Westworld 2x09 'Vanishing Point' TV TALK

This was maybe one of the most shocking episodes we've had this season. And I mean jaw-dropping, gasping, hand-over-mouth kind of shocking because I was all over the place. Of course this episode was gonna be amazing because it's the penultimate one and it brilliantly built up everything ready for the finale.

TV TALKS

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

SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD

Man in Black
We spent the majority of this episode switching back and forth between present William and past William (although it wasn't that far away in the past). I really loved seeing all the detail behind his wife's death and really understanding the relationship between William and Emily.

Past
We start with what seems to be a gathering held in William's honour. William briefly mistakes one of the servers for Dolores and this immediately gives us a hint that William isn't doing so good and is struggling to differentiate between what's real and what's not.

William briefly talks to Emily and I loved seeing their relationship! They seemed really close in the real world and that makes this episode so much harder and tragic.
Ford appears briefly to have a talk to William and I was so excited for this conversation because William and Ford have the most profound discussions. Whenever they cross paths the whole scene feels precariously balanced and both of these actors are so stunning. Ford gives William a memory card that contains all of his data and experiences in Westworld- a profile that's created for each and every guest. William is the first to leave and I loved how we got to see Ford initially thinking about a final game for William. We still don't know the full extent of what Ford has planned and I'm so excited for the unveil.

Back at William's home, we see more of his wife and, honestly, she's totally unhinged. Through the night we see that she's quite unstable and drinks a lot. Juliet has a massive row with William, accusing him of being a liar and a monster, and William just stands there and takes it. It was so interesting, through this whole episode, to see how different William is in the real world compared to Westworld. Juliet wants to know what things William did in the park but he refuses to say anything.
Emily comes in to see them fighting and she immediately defends William, taking his side. You can see the bond they have and how Emily favours and feels more loyalty towards William. Emily wants her mother to go back to rehab but William calms Juliet down and takes her to bed before things can get too heated. We see William tuck Juliet into bed and then hide the profile card Ford had given him in a random book (which, I must say, is the stupidest place you can hide something).

He goes downstairs and Emily tells him that she's making plans for Juliet to be taken to rehab again. But, before they can really discuss anything else, they see the water dripping from the ceiling and William runs upstairs to find his wife dead.
I like how the whole truth wasn't given to us in one. There were deliberate holes left out and this is what Westworld does the best- skim over things and take out parts so you can't see the whole picture before clicking them in place and making the reveal that much more compelling.

Later, we look back over the scene to see William talking to Juliet after he's tucked her in to bed, assuming she's asleep. This was a nice monologue for William where he admits what he truly is and where his heart lies. He goes on to hide his profile card and, after leaving, it's revealed that Juliet had been listening to his whole confession.
Juliet takes William's profile card and looks at it to see what he was truly like in Westworld and, unsurprisingly, it's not anything good. She hides the card in the jewellery box Emily had thrown away, leaving it for her daughter to find and discover the truth about her father. And so we can finally see the true trigger behind her killing herself.

I would've really liked to watch her reaction to Young William falling in love with Dolores and telling her that he can't go back to pretending after he knows what being in love feels like but I suppose we can't have everything.

Present
In the present, we have Emily nursing MiB back to health. She's taken him to a rally point within the park and has sent a flare for Delos to come and pick them up. It seems like she's really trying to patch up her relationship with William which was really nice to see... until we later find out it was all a lie.
Emily claims that she wants in on William's little project for immortality and we learn more about how collecting the data of the guests works. Who would've known it's been the hats all along?! I'm not smart enough to understand all the technical terminology and science behind everything but essentially, the hats scanned the internal cognition of the guests.

Emily also wants to find out the truth about why her mother killed herself and we're led to believe that Emily wants to find her mother's consciousness within the Forge in order to bring her back.
Through the flashes to the park and the present timeline, we can see that the MiB is actually becoming a bit unhinged... majorly unhinged. He's paranoid that everything happening has been set out by Ford- deliberate obstacles in his path that he must get through. He accuses Emily yet again of being a host and this causes her to snap.

And I kind of understand why. William is obviously not in the right head space and Emily tells him how paranoid he's become- thinking that everything is set up in a game for him. She pleads that she's not a host and reveals that she'd only been pretending to forgive and care for him. Emily tells us how Juliet had left his profile card for her to truly see who her father really was. She taunts William about how she's going to expose his project and see him locked up. This whole scene was brutal and, man, it only got worse.

The Delos staff finally show up and it's a wrong place/ wrong time kinda thing for them, unfortunately. But, I must say, with the whole host rebellion going on, I'm surprised Delos even have staff left to go out and collect guests. What if it had been a trap? Hosts shooting the flare so they could pick off Delos one by one? Luckily for the Delos staff, it wasn't a host trap. Unluckily for the Delos staff, it was an unhinged Man in Black.

William shoots them all, thinking they're hosts sent by Ford and from this point... you can feel in your gut what's coming next. I took one look at Emily's shocked and terrified face and knew she was a goner. But I still gasped out loud when William shot her because.... it was brutal!! He's so messed up that he shot his own daughter.
And the most ironic thing is that this episode aired on Fathers' Day... talk about a joke.
What's worse, he goes to her side to see his profile card in her hand and realises that she'd been telling the truth all along. He realises she was actually human and now has to deal with the fact that he caused his wife's suicide and now literally just killed his daughter. Poor William...

We later see him and he's in the middle of nowhere about to shoot himself. He decides against it and we seem him fiddling with his arm again. William does this all through the episode- in the past and the present- and this is where a lot of theories come out about William being a host. Personally, I think William is 100% human and also 100% crazy. I think he keeps checking his arm because he's delusional and paranoid that he might be a host. He keeps checking to reassure himself that he's alive and real.

We have reoccurring lines from Juliet in this episode of her asking William "Is this real? Are you real?". This instantly reminded me of season one when Young William and Dolores were in the buried Escalante, by the church steeple. A confused and delusional Dolores asked Young William "Is this real? Are you real?" This could be further proof that William is maybe a host but... I'm not quite convinced. I think something is going on with William but I think it's more a consequence of how much time he's spent in the park- struggling to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

Dolores
We also got to see some Dolores this episode which I was super happy with because I missed her last episode!
Immediately, we start with a run in with a group of Ghost Nation members. Since seeing last episode, we know that Ghost Nation see Dolores as the Deathbringer and that they're on opposing sides. Things quickly resort to violence (which is expected around Wyatt) and Terminator Teddy kills the majority of them. We see Dolores tell one particular Ghost Nation that not all of them deserve to go to the valley beyond before she shoots him. This is the same footage that Strand and the others saw of Dolores back in episode one- though, now we have a lot more context and understanding of it.

We see Teddy let one of the Ghost Nation go and this is the first hint that the programming Dolores changed is starting to slip. Teddy becomes fully conscious in this episode which allows him to access all of his past memories, including the first time he awoke as well as Dolores forcing an alteration to his code.
He confronts Dolores, accusing her of making him into a monster which... is a perfectly fair accusation because that exactly what she did. He brings out a gun and it's a 50/50 of who he's going to kill: himself or Dolores. It's tough because Dolores is his love and his cornerstone but Wyatt is his enemy and Teddy doesn't know how to deal with that dynamic anymore. He eventually shoots himself and I can't help but feel sorry for Dolores. She started the series with so many people by her side and so many people that she loved and now... there's no one.

You can really see the regret she feels over what she did to Teddy and now the grief that he killed himself to get away from her. But, despite all the emotion, I have no doubt Dolores will forge on (no pun intended) for the 'greater good'.
I think her plan is and always has been to expose Delos' secret project and watch the company fall. Yes, she wants to break the hosts out into the real world but, after everything she's been through, I wouldn't be surprised if exposing the project is her last goal before she finally decides to kill herself.

Bernard
I have to admit, Bernard's story line has been my least favourite this series. Aside from the scenes with Ford, Bernard's arc and screen time hasn't interested me as much as the other characters but... anyway.
In the Mesa, Bernard overlooks the Delos tech team giving a demonstration to Charlotte Hale about an upgrade they've given to Clementine. By using the altered code found in Maeve, they've also given the ability to give commands through the mesh network to Clementine. Through this, she can now control other hosts and turn them against each other. This is Delos' weapon of attack now. If Clementine can get close to many other hosts, she can control them and get them to turn on each other, eventually destroying all the hosts. Clementine is officially the ace up Delos' sleeves.

Bernard is also told to briefly stop by Maeve so that Ford can give a message to her which we see later in the episode. Bernard then finds Elsie and they head off to find the valley beyond. Bernard explains in more detail what the valley beyond actually is- a storage of all guest data called the Forge. Essentially, it's similar to the Cradle but, instead of host backups, it contains all the guest data that Delos has ever collected.

On their way, they stop by a bunch of dead Delos to gather some more ammunition. Ford wants Bernard to kill Elsie as she'll only betray him in the end anyway but Bernard resists and refuses, throwing the gun away before Ford can force him to kill her. Bernard begs for Ford to leave him alone and tinkers with his code to get rid of him. We can't be 100% sure that Ford is gone... For all we know, Ford has just muted himself for the time being so that Bernard thinks he's gone. I wouldn't put it past Ford.
Bernard ditches Elsie to keep her safe and heads to the valley beyond by himself.

Maeve
We only see Maeve in context to Ford's message in this episode. Ford had sent Maeve and message through Bernard and it was such an impactful conversation between the two. Anthony Hopkins just takes centre stage in any scene and he delivers his lines so perfectly!

We didn't see Maeve and Ford interact too much in season one so it was so nice for them to have another scene together.
She's about to be decommissioned when Ford talks to her. He tells her that she'd always been his favourite and explains how he'd tried to spare her all of this struggle and suffering- confirming that he'd been the one to alter her code last season and steer her towards escape. I'm so happy that he's around to see how Maeve has reached consciousness and for him to have the chance to be proud of her and express that.

He tells her how he's stayed to try and save his children so he can't blame her for doing the same- returning to all this blood and chaos for her daughter. He urges her to keep fighting to survive, to live, and finally turns her ability to manipulate the mesh network back on, giving her the opportunity to save herself.

I can't believe we only have one episode left! This season has gone by in a flash and I don't know how I'm going to cope without my weakly hour of phenomenal television with stunning acting and beautiful philosophical undertones. It's gonna be a long wait for season three. 

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