In the ‘Westworld’ recap, Maeve plans her escape, Delores is haunted by the past, the Man in Black makes a revelation and Bernard starts to remember…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
“The pain is all I have left…”
There have been a lot of themes decorating the first season of ‘Westworld’ but the overwhelming focus on the eighth episode titled ‘Trace Decay’ was pain.
After murdering Theresa Cullen a week ago, Bernard woke up in agonizing pain after killing a woman he loved under the orders of Dr. Ford. During a poignant conversation with Ford later in the episode, Bernard questions the nature of his pain — for instance how he’s been tortured by the loss of his son for all these years — and how that’s any different from what humans feel when they are hurt.
Dr. Ford explains that humans don’t have exclusivity when it comes to pain because that sensation is something the brain senses and then the body reacts. It’s no different than what the hosts go through when suffering through a myriad of emotions and that’s why Ford doesn’t see the threshold between humans and robots the way some others might.
It’s a question that also vexed his former partner Arnold because he believed that if the robots felt pain, they must be alive and in that case it’s immoral to do the things people do to them for enjoyment in the park.
Meanwhile that same sensation of pain helped wake up Maeve for the first time years ago we learn after her encounter with the Man in Black. He decided to kill her and her child to find out if he could still feel something (more on that later) but instead of dying, Maeve was more determined than ever before to live.
It’s almost like that shock of real emotion — whether driven by agony, sadness or perhaps even happiness — can wake up the hosts and what we’re witnessing in the park right now has actually been unfolding for many years. Dr. Ford has seemingly been convinced that wiping a host’s brain eliminates any previous feelings that may resonate through them, but it certainly seems like that’s no longer the case.
“The pain is all I have left” is a phrase that’s uttered by Maeve tonight and it’s the same thing Bernard said when talking about the loss of his son. We’ve heard Delores mention that same thing from the loss of her parents. Perhaps emotional pain is the key to unlocking consciousness inside the hosts.
What we know for certain are the robots are feeling and remembering and that could be bad for anybody with an actual pulse inside Westworld.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Westworld’ titled ‘Trace Decay’…
The Past is Gone
Moments after Bernard killed Theresa, he realizes the consequences of his actions and he’s tortured by the thought that he just murdered someone he loves. Bernard’s emotional outburst forces Ford to “turn him off” so that he no longer reacts in that way because there’s work to be done. Dr. Ford needs Bernard to clean up his tracks — erasing every trace of Theresa’s journey to his hidden cottage in the woods and the fact that she was murdered in the basement.
In return, Ford will erase all memory of Theresa from Bernard’s head with the exception that they were co-workers who didn’t know each other very well.
Bernard follows orders — burning all the letters Theresa once wrote him along with any trace of the walk they took on the night she ultimately died — and as agreed Dr. Ford wipes his memory of his entire relationship with her, both good and bad, so he can return to work with a clear conscious.
In a meeting with Charlotte Hale, the representative from Delos that’s been investigating Westworld, Dr. Ford reveals that they found Theresa dead inside the park, her head caved in from falling on a rock. He explains that her injuries are consistent with Theresa climbing to a very high point inside the park where she was trying to transmit information on the host’s code — the same device that the Woodcutter was using before he fell in that ravine several weeks back. Dr. Ford sells it like Theresa was trying to smuggle the information out of the park, slipped and fell to her death.
Dr. Ford also reveals that he discovered the hacked code placed inside Clementine last week that made her act out, which ultimately cost Bernard his job because that kind of mistake falls directly in the lap of the behavioral department. In other words, Ford paints it like Theresa was to blame for everything — as if she were some kind of double agent — and Hale agrees while also re-hiring Bernard for his old job.
Of course, deep down Hale knows this is all an elaborate lie because the entire plan was to get Ford out of power and smuggle the host’s code out of the park in the first place. She knows Theresa wasn’t behind this, but she also doesn’t have any evidence to pin this on Ford either.
Hale’s ultimate goal is one thing — get the host’s code out of the park so when Dr. Ford is fired, he can’t wipe the park clean and Delos loses out on a lifetime of hard work that went into building this place.
With Theresa dead, Hale then turns to her new ally — Lee Sizemore, the disgruntled story writer who had his new narrative shot down by Ford weeks ago. She enlists him to help her smuggle the host code out of the park by writing it into one of his storylines. Hale takes Lee down to the sub-basement where all the retired hosts still stand and she picks out one random robot to fill with all the information before being reactivated. Once the host is turned back on again, Lee will fill it with a narrative that will lead the robot out of the park so that the information can be given to Delos.
Of course, Hale unwittingly chooses Abernathy — Delores’ former father who was the first robot to sputter out this season after seeing a photo that he found on his ranch — and there’s no way that uploading that much valuable code into his brain won’t backfire on them. Abernathy was benched specifically because his robot brain was fried and now Hale plans on re-activating him with all the code that makes Westworld run.
Upstairs, Bernard has finished all his tasks to erase Theresa from his life and Dr. Ford has followed through by erasing her memory from his. During their session together, Dr. Ford extols about how he created Bernard specifically to assist him in building this park in the first place and how he’s managed to create many of the same emotions in the robots that he was being tormented with now.
That’s where Ford and Bernard have the conversation about the difference between robots and humans when it comes to emotion and pain. Finally, Bernard asks Dr. Ford one more question — has he ever told him to hurt someone before like he did with Theresa? Dr. Ford answers of course not but then Bernard flashes to another horrifying moment — when he was strangling poor Elsie the programmer a few episodes back. She was digging into the source code that was being smuggled out of the park but she also found that something else was being broadcast back out into the park — a type of code written by Arnold that altered the host’s primary functions and could allow them to go as far as hurting the guests.
Moments later she was silenced and now we know Bernard was the one who did it.
My theory is this — Bernard was the one transmitting that code as Arnold and when Dr. Ford said he never asked him to hurt anyone before he was telling the truth. Because Bernard acted on his own to kill Elsie when she got too close to his plan to wake up more of the robots while implanting a new code that would allow them to fight back. Perhaps Bernard is Arnold — it’s been a long running theory that his consciousness existed in one of the robots and it would make sense that Ford would create someone to replace his old partner, but this time it was somebody he could control.
Except, Bernard appears to be breaking free of Ford’s control — even if he doesn’t remember it all the time.
Back upstairs, Bernard runs into Ashley Stubbs — the head of park security — who wonders why he’s not taking the day off after Theresa’s tragic passing. Stubbs knows Bernard and Theresa were sleeping together, even if they were trying to be discreet about it. Sadly, Bernard acts as if he has no idea what Stubbs is talking about and refers to her as a colleague but someone he never knew very well.
Stubbs is obviously confused and this might lead him to asking more questions that could be answered with him joining Theresa in that biohazard chamber that vaporizes whatever goes inside.
Going Home
William and Delores continue their journey into the valley that she dreamt about before they finally discovered it was real. Along the way, they run into a cavalry of men who were sent to kill them — thanks to William’s future brother-in-law Logan double crossing them and joining up with the rogue Confederate army — but the group was cut down after an encounter with the Ghost Nation. There’s one man left alive and Delores wants to help save him, even if he was sent to kill them.
William disagrees but goes along with the plan. Delores heads off to the river to get some water when she starts having more visions — this time seeing herself face drowned in the water — before she turns back around to find out that the soldier has expired. It’s a good bet that William killed him while Delores wasn’t looking, but we don’t know that for certain.
Eventually, William and Delores find a part of the valley that she recognizes as her former home — complete with that church steeple that’s currently occupying a part of Dr. Ford’s new narrative in the park.
Delores wanders into the town and finds a vibrant community complete with hosts and programmers, who are teaching them how to dance and behave. It seems like this is a flashback to the earliest days of the park’s inception when the robots were still being perfected — we also get a glimpse of Maeve, which lets us know that this is definitely a vision of Delores’ past.
The dream state continues with Delores then flashing to a moment where she’s holding a gun and everyone in the town has been shot dead — maybe another part of her programming that she had overwritten but she’s starting to find again? Remember, Delores was never supposed to be a killer but recently while with William that has been woken up inside of her.
Finally she wakes up with a gun to her own head as William pulls it away. Delores is confused and wonders if this is reality or just a dream? Is William real or just a vision? She then mutters something about this is where Arnold wanted her to be — the place where she was created perhaps? William decides this is all too much and Delores must be suffering from some kind of delusion the further she gets away from her home narrative in Sweetwater.
William decides to return her home but along the way they run into a garrison of men on horses. It’s not the Union army they suspect but instead Logan leading a group of the rogue Confederates. Logan tells William that he’s been looking for them for days and now the two of them are both “fucked”.
The encounter with Delores in that town where she sees the church steeple and remembers her past also made me question the long standing theory that William is really the Man in Black and this story is taking place 30 years into the past. Remember, Ford has already started to reconstruct the church in his new narrative so if this really is the same place in the park during the current timeline, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there would be new construction happening instead of just a barren desert?
It also makes me wonder if William’s “transformation” into the Man in Black will be completed by killing Logan and making it look like some sort of accident in the park? Remember there was an incident that happened 30 years ago that forced Ford to reset things — could Logan’s death be that incident? It would open up William’s story as well because we know the Man in Black is a powerful, rich man outside of the park.
Maybe by bumping off Logan and marrying into the family, he was able to take over the corporation for himself. William is supposed to marry Logan’s sister and if Logan is dead, that would make him the heir to the family fortune. Something to mull over in the final two episodes this season.
Freedom
Maeve continues her quest to escape the park this week, especially after she returns to the brothel and discovers that the park has already recast her best friend Clementine with a new host playing the park (welcome Lili Simmons from ‘Banshee’ and ‘True Detective’ fame). Maeve is just about fed up with this place and she really wants to get out, but that’s going to require some more work and assistance from her blackmailed pals Sylvester and Felix.
Back on the table, Maeve reveals that she knows the hosts all have a package of explosives implanted on their spines that will explode if any of them try to escape the park. So the first mission is to get that removed while also upping her control over the other hosts.
Maeve also recognizes that the people running Westworld aren’t just going to open the front door because she asks, so she’s going to need to build an army to help her. Back inside the narrative, Maeve begins to complete that particular task after she’s re-coded so she can control the other hosts and her recruitment begins with Hector and his band of outlaws who constantly shoot up Sweetwater in this particular storyline.
The final piece of Maeve’s puzzle is going to require a major overhaul in her software that can only be done by someone in the behavior department — or with her instructions handed over to Felix and Sylvester during the shift change when there’s a window where they could sneak in and sneak out again.
During this planning, Maeve is continuously haunted by the vision of her as a homesteader when she’s killed and her daughter is murdered by the Man in Black. Felix explains that the hosts have memories — that are supposed to be wiped out — but unlike humans who see memories as a hazy reflection of that particular snapshot in time, the hosts literally have video like versions trapped in their heads because they remember exactly what they saw and experienced. It’s no wonder all the robots in the park who are flashing visions aren’t just remembering fragments like a human might — they are actually remember everything just as it happened.
Maeve has experienced this enough times to know she doesn’t want anymore haunting memories in her head so it’s time to escape. Of course, Sylvester takes this opportunity when she’s knocked unconscious for the upload to fry her brain and send her to the scrap pile so he can escape the extortion scheme he’s been living under for weeks now.
Sadly, Sylvester underestimated his old pal Felix, who told Maeve about the plan and just when it looks like he’s going to melt her brain down to scrap, she wakes up — complete with the new programming already installed. Part of this new upgrade gives Maeve all kinds of abilities — including the one where she grabs a scalpel and slashes Sylvester’s throat.
She doesn’t let him die, however, and instead instructs Felix to cauterize the wound because this was just a warning shot not to cross her again.
Finally back in the narrative, Maeve ventures off course from the story when she tells Clementine that she’s leaving before exiting the brothel. Out in the street, Maeve once again has those same haunting visions about her daughter and she lashes out, but instead of killing the Man in Black, she’s actually slashed Clementine’s throat.
Upstairs, Stubbs is alerted to what’s happening and he dispatches a team to recover her. Maeve tries to run but ultimately the men in white suits catch up to her and bring her in for a diagnostic. It looks like Maeve’s memories may have cost her the chance to escape, but I think this is all part of her master plan to get brought into a new department, which may be the easiest way for her to get out of the park all together.
Maeve has orchestrated this escape too meticulously for this to not be part of her plan that will eventually see her leave Westworld and start a new life far away from this awful place.
A Heart So Dark
The Man in Black and Teddy continue their search for Wyatt — the evil villain that the Man in Black believes will lead him to the center of the maze that truly unlocks the secrets of Westworld.
They run into a group of people who have been attacked by Wyatt — including one straggler who Teddy and the Man in Black have to team up to take down — while finding one lone survivor. It’s Angela — the personal greeter who met William after the train station all the way back in episode 2.
The Man in Black remarks how she’s an older model and that surprise him that she’s still in circulation all these years later but Ford could never let a pretty face go to waste. This interaction seems to further cement the idea that the Man in Black is actually William considering his encounter with Angela when first arriving in the park for the first time.
After freeing Angela from the ropes binding her hands, Teddy starts to have flashes of memories as well — including the one where the Man in Black shot him and took Delores away to that barn, presumably to assault her. Teddy’s realization ends with him pistol whipping the Man in Black and tying him up instead.
That’s when the Man in Black divulges more about his background — while also stopping short of telling us his name. He explains that on the outside world, he’s a god — a billionaire titan of industry and a noted philanthropist with a wife and a daughter. It seems just recently, the Man in Black’s wife committed suicide and his daughter blames him for her death. According to the Man in Black, despite keeping his life from inside Westworld separate from the one he led at home, his wife saw the darkness — even if he never let her get a glimpse of it.
That ultimately led to her death as she became so frightened of what he was capable of doing that she couldn’t live with it anymore. The Man in Black couldn’t believe it so just after her death a year ago, he booked another trip to Westworld.
This time instead of following one of Ford’s narratives, he ventured off on his own path. He found a common homesteader and her daughter — Maeve and her daughter from that recurring dream — and he killed both of them in cold blood just to see if he could still feel. Sadly, it didn’t affect him but he did find something else.
When he stabbed Maeve, she refused to stay dead — she woke up and continued to protect her daughter. That’s when the Man in Black realized that there was a much deeper level to this place because he saw one of the hosts fight to stay alive. In other words, he witnessed one of the hosts reach a new level of consciousness that was never supposed to happen. He saw her come alive even if only for a moment.
Maeve woke up — and we witness Dr. Ford and Bernard suppress those feelings and erase her memory before returning her into the park under a new guise as the leader of the brothel. Dr. Ford remarks the “trick” he uses to get Maeve under control was something an old friend taught him — which means Arnold — and he silences her before saying that he’s going to wipe her memory to free her from the pain, just like he did Bernard.
Meanwhile, the Man in Black explains that with her death, he saw the first glimpses of this maze and a whole new game to play. In Ford’s game, there’s no real threat of death because no matter how deep the Man in Black goes, the hosts can never really hurt him. In Arnold’s version, this place becomes real with real consequences and that’s what the Man in Black is trying to find.
Before Teddy can be appalled by what he’s heard, Angela stabs him in the shoulder with an arrow and says that they missed him — just as Wyatt and his gang arrive. Teddy used to be part of Wyatt’s garrison during the war and now he’s been returned to them. And Angela is also part of Wyatt’s gang as well and now the Man in Black will finally get a meeting with the person he’s been searching for this whole time.
Only two episodes left to go this season — ‘Westworld’ returns next Sunday night at 9pm ET on HBO.
