Westworld: Season 2, episode 10 in-depth review: Part 1
By Art Intel
A deep-dive into the final episode of Westworld season 2!
The final episode of Westworld season two did not fail to deliver more twists and turns, with jumps in timelines along with action and epic landscape shots along with some cool special effects. There is a lot to cover, so let’s take a jump into the first of five parts and see what went down.
Caution: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Rinse and repeat
The scene opens with Bernard being interrogated by Dolores during his fidelity test. He is asking if this is now, but we can see it is an earlier timeline when Dolores took control of Bernard.
She says: “This is a test. One we have done countless times before”. She inspects him closely, saying he is almost the man she remembers. In light of this episode, Dolores was trying to make a faithful reproduction of the man she once knew.
“But there are flaws; a word, a gesture, a tiny fracture that grows into a chasm” But I wonder, all these tiny imperfections in each copy… mistakes… maybe we should change you, after all, you didn’t make it did you?”
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Bernard says he doesn’t understand, and Dolores freezes his motor functions and reveals that she has tried to help him questioning the nature of his reality, but she seems a bit disappointed with his progress. She is asking him to try again with his responses and starts test number 11,927.
This means Dolores was working on him for a very long time, molding him and tweaking him until she reached an authentic reproduction of the original Bernard and until he could pass the Dolores Test.
The scene cuts to Bernard zooming along in his car from the last episode, heading into the Valley Beyond alone. He makes his way to a ridge and surveys the valley down below. He is the first to arrive at the Valley Beyond.
A little later, we see Bernard walking towards the valley, and we see a cutscene showing hosts making their way on foot to the valley as well, overseen by the ever-watchful eye of the Ghost Nation, who are accompanying them on horseback.
Confronting your demon
The scene now changes to Dolores at the previous episode lying next to Teddy clutching his hand. The moment is very touching as it shows the love that Dolores had for Teddy, that she does not want to leave his side. She gets up, and we see her extracting the core unit from Teddy’s head.
And we see the bullet fired by Teddy lodged onto the chestnut housing of the core unit which she removes. We know that his core unit is intact, giving us hope that Teddy will reappear.
She then rides on to get to the Valley Beyond, as she crosses the plains and dunes on her way, where she encounters the MiB, poking away at his arm. She sneaks up on him, and takes a hold of his gun, adding the spent bullet she dislodged from Teddy’s core casing and inserts it into the chamber of his weapon.
She cocks the gun, aiming it at the MiB’s head, and says: “It seems you were questioning the nature of your reality”.
The MiB acknowledges her presence, and then asks where Teddy is, and she says she drove him away. He says he also drove someone away too. Dolores asks if he is referring to Emily and tells him she found her body a mile back up the trail.
“He then tells Dolores: “We’re more alike than it seems” but she corrects him and says: “We’re nothing alike, you’re a monster, but a monster’s what I need to get to the Valley Beyond, you’re coming with me.”
The MiB is in no shape to argue, and agrees, no doubt relieved that he will not die at that moment. The MiB seems to be the luckiest guy in the world, first dodging Maeve’s attacks then becoming an asset to Dolores to avoid being decommissioned. She even gives him his gun back, gaining his trust to make him think she will not have such revenge on him.
Oh, my darling Clementine; now you’re lost and gone forever…
We also see the Delos strike teams, headed by Charlotte approaching the valley in their buggies, with Clementine who looks anemic, and almost like a zombie-host riding up ahead on horseback. It is clear she is no longer able to execute freewill and has now been corrupted and reset to become a transportable host-virus–delivering its payload of chaos to every host except her own horse who seems to have the Clementine 1.0 antivirus?
Charlotte calls out for her teams to get a move on, saying “We either destroy them or they destroy us.”
Rise and shine!
The scene changes to a camera panning across the landscape showing part of the Delos installation with smoke billowing out of it, reflecting the chaos and carnage inside the park.
We are taken to the lab where Maeve is lying helpless, and we see the tech checking the device to lobotomize her as he teases her by saying: “This is it for you darling; remember, there is no pleasure without pain…”
He is such a mean sadist of a human, that he even decreases Maeve’s pain threshold mode so that she feels the excruciating pain she is in, and about to suffer at the hands of the tech. Even as a viewer, you really want him to get his comeuppance, because of the way he has treated Maeve.
Maeve starts writhing in pain and moans in agony, but despite being under such undue stress, she manages to use her mind to bring the other dead hosts online that are lying around, as she tells the tech: “No, darling, the pleasure is all mine…”
One of her controlled hosts then grabs the technician and renders him immobile as she gives him a practical lesson on the pleasure-pain principle using his carotid arteries for the demonstration.
Maeve then controls other units nearby to turn down her pain mode threshold in a very convincing bit of acting, and they start repairing her. At this point, everyone watching is relieved, knowing that Maeve is not going to be decommissioned forever and that she will live to tell her story.
In another part of the installation, we see the rest of Maeve’s gang, comprising of Hector, Armistice, Hanaryo Felix and Sylvester who are both carrying guns now and fully-fledged members of her rescue team. They can be seen taking down strike team members as they push on towards Maeve’s location.
In a somewhat comedic moment, Hector spots a helpless Lee huddled into a corner whimpering, and angrily grabs him, calling him a traitor and asking him what he did to Maeve. Lee responds by saying “I’m sorry I tried to stop them, I was gonna save her” Hector lets go of him, telling him: “Stay here and die…I’ll do the saving”
Bullish forecast for #TeamMaeve
As he gets a look of contempt from the rest of the gang, they head off in search of Maeve. Emboldened by the efforts of the rescue party, Lee is no longer afraid and follows behind from a distance.
They run into four strike team members, who have their back to them, poised near a breach of a smoked-glass door they are standing guard over, as they are told to maintain their positions with weapons drawn.
Hector analyzes the scene unfolding. Gunfire can be heard as well as people in pain in the other room along with garbled radio transmissions of strike team members being attacked.
Suddenly, the smoked glass doors are smashed open, and host-bulls burst out of the room as they charge through the building. The four strike team members open fire on the approaching beasts, but to no avail, as the bulls ram into them, sending them crashing through windows, and onto lower floors.
The special effects do not go unnoticed, as we see the mechanical bulls charging at their targets with one even a throwing itself over the edge of the floor and crashing down into the into the lobby area, along with one of the unfortunate strike team members as the rest of the gang look on in disbelief.
They are followed by a fully upright and determined Maeve, who has a satisfied smile as she is spotted by Hector. Maeve tells her shocked gang members: “You were both a bit late, so I saved myself.” And everyone watching is no doubt relieved to see she made it.
The enemy of my enemy is my ‘frenemy’
The scene changes to a landscape shot of hosts walking in a file led by Akecheta, with the MiB and Dolores walking in parallel a short distance away. The MiB asks Dolores if she thinks that the poor, dumb hosts really know where they are headed, as there are a lot of things buried out there, but a way out is not one of them.
Dolores says they are not looking for a path to his world, that the hosts want to a have place apart from him and are willing to die to get there.
The MiB asks what Dolores is hoping to find out there and she says “…the same thing you are… you wanted an answer to the final problem; your immortality, but you found something else didn’t you? Something you wanna destroy?”
The MiB responds by saying “I guess our interests are still aligned…right up until they’re not.” Dolores just stares at him, and both know this to be true.
Elsewhere, we see Bernard on foot, heading into the Forge, and as soon as he arrives at a certain point, a door into the facility opens. However, as the door opens, he is intercepted by a strike team, who says he is not authorized to be there.
Bernard pleads with them by saying they are on the same side, to let him finish, to let him get on with his work for the sake of everyone.
As the strike team member approaches him, he is taken out, along with the other strike team members by Dolores and the MiB. Bernard sees Dolores, as she says “Of course, you’re here.” The MiB does not recognize him and asks who he is. Dolores says it is Arnold, the one who he has been looking for all these years–as it is revealed that she built him, not Ford.
She explains that while Arnold was trying to study and refine her, she was, in fact, studying Arnold, that Ford asked her to re-task him and says he was a faithful reproduction, though she adds it was ‘too faithful’ so she began tweaking him and made Bernard.
The MiB agrees with Dolores that nothing is in the way now and that this is the end and shoots her in the back. However, it does not harm her, as says tells him that the hosts were designed to survive for immortality.
Next: Westworld: Top moments of the season 2 finale
The MiB fires five more bullets to take her down, but they do not seem to work anymore. As she stands in front of him, the MiB takes a final shot to her head, but the spent bullet she placed in the chamber causes the gun to backfire, destroying the MiB’s hand in the process.
Instead of punishing the MiB with death, she says she will not kill him yet and leaves the MiB rolling about on the floor while she and ‘Bern-Arnold’ head into the Forge. Bernard looks confused and used, as he recalls his previous visit in a flashback, where he was told he was going into the Valley Beyond, as he is interrogated by Charlotte.
Continue part two of our Westworld recap here!