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Westworld S2 E10: "The Passenger" recap and review

Television

Westworld S2 E10: “The Passenger” recap and review

Myriad major moments take place in the Season Two finale to Westworld.

Warning: Spoilers for Westworld S2 E10: “The Passenger” ahead.

So we finally made it to the season two finale of Westworld. There have been some ups and downs this season. They’ve all been high concept episodes which is great, but some were a bit too confusing or devoid of emotion for their own good. Thankfully, this finale ramps everything up and gives us a very satisfying 90 minute climax to season two. There were some huge twists, the story was great, and it presented some deep questions to ponder.

The episode begins with Dolores talking to some form of Bernard. She tells him he didn’t “make it” and she’s controlling his functions. We switch to the current timeline and Bernard is heading to the Valley Beyond.

Dolores finds William (Man in Black) checking his forearm to see if he’s a host. We don’t fully see, but it appears he’s human. Instead of killing him, Dolores tells him she needs a monster to get to the Valley Beyond so he’s coming with her. We also see Ghost Nation heading there. It’s essentially a mass pilgrimage there by all of the hosts.

We cut back and forth between the current timeline and the future (two weeks in the future) timeline. In the current timeline, everyone converges at the Valley Beyond. Dolores, Bernard, and William all meet at the same door to an underground station called The Forge. William tries to shoot Dolores but his bullet ricochets off her forehead and blows off some of his hand. Dolores and Bernard head down into the Forge, which holds the DNA of every human that has ever visited the park.

Westworld S2 E10: "The Passenger" recap and review

This is where the episode gets trippy: Dolores and Bernard enter another “world” that is some sort of system where they enter simulations. The avatar of the system is in the form of none other than Logan. There’s a lot of exposition here, and it almost feels like a scene from one of The Matrix films. He made 18 million copies of James Delos until he found one copy that was good enough. Once that code was uploaded to a host body though, it failed. He realized that humans don’t make their own decisions. He’s trying to say that humans don’t have free will.

They walk into one of Delos’ memories. It’s the last time he talks to Logan, when he abandons his son once and for all and then Logan dies of an overdose a few months later. His copies always ended up at this moment, as it was the moment that he could never get over. What Logan/the system gets at is that human cognition comes down to a simple string of code. They walk into a massive library with every human’s code that’s ever entered the park.

Logan also explains that Ford created a virtual world for the hosts to escape to. Hosts that enter will leave their bodies behind but their minds will live on in the Forge. A tear appears in the Valley Beyond that only the hosts can see, and they can now see the entrance to this other reality, the Door.

Dolores and Bernard leave the simulation and return to Westworld. Dolores is trying to destroy the system, saying they need to take over the real world, not go to another fake world. Bernard shoots her!

Westworld S2 E10: "The Passenger" recap and review

Out at the Door, lots of stories are colliding. Akecheta is leading Ghost Nation into the Door, Maeve and co are headed there to find Maeve’s daughter (Lee sacrifices himself on the way to the Door to save Maeve and the others), and Charlotte and her crew have a virus-filled Clementine try and infect the other hosts (which causes them to try and kill each other). Maeve finds her daughter and Ake makes sure she gets into the Door as Maeve uses all of her power to freeze the rest of the hosts. It’s an epic scene and another Matrix-like moment. Ake and Maeve’s daughter make it safely into the new world. Ake is reunited with Kohana, and it’s a beautiful moment.

Maeve and co are sadly gunned down back in Westworld. Bernard leaves the Forge with Peter Abernathy’s pearl. Once back at the headquarters, Elsie goes to talk to Charlotte about the secret project in hopes that she can possibly convince her to protect Bernard. Charlotte tells Elsie she doesn’t have the “moral flexibility” they need, and she shoots her on the spot. Holycrap. Bernard knows he needs to do something and figures out a way to summon Ford back into his mind, who tells him he will help him.

Fast forward to the future timeline. Charlotte, Bernard, Strand, and a couple others head down to the Forge searching for Peter Abernathy’s pearl. Dolores is dead, and Charlotte realizes that Abernathy’s pearl has been hidden inside Dolores by Bernard. Strand starts questioning Bernard intensely, and Bernard realizes he scrambled his own memories to hide what he knew. He built a host copy of Charlotte and put Dolores’ mind in it, then had that host kill the real Charlotte! What a twist! Host Charlotte/Dolores kills the men in the room, decides to change the coordinates of the data that has the new world with the hosts in it, and then kills Bernard as she knows there’s no way they can escape looking like themselves.

Dolores disguised as Charlotte tries to board a boat leaving Westworld. She’s intercepted by Stubbs, who alludes to the fact that he knows she’s a host. He even alludes to being a host himself, and he helps her clear security and get on the boat. She has five pearls in her purse that she’s taking with her to the real world. It really is an epic moment as she leaves Westworld, I got chills while watching.

Westworld S2 E10: "The Passenger" recap and review

William is found alive but in bad shape, and Sylvester and Lutz are supposed to save any dead hosts as they see fit. They immediately look at Maeve…I have a feeling she’ll be back.

We flash to the real world. Dolores builds herself a new body. After some amount of time has passed, Bernard wakes up sitting across from Dolores. It’s the scene from the beginning of the episode. Dolores tells Bernard she created a new body for him from her memories and that they’re currently in the real world. She tells him that they need each other in this world to ensure the survival of the hosts. They aren’t going to be friends or allies, but they are both necessary forces. Charlotte is standing outside the door (who is occupying her host body now?) and Bernard follows them upstairs. He walks outside and steps through the main door, entering the real world for the first time as it cuts to black. Wow. What an episode. But wait, there’s more!?

Leaving us with another shocker, the post credits scene shows us William finally making it to the bottom of the elevator (we never saw him make it out of the elevator earlier in the episode). He walks out and the entire station we saw earlier is deserted, desolate, and it looks like it’s quite a ways in the future. Someone who looks like his daughter Emily brings him to a room similar to the one he was testing out a host clone of James Delos in for all those years. Just how far into the future is this and what exactly is William? He’s clearly not human in this scene. According to Lisa Joy in a Hollywood Reporter interview, he is human in the current timeline of the show but this post credits sequence takes place far into the future.

I don’t even know where to begin after that massive recap except to say that this finale delivered. So many major moments took place! Dolores and Bernard in the real world for season three is going to be crazy, and I can’t wait for it to get here. It’s been a lot of fun recapping this season, and I’m happy the season ended on such a high note!

Westworld S2 E10: "The Passenger" recap and review
Is it good?
The season two finale fires on all cylinders, blending great storylines with big twists, some much needed emotions, big questions, and a hell of a setup for season three.
Asks some deep questions about human nature
Ties up big plot lines from season two
Unexpected twists
Crazy post credits scene
Sets up season three very well
90 minutes long!
Still need to up our emotional connection to more characters
9
Great

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