“Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?”
Answer: “Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age”.
That is the age-old “Riddle of the Sphinx” referred to in this week’s Westworld title. The answer to the riddle describes man’s journey in life towards death. It was this riddle that one Mr. James Delos, a central figure in this week’s episode, was trying to solve. And boy what an episode it was.
HBO sent screeners of the first five episodes to the press prior to the season 2 premiere. And for those that I read that singled out a single episode as the best of the five, each one listed “The Riddle of the Sphinx” as the clear front-runner. So I went into the episode with pretty high expectations, and what did HBO do? They not only met, but exceeded said expectations. I’m on board with this being the show’s best episode to date. It was dark and intense, we learned some very valuable information, and of course it still managed to leave viewers a bit confused once it was all said and done.
I’ll be doing things a bit differently this time. I’ll be going over each character grouping and touching on the main points and reveals from their stories.
William and James Delos
We open the episode with a scene with James Delos going through what on the surface appears to be nothing more than a normal morning routine. He begins pouring milk into a cup of coffee and we see his hand begin to shake. The milk misses the cup, but Delos doesn’t react to this. It’s immediately clear something is a bit off and I’m assuming everyone watching had the same general thought at this point. A visitor comes: it’s William. They sit down and William starts talking to Delos. He wants to establish a “baseline for fidelity.” Another obvious hint as to what’s at play here. During the conversation, Williams slides a piece of paper over for Delos to read. We don’t see what was on it, but don’t have to wait too long to find out.
Later in the episode we see the Delos morning routine again, complete with an older William (though not yet MiB) coming to visit again. This time we see what’s on the paper he gives Delos: a transcript of their conversation. And here we receive confirmation on what is happening with Delos. He had died from whatever illness he had, about seven years ago from this point. William had been putting Delos’ mind into a host body, time and time again. But so far the man’s mind had not been able to successfully accept this new form of existence. James start to glitch. William leaves to reveal this room is in one of the park’s many underground labs. The on-duty tech freezes Delos and William instructs her to burn the room.
We start up the morning again, but this time Delos is visited by none other than MiB himself. Over the course of this conversation, MiB reveals all the tragedies that have happened over the years. Delos’ wife is dead, his daughter committed suicide, and Logan overdosed. He doesn’t say Logan died, per se, and there is the old adage of “If you don’t see them die on screen, they’re not dead.” But we’re left to assume Logan has also passed. With this show, who really knows. But for whatever reason, call it gut feeling, at this point I’m inclined to believe Logan is indeed dead.
William tells Delos this is the 149th attempt. And it never sticks. And William is beginning to think maybe it’s not supposed to, saying, “I’m beginning to think this whole enterprise was a mistake. People aren’t meant to live forever.” William leaves and tells the new tech not to incinerate the room just yet, that it may be useful to “observe his degradation over the next few days.” That turns out to be a poor choice, as we see this same tech dead in Delos’ room later on. So while we don’t have an exact timeline for this final William/Delos conversation, I think it’s safe to assume it was not too long before Ford’s party in the season 1 finale.
Elsie and Bernard
Zombie Clementine drags Bernard to a cave and leaves him there without a word. Bernard ventures into the cave and who does he find but Elsie! Man, it’s good to see her again. Though the same can’t be said for her reaction at seeing Bernard. You see, he apparently was the one who captured her. He then brought Elsie to this cave, chained her up, and left her with some protein bars and a bucket. Bernard is able to convince her that he doesn’t remember any of that, and that it was Ford forcing him to do all those things.
Bernard experiences one of his now-normal flashes, and sees a past version of himself entering into the cave. It turns out the cave is really just an entrance to an underground lab. Once inside, they find a gruesome scene: dead techs all over, along with some dead (?) drone hosts. But wait, there’s more!
And that is James Delos, or at least the latest host version of him. And they come across the aforementioned scene with the dead tech. Delos appears to have been cutting his face and after a brief fight, Bernard overpowers Delos and Elsie torches the room for what is likely (hopefully) a final time.
If it wasn’t clear to them before, it was now. Delos (the company) has been downloading the human consciousness and insert (not sure if that would be the right technical word, but you know what I’m going for) into a new host. To put it simply, they are trying to scientifically achieve immortality. Bernard has a memory of Ford having him come to this lab to retrieve someone’s mind (that just felt weird even typing out) but Bernard can’t yet remember who it was.
Before leaving the lab Elsie and Bernard agree to keep working together, as long as Bernard promises that he won’t lie to or hurt her again. He agrees, right before we see another flashback in which Bernard has the drone hosts kill the human scientists. Bernard then makes the drone hosts kill themselves by snapping their necks. So that’s fun.
William and Lawrence
The pair continues their journey, coming across a rather morbid scene. Some Chinese hosts are laying railroad tracks, but in a grisly twist, they are using people (guests or hosts, it’s not clear) as railroad ties. William mutters what could turn out to be a very important line. Noting that the tracks are supposed to be going north, not west, as they’re being laid out, he comments “Ford’s game has multiple contenders.” Could there be others in the park subjected to Ford’s game besides William?
William and Lawrence make their way to Las Mudas, which happens to be Lawrence’s home, where an ambush awaits them. Freshly freed Major Craddock and his men have taken the town and add William and Lawrence to their collection of captives. Craddock and his men are looking for weapons, and Lawrence just happens to know where the town inhabitants hide their stash. William learns this and offers to make a deal with Craddock. His survival in exchange for taking Craddock’s crew to their destination: Glory. Over the course of the night, William thinks back to his late wife as he looks upon Lawrence’s terrified wife. He eventually gets the jump on Craddock, ending with giving Lawrence the satisfaction of killing the man who had tortured his family and friends.
Lawrence and some of the other townsfolk are going to continue on with William. As they are preparing to leave, Lawrence’s daughter approaches William, speaking Ford’s words. “One good deed won’t change who you are.” To which William responds, “Who said anything about a good deed. You wanted me to play the game. I’m going to play it to the bone.” “And you still don’t understand the real game we’re playing here,” she replies. “If you’re looking forward, you’re looking in the wrong direction.”
From the sound of it, there is something from William’s past that will be an important factor in his “winning” whatever game Ford has him playing. And that brings us to the last character to focus on for episode 4.
Grace/Emily
You of course remember Grace from last week’s episode. The one who started off in The Raj, only to be attacked by a bengal tiger and wash ashore in the Westworld park and promptly get captured by Ghost Nation. We see her still being held captive, along with Stubbs. Stubbs tries to discuss an escape plan with her, but she says she has no plans to leave the park. They, along with the other prisoners, are taking by the Ghost Nation members, to meet the Ghost Nation leader, “the first of us” as they refer to him. And you may not recognize (I didn’t) but you should. As I discovered reading James Hibberd’s recap for Entertainment Weekly, the “first” is none other than the host who accompanied Logan at the cocktail party those many years ago. So “the first of us” could have multiple layers of meaning.
Grace is eventually able to escape and we see her run off. We don’t see her again until the very end of the episode where she, now on horseback, finds herself approaching William. Their eyes meet and she utters two words, confirming a popular fan theory, “Hi, Dad.” She is indeed Emily, MiB’s daughter. They were laying clues down thick this week, so it was pretty much confirmed even before this scene. Given all that I wasn’t expecting to get official confirmation so soon. I thought they would leave all these strong hints, only to leave the official reveal for later. But it’s possible Nolan and Joy weren’t trying to really hide this fact, so they saw no point in holding it back. However, he who giveth also taketh away, as next week’s episode appears to have little to no MiB nor Emily.
***Some theories follow below. Stop reading now if you want to avoid any potential spoilers.***
The big one: Whose consciousness did Ford have Bernard retrieve?
- The first person that comes to mind is Ford. He has his finger prints on everything, so why wouldn’t he put himself back out there?
- William’s wife: Depending what Ford’s end-game is, this could fit in very well with that narrative.
- Arnold: More of a stretch, but it’s quite possible Ford could have downloaded Arnold’s consciousness years ago and…just held onto it? Ford is a bit of a nutcase though, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
- William: Here me out on this one. There has been a fan theory that there is a host version of the Man in Black and we have either seen both the host and the human, or just the host version. Now this would be a twist on that take, but it could be it. William’s final test could be coming face to face with himself.
- Other: With this show, it could literally be anyone.
I’m betting it’s someone we have already met, or at least been introduced to. Whoever it is would seemingly be a very important character, so it would stand to reason that it would be a character with whom viewers would already be familiar. For now, my money would be on Ford. And keep in mind that it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a duplicate body like Delos. Some people would say “no” to Ford because they don’t think Anthony Hopkins would come back. But there are easy ways around that.
Is there in fact another player in Ford’s game? And if yes, who?
I’m saying yes, with an asterisk. I don’t think there is “another William” out there that Ford is messing with. But I think there easily could be another human that Ford is setting up to play a large role in William’s game. If that’s the case, Emily would seem to be a likely candidate. However, could Ford have really set in action a course of events that would get Emily from The Raj to Westworld? Because of how she found herself in the Westworld park, I’m thinking her appearance was unplanned. But we’ll have to wait and see how the rest of the season plays out to see about that.
So if not Emily, then who? If Logan is indeed alive, it could be him. It might not be a human at all, and could be the control unit Ford had Bernard get for him.
There may not be “another William” but there could literally be another William. If there is indeed a host William or a “new” William (I don’t know what to call the host/human hybrid with the downloaded consciousness) Ford could be setting them up on a collision course.
I don’t feel confident enough to make a guess as to who it would be, but I am saying there is another player in the game that MiB will be coming across.
Is immortality the ultimate goal of Delos and the parks?
I’m going to say no. We saw earlier this season the drone hosts gathering what appeared to be human DNA from hosts. Either the park is taking it to download consciousness without the person’s consent, or they are collecting it for another purpose. I think the immortality angle is a huge part, but not the whole thing.
Is the MiB we’ve been seeing this season a host?
I’m going to say no, but I’m still going to lay out some evidence that points toward it.
- He used the host-healing laser tool to heal a wound earlier this season. Given the similarities between the hosts’ skin suit and human skin, it’s certainly possible that the tool could be used on both. But we’ve only seen it used on hosts up to that point.
- MiB’s arm was broken at the end of season 1. Season 2 starts and by all accounts his arm is fully healed. It’s possible it was simple an oversight, a continuity error. It’s also possible the technology exists to quickly heal broken bones. But it’s something worth noting.
- In this episode, he gets shot and doesn’t seem to be affected by it at all. I think he gets shot twice. I rewatched the scene and I still think that. One grazed his neck and he seems to have gotten shot in the back. You hear a gun shot and his body reacts as if he was hit in the back. He touches his neck, but doesn’t acknowledge the fact that he got shot at all. If he’s a host, he could be programmed to not feel physical harm, or not feel it as much.
