‘Westworld’ Season 1 Finale Recap: The Bicameral Mind

HBO’s Westworld concluded its first season with episode 10 which aired on December 4, 2016. The episode titled “The Bicameral Mind” presented the conclusion of the Man in Black’s season-long quest for the center of the maze as well as the true identity of the Man in Black, which I didn’t see coming. Maeve, Dolores, Teddy, and Bernard’s storylines came to satisfying conclusions while setting up the show’s second season that could go a number of different directions, all of which will be wildly different from the events of season one.

The season one finale kicked off with a voice-over from Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) saying she was in a dream, woke up, and Arnold’s voice was the first she remembered. We see him (Jeffrey Wright) placing Dolores’ skin on her robot frame and she sits up, still incomplete but with her face, neck, and forearms in place. Arnold/Bernard welcomes her to the world.

And now we’re in the present time with Dolores shaving the Man in Black’s neck with a large knife. He (Ed Harris) tells her she’s always been obsessed with this little town but she doesn’t think she’s ever been there before. He continues to confuse Dolores, and then she starts remembering what Arnold taught her. She remembers seeing Arnold in this town and walks toward him after the Man in Black reminds her she’s always wanted to find the heart of the maze.

William (Jimmi Simpson) drags Logan (Ben Barnes) behind his horse as he hunts for Dolores. Logan thinks Dolores is dead, but William has a plan. He finds Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr) and his gang and asks for their help.

Meanwhile, Teddy (James Marsden) is on the train heading back to town for a new day in the park. He smiles as he walks down the main street but then he hears, “Remember,” and has a vision of dozens of dead bodies spread out throughout the town. He watches Dolores walk through them as a wolf runs by. Then, snap, he’s back in present day Westworld and a host has run into him accidentally. He shoots him dead as everyone runs for the train or for shelter. After calling out to Dolores (who isn’t there), he hops back on the train.

Dolores enters the church to find Arnold sitting in a pew. She tells him she knows where his maze is and leads him outside through a small cemetery. When they’re outside, it’s actually the Man in Black who’s with her, not Arnold. She kneels in front of her own grave and then begins digging. She unearths a can and inside is a replica of the maze. She has another vision of Arnold and he explains he once had a different opinion of consciousness, which he originally thought was like a pyramid. Memory, improvisation…each step is harder to reach, but then he realized consciousness is a journey inward not upward. It’s a maze and every choice can bring you closer to the center. He asks if she’s figured out whose voice he wanted her to hear and she doesn’t understand. He says she’s so close and that she’s alive.

And now it’s the Man in Black in place of her memories of Arnold, with Dolores telling him that at one time she had the answer and Arnold said they’d set her free if she was correct. She remembers talking to Arnold and him confessing he failed her and that Dr. Ford can’t see that she’s conscious. Arnold’s supposed to change her back but that would make this place a living hell for her. Instead, he wants to break the loop and to do that she has to kill all the other hosts. He doesn’t want Ford to open the park, so she should get Teddy to help her. Dolores holds the gun and swears she can’t do that, but Bernard/Arnold insists she help him destroy this place.

Back with the Man in Black, she swears she can’t remember anything about the heart of the maze. He asks again where Wyatt is and Dolores starts sobbing. He hits her and she remembers being among all the dead hosts that she and Teddy killed. Teddy finished the job and then looked at her strangely, insisting something went wrong. He obviously didn’t want to shoot the other hosts.

The Man in Black tells Dolores it’s all her fault, and also reveals he bought this world and business is booming. But, the hosts can’t fight back and the guests can’t lose so it’s all a lie. He wants to make it a true thing, but Dolores says she already has that. She says the man who loves her will kill him as soon as he finds her.

Lawrence and William are up on a cliff looking out over a group of soldiers. William wants to question them about Dolores.

Back at Delos Corporate HQ, Lee (Simon Quarterman) and Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) talk about her plans to push out Dr. Ford. Lee wants creative control and Charlotte promises him that as long as he makes the hosts simpler and less complicated.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) uses the computer to make changes to the park security and to her host friends, Hector (Rodrigo Santoro) and Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal).

Charlotte pays a visit to Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) in his office, delivering the news that he’s out. The board voted to remove him, but he can introduce his new narrative before he leaves. She tells him about the planned simplifications of the hosts and he wonders if she’s worried he’ll smash his toys before he leaves. She’s not.

Hector and Armistice’s bodies are being worked on by techs when Armistice springs to life. She bites the end of the tech’s finger off and he screams, but Hector’s tech is wearing headphones and doesn’t hear the commotion. She attacks her tech as the one with Hector masturbates in front of his naked body. The tech finally figures out there’s something wrong when his co-worker flies through a glass wall. Then it’s Hector’s turn to wake up and he kills the masturbating tech. Maeve and Felix (Leonardo Nam) walk in, and Maeve tells them their goal is to escape. Sylvester (Ptolemy Slocum) is shocked by the dead tech and Armistice chases after him. She’s about to kill him when he tells Maeve he discovered someone pulled up her code and revised it so she can wake herself up out of sleep mode. He doesn’t know who did it, but Maeve thinks she knows someone who does.

Teddy gets off the train, shoots a host, and steals a horse.

The Man in Black is beating up Dolores and she still insists her love will come and take her away. She swears his love is real and then confesses it’s William she’s waiting for. The Man in Black laughs, telling her he also knows a guest named William, calling him a man who couldn’t fight because he didn’t have a reason to but now he has a taste for it because of Dolores.

The scene switches to William and Lawrence killing all the soldiers while trying to find Dolores. One surviving soldier says she was alive when they left her. Logan watches as William shoots the soldier and then stabs him ruthlessly through the throat. William tells Lawrence they have to keep looking.

In a Man in Black voice-over, we learn William couldn’t find Dolores after retracing his steps so he kept going further. He continued to kill everyone he encountered and discovered he liked it. He and Logan found the edge of the park and with Logan naked on a horse, William revealed he’d figured out the appeal of the park and believed their company should substantially increase their holdings. Logan kept yelling it’s his family’s park and then it dawned on Logan that William didn’t really care about Dolores after all. All William wanted was this story. William slapped the horse and sent Logan off.

The Man in Black continues the story, telling Dolores William couldn’t get her out of his head. He found her back in town, dropping a can from her saddlebag as she did every single day of her existence prior to the day he met her. But then another man picked up the can and William understood more about her. The Man in Black is William!!! He tells her he grew tired of her and looked for new adventures, while she was lost in her memories. They’ve been together in the park off and on for years. She never escaped and now they’re back for one final round, says William (previously known as the Man in Black). He says she taught him this world and the one outside are similar in that they’re both games. William brags that he owns this world but needs to learn one last thing: where is the center of the maze? She cries and then stands up, telling him she’s crying for him.

Dolores talks of dinosaurs, mighty creatures falling, and how he’s aged over the years. He will die and his bones will turn to sand, and on that sand a new god will walk. He demands to be taken to Wyatt so that the maze can be unlocked. She tells him the maze wasn’t meant for him and then she beats him up, tossing him like a child into the church and then dragging him up the aisle to the base of the pulpit. He hits her back but it does nothing. She breaks his arm, slams him repeatedly into the wall, and knocks the gun from his grasp. She pulls her own weapon as he rests against a headstone, and he tells her to pull the trigger but she hesitates and he stabs her. She grabs her stomach, picturing a younger William as she falls. William reveals he’s disappointed in her and has to find Wyatt by himself. Just then, Teddy rides up and shoots William. He holds Dolores as she bleeds and tries to convince her they need to find a doctor. She wants to go to where the mountains meet the sea instead, and he agrees. As they ride off, William opens his eyes.

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