Westworld season 2, Episode 6 Recap: “Phase Space”
A fantastic cliffhanger ending, but loads of exciting things happened to all the major players during the wind-up: Bernard and Elsie visited the heart of the park, Dolores and Teddy rammed a speeding train into Delos’ Mesa HQ, Maeve found her daughter, and the Man in Black abandoned his. This was one of the best episodes of the season, so let’s bring ourselves back online and get started.
The episode opens with Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) in the middle of one of their conversations from before the robot uprising. In fact, it’s the same one we saw them have several episodes back. Is this Arnold running diagnostic tests on Dolores way back before the park ever opened, or is it Bernard rebooting Dolores after one of her deaths?
It’s neither. During one of Bernarnold’s meandering speeches, Dolores stops him. “No, that’s not how he said it.” Then she tells him to “freeze all motor functions,” which he does. So this is Dolores running tests on Bernard, rather than the other way around. Hello, migraine.
What is Delores looking for? “Fidelity.” Lest you forget, that’s what William was testing JamesDelosBot for a couple episodes back. Obviously, Ford (I’m just going to assume that Ford is behind Dolores’ actions here) is further along than William ever was.
Next, we see Maeve (Thandie Newton) standing in the aftermath of her battle with the Shogun’s warriors from last Sunday’s episode, “Akane No Mai.” She’s holding two swords and breathing heavily as Akane (Rinko Kikuchi) goes through a gruesome ritual; she removes the heart of her daughter figure Sakura (Kiki Sukezane), who was killed by the Shogun last week, so she can bring it to Snow Lake, where Sakura grew up, and put her to rest.
On their way to Snow Lake, Maeve and the gang cross paths with a samurai warrior who threatens to kill Hector (Rodrigo Santoro), Armistice (Ingrid Bolso Berdal), and Hanaryo (Tao Okamoto) if Maeve doesn’t leave Akane with him. Maeve nearly uses her newly acquired Jedi mind powers on him, but Musashi (Hiroyuki Sanada) steps up and challenges him to a duel. If he wins, Akane gets to leave with the rest of them. Musashi wins, and ritually decapitates the warrior…after cutting off his arm. Body parts are flying everywhere in Shogun World.
Anyway, once the gang reaches Snow Lake, Lee Sizemore (Alan Quarterman) leads Felix (Leonardo Nam) and Sylvester (Ptolemy Slocum) to a cleverly placed body chute used by Delos technicians to deposit dead hosts needing a repair and reboot. This will let the group move about under the park again. Felix slides down, Maeve says goodbye to Musashi and Akane, and Hanaryo decides to tag along to Westworld.
Is this the last we’ll see of Shogun World? I hope not. And at the least, Maeve takes a samurai sword with her back home.
Next, we visit the Delos Mesa HQ, where Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) and Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) are taking Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum) to a lab, intending to extract the code embedded in his brain. Also, Charlotte explains that it’s been one week since the robot uprising. It’s nice to get some clarification on the timeline amidst all this craziness.
Anyway, the two take Peter Abernathy to a technician who orders his men to bolt Peter to a lab table using a nail gun. It looks painful, and even Stubbs seems to feel bad for Dolores’ dad. Hale lets Delos know that Abernathy is secure, which means the company can finally send in security folk to help the guests stranded in the park. Later, we see Stubbs waiting above ground as parachutes fall from the sky. Delos has sent an extraction team, and they seem to already know their way around the place.
Elsewhere in the Mesa, Bernard and Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) find a computer terminal and update themselves on what’s been happening since the robot uprising. After a few minutes of combing through code, the pair realizes that something called “the Cradle” is thwarting Delos’ attempts to hack the park back to normal. Apparently, the cradle is “improvising” ways to fight back against the company’s digital incursions, which sounds like something a host would do.
The Cradle, as it turns out, is where all the data from the park is stored. This includes code and narrative streams for all the stories and hosts in Westworld. Elsie and Bernard make their way there to find out what’s what.
Meanwhile, in the town of Sweetwater, Teddy (James Marsden) walks the streets and picks up a bullet lying next to a can in the dirt. He looks it over carefully then puts it in his pocket. He enters the Mariposa Saloon where Dolores is playing the piano. He tells her she’s burning daylight and it’s time to get going. Dolores seems surprised by how the new Terminator Teddy is acting, but hey, she can’t really complain, since she’s the one who created New Teddy last week. Now she’s got to deal with him.
Out on the train station platform, a Delos security officer and the lab tech who altered Teddy’s levels — Phil, played by Patrick Cage II — are kneeling, begging for their lives. The security guy tells Dolores he doesn’t know where Peter Abernathy is, and starts to blame Charlotte Hale. Teddy pulls his gun and shoots the security guy in the head. I’m not sure if I like Terminator Teddy yet, but he definitely isn’t a good guy anymore.
What’s great about this whole scene is the look of shock on Dolores’ face. After five episodes of watching this new nefarious version of Dolores carve her way through the park, killing hosts and humans indiscriminately, seeing her left speechless by Teddy’s act of brutality is priceless. But, like I said, she broke him, now she’s gotta pay for him.
The group boards the train and heads for the Mesa. We’re looking at a confluence of characters here.
But not the Man in Black (Ed Harris) and his group, which now includes his daughter Grace (Katja Herbers). They’re still wandering the park in search of “the door” or “glory” or whatever the new hotness is. At first, MIB doesn’t believe Grace is actually Grace, and is angry that Dr. Ford would make a host of his daughter just to mess with him. Grace tells him she’s real, and after proving herself by killing two hosts laying a trap for MIB’s men, the two share a nice fireside chat come evening.
Hatchets are buried…we think. Grace says she shouldn’t have blamed him for her mother’s suicide, and that she’s here to save him from wallowing in self-pity and “commit[ing] suicide by robot.” She says they can start over if he will just come home with her. MIB sheds an actual tear, and tells his daughter that he’ll leave the park with her in the morning. Naturally, the next morning, MIB and his men are gone, leaving Grace alone with the cook. What a dick move, but if you didn’t see that coming, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Elsewhere, Maeve and the gang resurface in Westworld through a tunnel that opens into a graveyard, because symbolism maybe. Maeve climbs out and realizes that her old homestead and daughter are just over the hill. Thanks for all the navigation, Lee Sizemore.
Maeve commands everyone to stay put so she can go and retrieve her daughter by herself, and immediately I am filled with a sense of foreboding. Maeve sees her old house and her daughter playing with dolls on the porch. She approaches and tells her daughter she will never leave her again. A voice says “hello.” Maeve looks up to see another version of herself, a different host who’s now playing her old role, and who her daughter calls “mommy.”
Maeve looks angry and confused, and just as she’s about to say something, she notices a group of Ghost Nation warriors riding toward them. Dammit, I told you I had a bad feeling about this.
Maeve grabs her daughter and runs, while Hector and the rest show up to provide support fire. Lee realizes he’s been left alone and uses the walkie-talkie he grabbed last week off a dead Delos security officer, and calls for help.
Back at the Mesa, Elsie and Bernard reach the Cradle. To discover who’s been keeping the robot revolution afloat, Bernard decides to upload himself into the system the old-fashioned way: by having a machine remove his robot brain and plug it into a mechanical arm. It looks as painful as it sounds.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Hale is in the map room with the new guys from Delos, right as they bring the 3D map back online. They hear a beeping and look down to see a red dot rapidly approaching the Mesa. It’s the train. Begin confluence.
Back on the train itself, Dolores tells Teddy it’s time to release the Kraken, or something like that. She and the rest of her zombie army head to the front of the train, leaving behind Phil the lab tech. Teddy pulls out that bullet from earlier, which he put in his shirt pocket, and hands it to Phil, along with a gun. “That’s the last of my mercy,” he says. He joins the others as they pull a pin and release the engine and rail car from the rest of the train. Phil realizes he’s properly fucked just as the train barrels into the tunnel leading to the Mesa.
An explosion rocks the entire base, and Elsie Hughes looks around frantically. She approaches Bernard and asks him what he sees.
Here’s where it gets really neat. By uploading his brain into the Cradle, Bernard is now in a digital version of Westworld. He arrives in Sweetwater via train and walks the streets. He sees Dolores in her “Farmer’s Daughter” narrative, and then follows a greyhound into the Mariposa Saloon, brushing past Teddy on his way inside.
Bernard looks around and sees the dog laying at the feet of an old man playing the piano. “Hello, old friend,” the man says, and we see that it is…
Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), in the (new) flesh. Roll credits.
This was a fun episode that brought three important story arcs together: Bernard and Elsie, Charlotte and Delos, and Dolores and Teddy. “Phase Space” also showed that there is a clear good vs bad vs evil narrative playing out in season 2. Maeve represents good, as she allows the members of her group to choose if they want to be part of her quest for freedom. That’s in contrast to Dolores, who forces Teddy to become a cold killer. And then you have Delos itself, represented by the MIB and Charlotte Hale. They both have different reasons for being in the park, but they don’t care one bit for the hosts (or the guests, really) who get in their way.
Westworld continues next Sunday with Episode 207, “Les Ecorches.” Watch the trailer here.
Next: Watch the trailer for Westworld season 2, episode 7, “Les Ecorches”
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