Westworld fans who were lacking the occurrence of Doctor. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) had reason to observe last week. Not simply performed the series look into the Cradle, a Matrix-like computer simulation that is a backup for all of the park's hosts, but in its final occasions, it also says the consciousness of Doctor Ford producer had been uploaded in the system -- allowing Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) to chat with his ex - colleague inside a digital Mariposa saloon. The second reframed much of the season, explaining how the Man in Black (Ed Harris) has been able to receive messages from Ford, and suggesting that the bloody uprising of totally free will-enabled kinds may have been yet another carefully orchestrated story, with Ford's digital cat pulling the strings.
Previous night's episode, "Les? corch? s, " picked up that Ford storyline, but the spotlight was really on another character: Bernard. Leaning heavily into backstory and exposition, the instance pulled back the drape even further how Bernard was developed, and it also explained the park's true reason for existing.
If perhaps that wasn't enough, it also hinted that one main character's storyline may have been simply a radically invasive robot revendication.
THE BIG REVEAL?
"Les? corch? s" opens on Bernard in the Dirección, holding a picture of his dead son. Intended for those keeping track, the scene is placed during the second of two "present-day" timelines that the show has been having fun with this season. The first of those timelines commenced the evening of the software uprising. Normally the one featured here commenced fourteen days later, with a glasses-free Bernard being picked up over a beach by Delos security causes.
While investigating the subterranean lab where Bernard slain Theresa Cullen last season, Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) comes across a top secret room, where an amount of previous Bernard kinds have been tucked away for safekeeping. Seeing that Bernard is actually a host -- and therefore has perfect memory -- she brings him in for a proper interrogative to help her discover where missing Peter Abernathy control unit is. The episode that follows is essentially a filmed version of the events that both she and Bernard experienced while Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) attacked the Mesa.
DELOS WANTS TO COPY RECREATION AREA FRIENDS
Bernard's half of that story commences inside the simulation world of The Cradle, right when he sees Ford again for the first time. Bernard quickly puts the pieces together -- Ford producer had created a backup of his own intelligence, and tasked Bernard with uploading it to the Cradle -- but Bernard's biggest eye-opener is about the park itself. Westworld hasn't just been a theme park, he understands; it's been an try things out and observation chamber, allowing Delos, Inc. to collect all the data it needs to duplicate the awareness of its various friends. Data gathering in the name of marketing might have been the starting point that William (Jimmi Simpson) at first suggested, but the job has become something much more sinister. "The humans are playing at reappearance; regrowth. They want to live forever, " Ford explains to his protege. "They avoid want one to become them. They want to become you. "
Ford producer acknowledges that the web host clone project still does not work, which if this individual was positioned in a physical body he would eventually go mad just like the James Delos copies. But Bernard, this individual says, is a different kind of creation entirely.
Ford takes Bernard to an attractive, modern home -- the virtual version of one Arnold was building for his family in real life. This is the place where Ford producer tested and refined early on versions of Bernard, this individual admits that. The mind-capturing technology that the David Delos project uses had not been created when Arnold died, so Ford experienced to rely on remembrances -- his, and even more significantly, those of Dolores. Dolores hung out with the Bernard consciousness inside The Cradle for years, Ford producer explains, serving as Bernard's own personal Turing test. Once she couldn't inform the difference between Bernard Lowe and Arnold Weber, Ford knew he was ready for real life.
The revelation clarifies that the letterboxed opening shot of the season, in which Dolores appeared to be talking to Arnold, was really her performing a fidelity test on Bernard within the Cradle's digital world. But Ford accepts the fact that Bernard, like all hosts, is an idealized and romanticized representation of humanity -- "more just, more noble" -- and when put up resistant to the cruelty of real people, will almost always be destroyed.
"Unless we open up the Door, " Ford producer says.
Shutters close over the windows, and Ford producer says that Bernard does not have what it takes to survive on his own -- an echo of what Dolores told Snuggly before revising his development without permission. Bernard protests as Ford approaches, remembering that Ford said this individual had given hosts free will.
"I did, but you won't have any use for it, inch Ford says. "Unless We take it back. inches
The trip into The Hold clears up a few possibilities from last week. The idea of a Ford clone host running around the park seems to have been nixed completely, laying bare the company motivations behind the Westworld park. Once which has been spelled out, Bernard wakes up from his jaunt and rejoins Elsie as they make an effort to escape the Mesa. Although he soon discovers that Ford has left The Cradle and hitched a ride inside his head, capable to appear to Bernard at will -- and give him commands.
FORD PRODUCER HAS LEFT THE HOLD AND HITCHED A DRIVE INSIDE BERNARD'S MIND
Is actually a valuable thing Ford does because shortly after he's left the Cradle, the renegade kinds storm the facility and destroy the complete system. Yet there also appears to be a more specific purpose to his cognitive hitchhiking. A single moment, Ford tells Bernard he is no much longer pulling any strings and that Bernard is in control of his own path. The next, Ford producer takes control of Bernard and forces him to kill several Delos security guards in order to flee. It's almost as if Ford is striving to force the side of his own creation, to give Bernard something to push back against, so that he will have the courage to step up and pick up hold of his own agency, no matter the consequences green arrow and black canary costumes
Ford's reference to the Door seems especially relevant. When first provided to the Man in Black, the doorway looked like to be some type of game, the one which could potentially offer him a shot at redemption. Nevertheless Ford invoking it with Bernard suggests something different. The Door could be a metaphor; some condition of enlightenment or self-awareness that Ford is attempting to trigger in both Person in Black and Bernard (though we'll stay away from any "the Gentleman in Black is a host" theories for now).
On the other side, The doorway is also tied to The Area Beyond, the mysterious vacation spot that the hosts are all clamoring to reach. That place has recently been called everything from "my greatest mistake" (the Gentleman in Black) to a "weapon" (Dolores), and Ford producer could have just recently been describing a scenario in which this mysterious tool is turned against Delos, Inc. so hosts like Bernard are allowed to live freely and progress without disturbance.
Either way, all of the show's characters are now in a race towards the same destination. While it can not clear what the Valley Beyond actually is, the show has already made it all too clear what the endgame will be: hundreds of dead hosts floating in water, with Bernard the only apparent survivor savitar cosplay.
Pertaining to every its mini-revelations, "Les? corch? s" ends right where it began. Bernard activities a blur of flashbacks involving occasions between Arnold and Dolores, his life as Bernard, and lots of the horrible things that he's done. He awakens up, mid-interrogation with Charlotte now Hale, where she offers a moment of compassion, feigned though it can be. "I know it's confusing, distancing your real memories from the ones you've received, " she says. "But it is the only way to remember. inches
He eventually reveals that the Abernathy control product is in the Area Beyond, and the complete group gets all set to head back again there. While the picture neatly buttons up the interrogation, something about the way Bernard and Hale's exchange commenced raises an totally different question about his storyline.
Over the season, Bernard has seemed to "flip" between different duration bound timelines. The screen stutters and strobes, and Bernard instantly finds himself in the middle of past situations, sometimes as another viewer. That same kind of transition is what occurs Hale first starts interrogating Bernard at the start of "Les? corch? t. "
One way to parse it is that this entire season, anytime the show has offered Bernard outside of the interrogation timeline, audiences have already been seeing what information he shared with Charlotte Hale throughout their conversation in "Les? corch? s. " That would be a smart choice, mirroring the way Dolores experienced fractured memories in the first season, only in this case supplying the choice a definite, story-based motivation emma swan cosplay.
The other way to look at it would be that the reveal in "Les? corch? s" was not a payoff, but a clue. An indication that as a host, Bernard is able to pimpón between memories that are so perfect, that they will be no difference from his actual, timely cognition. If that's the case, perhaps his memory space flipping throughout the season has been the consequence of a few other interrogation pattern the show hasn't unveiled yet. Or even -- just maybe -- it's an artifact of getting opened the Door.
