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“The Adversary” picked up the pace, and covered much ground in the process. From Maeve’s big moment to the secrets of Ford and Teddy, and Elsie’s detective work, the latest episode of Westworld was captivating from start to finish. Dolores and William were noticeably absent from this one. But like Game of Thrones, Westworld is rife with narrative goodness, and can therefore afford to omit major characters from a whole episode. We are beginning to see the plot open up in both expected and unexpected fashions. Tensions are rising in the back half of season one, and we couldn’t be more excited to watch the final four episodes of the season unfold.
Here are the five biggest takeaways and points of interest from “The Adversary.”
Maeve Learns The Game
We already knew that Maeve, like other hosts, was catching onto the conundrum of her existence from recent episodes, but in episode six, she actually learns the game. She prods a newcomer into killing her in the saloon in order to wake up in the lab to further interrogate Felix. Maeve’s discovery that she is not human provides us with a more in depth look at how the hosts are built. By the end, her cunningness serves her well as her attributes her behavioral attributes are modified to her satisfaction (her makeup had already been modifed, presumably by Arnold?). Through the Maeve storyline, we also saw the advertisement trailer for the park with the slogan: “Welcome to Westworld, Live Without Limits.”
Ford’s Playing House
Our theory on the mysterious little boy was proved this week, as Bernard stumbles upon a lone house in the woods of the supposedly deserted Sector 17. The occupants are first generation hosts created by Arnold as a gift to Ford. They are replicas of his family: Little Robert, brother, father, and mother. Ford assures Bernard that the undocumented hosts are harmless, but towards the end of the episode, this assertion is proven untrue. Little Robert killed the family dog because Arnold told him to, and at first, he lied to Ford about his indiscretion. The ability for hosts to lie is a consistent theme in the latest episode. The most ominous takeaway from the this subplot is that through little Robert’s actions, we learn more about Arnold. The co-creator of Westworld didn’t have a favorable opinion of humanity, and his reasoning for Robert to kill was so that the dog couldn’t kill anymore.
Teddy’s Dark Past
Teddy has mentioned his past to Dolores on numerous occasions, claiming that he has sins to atone for, and we finally get a glimpse into his actions. Before we only saw the scene where Teddy meets his estranged commanding officer at the intersection of carnage, and since Teddy is currently in pursuit of Wyatt with the Man in Black, we could’ve assumed he wasn’t involved in the slaughter. This week that moving picture turned into a longer clip, as it appears that Teddy actually assisted Wyatt at the time.
Undercover Elsie
On the trail for leads into the data smuggling, Elsie finds that Theresa is behind the industrial espionage. The why is unclear, but Elsie’s discovery entwines with Maeve and little Robert, as she learns that adjustments to hosts’ core code have opened up the possibility for lying and violence–two troubling turns that were shown to be true by both little Robert and Maeve. Elsie also seems to believe that Arnold is the one behind the coding changes, somehow. And after we saw her get ambushed in the darkness by an unknown individual, we’ll just have to wait and see how this unfolds going forward.
The Mystery of Arnold and The Maze
Arnold has an overarching presence, that much is clear, but what about the maze? We watch as Ford stares at the etching of the maze on a table, and proceed to return to his office to search through a notebook for the same drawing. By the looks of it, Dr. Ford’s actions don’t appear to be in line with someone who designed the maze, or even of someone who knows very much about it. The assumption here is that the notebook belonged to Arnold, and that Ford is possibly in the dark about its true nature. It’s possible that knowledge of the maze was programmed into specific hosts by Arnold, and that the enigma of it all was Arnold’s final act. At this point, it appears that Arnold has wide-reaching control of the occupants of Westworld, or that someone is working very hard to implement his vision.
