BWW Recap: 'Dear, Dear! How Queer Everything Is' on WESTWORLD

The third episode of WESTWORLD, entitled "The Stray," sheds light on both the past and future of the park and its inhabitants. While we are allowed a closer look at the history of the creation of the hosts, we begin to realize just how much that history is responsible for what they are quickly becoming. Sentience, as always, as well as consciousness, is the ultimate question, for understanding and awakening are traits we attribute to life and the human experience. While we, as an audience, automatically begin to personify the hosts and connect with them from a story perspective, as they are most of our eyes into this world, the guests and those that run Westworld must combat their want for ignorance with their indifference to the truth about the hosts and what said indifference says about them.

WESTWORLD always manages to cram a beautiful amount of story into their episodes without it every feeling crammed. It is one of the few shows where you get to feel satisfied with THE JOURNEY the episode just took you on, while satiated until next week with the new questions you might have. It has stricken the perfect balance between give and take. With that genius comes the repetitive nature of the park and thus, the episodes. Storylines and hosts are on cycles so while it gives the audience something to depend upon while they begin to wrap their heads around this new world and its rules, it also gives them a calm before an inevitable storm when those cycles and that normalcy begins to get turned on its head and disrupted. "The Stray" in the title can refer to more than just the obvious this episode, but the apparent reference is to a host that, quite literally, strays off his path and gets himself lost.

While investigating into the issues with the hosts and confronting Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) about the true, possibly sinister nature of the problems (the host that went on the saloon rampage was specifically targeting hosts that have killed him in passed storylines and talking to someone named Arnold) Elsie (Shannon Woodward) gets an alert that a host has wandered off. Bernard promise to look further into it and sends Elsie off to take care of the host with the aid of Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth). With their interaction we start to get a better idea of some of the rules and regulations that go on in the park, as well as Stubbs validating the fear that the only thing standing between the hosts going off is "one line" of code. They start searching for the stray and find the group he was meant to be apart of who have gotten caught in a loop waiting for him to return to chop their wood for dinner. None of the other hosts could do it as weapon privileges are dolled out selectively and the missing host was the one with permission to wield an axe.

This is an important piece of information considering what we learn about Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) this episode. Dolores is affronted and abused by some rough hosts trying to find a girl for a new guest in town. They don't back down until Teddy (James Marsden) shows up and then they turn away, the guest insisting that he wanted "something easy." Dolores is consistently treated as an object, as all the hosts are, to fulfill the guests desires. We start to see the essence of host to host relationship this week, however, when we spend more alone time with Teddy and Dolores. He immediately takes her out into he fields to try and teach her how to use a weapon. He attempts to teach her how to defend herself, clearly going off script and planned course considering the results of said plan. When it's time for Dolores to grip the weapon and shoot, she squeezes as hard as she can but simply can't do it. She physically cannot pull the trigger because she wasn't programed to. Dolores was programmed to be a victim a never fight back, be it against a guest or even a host. She's a victim by design and will always be because they have written it into her code that she cannot and should not ever be able to defend or save herself. The written in excuse Teddy says, of "some hands weren't meant to pull a trigger," is incredibly similar to that of Dolores' dismissal of the photograph her father found looking like "nothing." These are ways for the hosts to counteract ODDITIES in their behavior and steer themselves, as well as other hosts, from recognizing what is happening and developing consciousness.

Consciousness is the focus of this episode as we see Ford's view on it versus Bernard's, and parallel that with the true experiences we see happening with the hosts. On the previous day's version of the cycle, Dolores and Teddy rode out to the fields to talk and be together, but as Dolores starts to go off script, she begins to influence Teddy to do so as well. She talks of getting out of Sweet Water and going somewhere else, somewhere where she can be free. Teddy knows of a place, saying that he'll take her there "someday," but she pushes back, saying that someday usually means never and she wants to go right now. Teddy's mysterious backstory and programmed motivations prevent him from agreeing, telling Dolores that he's got some "reckoning to do" before he can be with a girl like her, but changes his promise from "someday" to "someday soon," clearly cognitive of the effect the change of phrase has. He repeats this edited phrase twice, once with Ford and once with Dolores, after he must leave her once again but promises that he will be back "someday soon." The retention of this phrase and its shared meaning between them shows awareness, memory, and relationship specifics that are more than just programming.

As Ford (Anthony Hopkins) tells Teddy when he's gearing him up to be apart of his mysterious new narrative, Teddy's purpose was never to have his dreams be actualized or be a fully formed character on his own. They never even bothered to give him a backstory, leaving it mysterious save for his intention. Teddy, by design, was constructed to never attain his desires. His job isn't to protect Dolores or even to love her; it's to keep her where she is to allow guests to "find her," to challenge the famous gunslinger for her, and have their way. Thus, it's a VICIOUS cycle. Teddy would never run off with her because he's programed to need absolution in the form of "reckoning" before he can, but because they never programmed what that would actually be, he can never obtain it.

However, Ford finally gives him a backstory, uploading it to his system, all revolving around a man named Wyatt. During the war, Wyatt was Teddy's sergeant and also his friend. Wyatt is said to be the representation of "true evil" as Teddy reminisces, while Ford listens on happily of his story come to life. The army was sent down near Escalante to put down the natives and it was there that Wyatt went missing. When he returned, he had some "pretty strange ideas" about the land's true purpose and his newfound need for ownership over it. Fords narrative begins to come to life for the first time as Marti (Bojana Novakovic), a guest Teddy was showing around earlier who chose the 'black hat' play through in the park as a gunslinger, shows up with a group following the Sheriff who are heading down to hunt down Wyatt and recruiting Teddy to join them. Teddy agrees and the guests stumble upon something that perhaps is more than the bounty hunt they had bargained for. As they come across dead men tied to trees, it's clear this is no ordinary bounty. It's not the simple narrative path they thought they were on. Teddy examines them, proclaiming it to be the work of Wyatt, and while doing so, swats a fly away from his face. Clearly, the 'infection' of consciousness is plaguing Teddy in more ways then one.

The group begins to get shot at and only Marti decides to stay. Another host escorts an overwhelmed guest back to town when he claims it is too much, allowing us to see the hosts functioning as not only narrative pieces, but staff and protecter of the guests in the park. Teddy and Marti find themselves surrounded by horrifying masked men, so scary in the night's darkness that it could be Westworld's Halloween special narrative, and Teddy, seeing that they are outnumbered, insists she leaves. He sacrifices himself for her, as he is programmed to do. Thus, we have the introduction of the 'Good Samaritan' rule the creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy discussed in an interview when questioned about guest on guest violence. This episode made it ever clear that the hosts are always, first and foremost, programmed to protect the guests at any cost. They will do everything to ensure that the guests don't come into harms way and have a positive experience, purposefully putting themselves in front of the bullet to protect the guest and their time at Westworld.

This is ever so apparent when Elsie and Stubbs find the stray host. Already hesitant about his actions that seem to have strayed from his programmed background and narrative, so much so that he had taken up a hobby of wood carving and started marking all of his carvings with an image that resembles a constellation, there is a weariness about approaching him. Stubbs propels himself down into the cavern the host has gotten himself trapped into and Elsie puts him into sleep mode to ease the process. To decommission the host, Stubbs needs to cut off its head, but as he is carving, Elsie notices the host's eyes open. He shoves Stubbs aside and starts climbing up towards Elsie who is unable to shut him down. He picks up a bolder but instead of it being the end of Elsie, he starts to beat himself to death with it. Even in that moment, when he is the danger to a 'guest' or a human, he still does as his programming instructs. He protects the humans from harm and danger, even when that harm and danger is himself.

Bernard, disturbed by Elsie's earlier findings about the host that went on the rampage, confronts Ford. Ford is working on more hosts for his narrative and before talking to Bernard, berates another man working for covering up the host he is working on. Ford is incredibly insistent about the hosts' lack of consciousness. He pointedly reminds the man that the host "doesn't feel cold, doesn't feel ashamed, doesn't feel a solitary thing that we haven't told it to." Bernard stares on, hesitant and worried, both in the fear that he is doing exactly what Ford just reproached that man for doing, but also in the fear that he knows Ford might be wrong.

Bernard brings up the new findings about the issues with the hosts and explains to Ford that both malfunctioning hosts were having the same one sided conversation with the same imaginary person; Arnold. Ford reveals that Arnold was his original partner when they created Westworld and it is here we learn the source of Ford's insistence that the hosts aren't real. Arnold always thought the opposite, or rather he sought out true consciousness for the hosts. To Arnold, consciousness was a pyramid made up of memory, improvisation, self interest, and a top tier he never got to. We have already seen the hosts experience the first three, and after this episode, his proposed forth tier is actualized as well. Arnold wanted the hosts' thoughts to be anchored down into their brain based upon the concept that the hosts hearing the programmed voice in their head would tether them to their mind, eventually allowing their own voice would take over. However, some started hearing those internal monologues to be voices from a greater power; THE VOICE of god, and went insane. Ford tells Bernard that the only thing remaining of Arnold's programming are THE VOICE commands used to control the hosts, and it is perhaps those relics that are activating the hosts' search for consciousness. "These violent delights have violent ends," might be more than a footprint of a past narrative, but rather a past piece of programming that could be the door to true consciousness.

Ford tells Bernard that this search is what drove Arnold mad. He died in the park, crazed by this search, and his obsession. Ford is worried that Bernard could end up like Arnold for he recognizes Bernard's sentimentality and inevitable want to connect as a result of his son's death. Ford comes from a place of sentimentality too; or rather realism. He knows that consciousness for the hosts, even if it could be achieved, would be the cruelest thing you could do to them. Arnold never thought about what Westworld was and what it would become. It's an escapist playground for mankind's depravity that allows them to explore said depravity without the repercussions. The least they could do, he insists, is "make them forget." However, as we know, they are beginning to remember. They are beginning to see the world that they are created to live in yet one that Ford wants to only shield them from.

Bernard's sentimentality truly eats away at him this episode when we find him talking via video chat to the mother of his son that passed. They recall how much they both miss him and how hard it is, but Bernard savors the pain for it's the only thing of his son that he has left. That attachment, that role of PARENTHOOD has clearly shifted to the hosts for Bernard, and specifically to Dolores. He has been having secret talks with her for a while now, and has been giving her stimuli to study the possibility of her BECOMING aware of her situation. This week he gave her a passage from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice ponders if something about her has changed, a common theme of all of their reading sessions. Clearly, the reading is incredibly evocative of Dolores' experience and whenever there's a hint that she could be registering the reading on a deeper level, a piercing fear and excitement runs through Bernard.

After his talk with Ford and his video call session, it's clear that he has started questioning himself and his actions. He begins to wonder if perhaps Ford was right and perhaps his attachment to Dolores and what he has been trying to do with her was simply a projection of his pain; a projection that made himself feel better and occupied but completely unaware of the pain t he results such projection could have on her. He asks Dolores if he should restore her back to how she was before their sessions; completely ignorant or "safe" as he puts it. He explains it to her by telling her there are "two versions" of her, one that knows and feels all of these things and one that is safe in her ignorance. Dolores, however, argues that there aren't two versions of herself; just one, and when she discovers who she is, it's then that she'll "be free." Bernard quickly asks analysis what prompted that response but Dolores replies "I don't know."

Bernard is astounded by this BREAKTHROUGH but Dolores is still concerned about her fate. She asks him if she has made a mistake, but Bernard, now excited, tells her that evolution and humanity thrived off of mistake. She is evolving. That promise of evolution proves all of his fears wrong and his hopes correct. She's this child figure for him, something to parent that he shares pride in, but perhaps what he asks her to do next is evocative of the dissidence between child and experiment; between connection and discovery. He reminds her never to mention these conversations to anyone else and asks her to remain on her loop.

However, the inevitable horror that awaits her in her loop reveals how cruel it is to ask her to do so with her newfound awareness. Back on her cycle but changed forever, she returns to town and finds out what happened to Teddy's bounty crew. Distraught, she rides home and begins to recite her usual line "father wouldn't let them roam this close to dark," but stops herself, aware of the script that has been implanted in her head and realizing that no one is there to hear it. She doesn't have to perform. She doesn't have to live for entertainment.

The host from earlier who tried to procure her for a guest returns to fufill the narrative step of killing her family. He begins to drag her off, just as the Man in Black did in Episode One, but she begins to remember everything. She sees both of her fathers lying dead on the floor. She sees both this host and the Man in Black dragging her off. These are the horrors that Bernard has asked her to endure willingly. However, when she gets to the barn, she pulls his own gun on him, this time willing herself to change her programmed narrative. She struggles to shoot, as she did earlier, for she isn't programmed to hold a gun, she isn't programmed to protect herself, but a voice in her head says "kill him," and she overrides protocol, pulling the trigger. Unable to save her mom and distraught at the speed with which her mind is racing, she rides off into the night, remembering.

She stumbles upon William (Jimmi Simpson) and Logan (Ben Barnes) who are camping for the night during their bounty hunt that William insisted they go on after he stepped up and played the hero his white hat narrative promises he be, saving Clementine from a rogue criminal. Despite the fact that he got shot first, from which he developed a big bruise from where the bullet hit similar to a paintball gun shot revealing that the guests can get hurt, just not killed, he stepped into his choice narrative. However, he only steps into that role when Clementine is in peril. This is William's weak spot and why his path aligning with Dolores's is so essential. He immediately asks Clementine if she's okay. They are people to him. It's not the game it is to Logan. They are people to him. He feels good when he's helping. He feels good when he's rescuing. It's not the shooting and the hero trip that gives him the rush, it's the girl. It's why he goes for another bounty. Logan, who comes out of another brothel adjusting his pants again, is his opposite. This is their difference. To Logan, no matter how close the resemblance the hosts have to people, they are robots. They're his playthings in a video game. They are simply supplements to make him feel the things he's supposed to be feeling and he treats them as such. To William, it's what Ford was talking about. This is the grander possibilities of Westworld. Logan and William are on two different play throughs. They're two different kinds of players. William is the emotional player who gets attached, feels every choice, and takes joy in that emotion. Logan is the gamer who just wants the rush of winning.

Perhaps with Dolores in the mix, Logan might finally see the hosts as more than a game, or perhaps he is so fixed on his black hat narrative that he will not be able to dig himself out. William and Dolores are the perfect foils for one another and also the perfect companions in the park. For Dolores, she has no other support in her world that have the power to protect her and help her, as a guest with the knowledge of the greater picture. He is the antithesis of her relationship with Teddy because with her mind awakening to the horrors of her world and the true picture, she needs someone who already lives on the other side of it to be a confirming ally to her. William will most likely be the hosts' true ally in the park as he begins to see, through Dolores, that they are more than what Logan, and everyone else, insists they are. "The Stray" shows all we've come to know beginning to "stray" off path. Dolores strays off of her loop, breaking the chain forever, as Westworld as we know it begins to change, to stray. Westworld, as Ford explained, shows the guests who they could be. When their whole world, when the basis of what Westworld is, starts crumbling down, it will be the choices they make in the face of that that will truly define them.

Photo Credit: HBO

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