ComicBook.com is recapping the new episode of Westworld, HBO’s ambitious new sci-fi/western series. Keep refreshing this scene to keep up with all the action of the new episode.
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The episode opens with Bernard having one of his discreet “meetings” with Dolores. He brings her a gift, a copy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” He has her read a passage from the book, about Alice commenting on a possible change. Dolores mentions that he’s had her read several passages from change. When Bernard mentions his son, Dolores asks where he is, but Bernard says she wouldn’t understand.
The next morning, Dolores wakes up in her bed and begins her daily routine. She finds the gun she pulled out of the dirt from before and has a flashback from when the Man in Black attacked her (from the first episode).
Back in Sweetwater, William takes a stroll through town and walks into the middle of a shootout/hostage situation. When a criminal escapes from the jail and takes Clementine prisoner, he tries to rescue her but gets “shot” instead. As soon as the criminal host turns around and releases Clementine, William gets up and shoots the host through the heart. Afterwards, William tells Logan he’s going to go bounty hunting in the wilds.
Cullen confronts Bernard about the ongoing investigation about the new update, and then asks about Ford’s new storyline. Afterwards, he walks into Elsie’s office, where she explains that the rogue host from the first episode had targeted hosts who had killed him in previous storylines. She then mentions that a host has gone “stray”, so Bernard sends her to retrieve it with Stubbs.
Teddy strolls into town and confronts a small gang with a woman sharpshooter. They shoot up the gang and then head into the saloon to celebrate. Maeve gets upset that Teddy left a corpse outside her saloon then has a flashback to when she saw Teddy’s body inside Westworld’s headquarters. Meanwhile, Teddy sees Dolores outside and goes outside to talk to her.
Just like in the first episode, Teddy and Dolores heads out to a nearby field, but Dolores asks if they could leave Sweetwater (a deviation from their last conversation in the first episode). He says that he can take her to a beautiful place down south “someday”, but Dolores wants to go there now. Teddy says that he still has some “reckoning” to do before he can deserve a girl like her, but says they’ll go there soon. That evening, they head back to Dolores’s ranch, where bandits murder his parents once again.
[Embed id=56650]The Stray[/Embed]
We then hear gunshots in pitch black, then move to a conversation between Teddy and Ford. Ford explains to Teddy that his job is not to keep Dolores safe, but to keep her in Sweetwater so guests can interact with her. He then admits that they never gave Teddy a backstory (hence his “mysterious” past), but uploads a new backstory for him as part of her storyline.
The next day, a couple of hosts (including the one that Elsie was analyzing anyways) and a guest confront Dolores, but Teddy comes to her rescue. Teddy then takes her to a range and teaches her how to shoot a pistol. However, she can’t bring herself to pull the trigger. The sheriff arrives with a posse and says that they’ve found Wyatt, the man Ford programmed into Teddy’s past. Teddy rides off with the sheriff, but promises he’ll be back soon.
Elsie and Stubbs approach a group of hosts, who have gotten stuck in a loop thanks to the “stray” host. Elsie mentions that QA has added weapon locks to the hosts (which is why Dolores couldn’t pull the trigger) and that the stray hos was the only one authorized to use an axe, so his friends can’t cut wood to make supper. They head into the host’s tent and see some woodcarvings he made, and Elsie notice that several have a constellation carved into their back.
Teddy explains to the sheriff that Wyatt was his sargeant (and his friend). However, Wyatt went rogue when he decided that the land belonged to someone else, something that “was to come”. Teddy then comes across several rotting and bloated bodies tied to a tree, but one of them is still alive. The bodies were a trap, and Wyatt and his men open fire on the sheriff’s posse. Teddy, the sheriff, and one of the guests decide to move forward to confront Wyatt.
As Elsie and Stubbs walk through the desert, Stubbs mentions that the woodcarver’s markings is the constellation Orion.
Bernard tells Ford that both rogue hosts were talking to the same person, a man named Arnold. Ford reveals that he once had a partner named Arnold, who helped him create Westworld. Arnold wanted to actually create consciousness as opposed to mimicking it, and created a program that made the hosts hear their own thoughts as voices, without realizing that it would screw with the host’s programming. That program seems to be what’s causing the hosts to malfunction. Bernard asks what happened to Arnold, and Ford says that he died at the park. Ford also tells Bernard to remember that the hosts aren’t real and says that he knows that the death of Bernard’s son still weighs heavily on him.
Bernard calls his (ex?) wife on a video phone and talks about how busy he is. The conversation quickly turns to their son and how much they miss him.
Elsie asks Stubbs why the host would carve a constellation, as he wasn’t programmed to care about the stars. She then finds the stray host stuck in between two large rocks.
Teddy, the sheriff, and the guest get ambushed in the dark by a group of masked men. Two of them kill the sheriff. Teddy tells the guest to run, as he gets cornered by a second group of men. As Teddy starts shooting, none of the men seem affected by the bullets…which implies that they’re actually guests. (Or maybe just not programmed to act like other hosts?)
Elsie calls Bernard and leaves a message that she thinks the host “got an idea” to come out to the wilderness. Bernard’s not answering because he’s interrogating Dolores once again. He says he can’t decide what to do with her, and he’s considering restoring her original programming. He then tells her about the time that he taught Charlie to swim, about how he was too scared to let him go, even though that’s what parents are supposed to do. Ultimately, he decides to keep Dolores the way she is.
In Sweetwater, Dolores finds out that Teddy likely died in the hills. She then heads home, to find that bandits have killed her parents. One of the bandits drags her into the barn to rape her, but Dolores takes his gun and shoots him in the neck (thus overcoming her weapons lock) after having a flashback to seeing the Man in Black. She then rides off into the hills after seeing another bandit shoot her mother.
Stubbs climbs into the rocks to retrieve the host. He begins cutting off the host’s head with a saw, but the host wakes up and attacks Stubbs. The host then climbs up, grabs a small boulder and bashes his own head in as Elsie looks on in horror.
The episode ends with Logan and William sitting around a campfire when Dolores suddenly stumbles up to them and collapses into William’s arms.
