Westworld season 2, Episode 4 recap: “The Riddle of the Sphinx”
The Man in Black (Ed Harris) returns in grand fashion in tonight’s new episode of Westworld, “The Riddle of the Sphinx.” Meanwhile, Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) finds a long-lost friend and discovers a long-buried secret.
It’s the best episode of the season yet. Let’s get into it.
“The Riddle of the Sphinx” opens in the past, with a man listening to music and riding a stationary bike. As he goes through his morning routine, he looks in the mirror and reveals himself to be James Delos (Peter Mullan), founder of the Delos Corporation. As he sits to pour creamer into his coffee, his hand begins to shake. We’ve seen the same tremble before, in Bernard. Bookmark that moment.
An assistant-type appears in his mirror; very futuristic. The assistant alerts James that someone is here to see him. In walks William (Jimmi Simpson), the younger version of the Man in Black, and the two share a drink. As they talk, James becomes agitated and his leg begins to shake. Again, this behavior looks awfully familiar. William hands James a piece of paper, which he looks at in shock.
Back in the present, Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) drags Bernard to the mouth of a cave and leaves, dropping her rifle in the dirt next to him. Bernard stands and stumbles into the cave, where he finds Delos programmer Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) alive and well, with her ankle chained to the cave wall. Last we saw Elsie, Bernard — acting under Robert Ford’s control — was attacking her before she uncovered the Delos board’s plan to sneak proprietary information out of the park. We didn’t know if she survived that encounter. Now we do.
Anyway, Elsie sees Bernard and backs away, understandably in no mood to trust him. But at least he left her some snacks.
Bernard releases her and she grabs his rifle. He begs her to stop for a minute and look at him and his uncontrollable shaking. Elsie grabs his control pad and is shocked to discover that Bernard is a host. Bernard has one of his memory flashes, and realizes there is an entrance to a lab in the back of the cave. He theorizes that Clementine, acting according to Ford’s will, wanted him to find it, and he’s probably right.
They enter. The lab looks exactly like the one Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) took Bernard to in the season 2 premiere. There’s even a drone host that scares the shit out of Elsie. She blasts it with three shots, killing this spawn of nightmares. Bernard begins glitching, and Elsie finds a syringe full of cortical fluid that he needs to be repaired.
Elsewhere, the Man in Black (Ed Harris) and his traveling companion Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) travel toward the town of Las Mudas, Lawrence’s hometown and the same place the Man in Black took him back in season 1, when he was searching for the Maze. Along the way, they come across some friendly railroad workers using hosts (at least we hope they were hosts) as planks for railroad ties, another result of the park being out of control being allowed to go beyond where they’d usually stop. Planking has now gone too far.
When MIB and Lawrence enter Las Mudas, they are ambushed by Major Craddock (Jonathan Tucker) and the Confederados that Teddy (James Marsden) let escape from Fort Forlorn Hope in Episode 203. Teddy doesn’t appear in this episode, but that doesn’t mean he can’t screw everything up.
The Confederados are here looking for weapons they know the townsfolk are hiding. Instead of drawing things out, MIB expedites the situation by revealing where they’re buried. But the Confederados are far from done. Later that night, Major Craddock has his men beat Lawrence, and orders Lawrence’s wife to serve him a shot glass filled with nitroglycerine.
MIB watches all this and has a few flashbacks of his own, to the time he found his wife had killed herself in their bathtub. In an uncharacteristic moment, MIB has pity on Lawrence and family, and kills Major Craddock and the rest of his Confederado band.
The next day, as MIB and Lawrence prepare to leave on their quest to find the Door, Lawrence’s daughter approaches MIB and tells him she knows who he really is; she remembers, and warns him that one good deed doesn’t change who he is. It seems Dr. Ford is still watching.
We go back in time again and find James Delos going through the same morning routines as before. William walks in, and the two have a drink. James is saying the same words as before, and we realize he’s following a script. William shows James the piece of paper again; it has their conversation written out on it. James is a host, and is following a narrative loop to see if his consciousness is compatible with his new body.
It’s here that we learn James Delos died some years ago of a disease, but before it happened, William had his consciousness put into a host body made to look like him. It’s part of James’ hope to live forever, or at least a whole lot longer. William seems to be acting on his last wishes. In any case, the Reddit theories will have a field day. As William walks out, he tells the assistant (who is actually a lab tech) to destroy it all and begin again. The assistant complies and sets James and his room ablaze, incinerating everything.
We jump back to the current timeline, where Grace (the woman who washed up in Westworld alongside a Bengal tiger from the Raj last week, played by Katja Herbers) and Delos security officer Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) have been captured by members of Ghost Nation. These hosts have taken other captives, too, including that goofy bastard from season 1 who killed Armistice during the “Bank Heist” narrative. He’s not such a big shot now.
Grace sees an opportunity for escape and takes it, leaving Stubbs behind. Interestingly enough, the members of Ghost Nation don’t follow her, and they aren’t treating the humans roughly. Could Ghost Nation be protecting humans and rounding them up to be safely evacuated from the park by Delos forces? Oh Westworld, do you see what you’re doing to us with these theories?
Anyway, the leader, whose name is Akecheta (Zach McClarnon), walks up to Stubbs and whispers something cryptic, which is pretty standard on this show: “You live only as long as the last person who remembers you.” Thanks for that. Then he and Ghost Nation disappear, and the humans are free. What that means is anyone’s guess, but this at least connects some dots in Stubbs’ story; we now have a better idea of how he reconnects with the Delos security team, which we saw will happen in the premiere.
Speaking of confusing time jumps, it’s back to the past, where the JamesDelosBot is still going through his daily loop. A new assistant alerts him that someone is outside waiting to meet with him. The door opens and it’s Ed Harris as William, and Delos doesn’t recognize him. William gets James to have a seat and they pour the same drink and have a talk. Once again, James follows the same script and William realizes he’s still not working properly.
James gets angry and starts yelling for his son Logan (Ben Barnes), and William tells him that Logan overdosed years ago. James then asks for his daughter, and William tells him she committed suicide. James begins to glitch, and William walks out. The lab tech asks him if he wants to incinerate and start again, but William says no; let JamesDelosBot degrade and see how many days he will last before he shuts down. It seems that William has given up on James Delos’ bid for immortality.
This particular flashback seems to happen right before the host uprising, so towards the end of season 1. That means William was trying to create a functional JamesDelosBot for around 35 years, without success.
Back in the present, Bernard wakes up from the injection Elsie gave him, and they hear a noise coming from behind a door. Bernard warns her not to open it, but she does. They enter the room and we see it’s the same lab where the team was developing JamesDelosBot…except all the technicians are dead, just like in the lab outside.
Elsie follows the sound and finds James Delos, his face cut and bleeding but still “alive.” He’s degraded even further, which is to say he’s gone nuts. James attacks Elsie and Bernard knocks him to the ground. The two leave and Elsie turns on the incinerator.
I wonder if there’s another James host somewhere in the park, or if this is the last we’ve seen on him. Something tells me we’ll see him again.
On their way out of the lab, Bernard, remembering something, tells Elsie that Dr. Ford had sent him there before. Apparently, someone was creating another host designed to be a copy of a real human being, although we don’t know who. Get your tinfoil hats ready, because the “Dr. Ford created a host of himself” theories just got a new lease on life.
But Bernard didn’t tell Elsie the whole story of what happened when he visited this lab before. Bernard has another memory flash. He’s in this lab, which is bustling with drone hosts and scientists. A machine is creating a red ball, which I think is a robotic representation of a human brain. Once it’s finished, Bernard pockets it.
A scientist sees this and confronts him. Bernard whispers something to a drone host and the slaughter commences, with the drones killing all the scientists. As one bleeding scientist tries to crawl away, Bernard walks over and stomps his head into mush. Bernard is dark as fuck, you guys.
Finally, back in the present, the Man in Black, Lawrence and his cousins ride out across the plains when they see a rider approaching. They stop and wait to see who it is. As the rider comes into focus, we see it’s Grace. MIB cracks a half smile as Grace says, “Hi dad.” The two look at each other as we fade to black.
“The Riddle of the Sphinx” was a phenomenal episode that returned to the fantastic storytelling that made Westworld season 1 so popular. Tune in next week as Maeve (Thandie Newton) enters Shogun World in Episode 205, “Akane No Mai.”
Next: Watch the trailer for “Akane No Mai,” the fifth episode of Westworld season 2
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