that. Score: 57 Summary: William is fraught with guilt over what he did to his daughter and so he is living a confused life while constantly plagued with visions of her. Charlotte comes to him and convinces him to return to Delos to protect the company from Serac. However, it's all a ploy and Charlotte gets William admitted into a mental hospital and ownership of Delos is given to her. Meanwhile, Serac sends Maeve to track where Dolores has gone and whose identity she is using. Maeve's hutn leads her to Musashi who Dolores has implanted as head of the Yakuza. Maeve realizes that Dolores has cloned herself and that all the hosts she has with her are simply her own clones implanted in the bodies of others. Musashi kills Maeve but he leaves when Serac's men arrive. Dolores and Caleb put together a plan and take all of Liam's money away, with plans to capture him at a party. However, Bernard and Stubbs arrive and take Liam away. Dolores fights off Stubbs and goes after Caleb and Bernard. Martin holds Bernard at gunpoint and he learns that Dolores has cloned herself.
The Good: The opening sequence is very well done. This episode does a very effective job of inserting us into William's fractured mind. His remorse and fears are displayed very effectively through his hallucinations of Emily and it's clear that he's struggling to make peace with himself over what he's done. The way this episode displays William's inner struggle is impressive, and it's shown in a uniquely disorienting way that makes this story feel much more powerful than it has any right to be. Ed Harris also delivers a great performance, and the result is that William's scenes end up being the best part of the episode. There is emotion and character work here that the show desperately needs to put in its other storylines. Serac remains a fun on-screen presence. He's very mysterious and his motives still aren't quite clear to me, though I'm sure that many dedicated fans have already pieced together his entire plan. I really liked the tease of his backstory and I'm interested to learn more about why he has the mindset that he does about humanity. I thought his recruitment of Maeve was well done, and I bought into Maeve choosing to go along with Serac's plans for now. The central party scene was a very good climax to the episode. I like that the episode built towards this one scene from two different perspectives as it made the party much more suspenseful and dramatic than it would have been otherwise. The action once Dolores and Bernard came into conflict was very well done, and I particularly liked the fight between Dolores and Stubbs. The episode concluded with a pretty decent twist as well. While not Earth-shattering, it was nice to get confirmation on who these hosts actually are. The idea that Dolores would simply split her conscience made perfect sense and it also did a great job of demonstrating how vain and villainous she has become since she has no interest in other hosts and would much rather just clone herself over and over again to accomplish her goals. The Bad: Unfortunately the show just doesn't interest me very much. When I signed on to watch this show, I was excited to watch robots taking over in a western theme park. I did not sign on for futuristic drama involving control over a company and various rich people talking about philosophy. The show has been quite dull for a while now, and halfway through this season, I'm just not invested in this story. All 3 plot lines didn't do much to interest me. I have no reason to get invested in Dolores and Caleb taking away Liam's money, so the scenes of them enacting their plan fell flat for me. Maeve hunting for leads on Dolores was also horribly uninteresting. She isn't bouncing off of any other characters or developing relationships, so it's just mindless action and plot development with no substance under the surface. Lastly, even William's story isn't that interesting. His inner conflict is certainly worth exploring, and it was the most interesting part of this episode. But all of the plot details surrounding his scenes with Charlotte were pretty dull and I couldn't bring myself to care about what was happening. Maeve and Musashi's fight was also quite disappointing because of how little it meant. Maeve lost the fight and that should be a significant moment, but judging by the end of the episode, it seems like Serac will fix Maeve up easily so there won't be any major consequences to the confrontation between Maeve and Musashi which is massively disappointing. The Unknown: What's the sector 16 project? Will Serac bring Maeve back? What will her response be to the loss against Musashi, and by extension, Dolores? Why does Dolores want Liam? What purpose does he have? What happens now with Bernard and Stubbs? What's William's role in all of this? Is he going to get back at Dolores somehow? How will he do that now that he's been committed? Best Moment: The opening sequence. William's inner conflict was presented in a wonderful way, and it served to be a terrific way to catch up with the character who had been absent for several episodes. Character of the Episode: William. Conclusion: This episode had some solid set-up for the rest of the season, some exciting action, and there was even more character work than usual. Because of that, this is certainly much better than the previous episodes this season. But the familiar problems are still detracting from the overall experience and continue to make this season feel quite disappointing. Score: 60 Summary: Flashbacks show that the host pretending to be Charlotte is an unknown friend of Dolores. In the present, Charlotte arrives at Delos and learns that somebody named Serac has bought key shares, buying out the company. Charlotte goes to meet with Dolores. Meanwhile, Caleb helps Dolores escape. She tells him to get a new identity and leaves. She meets with Charlotte who is having identity issues. Dolores comforts her and Charlotte talks about Serac. Caleb prepares to go into hiding but he is caught by some criminals who interrogate him about Dolores. Dolores arrives and kills the men, and she informs Caleb about how Incite has been gathering data about everyone and using it to predict the future and control the people that aren't worth investing in, like Caleb. Caleb is angered and allies with Dolores. Charlotte grows closer to her son after reliving some of the real Charlotte's memories. She manages to get into contact with Serac who is revealed to have been the person who Charlotte was serving. Serac wants Charlotte to bring him the profiles of every guest.
The Good: There are two decent stories being told here, one focusing on Caleb and the other focusing on Charlotte. Charlotte's story is the most intriguing to follow because it introduces a big mystery that will presumably be one of the core questions of the season: who is the host pretending to be Charlotte? I'm sure there are plenty of theories already, and it's a very interesting topic to think about. I like most of Charlotte's story. She's tied directly to Serac which is important for the plot, and she also has a very curious character arc regarding her family life, which is important for telling a good story. I like the idea of a host that doesn't know itself getting thrust into Charlotte's life, forcing itself to care about Charlotte's problems, and grow closer to her family. It's a unique conflict and I think it was explored in some decent ways in this episode. The bond between Charlotte and Nathan was particularly interesting to follow, and seeing the host attempt to be a more caring mother was very interesting. Caleb and Dolores' story is the second half of the episode and it is pretty solid. Their relationship develops organically throughout the episode. Caleb's desire for something real is a sensible motivation for him to stick up for Dolores, and Dolores' surprise and curiosity at his actions is a good motivation for her to come save him later in the episode. The actions of the characters are logical and the episode presents very good reasons for them to develop a bond, laying the groundwork for what could potentially be a very good storyline. I appreciated the climax of their story where Dolores explained the concept of Rehoboam to Caleb. Seeing Caleb's rage paralleled with Dolores' rage in seasons 1 and 2 was pretty powerful, and I think it's a smart idea for the show to expand its themes of free will to human characters as well as hosts. The Bad: Something about this season isn't clicking. It's presented well, acted well and written well (for the most part), but I'm just not that into it. The characters and the story aren't grabbing me like they did in some of the best parts of season 1 and 2, and the show feels like it hasn't offered us enough to get invested in now that we have left Westworld and entered the real world. For lack of a better word, much of these season feels pretty dull so far. There are still some more specific issues as well. The Charlotte mystery, while intriguing, does take away from her scenes. We don't know who she is, and we're given no good reason to care about her relationship with Dolores. Sure, it's fun to watch and I imagine everything will make sense once Charlotte's identity is revealed, but it's very unfulfilling to have emotion and character exploration sacrificed for needless confusion and a surprise later in the season. Dolores' gunshot wound remains a really weird moment. She's a host so she shouldn't be affected badly by these injuries, hence how she was able to recover and drive off so quickly. But then how was she badly injured in the first place? It doesn't make sense and it feels like a major logic gap that was created in the show's attempt to make Caleb's meeting with Dolores more dramatic. Charlotte murdering the pedophile is a moment that made me roll my eyes. The worst aspects of this show is how it has painted hosts and humans in such a black and white way so that it can have these "cool" moments where a female host can be a badass and kill an evil rich man. It feels like needless SJW nonsense that the show is using as fanservice for no apparent reason. There should be more thought put into telling a compelling story instead of trying to cheaply entertain the audience. The Unknown: Who is the Charlotte host? Is it somebody we have seen before or a completely new character? Who is Serac exactly? What are his exact motives? It seems that he was working on things well before Dolores' revolution since he was the one ordering Charlotte in the last season. Who is the mole in Delos? Best Moment: Dolores telling Caleb that he is being blocked from a better life because of Incite was pretty powerful stuff that aligned well with the themes of the show. Character of the Episode: Caleb. Conclusion: This was more solid story advancement. The episode doesn't do anything special but it's perfectly fine. The larger issue remains with the fact that this show isn't very gripping anymore. Maybe that will change, but it seems like this show is settling in to be average at best. Score: 56 Summary: Hector comes to Maeve and offers to help her escape. They go together but Maeve realizes that it's all just his loop. She wakes up in the lab and is surprised to find that Felix and Sylvester don't recognize her. She sees Lee who has survived his injuries. Lee takes her to the forge, but Maeve quickly realizes that Lee is a host, and the entire world is a simulation. She overloads the simulation and crashes it, allowing herself access into the real world where she gets a drone to retrieve her core and remove it from the simulation. After, Maeve wakes up and meets Serac who wants to recruit her to fight Dolores. Meanwhile, Bernard gets to Westworld and finds Stubbs who he realizes is a host. Stubbs has tried to kill himself after freeing Bernard since he has no purpose anymore. Bernard and Stubbs try to locate Maeve but discover that someone else has taken her core. Bernard gives Stubbs a new purpose: to protect him, and they go hunt for Maeve.
The Good: This is "Westworld" falling back on what it's good at to set up for the rest of the season. The Maeve storyline is everything we've come to expect from the show, filled with hosts on their loops, constant questioning of what's real and what's not and some pretty fun action. It's enjoyable to watch and the episode benefits from the show falling back on what it's good at. The writing is very strong here. I love how episode slowly reveals its series of twists to let us know where and when Maeve is. The mystery is introduced early on and it's refreshing to see a complete story as we aren't left with any tedious questions coming out of the episode. It's a complete mystery packed into an hour of television as we follow Maeve discovering she's in a simulation and ultimately breaking free into the real world. The Bernard storyline is solid too. Unlike the previous episode, Bernard has direction now as he hunts for Maeve, which will presumably take him to Serac. The return of Stubbs is welcome and I do like the reveal that he's a host. Speaking of Serac, the introduction of this new character was easily the highlight of the episode (see: Best Moment). I'm interested to find out who he is and what his motives are. Vincent Cassel is an excellent addition to the cast, and he stole the show in his one scene. The Bad: The problem with the show returning to the status quo is that it just doesn't interest me anymore. I'm tired of meaningless twists and confused timelines, so I just ended up groaning when I realized that's where this episode was headed. Was it fun to watch? Sure. But there is nothing under the surface here. It's just some fun television to watch as long as you turn your brain off and don't expect to get any kind of interesting character development or deeper themes. Maeve, like Dolores, has just become a killing machine, and she hardly has any character anymore. I don't feel like I can relate very much to her, and so there's an emotional disconnect. So watching Maeve simply escaping a simulation doesn't have me at the edge of my seat at all. It's merely intriguing to me and I don't get any greater emotions coming out of the episode. It's a shame because despite how well written and well directed this episode was, it did nothing to enthrall me. The Game of Thrones reference was pretty unnecessary and took me out of the episode a little bit. It's a nice nod and I would have appreciated it more had it been integrated more naturally into the show's world. But instead it was more distracting than anything else. I really don't have much to say about this episode which is telling. The show remains fun but there isn't a whole lot to dive into at the moment. The Unknown: Why was Maeve put in a simulation? Did Serac do this? Why? Did he anticipate Maeve's escape so they could have their meeting? Why did he go through the trouble of doing all of this? Who is he anyways? What is this system that he created? How is Serac able to control Maeve? What is the device that he has? Will Maeve eventually agree to work against Dolores? Will Bernard track down Serac? Best Moment: Maeve wakes in a well-maintained garden and meets with Serac who knows exactly who she is and proposes an alliance with her. The scene features some incredible acting with both Maeve and Serac trying to control the flow of their conversation, each trying to accomplish their own goals. Maeve wants to understand the nature of her own reality and kill Serac, while Serac wants to win over Maeve's trust and loyalty. Serac is good, but Maeve's confidence in following her own path is too much and she decides to kill him. However, Serac is surprisingly able to control her and shuts down her functions. Then, presumably he prepares to reset the scene and try yet another approach to get her to trust him. It's a very well-written scene filled with intrigue, captivating dialogue and a pair of superb performances. Character of the Episode: Maeve. Conclusion: This was better than the season premier at least, but "Westworld" still hasn't convinced me that it's worth watching this season. While this episode was fun, there wasn't enough under the surface to invest me in the story that is being told. Score: 58 Summary: In the real world, Dolores infiltrates the company Incite by killing a shareholder named Gerald and taking his money. She develops a relationship with Liam, the son of the founder of Incite and works to get information about the company from him. She soon discovers that he doesn't have access to the deeper workings of the company but he knows who does. Right then, Liam's bodyguard Martin realizes Dolores is an infiltrator and knocks her out and attempts to kill her quietly. It backfires and Martin is killed and replaced by a host, though Dolores is shot in the process. Meanwhile, Caleb is an ex-soldier who is struggling to get by and can't get over the death of his friend. He does petty crime jobs by night using the RICO app. He decides to pursue a purpose and ditches his therapy program and ends up meeting an injured Dolores. Meanwhile, Bernard has been blamed for the deaths in Westworld and is a fugitive in hiding. He decides to go back to Westworld. Maeve wakes up in a Nazi-Germany style theme park.
The Good: This show is as beautiful as ever. The effects, the acting, the cinematography, the soundtrack, all of it is terrific. The presentation for this show has always been a high point. Even when the story gets too convoluted, or the shallowness of the characters gets exposed, the show still looks great and is easy to watch. The introduction to Caleb is the best stuff in the episode. He's a new character, so the show puts in effort to give him some development and create a meaningful character arc for him. Caleb is an ex-soldier struggling to get over his past and move on, something that isn't helped by the horrible class system in this futuristic world. It's easy to sympathize with Caleb, immediately making him a far better character than most that we've seen on this show so far. I appreciate that time was given to set up his storyline, making his encounter with Dolores at the end of the episode mean something. Caleb wants something real, and now he seems to think he's found it in Dolores. It's ironic considering that Dolores could very well be the most false thing he has encountered that entire day, including the robot he talked to over the phone. The Bad: Unfortunately this show is still misfiring quite a bit. Outside of Caleb, every character feels way too shallow and uninteresting to keep my interest. Dolores isn't a character anymore, she's just a thing that wants to kill people which I'm not at all interested in watching. It became tiresome last season, and I don't want to see Dolores on a path of destruction anymore. The other established characters don't have much of interest to do either. Bernard is performed tremendously as ever, but his arc in this episode is rushed and uninteresting. We don't have any reason to care about him at this point, and I'm finding it tough to even describe his personality despite knowing this character for 2 full seasons now. When you take away the mysterious plot elements from the show, these shallow characters are exposed, as they were here. That leads me to my second problem. I'm glad the show has stopped with the convoluted time jumping (I hope), but the problem is that we've been given nothing to take its place. Part of what made season 1 and 2 so entertaining was that it was really fun trying to puzzle out what was actually going on, and these dynamic plot elements were able to make up for the poor character work to a certain degree. But without any of that here, we're left with an empty show that doesn't offer anything different from your average TV drama with bland, 1-dimensional characters. This episode was also paced pretty poorly. It's a really long episode at 68 minutes and somehow the episode manages to feel both rushed and slow because of some strange choices in presentation. The episode is paced very slowly as we get countless shots where not much is happening. The show enjoys showing off its impressive cinematography, but when there is no drama happening on screen, it can be pretty dull to watch so many shots of just the environment and the actors doing their jobs. But the episode also feels rushed because it skims rapidly through what should be the most powerful moments, not giving them a chance to stick with me. Take Liam and Dolores' relationship as an example. It's established, developed and destroyed so quickly that I feel nothing for either of the characters, who by the end of the episode I don't understand any better than I did at the start of the episode. It's all so rushed. And yet it still feels slow because the episode takes forever to actually get from the start of the relationship to the end because there are so many wasted minutes spent developing a plot that I'm not at all invested in. With Dolores working to overthrow humanity in the real world, all of the stuff happening in the theme parks feels unimportant in comparison. As such, I don't care at all about what Bernard and Maeve are up to. The samurai world in the last season ended up being a waste of time, so how can I believe that this Nazi Germany world will be of importance. The Unknown: What are Dolores' plans for Incite? What is she trying to do? Who is this Serac that she's trying to get in contact with? Why has Bernard been isolated from Dolores? Does she have any plans for him? Why is he going back to Westworld? What will come from Caleb meeting Dolores? Will she recruit him in her plans to destroy humanity? Or will she want to destroy him? What is Maeve going to do in the Nazi Germany theme park? The only scene that leaves me guessing about time jumping is the one with Charlotte. When did this happen? I thought Dolores was Charlotte. Has she created multiple versions of herself and released them in the world? How many other Dolores' are there? Best Moment: Caleb unsubscribing from his therapy and vowing to move on and find something real was one of the few moments that stuck with me. Character of the Episode: Caleb. Conclusion: This was a pretty dull season premier. I commend "Westworld" for trying to reinvent itself but it just didn't work since the show failed to create a new form of itself that's worth watching. I'll keep watching for the rest of the season, but if the show's quality remains as weak as this episode, I'll likely be dropping the show. Score: 53 Summary: Maeve frees herself and reunites with her crew. They get chased and Lee sacrifices himself. Dolores runs into Bernard at The Forge and they go in. Bernard discovers that there is a door which leads the hosts to a virtual world where they could live peacefully. Dolores wants to destroy it so Bernard kills her. Some hosts make it to the virtual world, including Akecheta and Maeve’s daughter, but Clementine attacks with the humans and slaughters most of the hosts, including Maeve, Hector and Armistice. Charlotte kills Elsie and Bernard realizes his mistake in not listening to Dolores. He rebuilds her in Charlotte’s image and kills her. In the future, Charlotte/Dolores kills Strand and all of the others and then Bernard. She escapes into the real world and rebuilds Bernard.
The Good: This show is beautiful to behold in every regard. Everything is fantastic to watch, and that includes the episode previews. Every episode preview is crafted so beautifully and it’s a joy to watch. While not related to the actual episode, I had to mention how much I love the previews as it shows how committed the crew is to making this show breathtaking in its style. The actual episode as a whole had some really great storylines, but the execution left a lot to be desired (see: The Bad). However, I thought that several pieces of this episode were tremendous. For one, I loved Maeve’s return as it was done in a suitably triumphant fashion to make it feel like a huge deal. Maeve’s overall storyline was very good too and had the best moments. I enjoyed her brief reunion with her daughter, and the tragic end of her character fit the story and was genuinely motional. While the big climax scene did lack at times (see: The Bad), the emotional resonance was conveyed well so I was able to understand and sympathize with Maeve. Lee’s development was fine too. I liked that he finally got to finish that speech which he had written, which is a great call-back to one of the earliest episodes of the show. It was a fitting conclusion for his character arc, even if it was pretty cheesy and predictable. Overall, I think it leaves a good impression and not a bad one. The scenes of the hosts making it through the door were impactful and cathartic. After seeing them struggle for so long, seeing them find freedom and happiness was surprisingly uplifting. I didn’t expect myself to get so invested in seeing the hosts living peacefully, but the scenes were done really well and there was genuine power in seeing the hosts living happily. The highlights were of course Akecheta reuniting with his wife and Teddy finally finding his peace in the world. Furthermore, I think this also helped make the humans seem more disgusting as they all killed the hosts without any need as they were simply trying to leave and live peacefully. It got me completely rooting against the humans, which helped me visualize Dolores’ mindset more than Bernard’s which was very needed as I was certainly pro-Bernard before. This episode had a lot of twists and turns, but the best one was certainly the Dolores/Charlotte one. That one came as a genuine shock, and led to one of the best shocks that the series has pulled off. Furthermore, it allowed Charlotte to get some appropriate comeuppance as she got murdered coldly by Dolores. The best storyline for me was the reveals in The Forge. I was glad to see Delos again and his character arc, as well as Logan’s, was concluded appropriately while the show also revealed the true nature of people and included lots of thought-provoking philosophy which was interesting and exciting to contemplate. The scenes in The Forge felt like a proper adventure, which made it engaging and exciting. The Bad: Unfortunately this episode was a bit of a mess and it fell into the worst trappings of the show. The season had been stronger than the first because of its more linear nature and clear storytelling which allowed me to understand what was happening, so that it all mattered and didn’t just build up to meaningless shocks. This episode decided to throw all of that away and become a convoluted and confusing mess which left me unsure how to feel by the end of the episode and also unsatisfied with the direction that a lot of storylines went in. For one, the episode rushed through many important things. The beginning of the episode completely skipped over all of the emotions that Dolores and William would have been feeling after their ordeals in the previous episodes. After five minutes they were completely over it and continued to be the same characetrs we knew before with absolutely no change. That’s awful because these characters went through major loss and should have changed at least a little bit. But instead, their story was glossed over in favour of major plot developments and shocks. So many other things were rushed too. Maeve’s storyline had good quality but everything happened so fast that it didn’t impact me as much as it should have. In a single episode we had Maeve come back from near-death, reunite with her squad, watch lee sacrifice himself, reunite with her daughter, sacrifice herself for her daughter and also watch Hector and Armistice die. There was just so much going on, and it meant that no scenes got time to breathe or really settle in. We didn’t have any down-time and that took me out of the episode because it meant we skipped over a lot of emotional stuff. There was nothing new between Maeve and Hector, we didn’t get to understand what Lee’s relationship was with everyone after he betrayed them and we also didn’t even get to understand what the group’s goal was and where they were headed. It was never explained why they were going to the Valley Beyond which is a major hole. Speaking of holes, I felt like there were tons of plot holes here. For one, how did nobody from Delos know what happened to all of the hosts? They were right there when they all died and the valley got flooded! It seems that the writers wanted to make a mystery but didn’t know how to logically explain that nobody knew what happened. Also, how are we supposed to buy that Stubbs knew Charlotte was a host? If he knew that, surely he would have talked with her earlier about it in an attempt to ally himself with her. It just felt like a meaningless reveal to make it seem like Stubbs actually had a reason to exist in this season. The big climactic scene was disappointing too. The entire time I was getting frustrated that Maeve wasn’t using her powers to help combat Clementine to get her taken out. Furthermore, I was confused by what Clementine dying meant and I don’t understand why it caused all the hosts to fight each other. It felt unclear and needlessly confusing. Furthermore, I am confused as to why Maeve didn’t just run through the door with Akecheta and her daughter. She would have had the time to make it, so why didn’t she go? Additionally, why are the humans even killing them? To them it should appear that the hosts are just running off a cliff and dying, so why would they make the effort to kill if they are killing themselves? I wasn’t as interested in the Dolores vs Bernard conflict in The Forge as I should have been. That’s because I already knew what would happen. It was shown that the place would flood and it would be Bernard’s fault, and it was also revealed that Dolores would be shot. Because of these reveals, I felt no tension in what was happening because I knew exactly what would happen. I am getting frustrated with William somehow having magical healing powers. How is this man not dead? The Unknown: How was Dolores invincible against William but killable against Bernard? I don’t understand at all. So what were the drone hosts anyways? What was their purpose? Why did Bernard kill them back in “Riddle of the Sphinx”? So what exactly is Bernard’s timeline? I am too confused to try to piece it all together. Everythign is just jumbled in my mind. Where are Stubbs’ actual loyalties? Is he a host too? I don’t think he is, but why is he siding with the hosts if he isn’t? Where did Dolores move the hosts’ world? Will it come into play later? How did Dolores make it into the real world so easily? What the hell happened to William? It feels like we missed a scene. What happened to him inside of the elevator? What the hell was that ending scene? I’m not even going to begin to try to put that together. I’ve had enough confusion for an episode. Best Moment: It’s tough to choose since almost every scene felt like it should have meant more. I’ll go with Akecheta reuniting with his wife for the emotional resonance. Character of the Episode: Bernard. Conclusion: This season had done well to avoid the trappings that season 1 had. But unfortunately it became a mess in the final episode and wasted so much potential. So many storylines ended with whimpers and very little about this episode felt satisfying. This felt like a few episodes of content squeezed into one with all of the focus being placed on the plot and very little on the characters. This finale was very disappointing. The season as a whole was looking to be much better than the first, but the last 2 episodes did not deliver. In the end, the season improved on tis storytelling for the most apart, but it also felt aimless at times with not enough content to fill out ten episodes, including episodes 5, 8 and 9 which in all fairness weren’t necessary to the overall plot. I would be hard-pressed to say which season was better as both seasons had very different strengths and weaknesses which I thought was interesting. I’m curious to see what season 3 has in store, but I can’t say that this finale has made me expect anything more than some convoluted storylines and wasted potential. Score: 54 Summary: In flashbacks, William’s wife Juliet lashes out at him about him being evil. Emily sees this and sides with William. William accidentally tells Juliet she was right about him and leaves his profile behind. Juliet sees the profile and confirms her suspicions before leaving the profile for Emily and killing herself. In the present, William believes that Emily is a host and kills her before realizing he was wrong. Bernard leaves Elsie after removing Ford from his system. He reveals that there is a place called The Forge which has profiles of every guest. Teddy is frustrated with his role in helping Dolores and he kills himself.
The Good: This season has followed a Lost-esque format and that has made it more enjoyable overall than the last season. This episode continued that trend by focusing on William and giving him a conflict to battle with, while also showing us the complete story of his life which had only been hinted at before. This also allowed William’s storyline in the present make more sense, with the appearance of his profile which all but confirms Emily’s true nature. It also gives the moment more significance, as we can better understand what William has lost by killing his own daughter, and we can understand that he truly did care for her, instead of being confused by his true feelings for her. Bernard’s storyline had some good moments. I was really happy with the reveal of The Forge, as it adds some more significance and theorizing to what will actually be found at the Valley Beyond (see: The Unknown). Also, I enjoyed the development of Bernard deleting Ford. It was easy to understand Bernard’s confliction with Ford being inside of his head, so his desperation for freedom again was completely understood. Of course the acting from Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Hopkins was great as well. The Teddy and Dolores scene at the end was very good. Teddy’s death was set up well throughout the season with how his relationship with Dolores fell apart, and the actual moment had a lot of impact. Evan Rachel Wood’s acting was tremendous too, adding even more emotion to an already powerful scene. The Bad: William’s character isn’t explored enough to make this episode feel needed. I mentioned above that this episode made the bits and pieces of William’s past into a complete story. The problem is that there is literally nothing new that we learn about William, and that hurts the quality of this episode. In every Lost episode, we learned something new about the characters in flashbacks, that’s why the flashbacks were so good, but when we learn nothing of real substance, it feels mostly like a waste of time. The death of Emily wasn’t as impactful as it should have been. Once more, the mystery surrounding the show completely detracted from the scene. When William killed her, I didn’t feel the emotion I should have because I wasn’t sure if Emily was real or a host. I understand that the effect does try to help us sympathize more with William by giving us paranoia similar to his, but it completely destroys the emotional effect of seeing an insane William gun down his own daughter in his own madness. It should have been more than just shocking to witness. It should have been disgusting and tragic, while also demonstrating how far removed William is from reality. The fact that I only thought about these emotions later instead of during the scene is a complete failure. Furthermore, death is losing meaning in this show. A lot of characters can just come back (like Clementine in this episode), so I’m not even sure that Emily is dead, which once again hurts the impact of the show. This also hurts Teddy’s death since I’m sure he will come back to life in order for him to end up in the sea from that first episode. While Teddy had a good story this season, Dolores didn’t and that is very disappointing. She was one of the most interesting aspects of the first season, yet right now she is the most boring by quite some distance. Her character is repetitive, and I’m not entirely sure what she is trying to accomplish which distances me from her and everything her character goes through. With Teddy dead, I’m not sure if there is anything that makes me care about Dolores’ story at all now. I just wish that she had more to do than just kill. I would be more than open to having her relationship with Abernathy explored more, but unfortunately that storyline appears to have been dropped which is disappointing. Once again Ford’s unclear motives detract from my engagement in the story. If I knew what Ford was doing, I would be more open to sympathizing with Bernard trying to remove Ford from his head. But instead, I don’t know who I should be rooting for and it confuses me as to who is in the right. I understand that Westworld likes doing this with the whole “puzzlebox” style, but I really don’t like it because it removes emotion from a lot of potentially great scenes, like this one and even the death of Emily. This did not feel at all like a penultimate episode. After last episode didn’t accomplish much in order to tell a story, this episode needed some more plot development to pick up the pace and set the stage for the finale. It felt like an episode 6 or 7, not an episode 9, and that makes me worried for the finale, since it seems like a whole ton needs to be accomplished in that episode. The Unknown: I was very intrigued by Dolores being told the Valley Beyond wasn’t meant for her, which parallels William on his quest to discover the maze. Was the Valley Beyond made for the guests? Why isn’t it for Dolores? Wasn’t Ford’s entire motive to bring consciousness for hosts? Was Emily actually a host or is she dead? IS William a host? Or is it just his paranoia getting to him? Was this all Ford’s plan somehow? What is Bernard going to do? What is the significance of the forge and what will they find there? Have Delos made clones of everyone somehow? Could that be what Emily is? A clone which was sent to find William? Emily had said to Ghost nation that she wants him to be punished. Could it be that she is a host that was meant to put William through the pain of thinking he killed his own daughter? Did Emily donated herself as an experiment to Delos to accomplish this? Will Teddy come back? What will happen with Clementine? Will Charlotte use her as a weapon? Best Moment: William’s speech about his stain is pretty powerful and has good emotions to it. Even though it doesn’t offer any new information, it does show us how William feels about himself as a person, which is pretty cathartic and powerful to see. Character of the Episode: William. Conclusion: This episode told a complete story and as always the actual episode was beautiful to behold in cinematography and soundtrack. But this wasn’t anywhere near as good as it should have been because of a lack of emotion, and lack of meaningful developments. This was the weakest episode of the season despite everything that it did right. Score: 56 Summary: Flashbacks show that Akecheta discovered the maze at the site where Dolores killed Arnold. He has been conscious since then. His loop was changed eventually but he remembered his past. He tries to escape with his wife but she is taken by the staff. Akecheta realizes the world he is in and lets himself die to find his wife. He realizes she is gone and decides to create an army of conscious hosts which are the Ghost Nation. In the present, Maeve is taken to Charlotte and she communicates to her daughter through Akecheta. William is captured by Akecheta but Emily arrives to take him.
The Good: This episode relied heavily on the classic "Lost" format where we learn about a character through a centric flashback episode and that format worked spectacularly well. Then again, when has this style ever failed hugely? After season 1, a show like Westworld which was short on characters I cared about needed to give a greater character focus in its sophomore season, and after eight episodes, I think the show has done a very good job. I care about Maeve and Akecheta as actual characters, and I buy into the relationships between Dolores/Teddy, William/Emily, Maeve/daughter and Dolores/Abernathy. This episode was all about Akecheta and his journey was enjoyable to watch. John McClarnon delivered a great performance and made his character stand out throughout the hour. The storyline was very simple with Akecheta's main driving force being his relationship with his wife. He wanted to see the truth but also wanted his wife to experience it alongside him. He had good motives mixed with an emotional edge which made his mission very engaging and powerful. It was also fantastic to see McClarnon portray Akecheta's slow ascent to consciousness and highlight the subtle emotions he felt as he progressed through the story. Akecheta's relationship with Kohana was extremely well done. They had a few genuinely sweet scenes early on which made Akecheta's discoveries later int he episode mean something. When he discovered that his wife was replaced, it felt suitably tragic. As was the moment when Akecheta found the empty shell which was Kohana in the storage room. Both scenes were well portrayed and were shot smartly to capitalize on the emotions so that we could understand the gravity of what we were witnessing and how much it is hurting Akecheta. This episode nailed a lot of the smaller things as well. First of all, this episode tied back in to last season where it was mentioned that some of the natives believed in religions which were similar to the Westworld staff behind the scenes. We get to see that here as Akecheta's village consistently mentions these demons which haunt them in their memories, keeping the story consistent. Along with the tight writing, there was also superb acting, innovative and beautiful cinematography, as well as gorgeous soundtrack. Regarding the soundtrack, I think Westworld has my favourite soundtrack out of any show, as every single track is just mesmerizingly good. This episode featured that lovely Nirvana remix sequence which had a little bit of everything; beautiful soundtrack, stunning cinematography and stellar acting. I really loved the cameos from Ford and Logan in the episode. They didn't feel forced and actually aided the plot while also explaining away some plot holes. We now know how Logan got out of Westworld after being sent away by William after a terrific scene where Logan was seen slowly going insane. Additionally, we got answers about why Akecheta wasn't being noticed by the staff as Ford has evidently been watching his progression into consciousness in the background. Even more interestingly, it seems to be implied that Akecheta's ascent through the maze is what allowed Ford to realize his mistakes in holding back the hosts. Perhaps without Akecheta, we never would have seen Ford create a narrative to let the hosts reach total consciousness. The secondary Maeve story was pretty good too. I enjoyed seeing Sizemore come along to her and realize that she didn't deserve what he brought upon her. His guilt was pretty powerful and cathartic, and I wonder if Maeve would forgive him for what he did. The ending was also very good and provided a great reveal that Maeve was still doing whatever she could to protect her daughter by speaking to her through Akecheta. The Bad: It's tough to buy that nobody noticed Akecheta leaving his loop continuously for 10 years. Even if Ford was covering it up, it feels a little bit too easy that nobody ever noticed him. Honestly the Westworld staff really suck at their job and it does take away from the story. I can understand it as a narrative device to allow the story to be told (after all the show is about how we can't control our technology), but that doesn't mean I like it. It's simply ridiculous that Akecheta wasn't shut off properly when he got his update, and it's even worse that nobody noticed him walking through the facility all the way to the storage room. I wish we had gotten this episode a little earlier. Ghost Nation was frustratingly vague for too long and it really didn't accomplish much by keeping their motives secret. Also, there are still some holes, such as why they spared Stubbs and let him go, and those inconsistencies need to be made more clear. The Unknown: So was Akecheta the one putting the maze into the scalps of certain hosts? How did he manage to do that without anyone noticing? Or was it Ford who did it? Perhaps that's what Ford was doing when he was in the park. Did Akecheta find the valley beyond? Was that the place with all of the weird structures in it? Why couldn't he find it again? What was there? How did Akecheta make his wife remember so easily? Is that a benefit to being sentient? How much has Maeve done through Akecheta's eyes? Has Maeve influenced anything else we don't know about? What will Emily do with William? Does she actually intend to punish him or does she have good intentions? Best Moment: The sequence with Akecheta walking through the facility and finding his wife was very touching and superbly executed. It was a genuinely gorgeous sequence with lots of emotional resonance. Character of the Episode: Akecheta. Conclusion: This was awesome. Aside from some small flaws, this episode was easily the most powerful and impactful Westworld has ever been. Akecheta's story gave this episode a focus which other episodes wish they had and it led to what was so far the show's greatest episode. Score: 73 Summary: In the future, Stubbs is expecting Strand to kill him and Bernard. Strand and Charlotte discover that Bernard is a host with multiple copies of himself. Ford implants himself into Bernard’s conscience to ensure he follows instructions. Maeve encounters William and nearly kills him with Lawrence’s help. Sizemore shows up with Delos and they shoot and take Maeve. William escapes. Delos is overrun by Dolores’ group and only Charlotte and Stubbs escape. Angela blows up the cradle.
The Good: The first thing I want to mention is the soundtrack. It has been stellar all season but it really stood out in this episode for me. The music adds so much every time and I absolutely adore the remixes they have done with their central music themes. This has to be amongst the best soundtracks I have ever heard in a TV show. The return of Ford was just as awesome as expected. We got some classy speeches from Anthony Hopkins who was superb as usual and it was fantastic to hear Ford explaining more, which is a great throwback to season 1. Ford’s increased role is great since Hopkins has a massive screen presence and I’m excited to see what his return adds into the series. Furthermore, I loved the information he gave us. We finally understand the extent of Delos’ goals and we also have a good idea of the importance that Abernathy had for Delos and why he was such a big deal. Ford giving exposition is so much more enjoyable than regular exposition and that made these reveals work really well. Speaking of reveals, the Bernard twist at the beginning was awesome and opens up a lot of potential directions for the story to go (see: The Unknown). This season has done a better job of being enjoyable to watch while still being enjoyable to theorize. I loved the thematic exploration in this episode. There was a thorough examination of why the hosts were created and what the goals were in creating them. I thought that the ideas of humans wishing to become hosts was a fascinating concept to examine, and it adds a lot to the exposition being given when there is a genuine philosophical question being explored. The show has been at its best this season when exploring these philosophical questions, so I’m glad to see it continue. I enjoyed the more action-packed parts of the episode for the most part. I loved Dolores confronting Charlotte and they had some really good dialogue together. It was nicely cathartic to see Charlotte get the smirk wiped off her face. Tessa Thompson has been great at making Charlotte a hateable character and I hope that we continue to get scenes like that in the future to pay off of Charlotte’s disgusting nature. I thought that Dolores reuniting with her father was genuinely touching once more as they continue to make me buy into this fake relationship which I have hardly seen. The acting is really commendable here. The Maeve and William storyline was outstanding. It was a huge moment and provided great pay-off for the storylines of Maeve and Lawrence as they finally exacted some revenge on the horrors that William committed, the scene was also genuinely tense and exciting as 5ere was genuine fear that William may die here, because it would fit his character to be killed by hosts and would tell a good story. I was consistently worried about his life, which is a testament to how much I have come to care for William after his character was explored in the last episode. I thought the conclusion was exciting too and didn’t feel anticlimactic due to the surprise of Lawrence and Maeve being shot. It was also earned because there was set up to Sizemore betraying Maeve, which helped this feel like an organic development and not a forced one. I really liked Sizemore in this episode. It’s nice to see that he genuinely cares for Maeve but is still cowardly enough to not do much to help her. However it does seem possible that he redeems himself isn’t he next episode. The fake waterboarding of Bernard was a nice touch which adds to the world a little more. The Bad: The defence of Abernathy unfortunately lacked all tension. While the Maeve and William scene exceeded hugely in tension, this one failed. That’s because we already know the result. We know Dolores takes Abernathy’s key somewhere, and we know that Bernard, Stubbs and Charlotte all survive. That’s unfortunate because there is serious potential for there to be genuine tension here if we didn’t know what would happen in the future. The train explosion from the last episode still confuses me. I don't understand how that explosion let Dolores and the group out of Westworld and it was never explained. Furthermore, isn't it a huge safety hazard to have a train track go to a place where the train coulf explode, leading to several casualties? No park would allow this to exist. Also, how did the hosts survive the explosion? They aren't invulnerable, and they certainly aren't invulnerable to explosions. We even saw Angela die in an explosion later in the episode, proving that hosts are susceptible to explosions. I really wish the show would tell us what needs to be done to kill a host, because it's inconsistent right now and that takes away from my engagement. I can't feel tension for the hosts' lives if I don't know that their lives are even in danger to begin with. I'm going to go back to Angela now and her death. That scene was the one truly terrible scene in this episode. The set up was awful. Angela apparently went to the cradle with no plan to destroy it and essentially got lucky that some random guard followed her abd didn't kill her on the spot. Couldn't she have just picked a grenade off some dead guy in tge room she was in before? Her actual plan was just contrived and nonsensical. Furthermore, I am astounded by the level of stupidity required for that guard who didn't kill Angela and let her seducr him. Seriously? His life is in danger! Nobody would go for an outside chance to get laid over their own life. The writing was sloppy and the scene feels like it only exists to give Angela a dramatic death, and a really forced one at that. There were a few cheesy moments here. The use of slow-mo early on was weak, as was the convenient last second escape for Charlotte who came too close to death. The show has usually done a good job to avoid clichés, so it's disappointing to see a few big ones in this episode, including the Angela death scene. Once again Ford's motives are extremely murky and that frustrates me. He would be even more fascinating as a character if we understood what he was doing, but the show continues to force him to be mysterious and creepy. Honestly, Anthony Hopkins' terrific performance is probably the only reason I think Ford is an asset to the series. If not for that, he would be a liability with his confusing motives and ideals which only take away from the story. I hope to learn more about his goals soon and I hope that his motives aren't saved for shock value like last season. There were a few flaws in the Maeve/William confrontation. For one, it's really hard to buy William surviving his wounds. But if he dies now, it will feel really unsatisfying, so the writers have put themselves in a hole. I also didn't like the use of flashbacks to remind us of William and Maeve's history. We can understand the weight of the moment just fine without the flashback. The Unknown: What are Strand's objectives? What does he plan to do with Stubbs and Bernard? What is the significance of the multiple Bernards? Will that come into play later? Could the present Bernard be different from the future one? Where did Dolores leave the control unit? Is it really in the valley beyond or was Bernard lying? Speaking of which, what is the valley beyond? Where is it and what is the purpose of it? Where were Hector, Felix, Sylvester and Armistice in this episode? Will William survive his wounds? Will Emily find him? What is his next move? Best Moment: The confrontation between Maeve and William was tense, exciting and cathartic. I think it was the best executed part of this episode Character of the Episode: Maeve. Conclusion: This episode was exciting and packed with action, but a lot of flaws prevent this from being amongst the very best quality Westworld has ever produced. But this episode is still very good and delivered on my expectations. Score: 66 Summary: William and Emily talk and Emily reveals she wants him to come home and not die. William leaves her in the night. Maeve leaves Shogun World but Akane and the others choose to stay. She meets her daughter but finds that she has a replacement mother. Teddy has turned into a ruthless killer and Dolores ha regrets. Bernard and Elsie go to the cradle which is where all of the data is kept. Bernard enters it and finds Ford.
The Good: The William and Emily (I don't know if it's Emily or Grace, but for now I'm going with Emily) story was really well done. I have been largely uninterested with William once more being on a lone journey to discover the answers to a mysterious puzzle, but this gave the storyline the shot in the arm it needed. With William's family matters being explored through Emily's return, it adds a fresh new aspect to William, giving his arc more resonance and emotion. After all of the examination that the show has done for William, I genuinely care about what happens to him, so adding an emotional edge is very smart. Furthermore, Emily comes off really well as her desire to live out life with her only remaining family is a very easy to understand motivation. Her character can neatly be built around this relationship with William and I'm excited to see more from them. The Maeve storyline had some good moments despite it being disappointing overall (see: The Bad). The moment where Maeve saw her daughter again was cathartic and equally tragic when we see that there is another host as her mother. It's heartbreaking and also makes perfect sense, which really highlights how Maeve took everything for granted and assumed that she could just do whatever she wanted. It's a fitting wake-up call which obviously had a huge impact on Maeve who wasn't expecting her daughter to no longer love her. While I wish we spent more time on that (again see: The Bad), the overall story had a good emotional heart to it. I also like the background story of Sizemore wanting to escape his situation while also feeling bad since he has formed something of a bond with Maeve who he now accepts isn't a bad individual and has a human quality about her. Dolores' story with Teddy had a great emotional core too. After the tragedy at the end of last week's episode, Teddy has changed and Dolores is starting to face the consequences of her decision. Now Teddy is much more efficient as a bodyguard, but he is no longer the man he was and he also seems to be rather spiteful about that. Now Dolores can no longer get the small romantic talk she loved and is stuck feeling guilty and perhaps even regretful about what she has done to Teddy. Now it's abundantly clear that Teddy is gone and this new version of him isn't the real Teddy. The most intriguing storyline was once more Bernard's. We still don't quite know what he has been up to and there was a lot more intrigue as he has been getting flashes upon entering the cradle. I have theories (see: The Unknown), but so far it has mostly remained mysterious. However, we seem to be on the verge of getting a truckload of answers as the episode provided a massive reveal at the end. And that reveal is the return of Ford, which I'm very excited about. Ford was the standout of the entire last season, and to see Anthony Hopkins reprise his role is an extremely exciting development. Furthermore, Ford has all of the answers about what Bernard has been doing, so I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say to explain all of the weird things that have been happening. The Bad: I had hoped to get more clarity on what exactly happened to Teddy. Last episode I had assumed he would be completely erased, but that is clearly not the case since Teddy is still conscious and with Dolores' group. I would have appreciated it if the show had actually revealed what would happen to Teddy and what has happened instead of keeping things as a mystery. I hate that there are apparently some Delos employees still alive and around while Westworld is in chaos. How did they survive? How did the hosts let them survive? I wish we had more answers to this. Speaking of answers I wish we had, hat is Dolores hoping to accomplish with the train? What is it going to do, how does she know to do it and what does it accomplish for her? Without knowing the answers to these questions, the moment loses all significance and value. Maeve's storyline was very flawed, in particular the closure to Shogun World. While it was a fun detour, the problem is that it was a detour. That means that it had no actual value to the story and is nothing more than filler. The only thing that the story accomplished was that it showed Maeve to have some sympathy, but that seems like something that could have been accomplished in 5-10 minutes, not in an hour-long side story. Without Shogun World having any relevance, it feels like a waste of time and I'm left questioning its inclusion in the story. Furthermore, the Maeve story is hurt by its need to rush a lot of stuff into a single episode. This episode had a sword duel, the closure for Akane's character, Maeve's group leaving Shogun World, Maeve meeting her daughter, Ghost Nation attacking and Sizemore contemplating calling for help before actually doing it. It's an overwhelming amount of developments, and the sheer number of developments means that the episode isn't able to focus on its more powerful moments like Maeve realizing her daughter has a new life. The arrival of Ghost Nation actually ruins the moment and all of its resonance which is really annoying. In the end, the flaw in the Maeve story highlights my biggest qualm with this episode. It's too cluttered with far too many storylines and no clear focus. The two best episodes in this season so far have been the ones which focused specifically on a single plot point, and that isn't a coincidence. Without any real focus, episodes like these fail to hit as hard as others, making them feel pretty disappointing overall. The Unknown: What was that test in the opening scene? Is Bernard the same sort of host that Delos was? Did Ford actually end up perfecting the hosts made from consciousness? What was the significance of Akane taking Sakura's heart? Also, what was with the heart? Does it have a specific role in hosts or is it just there to add to realism? Is Emily actually there or is she part of Ford's game? I noticed William messing up a detail about his past regarding the elephants, and while it's possible that was used to develop that William has forgotten his family life, I suspect that it was William testing to see if Emily was a host. I wonder if Emily is the one who is meant to lead William to the door which could perhaps be the door out of Westworld and into the real world. What is the role of Ghost Nation? Clearly they are important since they are appearing very frequently. What was the purpose of the train explosion? Was that Dolores breaking out of Westworld? Will it help her find her father? Does it mean she is coming for Charlotte's group? What will Bernard learn from Ford in the cradle? What else can be found in there? Best Moment: While I'm tempted to pick Ford's reveal, I'll go with Emily and William's conversation. I bought into the story completely after that and I'm now invested in their relationship which has genuine stakes to it. Character of the Episode: Ford for returning. Conclusion: This episode had a lot to it and several things worked, but it was too cluttered and messy to truly succeed, making this one of the least satisfying instalments so far. Score: 58 Summary: Teddy and Dolores talk and Dolores realizes that Teddy is too soft to survive so she has him wiped. Maeve's group is captured by hosts from Shogun World who have the same characters as them since Sizemore was a lazy programmer. The Shogun wants to take Sakura, a geisha but Akane doesn't let her go and kills the messenger. Maeve offers to help the group escape while also hoping to escape herself. Sakura is kidnapped by the Shogun so they take a detour to save her. The Shogun kills Sakura so Akane kills him. Maeve discovers that she can command hosts using just her mind and has all of the samurai kill each other.
The Good: The introduction to Shogun World was awesome, and recaptured the wonderful feeling that was present in "The Original" when we first saw Westworld. It was a lovely adventure to see the style, characters and locations in the world, and the modified soundtrack beautifully suited this new world and added a lot through some lovely melodies. I thought that the setting and atmosphere was impressive as always and I really enjoyed getting to see this new world. I love how certain characters were copied for Shogun World. It allowed for some interesting interactions and also let the characters have some very unique bonds as they realized that they were essentially making friends with themselves. Maeve and Akane's relationship in particular felt very fresh and well-developed, also allowing Maeve to develop more of a sympathetic heart for Akane as she displayed that same motherly love that Maeve has for her own daughter. Also the simple concept that Sizemore would be lazy enough to rehash entire storylines feels really corporate and real, and it also provides a really good laugh. Speaking of laughs, this was the funniest episode of Westworld yet with a lot of nice humorous moments amidst all the violence. Most of that is thanks to Sizemore who is doing a tremendous job of comic relief. I also really appreciate that the show is taking the time to develop relationships and have comic relief characters. Conventions aren't always bad, and in this case it actually aids the show since it's no longer spending time being mysterious and confusing. The straight-forward nature of this episode also helped with that. I really enjoyed the action scenes too. With the action scenes being very clear on who the good and bad guys are, they are much more exciting than previous ones, and are aided even more by the fact that characters we care about are involved in them. This was the most I've been entertained by Westworld action scenes. I also love that the show continues to explore the idea of if these hosts finding consciousness makes them any more real than before. Sizemore believes them to still be just code while Maeve tries to convince him against that. The conversation as fascinating and did a great job of continuing to get us to think about the realities of this world and how real the hosts actually are. The climax of the episode was fantastic too. Sakura's death was surprising but it also built up nicely to the satisfying moment of Akane killing the Shogun, which mirrored all of the moments that Maeve had where she finally stood up for herself and killed her enemies. The Shogun's death was a really satisfying moment too and was fittingly gruesome and violent. Of course the conclusion with Maeve getting a hold of her new powers was executed well too and makes me eager to see what happens next. Finally we go to Dolores and Teddy's storyline which was surprisingly touching The one thing which the show has been consistent with is the romance between Dolores and Teddy, which makes their "break-up" all the more impactful and genuinely meaningful. It's sad that Teddy had to go through this, especially since we know his ultimate fate is in the ocean full of dead hosts. The Bad: Sizemore saying something along the lines of "that's not supposed to happen" has become a cliché because of this episode alone. It got really old as he said it over and over again. Unfortunately the Maeve storyline doesn't feel very important. The show has a much bigger scope than just Maeve and her group, so it's disappointing to not get any focus on the bigger scheme of things and instead spend an entire episode with Maeve. While I did enjoy it, it just didn't feel like as big of a deal as it should have so I wasn't hooked as much as I could have been. The Unknown: How were the hosts wiped in the future? Who did that? Was it Bernard who did that? Why? How did Maeve get this new power? Did she always have it? How does it work? Does it have any limits? What will Sizemore do with his walkie? I feel like the walkie may be the kind of risk which will lead to his death. How is Shogun World non-fatal? I understand that in Westworld the guns can't hurt guests, but how does that work with swords and arrows? Best Moment: The conversation between Sizemore and Maeve was excellent. Character of the Episode: Maeve. Conclusion: This was a really fun episode which was easier to follow and enjoy than pretty much every other episode of Westworld. Though it only focused on one storyline and didn't advance the overall story, I enjoyed this. Score: 65 Summary: In the past, Delos works towards making an eternal-living host for Jim Delos and William is in charge, but the process isn't going smoothly as Delos' mind is rejecting his new body. The process goes on for several decades without success and William eventually abandons the project. In the present, William and Lawrence run into a group of hosts who capture them. William kills everyone and breaks free before running into his daughter. Bernard is taken to Elsie and they find a facility. Inside the facility they find what remains of Delos and put him out of his misery.
The Good: This was a very good episode, one of the best in the whole series. It shouldn't be a surprise that when you take away pointless confusion and mystery and provide an easy-to-follow narrative with legitimate resonance it improves the quality of the story begin told. That is exactly what happened here, as the episode focused on 3 stories with actual relevance and focus which were easy to follow and understand. The first story is the one in flashbacks and I think it is the most powerful and thought-provoking one. In this storyline we get to see Mr. Delos on his quest for immortality, which is surely what William had tempted him with back in "Reunion". Delos has become a host and William is the one who is working to turn him into a fully-working and immortal being. I really love the way that these scenes were executed. At first there is no background on the story whatsoever as we get a Lost-esque sequence of Delos staying in his chamber until he is visited by William. We learn a few things here and there are several clues of things not being what they seem with Delos exhibiting some strange ticks. Clearly he is either sick in some way or is a host. The scene is executed wonderfully, highlighting some important clues and bits of information and the following two scenes do a terrific job of explaining everything and bringing very real emotional stakes to the episode. The emotion was brought on by our perception of Delos' situation. It is especially poignant with William's final visit as we understand just how long Delos has been waiting to go free. Even though he seems to be a bad person, our natural instinct wants to see him be free from confinement and to overcome his shackles and bugs. But that never happens and we instead bear witness as William, obviously turned cold, tears him apart metaphorically and reveals to him that his entire family has died while he awaits his return to the world. It's a sad scene and a fantastic examination of men's fears of death and their ability to overcome it; a prevalent theme in this episode. Furthermore, the storyline is aided by some terrific acting by Peter Mullan, who brings Delos' personality to life and delivers an absolute cracker of a performance to make us sympathize with this "piece of shit" as William describes him. Speaking of William, I love what has been done with his character. Last season his transformation was very abrupt, but this season is thankfully allowing us to understand him more. Instead of being a murderous psycho, we can now understand him a little more as we see his goals and relationship with Delos. This aids his current storyline as William doesn't seem quite so empty anymore, and we can now understand his aspirations to discover more about himself and the world, something which has always fueled his character that we can now understand more than ever. While his storyline has flaws (see: The Bad), it is fairly entertaining and has a nice twist at the end. The final storyline is with Bernard and Elsie and I think that works very nicely. I'm enjoying the dynamic of their relationship and I think that the show should keep focus on them to add some development. Their relationship has a neat and fresh feeling as we get to follow Elsie getting used to the fact that Bernard is a host, completely changing how their relationship was in the last season. I really enjoyed seeing them work their way through the facility as the mystery continued to expand about what was really happening. Bernard's flashbacks are also very interesting and were shot superbly with glorious transitions and angles. The cinematography in this episode was truly special and I believe that this is by far the best-looking episode of Westworld yet. The climax of the episode where we got to see current-day Delos was fantastic. The scene was shot like an exciting high-budget horror film and had genuine tension to it, while also serving as a sad reveal of what Delos' fate was. I was impressed with the final monologue from Delos as well. I'm not yet sure what to make of his final lines, but they will surely be fascinating to try to analyze to decipher what point Delos is trying to make. The Bad: The present-William storyline is still tough to get into because it feels too familiar and generic. There hasn't been much change to how his storyline works with some fun action, but there is hardly anything fascinating with these scenes anymore. While there is thankfully more tension since William can actually die and get hurt now, it's still hard to care much for these scenes with many more interesting storylines going on around the park. The Unknown: What disease killed Mr. Delos? Could it be returning soon? Also has Delos, the company, tried to make any other people immortal? Could Mr. Delos have just been a prototype? The lab he was in had a 12 on the door. Does that mean there are many more of these? Could Mr. Delos not have been he first attempt at doing this? What are the memories that Bernard had? Why did he kill everything in the facility? What was his role in what was being done to Delos? Was he aware? How can he control the drone hosts? What was he creating in that facility? Is Ford's influence still controlling everything? Did Ford have Clementine bring Bernard to Elsie? What is his end goal for William? What does he mean by saying that forward is the wrong direction? How is Emily in the park? How long has se gone there? What is her relationship with William like? W are the Ghost Nation's motives? Do they protect humans? They seem to capture them and let them go. Are they under Ford's orders? Or somebody else's? Best Moment: William revealing to Delos that his old life is gone and that he is better off dead is a very sad and powerful moment. Quite possibly my favourite Westworld scene so far. Character of the Episode: Delos. Conclusion: This was a great episode which was much more organized than most episodes. There were satisfying answers and powerful storytelling, making this one of the show's best instalments. Score: 68 Summary: In flashforwards, Strand takes Bernard to meet Charlotte who is impressed that he made it out alive. In the present, Bernard and Charlotte locate Abernathy but he's captured by Dolores along with Bernard. Dolores assigns Bernard to fix Abernathy. Dolores camp is attacked by Delos as they are led by Charlotte and they capture Abernathy. Bernard is taken away by Clementine. Maeve's group enters the underground of Westworld and reunite with Armistice, Felix and Sylvester before heading towards Shogun World. A girl meets a guy in a colonial India theme park but the guy is killed when the hosts turn on the guests. The girl is chased to Westworld by a tiger.
The Good: This episode was carried by the fact that it introduced two new parks at the beginning and end. The opening sequence in particular which introduced us to a sort of Colonial Indian world was fantastic and immediately got me invested in the new park as well as the characters introduced. I like the exploration of the idea that both of the guests we see are bored of getting something pre-determined with hosts and are now longing for something real after spending so much time in the park. It's a really cool idea and I really hope that it gets explored more in future episodes. I believe that "The Dorr" which Ford mentioned to William may actually allow William to realize the value of the real world around him instead and free him from the park. That would be a great story to watch unfold and would continue to explore this powerful new theme. The rest of the opening sequence was great too. It was great to see some different scenery for once and the cinematography was top-notch as usual, making the world seem unique and real. I also loved that we got a proper look at the park boundaries between Westworld and the Indian world, and interestingly the bomb didn't seem to trigger when the tiger escaped the park (see: The Unknown). I still do appreciate that we have been given some clarity on how the multiple parks will operate as that will definitely help me stay more in touch with the storylines which involve multiple parks. I did like seeing Dolores gear up for war as it made me feel like I was watching something like "Lord of the Rings" or "Game of Thrones" for a moment which is a very good thing. While I did have some big problems (see: The Bad), I thought the actual battle was fun and it was shot well to encapsulate the struggle without using up too much of a budget. The star of this episode was undoubtedly Peter Abernathy who returned with some great acting from Louis Herthum. I thought that his scene with Dolores were great and were surprisingly touching. The thought of Dolores still loving Abernathy despite knowing he is fake because he is all she knows is touching and it allows me to buy into their relationship. Because of this, their scenes had some genuine impact and I could properly buy into Dolores wanting Bernard to fix Abernathy no matter what so that she could have her father back. I thought the Maeve scenes were pretty good too for the most part. I'm very happy tat Maeve and Hector are being given a developing relationship and Sizemore's reaction to it was very well done and properly conveyed the confusion he would feel once he realizes that these hosts are actually becoming conscious. I do like the twist that Hector is still using his built-in lines to describe his love as it continues to blur the lines between a host being fully-conscious and semi-conscious. I'm intrigued to see if there are any other paths in the maze that Westworld has yet to explore. Lastly, I was glad to see Felix and Sylvester return to the show. There needs to be more humans in this show for us to bounce off of. I thought the final reveal of Shogun World was great and it gets me excited to see what comes next. The Bad: I didn't like the scene in the future with Bernard and Strand. It was inoffensive as a scene and gave some interesting tidbits, but I think it's ultimately unnecessary. The story would be better off without these flashes to the future and I would prefer if we just see how things play out and resume with future Bernard once the story catches up. I enjoyed the action sequences but they really lacked any semblance of logic. We just learned that Delos isn't going to interfere until Abernathy is given to them. Yet Charlotte just talks to them quickly and all of a sudden they send all of their guys out which is really contradictory. I also didn't like how they seemed to know exactly where Abernathy was to the room, and just casually walked in to get him. If they can track him, why didn't they pick him up way earlier? Dolores is already beginning to seem inconsistent as a character. I thought her goal was domination with a host army, yet here she just sends hosts to their deaths because apparently not all of them are good enough? What? That makes no sense. How cans he choose which hosts are good enough? Why does it matter anyways? This development feels really forced and contrived, as it would make much more sense for Dolores to recruit and value her host army instead of sending them to their deaths. Additionally I find it hard to really buy into Teddy's merciful nature as something significant as it feels forced into every scene he is in. The Unknown: How was Colonial world affected by the uprising? Was it the same across all of the parks? What happened to the bomb inside the tiger? Why didn't it go off? Did Ford disable them before he died or something like that? Who is the new character from the Indian world? What will she do in the story? How is she going to get away from the Ghost Nation people? Where has Abernathy been taken? How did he end up getting away between now and the future we have seen? What is Bernard's role in this? What did he see when he explored Abernathy? Did he download whatever it was that Charlotte had inside of him? Does he have it now? What does Dolores want in Sweetwater? What does Clementine want from Bernard? Some interesting motives here. Best Moment: Dolores and Abernathy speaking to each other was genuinely touching and I think it was the most powerful this show has gotten so far. Character of the Episode: Abernathy. Conclusion: This episode had an outstanding opening scene and one really powerful moment, making it one of the better episodes so far. Unfortunately there were some large flaws in the writing here, but this certainly did more good than it did bad. Score: 63 Summary: In flashbacks, Arnold takes Dolores out to see the real world. Sometime later, Logan is contacted for an investment in Westworld and is taken to a demo in the real world where hosts are performing. He is blown away and wants to invest. Even later, William convinces Logan's father to invest in Westworld as it provides guests with the ability to find themselves. In the present, Dolores recruits an army of hosts and gets an employee who is able to bring back hosts whenever it is needed. William recruits Lawrence again and tries to get El Lazo's army, but Ford doesn't allow it and the army executes itself.
The Good: After 12 episodes we are finally given a few glimpses of the outside world and it's really satisfying. One of the biggest questions which I never asked myself was "are the hosts only allowed to be in Westworld?" Here I got a clear answer as we get the reveal in this episode's opening scene that Dolores has been taken outside of the park before and has seen the outside world. This adds a lot of interesting implications to the show and opens the doors wide for directions that the show could go in. It feels like this episode ripped off all of the show's shackles and that is a really satisfying feeling especially for those who love the puzzlebox way that this show works. Without using the meaningless "surprise!" tactics from last season, Westworld has provided an exciting twist which has successfully excited me. The scenes in the real world were very good. Logan walking into the host party was really well done and did a tremendous job of selling why Westworld was such a big hit. Logan's shock and awe as he slowly realized that everybody was a host made me buy into the fact that Logan believed in this park to be the future. The scene itself was well executed and well acted and was very impressive. I also enjoyed how this tied into why William thought Westworld would be a great investment. Logan was in awe at the basic concept of hosts, but William wasn't. Instead William was appreciative of how the park let him discover who he really is and was allured by its charm because of that. It's a great way to highlight the differences between both characters. I also like how this ties in with Sizemore's narrative which he proposed last season, hinting that the idea that Westworld allows you to find your true self was actually created by William. The present storylines were pretty good too. I enjoyed Dolores' confrontation with Maeve quite a bit. It's interesting that they both have a protector and a human to help them out and it raises a few questions. The scene was tense and exciting since we haven't seen those 2 interact before in the show to my recollection. The rest of Dolores' storyline did a great job of illustrating her as a threat especially since she has seemingly discovered a way to make an invincible army now that she has a human who can revive everyone whenever she needs him to. The Man in Black's storyline was fine too. There was some fun action and an awesome cameo from Giancarlo Esposito which was easily one of the episode's highlights. He is such a charismatic actor and I was genuinely surprised to see him. El Lazo's hosts all killing themselves on Ford's orders was an interesting moment which I definitely have more to talk about (see: The Unknown). The Bad: The show is still very messy. Even though the show is much easier to follow now as it jumps through time, I have to question what the significance is. I enjoyed seeing some backstory on Westworld, but why do we need the backstory? I feel like it's no going to play as important of a role as it should, just like the young William story in season 1 which pretty much only existed for the Man in Black reveal at the end. With so few storylines flowing together cohesively, the show isn't as engaging as it should be. I feel like the story as a whole would be much better if told in chronological order to some extent without jumping all over the place. Maybe then the show would engage my emotions. Episodes like these are what make Westworld somewhat disappointing. There wasn't anything bad in particular about this but it was horribly average and it felt too much like pieces being moved around without any satisfaction. TV shows are wonderful because of the self-contained stories which are told in each episode. Westworld doesn't adhere to that and instead attempts to make each episode like a piece in a puzzle. It makes sense and the writing is good, but it lacks any kind of memorability and I'll forget about these episodes very quickly. The Unknown: How many hosts have been brought into the real world? Where do they exist int he real world? Are there still some out there which have been stationed by Delos? Has Dolores ever been outside any other time than the one we saw in this episode? What does she remember from those experiences? How will her memories impact the story? What are Delos' motives? Is there some sort of master plan in place created by Logan's father? I'm very interested to learn more about this. Also how did William factor into all of this? He clearly seems to have been much more involved than expected. How is Ford able to control hosts? Is he still alive in some form somewhere? How? Where? How can he follow William through the park? Why doesn't he want William to raise an army? What is the end goal? Best Moment: I'll pick young William talking to Dolores about his past experience in the park. It was a great moment of character reflection. Character of the Episode: William. Conclusion: This was another solid episode which had some very welcome developments but also ramped up the incoherent storylines by jumping through time. The show remains fine but is still missing a big spark. Score: 60 Summary: Bernard wakes up in the future, 2 weeks after the gala. Delos higher-ups have arrived. They discover a new sea which wasn't there before with tons of dead hosts. Back to the present, Bernard and Charlotte escape the gala. Bernard is losing brain fluid but manages to keep his identity as a host secret. Charlotte prepares to retrieve Peter Abernathy since Delos is interested in him. Dolores and Teddy continue murdering humans. William meets young Ford who tells him the game is for him now. Maeve picks up Sizemore who decides to help Maeve go to her daughter.
The Good: This was a very solid premiere. It wasn't bogged down by pointless mystery and confusion and was able to focus on the story instead. That's a big improvement on season 1, where the convoluted storytelling took away a lot of enjoyment from the show. Hopefully this season doesn't get confusing in future episodes and keeps this current format of several stories occurring simultaneously with different characters. I really hope that we don't get more flashforwards to Bernard after this episode. If all this is kept the same, this could definitely become a show I can get behind. I'll tackle the future scenes first. I really liked the focus on Delos stepping in to help settle the mass murder, after all it is in their best interests that the hosts don't spiral out of control. The new character Strand has intrigued me and I'm very excited to learn more about him and what his motives are. I just hope that his true motives aren't kept hidden like Ford's in the last season. The season is implying that it will look more into how hosts function, which is very welcome by me. I am a sucker for sci-fi robot stories and androids, so this excites me and hooks me with a tease of full answers about how these hosts function. The host murder scenes were pretty great and suitably brutal. They were as terrifying as they needed to be and did a great job of conveying the tables turned in favour of the hosts. Dolores' intense joy in killing and torturing the humans is great to watch and Evan Rachel Wood does a superb job. The one storyline which I thought worked more than any others was the Maeve story. She gets to connect with Sizemore and it works really well since these are 2 characters who have extremely clear motives and characters. They are easy to understand and that improves the show a lot. It's almost as if making everything a surprise actually isn't as good as simple storytelling. That's sarcasm. Anyways, their dynamic together is very good and they shared a lot of great dialogue and had some great humour. This storyline is easily the one I'm most invested in and I'm excited to see their relationship expand and to see where Maeve's motives take her. The Bad: Skipping the immediate aftermath and massacre after the gala was disappointing especially after the cliffhanger we got. It felt anticlimactic and I think it would have been more effective to put over the brutality of the hosts by showing the full massacre which occurred everywhere. Bernard's character is difficult to fully understand right now. He is likeable but his sudden apparent mind for peace is a little forced and takes things away from what he's doing. While he is the character I'm most interested to see in this season, his actual personality doesn't feel clearly defined which hurts my ability to sympathize with him and understand him. Hopefully this can be cleared up in the following episode. The death of the stable hand seemed to be written as an emotional moment which I really can't understand at all. The hosts just murdered people in cold blood and they have died hundreds of times, so what does it matter if he was killed? The tone felt awkward there and it felt like the show was trying too hard to be emotionally powerful. The William storyline didn't excite me in this episode which is disappointing. Initially it was pretty fun but now it looks like it's going to be exactly like the last season. Ford has a game for him to play and discover only this time it's meant for him. This is not new and it unfortunately seems like the writers don't know what to do with William's character now. I mentioned the show trying to be emotionally powerful earlier, and I feel that it still hasn't really learned from last season's inefficiencies. I want this show to develop its characters more, but it doesn't exactly seem to be interested in doing too much of that. This season unfortunately seems to be setting up for more twists and mysteries, despite that not being nearly as enjoyable as character development and powerful moments. The Unknown: Where is future Bernard in the park? What has he seen in the past before then? Apparently he killed everyone, so how did that happen? Did he actually do it? Where did the sea come from? Why was a tiger in it? There are lots of good questions raised here which do a great job of hooking us into the second season. How did Stubbs survive? What happened to him when he was captured? Will we ever see it? What is with Charlotte's safe zone? Who else knew about it? What are her motives and goals? Is she working for Delos or somebody else? Does she know Bernard's secret? Why are Delos getting DNA samples from guests? What are they planning to do with them? How will that come into play later? Bernard apparently is on the verge of terminal malfunction after he got shot in the head. What happens during terminal malfunction? How did he stop it from happening? Was it brain fluid being injected into him which fixed it? Why do Delos want Peter Abernathy and not somebody like Maeve? What is significant about him? Where is he anyways? I was ecstatic when Ford returned as the kid but was equally disappointed when he was sot by William. Is Ford really gone then? I hope not. What is the door he was talking about? What is Dolores going to show Teddy? What are the drone hosts? What are they for and what do they do? Best Moment: Not much stood out much, but I'll go with Dolores talking to Teddy about what she wants. It's good that the show has clarified what Dolores' motives are and what she wants to accomplish. Character of the Episode: I'll give this one to Maeve. Conclusion: This was a solid return for Westworld which fixed some of the shows problems but not all of them. I'm excited to see more of the season and hopefully it can provide something more compelling than season 1. Score: 62 Summary: The Man in Black reveals to Dolores that he is William. Dolores finally gains true consciousness like Arnold had hoped. It's revealed that the maze was Arnold's revised idea of how to achieve consciousness for the hosts. It's also revealed that Teddy and Dolores' shootings in Escalante are the same incident as Dolores is actually Wyatt. Maeve, Hector and Armistice make their escape. Only Maeve makes it to the train but she decides not to leave to find her daughter. Ford unveils his new narrative which features Dolores killing him before killing everyone else as all the other hosts arrive to wreak havoc.
The Good: This was a great season finale, and was Westworld's best episode since its pilot. The season has been really hurt by convoluted storylines and unclear characters, so it's no surprise that the show excels when the plot is finally made clear and characters well-defined at last. This was a very lengthy episode with an absolute ton of stuff which I enjoyed to talk about. I'm going to tackle everything at random because formatting this is going to be a real effort. The Teddy storyline early on was well done. I really liked that we had a brief pay-off with the man who always bumps into Teddy as he kills him out of reflex after experiencing memory flashes. I also like how it helped to tie into the reveals going on in the Dolores storyline while also establishing that Teddy is approaching true consciousness along with all the other hosts. Next I'll focus on the huge answers we got for the maze and Arnold. I thought the entire sequence when we learned about the maze was beautifully executed and provided us with very easy-to-follow exposition. I thought the actual answer that the maze was Arnold's revised pathway to consciousness was an immensely satisfying answer to the big question and it really fits in with the show thematically. Arnold's scenes with Dolores in the past regarding the maze were excellent as we got to really understand Arnold as a character when we see how he desperately wants Dolores to gain consciousness and to be real. I feel that this episode did an absolute ton to make us understand and care about the struggle Arnold went through, so we could actually understand why he wouldn't want the park to open and why he was so hell-bent on getting the hosts to consciousness. As for the other big reveal regarding William, I thought it was handled very well. I did predict it, but I still thought it was a great reveal and it definitely helped make me care about William much more now that he is both William and the Man in Black, two characters who I sort of halfway understood. With both characters being one, it gives William much more depth so I can understand him much better than I did before. Now regarding Dolores, I do like how they gave us a reason to care for her at last. Arnold did explain how suffering is what makes a human, and her suffering here finally awakens her consciousness. It also allows me to finally care about her character who seemed pretty average for the entire season. Evan Rachel Wood has put in a hell of a performance and it felt like a shame for her character to be rather bland. However, things finally came together in this episode for her. The explanation for Dolores' weird flashes was also great as she was apparently going back on the trek she went on with William while tragically imagining that she was back with him again. It's pretty tragic and does a lot to help us care for Dolores. We also got an explanation for the gun we saw her with before, as it apparently was the same gun she used to kill Arnold. The Maeve storyline was pretty god with some nice twists and turns. The return of Bernard was great and I'm more than happy to see that he is still alive. But more importantly, the reveal that everything Maeve has done so far was programmed is pretty big. Apparently Ford wanted Maeve to escape Westworld herself to get to the real world. However, this twist wasn't just meaningless as it made the big moment where Maeve goes back for her daughter more significant, as this is now officially her first move where she went against her code. It was great to get more motives for William to get a better idea of his character. Apparently he is looking for a real game to play with real stakes, which is good to know. It makes perfect sense and fits in with the character of William both in the past and present. The unveiling of the final narrative by Ford was great. He delivered a really dramatic speech and his death scene was picture perfect and fit in completely with his character. I like that we finally understood what his goal was here, as he revealed that he is now correcting his mistake and is now going to finally complete Arnold's wishes for the hosts to achieve true consciousness. The Bad: Once more, the Westworld staff are hopelessly incompetent. The fact that people can just change core host code with nobody noticing is a critical oversight. Additionally, having the core staff get locked down in the main room with no power is incredibly stupid has no realistic sense to it. And furthermore, nobody is watching any of the workers to make sure they aren't doing anything wrong which is just plain stupid. The stupidity of the Westworld staff is easily the weakest part of this show. The show still had serious emotional problems here, notably with Maeve. We don't know enough about Maeve's relationship with her daughter, so I really can't buy into her decision to stay for her daughter. Furthermore, I think the entire season lost emotional attachment because of the show's desire to keep everything a surprise. Had we known about Arnold, understood that the MiB and William are one and the same, and also understood Ford's motives, I believe that the show would have been much better and more engaging. The Unknown: Was Dolores modelled after somebody in Arnold's life? What was with the dog in Teddy's flash? Does it have importance in the story? What is the real world? We know that Westworld is in the future, but how is everything outside of it in the future? Did William kill Logan somehow? Was it the host's bomb when it left the park? How would the Westworld staff just let that happen and how would they not get sued? Or is Logan still alive somehow? Why did Ford want to send Maeve to the mainland? Also, considering the term mainland, does that mean Westworld is on an artificial island or something? There were samurai training during Maeve's escape with the logo of SW. Is there a Samurai World which will be explored next season? Is Ford truly dead? Or was that a fake version of him or something along those lines? What will Armistice do next now that she escaped the door? Could she leave the park in Maeve's place? Best Moment: The final speech by Ford followed by Dolores killing all while the host army arrives was the perfect note to end this season. Character of the Episode: I'll give this one to Ford for once more being amazing, though Dolores is a close second. Conclusion: This was a very good finale with plenty of great moments and a lot of pay-off. It delivered on all of my expectations and provided us with the most emotion and spectacle since the first episode. As for the season as a whole, I thought it was enjoyable but had an absolute ton of wasted potential. After the great pilot, I would have hoped for a much better series with exciting moments and genuine emotion at seeing the hosts start acting out. Unfortunately, the show was clogged up by an endlessly confusing plot which completely took away from any possible emotional attachment. And yet, the show's biggest weakness was also its biggest strength, as it was very unique fun to try and piece together exactly what was going on in this show. Being unique is one thing this show definitely did, as watching it felt different from every other show on television, which I think is why it is a show that is worth watching, whether you enjoy it or not. It tried something new and while it didn't completely succeed, it was still something different. As for season 2, I'm not sure how to feel about it. It would be a pain to get yet another season of confusion, and I don't see that happening, but I have to wonder how the writers are going to make up for losing the entire confusion aspect of the show and I have to question if they are actually capable of writing a proper story. I do hope they are because we could get something special next season. This entire season almost feels like an extended prologue, and I'm interested to see which direction the main story goes from here. Score: 69 Summary: Bernard inspects Maeve but Maeve controls him and tells him to find the truth. Maeve finds Hector and recruits him for her escape. Logan exposes that Dolores is a robot to William but Dolores fights back and escapes. William pretends to be back to Logan's side but when Logan sleeps, William kills all of his men. Teddy is killed by the girl host who reveals to be semi-conscious at least. The Man in Black is let go and meets Dolores. Ford is confronted by Bernard who wants the truth. HE learns that he was modelled to be an exact replica of the dead Arnold. Ford takes control of the situation however and has Bernard kill himself.
The Good: The answers continue to flow at a consistent and immensely satisfying place. This episode gave us some really great reveals which helped make the story a little more clear, while edging us closer and closer to having an idea of the complete story of Westworld, which will hopefully be revealed to us in the finale. One of these great reveals was the reveal that Bernard was created in the image of Arnold. I know a lot of people had theorized about this, but this reveal caught me by surprise which made me appreciate it even more. It answers some big questions about why Bernard was talking to Dolores, as it instead seems that it was Arnold talking to her. This also all but confirms the multiple timeline theory I had thought up a while ago, and I even have some new parts to that theory which I will discuss below (see: The Unknown). The actual scenes between Ford and Bernard were great as well. It's interesting to see that Maeve had a full effect on Bernard to force him to have a desire for the complete truth from Ford. The confrontation itself was very tense since we were led to believe that Ford was being pressured by Bernard, which made it all the more impactful when Ford turned the tables back around. Of course the performances of Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Hopkins were sublime as usual. The scenes with William, Logan and Dolores were very good as well. William and Logan haven't been particularly likeable thus far, but their stories and characters were clearly defined here, making their conflict make sense throughout. I was decently engaged throughout their story. Maeve recruiting Hector was a nice scene too which I thought was nicely written and executed. The Maeve storyline has done a good job of making me slowly care for the hosts and almost hope for them to escape or turn the tables on the humans. The Bad: The trap for the Man in Black seemed ridiculous. Again, how the hell are the hosts allowed to set up a literal death trap without anybody doing anything? Sure, they sent Charlotte to help, but shouldn't it be completely against protocol to have death as a possibility in Westworld? Also shouldn't the staff notice that the hosts under Wyatt's control are conscious in some ways? The same problems with emotion still exist, but I suppose that can't be helped when the show is two episodes away from the finale. I've accepted it as one of the show's flaws at this point. The Unknown: How was Dolores able to hurt Logan? How did that happen? What happened to Dolores' wound? Or is there yet another Dolores timeline? What were with Teddy's memories with Wyatt? They were at the same town as Dolores' flash in the last episode. Could those two stories be linked? Also where is Wyatt? The girl said he was gone. And how does the girl seem to remember things? Also, Wyatt's guys didn't react to Stubbs telling them to freeze motor functions. How does that work? Did Ford program them that way or something? So Charlotte stills wants to throw out Ford. How does she know the Man in Black? Do they have similar agendas of sorts? Why was Elsie's signal way out there? Did Stubbs get killed? So apparently Dolores killed Arnold. How? Why? Why wasn't she deactivated for it? Okay so here is my big theory about the timelines. I'm thinking that the Man in Black is the same person as William for a number of reasons. For one, we know that the Man in Black is from at least 30 years after Westworld was created and that he basically kept the park going. I believe that William took control of Logan's company and helped keep the park afloat. And there are a number of details pointing towards this. For one, we see William getting more violent and he says he is learning to play the game, a quote that the Man in Black frequently uses. But more damningly, we see William using the exact same knife that the Man in Black carries with him. Additionally, when Dolores is opened up, she has machinery inside of her. Yet we know from Maeve that the hosts in the present day don't have machinery inside of them, proving that the William and Logan story takes place in the past. Also the end of the episode has Dolores wondering if William has arrived at the church, before the Man in Black arrives and says hello. That seems to be some very well done foreshadowing. I'm sure there are other details I'm missing because this show is fantastically written, but I'm 100% confident in this theory. Best Moment: Nothing in particular stood out, but the reveal of Arnold being Bernard was the most impactful moment for me. Character of the Episode: Bernard/Arnold. Conclusion: This was another strong episode which featured some great answers, though the show still remains mostly incapable of providing true emotions. Still, I enjoyed this episode as the show's convoluted narrative does become clearer with every episode. And I must give some credit to the show for making such a complex story make sense while we watch the show. Score: 64 Summary: Ford has Bernard stage Theresa's death to look like an accident. Ford uses this to expose Theresa as a traitor of sorts and has Bernard reinstated. Charlotte talks to Lee to formulate a new plan. Teddy remembers the Man in Black and turns on him. The Man in Black reveals his past. Dolores and William are found by Logan. Maeve modifies herself to gain control over other hosts but has a flashback and accidentally kills the new Clementine. She is brought in for examination.
The Good: Ford cleaning up after Theresa's death was great. His scene explaining what happened was fantastic as it was him sending a very subtle threat to Charlotte who has every reason to suspect him. This wasn't about Ford not being suspicious though, but rather it was him taunting Charlotte and letting her know to not get in his way. The scene was really fascinating in the way all the Ford scenes have been. Just as good as that scene though, were the 2 scenes between Ford and Bernard. Their dynamic is extremely entertaining and unique since Ford treats him as a real person and almost like a subordinate of his until it is convenient for him to calm Bernard down. Their scenes are fun and the acting is fantastic from both men. It was fantastic to see the Man in Black's history so we can understand him more as a character. It was a great scene where he laid out his backstory while Maeve experienced her flashbacks and I thought the editing and cinematography was excellent in that scene. The Man in Black has been one of the biggest things early in the season that has just provided confusion without much explanation. To finally get his backstory is immensely satisfying and helps me care a little bit more about him as a character. By far the best thing about this episode in my opinion is that it provided a ton of answers, while leaving things vague enough to leave room for a ton of speculation heading into the final 2 episodes of the season. We learned a ton about Maeve's past, the Man in Black, Ford's motives, Dolores' strange flashes and Arnold's role in everything. We also got a truckload of information regarding Dolores and Ford's new narrative (see: The Unknown) which answered a lot and tied together a bunch of plot lines in expert fashion. It was tremendously satisfying, but we still haven't received complete answers for everything. Things are left vague enough for me to anticipate the final 2 episodes which will hopefully fill in the holes. The Bad: I still have massive problems with the Westworld staff. It is incredibly hard to believe that Sylvester and Felix have the skillset to give Maeve what she wants and it's even harder to believe that nobody is noticing or questioning what they are doing. This entire storyline feels incredibly unrealistic because of these constant inconsistencies. I have praised Westworld's writing, but it seems the one thing the writing was shockingly sloppy on was the staff of Westworld and how organized they are. They really just come off as irresponsible and disorganized buffoons that should have no business running a high maintenance park like this one. This also tied in to ruin Maeve's big scene when she manipulates everyone. It was certainly cool to see, but how does nobody notice that she is making hosts go against their script? Are there no staff members watching? And how do they only notice her disturbance when she kills Clementine and nothing else? The Westworld staff problem is severely detracting from my enjoyment of a lot of these scenes. I enjoyed the Man in Black's story but it feels like it came way too late. The show was too concerned with being mysterious and confusing early on, which detracted from my enjoyment. Had we received this information early on, it would have given us a drive to follow the Man in Black's journey and be interested and I think it would have made his scenes much more interesting with better drama. But instead the show waited to tell us this information, and I think if it hadn't, I may have enjoyed some of the earlier episodes much more. The Unknown: Why is it so tough to kill Wyatt's men? Are they hosts created by Ford to be even stronger? A really interesting line comes when Ford reveals that he is aware of other hosts experiencing troubles with memories. Does this mean he orchestrated them? Is he in control of that too? Just how much does Ford have control over? Staying on Ford, what is his new narrative exactly? What does Wyatt have to do with the narrative? And also why did Ford dig up a town for it? Tying into the dug up town is Dolores' storyline. I'm positive that the town she was in is the one Ford unearthed. Why? Because we see that church steeple, which Ford did find several episodes ago. More interestingly though is how this plays into my multiple timelines theory. Apparently Ford has already unearthed the town, yet when Dolores and William find it, it is still buried. Could the William and Dolores storyline take place in the past? And even more interestingly, it seems that there is yet another timeline since the Dolores that was talking to William was also experiencing flashbacks to something else. What is that event? I have no clue, but I'm very excited to find out what it was since apparently Dolores was killing a lot of hosts in that town. And more intriguingly, why was that town buried? Was it because of that incident? Could that incident have something to do with the incident that happened in Westworld before it opened? The answers feel so close yet there are just a couple elusive plot points that are preventing the answers from being clear. So is that Arnold's voice we have heard in Dolores' head? What does Arnold want from her? Stubbs talked to Bernard and got some strange responses about Theresa. Could he potentially figure out that Bernard is a host? Best Moment: The Man in Black revealing his history was a great moment. Character of the Episode: Man in Black. Conclusion: This was a solid episode that answered a lot of questions and provided some welcome backstory, though it is hampered down by the disappointing handling of the Westworld staff. Score: 62 Summary: Charlotte and Theresa work together to expose the hosts as dangerous in an attempt to get rid of Ford. Bernard is fired for his inadequacies. William becomes even more attached to Dolores on the train. They escape from a shootout and start travelling together. Clementine is taken and Maeve discovers that she is being experimented on after Felix shows her where Clementine is. Maeve decides that she needs to leave. Bernard takes Theresa to show her something in Ford's office. Ford reveals that Bernard is a host and that this was a trap orchestrated by Ford. Bernard kills Theresa.
The Good: This was a much better episode. This episode allowed a single storyline to become the primary focus, creating a less messy episode which is notably easier to follow. Furthermore, there was less dependence on mystery and confusion in this episode. The Unknown is notably smaller in this episode and I think that's a very good thing. The mystery was becoming a real chore to follow as it just kept adding on, so to get an instalment focused on giving us some plot movement and answers is a very refreshing change. Hopefully the remaining 3 episodes follow this format, as this is something I would enjoy much more. The standout part of this episode for me was the Bernard twist. I had expected the reveal of somebody to be a host since the first episode, but I was really surprised it was Bernard. I had thought his memories and the call to his wife would have confirmed him to be human, but that all seems to just have been host backstory, which is really interesting. The reveal was brilliantly executed with many moments provided for fans who really pay attention to realize that Bernard is a host. The line of "what door" is a total giveaway that Bernard is a host, since he has been programmed to see some things hidden in plain sight. This also explains how when Bernard went to meet with Ford, Ford seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He simply entered the room through a door Bernard couldn't see. That's really good writing which was so hidden that I didn't even notice it for about 30 seconds or so. And of course, they add confirmation later on in the scene for everyone who may not have picked up on it and it's an equally great reveal as we hear Bernard say the scripted "that doesn't look like anything to me" when facing his own blueprints. The writing was something really special with this reveal and it does raise a lot of questions. I also really enjoyed Ford one-upping Theresa here. Theresa remained confident but Ford calmly and coldly asserted his dominance in a terrific scene, giving Theresa the slow realization that she wasn't long for this world. Anthony Hopkins just brings some wonderful life to Ford and plays his calm evil in such a captivating way that makes him a real joy to watch. Ford seems to be the man behind the curtain for everything in this show and it makes for such a lovely dynamic. Following his speech, Bernard's cold and straightforward murder of Theresa was really well done. Jeffrey Wright played the change in Bernard's demeanor so well to make him feel truly terrifying as he tragically murders the women he loved. Or at least thought he loved, though I'm sure Ford can just as easily erase Bernard's memory of Theresa. I also really liked the early scene with Charlotte proving Ford's hosts to be dangerous after the reverie update. It does help us understand what the exact problem is with the hosts. We have seen the hosts get aggressive and malfunction and now we learn that it's because they remember things. It was great to get confirmation for this and I was happy to see that we got answers during a tense scene that progressed the storyline. It was a relaxingly easy scene to watch where each character's motives were mostly clear. It was established that Charlotte was working with Theresa to attempt to shut down Ford, meanwhile Bernard was caught in the middle of everything and got stuck taking the blame. It was nice and easy to follow and gave more stakes to Ford's killing of Theresa at the end as he was simply taking care of her when she got in his way, just like he said he would back in "Dissonance Theory". Lastly, I am enjoying William's overall story arc. His attachment to Dolores is very uncomfortable and the show is doing a good job of establishing how William got himself in such an awkward situation where he fell in love with a host. The Bad: The dramatic wild west scenes continue to fall flat. They just exist to provide some basic action with zero tension to fill up some time in the episode. The train attack scene in this episode served literally no purpose and I found myself getting quite bored watching the scene, while waiting for more interesting things to happen. Charlotte is an astonishingly boring character. She just got introduced and has done nothing to make me get interested in her or care for her in any way. I really don't care to see more of her and I would be satisfied enough if Ford was to just take care of her as well. We need more explanation on how the employees of Westworld are able to just take Maeve around everywhere. Apparently the higher ups do pay attention so why don't they do anything? Do they just not notice Maeve walking around when she clearly shouldn't be? It's really annoying to have no explanation about who everything works behind the scenes. This has been a problem for several episodes now and it seems that we will never get a concrete answer for this. The biggest problem with this show is that it is completely devoid of emotion. I don't care about any of the characters much for the show to get an emotional reaction for me. All this show is capable of is shock, and that is all I felt during the ending scene with the Bernard twist and his murder of Theresa. Granted the writing was exceptional for this scene, but I didn't feel sympathy for Bernard with the host reveal and I didn't feel much for Theresa as she got killed by her lover. The show is alarmingly low on emotional engagement and that is a big problem which prevents this show from being anything more than very good. The Unknown: Is Elsie just written out of the show now? Is she dead? Did Ford have something to do with it because clearly he has the ability to manipulate things like having Elsie take a leave of absence. Did Ford make Bernard take out Elsie like he did with Theresa? What will William and Dolores find in the outskirts? Will Maeve actually escape Westworld? How does she plan to do that? How will Felix and Sylvester help her with it? How is Ford going to disguise Theresa's death? Might he possibly have her take a leave of absence and replace her with a host? How is he going to deal with Charlotte? Will he kill her next? I wouldn't put it past him to set up more hosts in his employment. Best Moment: The final scene was chilling and very tense. Anthony Hopkins continues to impress me as Ford. Character of the Episode: Ford. Conclusion: A much better episode with greater focus and less emphasis on mystery, though the show is still being hampered down with a lack of emotional engagement in its characters. Score: 65 Summary: The Man in Black and Teddy run into a group of people attacked by Wyatt. They are captured but Teddy shows surprising aggression and kills everyone. Elsie talks to Bernard about her findings. She does further research and discovers that Theresa and Arnold have been responsible for the modifications to the stray. She discovers something else but is silenced by an unknown assailant. Bernard visits Ford for a short conversation. A new girl is hired to work at Westworld above Lee. Maeve is taken by Felix through the Westworld facility. He tells her everything and she makes sure that he makes some modifications to her.
The Good: Maeve's walk was a great moment. Her storyline was fairly engaging and it was nice to see what happens when a host becomes aware of their existence. Maeve is becoming likeable as a host which is good to see, since this show has been severely lacking in characters. It was nice to get confirmation that the kid is actually younger Ford. I had expected it, but it is nice to get some answers for once, without the answers leading to more mystery. I also liked the progression on the Arnold mystery. It was a major focus in this episode and had lots of good surprises and plot movement to keep us interested. I'm very interested by the Theresa reveal, as it may add in some more drama to give us a reason to care about her character. The Arnold reveal is excellent too, as it adds a lot more stakes to the story as Arnold may be a major player in the story. The Bad: Sylvester and lee are bad characters. They are the antithesis of likeable and are so cartoonishly "bad" that it irks me every time they are on screen. Lee's little subplot with the new girl was pretty bad since he matters so little in the overall story and isn't even likeable. Either get him involved with more important things or stop showing him. It's hard to care at all about Teddy in his storyline. He is making the Man in Black rather dull which is a shame. I was really intrigued to see what the Man in Black is doing in previous episodes, but his storyline has ground to a halt ever since Teddy arrived. His lines are scripted so it's hard to care for him at all, and his story arc of becoming more violent means nothing to me as well because I don't care about his character at all. Also, I think it's likely that this violence was scripted into his character anyways, so it means very little. At the moment, all he is doing is lessening my interest in the Man in Black and his storyline of finding the maze. The Unknown: And once more we have a lot to put in The Unknown. What is Ford's overall plan? What is he trying to accomplish and why? What does Maeve want to do? Escape? Find answers? Kill humans? We need an answer soon to really connect with her character. What was with Arnold's voice in young Ford's head? How did that work? Was that programmed? Or has Arnold tampered with young Ford as well somehow? Is that what happened to the stray? Did Arnold's voice tell it to do that? Arnold did want to destroy Westworld, so could this be a reason why he is leaking data? Is he going to try to close down Westworld? But most importantly, how is he alive? Did he fake death? Did Ford fake his death? Did he come back to life as a host and go rogue or something along those lines? What was Teddy's past? Apparently he worked with Wyatt for a while. Why? What is the significance of that reveal? What is so important about Wyatt? What has happened to Elsie? What else did she discover? Who attacked her? Was it Arnold? Who has modified Maeve before Sylvester and Felix? Was it Arnold? Also, is her waking up intentional? Things like paranoia were increased in Maeve, so could that have been intentional to lead up to her wanting answers about the mysterious people in her "dreams"? Best Moment: Maeve walking through Westworld and seeing the reality of her life was a great moment which helped us connect a little more with her. Character of the Episode: Maeve. Conclusion: This was a better episode, helped along with easy to follow mystery development, answers, and an improved storyline for Maeve. The fact that I had less to talk about in this episode is actually a good sign, because it made the episode much easier to digest than the previous 3 which have just thrown information and questions at me at a relentless pace. The show still has faults and the overreliance on the plot and lack of relatable characters does hurt it, but this episode was a little bit of an improvement. Score: 60 Summary: The Man in Black kills Lawrence to keep Teddy alive. He meets with Ford in a restaurant. Maeve awakens when she isn't supposed to again and questions Felix. Dolores in interviewed by Ford regarding Arnold. Elsie discovers that the stray has a device inside it which is being used to collect data. William and Logan arrive in Pariah where they meet El Lazo who is Lawrence. They make a deal with the group, but William kills people he wasn't supposed to when they threatened Dolores. William and Dolores leave Logan behind but get trapped. Dolores kills the people in their way.
The Good: Another heap of information came from this episode, but amongst everything there were some good scenes. Ford's story about the dog in the beginning of the episode was excellent. Ford is such a charismatic character and while we still don't know much about him, he is so enthralling to watch on the screen. The later scene with Ford and the Man in Black was also extremely good and it felt like a huge scene. Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris played off each other supremely well and I loved the tension in the scene. I was also glad to get some more insight on the Man in Black's goals, and I suppose it also added more to the mysteries in the show. It was good to get more information on William and Logan so we can understand them better. It's an interesting dynamic that they have as they appear to just be friends out of necessity as they are co-workers and I believe soon to be brothers-in-law if I am understanding correctly. Maeve's awakening again was a good moment that helps drive the plot forward. I like that we were teased with the idea of Maeve waking up again, allowing some tension in the scenes where Sylvester and Felix talked together with Maeve on the table. The Bad: This show still remains far too confusing to truly be considered really good. I understand that mystery is being built, and while I do enjoy mysteries, it's hard to enjoy this one when there are just so many confusing details. Every scene just seems to feature secrets, hidden motives, surprise twists and mysterious characters who we don't understand much about. Without anything to really grasp onto, my enjoyment of this mystery is diminished. I also hate that so little is revealed in each episode. I have no doubt that we are heading towards some big answers down the road, but with way too much mystery and no answers, these episodes are feeling more and more unsatisfying. The eternal mystery also really hurts my interest in the actual Westworld storylines. Logan and William's little quest in this episode was completely boring for me because it was staged and offered no hope of any answers. With much more pressing matters I want to understand in other parts of the story, it leaves me extremely impatient to end the scene and move onto more important things like Ford and Arnold's history, backstory on the park, and more explanation of what the maze is. You could shrug off my problems with the show as me simply not being patient, but I really don't think that is the case. The problem is that we are being given a full hour of content, which should be plenty of time to build mystery and answer some questions, yet we receive a little bit of mystery building and no answers whatsoever because the story is trying to focus on the characters. Now I'm all for character focused episodes, but the problem is that I care about nobody in this show, so I can't be bothered to be interested by Felix coding, William and Logan being conflicted and Elsie uncovering more of the plot. All of the storylines seem to be falling completely flat except for the show's overarching narrative which is the only thing that leaves me interested at this point. The Unknown: What are Dolores' flashes? Why does she have them? Why is she picking up on things that apparently she isn't supposed to be picking up on? And why did she actually kill? The killing felt like it was a big character moment, but it just raises a ton of questions. Why is Felix trying to code? How did he get that bird host? What is Arnold's role in everything? Did he create the maze? What is it? What secret did he put in it? Why did he talk with Dolores on the day he died? Why was he trying to destroy the park? Did Ford kill him because he was trying to destroy the park? Why didn't Dolores follow his order to destroy Westworld? How did Lawrence get to Pariah so quickly? How fast are these hosts brought back? Surely it can't be that quickly. Was it just an error? An oversight? But with this show being this show, was it intentional? Are there multiple versions of the same hosts? Or more intriguingly, could the events in the show be taking place across different time periods? Lawrence being El Lazo is not what his storyline was when the Man in Black picked him up, so is it possible there could be a time gap from William, Logan and Dolores' storyline and everything else? There are a lot of inconsistencies in this though, but seeing as we are never given an exact time period, it may be possible. What has Maeve heard from Felix and Sylvester that she wants to discuss? I presume she was awake a lot of the time we saw her and just faked sleep. Who is smuggling data through the stray? Is it Ford? Lee perhaps? We haven't seen Lee in quite some time, so has he betrayed Westworld after being embarrassed by Ford? Best Moment: Ford and the Man in Black talking was great. Character of the Episode: Ford again. I'm sorry, but his performance far overshadows everything else on this show. Conclusion: This show has one of the most fascinating overarching stories on TV and it's a joy to try to piece things together. The problem though is that this completely takes away from my interest in the smaller character stories being told, which results in me being bored for a lot of the episode when characters are dominating the screen. Add on the fact that we receive very little in terms of answers in each episode and we have an unfortunately unsatisfying episode. Score: 57 Summary: The Man in Black meets Armistice who has ties to Wyatt. He is taken to prison where he meets and frees Hector. He takes Lawrence and they find Teddy. Hector and Armistice attack the town and Hector talks with Maeve. Maeve discovers that her reality is fake and that nothing matters. William continues to stay with Dolores whilst doing a quest. He gets into conflict with Logan. Theresa speaks with Ford about his new narrative and Ford threatens her to stay out of his way.
The Good: Again there was too much mystery and confusion for there to be many scenes that I can consider to be in The Good. The Man in Black storyline had some fun moments as he provides the "cool" factor of Westworld. The basic action and excitement is still decently enjoyable even if it is extremely simple. I liked William's scene with Dolores. We always get cryptic and mysterious scenes with Bernard and Dolores, but those are ruined by the show's need to be so damn mysterious with Bernard's true intentions. So now to see William, a character who we actually understand (though not care for very much), have this kind of conversation with Dolores is much more satisfying. My brain wasn't constantly asking questions and I was able to genuinely enjoy the progression of William and Dolores' storylines. The standout was of course Ford once more. His scene with Theresa was fantastic and just lovely to behold. Anthony Hopkins was sublime in his facial expressions to convey the tone of the meeting even if we don't know much about Dr. Ford's motives at this point in the story. The scene went excellently from a casual conversation to a very intimidating threat in a matter of seconds, which I can thank Anthony Hopkins for with his awesome acting. The Bad: Once more I have to criticize the lack of emotional attachment to the story. There is so much mystery and convoluted storytelling to really develop an emotional attachment to the show or its characters. Now don't get me wrong, the plot is very enjoyable because it's convoluted and filled with mystery, but I don't watch TV shows for the plot. I watch for the story, which involves characters and genuine emotion. Unless the show changes its course to clear some of the mystery around these characters so we can understand them, it won't ever hit the height of enjoyment I had gotten from the series' pilot episode. I thought the ending scene was pretty poorly executed in all honesty. The writing for this show has usually been pretty good, but I felt it was lacking here because I ended up noticing so many inconsistencies which just confused me the entire time as I hoped they would be answered in some way. This confusion completely took away from the progression of Maeve's story which adds on to my point of the convoluted plot hurting the story. I feel like this should have been a powerful moment but I was confused with the staging of it all. Why was Maeve saying this to hector and not somebody closer to her like Clementine? Why did Hector just talk to her about it? We got no answers. Why did Hector and Armistice just leave the Man in Black? We didn't see them separate so I was very confused to just see them strolling into the town. We also cut to Elsie and Stubbs throughout the scene to add even more confusion. Apparently guests were arriving in 20 minutes so they ended the heist. Okay? Why did they start the heist if they knew this? Was the heist set up by them? How did they set it up exactly, especially since Hector was supposed to be in jail for longer than he was? The only reason he was out was because of the Man in Black. And if they are able to watch and interact with everything, how come nobody noticed Hector and Maeve talking for some odd reason? That conversation absolutely couldn't have been programmed and how has nobody noticed Maeve's drawings before? There were just too many inconsistencies and questions for this scene to be any good at all. The Unknown: How is Bernard talking to Dolores? Does he just secretly take her at night after she goes to sleep? How does nobody notice this? Or is it possible that these talks with Dolores are actually happening in flashbacks or something? I would put this in The Bad, but I feel like there will be answers given about this in the future. Why is Bernard keeping the host's patterns of glitches secret? And what was the stray drawing if it wasn't Orion? Could it be part of the maze? Why did Dolores see Lawrence's daughter who was apparently not there? Why was she drawing the maze? Why did that trigger a response in Dolores? What are these flashbacks? Why is she remembering the staff like Maeve is? How are they both remembering these things anyways if they were technically asleep at the time? What is the Man in Black's foundation? Two guests went to thank him, but we don't know what that was about. Could it have something to do with why he is a VIP of sorts? Also he knows about the existence of Arnold and that he died in the park. Does that mean he is a former employee or a friend of Ford's? What is Ford's new narrative? Clearly it has something to do with Wyatt who seems to be more important than I had initially expected him to be. What is the significance of Maeve's new discovery? She won't be able to remember it anyways, so how is she going to get past that block? Best Moment: Ford's intimidating speech is probably my favourite scene in the show thus far. Character of the Episode: Ford. Conclusion: This episode was more solid plot progression and the show proves to be quite good at intriguing storytelling once more, but the flaws still stick out badly. Score: 58 |
Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
February 2024
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