Charlotte joins back up with a QA team preparing to sweep the park, and claims their best men for an assault on Fort Forlone Hope, knowing she needs to get Peter Abernathy back in order to get Delos to send in assistance. She personally goes along after equipping a bullet-proof vest and they set off to assault the Confederados. Sadly for them, Dolores and company have been preparing for them, laying mines in front of the fort and planning a retreat tactic to blow up the QA men when they get close enough. The attack begins and it is soon clear that Dolores and her people have their own plan, retreating early and leaving the Confederados to fight outside the fort alone, and then closing the gate, leaving those men outside to die. Dolores then blows the explosives, killing the attacking QA men and the remaining Confederados on the field, a complete victory for her but not before she looks back and sees that Charlotte and a few men have snuck inside the fort from the rear looking for Peter Abernathy.
While all of this is going on, Bernard has continued his hack of Peter and eventually does manage to unlock his encrypted files, but in true ‘Westworld’ fashion, we have no idea what he learns just yet as Peter is captured by the QA men and they flee with Dolores chasing after them, taking a bullet to the side and the shoulder as she marches after them, Terminator style, completely unfazed by her wounds.
In the battle aftermath, Dolores orders Teddy to shoot the remaining Confederados inside the fort, which he ends up being unable to do, ordering them to flee instead while she watches. We are unsure whether she is angry at the decision or not. Bernard tries to flee as well but he is stopped by Clementine, who knocks him out before he can get very far. As for Team Maeve, they find themselves in the “Calico” region of Westworld, in the snow on the way to the homestead area, when Lee finds an armored samurai head in the snow. He screams that they need to run away from the campfire they are approaching, but he is too late, as what appears to be a Samurai springs out of the nearby trees and races toward the group, right before the episode ends.
WORLD OF THEORIES:
- What do the wildmen want with humans? They were willing to let Maeve and company pass as long as they handed over Lee and they captured the safari woman from the opening… could they be trying to protect humans? Could they be running on some subroutine to protect guests in case of a systems failure? Is that why we saw Dolores killing their kind in the Season 2 premiere? Is that why Maeve cannot control them?
- Did Bernard create a super-heroic gunslinger in this episode who could be used to save day (and for comic-relief) in future episodes? That former outlaw was an amazing shot and was downright hilarious when he was chasing after his former prisoners yelling that he would save them and lead them through the hills…
- As one friend pointed out, India-world seemed very hot, and the Calico part of Westworld had snow, can they control the weather in the park?
- ALMOST got to see Bernard go all zombie again! His ear was definitely bleeding brain juice and his hand was shaking. If he wants to survive he is going to need more of that brain fluid soon. Hopefully w,e’ll see it next week.
Solid episode, lots going on, and while I kind of hate the trope of “big reveal, character saying something like “Oh my God,” show doesn’t tell you what they found out for a week or so” at least with ‘Westworld’ it is usually worth the wait. The time spent speculating and theorizing is always fun. I just hope whatever Bernard found out is not something trivial and has something to do with the creepy Abernathy that pops up, which is my favorite personality as he is the one that started the whole “These violent delights have violent ends” statements, and set Dolores on her path back in Season 1. See you back here next week!
