Westworld Season 1 Episode 10 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 10 -The Bicameral Mind

Watch Westworld on Amazon - Free HBO 30-day Trial to Prime Members 
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
What a ride. While we get answers, this show still manages to leave some big questions. We finally figure out the maze, and Ford becomes the story.
These violent delights have violent ends. Season two is going to be crazy.
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.

The finale opens with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) being built by Arnold (Jeffrey Wright). He welcomes her to the world, and she then awakes, shaving the Man in Black (Ed Harris) with a knife. He states it's fitting she takes him to the center of the maze once again, because she's brought him there before. She denies it, though the town is uncovered because Ford (Anthony Hopkins) has uncovered it.

Teddy Flood (James Marsden) is starting exactly where we saw him in episode one, riding into town on a train. As he's walking, Arnold's voice urges him to remember. He sees everyone in the town dead, Dolores weaving a path between bodies. Teddy awakes, instinctively killing a host that bumps into hims and mutters, "Dolores."

Teddy is a man on a mission, though we're not quite sure where he's headed. My guess is the now unburied town. 

This episode is moving fast!
Dolores finds Arnold in the chapel, telling him, "I know where the maze ends." The scene then cuts to Dolores and the Man in Black at a grave labeled with Dolores's name. The scene cuts back to Dolores and Arnold. The maze, Arnold explains, is an artificial being's journey to sentience. He used his voice to guide her, but he wanted her to hear her own voice. The journey isn't scaling a pyramid, it's a circular journey inward. The maze isn't for the Man in Black as various hosts have told him, because it's a journey to sentience.

Dolores's memories are flooding back. Ford wanted Arnold to roll Dolores back, but he can't do that. Arnold wants to break the loop before it begins. He wants her to kill all the other hosts to delay the opening of the park, urging her to get Teddy's help and promising to help her. Arnold wants to destroy the park.
The Man in Black wants to meet Wyatt, the only character he hasn't encountered.
Teddy is having memories, of what he thought was Wyatt's murder spree, with thoughts that he assisted it. This is part of, what we thought, was Ford's new story line but why is Ford potentially creating a story line so close to something that actually happened? Right now, Dolores is the Wyatt character for Teddy. The villain he remembers.

The Man in Black tells Dolores the world belongs to him because he owns a majority share. While this world feels more real, there are no stakes for guests, no danger. That's what the Man in Black craves.

It seems likely that Wyatt, the maze, Dolores, and William will all collide, but to what end?

Dolores tells the Man in Black that someone is coming to save her. William (Jimmi Simpson) will save her. The Man in Black laughs at that. It's the reveal we've been waiting for, the Man in Black is William.
The Man in Black tells Dolores where William's path really led. He wasn't a fighter, but he became one while searching for Dolores. The knife William is carrying as he slaughters the camp with Alonzo is the same knife the Man in Black always carries.

So Ford is resurrecting an old story line, this Wyatt character? Teddy seems to be present day Westworld. William is thirty years earlier. What a mind trip that is. Now I need to go back and watch this again, and work out the time periods. There were more than a few clues. The Westworld logo was different when William first appeared. The white hat he first chose, he eventually traded in for a black one

It's Willi... I mean the Man in Black... who is really...

William, now the Man in Black, finally finds Dolores right where he first entered Westworld. Hold on, two years ago MiB murdered Maeve, wanting to do something truly horrible. What was his Dolores fueled rampage? I suppose it's different based just on intentions, but did he not kill for twenty eight years after his first spree?
It seemed like the stories change often, but Dolores has been living the same story for more than thirty years.
Whatever happened to Logan (Ben Barnes)? William plans to take over Delos and Westworld and tells him as much. We know Logan didn't die in Westworld, there has only been one casualty, so what happened?

Dolores tells MiB the world doesn't belong to him, it belongs to someone yet to come. She tells him the maze wasn't meant for him, and we know he's about to find the center. Dolores throws a few punches. She's outside of normal programming now, and MiB is finally scared. He finally gets what he wanted, real danger, real stakes, and consequences. Dolores and William finally reach the center of the maze.
He stabs her, commenting that she has, "cleared him of his illusions yet again." Teddy rides in and shoots William.

Man in Black asking if this is really the maze, just a kid's game?

Ford confronts William. He's found the center, but William is disappointed. He wanted the hosts to stop playing by rules. He wanted a host willing to fight back, to kill.
Ford tells William the new narrative may be more satisfying. What does that mean? Has Ford been preparing for this since the first episode? Has he awoken hosts and is planning to enact a revolt for his retirement? Is Ford going to bring down the entire park?

The Delos board is coming in for a visit. Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) is going to push Ford out, and she promises Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) creative control, provided he makes the hosts simpler.
Charlotte visits Ford in his office, informing him that the board has unanimously voted for his retirement

The new Maeve body.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) is readying her escape, disabling security and awakening a host army. It appears Sylvester is making a new Maeve host. I bet this one lacks the explosive fail safe in the vertebrae preventing hosts from leaving the park that we learned about in episode eight.
It seems the body shop has free reign to molest hosts at their leisure. In the park it's encouraged, but I suppose workers should pay to play. Is their no supervision? Felix and Sylvester have been able to do whatever Maeve has asked them to do. Two new techs are getting killed by Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and Snake Tattoo lady and nobody seems to realize.
Sylvester informs Maeve that someone with the access code Arnold revised her core code so she could wake up at will.

Maeve goes to the host storage basement. Felix discovers Bernard dead and wonders for a moment if he could be a host. Maeve quickly disabuses him of such a notion. Ford killed Bernard last episode.

Bernard tells Maeve she isn't the first to awaken, but most hosts just go insane. While Maeve wants the memories of a daughter removed, Bernard informs her memories are the cornerstone of consciousness. Bernard asks her if she's ever considered why she's doing these things. Her story has been altered. She's doing this as part of programming. Bernard begins to read her story, but Maeve doesn't believe it.

Does Maeve's story tie into Ford's planned narrative? Maeve isn't sentient. Wow.

It was all a show, a charade. This scene is a metaphor for the season.

Teddy takes Dolores to the ocean where she dies in his arms. Then the lights switch on and it's the board watching Ford's narrative. How did Ford know she'd get mortally wounded? How could he have predicted the Man in Black. I can't comprehend this.

Ford's new narrative is "Journey into Night."

The entire facility goes into lock down. I would say this is Maeve, but I'm guessing this is Ford. Security is hunting for the the hosts that killed a lab tech, but now Escaton and Snake Tattoo girl are armed.

Check out all the samurai.

Maeve enters a lab area for feudal Japan world. The sign reads "SW." Is that Samurai world? This is too much! Are the facilities the core, and all parks linked to the core? How many parks are there? I figured there had to be multiple parks, but on the same site? Obviously Westworld has to be the original, it's the only one Ford seems interested in. Is it the one with the most advanced hosts?

Delores and Arnold on the big day thirty years ago.

Ford and Dolores are having a chat. He introduces her to Bernard.
Ford explains that he and Arnold disagreed about delaying the park. Arnold had given Delores the 'Reverie' update that helped her solve the maze, but Arnold merged her with the Wyatt character.
Arnold's bid was to have Dolores kill him and all of the hosts, but Ford found an investor in William that allowed him to open the park anyway.

Ford didn't want to acknowledge her consciousness. He saw it then as Arnold pulling the trigger. Ford asks Dolores if she knows who she must become to leave the park and walks off.

Ford tells Bernard that Arnold couldn't save the hosts, but Ford can. Suffering is the key, that and time.

Dolores realizes that it wasn't Arnold guiding her, it was her own voice. That is the center of the maze, Dolores confronting herself and who she must become. What is Ford's plan? How could he predict all of these things coming together on this night?

A little story line called the Ford finale.

Ford addresses the gala's inhabitants and states he created a story for those paying attention. Maeve exits the train, going back for her fake daughter. Lee goes to cold storage and find it completely empty as William hears something in the woods.
Ford continues that the story begins by the villain Wyatt, and this time the killing is a choice.
Dolores tells Teddy the world doesn't belong to them, humans, it belongs to us, the hosts. Ford announces this is his final story.
Ford wants to become the story. So he does when Dolores kills him. Dolores has become Wyatt, and William finally finds the story he sought. The one with real consequences. These violent delights have violent ends.

I have to watch this season again. Wyatt was a phantom. The split timeline with Dolores. Ford planned for the board to push him out.
Where does season 2 go from here? There is no way this doesn't get a season 2. HBO did a great job with this.
The park is locked down with human and hosts inside, but now this is the host's story. Jonathon Nolan stated the first season was defined by control and the second season will be chaos. I hope it's not a human survival story line in season two, it seems possible but would be disappointing. This show is about more than that, and now it seems to be about the hosts.

Can this season be topped? It functions fairly well even as a self contained story, but I definitely want more West world.