The 10 best sci-fi/fantasy TV episodes to watch while sheltered in place
Westworld 208: “Kiksuya”
Look, let’s just get this out of the way: Westworld season 2 wasn’t very good. It saw Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and her android brethren rise up and fight back against their human masters, which was fun, but the unnecessary time jumps and overwritten dialogue wore on viewers as it went on.
However, there were some bright spots in the season, as it did deliver one of the best episodes of television ever, period, in “Kiksuya.”
“Kiksuya” was all about Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), one of the Native American hosts created for the titular futuristic theme park. Akecheta had a wife named Kohana (Julia Jones), but after his narrative was changed to become of member of the marauding war band Ghost Nation, his memory of her was erased. However, when one of the creators of Westworld — Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) — decided to free the hosts from their loops by giving them a maze to solve, Akecheta regained all his memories and remembered his life as a peace-loving member of his old tribe as well as the fact that he was once married.
So he returned to his former home and found Kohana. Once he freed her from her loop, she remembered who he was, and together they looked for the door to the Valley Beyond, which is a kind of heaven for hosts. Sadly, Delos tracked Kohana down and took her to their Mesa headquarters where she was lobotomized and placed into cold storage. After that, Akecheta spent his days looking for his wife and converting the members of his tribe and Ghost Nation by giving them the maze in order to free them from their loops.
Eventually, he figured out he needed to allow himself to be killed so he could infiltrate the Mesa and find Kohana. When he found her, she was unresponsive, so he decided to spend the rest of his remaining time as a host protecting the guests and working to free his tribe members so that they could travel to the Valley Beyond.
Akecheta narrates his story to Maeve’s (Thandie Newton) daughter, knowing that Maeve will use her powers to listen to him. He promises to take care of the daughter and hopes to see her in the Valley Beyond, which inspires Maeve to free herself from her predicament, with a helping hand from Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins).
There’s also composer Ramin Djawadi’s amazing score, which features the absolute best cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” that I have ever heard. If you skipped Westworld season 2, or quit midway through because it wasn’t very interesting, I urge you to go back and watch “Kiksuya.” It’s the most haunting and memorable episode of the show by far, and a good part of it is self-contained.
