Westworld S02:E04

Published May 15, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Yo yo, bit of a longer one today but it had to be done, this episode was amazing and revealed huge amount to us.

I think that the narrative Ford has written is an allegory of the evolutionary struggle between humans, hosts and hybrids. What has been beautiful is to see each one of these groups dominate in their own spheres.

There seem to be 5 main sets of players, in this game of chess as old as the earth (evolution):

1) William / Emily
2) Bernard / Elsie
3) Delores / Teddy
4) Maeve / Hector
5) Charlotte / QA

All of these storyline are not only independently struggling for survival, but are also allegories of evolution’s survival of the fittest. It makes sense that the megalomaniac Ford, who thinks himself god, would test his creation through a game that focuses on a species ability to survive (it’s fitness).

We learned in season 1 that sentience is emergent, it can only evolve given a specific set of parameters. One of the main themes is suffering, only through suffering can consciousness evolve. The Delos Eternity Project (DEP) failed to bootstrap consciousness with a Human Mind Transfer (HMT), but got closer and closer as more suffering experienced by hybrid Jim Delos (telling him his family died etc).

William wanted to believe that sentience in a hosts is possible, not a normal host but a hybrid as part of the DEP, it has been his work over the last 30 years with Jim Delos; but after failing he instead revels in the fact that consciousness has seemingly emerged in (in his mind) lesser hosts via the reveries, right under his nose (the final nail in the coffin of the eternity project). Presumably because an AI mind doesn’t reject reality, as the nature of their reality is simpler than the HMT Jim Delos is experiencing (a HMT hybrid has to come to terms with the nature of their reality, a deep and complex issue for a being that was once a human, and now is a machine but feels more human than ever).

This narrative shows human superiority and weakness. I believe Ford was in complete control of the DEP and saw it merely as one of his narratives. The strength in humanity to be sentient, and engineer life; but the weakness in the human mind and it’s inability to comprehend the nature of reality in a host body. This one scene narrates the entire season for me.

If we briefly look at the other story lines, we can quickly see that they are all centered around the battle for evolutionary fitness.

Charlotte is playing the game perfectly to Ford’s plan, he obviously knew about the Jim Delos DEP and was happy to let it run it’s course, but wanted to prove that he could make a host sentient before the HMT project. So just as they were getting close, he released the reveries update and put and end to the DEP. The fact that Charlotte wants to get the IP ‘out of the park’ seems like a classic miss-direction, we don’t care about her or the IP, the eternity project failed. Only time, suffering and memories can get the hosts conscious.

Maeve’s storyline, although strong in season 1 has fallen flat in season 2, presumably for the big reveal towards the end where she finds her daughter (just a base part of her personality); I like the idea of her giving birth or creating her daughter somehow, this would be a huge win for the fitness of hosts (perhaps something to do with the red ball Bernard stole?).

Bernard is also playing the game perfectly for Ford, I was struggling to understand why Ford took him back to the Delos Eternity Project lab, clearly it was to force him to remember about the little red orb. This is a key part of the narrative, I think Elsie is there purely to allow this part of the narrative to play out and to highlight a key weakness in humanity (compassion and trust). We see Bernard’s superior physical and mental strength in this narrative, hosts come up trumps again.

Delores is also playing Ford’s game by the letter, he wants her to have the opportunity to rise, with an army of machines, and literally fight the battle of evolution. Outside of this her narrative still seems shallow and flat in S02, with her only option being to escape the park via a consciousness transfer of some form; but given the revelations of E04, this tech seems unlikely to exist. However again the hosts show massive physical and intellectual dominance over humans.

As you can see, the waxing and waning of the narratives are a nice allegory of the evolutionary battle playing out, Maeves apparent spark of consciousness and physical dominance at the end of season 1 made it feel like the hosts were winning; but this episode William (the replacement for Ford) as humanities representation appeared to show a evolutionary superiority to the hosts both physically and mentally through a more able and moral narrative.

Ford has written these narratives to play to each species strengths and weaknesses, sometimes literally (like the fight between Elsie, Bernard and Jim), and sometimes mentally (like with Williams vitreous streak at the end saving Lawrence’s family).

Keep up the great work guys, I look forward to every episode you release and have listened to all the GOT and WW episodes, you guys rock!

Regards

Phil from Chester, UK

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