BWW Recap: WESTWORLD Shows Us Who We Could Be

Episode 2 of WESTWORLD just aired on HBO and, along with tonight's presidential debate, leaves us questioning humanity. In what is an even further step above its pilot and its ability to explore these complex questions and cultural infrastructures through its narrative, WESTWORLD continues to shine as creatively intelligent and mindfully captivating. This episode, entitled "Chesnut," explores the hosts and their humanity. What is humanity? What is it to remember? What is it to think or to feel? What is morality and how does it define us? When the hosts start recalling their past lives, the paths the guests choose to take in Westworld will be of dire consequence.

As the pilot spurred a lot of discussion, praise, and debate, one of the most essential questions left unanswered was "How does it all work?" While we were completely encapsulated by episode 1, "Chesnut"answered our questions and welcomed us to the park through the eyes of a true, new, guest (unlike Teddy last week); William (Jimmi Simpson). He comes to Westworld on a bachelor party trip with his fiance's privileged and arrogant brother Logan (Ben Barnes). From the train journey over, the two already have a different opinion on virtually everything. That only is further highlighted when they arrive. Upon entering, the guests are escorted off by hosts into rooms where they will be prepped and dressed for their Westworld experience. A number of questions are asked of the guests to enhance and protect their experience, a feature that the Westworld website actually allows its audience members to answer for themselves, before they ask the ultimate question; Are you a black hat or a white hat? As Arden, the host, tells us on the website, "Going white hat means standing up for your values against all the odds. It's being true to yourself and your moral code. It's being a hero."

Westworld is all about choices. Your actions in Westworld reflect the kind of person you could be. It's who you are at the core. When William is too polite to ask the question that presumably everyone asks, the seemingly self aware host responds with the supreme question "If you can't tell does it matter?" It is the question. If the hosts are capable of inspiring guests to question their reality, if the guests can believe they are real, then everything they do to them, every sick and hateful act, is a reflection of the guests' inner selves. The path you choose in Westworld, despite the pretext of it all being just a game, shows the world the true you; the you without inhibitions, the you without restrictions. William ultimately chooses the white hat and his journey in the park reflects that choice. He acts with human kindness and empathy towards the hosts because it doesn't "matter" to him. They appear, in every sense, human and so he treats them as such. With that in mind, the "rape and pillage," as Theresa Cullen puts it, that frequently occurs in the park says what the current state of true "humanity" is. If you are okay with hurting, killing, raping, and harming these hosts that look and feel human, that function and act like human beings so much so that they are able to convince you they are real, then what are you? The want and need for violence is within you. Whether you carry them out on a human or a host, it makes no difference. If you always choose the black hat then it isn't just a costume; it's you.

Elsie (Shannon Woodward) starts looking into the recent problems with the hosts and calls Bernard out for covering up the cause of the damage to Abernathy's code that made him break down; Ford. She wants to pull all hosts he had contact with for fear of a contagion (in a figurative sense) for what could be more scary to the park than hosts making contact with one another once they begin to remember? The chain reaction that could impose, if they all start to remember, is unthinkable for Westworld to continue to function as the solace of depravity as it currently does. No longer would the hosts be individually controlled moving pieces but rather a solid structure starting to come together. With memory even comes the possibility of learning, and if they can learn, if they truly see, they are black hat guests' ultimate threat.

Bernard alleviates some of this stress when Theresa comes over to his apartment and light is shed on their romantic relationship. It's beautifully natural and so adult. There's boundaries there and ties to their work that might cause conflict, but they can enjoy each other's pleasures, company, and respect one another enough to be together without making it complicated. While in bed, Theresa teased Bernard and mentions that the hosts are consistently talking to one another, even when guests aren't around. Bernard responses that "They're always trying to error correct, make themselves more human." That sounds an awful lot like evolution to and with that comes revolution.

The revolution is already starting and the contagion is spreading. Dolores goes to town on her usual track but is stopped short when she starts recalling the massacre from the other night that occurred on those very same streets. She sees dead bodies lining road. Blood is splattered everywhere. Maeve Malley, the host and head prostitute at the local brothel, confronts her but Dolores, still in a trancelike state, tells repeats the key words that her father whispered to her, "These violent delights have violent ends." This phrase is turning into a call for action for the hosts; a code to unlock them. A promise of an ends to a means. A promise of hope and a promise of escape. Perhaps the words are the activation code for the contagion Elsie predicted and feared. After all, if humanity constantly chooses to go down the road of the black hat, if the pure violence and apathy for human experience and emotion is what drives them in Westworld, they are assuredly doomed when those who were the victims of their corruption gain true sentience.

The Man in Black, as his name suggests and he continues to show us, encompasses the black hat to its extreme. He is the immorality of humanity; torturing, hurting, and abusing for the sake of a means to his own ends. The park and its inhabitants are just a game to him, playing through just as one does in a video game, willing to do anything and everything to get to the hidden ending. The cognitive dissonance between a "game" and reality, and the person you choose to be within your reality, doesn't enter into his equation. For him, it's about finding the easter egg he believes is hidden within Westworld and easily kills and tortures to do so. This is a man who has no other want in life, claiming he will never go back to his life outside of Westworld after finding what he is looking for, and will play through his favorite game by covering every extreme because you are on the bonus level. You've completed this game backwards and forwards. You know every line and every move that is programmed in and so the boredom and frustration at finishing the game that has challenged you your whole life leads you to go to the extremes of your experience on your final quest. The Man in Black rescues a man, Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.), from a hanging only to tie him to the back of his horse so he's forced to be dragged along. He believes he has the key to the maze; to the final level. He pulls Lawrence with him, as a plaything on his sick journey, to the town where his wife and daughter reside, using them as bait to get an answer. He shoots his crying wife first right in front of him, the pure trauma and care programmed into these hosts clearly raising the question once again about making them care for one another when they are set up frequently for pure devastation at the hands of guests. The Man in Black, without blinking, turns to the child and is ready to take her next if she didn't tell him what he came to seek. "Follow the blood arroyo to the place where the snake lays its eggs," she tells him, but not before warning him that the maze isn't meant for him. While the Man in the Black Hat shows us how wicked he truly is, this is presumably confirmation that a maze does truly exist and his mission is real. With that in mind, we must begin question the true nature of Westworld and its origins. If there is a maze in there, what lies at the end of it? If there are any secrets to the park, they were planted or co-planted by Ford, so perhaps the Man in Black and those like him, are just not meant for Westworld and all of its hidden spoils. Why should they get to explore the next step in scientific process, evolution, and humanity if they treat it no better than what they would be jailed for in our reality?

Meanwhile, the spark has been lit in Maeve's memories and she begins to piece together bits of her previous narratives; one of which included an attack on her and her family by natives. She escapes and grabs her daughter, heading into the house and to defend themselves, she grabs a gun. However, when her door opens, it is not a native host in her home, but the Man in Black. He comes closer to her as she stands strong to protect her daughter, but as he is a guest and she a host, shooting him is impossible. These hosts are programmed to feel and absorb and become more human, yet they are unable to defend themselves from he deplorable in humanity. Thus, choosing to enact violence in any sense, on any level, says even more so about you in Westworld than reality, for if those you are abusing and inflicting hurt upon cannot reject or defend themselves as they don't have full body autonomy or complete free will, they can never consent. Lives are being fabricated and lived only to be pained and hurt for the pleasures of others.

Maeve begins to remember a night she was being cleaned up and recommissioned to return back into the park after her wounds. She wakes up and moves to defend herself, picking up the scalpel and running away. She only gets so far, a gaping wound in her stomach and her system in complete shock, when she finds rooms upon rooms of other hosts. They're thrown and discarded onto the floor, on top of one another, all wounded hosts that need to be cleaned up and repaired, including Teddy who she locks eyes with. Maeve sees them as they are to the company; cattle. Herded, guided, mistreated, and abused for human amusement and desire They keep insisting the hosts are not people but the people don't appear to be people, deprived of humanity and morality.

Fresh from his temper tantrum earlier, Lee Sizemore, head of narrative, is all set to deliver his new storyline that he's been working on, proudly entitled "Odyssey on Red River," which is a bloody colossus. He believes through this work of brilliance, the guests will have the ultimate experience and learn what they came here to do. He believes that "Odyssey on Red River" will allow them to find out who they are. When Ford, who has final say, hears his pitch he's completely unimpressed and frustrated. "No," he says, shutting Sizemore down with one look. In what felt like both a critique and dispelling of common tropes and misconceptions plaguing a great deal of our popular culture, Ford completely terminating Sizemore's "Odyssey".

"What is the point of it? Get a couple of cheap thrills? Some surprises? But it's not enough. It's not about giving the guests what you think they want; that simple titillation, horror, elation. They're parlor tricks. The guests don't return for the obvious things we do, the garish things. They come back because of the subtleties, the details. They come back because they discover they imagined no one had ever noticed before, something they fall in love with. They're not looking for a story that tells them who they are. They already know who they are. They're here because they want a glimpse of who they could be. The only thing your story tells me (Mr. Sizemore) is who you are."

It is this speech, this criticism, that shows WESTWORLD is incredibly aware of its place in mainstream media, a world plagued by the same tropes and shallowness that Sizemore's story is. Most of our top shows could do with listening to Ford's advice. Lisa Joy and Jonthan Nolan are intrinsically aware of what makes good storytelling and the assumptions associated with the network their show calls home.

Ford, with a new pair of boots (the only thing he liked about Sizemore's new narrative) and Bernard at his side, steps out into his creation; Westworld. He has started working on a new narrative, as will greatly alleviate the board who will have to hear their new big story was shut down, and leads Bernard up to a small tower structure that exists on the outskirts of the park. Ford is wearing a black hat. Ford might be correct in his deconstruction of Sizemore's exploitation piece, but his whole fascination thrives on exploitation. Unless he means to exploit his own means and position in the company to combat the exploitation the business has turned into and to give his creations a chance to truly live, is he any better? Perhaps there are more to Ford's reveries than small details. Perhaps he wants to create and evolve the hosts because, as he mentioned in last week's episode, humanity has reached its peak. He's a mad scientist and mad craves stimlation. He's on a never ending journey looking for more; looking for the next great discovery.

Photo Credit: HBO

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