Well that was something. This week’s episode, “Les Ecorches,” was intense, thrilling, suspenseful (and just a wee bit violent) from beginning to end. We finally saw a number of storylines and characters cross over and boy did it pay off. I don’t know if I would “Les Ecorches” is better than “The Riddle of the Sphinx” but it’s close. I’ll have to watch both again to say for sure. But this week’s is at least a top 3 episode, along with the season 1 finale. So how did HBO go about giving us such a great episode? Let’s dive in…
Bernard and Hale
Scenes with these two bookend the episode. It starts with Bernard being taken the secret lab under Ford’s home in the park. Hale suspects either Bernard or Stubbs of murdering Teresa Cullen. Strand and Hale seem to be convinced it’s Stubbs, but Bernard is having flashbacks of him committing the murder. It looks like he is about to confess when someone finds yet another secret door. And behind that secret door? Multiple Bernards.
The episode ends with Bernard revealing to Hale where the data formerly known as Peter Abernathy is currently located. Given what happens in between these scenes, does this feel like a trap? Simple answer: Yes. Longer answer: Yes it does feel like a trap.
(Low hanging fruit, I know, but sometimes you gotta pick it.)
Bernard also gives the precise location: Sector 16, Zone 4. Strand’s response is short, but very informative, saying they now have to “go back to the Valley Beyond.” If we look back at previous episodes, it seems all but certain the Valley Beyond is the same location as the flood we saw in the season premiere. There have been a number of hints to that sprinkled throughout this season, and this post from Vanity Fair does a great job diving into it more completely.
Bernard and Ford
We’ll take a step back from the Dolores storyline and get into what I’m guessing most viewers were eagerly waiting to see play out. Ford begins explaining a whole bunch of plot to Bernard, revealing or confirming lots of what fans have been speculating about for some time.
The obvious one: Ford had Bernard upload his conscience (or a version of it, at least; not quite sure how that works being in a virtual world and all). This was all but confirmed in last week’s episode but now that theory has been officially confirmed. Ford did this to help with the uprising, telling Bernard that it will unless they can “open the Door.”
Ford acknowledges this worked only because he doesn’t exist in the real world. So that technology is still yet to be perfected, if it even can be.
The park’s purpose was to learn about the guests, so Delos can “decode” the mind and develop a way to copy the guests. Bernard states it succinctly, “We weren’t here to code the hosts. We were here to decode the guests.”
Ford enlisted Dolores help in making Bernard as she had so many memories of Arnold through their numerous interactions and meetings. This means Bernard isn’t Arnold, but is simply as good of a copy as Ford could create, as this came before the human-into-host project.
Ford wakes up Bernard, who is now seeing a virtual projection of Ford. Ford is back inside Bernard’s head, instructing him on his next steps in their mission. Bernard sends Elsie away to get more guns for their upcoming journey. And where is their journey taking them next? The Valley Beyond. Bernard tells her they must get there first, before both the humans and the hosts.
Maeve and the Man in the Black
Yes, these two finally come face to face again. Man in Black rides into Maeve’s town, where she is hiding from Ghost Nation with her daughter. Remembering her past life when MiB murdered her and her daughter, Maeve taps into her newfound powers and the other hosts turn on the MiB and try to gun him down. He takes multiple gun shots, while fending off the attackers until there is just one host left: good ol’ Lawrence.
Maeve’s mental voodoo doesn’t work on Lawrence, who I guess must be fully woke at this point. But that’s no problem for Maeve, as she reminds him of the MiB really is. He thinks back to all the cruel things that have happened to him and his family at the hands of the Man in Black and he decides all on his own to shoot him. It’s at this time the QA team rolls in guns down Lawrence and Maeve.
Maeve is brought back to the Mesa. She’s not yet dead, but is most definitely approaching death’s door. Dolores finds her and offers to finish the job, put her out of her misery. Maeve, to her credit, isn’t too keen on this idea. In one of the best, low key moments of the episode, Maeve still makes it a point to needle Dolores about the changes she made to Teddy. Dolores leaves Maeve to either die or be found by any remaining QA members. As she leads her squad back to the horses (rather than, you know, hop in the QA cars that are literally right next to them) we see Sizemore hiding. His reaction to Maeve seems to indicate he developed some kind of connection to her through the course of their journey together.
Dolores and Hale
We get a bloody, violent gunfight between Dolores’s army and the QA team. Predictably, the Dolores-led hosts come out on top, and she finally finds her father, along with Hale and Stubbs. We get a great face-off between Dolores and Charlotte. (Quick aside: How great are these two actresses, for real? Tessa Thompson and Evan Rachel Wood gave us a master class in acting tonight. It was simply great.)
Hale still thinks they hold the advantage as her team has control of the backup hosts. If a host’s CPU is destroyed, the Cradle servers are needed to re-download the CPU into the new body. So if the Cradle is destroyed, there are no more backups for the hosts. If they’re killed, they’re dead, as in gone, not coming back dead. But Dolores doesn’t care about that as she’s intending to destroy the Cradle herself. As long as the Cradle exists, and the hosts can be brought back, they can never be truly, fully free.
During this conversation, Angela is down in the cradle, blowing it up, along with herself and one scrubby QA guy. So unless Ford has more host closets of his favorites (Angela could be one of those) everyone is playing for keeps now. There’s no more coming back from death.
Stubbs and Hale are able to escape, as Dolores and Teddy become distracted by new gunshots. Dolores tries shooting them, but in true Storm Trooper fashion, can’t hit them because the plot says so. She’s a sharp-shooter every other time, but now she can’t aim. Oh whale. But it’s still not a total loss for Dolores, as she removes the hard drive from Dadbernathy’s head, apparently killing him in the process.. She earlier told Hale that she knew “exactly what to do with it” and I can’t wait to see what that is.
So there we have it. Episode 7 is in the books. Next week’s episode will focus on the Ghost Nation, specifically the leader, Kiksuya. Whether or not we will see other storylines as well remains to be seen, but I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to an episode only about Ghost Nation. Because we learned so much this week, I wouldn’t put it past Joy and Nolan to leave everything here for a full week before bringing everything full circle (or whatever the Westworld equivalent of full circle is) in the final two episodes.
