Westworld Season 1 Episode 6 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 6 - The Advesary

Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
Another awesome episode. I love to see how this park works, and we get quite a bit of that this episode with a quick tour behind the scenes. There is a lot happening in this episode. Initially I thought Dolores would be the main host that awakens, but looks like Maeve will have a big role too. She's gone farther past the park than any other host and she's poised to be a super host.
Arnold is still a big mystery, but Ford is becoming a concern. Bernard and Elsie begin uncovering a conspiracy.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

A host is created.

I haven't mentioned it in my episode reviews, but the credits song is good. It's got great music and imagery, showing 3-d printed hosts as well as a player piano, which is obviously a metaphor as each episode often shows a player piano. The game keeps going even when no one is controlling it. The hosts don't need someone controlling them.

In the last episode Maeve (Thandie Newton) woke up and spoke to the body tech, Felix. What happened between then and now? In one of her first scenes, she wants the guest, I assume this guy is a hurdyto kill her. The reason was so she could continue her conversation with Felix.

Maeve's startling revelation.

Felix is telling her that she has no control. She is programmed. He explains that he is human and she is made. While her processing power is much more powerful than a human, hosts don't have choice. Felix can't understand how Maeve wakes herself up or remembers. Felix tries to prove it to her and almost literally blows her mind as Maeve can't process such a revelation. She stutters and freezes.
He manages to get her back on line and she wants to see upstairs. He protests, but relents. We, through Maeve, get a much deeper look at the behind the scenes of the park. She sees hosts being cleaned up after a day in the park, animals, characters being tested in various scenes, and new faces being sculpted. Their tour is capped by a video trailer for the park.

Maeve isn't playing.

Another body tech, Sylvester threatens to turn Felix in, but Maeve assaults him, holding a scalpel to his throat. He quickly realizes that her mandate to not harm guests no longer applies.

Maeve is still learning about how the park works, specifically her attributes. While hosts' intelligence is capped at 14. She's eager to change that. In the last scene of this episode, she modifies those attributes.

Elsie (Shannon Woodward) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) are discussing the satellite uplink Elsie found in the stray host from episode three.
The host was an older model and to access the geo cache information, Bernard has to enter a restricted part of the facility, that, as it did before, looks like an abandoned shopping mall. Is there a reason this park never throws away anything? Is it they have the space so why not or do they always need parts? It can't be for parts because so few people have access. This area is the old creepy basement to the extreme.


Bernard has to go all the way down just to access a computer terminal. Seems unnecessarily complicated. Why do the lights flicker. That has to be mood lighting. While Bernard is checking the stray host's data, he finds five additional unregistered hosts with anomalies like that one. They are all in sector 17. The sector is off limits and designated for future narratives. This park has an entire sector they aren't even using. How many states big is this park?

Elsie claims she's close to finding the saboteur, but Bernard isn't admitting what he found. Elsie is hoping for a raise and additional amenities for discovering the espionage. With Theresa being head of security, she'll be held responsible. Of course this presents a dilemma for Bernard who had a relationship with Theresa, but was also just dumped by her in this episode.

Nothing like an original gen host.

Bernard explores sector 17. He finds a family in a house, but they aren't from the West, this is more the '50s. This is the same boy we've seen before, and there is Ford too. These hosts only respond to Ford's voice commands. They are first generation hosts originally built by Arnold and now maintained by Ford. They are Ford's family. The boy is Ford, just like I guessed back when the boy first appeared.
Why doesn't Ford ask Bernard how he found this place?
Bernard goes back to his office and looks up the names of all first generation hosts designed by Arnold.

Elsie determines the satellite is the parks. The voices the hosts hear appear to be someone broadcasting to them through relays in the park. The relay system was abandoned long ago, but someone is still using it.
Are the hosts hearing voices all first gens by Arnold? If they are, why now? Is this whole series predicated on the fact that everything just seemed to happen all at one time? Ford's big story, hosts waking up, and the Man in Black's quest all seems to have started at the same time.
Elsie heads to sector 3, looking for a relay. It seems a bit strange for Elsie to be doing this alone. Park security is scared of hosts, not wanting to enter the park without weapons. Elsie is hunting for a rogue person solo. I'm guessing that will be her downfall.

Beware the anomalies in sector 17.

Bernard brings Ford's five anomalies to Theresa. Now Bernard is concerned about Ford after seeing sector 17. Elsie lets him know that Theresa is sending the relay. While Elsie tells him something big is going off, Bernard doesn't let her finish.

Theresa is using the signal system for a satellite uplink,  but someone else has been modifying hosts, changing prime directives. As far as Elsie can tell, it's Arnold. Who, as you remember, is dead.
Elsie finds something big in the data from the relay. Of course, someone grabs her, before we find out what.

Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is still undertaking massive terra forming for his new story line. It's crazy that story lines don't just involve new hosts or even a few new buildings. The park is changing the actual terrain and adding a canyon. That can't be a cheap undertaking. The people doing the work seem to be park staff, which means this must happen often.
Then again, this is in essence an interactive zoo. Why create a new exhibit or story line when you can create a new zoo. He decides to stop the canyon just short of whatever town he is in, but he sees the same maze marking on a table. I'm guessing Arnold must have left these symbols throughout the park. It's a riddle that doesn't seem to have a start point. Maybe the man in black has seen enough of the park and enough of the symbols reappearing that he's determined there is something to it, and as this show suggests, there is merit to that idea.

On his quest to find Wyatt, Teddy (James Marsden) tells the Man in Black (Ed Harris) about the legend of the maze. A man built a house in the center of a maze so complicated only he could find it. This sounds like Arnold. The original founder who 'died' at the beginning of the park. Arnold hid something, or himself.

Watch out for Teddy, the one man wrecking crew.

Teddy and the Man in Black infiltrate a camp as they try to catch up to Wyatt. They get caught, but Teddy mows down the entire camp single handedly, impressing even the Man in Black.

Theresa ends her relationship with Bernard. It raises too many questions and what if scenarios of partiality.
We get to see a park lounge. Theresa wants Lee to plug story line holes that Ford has created with his secret project. We last saw Lee in episode 2 where he was being a primadonna and his story was shelved for Ford's. Now Lee is on sick leave by the pool and doesn't want to help. Theresa tells Lee to get over it and start writing. If Ford fails, Lee could fill the gap, but not if he's on sick leave.I love that Lee, the head writer, can't come up with a better line to pick up a girl. Theresa sends a message and puts him in his place.
Lee urinates on the park map in the control room, obviously drunk. The girl he tried to pick up at the lounge is a new employee to handle administrative transitions. It's a great first impression.