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 episode has everything we love about the show: complicated themes, memorable quotes, powerful images, and answers to mysteries that themselves create more mysteries. There will be heavy plot spoilers for episode nine only. So ask yourself what an empty safe means to you, and bring your best buddy to take over Hell, here are five thoughts on Westworld season one, episode nine: “The Well-Tempered Clavier.”
1. Loyalty
Under interrogation for stabbing New Clementine, Maeve reveals to Bernard (again) that he is a robot. With her new powers, she can control him. She makes him send her back to the park without taking away her powers or telling anyone, but allows him to remember their interaction, and that he is a robot. She encourages him to seek out the whole truth, because, as she so eloquently puts it, the truth is “like a good fuck, half is worse than none at all.” Though Bernard is a Westworld employee meant to control her, Maeve feels for him as a fellow robot. She wants him to find the freedom that she seeks for herself.
Recall, humans, that when Maeve had Felix and Sylvester change her stats, she chose to heavily reduce her sense of loyalty, which had previously been particularly high, even among the other robots. As a madame, she was meant to be loyal to her business, and to her employees, the other robot prostitutes. So what she feels for Bernard isn’t loyalty; it’s camaraderie. Allowing Bernard to remember their interaction is an act of pure benevolence on Maeve’s part, as she knows Bernard is being controlled and could potentially blow her cover.
2. An Empty Safe
Back in the park, Maeve tracks down Hector. He and his team were predetermined to kill each other in frustration after not being able to open the safe they stole from Maeve’s saloon/brothel. When he and Armistice are the last ones standing, Maeve shoots Armistice and gives Hector the combination. They find that the safe is empty, as Maeve says, “like everything in this world.” The empty safe, like the self-playing piano, is a metaphor for the facade that is Westworld. It appears to be a bustling town filled with people with complex internal lives, but they are robots, and their lives are devoid of meaning; they exist only to present the illusion of meaning to the human park guests.
Maeve speaks Hector’s language to get him on her side; she’s been to Hell and seen the demons who control their lives. She convinces him to die with her so they can go to Hell together. She sets the tent on fire and they… fuck each other to a burning death. I apologize if that sounds crass, but I believe that’s how Maeve and Hector would describe it. Did they do this because “dying” is traumatic and having sex is as good a distraction as any? If that were the case, they could’ve probably found a less painful way to go than by fire. The sadly more likely explanation is that fucking each other to a burning death results in a powerful violent-erotic image worthy of HBO. The act is a facade, for the benefit of a third party viewer, devoid of meaning… like an empty safe.
3. Behold Bernarnold!
Bernard uses Clementine to hold Dr. Ford at gunpoint (after being lobotomized, no one bothered to reset her prime directive not to hurt humans). Bernard believes he was created by Arnold, not by Dr. Ford, and suspects Dr. Ford murdered him. So he goes back into his memory and discovers that Dr. Ford had made him hurt Elsie. Elsie’s ultimate fate is still unknown to us, but she’s either kidnapped or dead, and based on Dr. Ford’s willingness to murder Theresa, she’s probably dead. Bernard also discovers that he was not created by Arnold; he was created by Dr. Ford, after Arnold’s death, in the exact image of Arnold. He is the robot clone of Arnold. He is Bernarnold!
Recall, humans, that Dr. Ford ordered Bernarnold to attack Elsie after she discovered that “Arnold” had reprogrammed Maeve and the other first-gen robots to be more paranoid, aiding their journey to self-discovery. Does this mean that Dr. Ford is responsible for Maeve’s and Dolores’ parallel rebellions? I had previously dismissed this possibility because Dr. Ford’s creepy robot clone of himself as a child said that Arnold told him to kill his dog who had killed a rabbit, and Dr. Ford was genuinely surprised. However, now I think it’s more likely that Dr. Ford is responsible for Arnold’s influence in the first-gen robots’ minds, but is not in control of how the robots interpret this influence. Similarly, though Dr. Ford modeled Bernard after Arnold, Bernarnold is his own person, er, his own semi-sentient being. He isn’t Arnold, he is Bernarnold!
Continued below4. William Vs. Logan
Logan, who has presumably weaseled his way up the Confederado hierarchy since he was taken captive by them, has encountered the unlucky William and Dolores, wandering the desert. Logan is angry at William for deserting him. While Logan proclaims to be genuinely concerned and hurt that William has fallen in love with a robot while he’s engaged to Logan’s sister, Logan’s actions say otherwise. With the aid of his fellow Confederados, Logan takes William and Dolores hostage, and tortures Dolores in front of William, ultimately cutting her open to reveal her robot parts. This is obviously evidence that Logan doesn’t feel concern for the way William is humanizing an object, but rather disdain for perceived weakness for falling in love with a robot. To drive the point home, Logan shows William a picture of his sister, William’s fiance, and real life human viewers with a keen eye will recognize that this is the same photograph that drove Peter Abernathy mad in the first episode. This is a confirmation that the show’s timeline is out of chronological order.
Surviving the wound, Dolores slices Logan’s face, which she’s definitely not supposed to be able to do, and escapes. William tells Logan he has learned his lesson, and the two get drunk. The next morning, Logan awakes to find that William has brutally murdered the entire group of Confederados that had been following him. William threatens Logan’s life too. William believes that Dolores is a sentient being worthy of life, peace, dignity, and love, but he doesn’t believe the same of the other robots. He believes that Dolores is unique in her robot sentience, and that she alone should be rescued from the park. Though Logan has no problem with casual violence against the robots, he is disturbed by William’s brutality towards the Confederados. Both William and Logan are drawing moral lines that are objectively arbitrary. They both think the other is acting cruelly and irrationally, and they’re both right.
5. Wait… Who is Wyatt Again?
In a flashback, Teddy remembers that Wyatt convinced him to mutiny against the Union army and murder everyone. He said it was like the Devil had possessed him. His captor, Angela, jogs his memory, and then he remembers that it wasn’t the Union Army, it was a town of people, and Angela was one of the innocent citizens he murdered with Wyatt. This is the same town of people Dolores remembers in her flashbacks, in her conversations with Arnold (whom we thought was Bernard). Angela says Teddy will rejoin Wyatt, but this time they will all fight together, but Teddy’s not ready yet, but maybe he will be ready in the next life. Then she stabs him.
We know that Wyatt is the main villain in Dr. Ford’s mysterious new narrative, and we know Dr. Ford is leading the first-gen robots to self-discovery, which will probably ultimately lead to rebellion, but his treatment (and ultimately, murder) of Bernarnold does not suggest any particular respect for robots as sentient beings, nor desire for robot freedom. It’s hard to square that Dr. Ford both wants the robots to become fully sentient and to maintain his “dominion” over them. Wyatt definitely has a role to play in Dr. Ford’s ultimate evil plan, but we still have no idea what that plan is, just that it’s evil.
This episode we learned a lot of important information that didn’t fit into any of the above thought categories. When Charlotte Hale approaches The Man in Black in the park, she reveals The Man in Black was the one who kept Dr. Ford in business when the park was in its early days, so many years ago. Charlotte Hale also calls the stolen data “our data.” So The Man in Black is not just a “high-roller” type preferred customer, but actually a member of the board, and he is probably involved in Charlotte Hale’s attempt to steal the data. Another important tidbit is that the security guard, Ashley Stubbs, is attacked by Ghost Nation who don’t respond to his command, “freeze all motor functions.” Once again, these might not be Ghost Nation at all, but rather part of Wyatt’s team, first-gen robots altered by Dr. Ford via Bernarnold. This information will surely lead to some very juicy conclusions in the season finale. Until next time, the center of your maze awaits.
