Westworld 2x04 'The Riddle of the Sphinx' TV TALK

I loved this episode so much. We had a little hiatus from the girls' storylines but having a large focus on Young William, Bernard and the Man in Black was so much fun! There were so many big reveals in this episode that it felt more like a season finale than episode 4 of a series. Honestly, I think I'll be hyperventilating through the entirety of the season finale if the episodes keep getting better like this.

TV TALKS

Season 1:  1x01  |  1x02  |  1x03  |  1x04  |  1x05  |  1x06  |  1x07  |  1x08  |  1x09  |  1x10
Season 2:  2x01  |  2x02  |  2x03

SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD
While I usually organise my thoughts through different timelines, I'm gonna stick with characters for this week's episode because we had a ridiculous amount of different timelines and jumping between them all would make this review way too jumbled and stuttered.

We didn't see anything from Dolores and Maeve's story lines but that was fine by me because, while Dolores is my favourite and I'd watch her for hours, it was nice to give the boys a spotlight for once when so often the girls steal the show.


William and James Delos
We started with William visiting a host version of James Delos. I'm gonna call them human hosts for the time being because it gets all too confusing. We actually see this interaction three times over the course of 30 ish years and 149 attempts which was so mind-blowing. I also like how we saw the record player at the beginning of each scene, the circle in the middle very reminiscent of the maze, symbolising how they're seeking to make James more sentient and conscious. I also like the shot of James cycling on that exercise bike- he's peddling and working but going nowhere, just like this experiment.

The first time created a baseline interview- William having a normal conversation with James which would be used in the future to access how James is doing. We find out that James died and that they're trying to put his consciousness into a host body- effectively creating immortality which... I take great satisfaction in saying 'I called it!'. We can see from this first visit that James is nowhere near being conscious- he's shaky, stuttering and malfunctions very quickly.
The second visit is established as 7 years later and we can see that a few details have been fixed and smoothed over- James doesn't shake as much while he's pouring his drink and it takes a little longer for him to malfunction. But he's still not completely conscious yet. James reads his entire conversation on the paper William gives him and he also finds out his wife's dead. Sick of being confined, he tells William he's ready to leave, to take in some 'fresh aid'. After this mistake, he quickly malfunctions and we find out that he lasted 7 days this time, showing the slow progress William and Delos are making. They terminate this version of James and set off to try again. You can see from this interaction that William's beginning to have doubts on this whole experiment, wondering if it'll really work and whether it should. 

And, finally, the final visit is estimated roughly 30 years after the first interaction as we see the older William (Man in Black) and it's set roughly two weeks before Bernard and Elsie find James Delos. I will say, it was really odd seeing the Man in Black in modern clothing and in that environment... it didn't suit him somehow. William has completely rethought the project at this point after 149 attempts and failures. He decides to scrap the entire endeavour, saying 'I'm not sure anymore.. People aren't meant to live forever'. After revealing to James that Juliet and Logan are dead after their respective suicides of drowning and over-dosing, James malfunctions to the extreme. I actually found this to be a super emotional scene; James Delos is mourning over his children's deaths and he's angry and wants to shout at William but he physically can't get the words out and all he can do is shake and stutter with so much emotion... it's a powerful scene and superb acting. James ends up trashing the room- a hell of his own making- after William leaves. William decides not to terminate him so they can observe and study his deterioration.
These were my favourite scenes of the entire episode and they're just so clever and intense that I can't even wrap my head fully around them.


Bernard and Elsie
The first thing I have to get out of my system... ELSIE'S ALIVE!! YAY!! I think it was pretty obvious that Elsie would come back eventually (they wouldn't leave such a huge loose end) but I'm so happy she's finally back- she was one of the best characters. I love her.
We find out she's been left in a cave and, understandably, doesn't trust Bernard at all after he'd nearly killed her last season. She finds out that he's a host and... oddly, doesn't seem too surprised. She takes it into stride super quickly, as if revelations like that happen every day. She helps him temporarily fix what's going wrong with him- caused by the fact that Ford made him shoot himself last season.
Bernard has a lot of flashbacks in this episode and I like how we often see shots of him following his past self. It reminds me of how Dolores used to follow herself back in season 1 in order to trace back over her steps. I don't think Bernard is fully conscious so he's going through that same process as Dolores once did- following himself to find answers.
They find the secret lab and discover the drone hosts and DNA that Delos has been secretly controlling. Bernard realises that he's been there before but can't quite access what exactly happened and why.

Elsie is the one to find the door leading to James Delos and there's a really interesting moment with Bernard suddenly spacing out. For a moment, he's not there with Elsie but just watching and he says "I'm not really here with you. I'm trying to remember what we found." I, personally, think that this is him from the present timeline with Karl Strand and the beach of hosts bodies. These entire scenes with Elsie that we're seeing are flashbacks and he's trying to remember the Delos secret that he and Elsie discovered. But that's just a theory.
They go into the secret lab room to find James Delos in full crazy mode with half his face ripped off. I loved the whole aesthetic of this scene: the red lighting, the jumping record, the way James cycled backwards... it was so eerie and cool and felt like something out of a horror movie.
James attacks them and Bernard saves Elsie and holds James down until he shuts down or 'dies', in a sense. They finally terminate him like William should've done and, from knowing it was James Delos who should be dead, they realise Delos' plans to create immortality. I'm actually surprised we got this confirmed so early on in the series. I thought Delos' secret agenda would be held back until very near the end of the season.
Bernard has a flashback to him coming into the lab in the past and killing all the humans working there and making the drone hosts kill themselves. He also sees himself taking the other control unit with someone else's consciousness. Now the big question is who's consciousness is inside the control unit Bernard stole. And was it successful in being transferred into a host body? The obvious predictions would be that it's Ford and that he'll come back or it could be Arnold- transferred into Bernard's host body and that's why he's glitching so similarly to how James Delos did.
Back in the present, Bernard promises Elsie that he's fine and in control but... I beg to differ. In no way is Bernard in control.


Man in Black and Lawrence
We had a lot of the Man in Black this episode and he was so cool! I think William's character has really evolved through the show and he's one of my favourites.
He begins by crossing paths with this new train track being built... with bodies. I don't know whether they're host or human bodies but I'm gonna guess humans at this point. This was quite a underrated and easily forgettable scene amongst everything else that happened in this episode but I think it holds so much significance for what's to come- there's probably tonnes of foreshadowing that went over all of our heads.

After that, MiB and Lawrence head to a town called Las Mudas where they're caught by the Confederados leader, Craddock. They're forced to reveal where the weapons of the town are located and MiB offers to lead them on his journey to Glory. The Man in Black and Craddock go to the bar and have the best conversation and scene in this season so far. Their whole conversation about death provided a tonne of brilliant quotes and I loved how we saw MiB's character growth through this scene.
Craddock threatens everyone with nitro and dances with Lawrence's wife. This was such a beautiful parallel from season 1 where the MiB came into Las Mudas, threatened to kill everyone and danced with Lawrence's wife in the exact same way. It's so interesting to see the MiB on the other side of it all.

It begins to rain and, as the MiB watches the water fall, he has flashback images of his wife committing suicide by drowning herself. Something in him snaps and he saves Lawrence and his family by killing all of the Confederados. He forces Craddock to drink nitro and then gives Lawrence the honour of shooting him, creating one of the coolest deaths we've had on the show so far. I love how all along William wanted to be the hero of the story and, in a way, he's finally become that. Sure, he had to be a villain to give the hosts their free will but now he's manipulating the narrative to make himself the hero.
Ford talks to the MiB through Lawrence's daughter like he did in season 1, telling him that 'if you're looking forward, you're looking in the wrong direction.' This is followed by a beautiful shot of the MiB leaving Las Mudas and looking behind him and Lawrence, his wife and his daughter in a family hug. This is him looking back at what his life could've been; him, his wife and his daughter all together and happy.

Through all of these scenes, I was struck by the similarities of William and Lawrence. Even nearer the beginning of the episode, Lawrence says "I've never been the domestic type- by some fluke of nature, I got a wife and a daughter... truth is I'm a son of a bitch. Kindest thing I did was to keep away." This is something that could easily apply to William as well and the parallels just seem too obvious to ignore. I think, similar to how Hector is based off Lee and who he wanted to be, Lawrence is based off the Man in Black and who he could've been.
And we finish the episode with the appearance of Grace and the confirmation that she is, indeed, the Man in Black's daughter. I'm pretty sure everyone had guessed or considered this so it wasn't a mind-blowing revelation but I'm excited to see what it means for William's storyline.

Grace/ Emily
Considering Grace, (who we can now call Emily), she had a small role in this episode. She'd been taken by Ghost Nation and I still want to know what these guys' deals are! They don't seem to hate or hurt the humans and it's almost like they're protecting them? But it's difficult to know for sure.
Emily crosses paths with Stubbs who had also been taken by Ghost Nation and... we still don't know how he escaped. Emily, on the hand, escapes their clutches very easily and leaves Stubbs behind. There was an interesting quote that one of the Ghost Nation members whispers into Stubbs' ear- "you live only as long as the last person who remembers you." This has got to mean something... but I'm too dumb to really figure out what it's foreshadowing.

And then, obviously, Emily intercepts her father and I can't wait to see what her true agenda is. Does she want revenge against William or will she now work with him? I'm so excited!!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment your thoughts. Stay amazing!
Chloe