‘Westworld’ season 1, episode 8 review: The Man in Black shares his story, Maeve recruits an army
On the last episode of “Westworld” we saw Bernard learn his true identity through Ford and as much as it was a shock for us, it was a real shock for Theresa. Now that Ford has made his point, he feels confident that he can get the board back in line with what he wants to do.
Bernard is overwhelmed with guilt and pain over what’s he’s done to Theresa, and Ford reminds him that these feelings are progress with layers to his emotions – something that many of the AI’s don’t have. Ford explains to Bernard that if he didn’t kill Theresa that the board was going to destroy Westworld as well as him. Bernard starts to clean up any ties to Theresa’s death and in exchange, Ford promises to release him of all memories of what he’s done, his relationship with Theresa and the fact that he’s responsible for killing Elsie.
Once all evidence is destroyed, the higher ups “discover” Theresa’s body labeling it an accident. Ford planted the recording/transmitting devices she was using to siphon information from the park to the board as a message to them that he knows all. He also reveals that after seeing the reconstructed code on Clementine that he knows that whole display was a hoax, so with this tampering exposed he puts a hold on Quality Assurance having access to pretty much anything.
Maeve knows that there’s a fail safe to stop her from entering the real world: An explosive charge that will detonate if she leaves. She not only wants a surgery conducted to rebuild her body without the explosive in her, but she also wants administrative privileges in the company so that she can build an army of allies with other hosts to help get her out of there once she is reconstructed. Sylvester wants to use this as an opportunity to wipe Maeve out, but Felix won’t let it happen. Instead he changes her core and she heads back to Westworld to recruit her army, but as she starts playing with the minds of the other hosts, everything starts spiraling and a retrieval team is sent in to get her.
William and Dolores run into a dying man (one of the men sent to ambush them), and while Dolores wants to help stop his suffering, we are starting to see more of Williams true colors. Dolores goes to get this man water and when she returns, he’s dead. Did William kill him? We aren’t the only ones suspecting that he may have – it looks like Dolores is wondering that herself. After finding what she thought was her “home”, her memories come flooding back in weird, disjointed ways that make her start to feel like she’s crazy. Not only that, but Logan has resurfaced and he has a small army with him. Needless to say, he’s pissed.
Teddy and the man in black are still on the hunt for Wyatt, but as they go forward on this path, Teddy is starting to have memories of past experiences with the man in black – specifically him dragging Dolores to the barn after shooting Teddy. While Teddy usually gets the short end of the stick in this world, now that these memories are vivid, he is demanding answers from the man in black.
Now we don’t know if the man in black’s story about his real life outside of Westworld is true, but it’s an interesting tale – He was a business man, with kids, who was married to a beautiful woman that killed herself to get away from him. His daughter told him that they were afraid of him and saw the darkness inside even though he never did anything to them. He wanted to know if what his family saw was true and so he headed back to Westworld, found Maeve and her daughter and killed them. What the man in black took away from this was that he felt nothing and he truly was a monster. It was in that moment that the maze revealed it’self to him. He believes that Wyatt is the key to the maze and although he may have wanted to find him differently, Teddy and the man in black are captured by his troops.
Maeve may be completely crazy, but there’s a part of us that is rooting for her to get her freedom! Go Maeve go! So many terrible things have happened to her that we can’t help but want her to have a second chance at this thing called “life”. It was interesting to finally learn more about the man in black and see just how self aware he is about what’s inside of him. Many people that have those kinds of dark thoughts, still think they are good people in this world, but not him. Episode grade: A
What did you think of this week’s episode of “Westworld” and do you think that Maeve can actually make it out to the real world? Leave us a comment in the box below. If you want to read more news on “Westworld” then head on over to the link here and let us be your guide.