Regarding MIB’s Fidelity Test

Published June 25, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey guys, big fan!

Here’s how I understand that last scene (as supported by comments from Nolan and Joy on Hollywood Reporter*):

William got his fingers blown off when his gun backfired. He passed out in the sand. Sometime after, he’s found by QA and carried away, “in a bad way”, to rest on a stretcher awaiting evacuation from the island.

Sometime after this, after the season’s end, he dies – either of his injuries or something else entirely, maybe even old age.

In the far, far future the immorality experiment continues. William has his consciousness implanted in a Host body and is run through fidelity testing. Whereas Jim Delos’ test took the form of a stay in a cushy, modern apartment/clinic with visits from William to establish a baseline, William’s test takes a darker, more violent form: it begins with him waking up in the sand after passing out when his fingers were blown off…

The now-host William struggles his way towards the elevator (this is in a very, very distant future; hundreds of years later* – having happened over and over), goes down into the Forge facility, where a Host version of his daughter begins his disorienting fidelity test.

During season 2, both William and Emily were human. In the post-credit scene both are now Hosts.

(*Nolan states that this story will “play out over eons” and that this post-credit scene takes place “far into the show’s future” as evidenced by the decayed state of the Forge facility they are in).

Thanks for reading my tweets out on the podcast; I know I hated the “X=Host” theories, and that it appears many characters are indeed Hosts (Stubbs, Bernard, Hale 2.0 etc) but they did it in a way that completely won me over. I loved the finale.

Can’t wait to join you all on Season Three.

Gareth B, Cardiff UK.

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