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 gives us more beautiful quotes with multiple layers of meaning. We also get to see Charlotte Hale out-creep Dr. Ford, and shortly thereafter we get to see see Dr. Ford out-creep Charlotte Hale. There will be heavy plot spoilers for episode seven only. So contemplate the efficacy of your own survival, and check your boyfriend for microchips, here are five thoughts on Westworld season one, episode seven: “Trompe L’Oeil.”
1. I’m Not a Key
On the train fleeing Pariah, William confesses to Dolores that he is engaged to someone else, though he is truly in love with Dolores. After a night of lovemaking, William professes that Dolores has unlocked something within him, but Dolores, with a newfound commitment to self-actualization, insists that she is not a key. As a robot programmed to be a love interest for the park guests, she might be obligated to respond positively to that statement, but she doesn’t. William keeps insisting that this place has changed him, and that his relationship with Dolores has helped him find his true self. Dolores was literally created to be an object of affection, to serve this function in William’s life and in the lives of other park guests. Yet here she is proclaiming unequivocally that her role in life is not to assist William on his journey. She says, “I’m not key, William. I’m just me.” She is not an object. She is a person. She seems to have genuine romantic feelings for William, but that doesn’t mean her purpose is to help him find himself.
2. Charlotte Hale Out-Creeps Dr. Ford
In a previous episode, poor Theresa was threatened by Dr. Ford in a shiver-inducing creepy power move. He had all the robots in the restaurant where they met freeze in place, to demonstrate that he had a robot army at his command, and he said to her creepily, “Don’t get in my way.” This episode, Charlotte Hale somehow manages to out-creep him. She invites Theresa to her hotel room for a meeting, and greets her at the door, fully naked. Hector, a robot, is tied up naked on her bed. Theresa, in a stunning display of politeness under outrageous circumstances, calmly suggests she might come back another time, but Charlotte Hale (she strikes me as one of those people who always goes by her full name), insists that now is a great time. Theresa comes inside. Charlotte Hale puts on a robe, and tells Theresa the board of directors needs a “blood sacrifice” in response to Dr. Ford reallocating too many company resources for his mysterious new narrative. We’ll find out later that this “blood sacrifice” will come in the form of reprogramming Clementine to be violent, blaming Bernard, and firing him. Charlotte Hale includes a thinly veiled threat to fire Theresa if she doesn’t cooperate.
Charlotte Hale is terrifying. It’s uncontroversial to say that her actions here constitute workplace sexual harassment. It takes a lot to out-creep Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Tessa Thompson has done so, with a wry smile. There’s no smile so wry as Tessa Thompson’s. Poor Theresa! No wonder she smokes like a chimney. Things are only going to get worse for Theresa at the end of the episode. Enjoy that cigarette, you’ve earned it.
3. Surviving is Just Another Loop
After witnessing her friend Clementine get lobotomized (after Charlotte Hale and Theresa reprogrammed her just to get Bernard fired, unbeknownst to Maeve), Maeve says she’s always thought of herself as a survivor, but she has now realized that “surviving is just another loop.” With the aid of Felix and Sylvester, Maeve has already “freed” herself, in the sense that she has some level of control over her programming. She is further along than any other robot in the park on her journey to self-discovery. She knows who she is, and where she is. However, she has just realized that that’s not enough. She’s surviving, she has the ability to take advantage of her daily trips to Hell, a.k.a. Westworld laboratories, but she’s still legally an object, the property of Westworld. She’s still obligated to go through the motions of her “character” in the park. Her mind is free, but her body is still trapped. Similarly, we the real life human viewers might be aware of our own loops, but that doesn’t mean we are free of them.
Continued below4. What Door? That Doesn’t Look Like Anything to Me
After he’s fired, Bernard takes Theresa to Dr. Ford’s secret cabin to show her his creepy robot clone family. He says he just wants to help Theresa protect the park, the employees, and the guests. Once they’re at the creepy cabin, Theresa finds a door, but Bernard doesn’t see it. The door leads them downstairs. Theresa finds schematics for robot Bernard. She shows them to him, and he replies, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” You may have already guessed it, but now we know for sure, that Bernard was secretly a robot, under Dr. Ford’s control, all along. There were a number of hidden clues leading up to this. On the way to the cabin, Bernard said he felt like he understood robots more than humans. In a previous episode, when Theresa and Bernard were in bed together, Theresa lovingly teased Bernard that he was “practicing” socializing with her, the way robots practice socializing with each other even when there are no humans around. Finally, on two separate occasions, Bernard questioned Dr. Ford’s actions, and Dr. Ford replied by bringing up Bernard’s tragically deceased son. In retrospect, this wasn’t just an effective emotional manipulation, it was a code word or phrase that would trigger Bernard to let go of whatever he was pursuing.
Bernard was surprised to discover that he was a robot. It begs us real life humans who are definitely not just robots who think we’re humans to ask ourselves, are we just robots who think we’re humans? The answer is, we’re definitely humans… but that’s what Bernard thought too.
5. Dr. Ford Out-Creeps Charlotte Hale
Earlier this episode, Charlotte Hale out-creeped the exorbitantly creepy Dr. Ford, but by the end of the episode, Dr. Ford reclaimed his title of creepiest creep in the creepy robot theme park. Well played sir, well played. He had Bernard, his own secret robot, murder Theresa, though he knew that they had been lovers. He knew this, because Bernard was under his control the whole time. Dr. Ford didn’t make Bernard initiate the relationship, (which would have been even creepier), but he also didn’t tell Theresa after their relationship was underway. Poor Theresa! To be murdered by your ex-boyfriend who turned out to be a secret robot in the creepy basement of the creepy cabin home of a creepy robot clone family. Brutal. Now that Theresa is dead, how will we find out what data she was trying to smuggle out of the park?
Of course, Dr. Ford can’t just murder someone immediately; he has to have a whole creepy villain speech first. He creepily used the phrase “blood sacrifice” to tell Theresa she was about to die, the same phrase Charlotte Hale used to describe firing Bernard, revealing that Dr. Ford had been spying on them. Dr. Ford then compares human intellect to peacock feathers; though they are beautiful, peacock’s ample plumage prevent them from flying, so they eat bugs in the muck. Robots are free from the burden of self-loathing, and guilt, and so they are freer under his control, than humans are. Dr. Ford might be projecting his own feelings of self-loathing and guilt onto the rest of humanity, but even if he’s right, it doesn’t explain what his end-game is, or why murdering Theresa is a necessary means to that end. This is not a typical James Bond villain speech that explains everything; it only explains his worldview, not his evil plan. The only thing we know for sure is that he has an evil plan, and it’s going well.
Dolores is well on her way to finding the maze. On the train, she paints a landscape from her imagination, and then finds it is a real place, and that is where she and William are headed next. We learned last episode that the long-deceased Arnold, or someone pretending to be Arnold, has been reprogramming the older-model robots, which include Dolores, so this landscape was probably implanted into Dolores’ imagination by them. “Arnold” is leading Dolores to this location. “Arnold” led Maeve to self-awareness, so it makes sense that this location will lead Dolores to self-awareness too. Until next time, the center of your maze awaits.
