Chaos Takes Control

I was gone for a week fam. A. Week. In that time Dolores decided to wild all the way out, Teddy became a ball of resentment and murder, Maeve out here becoming a full Jedi Master, Bernarnold got way too many voices in his head and Ford came back with a vengeance. In other words: The last two episodes of Westworld were off the damn chain, where to even begin?

Let’s start with the, relatively, least disturbing thing that happens: Maeve finds her daughter and it goes about as well as we all thought it would. First, however, she helps Akane bury her daughter and then gives Akane, Mushahsi and crew the choice to come with her and the others. Akane and Mushashi decline choosing to face whatever Delos sends on their home turf as it were, yet they appreciate the offer and I have to say: I think that at this point Akane and Mushashi are awake and aware which makes this choice even braver when you think on it.

Maeve and the others head off and Lee, for once, makes himself useful by actually finding Maeve’s daughter which leads to several moments of heartbreak and then horror as Maeve unintentionally restarts her loop. Akechata and Ghost Nation show up to wreck shite (or so Maeve thinks…) and when she finally thinks she’s safe, here comes William’s trifling arse in the confrontation I’ve been waiting for since Maeve woke up.

First of all, watching these two acting greats work off each other is like watching a master class. The nuance of the scenes as William truly has no damn clue – probably for the first time – what dafuq is happening and Maeve gets revenge in her eyes for the first time since she woke up, is just outstanding. Thandie Newton and Ed Harris did not come to play and it shows, and when Clifton Collins, Jr.’s Lawrence gets thrown into the mix? The levels of amazing are off the charts. Maeve thoroughly and completely wrecks William’s shite and literally the only reason homeboy isn’t dead is because Ghost Nation and Delos distracted her from finishing the job. William gets 30 years of karmic payback in one scene and it’s glorious.

Delos shows up because Lee is a bag of cowardly dicks and that leads to the second most disturbing thing of the episodes: the siege of the control center. Dolores, Angela and Teddy – the T-1000 edition – just destroy every damn thing in their path. It is mass destruction on a scale that makes everything that’s happened up to this point look like child’s play. They even kill cute Phil in one of the more chilling scenes of the episode as Teddy, quietly and calmly, offers Phil the mercy of suicide. It’s a harbinger of things to come as Dolores slowly (some might even say deservedly) realizes she may have, in fact, effed up messing with Teddy’s mind. Especially as he apparently has all of his previous memories and he is not happy. It only gets worse when they confront Charlotte: who was torturing Peter just when they showed up so you know, not making the best first impression, and Stubbs: who I’m rapidly becoming convinced is either a Host or the only decent human in Westworld besides Elsie. Charlotte tries talking that shite, first trying to deal, and when that doesn’t work, threatening the Hosts backups. Dolores kindly informs her that she doesn’t give a single eff about the backups, which she proves by having Angela blow them to kingdom come. Charlotte’s face as Dolores makes it clear she will inflict on her everything she’s done to Peter is what pure terror looks like and honestly? Yeah, it was well deserved. Once Dolores and crew bounce after putting the fear of God in Charlotte they find Maeve who’s been filled full of bullet holes by Delos but rescued by Lee – also full of regrets about his bad decision making. Once again, even on the verge of her potential permanent death, Maeve tries to get through Dolores’ thick head that this path she’s on is full of badness but does Dolores listen? What do you think?

Part of the reason Dolores thinks she’s right is because of Bernarnold. Or rather what Ford and she did regarding Bernarnold. Yes, I said she and Ford, as Arnold’s death effed up Ford even worse than we thought; sending him on a 30 year mission to not only make Bernard a perfect copy of Arnold, using his and Dolores’ memories of Arnold to recreate his personality down to the smallest detail, but also pulling a Tony Stark: uploading his consciousness into every aspect of the park to protect it and the Hosts from Delos and anyone else who might try and interfere with the Hosts development. By any means necessary, even if that means overruling Bernarnold’s body when he balks about the level of violence that Ford deems is needed to achieve their goals. In other words, with a father like Ford is it any wonder that Dolores is the way she is?

System Data

• ‘We each deserve to choose our fate. Even if that fate is death’ – Maeve
• Apparently Akecheta woke up first, not Dolores. That actually explains a lot.
• In Shogun World you can let your kid watch someone get the breaks beaten off of them but decapitation is a bridge too far.
• William’s life is about to take a turn from bad to hellfire fam. Believe it.
• Teddy T-1000 is freaking me dafuq out. I am not even remotely over how terrifying James Marsden is being right now.
• In good father-daughter relationships: Bernard and Elsie continue to give me life, Bernard keeping her safe because he knew what was coming had me crying.  
• I cannot praise Clifton Collins Jr.’s performance enough, the moment he remembered everything? Is heartbreaking.

With Charlotte and Strand thinking they are actually doing something with the Bernarnold they have, Maeve and Lee in the wind, Dolores continuing on her ill-fated march to ‘Glory’ and Ford hijacking Bernarnold’s brain whenever he needs to murder folks, it’s going to be a wild ride to the end.