Westworld is a television series set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past, exploring a world in which every human appetite can be indulged without consequence.
The farther Season 2 of Westworld spins down the rabbit hole, the more and more we learn about the history of the park and its overall purpose. Despite how difficult the show can be to follow at times, there is an undeniable interest to continues to hook you week after week. In our latest episode, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and her posse raid the compound that controls Westworld, a familiar face is back in the mix, and Maeve (Thandie Newton) comes ever to close to her task at hand.
READ MORE: Review of all Westworld Episodes
Dolores and her posse finally make it to the control center of Westworld where they mean to wreak havoc. After killing a team of guards and stealing their clothes, they start to further infiltrate the center. Their two goals are to find Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum) and destroy The Cradle, which hosts their backups and can be used against them. Meanwhile, Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is currently plugged into The Cradle where he recently came across the deceased Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins). Ford’s consciousness had been uploaded to The Cradle by an unknowing Bernard, and it now gives them the chance to discuss the purpose of Westworld.
Ford tells Bernard that Westworld was a way of collecting data. The data that they wanted to collect was that of the guests that visited, so that they could observe how people act free of rules and regulations. Ford also tells Bernard that Dolores was used when he was created to test him. Bernard was built in Arnold’s image, and Arnold had spent more time with Dolores than anyone. So, once they were able to fool Dolores by passing off Bernard as Arnold, they knew he was ready. Before Bernard is able to leave The Cradle, Ford somehow combines their consciousness so that when Bernard awakes, they are both in his head.
Maeve, attempting to escape Indians with her daughter, winds up running into The Man in Black (Ed Harris) and his crew. This time, instead of letting him murder her and her daughter, she shoots him in the arm, and then convinces Lawrence to fire upon him several times as well. Before The Man in Black can be killed, a Westworld security team rolls in, kills Lawrence, and wounds Maeve. Maeve is taken back to the control center compound along with Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman), while The Man in Black barely crawls off to safety.
Back at the control center, Dolores ends up having to kill her father to extract his control unit, which is the key that Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) has been after this whole time. It holds a decryption key that acts as a certain failsafe. Angela (Talulah Riley) is able to take her life and detonate The Cradle, destroying all of the host backups. Once all of the hosts leave, we see Hale interrogating Bernard during which he reveals the location of where Abernathy’s control unit is going to.
This episode certainly brought the action, and showed that the hosts are not to be trifled with. They were able to outsmart, out-fight, and out-gun virtually the entire security team. Dolores rolled in and accomplished both parts of her plan. Now she will continue her journey to the “valley beyond” that all of the hosts seem to be migrating towards, so we’ll finally figure out what that is. It was also great to see Anthony Hopkins back in the game. He shone some light on the intentions behind Westworld being a park utilized for gathering data on human behavior. We didn’t learn just what exactly is done with that data, but hopefully more to come in the next couple episodes. He also seems to have a bit of a malice now that he’s back in the real world, acting as a parasite inside Bernard. Under his influence, Bernard killed multiple members of the security team and changed part of the Westworld protocol to allow Dolores to roam even more freely.
Poor Maeve, she’s been on a journey to find her daughter for 6 episodes, and once she finally does she gets shot and her daughter is kidnapped. It was nice, however, to see her get some vengeance against The Man in Black, who’d killed her and her daughter countless times. She was still breathing at the end of the episode, so it’s safe to say she still has some fight left in her. The Man in Black is still miraculously alive after taking a few gun shots from Maeve and Lawrence, so it’ll be interesting to see how he rebounds in the upcoming weeks.