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Previously on Westworld Season 2, Episodes 4.5 – 9.

[The Distant Past]

Hey, remember that Ghost Nation guy with the bloody handprints for a face? He’s Akecheta and he is one of the original hosts. We learn that he had stumbled upon Arnold’s host massacre and found the literal prop of The Maze. Adding to that, he encounters a naked Logan who tells him “this is the wrong world” and he loses his significant other Kohana. He has changed his core directives and has been the one leaving the maze’s iconography everyone in order to wake up the other hosts and make them self-aware. He has been gathering what hosts he can to lead them to The Valley Beyond now that Wyatt-Dolores is out doing her thing.

Also, I guess Del-OS or H-OS-T is pretty dang reliable. He basically got upgraded from their version of Windows 95 to Windows 10 without a hiccup!

[Two One Week Ago, Onward]

“Grace” is revealed to be Emily, MIB’s daughter and boy does she has a bone to pick with him. Apparently, Dr. Ford was able to export a golden data card / bookmark of the MIB and his unique personality. Unfortunately for the MIB, he was careless, and his wife Juliet found the card and confirmed her own suspicions about the man she had been married to. She committed suicide and left the data chip to Emily, who plans to take him down and reveal to the world what kind of monster he is. Unfortunately…

The MIB has become extremely paranoid (hey it said so in the bookmark!) and believes that Emily is just a host created by Ford as part of this new game. As part of a psychotic break, he kills a QA squad and guns down Emily. He contemplates suicide but backs off at the last minute to continue to the Valley Beyond.

As for Wyatt-Dolores, Teddy, and the gang, they end up back at Sweetwater because they need to hitch a ride. Unfortunately for Teddy, Wyatt-Delores has one of captured Delos technicians switch him into the Terminator. They snag the Sweetwater Express and crash it into the Mesa. While here, they destroy “The Cradle”, a virtual server with the host backups, stories, and achievements. Wyatt-Dolores is also able to have a nice moment with her father before lobotomizing him for his host pearl. Hardcore. They flee the Mesa and begin heading towards the Valley Beyond. Teddy, however, is not keen to continue on this path and then self terminates. No molten metal required.

Conveniently, or inconveniently, Bernard and Elsie made to the Mesa as Wyatt-Dolores and the gang crash a train into it. Benard jacks into the Matrix Cradle and runs into a virtual copy of Dr. Ford. Seems like the boss was completely aware of Delos’s attempts at immortality and figured he could introduce a little chaos to their plans. His virtual self has been locking out Delos from accessing the servers and taking back control (It’s always DNS…) and he temporarily uses ole Bernie as a portable USB drive to get out of the Cradle before it blows. However, Bernie is seemingly able to delete virtual Ford from the directory as he is protective of his new cornerstone, Elsie and drives off to The Valley Beyond.

As for Maeve and Shogun World? That was a cool detour for her to learn she has a cooler version of the Lost whispers. Rather than leaving it up to nerds to play an ARG, she can influence the plot directly by commanding the hosts to follow her commands. Unfortunately, Lee Sizemore called for QA reinforcements to grab her so they can dissect her (literally, yeesh…) for the wundercode back at the Mesa.

This code is then uploaded into a further zombified Clementine who is now a walking virus and can transmit a command to nearby hosts to massacre one another. Unfortunately for QA, Clementine’s WiFi radius is not as good as Akecheta’s. So, they are going to send her off via horseback to The Valley Beyond.

Oh, and the hats had some embedded technologies to scan the guest’s minds and transfer that data over WiFi to The Forge. It’s the future after all and the WiFi coverage is excellent I hear, or when it’s plot relevant.

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Episode 10: The Passenger:

[One Week Ago, Onward]

Wyatt-Dolores, the MIB, and Bernard walk into a bar have come together at The Valley Beyond and the entrance to The Forge. Unfortunately for the MIB, Wyatt-Dolores overpowers him again (like that one time in the church) and leaves him at the entrance missing a few fingers.

Wyatt-Dolores and Bernard enter The Forge physically and then use Peter Abernathy’s pearl to jack into The Forge virtually. There they encounter AI Logan (I mean, if I was an AI, I would probably want to look like Ben Barnes too).

AI Logan has been tasked with using the collected guest data to build perfect copies of these individuals. Over time, they have found that we humans are not so complicated, and we may even lack free will, or the ability for real change. Awkward.

At least that provides for a cool “physical” metaphor for Wyatt-Dolores, as she enters a library full of books that represent each guest who has visited the park. She begins skimming through various books to prepare herself for Season 3.

In the meantime, AI Logan tells Bernard that Dr. Ford has created a virtual space called “The Sublime” that the hosts can escape to, data and all. This will really stick it to Delos and give the hosts a protected space to enjoy their self-awareness. “The Door” to The Sublime is now open for the hosts.

Wyatt-Dolores and Bernard then exit the virtual Forge but come at a crossroads. She wants to burn the whole place down and begins an emergency sequence that that will flood the Forge and the Valley Beyond. Bernard makes an executive decision to shoot her in the face and takes Peter Abernathy’s pearl.

Back at the Mesa, virtual Dr. Ford was able to persist long enough to give Maeve an upgrade to her WiFi signal and host controlling abilities. Apparently, she was Dr. Ford’s favorite, much like Dolores was Arnold’s favorite. Ok then…

She stages a breakout of the Mesa with a herd of bulls, reunites with Hector, Armistice, the cats Felix and Lutz, and Lee Sizemore and they all head to The Valley Beyond. They make good time and are able to link up to Akecheta’s party as they begin to use The Sublime to escape.

Unfortunately, the remaining QA forces and zombified Clementine have caught up to everyone at The Valley Beyond. Things turn into pure mayhem as the hosts begin to turn on one another. Maeve uses her abilities to freeze the attacking hosts, allowing her daughter and Akecheta to escape at the last second before The Door is closed. Lee Sizemore is killed holding off the QA forces and Hector and Armistice are taken down by the frenzied hosts.

And then… the flood.

[The Present]

Bernard has been outed as a host by Hale and has been tortured by Karl Strand and company regarding the location of Peter Abernathy’s pearl. They come back to The Forge and find Peter Abernathy’s pearl of Wyatt-Dolores. Wait, what does that mean for Wyatt-Dolores?

Gunshots ring out and we find that Hale has Stubb’s Beretta PX4 Subcompact. She kills everyone in the Forge and thanks Bernard for giving her a second chance. [Rewinding to the time RIGHT before we started at the beginning of the season] So, The Forge is flooded, the hosts are disabled, and there is nothing more that can be done. Hale has been able to get Karl Strand on the comm and have Delos reinforcements sent to the island for recovery efforts.

Elsie, having seen some things on her adventures with Bernard, confronts Hale about their secret immortality project. She hopes to use this as leverage for a position in the park and protection for Bernard once he is revealed as a host. Unfortunately, Hale does not believe that Elsie has the “moral flexibility” and kills her.

Bernard sees this happen and searches for Dr. Ford in the Recycle Bin to help. However, he is not to be found, but instead, Bernard has found self-awareness. We learn that he had taken Wyatt-Dolores’s pearl and put it in a newly created host body of Hale. Hale-lores comes out from the dark, kills the real Charlotte Hale, and has replaced her this entire time. He also removed all of those timestamps in his memory, leading to all of those confusing time jumps and preventing Karl Strand from learning the truth until it was too late. [Back to the Present]

Hale-lores remarks to Bernard that she can change her code unlike those pesky humans. Rather than destroying The Sublime, she uploads Teddy’s data into The Sublime and then transmits it to “the cloud” via Delos’s satellite connection that was set up to export The Forge’s data. She then shoots Bernard in the face. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.

Hale-lores meets up with Stubbs on the beach to head back to the mainland and report in. We learn that Stubbs is also a host, created by Dr. Ford to protect the hosts. He knows that it is Wyatt-Dolores in a Hale suit and lets her go, remarking his job is to protect hosts inside the park. In her bag are five additional pearls, to be determined.

We also find out that our two favorite cats have essentially been promoted (I mean, who else is left?) and will be assisting with Delos’s host recovery efforts. We hope they will bring back Maeve, Hector, and Armistice for Season 3.

[The Present… Continued]

Remember that Arnold and Dolores conversation from the first episode? That was part of a fidelity test by the now escaped Dolores in the real world.

She has used Arnold’s home facilities (because no one thought to reclaim that?) to create her original body and “separate” herself from Hale-lores. She has also used her memories to create a copy of Bernard and put him in a new pearl and body. He will be a counter to her efforts to take over the world. Why? Because the plot demands it. We end with Bernard leaving Arnold’s home (weird) to Radiohead’s Codex.

[The Distant Future…]

(This could be during the events of Season 4, or even after the events of Season 5, had it happened).

Last we saw the MIB, he attempted to follow Wyatt-Dolores and Bernard into The Forge. We find that he has made it to an elevator heading down. As the doors open and he turns the corner, he is greeted to a view of The Forge in shambles and a host version of Emily.

“Oh fuck, I knew it.” he says. “I’m already in the thing, aren’t I?” he asks. Host Emily responds that the system is long gone and that everything he ever built is gone. We see the circular room where James Delos was tested as he and Emily walk in. Now the tables have turned on the MIB, over and over again...

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Episode 4 – The Riddle of the Sphinx Part 1:

[Time keeps on slippin… slippin… slippin… into the future]

We find ourselves in a circuitous motion panning across a small room. There we find James Delos going through life’s daily motions. He sits down to pour some cream into his coffee, but his hand begins shaking heavily, missing the coffee cup and spilling cream across the serving tray. Oh well, he’s rich and someone will clean that up.

William pops in for a visit and offers him a bottle of whiskey, which Delos jumps up at the chance to open and indulge. He mentions the irony of suffering from a disease that could have been cured, had he not bought out that company and gutted it. He asks when his observation period will be over, and William states that Delos needs to pass a baseline. Must be one of those Voight-Kampff tests I have heard about…

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All this has happened before and will happen again.

We see James Delos having a grand old time and maybe going mad inside this little circle. As he finishes dancing, he catches himself in the mirror. Maybe something is wrong, but he cannot see it. Oh well he thinks, as he moves on to pour some cream in his coffee cup as William enters the room.

The same bottle of whiskey is offered, and the conversation is eerily identical. We learn this is part of the baseline / fidelity test as William offers a letter detailing the conversation exactly as it happens. Seven years have passed, James Delos and his wife are dead, William is running the company, and both Juliet (Delos’s daughter), and granddaughter Emily are fine.

Suddenly, Delos’s leg starts twitching uncontrollably and his speech degrades. William tells him to relax, that he needs to be observed for a bit longer and exits the room. We find that this circular room is somewhere in Westworld, and that James Delos is a little experiment with resurrection via host bodies. This iteration lasted seven days. The experiment is casually reset with fire. Super…

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We catch up with James Delos yet again, pouring creamer into his coffee cup. Enter the MIB who Delos immediately asks, “Who the fuck are you?”. The lightbulb flickers, and Delos realizes how time has treated them both. The bottle of whiskey is offered, the same conversation repeats, and Delos is READY to get the hell outta here and resume his life.

MIB interrupts and tells Delos that this may not work. “Cognitive plateau” he says, where the mind cannot accept reality of the host body and rejects it, causing a shutdown. I guess if you can tell the difference, it does matter. Besides, with Delos being gone for so long, people prefer the memory of the man over the reality of who he was.

Delos, unwilling to accept these answers, stands up and shouts for Logan, Juliet or for anyone else to help. MIB drops the bombs that Logan overdosed years ago, and Juliet has recently committed suicide. He is truly alone, and no one will come to the rescue.

William interjects that maybe he and Delos deserve to die, rather than try to live on forever and then exits the room. Delos begins to rage monster the room and MIB tells the monitoring tech to let it run and see what happens. What a jerk.

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Episode 3 – Virtu e Fortuna:

[Two Weeks Ago]

We are introduced to a sitar version of Seven Nation Army and “The Raj” [World], another park based around 1930’s Colonial India. There, we meet with “Grace” who is looking for something and goes out on safari. Unfortunately, her timing aligns with “Journey Into Night”, and she loses her traveling companion and is hunted by a host tiger. Ouch.

Back with Bernard and Hale, they eventually find Peter Abernathy and various guests who have been taken captive by a small group of Confederados and bandits. Bernard separates a host, Rebus and reprograms him to be the most virtuous, quickest gun in the West. From there, he is sent off to kill most of his former compatriots in an attempt to free Peter Abernathy (and I guess those other guests). Unfortunately, Peter Abernathy and Bernard are captured by the remaining hosts and Hale flees on horseback.

Wyatt-Dolores and her entourage make it to Fort Forlorn and make a temporary alliance with the Confederados to take on Westworld QA forces, which have been marshaling nearby for an attack. Later that night, Bernard and Peter Abernathy are brought to the fort serendipitously.

The next day and copying Game of Thrones’ homework, Westworld QA forces charge the fort across an open field against the Confederados who are in front of the fort and not inside it. Maybe it was all part of the plan since Hale and a QA strike team come in through the back and abscond with Peter Abernathy. However, Wyatt-Dolores is not to be taken lightly as she sets off an explosive trap, removing both the QA forces and any remaining Confederados. Major Craddock is the only Confederado survivor of the battle.

Bernard attempts to flee during the battle and is knocked out by zombie Clementine (not sure when that happened), who begins to drag him to parts unknown.

As for Maeve, Hector, and Lee, they have reached the Disney tunnels under Westworld where they run into Armistice (with a flamethrower hand!) and our favorite cats, Felix and Sylvester. They all end up in a snowy region of another park and are taken by surprise by a host wielding a friggin Katana.

[Present Day]

Strand, Stubbs, and Bernard are escorted by their Delos mercenaries into the Mesa. Of note is that the train entrance is smoking, and the control room (among other places) is significantly damaged. There is mention of “The Cradle” which has been destroyed as well. They stumble upon Charlotte Hale who has apparently survived the entire ordeal (wink), and asks Bernard where Peter Abernathy is.

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Episode 2 - Reunion:

[The Distant Past]

We are brought in with Dolores who is in the real world (Shanghai?). Dr. Ford and Arnold are discussing their presentation in order to secure funding for their “Argos Initiative” (Westworld). Arnold has intentionally excluded Dolores from the presentation as he has a soft spot for her.

Later, we are [re]introduced to Angela and Akecheta who direct Logan Delos to a private party and the “Argos Initiative” presentation. Find who is not real inside the crowd and win a prize. To even Logan’s surprise, the entire room is made up of hosts and the “Argos Initiative” has beaten the Turing test in spades. Hedonist that he is, he takes Angela and some other hosts back to his hotel for additional *ahem* testing.

[The Slightly Less Distant Past]

James Delos, Logan’s father, lands his helicopter in Sweetwater, Westworld to see what he has invested in at the behest of William. He is initially skeptical as he does not care about the technology demonstrated or offering a fantasy to some rich jerks. William counters that Westworld is an obfuscation of their real goal; acquiring intellectual and personality data on the guests who visit without their knowledge. This is that “proprietary data” that has been copied to Peter Abernathy.

A bit further in the past, James Delos is facing his own retirement with William taking over. Of note is that we see William’s wife and daughter alongside the Hosts which are there for the party’s entertainment. James speaks with William about a project and he is facing his mortality sooner than expected. In the evening, Dolores runs into Logan outside of the party who has been ousted out of Delos’s leadership. He is surprisingly clairvoyant as to what will happen in the future as the series progresses.

[Two Weeks Ago]

Wyatt-Dolores, Teddy, and her gang are still wreaking havoc across Westworld. They break into a maintenance facility and Teddy is lifted from his inhibition and sees what he has gone through at the hands of the guests. The purpose of this particular visit is to enlist host reinforcements (The Confederados) as Westworld QA has men and women in the hundreds, versus Wyatt’s gang of fifty.

We are led to Major Craddock and his twelve disciples lieutenants and Teddy starts blastin. They have one of the captured Delos employees resurrect Craddock who is converted to Wyatt-Dolores’s side and will lead her to the main Confederado base, Fort Forlorn.

As for the MIB, he finds Lawrence and rescues him from his loop of being hung. The MIB needs men on his little journey to The Valley Beyond and having Lawrence as his tour guide could be fun!

They end up back at the town of Pariah where the new El Lazo (Giancarlo Esposito) has completed his narrative loop, taken the town, and absolutely CHEWS the scenery. MIB thinks he can force new EL Lazo to hand over control of his men, but the digital ghost of Robert past intercedes and forces the hosts to kill themselves. MIB responds perfectly with “Fuck you Robert” as he shoots a few rounds into new El Lazo’s corpse.

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Episode 1 - Journey into Night:

[More Present Day / The Distant Past]

We sit in on Arnold conversing with Dolores. He discusses a dream he had of being stranded and separated from the hosts and remarks that he is sometimes frightened by her potential self-awareness. This may be a test of fidelity, for both subjects. More on that later.

[Two Weeks Ago]

It is a scene of chaos as the Delos guests try to hide or outrun the hosts. Most do not and are killed by Wyatt-Dolores and her conveniently provided gang of hosts. 

Bernard links up with Charlotte Hale, a Delos Executive Director who has been onsite midway through Season 1 to ensure that Delos’s “proprietary data” is secured and sent offsite, among other things. They make it to an underground maintenance facility, and she tasks Bernard with finding a host by the name of Peter Abernathy, who has been made the courier of this “proprietary data”. He never made it offsite, and Delos’ leadership (Karl Strand probably) is not going to send in the calvary until he is found. Goodbye cocktail dress, hello cowboy boots.

Meanwhile, back at the Mesa (Westworld’s operations / facilities / living quarters) Maeve saves Lee Sizemore, Delos’s designated heir to take over Narrative from Dr. Ford. She needs someone with access to the control room and visibility over the parks in order to locate her daughter. Along the way, she finds her man, Hector Escaton who was programmed to help her escape and was left for dead as part of Maeve’s escape attempt.

We also learn that the MIB has been able survive the initial gala massacre and make it to his cabin in the woods. There he uses a medkit to heal from several injuries, don his infamous black hat, and switch out of the tuxedo for his cowboy outfit and 10 shot custom Lemat revolver/shotgun. He is on a new journey to a placed named “The Valley Beyond”.

[Present Day]

We find ourselves waking up with Bernard on the beach. It must have been one HELL of a party because he is dazed and confused. A woman by the name of Maling (whose role is to play a left a left-handed military contractor) means business until Ashley Stubbs (the head of the QA / Security Team for Westworld) intervenes and advises that Bernard is one of Delos’s high-level employees.

They head back to a Delos staging ground where we see additional military contractors landing. They are part of Delos’s attempts to secure what we learn is an island that is used for their parks and is leased from the Chinese. We meet Karl Strand, head of Delos Operations.

Strand mentions it has been two weeks since Dolores killed Ford, and they have no idea what has happened since communications with the outside world has been cut off. Bernard is unsure of what has happened because clocks do not exist in Westworld, and due to a “self-inflicted” headshot from a Beretta U22 Neo last season, his functionality has been severely degraded.

We are eventually brought to a vista overlooking a lake with hundreds of hosts floating in the water. Poor Teddy Flood, Dolores’s knight in shining armor is dead yet again.

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Summarizing Westworld Season 2

As a reference to the tone that I am hoping to achieve with this synopsis, I have the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwqfoTOdXL4

I cannot guarantee the expediency of recap because everyone reads at a different speed, not to mention that I may have gone into more detail than was needed. I may reference other properties, sci-fi or not, because this is my world recap, and I can do anything.  I will also put in tags for the timeline to try to make things as clear as mud.

Obviously, spoilers below, so you have been warned.

Previously on Westworld Season 1:

Westworld is a futurist theme park owned and operated by the Delos Corporation. Rich elites (the guests) can come on in and play a live action version of a Red Dead Redemption. The park is full of synths / androids / replicants (the hosts) who essentially operate as NPCs, fleshing out the world with stories, quests, and are fodder.

The principals that matter for this section are:

Dolores Abernathy: One of the original Hosts who we have been following for most of the season. She has become self-aware (again?) and will adopt a persona named “Wyatt” for this upcoming season.

William or “The Man in Black” (MIB): The CEO and owner of the Delos Corporation. He was ‘reborn’ in the park, took control of the company, and has been visiting for the last 30 years or so. He has been looking for “the maze”, which we find out is a symbol / metaphor for the hosts becoming self-aware.

Dr. Robert Ford: The co-founder / developer of Westworld, its Park Director, and head of Narrative Team. He is facing early retirement by the Delos Corporation.

Bernard Lowe: The head of programming / the Behavior Team for Westworld and *spoilers* a host created by Dr. Robert Ford. Bernard is based off of Arnold Weber, the other co-founder / developer of Westworld who tried to shut things down with his death.

Maeve Millay: Another original Host who has potentially become self-aware and is breaking out of Westworld. She turns around at the last minute to find her storyline’d daughter and save her.

Last we left off, Dr. Robert Ford is presenting his final narrative (storyline) called “Journey Into Night” to the Delos executives and honored guests. Much to the surprise of everyone, Dolores comes in behind him and shoots him in the head, killing him. Pandemonium ensues as the one safeguard for the guests is gone, and the hosts can now kill anyone they please...