Westworld: Season 2, episode 9 photo analysis
The penultimate episode of Westworld season 2 teases the true story of William’s family and a deadly confrontation between the forces of Dolores and Akecheta.
Check out the episode promo and photos to unpack what season 2, episode 9 “Vanishing Point” will explore.
Warning: Spoilers for episodes 1-8 of Westworld season 2 will follow.
The upcoming episode’s primary focus may lie with William and his family, but Dolores and other characters look to receive ample screen-time as well. She and Teddy are shown to be shooting Ghost Nation hosts on the beach.
Dolores was referred to as the Deathbringer by both Ford and Akecheta in the last episode. Ford told Akecheta to gather his people and lead them to freedom after the Deathbringer came for him.
All of this indicates that this episode will feature a showdown between the forces of Dolores and Akecheta as both groups head to the Valley Beyond. It’s already known that that showdown doesn’t end well for Ghost Nation with the corpses Bernard and the Delos team will soon discover on the beach, including a recording of Dolores gunning them down.
Hopefully, at least Akecheta and Maeve’s daughter will survive the wrath of Dolores, Teddy, and their horde of masked hosts.
It’s fascinating that at this point Dolores is almost a villain of the story and Akecheta–a character audiences only really got to know last week–is the one most fans will probably root for in this confrontation.
Each episode of Westworld always feels so cinematic and like it could be its own movie. Many factors contribute to that feeling, but a huge piece of it is the iconic actors. For many years Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris have been two of the best in the business. They bring a certain gravitas to every single scene featuring Robert Ford and the Man in Black/older William.
Westworld looks to further such gravitas by bringing in Sela Ward to play William’s wife Juliet. Flashbacks will provide further insight into William’s relationship with Juliet, a relationship that eventually drove her to commit suicide.
In true Westworld fashion, this episode will inevitably reveal that the story is not as simple as that and far more complex than imagined. The promo hints that Juliet grew tired of her husband’s lies and the facade he displayed in the outside world, leading her to eventually seek the truth.
This photo shows her being more curious than devastated about those truths. There’s a certain strength exuded in this photo as well, all of which paint a different picture than what fans thought they knew about the woman living in the shadows of her husband William and her father James Delos.
The promo already teases that the scenes between Ed Harris and Sela Ward are going to brim with nuance and palpable emotion, ultimately going down as some of the best acting moments in all of Westworld.
The older William has spent most of his time on the show inside the park wearing his iconic black hat and a revolver at his side. Ed Harris makes it a natural look for him. As such, it’s always a bit jarring to see him without his hat or revolver and instead wearing a tuxedo. Ed Harris makes his Man in Black aesthetic look natural and here he makes William look very unnatural at a social business gathering within the outside world.
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The promo hints that this moment of extreme discomfort is when William’s wife has had enough. She can no longer play the adoring, glamorous wife to her husband, a man who has lied to her for decades and despite his best efforts constantly communicates loathing for existence in the outside world. The stain inside William that he speaks of in the promo has been invisible to everyone except his wife.
This is the moment of confrontation where she finally gets him to tell the truths, finally revealing his true self and understanding the nature of that stain.
Raj World and tiger-slaying gave Emily–originally introduced as Grace–one of the best introductions ever on Westworld. Despite the reveal that she’s William’s daughter and the emotional fireside chat they experienced, the character feels overall underutilized in season 2.
That looks to change in an episode featuring flashbacks to her life in the outside world, revealing the true story of what really happened between her parents.
Her face here is difficult to read, but it’s likely either focused on enacting the suffering she promised for her father in the last episode or hearing from him the true story of what happened to her mother. It all depends on Emily’s true motives, something that still remains largely a mystery.
Hopefully, this photo is confirmation that this episode will finally utilize Emily to her full potential and begin unpacking her real motives.
Bernard feels like the real wild card of season 2. Characters like Dolores, Maeve, Charlotte Hale, and Akecheta have had clear motives for a while now. Bernard, on the other hand, is in an unpredictable place. In the present, he’s back under Ford’s control. In the future timeline–which the present is almost caught up to–Charlotte, Stubbs and the Delos team have discovered he’s a host.
They believe they’ve extracted the location of Peter Abernathy’s control unit and the “key” inside and are confidently heading there to retrieve it, though it definitely seems like they’re heading into a trap of Ford and possibly Bernard’s making.
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Once Bernard takes back control and decides what he wants to do with his impressive skills and unique experiences as a host who has mostly lived among humans, he can be a game-changer like no other character. Dolores, Charlotte and other characters may see their plans foiled this episode by Bernard. He’s arguably the most intelligent character on the show. Even if he’s still under Ford’s control, he remains incredibly smart as his intellect is mixed with that of the genius Ford himself.
Bernard has struggled to find his way in season 2 but once he does, he may be the show’s most important character.
What are your predictions for season 2, episode 9 of Westworld? Let us know in the comments!
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Westworld airs new episodes every Sunday at 9 P.M. EST!