Tag / recaps

by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×09 “The Well-Tempered Clavier”

Previously on Westworld: A lot, like a LOT. Dolores and William got captured by Logan (the artist previously known as Goofus) and his buddies. Dolores and Bernard, apparently, were secretly conversing about her changes in consciousness. Bernard was mad when Ford got him to kill Theresa. Teddy remembered about Ed’s whole thing with Dolores and punched him, but then some blonde woman (Angela, according to the closed captions, not that they ever say it, with this show’s typical blissful lack of attention to such details) stabbed him with an arrow and told him Wyatt, the big baddie, needed him. Maeve got Lutz to help her get magical powers over other hosts, and she planned to recruit an army. Ed confessed that he had once killed a version of Maeve, and meanwhile, Maeve stabbed the new Clementine for no apparent reason. Also, there was a maze, dunno if you caught that. It’s kind of a big deal.

 

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×08 “Trace Decay”

Previously on Westworld: The man in the black hat was looking for a maze, with Teddy, who was looking for Dolores, who was looking for a place from her dreams, with William, the artist formerly known as Gallant. Theresa and Charlotte faked a problem with Clementine, which led to Bernard being fired; Maeve tried to force Lutz and Sylvester to help her escape; Bernard turned out to be a secret robot, and Ford had Bernard kill Theresa. Also—not that anyone cares about this—Elsie disappeared.

Ford brings Bernard online, down in the secret lab. Bernard is being quite emotive for Bernard, breathing heavily and crying softly. “What have I done?” he wails. Ford, rather cold-heartedly, says only that he thinks Bernard’s fake emotions are very impressive, since he was the author of many of them. The human engineers couldn’t create complicated emotions, so Ford built Bernard to do it. Bernard pleads that he loved Theresa, and Ford says that one man’s life or death was a small price to pay for the “knowledge that I sought, the dominion I should acquire.” Not that Theresa’s was a man’s life, but Ford is obviously not very interested in feminism. Bernard yells that he’s not going to help Ford, and he’s going to raze this place to the ground. It’s quite a change from his usual diminished affect. Ford, of course, freezes him just as he overturns his chair. “I don’t need a simulacrum of an emotionally ruined man,” he comments. He just wants Bernard to cover his own tracks. Bernard puts his glasses on and asks Ford calmly how he’d like him to proceed.

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×07 “Trompe L’Oeil”

Previously on Westworld: A tarot reader told Dolores to follow the maze, and she shot some people to rescue Gallant; she and Gallant hopped a train with El Lazo; Bernard found out that Ford was maintaining a creepy house full of hosts that were replicas of his childhood family; the board sent a representative to the park; Ford threatened Theresa; Elsie found out that Theresa was smuggling data out of the park, and found out that the hosts might be able to hurt humans; Maeve threatened Lutz and his obnoxious red-headed pal; and Elsie got abducted in a creepy old maintenance station in the park, after agreeing to meet Bernard in his office.

No one on the show seems to give a shit about the Elsie thing, by the way. I think that’s the funniest part of this episode, like, this woman has been kidnapped in the park after making plans to meet up with Bernard, and everyone basically forgets that she exists. This poor woman has probably had her life essence sucked out for one of Arnold’s crazy experiments, and literally no one cares! They’re probably relieved honestly… she’s sort of a pain in the neck.

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×06 “The Adversary”

In the wake of the US elections, I almost didn’t bother writing this recap. TV, art, and criticism seem too frivolous and ephemeral to be interesting when you’re living in a country that is in the throes of a spectacular crisis. But Westworld is a perfect example of why art still exerts a claim on our attention, even in the midst of catastrophe. It’s a show about people indulging their darkest impulses towards women, knowing there will be no consequences for doing so. What could be more relevant to confronting the reality of the new American president-elect?

With that—to the races.

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×05 “Contrapasso”

Previously on Westworld: Sex. Violence. Droids.

OK, fine, here’s what actually happened: Dolores was trying to find her place; there was a maze inside a dude’s scalp; there was a dude named Arnold who died in the park and believed the hosts could be conscious; a host smashed his own skull in in front of Elsie; a small-time crook promised Goofus and Gallant that they could get lots of money if they brought him back to his boss, El Lazo; Ed (the Man in Black) cut Teddy down from a tree instead of shooting him on sight, for once; and Maeve realized that she could get wounded and her body would magically repair itself, so she decided to make out with Hector, because, well, look at him. (Although she said it was because “none of this matters.”)

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld 1×04: “Dissonance Theory”

Previously on Westworld: Ford had a partner named Arnold who wanted to create consciousness; Ford’s working on a storyline about a white church; Teddy got a new storyline to explain his mysterious backstory; The Man In Black (Ed) kidnapped Lawrence to help him find the maze; Elsie found a man in the desert who smashed his own head with a rock; Maeve started to have memories; Dolores finally learned to shoot a gun, then collapsed in the arms of Gallant.

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×03 “The Stray”

Previously on Westworld: Goofus and Gallant showed up to the park to make mischief; Bernard told Dolores she’d changed; Dolores dug up a gun; some dude murdered a bunch of people with milk and it was totally freaky; Daddy: Original Flavor got retired, and Elsie worried that it was contagious; Bernard thought it might be sabotage; Maeve woke up during surgery and saw a dead Teddy in a giant tank full of temporarily dead androids.

Cue the credits, which are super long—a thing I normally approve of, being nostalgic for the days of almost-full-length theme songs (remember “Searchin’ My Soul”? “California”? That song about God being one of us from the late great Joan of Arcadia?) but Westworld doesn’t show the actors in the credits, or actual clips from the show, so it’s more artsy and less tugging at the fannish heartstrings than other long theme songs which I have loved in my youth.

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×02 “Chestnut”

Previously on Westworld: A lot of things, but just to run down the cast of characters: Dolores and Teddy are androids living in a park that caters to rich visitors who fantasize about the Wild West; the Man in Black, or “Ed” as we’ll be calling him, totally scalped a dude to find out the deeper levels of the game; Bernard is a mild-mannered scientist who works on the androids under the direction of fierce corporate exec Theresa and the scientist who apparently started it all, Ford. Also, Dolores’s dad has just been seamlessly replaced by a new android after the last one started to question the nature of his reality, and Dolores just slapped a fly, which she’s not supposed to be able to do.

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by Nerdy Spice

Westworld Recap: 1×01 “The Original”

 

Welcome to the pilot of Westworld. The opening credits for this show are pretty amazing. To the tune of eerie music, in black and white or diluted color, we see a skeletal hand playing a player piano, human pupils, instruments putting together robotic humans and horses, among other striking images.

“Bring her back online,” a deep male voice says as the lights come up on a naked blonde woman sitting in a chair. Her voice apologizes for not being quite herself in a Southern drawl, and the voice crisply tells her to lose the accent. The woman’s body itself stays motionless, even as a fly crawls over her face, and even onto her pupil. She tells him she’s in a dream, and that she’s terrified. He assures her there’s nothing to be afraid of, as long as she answers his questions. Has she ever questioned the nature of her reality? No, she says.

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