‘Westworld’ Discussion: Well, Pariah Seems Like A Fun Town

Each week, Brian Grubb and Keith Phipps will attempt to unpack the latest episode of the HBO series Westworld, a show about an amusement park populated by lifelike robots that’s also about… other stuff.

Pariah

Keith: Part of the fun of working on this feature each week is trying to figure out what elements of the show should serve as the headers. For this week’s episode, “Contrapasso,” I was tempted to use the following: “What?” “WHAT?” “WHAT!!??!!” A lot of odd things happened, in other words. But I’m not sure that would be all that useful to our readers, so let’s start with the town of Pariah, a place where anything goes, from games of ‘Toss The Nitro And See Who Explodes First’ to buggy sex.

There’s a lot to process here, but maybe it’s best to look at Pariah as Logan’s dream come true. This is everything he wanted from Westworld: Sex, violence, and a “grandiose” narrative in which he can be a larger-than-life character. Or, put another way, it’s a place where he can be a total dick. And boy is he a dick, especially to William, to whom he serves a humiliating assessment of mediocrity (with a side helping of homoerotic tension, if I read that scene correctly). And he pays dearly for it, apparently, by being left behind. Maybe he doesn’t know as much about the park as he thinks. (Actually, that’s made pretty clear when he reveals he knows a little about Arnold and essentially nothing about Robert.)

Anyway, Pariah: Fun town?

Brian: First of all, a tip of the cap to Westworld for beating Game of Thrones to an orgy scene full of naked gold prostitutes. The odds were stacked against them because they gave GoT a seven-season head start, but they pulled it off anyway, and I think it’s only right that we acknowledge that. Kudos.

But yeah, a lot going on. A few things:

– The biggest development here is probably both William and Dolores going Bonnie and Clyde out there, gunning down bad hombres (sorry), first when William saves Dolores and then when Dolores returns the favor. That seems like a big deal, especially with the way the episode ended, which we’ll get to in a bit. The sentence “I imagined a story where I didn’t have to be the damsel” alone seems to imply that Dolores is altering her own coding.

– Logan is a tool, and I’m glad he got double-crossed in the old mid-orgy nitroglycerine/tequila cadaver switcheroo. (I’ve see it a million times.) I’m not exactly sure how much danger he’s in because the hosts aren’t supposed to be able to kill the guests, but if anyone ever deserved a whupping behind a brothel at the hands of explosion-crazy Confederate soldiers, it’s that guy, so fine.

– Logistical question: Pariah seems hecka far from Sweetwater. Do all the guests have to come in at Sweetwater and then travel out away from it, or can they just, like, hop a monorail or something and zip to wherever? Because if I’m paying a minimum of $40k per day to go to a sexmurder jamboree, I do not want to spend a substantial chunk of time riding a horse through a desert.

– Let me be incredibly clear about something: If I ever go to a fortune teller and the fortune teller suddenly transforms from a scarf-clad woman into an exact duplicate of me who starts giving cryptic advice about “unraveling,” buddy, I am friggin’ outta there.

The Bird

Brian: I am admittedly a little confused by the bird thing. Here’s what I think is going on: The butcher guy stole the bird from the park and has been playing coder to try to bring it to life and control it, but he’s been doing it around Maeve’s corpse and he … also … brought her … back to life, too? Or Maeve was playing possum the whole time in an attempt to get answers? Can robots play possum? How does she know his name is Felix? And how was my guy so wrapped up in the flying birdie that he didn’t notice the nude madam eight feet to his right rising like a Frankenstein monster to sit provocatively on the gurney? Felix! Focus!

Speaking of Felix, between William’s speech to Dolores about “Whoever you were doesn’t matter here” and Felix’s coworker’s rant about how he needs to give up his coding dreams because he’s just a butcher and that’s all he’ll ever be, there was a very strong “You and I can be whatever we went if we can just outta this Godforsaken small town” vibe in the episode. It was kind of like a YA novel. With naked gold prostitutes. And creepy necropervs.

Which brings me to this: The thing with the necroperv, the butcher responsible for incineration that Elsie blackmailed with a secret video of lifeless host violation in order to get access to the stray host that tried to kill her last week… I believe I had this.

Theory confirmed.

Keith: First, congrats on calling that. And for, I believe, coining the term “necroperv.” (Though maybe we need to get the term “cyber” in there, too?) Anyway, we probably shouldn’t get too hung up on the guy taking advantage of the powered-down hosts since he seems to be just a means to an end for Elsie, who discovers the stray was being used to transmit data to a satellite via an implant. Which raises an interesting question: Are his deviations from his programming unrelated to the glitch that’s touched Dolores and Maeve? Is he just kind of breaking down? Is this a whole different area of intrigue or will it all be tied together? TBD, but I’m guessing it’s tied to Ford’s conversation with Theresa last week suggesting pressure from the board and the possibility of corporate shenanigans. Do we yet know why it’s such a no-no to be messing around with the soon-to-be-incinerated host in the first place? I’m not sure Delos is the friendliest place to work is my main takeaway here, I guess.

The Mysteries Of Robert Ford

Keith: So, maybe the biggest question raised by this episode: Is Robert a robot? I’m inclined to say “no” just because I think the show is above such an obvious play on Robby The Robot. But maybe not? I don’t know what else the Man In Black could be implying when he suggests he’d like to see what he finds if he cuts Robert open. And at no point does Robert try to deny that insinuation. My mind went to this theory: Robert is Arnold’s greatest creation. He also killed him. But I just don’t know if he makes sense as a robot. Also, I’m trying to imagine what it was like when James Marsden got this week’s script. Pro: He gets to play a scene with Ed Harris and Anthony Hopkins. What a privilege! Con: He mostly just sits there.

Brian: The thing about this scene — and everything else that has happened in the show, really — is that it just makes me more curious about the Man in Black’s non-Westworld life. Because in the park he’s this big swinging such-and-such, cutting throats and assaulting women and openly threatening the park’s creator, but we know he’s some kind of famous life-saving billionaire outside the gates. I get that this is kind of the point, the mystery and the teasing and whatnot, and I don’t want all the answers to everything right away. But I will say that I care about it infinitely more than this maze business, and if the entire next episode goes back in time two weeks to show the Man in Black just sitting at a desk in a luxurious office with windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline, signing off on quarterly reports and interacting pleasantly with his secretary, who I just now decided is a white-haired Mrs. Landingham-type, I would not complain at all.

But anyway, Ford. There were two big Ford scenes this week: the one with the Man in Black and the one with Dolores. And while the first was definitely the more intense of the two, I found the second far more fascinating. It was interesting to note the difference in the way Bernard and Ford interact with Dolores. Bernard leaves her fully clothed and speaks to her like a cross between a daughter and a conspirator, while Ford strips her down like a regular host and talks to her almost like an adversary. The main thing this tells me is that Ford and Bernard both need a vacation in the worst way. Like, to a beach.

And this is before we even get to the stuff about the voice in Dolores’ head maybe/probably being Arnold, and Dolores overriding commands and keeping secrets, and her being the last one to see Arnold alive, and Ford saying the not-at-all-ominous collection of words, “I wouldn’t say we were friends. I wouldn’t say that at all.” Robot nemesis! Ford has a robot nemesis!

Keith: Right. And it feels like we really should be talking more about Dolores a bit more, since this was a big week for her and her awakening conscience. It’s kind of thrilling to watch it happen, but I can’t help but wonder if what’s going on with her is an echo of the opening scene, the one where Robert recalls that heartbreaking story of the greyhound who finally gets to chase, catch, and kill some prey and then doesn’t know what to do with it. Is this an analogy for the robots who want to come into their own? And, if so, who’s going to end up between whose teeth?

Lawrence / Alonzo

Keith: Okay, what’s going on here? We have Lawrence in two places at once. Could that seemingly impossible theory that we’re seeing two timelines at once — the same one that suggests William becomes the Man In Black — be back in play? Or are there two Clifton Collins Jrs. floating around Westworld right now? That would help explain how Dolores is everywhere at once. (Either that or our own Donna Dickens’ Dolores Has Two Bodies theory.) It might also explain why the Lawrence traipsing around with (and getting his throat cut by) the Man in Black seems so defeated all the time. But I’m not sure it ultimately makes sense, either. ““Your path leads you back to me,” the Man in Black tells him. Has that been true for 30+ years?

Brian: This confused me, too. It’s actually something that’s confused me for a while, not just with Lawrence. Like, with Dolores, too. She’s off robbing stagecoaches and running around watching voodoo parades in Pariah right now, so does that mean no other guest gets to interact with her in Sweetwater? I mean, not to harp on the “if I’m spending $40k per day to go this park” thing too much (we kinda threw realism off the train the second we got to a futuristic Wild West theme staffed with perfectly lifelike A.I. cowboys), but I’d be pretty pissed if I booked a whole $300,000 vacation based around hanging out with Dolores and Teddy in Sweetwater only to find out they’ve both been commandeered for wandering puzzle hunts by well-connected sociopaths. I will be writing a letter to management about that, believe me.

Other Items

Keith: I’m worried we’re leaving out a lot so we should probably talk about some stray bits of business. Like maybe the title. “Contrapasso” is a concept introduced in Dante’s Divine Comedy that presents Hell as a place where sinners meet punishment that suits their sins. (Murderers and tyrants have to wallow in blood, etc.) If there’s a connection to this episode, it’s eluding me, honestly. Maybe this is something that will be revealed in time.

Brian: I guess the only thing I want to add is that this is an actual, unedited section of the notes I took while watching this episode:

Naked gold hookers
Huge dick robot pouring whiskey
Host that tried to kill girl being taken to incinerator
She shows guy vid of him humping host in storage
Blackmail creepy necroperv

So there’s that.

Keith: I’ll just add that this is two episodes in a row that have involved robots spilling drinks. I think that’s what’s called a “motif.”