Westworld: 5 major takeaways from season 2, episode 5
Westworld finally delivered on Shogun World while Dolores and Teddy found themselves at a crossroads, all of which culminated in a game-changing episode.
Warning: Spoilers for Westworld season 2 episode 5, “Akane No Mai” will follow.
As promised, Shogun World was even more violent than Westworld. Amidst the violence, Shogun World had its own unique identity and aesthetics, but it also contained many parallels to Westworld itself. The new park proved integral to not only Maeve’s development but to Lee Sizemore’s development as well.
Let’s take a look at these changes and more as we dive into the episode’s 5 major takeaways.
Parallel characters and narratives
It was teased in the episode promo that Maeve would encounter the equivalent of her character in Shogun World. This turned out to be true as Shogun World’s Akane is programmed almost identically to Maeve.
Akane has the fierce compassion and tender love of Maeve’s motherhood narrative, her bond with Sakura heavily mirroring the relationship Maeve remembers with the daughter she’s been searching for since the end of season 1. The madame narrative is also there, brimming with the necessary sweetness that can be shed at any moment for ferocity.
The parallels extended far beyond Maeve and Akane, though. One of the episode’s best moments is when Maeve and her allies watch the Shogun World version of Westworld’s Mariposa safe heist.
Hiroyuki Sanada’s character Musashi is Shogun World’s Hector. Musashi’s associate with the dragon-tattooed face is Shogun World’s Armistice. Not only are they programmed to be like their Westworld counterparts, but they even follow the same narrative perfectly.
Overworked narrative writer Lee Sizemore is apparently to blame for the countless parallels in character and plot. That bit is amusing and shows despite the heaviness, Westworld can make fun of itself.
More importantly, though, the parallels offer the hosts sobering insight into how little control they had over their actions and even their personalities. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s balanced out by the bonds Maeve, Armistice, and Hector begin to form with their Shogun World counterparts.
After all, they can’t know or trust anyone better than themselves.
The Shogun
Shogun World has countless parallels with Westworld, but one of the key differences is how the entire world revolves around the Shogun. Every single samurai host and assassin appeared to serve the Shogun.
Even hosts like Akane and Musashi who don’t serve the Shogun have backstories heavily grounded in a past with him, their past with the Shogun acting as a driving factor in their current motives. In fact, it seems like every single character and narrative ties back to the Shogun in some way.
Even a character like Dolores didn’t hold that kind of sway over the narratives in Westworld. The various narratives there intersected in various ways, but they didn’t all revolve around one character.
The host uprising already began in Shogun World just as it did in Westworld and Raj World. The loops were already breaking as evidenced by Akane murdering the Shogun’s emissary. The death of the Shogun himself will sow even more chaos and violence as it removes the character most integral to the park’s narratives and identity.
It will be interesting to see where his death will lead the narrative of Shogun World and its inhabitants amidst the host uprising that is in full effect.
Lee’s resourcefulness
Prior to this episode, Lee has mostly been used as comic relief or as a sounding board for Maeve. Lee changed this up by proving himself resourceful in many ways in this episode. His role in writing many of the characters and narratives in Shogun World were essential to Maeve and company navigating the foreign terrain and its intricacies.
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Maeve only gets her voice commands to work again because Lee tells her she needs to deliver them in Japanese. He is the one who initially devises the plan to help Sakura and get to Snow Lake because of the nearby access point it provides.
Lee’s resourcefulness isn’t just reserved for Team Maeve, though. He spies the still working communication device on one of the human corpses and nabs it without Maeve or anyone else realizing.
That access to communication and possibly the outside world could, later on, help Lee escape his predicament. The whole manner in which he pulled it off was fairly smooth and clever, not at all like his often bumbling self.
The confidence he felt with navigating Shogun World earlier in the episode likely made him feel he could pull off the maneuver. And maybe, perhaps maybe, he just can.
Make no mistake. Lee Sizemore is not to be underestimated, ever.
Teddy’s rewrite
“Akane No Mai” stepped away from Shogun World a few times to check in on Dolores and Teddy. Teddy’s mercy towards Major Craddock and the other Confederado survivors didn’t bode well for his future with Dolores.
Neither did his corpse briefly seen floating in the water in the ‘two weeks later’ timeline with Bernard. The opening of “Akane No Mai” made sure fans hadn’t forgotten this with a lingering shot on Teddy’s corpse.
The blatant foreshadowing makes it difficult to watch Teddy’s tender moments with Dolores, knowing it’s all going to break by the end of the episode.
Teddy’s impending doom at the hands of Dolores eventually comes, but not in the form of death. Instead, Dolores forces the captive human tech to upload a rewrite of his character.
Dolores makes it clear that Teddy’s kind, noble ways won’t allow him to survive in this world, the not so subtle use of rotting flesh used to further drive home her point. She’s not ready to give up on him completely as she chooses the rewrite over his murder.
The new Teddy will probably be equally ruthless and loyal. Blind loyalty could be the answer to how he ends up as a corpse in the future timeline with Bernard.
Ruthlessness could be the answer as well, especially if the newly programmed ruthlessness fuses with memories of what Dolores just did to him and the inner conflict he’s been wrestling with all season. He could still turn on Dolores, albeit unsuccessfully.
Maeve’s new voice
If you thought Maeve’s voice commands were going to be the height of her abilities, think again. Now Maeve has the ability to control hosts solely with her mind. Her mental bidding forced one of the Shogun’s assassins to impale himself. After Akane’s brutal slaying of the Shogun, Maeve’s new voice commanded the Shogun’s soldiers to fight and kill each other.
There’s certainly more to be explained by Maeve’s mental control over other hosts, but right now the ability seems closely linked to Maeve’s connection with Akane. Maeve’s progress with sentience and the “privileges” she programmed herself to have–such as controlling other hosts via voice commands–already placed her on a level above other hosts. It’s as if that level is amplified by her connection with Akane and Maeve’s intimate understanding of her.
Next: When East meets West: 5 questions about Westworld 2, Episode 5
Both Maeve and Akane are shown to constantly defy their programming and this defiance plus their scripted similarities seems like the key to Maeve’s new voice. Akane awakened the voice inside Maeve, and she is helping it stay alive and strong.
Now we’ll see if Maeve’s new voice can defeat the Shogun’s giant army of samurai hosts. At this point, she’s miles more powerful than any other host.
What major takeaways from “Akane No Mai” did we miss? Let us know in the comments!
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