Westworld Woman Crush Wednesday: Maeve Millay

From Maeve’s first line of dialogue, six minutes and a half minutes into the first episode of the first season, she had our full attention.

I may well be a starving artist but I can afford to pay attention and HBO’s Westworld is something for which I have bankrupted entire fields of thought process. Time is money, as Maeve Millay knows, so it’s comfortably fitting (even snug, perhaps) that from her first line of dialogue, six minutes and a half minutes into the first episode of the first season, she had my full attention.

By the finale of season one, Westworld was, for me, the show about Maeve – but I’m getting ahead of myself. When Westworld debuted on October 2, 2016, I was already dissecting it in my head, as the original movie upon which it was based, was of unquantifiable significance and I have seen too many ‘remakes’ that turned out to be mutilations of stories and characters I loved.

All that turned out to be quite unnecessary. As the madam of the Mariposa brothel (which, like everything else in Westworld, is no accident; Maeve not only metamorphizes, she discovers she had metamorphized before), and one of the first hosts, she has had plenty of time to master her innate abilities–to read between the lines (of code?) of people, to see what they really want…and
thusly, what their weaknesses are.

To do a full breakdown of Maeve’s transformation in just season one would be a book, so think of what follows as a ‘Maeve’s Greatest Hits’ collection.

“Hit the Ground Running”

I already told you Maeve had me at six and a half minutes into the pilot episode. At twenty-five minutes in, the viewer is becoming familiarized with the loops of the hamster-in-a-wheel-esque hapless hosts.

And to illustrate the possible ‘improvisations’ as the technicians call them, who but Maeve deviates from the delivering line that hooked me to drinking with a group of Chinese Asian men and women–and even speaking to them in their language, which I like to think of as a subtle foreshadow to Shogun World.

This is where she realizes/remembers she can use any and all languages the programmers (and thusly, the hosts) wrote into her. It’s a quickie (no pun intended) but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

“Running Down a Dream”

Episode two is titled, “Chestnut” – which is also the term that the Delos technicians call the object that contains the ‘brain/mind’ of the hosts. In this episode, Maeve awakens while being repaired.

Here, she not only meets Sylvester and Felix for the first time, as far as the viewer can tell, but she gets out of the repair center, shows us that there is a massive underground structure and inadvertently shows us how the technicians view the hosts–as work.

And for ‘grunts’ like Felix and Sylvester, the work is akin to waiting tables or selling used cars.

“The Sleeper Must Awaken”

At the end of episode three, “Contrapasso”, to ‘atone’,  Maeve has begun to grasp the nature of her reality and how to take a new approach to her relationship with Hector (the bandit who repeatedly, albeit, unknowingly so, robs the Mariposa, with the help of Armistice.

In episode four, “Dissonance Theory” seeing a child’s toy modeled after the technicians, referred to as a “shade” triggers flashbacks to repair sessions in the body shop. That part is unsettling but when she sketches the image and goes to hide it beneath a floorboard, she discovers that there are as many as dozens of practically identical sketches already there.

As if I wasn’t already hooked. Damn.

“I Know What’s Real”

Several of Maeve’s finest moments takes place in episode six, “The Adversary” which also tie into my adoration of the music selections and their deeper meanings. In full knowledge of the nature of her reality, Maeve awakens and strolls through her daily loop to the tune of “Fake Plastic Trees” while small deviations take place around her.

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The two gunslingers behind her still shoot each other but the one to the left goes down this time. She manipulates a homicidal guest into killing her so she can get back to the repair shop, and Felix, who shows her the structure of her personality/self, which, understandably, causes her to ‘faint.’

Upon awakening, she convinces Felix to take her on a tour of the Livestock Management complex to the tune of “Motion Picture Soundtrack”–mind-blowing, throat tightening, eyes stinging stuff.

“More Power”

The conclusion of episode six still gives me goosebumps. The closing scene where Maeve blackmails Felix and Sylvester into altering the structure of her personality/self is what I would have called in my days a ‘f***ing screamer’.

As Felix and Sylvester prepare to make her requested changes, they discover someone else has already been in there, making changes beyond what they are capable of (paranoia, self-preservation, etc).

Maeve is thoroughly uninterested and forces them to continue ‘rebuilding’ her personality/self. Thus, reducing her sensitivity to physical pain, her loyalty. which has been taken advantage of, and taking her Bulk Apperception (intelligence) all the way up.

“Lifting Rocks”

In episode eight, “Trompe L’Oneil”, a technique of giving a two-dimensional object the appearance of existing in three dimensions, Maeve begins to master her ability to use voice commands on her fellow hosts and alters the events of her daily life to her liking.

This causes the lawmen to shoot each other and allows Hector, Armistice, and co. to rob the Mariposa. As humorous as it is exhilarating, it also foreshadows her adventure through Shogun World, where she uses “another voice” which we know as the Mesh Network to control hosts…which made Thandie’s role in the “Solo” movie all the more delightful.

Hell, I’ll just say it–she wasn’t just my favorite character in the movie, she was my favorite part of it.

“I think, therefore, I am”

As the season one finale, “The Bicameral Mind” races towards its mayhem-strewn conclusion, Felix provides Maeve with the location of her daughter as she is within an arms-length of getting out of the park in a new body, customized to pass the numerous systems designed to keep the hosts from being able to escape.

She is on the train, which is moments from departing when her gaze falls upon a mother and daughter and the memories of her daughter (which she knows are false) prove stronger than her desire to escape and see the guest’s world.

As “Exit Music for a Film” crescendos, Maeve abruptly exits the train–a final piece of evidence that she is capable of making her own decisions.

Thandie Newton earned the hell out of her Emmy Award for her portrayal of Maeve and to close her acceptance speech with wishing her daughter a happy 18th birthday reminded me briefly of the argument our reality is a simulation inside another simulation inside another.

But even if the simulation argument is true–the moment was as beautiful as she is.