Continuing on from where I broke down the first episode over here, I’ve decided to post the other breakdowns I’ve done for this series here. This show is by far one of my favorites for story and craft reasons that will be explained over the course of these posts. So without further ado, S1E2 Chestnut.
A chestnut is either an old hackneyed song, human lives, or park experiences. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Especially not with this show. Everything is by design. Even the episode titles.
We get deeper into things this episode. Bernard and Delores have been having secret meetings that she hasn’t told anyone about. Which could cause some questions being asked if anyone actually saw her wandering out and past her bedtime. She follows an unknown voice out of her house to part of the farm and when she finds a pistol there, the voice asks her “Do you remember.”
This is the first episode with the timeline shifts. Given that they tell this story in a nonlinear fashion, that’s one of the highest contributing factors to the “mind fuck” factor of this show. You see two guys, William and Logan on the train, which doesn’t look like the same train we’ve seen before. Logan is telling William all about how this trip is meant to loosen up, be themselves, etc. Another telling sign that this isn’t the main timeline is that the logo for Westworld is different and we get the sense that this isn’t actually the same Westworld as before. When it is, we’re not certain, except that it’s obviously Before what we’ve seen of the park up to now. That’s all we know, however, at this point.
This is William’s first time in the park and we see that in the interactions he has with the hostess and with Logan. There’s also mention of Logan’s sister and the implication is that William and the sister are together in some fashion. The hostess tells William that they only want to do the right amount of hurt when he asks why all the questions about medical issues, social anxiety, etc. They want to thrill you and scare you and delight you, but they don’t want to kill you or traumatize you into never coming back. Everyone starts in the center of the park, which is fairly tame (as far as Westworld does tame) and then the further out you go, the more intense it becomes. And there’s no orientation and no guidebook because figuring it all out for yourself is half the fun. All you do in the park is make choices. There’s no morality or value judgement that the park is making. It is simply allowing you the space and the props, as it were, to make whatever choice you want to make.
It’s the seduction of choice.
With no one judging you or holding you accountable, would you make the same decisions you would in the outside world or would you perhaps, experiment with the taboo? Flirt with actions that you would never in a million years dream of doing in proper society. You never have to worry about what “most people” do or are into. The only thing that matters is what you do or are into.
So what do you do? What do you ask for?
It’s one hell of a head-rush and it’s how the park keeps people coming back over and over again. That rush is seductive and once you have a taste of it, you just want more. The privacy that the park insists on also helps in that regard. The host that is assisting William makes a fascinating point that we’ll see over and over in the show. “If you can’t tell, does it matter?” She’s speaking about the hosts themselves and their similarities to actual humans here.
Going back to the quality of the experience that they are providing, there are bespoke outfits already ready and waiting for you to just step into. Which goes into some of what precisely they have to know about you before you get there. Inseams and bust and weight and height measurements are all, some might say, innocuous details, but they’re also extremely personal details and that level of quality and data gathering is both fascinating and terrifying.
Fading back to the current timeline, we see Elsie and her obsession with Abernathy. There’s something not right there and she’s determined to figure out what it is, despite counsel from Bernard to let it lie. She’s speculating that the aberrant behavior is something like a contagion and could theoretically be passed to other hosts unless they can come to an understanding of what exactly it is. We also hear a bit here and there about new builds for Lee’s new narrative coming up and quiet rumbles about the board, deepening our suspicions that the park itself might be in trouble. Given the costs of a stay there, that’s not unusual if the operating costs outstrip the entrance fees from the guests. Back in the park, Dolores has a vision – and I do need to note that she’s in both timelines, so it’s not immediately obvious which timeline you’re seeing unless you’re paying very close attention to the little details around her.
One minute she’s in town, the next she hears the voice again, “Remember” and she see a wolf crawling over bodies in the town. As she flashes back to herself in present time, she says “These violent delights will have violent ends” to Maeve before resuming her sunny sweet demeanor and narrative loop. Lending just a titch more credence to Elsie’s theory of contagion. The real question that needs to be asked however is if it is a contagion, did it spawn by accident or was it deliberately hard wired into the coding to be dormant until a specific time or specific set of criteria had been met.
Back in the past timeline, we see William performing the first of several crucial acts for his character in the show. He picks a hat. That might seem like a trivial act, but nothing in this park is trivial. The act of picking something as simple as a hat is incredibly symbolic. It is essentially the first of several choices that you will make during your stay there. Will you choose the white hat, symbolizing the path of good, the path of every hero in every western known to Earth. Or do you pick the black hat, symbolizing the deeper darker desires that reside in all humans. Logan, who has been before, has gone straight black hat, but William chooses the white hat. It’s an interesting if not predictable contrast, given what we know about them so far.
After they choose their hats and settle into the bespoke costumes there for them, they walk through a door and find themselves on the train car that is notably different from the one we’ve seen before. This one has cushions and a bar and it’s another visual cue that things aren’t the same as what we’ve seen before. Granted this could just be simply another car on the same train, but given the decor and some of what’s been said in passing, you definitely get the feeling that this is a different era from the introductory loops we were introduced to before. Logan, for all the fact that he’s not that deep of a character and what you see is pretty much what you get, does have some good lines, especially to William. “You think you have a handle on it, but you don’t because this place has the answer to that question. “Who you really are.”” And Logan cannot wait to meet that guy.
Back in the present, the Man In Black has saved Lawrence from hanging, for what purpose we don’t know just yet. We know that the Man In Black is searching for something, and that he thinks Lawrence can help him find it. We also know that he has run across this host before since he comments that Lawrence “used to be more eloquent.” He tells Lawrence that he’s going to help him [Man In Black] find the entrance to the deepest level of the game.
We get a glimpse at Maeve’s narrative loops and discover that since that encounter with Dolores, Maeve’s been having memories/flashbacks to her previous configuration. She also gets pulled off the floor and at a slight risk of decommissioning because her numbers aren’t where they need to be. Behavior ups her aggression and sends her back topside. Bernard suspects that there’s definitely something afoot and he’s concerned that it might be sabotage. He goes to bring it up with Ford, because the relationship between Bernard and Ford is quite unlike the relationships either one has with anyone else in the park or behind the scenes of it. Some of it mimics a close mentorship and some of it doesn’t quite hit that mark. There’s a discordant note in some of their interactions that is hard to put a finger on or name. Ford’s major contribution to this inquiry is simply to state that “We practice witchcraft, Bernard. We say the right words and create life out of chaos.”
It fades into Bernard and Delores having one of their private conversations and again the fact that the head of Behavior and the Park’s oldest Host are having these conversations is also very strange. Bernard notices that something is different about Delores but he can’t quite put his finger on it. He reassures himself that she’s told no one about these talks just like he directed her not to. She very boldly asks him straight out, “have YOU done something wrong” and he doesn’t answer her, which you can tell she noticed and logged away for the future. Bernard might have caught that if it hadn’t been for the wealth of emotions on his face at that moment and the fact that he’s distracted by turning all the interactions around in his head again.
Maeve’s still not pulling many guests but we see in some of these scenes where she cares deeply for Clem, almost like Clem is a younger sister or daughter. Clem has nightmares and it’s something that worries Maeve. The fact that the Hosts can worry about the other Hosts they are responsible for is a marvelous act of coding, if also a little intriguing. The motivations behind the coding and programming decisions often call into mind the quote from Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
We also see Bernard and Teresa and how there’s most definitely a THING there between them, which is also fascinating to see the dynamics of how it plays out, privately and professionally. It makes you question what Delos’ guidelines on fraternization is, because there’s no sense that this is a forbidden thing, just that they keep it on the down-low because they are both professionals. Knowing what we know about Delos so far, it does make sense that they would have lighter regulations on things like fraternization because after all, you are spending a lot of your time here, they want to make sure their employees are well taken care of and happy. Without that, productivity suffers, and so does the bottom line.
Back in the past, we see where Logan is telling William about his flaws – talented, driven, and inoffensive, and that’s your problem. Logan, as it can be very clearly seen, has impulse issues. They spend the night with some of the girls at the brothel and Clem takes William up. He doesn’t really touch her because that’s when we find out that William is actually engaged to Logan’s sister. We also find out that contrary to the amusement parks that we are familiar with, this park goes pretty much 24/7. Lee is having issues with Ford (and the world) and is trying to convince Teresa to release more hosts over to him. The tensions there are high whenever he comes on screen. Part of that is because of his charming personality and part of that is built in to give us more insight into the fact that while Delos might portray itself as one single unified organism, that is only a front and there are several cracks in the shell there.
We see Ford wandering by himself out in the desert, walking with what we will come to find is his younger version, recreated as a host. This adds to the mystery and mythology surrounding Ford. Is he a crazy old mad scientist? Is he secretly manipulating everyone and everything? Is the answer somewhere in the middle – we don’t know yet.
The Man In Black and Lawrence as they wander into a smaller town, not like Sweetwater, this one is dusty and deserted. So you think. The Man In Black starts talking about how they once considered themselves friends and how he and Lawrence had fought Ghost Nation braves together but not once did Lawrence ever tell him he had a family. And that’s how this place keeps getting you – because out in the real world, it’s just chaos, but in here every detail adds up to something. The secrets, the little thing that you never noticed even after all of these years. We know that Man In Black is a guest and a rich one at that, but this is when we find out that he’s a VIP because Stubbs makes the remark about how “that guy” can have anything he wants.
The Man In Black also makes an interesting comment along the lines of “I was born here.” Which isn’t something that makes a whole lot of sense until much later on in the show. We see Lawrence’s daughter and she flat out tells Man In Black that the maze he is looking for isn’t meant for him. After a moment, she also tells him to follow the blood arroyo to where the snake lays its eggs. If that wasn’t enough to pique your interest then we get this moment afterwards. The Man In Black: “This time I’m never going back.”
Which makes you wonder a lot about exactly how far his privilege goes since the terms and conditions pretty firmly state that you can only be in the park for 28 days before you’re required to return to the Mesa for decompression. No one can live on Fantasy Island forever – the whole point of vacations is to get away.
There’s a shot of a town with a white church and bell and the imagery definitely invokes the idea that Ford deeply enjoys playing god here in this place. It’s only a glance but you just know it’s going to be significant later. Sir Anthony does a masterful job with the nonverbal communication between hand gestures and facial expressions.
Looking back, with all the interactions between Bernard and Teresa, you want to ask yourself how did she not guess? How did she not know? Or did she suspect and then chalk it up to spending too much time around hosts herself. She jokes about his creations never shutting up and he tells her that it’s because the hosts are always trying to error correct and become more human and that’s why they always talk to one another and to the guests. This will be important later on.
Elsie tweaks Maeve again to make her smarter and more perceptive and it’s at this point that the Maeve arc really starts to get underway. We see her sassing with Teddy and then she has another vision of her and her daughter and then being attacked and scalped in the Ghost nation storyline. We also see where the Ghost Nation braves fade into the vision of the Man In Black.
And then she wakes up while she’s being handled in Livestock Development, part of her system’s been thrown off because of some MRSA in her abdomen, and she terrifies the crap out of the LMDs there. Hosts are not supposed to be able to wake themselves up out of Sleep Mode. Maeve sees the behind-the-scenes at the park and it does something to her. The shock of it impacts her hard. Especially with one of the things she sees is the dead Teddy being hosed off in one of the livestock management rooms and the callousness of it all.
Juxtaposed, we slide over to Lee Sizemore presenting his new narrative, Odyssey on Red River and it gets completely shot down by Ford who says they [the park visitors] come back for the subtleties, they don’t want to know who they are, they want to glimpse who they could be. That’s why people keep coming back to the park. And in fact, this narrative says more about Lee Sizemore than it does about anything else. It’s the crushing smackdown that you never ever want to get from your boss.
The final scenes are in the past timeline, William meets Dolores and from the second they meet, you know this is going to be significant for both of them. The audio and visual cues make that very clear. Sliding back to the present timeline, you see where Bernard and Ford are talking about the Board of Directors and then Ford’s new narrative. Ford promises that this will be something quite original and then we flashback to the scene of the cross in the desert. There’s no symbolism there, not at all. No, sirree. It’s not like crosses aren’t a symbol of death and rebirth and the white color specifically gives off an air of a revival. Glory be.
