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 latest episode in season 2 of Westworld, Akane No Mai, gave us a true taste of what Shogun World entails. It’s a world for those guests who found Westworld to be too tame, and it lives up to the hype diving right in with all the violence and gore you can handle. Meanwhile, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Teddy (James Marsden) continued their journey to track down her father, Peter (Louis Herthum).
The episode begins in the Westworld control room with Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) looking on as host corpses are being brought in. On top of a pile of hosts we actually see the lifeless body of Teddy for a few moments. For most of the episode, however, Teddy is still very much alive as he and Dolores make their return to Sweetwater. There they find the broken-down train that was used to bring guests into Westworld, and they plan to fix it up and use it to track down Peter. As the episode progresses, it becomes more obvious that Dolores is suspicious of Teddy after he disobeyed her order to kill Major Craddock (Jonathan Tucker) a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately for Teddy, she decides that she cannot trust him, and has a Westworld technician overwrite his code to presumably make him a more cruel, devoted follower.
The bulk of the episode was spent introducing us to Shogun World, which Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) describes as a place for those who felt Westworld was too tame. After being taken hostage upon their arrival by a band of Ronin led by former soldier, Musashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), Maeve (Thandie Newton) and her team are led into town where the Ronin kill the police and plan to rob a brothel, just as Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) had done in season 1. We come to find out from Lee that he reused storylines and characters across worlds, so some of the Westworld hosts find their foils in Shogun World.
Maeve takes an immediate liking to her foil, Madam Akane (Rinko Kikuchi), who kills an emissary of the local military dictator, the Shogun (Masaru Shinozuka), who’d come to take away her geisha, Sakura (Kiki Sukezane). To avoid the wrath of the Shogun, everyone plans to escape town via the protection of the Ronin, but before they can leave ninjas attack their city. During this attack, Maeve learns that she can not only control hosts using voice commands, but she can now control them telepathically. She uses on one of her attackers, causing him to kill himself.
Part of the Shogun’s army marches on the town soon after the ninja attack, and only Maeve, Akane, and a few others are able to escape. Sakura is among those who does not get out, so Maeve and Akane plan to go before the Shogun so Maeve can use her voice commands to rescue her. Once in his camp, they learn that he is malfunctioning so her commands don’t work, and he has removed the ear of his men so the “witch” (Maeve) he heard about is unable to control them.
The Shogun does agree to release Sakura if her and Akane will perform a dance for him, but he goes against his word and murders Sakura for amusement. This sends Akane into a rage and she attacks the Shogun, nearly decapitating him. Maeve then uses her new mind powers to have all of the Shogun’s men kill one another. The episode ends with Maeve picking up a sword, ready to right more oncoming soldiers.
Shogun World was awesome. We were treated to some very well-choreographed sword fights by the Ronin, and the show creators seemed to spare no expense when creating the set. One part that really stood out was the nod to season 1 where the brothel robbery takes place with a western themed “Paint It Black” playing. We get virtually the exact same scene shot-for-shot in Shogun World, just replacing guns with swords and bow and arrow, and of course a minor tweak to “Paint It Black.” It was masterful. We also may have seen the last of nice guy Teddy, as Dolores has his code over-written to be one of her zombie followers. A few big takeaways from the episode include seeing Teddy dead right at the beginning of it. This suggests that we are, once again, jumping back and forth between different time periods, with Bernard being involved in each one. Also, Maeve has some WILD new powers. She is quickly becoming the most powerful and dangerous host in Westworld. The only host we’ve seen toting equal power is Bernard, who is also able to use mind control on hosts. Due to his overall instability, though, it’s safe to say that Maeve has the upper hand. We may have seen the last of Shogun World based on where Maeve and her crew head to next, but with any luck the show creators will continue introducing us to new, exciting, worlds.