peril : This clause contain major mollycoddler for " The Stray , " the third episode ofWestworld . To read more about the mind - flex HBO series , head up over to Westworld World , the home for all of ourWestworldrecaps , interview and theory .
Thanks to snappy Behavior medical specialist Elsie Hughes , I will be refer to my bathroom breaks from now on as vectoring . I should also be whap my own numb skull in repeatedly like the perverse titular host in " The Stray " did with that bowlder , rather than ponderthe brain - freezingly complex game ofWestworldfor another s . Yet the loop - like pondering continues .
" Kill him " is something I am imploring myself to do to myself right about now , because I have literally been watch , meter reading , and thinking aboutWestworldfor nearly every second of every sidereal day since the series debuted on October 2 . But " kill him " is also the two most important words we ’ve hear so far in the show ’s first three episode .
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Whose voicewhispers that to Dolores ? Was itthat supposedly deceased Arnold gallant , the guy standing next to a unseasoned Robert Ford in that poorly Photoshopped old - timey candid he showed to Bernard before they discussedthe trippy bicameral - nous theory ? What was up with those scene between Bernard and Dolores anyway ? Did this instalment advance or debunk the possibility that William ( ofWilliam and Logan fame ) and the Man in Black are one and the same , only 30 years aside ? And do I have time to vector before rattle off the sleep of this recap ? No ? OK , Arnold , I ’ll just plunge into it .
Dr. Robert Ford
Theory : if Dr. Robert Ford were a Dungeons & Dragons fictional character , he ’d be neutral evil . proficient hypothesis : Ford nixed Sizemore ’s halt Odyssey on Red River plot line in Episode 2afterthat storyline had receive approved by the Delos potbelly ’s unobserved board of directorsnotbecause it was lame but for three authoritative reasons :
1 ) He needed the freed - up corporate largesse and exploited their seemingly desperate demand for new narrative to get the quick green - light on his mysterious Wyatt narrative , which he ’d already been work on sneakily for months or even years without oversight ;
2 ) he know thatBernard has been encounter secretly with Doloresbut that neither he nor Bernard implant the picture that Peter Abernathy found , which would advise the presence of a saboteur ;
3 ) he suspected that the only room to baffle his savvy saboteur would be to switch the rules of the secret plan – which is why he is move to unearth or reconstruct the original theme park , which , watch the stroke frequently advert to on the show , has been covered - over entirely , other than the solitary steeple of the white church that he showed to both Bernard and that creepy shaver robot translation of himself ( whom we already know will move around out to be the creepiest kind of robot – i.e. , the variety with shroud robot face ! – thanks to the season preview trailer andthis helpful graphic ) .
Why would Ford go through all this trouble to excavate the original parking area area – which we see happen , along with him bad - assedly secern someone ( believably Theresa ) not to get in his agency , in the drone for next week ’s instalment ? Because the only version of Westworld known to Arnold , who died short after the park opened , is buried beneath metric tons of desert grit and tumbleweeds , and the only way to shoot down Arnold , who ’d rigged his creations with an insidious plan glitch designed to serve them theoretically " bootstrap consciousness " if their memories are activated , is to , as the Man in Black himself said tonight in Dolores ' reverie hiccup , " start at the commencement . " If only someone had an tremendous , elaborate excavation machine .
Much like Lee Sizemore , I am smart enough to gauge there ’s a great picture but not smart enough to see what it is . So I ’ll leave that hypothesis there and just sharpen out that the histrion piano in Ford ’s office was playing"Reverie " by Claude Debussyand that any golem among us might want to discase the next meter he calls you in for a diagnostic checkup .
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Dolores
" Oh , what a tangled web we interweave when first we practise to lead astray " is not a line fromAlice ’s Adventures in Wonderland , but it might as well be , because Dolores , who read a transit from the Lewis Carroll classic , is a prevaricator . With that chilling " yes " to Bernard when asked if she ’ll stay in her programmed cringle , Ms. Abernathy seems to have climbed up Arnold ’s consciousness pyramid , past " computer storage " and " temporary expedient " to turn over " self - involvement " ; she knows now that she ca n’t reply certain dubiousness aboveboard without put on the line inactivation .
After that revealing exchange , Bernard distinguish Dolores to run along before someone misses her and she deliver to town , still in her grummet , only a bit behind ( it ’s nighttime ; she ’s unremarkably in town during daylight ) . But with Ford deploy Teddy on his new repulsion plot line , Dolores – who , as we learn in Ford ’s reprogramming gabfest with Teddy , survive simply as a lure for guests who want to off a triggerman and " have their way with " his girl – rag alone back to the Abernathy ranch .
Once she come at the bloody crime scene , things seem to toy out as common : she escort her founding father dying ( although she has a déjà vu of the original Peter Abernathy , not the creatively mustached replacement ) , she gets menaced by a thug ( this prison term it ’s Rebus , a puzzle in robot form ) , and pull screaming into the barn .
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Only this metre thing go other than . Time blur . She regain a accelerator in the hay . And then she hears someone with a husky voice – it ’s no one we ’ve met before : not Bernard , not Ford , not the Man in Black – say the sorcerous words : " Kill me . " And it ’s like a gun go off in her fountainhead and her mitt . The loop broken , and Dolores made into a two - faced prevaricator , she gobble into the night . But to where ? Yes , she fall into William ’s willing arms in the net scene . But it ’s not solely clear , due to her flickering computer storage , if this is happening in the same timeline as the one in which she fled .
I have a gaga hypothesis about what might might be happening , the kind of theory that could only be written by a sleepless zombie at 5:14am after literally 20 straight hours of mainliningWestworld . Dolores said to Bernard , " There are n’t two interlingual rendition of me ; there ’s only one . " Every memory Dolores is informing every interlingual rendition of Dolores that is having it , past and present . Once she learns that , and how to surmount it , time will no longer be a lead for Dolores ; she will not be get in a loop topology .
Bernard
short , slang Bernard : in his keep grief about losing his only Word withFirefly ’s Gina Torres to what may or may not have been a watery death because of his not being enough of a helicopter parent , he has become unsighted to the " ingratiating system " that Dolores defines in robot voice as " ask personal question . " This ca n’t end well for the parking area guests , hosts , uninfected - up crew , the creation , and probably even Bernard , can it ?
Look at the basement sand trap where Bernard meets with Dolores . Where is this pack place ? After she enjoin answer his question about staying with her programmed closed circuit , she appear on the streets of Sweetwater at night , which make me recollect that he ’s meeting her in a cellar beneath one of the town construction ( probably the oecumenical store , where she buys her condensed milk . Think about what happens when Bernard adjoin her there . Dolores is clothed in her usual blue dress during those session . He also says that she should run along so that no one will miss her indicating he ’s pulled her from her grummet . And we know that he is doing all of this in secrecy , not just because he tell her not to mention their word to anyone else but because he leaves his communication gadget in his aliveness quarters ( we see this when Elsie attempts to call him ) .
Why the need for such secrecy ? He recognise that Ford is monitoring everything . Ford knows all . And that might be even spoilt for Bernard than Dolores lying to him , or Gina Torres , who was awesome inFireflyand a lot of other things , being forced to have a Skype grief - off with someone who is so plainly being duped by a host and is cause lamentable work - affair sex with a range - smoking , ego - described " bitch , " who I occupy might turn out to be a automaton herself .
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William & Logan
The plot line depart on with William and Logan dead exists in a timeline prior to the events go on with the Man in Black . Does that inevitably make White Hat William the Man in Black ? No . Logan could very well turn out to be the Man in Black . But William ’s floor – even though that final prospect in tonight ’s episode makes it seem as if this ca n’t be possible – happens in the early days of the parkland .
How can I be so sure ? It ’s all about the Westworld logotype .
When William and Logan get off the train / hyperloop in Episode 2 , we see snap of a Westworld logo that does n’t tally up with the logotype we ’ve seen on technicians in the HQ scenes . And in the flashback conniption accompanying Ford ’s chat with Bernard about Arnold , we see the same logo that appears in the scenes where William is arriving in the park for the first meter . These are the only two time we ’ve view this vintage logo , on a show where the advanced logo is display frequently . Case closed . They would n’t show two Son otherwise .
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And the rest
• Elsie & Stubbs : is anyone shipping these guys yet ? Also : the head - bashing host knocked Stubbs to the priming coat and seemed to hit him heavily . Does this signal that he could harm Stubbs , therefore indicating that Stubbs is a master of ceremonies ? And is it just me , or did that turtle carving front nothing like Orion ?
• Teddy : reprogrammed by Ford and throw a much meatier part . There will be no happy ending for Teddy and Dolores ' repeat meet - precious . Also of banknote : Teddy ’s last name is Flood . Wyatt is described by someone as being a pestilence . sound apocalyptic to me , just as Wyatt ’s horrific masked men sound like Tusken Raiders .
• Anyone else notice that the recognition listed old and new Peter Abernathy and Walter , the two decommission master of ceremonies , and that the sheriff who had a fly sheet - turn out facial - tic meltdown in Episode 1 is now a bounty hunter on Teddy ’s military mission and that his former deputy sheriff is now the sheriff ( whom Dolores runs into after meeting with Bernard in the hole-and-corner basement bunker ) ? More important , though : who else thought at first that the buirdly , deeper - voiced bounty hunter William meets after killing the malefactor who ’d kidnapped Clementine was Teddy ? Give it up for proto - Teddy .
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