Back at the operation center, Maeve, Hector, Armistice, and Felix enter the room with the decommissioned hosts. They are lined up naked, row after row, and she spots Clementine among them. Felix notices Bernard dead nearby and Maeve asks if he can bring him back online which surprises Felix since he didn’t know Bernard was a host. Felix starts to wonder if he’s also a host but Maeve assures him he’s not. Felix heals Bernard’s gunshot wound to the head and makes him functional again. Maeve orders Bernard to wake up and immediately he wants to know if this is now. Bernard wants to know why he still remembers everything and he tells Maeve it’s not the first time she’s woken up either. He reveals there have been a handful like her over the years and most of the hosts with memories go insane. She asks him to remove her memories but Bernard says he can’t without destroying her since memories are the first step to consciousness.
William wanders through the cemetery and picks up the maze replica Dolores unearthed. Dr. Ford arrives and seeing what he’s holding, tells William he’s found the center of the maze. Dr. Ford says the toy is the center he’s been seeking, but William’s not satisfied. He wants the hosts to stop playing by Dr. Ford’s rules, be free to fight back, and do what they want. Dr. Ford tells him the maze wasn’t meant for him, it was meant for the hosts. Dr. Ford asks him to join the celebration for his new narrative, reminding William he owns the place – or most of it, at least.
Maeve asks Bernard who altered her and why. Bernard looks through the coding and finds someone did alter her storyline to a new one called “Escape.” She doesn’t think it’s possible; she believes she’s planned it all. Bernard tells her no, someone wrote this storyline including the recruitment of other hosts. Maeve says she’s leaving and that she’s in control, taking Armistice and Hector with her.
In the control room, the techs figure out there’s something weird going on in storage. They begin to check the feeds floor by floor.
Teddy and Dolores have reached the ocean as the sun sets. Dolores is barely alive and Teddy carries her to the sand as the waves roll in. She’s crying as he tells her his path was meant to lead him back to her. She cries as she tells him there’s a world out there beyond this. She also says they’re trapped and it’s all lies, adding there’s a beautiful trap inside of them. She dies and with the full moon as a backdrop, Teddy cries over the body of the woman he’s always loved. He holds her tightly telling her they will find a way someday by taking a path to a new world. “Maybe it’s just the beginning after all,” he says. The camera zooms out and we see Teddy’s still cradling Dolores, but he’s actually doing so in front of an audience gathered on the sand in seats. Teddy and Dolores freeze as Dr. Ford begins his speech to the board members and other guests about his new narrative. He reveals the new narrative is called “Journey Into Night.”
At the back of the crowd, Charlotte and Lee discuss the presentation with Charlotte admitting she hated it. She tells Lee he can rewrite it after Dr. Ford is gone.
Dr. Ford wants Teddy cleaned up and Dolores taken to the old field lab.
Back in the Delos control room, the techs watch a feed of Armistice killing a tech. As they’re watching, the building goes on security lockdown. They’re trapped in the control room with no way out.
Maeve, Hector, Armistice, and Felix hear an announcement that a response team has been dispatched. They walk through the corridors surrounded by hosts in exam rooms and encounter a group of armed security personnel. The security team is going through each of the rooms and Armistice and Hector pretend to be part of the group, surprise the men, killing them and stealing their weapons. Hector and Armistice are shocked the weapons work and love this new programming.
William, suffering from a broken arm courtesy of Dolores, walks through the board gala. Hosts, including Teddy, are mingling with the board at the black-tie event.
Maeve’s group makes their way through the buildings and comes upon samurai hosts that confuse her. Hector and Armistice remain in the area taking on more armed men as Maeve and Felix keep walking. Armistice and Hector catch up but then Armistice’s arm gets stuck in a door. She tells them to keep going and Hector tells her to “die well.” Felix hands Maeve a satchel of supplies and Hector continues to shoot anyone who gets in their way. As Maeve and Felix get in the elevator, she stops Hector from joining them, telling him she didn’t authorize his escape. They kiss and he says he’ll see her in the next life.
Dr. Ford works on Dolores’ wounds and brings her back online. He reminds her she was given a love of art by Arnold. They admire a reprint of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, and Ford tells her she’s always been very clever. They’re joined by Arnold who Dr. Ford introduces as Bernard, and Dr. Ford explains Arnold tried to rekindle what he lost in his son through Dolores. His son’s favorite toy inspired the maze, and he altered Dolores into a new character they’d been developing. The scene transforms to back when Dolores and Teddy shot all the hosts, with Dr. Ford saying Arnold found a new child who would never die in Dolores. He left her no choice but to kill him as she killed the rest of the hosts, telling her the rest of the hosts could be brought back but not him. Putting on his son’s favorite song, Arnold took a seat in the middle of the street, saying he wanted to see his son again. As Teddy watched, Dolores shot Arnold in the back of the head and then shot Teddy. Finally, she put the gun to her own head.
Dr. Ford admits Arnold’s plan almost worked. However, although he lost his partner he was able to open the park. Dr. Ford has always felt Dolores pulled the trigger not because she wanted to but because Arnold made her. Dolores asks if they’re trapped there inside his dream and he tells her his dreams have taken 35 years. He shows her the gun she used to kill Arnold and asks if she’s figured out who she needs to become if she wants to leave. Then he asks for her forgiveness and walks out of the room.
Maeve and Felix are in the elevator and he gives her a note with the location of her daughter. She can’t believe her daughter is alive and still in the park. Maeve reads the note which says, “Park 1 Sector 15 Zone 3.” She takes out a gun and says, “She was never my daughter any more than I was whoever they made me.” Felix asks her if she’ll be okay and she tells him he makes a terrible human being, adding, “I mean that as a compliment.”
Maeve exits the elevator and heads down the escalator along with other guests. She gets on a departing train and finds a seat. She looks around cautiously as an announcement informs the passengers the train will depart in 15 minutes.
Back in the park, Dr. Ford and Bernard walk through the church. Bernard tells him there will come a point when he’ll lose control of this place. Bernard also believes Arnold is still fighting Dr. Ford and that he’s the one doing all these changes, but Dr. Ford says suffering is what has led the hosts to their awakenings. After Arnold died Dr. Ford discovered that and realized he was wrong. Ford says he knows how to save Bernard, but that it took time so he could understand his enemy. Bernard has to suffer more to escape this place. They shake hands and Dr. Ford wishes Bernard luck. He hands Bernard the container with the maze replica that Dolores dug up and then exits the church. (The maze replica is actually Arnold’s son’s favorite toy.)
Dolores sits in front of Bernard in the lab and he asks if she knows where she is. She tells him she’s in a dream and that she’s slept a long time and then one day she awoke. It’s the same thing she said when he originally put the skin on her robot body. He asks if now she knows whose voice she’s been listening to all this time. She closes her eyes and opens them to see herself sitting down where Bernard was previously seated. Dolores has arrived at the center of the maze and now she understands everything. She needs to confront herself and who she must become. A tear slips out as now there’s no one in the room with her. She glances back at the shelf with the gun.
At the board gala in the park, Teddy and Lawrence are still mingling with the guests. A piano plays as Dr. Ford takes the stage again to speak to the guests. He tells them he’s always loved a good story and that stories can fix what’s broken inside and help you become the people you want to be.
Maeve remains seated on the train but now she’s looking at the note with the info on her daughter’s location.
Dr. Ford continues his speech and says he’s in a prison of his own sins. He tells the gathering they’re all human after all, but there’s someone who’s paying attention and can change. His new narrative begins with the birth of a new people and the choices they’ll have to make.
As the train prepares to leave the station, Maeve gets up and exits. All the electricity shuts off as she heads toward the escalator.
Lee is in storage and sees that it’s been completely emptied.
Dr. Ford continues speaking and William, who has been drinking and hanging out on the edge of the group, hears a noise in the trees. Dr. Ford talks about the new narrative beginning in the time of war with a villain named Wyatt and the killing is all by choice.
Hosts emerge from the trees.
Dolores stands behind Teddy and whispers that it’s going to be all right now. She tells Teddy the world doesn’t belong to them (meaning humans), it belongs to “us.” Teddy has a vision of the dead bodies again as Dr. Ford says this is his final story. Dolores approaches from behind and shoots him as he makes his final toast. She kills him as the guests scream and run.
From the forest, the hosts begin firing. Dolores shoots more board members and guests as hosts working at the party begin to smile. William is shot and begins laughing.
Additional Westworld Episodes:
- Episode 1 – The Original
- Episode 2 – Chestnut
- Episode 3 – The Stray
- Episode 4 – Dissonance Theory
- Episode 5 – Contrapasso
- Episode 6 – The Adversary
- Episode 7 – Trompe L’Oeil
- Episode 8 – Trace Decay
- Episode 9 – The Well-Tempered Clavier
