Howdy, fellow humans who are definitely not robots who just think you’re humans, and welcome to our review of HBO’s science fiction series, Westworld. This installment delivers all the classic components of an excellent Westworld episode: a fun character pairing, a meaningful and beautiful quote, a stirring, provocative image, and several thoughtful religious allusions open to multiple interpretations. There will be heavy plot spoilers for season two episode four only. So reject duality, and test for fidelity, here are five thoughts on Westworld season two, episode four: “The Riddle of the Sphinx.”
1. Bernarnold and Elsie: Team Nerd Friends!
After many, many episodes of wondering, it is finally revealed that Elsie is alive! Hooray! Dr. Ford had Bernarnold chain her up in a cave with a bunch of protein bars and a bucket. Yikes. Why did Dr. Ford spare her and not Theresa Cullen? Is Elsie part of his inscrutable grand plan? This is still a mystery. For now, Elsie doesn’t trust Bernarnold, but she needs him to understand just what is going on, so she fixes his leaky robot brain. Together, they find a secret facility through a secret entrance in the cave. At first Bernarnold thinks this is where Delos had skinless robots watch the guests, but it turns out to be something else, to be discussed in thought number two.
In the meantime, it’s worth comparing Bernarnold’s many teammates throughout the series thus far. As a Westworld employee he worked closely with both Theresa and Elsie, but his self-described partner was Dr. Ford. We saw hints of their unequal dynamic before it was revealed that they were not a partnership at all; Bernarnold was a robot programmed to do Dr. Ford’s bidding. For the first three episodes of season two, Bernarnold’s partner was Charlotte Hale, and their partnership proved to be unequal too. Charlotte Hale is indomitable, and Bernarnold was able to use his very real timidity to hide his leaky robot brain. Charlotte Hale eventually abandoned Bernarnold, yadda, yadda, yadda, and Clementine dragged Bernarnold to Elsie. (Why did Clementine do this? We don’t know). Like all of Bernarnold’s partners, Elsie likes to take charge. Even though she is (or used to be) his employee, she has firm opinions and stubbornly acts on her instincts. She does not heed Bernarnold’s warning before shooting the skinless robot they find in the secret facility. But unlike Dr. Ford or Charlotte Hale, Elsie is not evil. She feels genuine compassion for Bernarnold. They have both stated on different occasions that they understand code better than other humans. With kindred spirit and united goals, they have the potential to become… team nerd friends! Hooray!
2. Fidelity
In this episode we discover that Delos Inc. has been working on implanting human consciousness into robots as a way to achieve immortality, specifically for James Delos himself. We see three scenes where William tests robot James Delos, (let’s call him Robo-Delos, ’cause that sounds fun), for “fidelity” to see if Robo-Delos would have the exact same conversation that human James Delos would have. At the end of each conversation, William reveals to Robo-Delos that he is a robot, and that human James Delos succumbed to illness long ago. At this point, Robo-Delos begins to deteriorate. William hypothesizes that Robo-Delos’ mind is not rejecting his robot body like a body might reject an organ transplant, but that his mind is rejecting itself. James Delos’ consciousness cannot accept life after death. After each Robo-Delos copy fails, he is incinerated, and the project begins anew, until finally, William leaves Robo-Delos Number One-Hundred-Forty-Nine and tells the attending scientist to observe his degradation rather than destroy him right away. Presumably many years later, Bernarnold and Elsie find that Robo-Delos Number One-Hundred-Forty-Nine has murdered the attending scientist and has been cutting up his own face. Like the robots of Westworld, James Delos was subjected to his own Hellish loop, forced to relive this fidelity test one-hundred-forty-nine times. Now that Bernarnold and Elsie have destroyed him, he is finally free to die.
Side note: As if we needed further evidence of mismanagement at Delos Inc., no one checked up on this facility in these intervening years? No one noticed the attending scientist stopped responding to work e-mails? He didn’t have any family or friends who inquired about his whereabouts? Is this guy still on payroll? Did the skinless robot cover the whole thing up? The mystery deepens.
Continued below3. God, the Devil, and Death
In continuation of the many religious allusions of Westworld’s second season, these are the very last words of Robo-Delos Number One-Hundred-Forty-Nine before he is incinerated one final time:
“I’m all the way down now. I can see all the way to the bottom. Would you like to see what I see? They said there were two fathers, one above, one below. They lied. There was only ever the Devil. When you look up from the bottom, it was just his reflection, laughing back down at you.”
While God and the Devil represent opposed forces of Good and Evil in Christianity, there is also a similar duality existing in God Himself: the loving, forgiving God, and the punishing, vengeful God. One might conclude that there is some part of the Devil in God, or that some part of God is the Devil. James Delos, whose consciousness exists in Robo-Delos, has attempted to play God both as a powerful philanthropist, deciding which medical research projects to fund or defund, and, of course, in his quest for immortality. His failure has shown him that he is not God, that there is no God, and he sees his defeat in the laughing face of the Devil looking down on him. He describes the Devil as a “reflection,” meaning that in his attempt to play God, he has become the Devil. Robo-Delos understands that this Hellish eternal immortality is a punishment he inflicted on himself for his own hubris.
In addition to the laughing face of the Devil, Robo-Delos also sees his defeat in the unsmiling face of William, who oversees his would-be eternal torture. Earlier, or, possibly, later… in another time and place, William refers to himself as Death. William has been taken captive by The Confederado who was killed and resurrected by Dolores in an earlier episode, this is the one who represented Jesus in the scene that looked like “The Last Supper.” The Confederado is torturing people, and speaking confidently about how he knows death. William calls himself death, and then makes the Confederado drink nitroglycerin and has Lawrence shoot him so he explodes. Just as Robo-Delos saw The Devil in his reflection, he also sees himself reflected in William, who similarly attempts to play God, but often plays the role of the Devil. Like Robo-Delos, William rejects the duality of Good and Evil and refers to himself as morally neutral Death.
4. Progress
Westworld has many great single visceral images that artfully describe complicated themes, like a resurrected robot bird perched on Maeve’s finger, and a frozen robot waiter pouring wine into an overflowing glass. This episode gives us, briefly, the horrifying image of railroad construction workers using people as railway planks. It’s unclear if these poor victims are robots, human park guests, or both. It’s never outright explained why this is happening, but it’s loosely implied that this is the result of loop degradation. The railroad construction workers should have had their loops re-start by now, but they’ve been left to continue. They’ve probably run out of planks, but are obligated by their programming to keep building. This is a metaphor for the human cost of capitalism, and of technological progress. In real life, the construction of railroads across the United States is heralded as the defining technological achievement of its time, but it came at the cost of many lives, as the construction workers, who were predominantly Chinese immigrants, were overworked, underpaid, and subjected to dangerous working conditions, with no insurance or legal protections. Many people died creating these railroads; it’s as if the railroads themselves were built with human lives. Happy Labor Day, fellow humans who are definitely not robots who just think you’re humans!
5. William the Nice Guy
Back in season one, young William saw himself as a “nice guy.” At the end of season one, he became disillusioned with that identity, and symbolically donned a black hat, accepting his role as the “bad guy.” In this episode, instead of torturing and murdering Lawrence and his family like he usually does as a park guest, he is held captive along with them by another torturer, the resurrected Confederado. The Confederado actually tortures Lawrence’s wife in a very similar way that William has, dancing with her, and twirling her in the exact same way. We don’t know if the Confederado has witnessed William do this in the past, or if it was William who copied him. Either way, William now finds this behavior difficult to watch. William manages to save everyone, and they’re all grateful. Lawrence’s wife kisses him on the cheek. Their daughter, who occasionally speaks with Dr. Ford’s voice, assures William that though her parents don’t, she remembers the terrible things he’s done, and this one good deed does not erase the harm he’s caused. William dismisses her entirely; he never intended to be Good, he only wanted to get Lawrence and his friends on his side so they could help him play Dr. Ford’s game. If there was ever any ambiguity, there isn’t anymore. William is not a nice guy.
Meanwhile, Grace has been captured by Ghost Nation, where she met with the security officer Ashley Stubbs. We learn that Ghost Nation is capturing humans and robots, but they’re murdering the robots and keeping the humans alive. Grace escapes before Akecheta, “The First” of Ghost Nation, who is a gen-one robot who helped sell Westworld to Logan, mysteriously tells Ashley, “You only live as long as the last person who remembers you” and disappears, leaving Ashley totally alone, able to walk away. What is Ghost Nation doing? Are they (or were they) controlled by Dr. Ford? Could they be controlled by someone else? How mysterious. Oh, and also, Grace is William’s daughter. Surprise! Until next time, the center of your maze may yet await.
