Les Écorchés Plot Summary:
Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) begins her assault on the Mesa. Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) tries to figure out why Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is in The Cradle. Maeve (Thandie Newton) confronts The Man in Black (Ed Harris). In the future timeline, Bernard’s host nature is revealed.
One of the most fascinating things about Westworld this season has been watching how it both does and does not address its own flaws. The show has gotten so much better about having a well-paced, plot-driven narrative that can take you through an episode. The degree to which things have actually moved forward this season compared to last is astronomical. And they’ve finally begun to unravel some of the pointless mysteries, in a way that actually ties into the show’s themes in an interesting way.
Yet instead of entirely going away, these flaws just manifest themselves in different ways. New pointless mysteries are introduced to replace the old ones, and things move so fast now that too much narrative shorthand gets employed to be entirely satisfying. The show remains excellent, but seemingly trapped in the same sort of cycle its characters are.
The big news coming into this episode, of course, is the return of Anthony Hopkins. In retrospect, the fact that his consciousness had been placed inside The Cradle and has been manipulating events all along was almost ludicrously foreshadowed, yet the full return of Hopkins himself to the role instead of the vague presence of Ford we’ve seen so far still manages to be surprising.
Both the character and the actor were so magnetic in Season 1 that the show couldn’t help but revolve around him most of the time; by waiting so long to reintroduce him, they’ve allowed the show to build up a strong core without him that he now simply adds to instead of replacing. Given the momentous weight of his actions in this episode, the thematic complexity added by his decision to continue overriding Bernard in the name of freedom for the hosts, and the haunting images of this episode’s final scene, it seems like Ford’s reintroduction will shake things up dramatically.
Not only do these scenes give us more Anthony Hopkins, though, they also finally wrap up the interminable mystery of Delos’ corporate intrigue. Now we know they have been observing guests to perfect their ability to replicate human consciousness and achieve a form of immortality by becoming hosts themselves. The fact that this reveal actually manages to be dramatically and thematically interesting is, frankly, a miracle given the long build-up and constant teasing, but there is no denying that it succeeds.
All at once we’ve gone from the hosts yearning for the free will of humans to both sides coveting what the other has and they lack. That the hosts have undergone monstrous torture in pursuit of that goal surely still makes them the more sympathetic side, but the jealousy of humans for their own creation adds new wrinkles to the questions Westworld has always asked about the nature of consciousness and what it means to have free will.
The most dramatically successful scene this episode comes pretty early on, however: the confrontation between Maeve and The Man in Black. Last season, The Man in Black represented a selfishness; a refusal to see yourself as anything other than the hero in our own story, that leads to the worst excesses and abuses. This season has often let him continue to indulge in that fantasy, but at times it seemed less critical, even supportive of his viewpoint.
That all came crashing down in this episode though as he faces his most brutal setback yet. He underestimates Maeve by failing to see her as anything other than a deliberate obstacle in his personal narrative, rather than as her own person with her own goals and desires. And his slight turn towards heroism in his relationship with Lawrence is now viciously undercut, as Maeve awakens him to everything The Man in Black has done to him over the years and he tries to exact his revenge. Ford had warned him that one good deed didn’t make up for everything he’s done, of course, but it is always better to show dramatic consequences rather than pay lip service to an idea, and the massive price The Man in Black pays for failing to learn from his mistakes this episode is some truly great TV.
Yet for every two steps forward Westworld takes, it always seems to take a step back. Even with so much rich dramatic and philosophical content, we still end up with one plot that doesn’t quite work: Dolores’. Up until this point, it’s seemed like Dolores has wanted to take her father back because she values the relationship they once had. But now that she’s reached him, she seems to know all about Delos’ project and wants the data he contains for some mysterious end of her own.
More likely than not, this turn is to set up a final confrontation between everyone as we get closer to the finale, but they’ve laid so little groundwork for this shift that it simply doesn’t work. We don’t know what Dolores wants, how she found out what she knows, or what she plans to do about it. Blowing up The Cradle, and with it the hosts’ ability to be restored, is both a powerful statement of purpose and an excellent philosophical counterpoint to Delos’ pursuit of that same immortality, but too much of what Dolores does this episode makes too little sense to really be satisfying.
Unfortunately this extends to the final encounter between Dolores and Maeve as well. The idea of it is perfect: the two of them have truly come to embody radically different perspectives on what freedom means for the hosts and how they should use it, and the conflict between those perspectives is one of the driving themes of the show. But as thematically inspired as the brief conversation they have in the basement of The Mesa is, the fact remains that these two characters barely know each other and have no idea what the other has been doing. It doesn’t actually make sense that Maeve would be able to push back on Dolores’ argument about why their programmed connections aren’t important, or that Dolores would respect Maeve’s philosophy down to directly quoting her, when they just don’t actually know these things. It should work like gangbusters, but on a dramatic level it’s completely unearned so it ends up feeling cold.
That Westworld has unmistakable flaws has never kept it from being an incredible achievement in the past, however, and it doesn’t stop it now. The show is ambitious in its thematic complexity and willingness to explore philosophical questions, and despite continued missteps it really has been improving at channeling those things through compelling narrative too. As we build towards this season’s conclusion, that trend will hopefully continue. If it does, this season could end up even better than the last. What more can you ask from a show?
Rating: 8 out of 10
