Westworld: Season 2, episode 10 in-depth review: Part 5
By Art Intel
Our in-depth Westworld season 2 finale continues here!
Caution: Westworld Season 2 finale SPOILERS AHEAD!
Imaginary friends help make amends
The scene shows Bernard on the beach with Ford, who is telling him he did just fine, and he replies by saying he simply did what he told him to do. He is also aware however, that Ford is no longer there, that he is just a figment of his imagination.
He knows that when he deleted his code and purged himself of Ford last episode, he could not return, and so Bernard created his own Ford, and imagined that he was really there in the final episode.
This may explain the reason why Ford appeared out of focus when we saw him standing by a skeletal structure as the Charlotte-host was being created. It was in fact Bernard who was making Dolores’s host body. The inner voice, who he thought was Ford, was his own inner voice all along.
As he continues talking to himself/Ford, he states that they will find everything in his mind, because his memories can be extracted, and he will fail, so he must erase his Ford memories as well, to ensure fidelity and success of his species. This explains why Bernard had no recollection of events before him when he was found in the first episode of this season.
Ford says he always loved the view from the beach, every city, every monument… man’s greatest achievements will be chased by an impossible line where the waves conspire to return a place where he and Ford will meet again. Notice also there are two seagulls sitting on the rock as they speak, which are symbolically considered as messengers between heaven and earth, a touching end to the relationship.
Bernard is now left with his own thoughts, as he lays down on the shore, a moment which takes us right back to the opening scene of the first episode of this season. It was as though it had conspired to return at the end, like an old friend, to provide clarity for us as we became the passengers to the narrative of each episode.
This scene was very poignant, as it also shows that the host artificial intelligence has become independent, a point of singularity known as General Artificial Intelligence. It was used to show that Bernard has reached General AI; is self- aware, and self-learning, and by this virtue, has a conscience and is the dominant species on Earth.
Mankind is no longer able to compete with it. The question is will humans accept the hosts as equals or rather, will sentient-hosts accept humans as their equals?!
Goodbye, cruel world
The scene changes to the Extraction Zone, where Dolores arrives and presents Charlotte’s ID without being tested with the host scanner. She sees the fallen bodies of the hosts, Grace, and Maeve’s gang, who are all lying on the beach including Maeve.
Dolores talks about becoming a survivor, perhaps people would judge her, but she will live with her choices. We can see some hi-tech planes taking the humans back to their world.
She is met by Stubbs, and he notices her hand in her bag and asks why she isn’t staying for the retrieval. She says she needs to go to the Mainland. Stubbs is interrupted by a strike team member who says that they have a high-value guest, who is probably the MiB.
Stubbs talks to Dolores about loyalties to Ford, and how it could be called his ‘core drive’. Did he just hint that he is a host, or is he implying he knows she has core hosts units in her bag?
He also says that the Delos project blurs the lines and he does not know who to be loyal to in that type of environment. He says he just sticks to the role Ford gave him, which is to be responsible for every host ‘inside’ the park.
He lets her go, possibly knowing she is a host or sharing with her that he is one. Dolores can be heard saying that not all hosts made it, and some bad ones survived. She adds that some of the best were left behind, along with the best parts of who they were.
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It is at this point, we see Teddy standing all alone in the new world, as Dolores joins the leaving party, but we also know she has his core host unit.
Corporate wants to salvage the bodies, and Felix and Sylvester try to maintain their cool, as they are assigned the task and see Maeve lying on the ground. At least we know that Maeve still has friends on the inside, and so too does her gang and that Dolores finally made it out of the Westworld!
We now see Bernard as he asks: “Is this now?”, just as he did at the beginning of the episode, and Dolores says they are at the beginning, exactly where he decided where they should be. He does not understand how he is alive. Dolores says: “You live as long as the last person to remember you, I remember you from before.”
Welcome home!
The scene now changes to Bernard having a discussion with Dolores. Again, Bernard asks if this is now and Dolores says: “Yes, Bernard, this is now, we’re at the beginning, this is exactly where you decided we should be”. We can see that Bernard is in a new version of himself, and they are making a fresh start by rewriting the narrative for themselves.
Dolores is wearing her Sweetwater clothes at this point, and Bernard is confused, wondering how he got there or how he is even alive. Dolores continues, by saying “You live as long as the last person who remembers you. I remembered you before, so I remembered you again.”
He asks where they are, and then Dolores says they are in a whole new world. He asks if she got out, and she says yes, as her clothes change into the real Dolores and she appears in the present timeline. This might have been done not to scare Bernard upon awakening, by giving him something familiar, as she tells him Ford built a place for them to give them a fighting chance.
We see a flashback to Charlotte when she first entered the home as Dolores, where she finds a printer and a home ready for them. But she says the odds are not good, referring to the host species.
She says she saw this in the library, where so many paths lead to their extinction. Bernard says he does not need to read a book to know her drives, that she will try to kill all the humans, and that he can’t let that happen.
Dolores says she knows this, and that if she was a human, she would have killed him already, but she adds to survive, we need to work together. She also says that they will not be working as allies or friends, and is aware he will try to stop her, and that both of them will probably die, but that their kind will have endured.
Dolores then turns to Charlotte, who is in the room, but this cannot be the real Charlotte, so you are left wondering which of the core host units that Dolores smuggled out of Delos is occupying her.
Is it possible, that the series is so radical and forward-thinking, that it actually created the first ever LGBTQ couple in the history of sci-fi-robots on tv? Could Dolores have inserted Teddy’s host core unit into the Charlotte host?!
They both leave Bernard, who is still sitting naked in the analysis position but is also aware of them departing. He takes some clothes left for him, and his glasses, and makes his way out of the basement, into the new world that he knew from before, and sees a photo of himself and his son.
He sees the host printer, and walks outside, as Dolores says we gave each other a beautiful gift, the gift of choice. We are the authors of our stories now, as Bernard goes through a doorway, into the new world.
A cruel twist of fate; what goes around comes around
As the elevator door opens, we see the MiB entering the facility, everything is quiet, and the place looks empty. He hobbles into the area, still in pain from his wounds, and he sees the last person on Earth he wanted to see–Emily.
He says he knew it, he is already in a thing, the system is long gone. He asks what the place is, add Emily tells him that it isn’t a simulation, it is his world, or what’s left of it.
He follows her into a room, similar to the ones at Delos Labs where William would visit and torture her father, James in the goldfish-bowl prison he made for him.
When asked how long he has been there, he responds meekly by saying he does not know.
He is invited to sit down, by Emily, as she asks him what he was hoping to find. His answer is that no system can tell who I am, and adds that he didn’t have a choice, Emily yet here we are again…
How many times have you tested me he asks, and Emily replies by saying, longer than you thought. She then adds ominously “I have a few questions, to verify”.. The MiB asks “Verify what?” She replies: “Fidelity”
Next: Westworld: Breaking down the whirlwind season 2 finale
It seems that Emily took control of Delos, and kept William trapped in his own illusions and narratives, and that she made a new narrative for him, one that would last as long as she was alive, cycling back into his own loop of demise as the world he tried to control crumbles around him.