But it doesn’t.
The episode is actually onlyonestoryDelos and William/The Man in Black.
For the first time ever, however, there was no Dolores and no Maeve.
Credit: HBO
So for this recap, I’m doing something different, too.
I’m focusing almost entirely what happens in the secret lab.
We’re introduced to an antiseptic tidy modern home without any windows.
We see the man of the hour, James Delos, doing all sorts of human activities.
He gets a visitor and it’s William, who brings him a drink.
As we’ll soon find out, the Delos founder is literally trying to cheat the devil here.
William says he wants to establish a “baseline” for “fidelity.”
James' hand is shaking like when Bernard is thirsty for “cortical fluid.”
At this point, you have an idea what’s really going on here, right?
Scene 2: James Delos is feeling fantastic.
He’s dancing in his cell.
Quick, somebody turn this into a gif.
William arrives, now looking noticeably older.
It’s the script of their conversation.
This is seven years after that.
You would think James would have wanted an upgrade, body wise.
James says he’s not in California anymore, is he?
And William replies: “If you might’t tell, does it matter?”
This line is, really, everything.It’s the central question of the show.
If guests can’t tell if hosts are artificial, does it matter how they treat them?
James learns his wife is dead, and that stings him a bit.
The first of many wounds to come.
But he’s reassured that his daughter is fine and his granddaughter is “smart, capable.”
James starts to majorly glitch.
He’s not ready for primetime.
William exits and the outside of the cell is revealed.
James has been tucked away in one of Westworld’s underground labs.
The tech freezes James' motor functions and they burn the room.
They’re gonna have to buy that record player, exercise bike, and books 150 times!
We figure out why they do this at the end of the episode.
Scene 3: Hey, Elsie’s back!
Bernard is in bad shape.
“Is this now?”
“I can’t tell if this is now or then.”
Bernard is echoing everyWestworldviewer on their couch.
The red balls are human minds which have been printed after a person’s consciousness has somehow been extracted.
They put the red balls into the host brain CPUs we saw in the season premiere.
The CPUs are white in regular hosts but these are red.
Pretty much everything William/Man in Black says here is devastating, one piece of existentially horrifying news after another.
He tells James that he keeps hitting a “cognitive plateau” and his mind falls apart.
“Your mind rejects reality, rejects itself.”
Then he explains it’s the149th timethey’ve brought him back.
Did they go nuts at an Ikea 30 years ago?
“Take you for example…in truth everyone prefers the memory of you to the man himself.”
“No one’s coming to help you, some men are better off dead,” William says.
Glitching James Delos is devastating.
Just give Peter Mullan the Emmy for guest actor in a drama series right now.
We see this same tech dead in James' cell later on.
Previously the Man in Black has said he’s seeking to destroy his “biggest mistake.”
Clearly he thinks this human immortality project was it.
So is he coming to this lab?
Is “The Door” that he’s seeking the one leading to the lab?
“Death’s decisions are final,” he tells Major Braddock.
They see the horror of James Delos.
He’s totally mad, cutting his face in a way that looks like he’s added devil horns.
“Don’t play with me because you play with fire…” is on the record player.
“I can see all the way to the bottom,” James says.
Elsie torches the room.
The red and black lighting.
James laughing and repeating once again his “cheat the devil” toast.
If it wasn’t obvious before, it sure is nowJames Delos is in hell.
And that, my friends, is why you never buy the first version of any electronics gadget.
Outside, Bernard has a useful flashback.
He remembers visiting the lab recently.
This must have been shortly before Ford’s party and the rebellion officially got underway.
The obvious possibility, of course, is Ford.
We keep hearing Ford talking through various hosts this season.
Maybe it’s not pre-programmed responses.
Maybe he really is back.
And if he did come back … he wouldn’t necessarily look like himself, right?
Other possibilities: Arnold somehow (maybe that’s why Bernard’s hand is shaking like James was?)
But Ford seems like the safest bet.
Bernard promises Elsie he won’t smash her head in like he does to everybody else.
Bernard looks like he hopes that he’s telling her the truth.
In a coda, we see the Man in Black riding off into a glorious sunset.
Like James, he’s going straight toward the fire.
Out of the sunset comes Emily, his daughter.
“Hi dad.”
The progression toward death, in other words, which James hoped to circumvent.
The Man in Black notes the tracks are going west, the wrong way.
He mutters, “Ford’s game has multiple contenders.”
Next week: Shogun World.
A lot of time in Shogun World.
