We’re pulling into the homestretch of season two of Westworld. The penultimate episode titled “Vanishing Point” gives us some backstory on William (Man in Black) and inches us closer to the Valley Beyond.
Throughout the episode, we see the night play out in which William’s wife, Juliet, commits suicide. She is the only one who sees through his bullshit. She tells him at one point in the flashbacks that she used to think he was the only one back in the day who wasn’t fake, but it turns out that he’s just the only one who can hide it well. Over the years, William’s wife turned to alcoholism after coming to this realization that she was in a loveless marriage. It’s when she sees a bit of what he’s done inside Westworld through a data card Ford gave him that she finally decides to kill herself.
William has started to lose his mind a bit, thinking everything in Westworld is at this point a part of Ford’s game. He doesn’t believe the Emily in front of him is actually his daughter. Westworld security finally come to round William and Emily up, but they obviously recognize William as their boss. He steals one of their guns while their guard is down, and he shoots and kills all four of them. He then tells Emily he knows it’s all a part of Ford’s game as there’s no way she would have known anything about his data card. He guns her down, and shortly after he realizes the horrifying mistake he’s made. Ed Harris does a fantastic acting job as we can feel the pain and regret behind William’s eyes.
William puts his gun to his head and is about to shoot himself, but he stops. There’s still something he needs to know. During the flashbacks, we see him check his forearm at different points. It seems he’s unsure whether or not he’s actually a host clone. He carves into his arm and… we’ll have to wait until the finale next week to see whether he’s a human or a host clone.
Bernard has to deal with Ford in his mind repeatedly. It’s driving him insane and all he wants is Ford gone. Ford keeps telling Bernard he can’t trust Elsie with the truth and that she’ll betray him. Bernard finds a way to delete Ford from his brain using the USB port in his arm that all hosts have.
Somehow, Ford transfers over to Maeve. He tells her that she’s always been his favorite host/daughter and that he had wanted her to escape the park, but she chose otherwise and stayed to find her daughter. He says he’s going to make sure she’s OK and my guess is she will escape very shortly.
Dolores, Teddy, and company come across Ghost Nation. Teddy shoots most of the Ghost Nation warriors (not Akecheta), but he spares the last one standing as he still has pieces of his old self in him which takes over at that moment.
Dolores and Teddy speak together in an abandoned structure, as they’re the only two left alive from their group after the encounter with Ghost Nation. Teddy explains he doesn’t love who Dolores has become and can’t believe she changed him into some sort of monster. She tells him he’ll never hurt her, and he says she’s right, and that he’ll protect her as long as he’s alive. He tells her he’s sorry because he won’t be able to protect her anymore, and with that he shoots himself in the head. Dolores runs to his body screaming and the episode ends.
What a dark episode. I’d like to think Teddy’s action will cause Dolores to re-evaluate herself and who she’s become. She needs to regain some of her humanity. William has gone too far to ever come back from darkness in my opinion. I thought the episode was somewhat all over the place, and I found myself mildly confused at points. It wasn’t one of my favorite episodes this season and here’s hoping that the finale will be much better.
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