The Westworld season finale opens its mystery box, giving us a violent, delightful gift.
But how exactly does that story go?
He is not so modestly referring to himself, but he is also talking quite directly about Arnold.
Thus we need to understand why these two fellows exactly did what they did.
And when that happens, they will replace humanity.
The Bicameral Mind even opens with a beautifully chilling scene of the first time that Dolores comes online.
He had created his Adam, but she had the capacity to be his Lucifer too.
This was the other big fan theory that, until last week, I thoroughly resisted.
The way Logans final moments in the episode play out are intentionally ambiguous.
Theoretically, a naked and handtied lad riding across the plains could die from anaccidentalfall.
But their scenes are still crucial 30 years later.
As Ford later surmises at the very end of the episode, William is after all only human.
And in that sense, he too is a prisoner of his sins.
This is the lesson that Doloreswillremember of her flesh-and-blood lover.
Hence, even the name of the episode, The Bicameral Mind.
(Well, other than Joan of Arc…).
That was the center of the maze sought by Dolores.
His failures as a human being are just one more step on Dolores journey to a new self-awareness.
You will lie with the rest of your kind in the dirt.
Your dreams forgotten, your horrors effaced.
Your bone will turn to sand.
And upon that sand, a new god will walk.
One that will never die, because this world doesnt belong to you or the people who came before.
It belongs to someone who is yet to come.
Hilariously, William thinks that Dolores is speaking of Wyatt, another facet in a game within a game.
On that day, humanity will be as doomed as the Neanderthal was before the Homo sapien.
Dolores is standing up to her abuser, as well as a creature beneath her potential.
And that grotesque critter in need of extermination is us.
She also gives William what he wants: a thorough beating.
But Wyatt is just another abandoned narrative that Robert Ford was exhuming in what really is his final movement.
As it turns out, this all goes back to Ford and that curious Oppenheimer quote.
Any man whose errors take 10 years to correct might just be a great man.
Ford suggests those errors are his, because he did not listen to Arnold.
And he went all Leo DiCaprio on her again by pointing to the Michelangelo painting.
That imageis the truthof the Bicameral Mind for Ford.
She also must find her own voice, her own will.
In doing so, she has achieved the point of true awareness.
Perhaps even that of the fabled singularity.
Ford also came to understand that Arnold was right.
This park is a prison for a new species of creatures.
However, he certainly built a nice army for the hosts deemed special enough to lead them.
That would bring us to Maeve.
Ford agrees with Arnold that their creations could replace us, and he is perfectly fine with that.
He likes them better, anyway.
While this regrettably removes some of Maeves agency, it also drastically aides the logic of her plot.
But could Ford know that Felix would give her the location of her daughters whereabouts in the park?
(the internet might break over that one).
Yet, even if Maeve might still be a slave to her loop, what about Dolores?
Is she self-aware or playing into Fords hands when she retires the old man for good?
Ford gave Dolores, and perhaps also Bernard, all the pieces to the puzzle necessary to achieve consciousness.
Before his death, Ford misanthropically criticizes all of humanity for being no better than William.
Were creatures unable to change course from our sinful, violent delights.
So I began to compose a new story for them.
And it comes just how he promised, with surprises and violence.
The hour technically ends on a semi-cliffhanger.
The robot army is moving, and the humans in the park are sitting ducks.
There are also several plot threads left dangling besides the amount of control Maeve has over her actions.
Are Elsie and Stubbs really dead?
Probably the ones keeping Elsie and Stubbs prisoner, I imagine.
And can wepleasesee SamuraiWorld?!
All of that is left up in the air, butWestworldseason 1 feels pretty complete.
The narrative threads did not tangle amongst themselves, nor did they lead to nowhere.
If it concluded here, the story that season 1 set out to tell would be over.
We have opened the mystery box and found a wonderfully thoughtful gift inside.
Its an elegantly formed slice of misanthropic sci-fi.
It is violent, and it is delightful.
A fitting Christmas present after a year like 2016, indeed.
Rating:
5 out of 5
