HBO
Previously on Westworld, the mysterious Serac was involved and William shot his daughter incorrectly thinking she was a host.
The latest episode of Westworld is called ‘The Mother of Exiles’, which is another name for the Statue of Liberty. The connection here seems to be about Dolores, who desires to bring back the exiled hosts to a kind of freedom in the human world. Of course, there’s a question too about whether or not that is even desired by them, or if it is a kind of false freedom. Potentially, there’s a connection too with Maeve, who still has a connection to her host daughter in the upload.
A subplot wrapping the episode is everything with William, back on the screen, and the culmination of host-Charlotte Hall, who is revealed to simply be a copy of Dolores herself. It’s a reveal that I was hoping wasn’t the case, because it seemed too easy and Agent Smith-ish from the Matrix sequels. I suppose if it continues with real divergence, that could lead to something more interesting.
The plan by Dolores-Charlotte to commit William and thus steal his vote works pretty effectively; it seems that she’s been spying on him and his hallucinations of his daughter (if they aren’t a trick by her already, we know that people’s vision can be changed with implants and glasses — after all, Serac does the same trick to torture information out of a hapless criminal). William accepts out loud his acceptance of his choice to kill his daughter, even if it was because he was wrong at the time.
The choice of colors at the end seems pretty clear — he is now the Man in White, stripped of everything that made him himself — ‘Am I me?’ he asks, but who really knows? Dolores in his mind (or something) mentions the ‘end of the game’, which is certainly ominous.
His ‘daughter’ asks the question that’s a classic philosophical one: Free and evil or blameless and enslaved? In the world of Westworld, people like Serac believe the latter is better, and we learn his driver is the loss of Paris to some sort of nuclear/radioactive horror. Thus it’s easy for him to believe in the terrible path of humanity and that controlling the future is a better option.
His own plan to set Maeve on the path to find Dolores seemed to be only halfway decent, tracking Maeve’s movements (it is implied) but he is a step behind Dolores. Maeve’s little journey of tech control and murder is fun while it lasts, but although she figures out that Sato is really Dolores, she is nearly killed/capture.
HBO
Bernard is the other actor here, trying to stop Dolores with the help of mind controlled Stubbs, who’s still funny. The episode does a good job of paralleling each of the Dolores copies having their moments at the same time, letting the reveal (which is obvious in retrospect unfortunately) wash over their adversaries. The culmination of Dolores’ plan, which is clearly to capture Liam and get to Serac through him, is fun to watch.
Caleb seems to be mostly brainwashed by this point, and certainly it seems that Dolores is ‘winning’ this episode. It’s an interesting place to go, because she’s still very compelling, but she’s being painted as the true antagonist even compared against Serac. So it’s an interesting place to continue from, in a pretty entertaining, engaging episode.
Westworld airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on HBO.
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