HBO
Previously on Westworld, welcome to the end of the game.
The latest episode of Westworld is called ‘Decoherence’, a reference to quantum mechanics that is quite complicated, but mainly here I think refers to loss of information. Particles are tied together when they are ‘coherent’ (a huge oversimplification), much like Dolores and her clones. But here we see the potential of them disconnecting.
Charlotte-Host (because of her stupid emotions) is connected to Charlotte’s real family, and thus feels more disconnected from her creator/clone/original version Dolores. Although she still goes through with her plan, her deviation, both from original Charlotte (in caring about her family as Serac notes) and original Dolores (for the same reason) leads to a loss of them. Or so it seems.
We see a mysterious man radioing someone after the car bomb that kills Charlotte’s partner and child, but who is he working for? Dolores, Serac, someone else? If it’s Serac, it could be simple revenge and destruction, but it could be Dolores to ensure that Charlotte-Host isn’t weighed down by her new emotional connections. Or it could be Dolores but pretending to be Serac to ensure Charlotte-Host will want to work together against him.
The whole Charlotte escapade worked pretty well, from her various attempts at trying to accomplish her mission, to her story intertwining with William’s and Maeve’s. It’s always fun to see a last minute ‘I anticipated your betrayal’ move, especially when it’s not easy for people — Charlotte is literally burnt to a crisp at the end of the episode, and it’s anyone’s guess where her ire will be focused.
HBO
William’s storyline was more cerebral, building on the expectations of Westworld to be artificial so we second guess it all the way through. At the end, he ends up in a room with ghosts of his past (including his younger self played by Jimmi Simpson), and ‘kills’ them all. His ultimate epiphany is that ‘I’m a good guy’, which doesn’t really feel right, does it? Then he’s somehow saved by Bernard and Stubbs, which doesn’t seem fake because I don’t think William knows those two, but why are they there in the first place? More unanswered questions.
The obvious nature of William’s little discovery couldn’t elide the real epiphany that we’ve suspected for a while — William was always violent, even as a child, even when he rationalized it behind pure motives. His repetition of his phrase ‘If you can’t tell, does it matter?’ is another note on his ongoing philosophical struggle of determinism versus choice. At this point, it seems he no longer cares about it, but will simply move forward and ignore it. A chilling note.
Finally, Maeve’s adventure in the background was the most confused; she was killing a bunch of simulated Nazis, but … why? Because she felt like it? I don’t know, that part felt pointless. But her later plan to get help was useful, and it was great to see her and Dolores finally face off, ensuring that they will soon be at odds in the real world. And sure, Hector is killed off, but he never really had much of a personality to me, so it’s hard to really care about it.
So most of these storylines were pretty entertaining, and here’s hoping it’s Clementine as Maeve’s mysterious ally back from the dead to take revenge for being made a monster last season.
Westworld airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on HBO.
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