What the Hell Happened in the 'Westworld' Finale?
Okay, so what just happened? In a super-duper packed season 2 finale, Westworld gave viewers information overload, with a twisty 90 minutes that changed the show forever. Many, many characters said goodbye, while others revealed secrets they'd been keeping-knowingly or unknowingly-for a long time. Did you follow every strand of the complex plot? Here are some things you might have missed from the second season finale.
1. Dolores has some skills we didn't know about.
One of the biggest surprises of the episode was learning that Dolores is the one who built Bernard and has been testing him for fidelity all along. She's put Bernard through a huge 11,927 trials; William's 149 trials of the James Delos clone took just seven years, so how long has this particular testing been going?
2. How many timelines are we talking about here?
We saw three timelines in this episode: the distant past, when Dolores was working on building Bernard; the recent past, when Dolores and Bernard end up together at the Forge; and, finally, the "present" timeline, in which the aftermath of Ford's death culminates in hundreds of dead hosts in the water (although we jumped around a lot in that timeline, too, with the revelation of Charlotte's death and the Man in Black coda). But, to make matters even more confusing, we also spent time in a virtual reality built for James Delos, which contains a replica of Westworld itself as well as segments of Delos' real-world, decades-old memories. And even within the "present" timeline, we jump around a lot-both in Bernard's memories, and in the coda about the Man in Black. Isn't it relaxing not to have to think about this for another year, at least?
3. Logan makes a surprise reappearance.
In the James Delos virtual world, Dolores and Bernard see Logan Delos-but it's not the real deal. He's simply a stand-in for the virtual reality system itself.
4. Some of the human code looks familiar.
When Dolores is looking through the library of human code, she opens one book filled with staggered dashes. They look like the markings in a player piano scroll, just like the one that's in the Mariposa.
5. We finally found out what The Door and The Valley Beyond are.
Past Bernard created a perfect virtual world for the hosts to escape to. "All that remains is to open the door," the system tells him. Once opened, the Ghost Nation tribe and other hosts follow through, losing their bodies in the process. So that's how they all got into that flooded valley back in the season premiere.
The Valley Beyond is that virtual world; it appears as a huge green field and was physically located at the giant valley where William originally constructed the Forge. It doesn't seem like we'll see any of the hosts who entered the Valley Beyond-Akecheta, Maeve's daughter, and Teddy among them-again, because Dolores shifted its coordinates to ensure nobody could ever find them again, saying there would now be no way to pass between the two.
6. Clementine is a killing machine.
Charlotte and Elsie unleash her on the hosts who are marching towards The Door. As she rides through the crowds, they turn on each other like the Delos security team programmed her to do. But even when Armistice takes her out, her directives still affect the hosts, causing the hosts to all fight each other.
7. A lot of characters die.
Maeve, Dolores (well...more on that later), Clementine, Armistice, Hector, and Hanaryo all bite the dust this episode, and Ford calls Bernard "the last of his kind" (although, technically, Bernard dies as well)-so it seems like all the hosts apart from him and Dolores are dead or in The Valley Beyond. Poor Elsie is also murdered, by a single-minded Charlotte, and Lee Sizemore goes out in a blaze of glory, his hackneyed phrases finally meaning something for once; he distracts the Delos team while Maeve and co. escaped. As for Charlotte herself, she's done too-killed by Bernard and replaced with a host replica.
Lutz and Sylvester, somehow, survive. Put in charge of collecting and salvaging the hosts' bodies where possible, they're in a good position to try to protect and revive Maeve.
8. Bernard does not have an easy time. At all.
In the space of one episode, Bernard kills the murderous Dolores, goes back and forth in his own memories, regrets killing Dolores, kills Charlotte Hale and replaces her with a host version implanted with Dolores' control unit, and scrambles his own memories so that the Delos team can't figure out what he had done-and then remembers all of this again. Oh, and then he dies. And is brought back to life by Dolores in the real world. Finally, he ascertains that he has free will, since he was able to make a decision not preordained by Ford. Chill!
9. Dolores saves five "pearls."
At first, there was just one pearl she retrieved from the Delos cache-a "soul" she wanted to "carry to the new world." That's Teddy-she wanted to put him into the Valley Beyond. (Finally, the end of death for him.) That's not all, though. In her purse on the way out of the park, we see five of the small spheres. One of them is Bernard, whom she recreates later with the machine Ford left in Arnold's house. Are they copies of her own pearl? That could account for at least one of them-later on we see her back in her regular form alongside her Charlotte Hale form. But who are the others?
10. Stubbs has been in on the plan all along.
Weirdly, the person who knew about at least part of Ford's endgame all along was security head Stubbs. When stopping Charlotte/Dolores on her way out of the park, he intimates that he knows who she is and won't stand in her way. However, he seems more than a little conflicted about letting a host out into the world disguised as a human being. Will he become one of her antagonists in the coming season? "I'm responsible for every host inside the park," he says. Not outside it, though.
11. What's the song that plays over the ending credits?
It's "Codex" by Radiohead.
12. What the hell happened with the Man in Black?
If you didn't stick around for after the credits, there was a little easter egg hidden there that reveals The Man in Black is a host that has been stuck in a simulation for a very long time. It appears he has been on a quest all along, but not the one it seemed.
He's tested for fidelity, just like James Delos was, by someone who looks familiar-Emily. But is she really William's daughter, or someone/something else? Anyway, as for the nature of his search, she asks him what he thinks he's trying to discover, and he replies: "That no system can tell me who I am. That I have a fucking choice." He should ask Dolores and Bernard for some help with that.
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