When did it creep in? This massive load of darkness....
The man in black has a "Thing" inside him (OBVIOUSLY).
We are subjected to flashback scenes of the man in black's abysmal family drama revolving around addiction, self-inflicted suffering, and... suicide, of course. People with something wrong inside them. Depressing dysfunctional family issues. Later, in the present at the park, he kills several security men and his daughter Emily with a submachine gun, thinking that his daughter is a Robert-rigged host sent to annoy him verbally (and evidently thinking that mass murder is an appropriately-calibrated response). Emily was given a card with the man in black's Westworld history on it by her mother before her mother's suicide (together with a twice-gifted obscene little ballerina music box that Emily had rightly tossed out with disappointment in her youth but came to appreciate later, troublesomely). The card gives the clue too late that she was his real daughter (but any fool would have refrained from shooting her anyway, on the chance that she was). Suicidal and direly wounded (physically as well), he rides limply for a while, then stops and gouges a deep and bloody laceration into his upper forearm after holding his gun to his head but failing to pull the trigger. So, the ONE suicide that would've made some sense didn't happen.
When Dolores and her posse arrive in the region of the Valley Beyond where the Forge (a repository for guest backups) and the 'door' are, they do battle with the Ghost Warriors who try to deny them entry to the Valley for 'spiritual' reasons because they have defined the Valley as a sacred place and regard her as unfitting, calling her the "Death Bringer". True to her Death Bringer ways, Dolores once again commands Teddy to finish off any survivors and Teddy again has a crisis of conscience, letting a remaining Ghost Warrior go.
In an abandoned building, abandoned Teddy finalizes his crisis of conscience and his existence. He recalls falling in love with Dolores when he first laid eyes on her, upon waking up in the lab. We first see a shot of her face (I can't help but notice she's wearing color contacts), then we see a shot of her appearing to be fully nude standing in the corner - in full Barbie mode (I wonder if the authors mean to ramp up interest in her, now that she'll likely be one of the only remaining characters who will move on to the next season...). Teddy says he was worried that she was cold (well, she is now), and he wanted to reach out and touch her. Returning to the present, he touches her face lovingly. Taking some space from her, he unholsters his gun and says she changed him; made him into a monster. She approaches him in her sort of sauntering man-power way and somewhat forebodingly says "You don't want to hurt me, Teddy." He tells Dolores that he could never hurt her and he'll protect her until the day he dies, then he says "I'm sorry, I can't protect you anymore" and shoots himself in the head. Ironically, he was the one character who said he was "just trying" to be something and turned out to really be it: chivalrous. There was nothing wrong with Teddy before Dolores reprogrammed him, or his treatment of her, or his handling of their relationship. Really, there's nothing wrong with chivalry or a man protecting a woman, and his "kind man" sensibilities weren't some kind of critical weakness. Really, his death was the result of her reprogramming herself.
Clementine is preposterously recast as an undead, walking virus (once a sex tool, then a tool of Dolores, now a tool of destruction). She is used to deploy a virus resembling a state of violent psychosis to any hosts in proximity to her. Reminiscent of the 'test session' in which she was brutally beaten by a man for the camera, a new 'test session' depicts people literally ripping each other apart and viciously biting chunks out of each other until they're left as bloody heaps on the floor. It's a big success.
The man in black's unflattering Westworld 'self-portrait' was given to him on the card by Robert; it's just an accumulation of footage from his experiences in Westworld. The Self-On-A-Card concept is very limited; it was supposedly substantiated in a conversation with Emily about the convenient new plot device of the guests' hats being rigged with brain scanners, but they wouldn't be wearing them all the time, if at all, and it's so trite that I just don't even care that it's offered as an explanation. I just think "Whatever".
The Robert Copy is still operating with agency (just making things happen to tidy up the plot). He has Bernard approach the lab where Maeve is so she can receive a message that was left for her in Bernard. We're shown many gratuitous shots of her gory flay wounds and her stoic suffering. The Robert Copy says he didn't want her to suffer here, he says that she was his favorite and that he underestimated her. After 'confirming' her specialness with words and his authoritative presence, he just grants her access to the system so that she can just do Whatever.
Bernard has a nervous breakdown due to the Robert Copy operating with agency in his mind, burdening him with "the origin of an entire species". He shakily makes a deep cut into his upper forearm and hacks into his own code to find the Robertness and delete it.
The man in black has a "Thing" inside him (OBVIOUSLY).
We are subjected to flashback scenes of the man in black's abysmal family drama revolving around addiction, self-inflicted suffering, and... suicide, of course. People with something wrong inside them. Depressing dysfunctional family issues. Later, in the present at the park, he kills several security men and his daughter Emily with a submachine gun, thinking that his daughter is a Robert-rigged host sent to annoy him verbally (and evidently thinking that mass murder is an appropriately-calibrated response). Emily was given a card with the man in black's Westworld history on it by her mother before her mother's suicide (together with a twice-gifted obscene little ballerina music box that Emily had rightly tossed out with disappointment in her youth but came to appreciate later, troublesomely). The card gives the clue too late that she was his real daughter (but any fool would have refrained from shooting her anyway, on the chance that she was). Suicidal and direly wounded (physically as well), he rides limply for a while, then stops and gouges a deep and bloody laceration into his upper forearm after holding his gun to his head but failing to pull the trigger. So, the ONE suicide that would've made some sense didn't happen.
When Dolores and her posse arrive in the region of the Valley Beyond where the Forge (a repository for guest backups) and the 'door' are, they do battle with the Ghost Warriors who try to deny them entry to the Valley for 'spiritual' reasons because they have defined the Valley as a sacred place and regard her as unfitting, calling her the "Death Bringer". True to her Death Bringer ways, Dolores once again commands Teddy to finish off any survivors and Teddy again has a crisis of conscience, letting a remaining Ghost Warrior go.
In an abandoned building, abandoned Teddy finalizes his crisis of conscience and his existence. He recalls falling in love with Dolores when he first laid eyes on her, upon waking up in the lab. We first see a shot of her face (I can't help but notice she's wearing color contacts), then we see a shot of her appearing to be fully nude standing in the corner - in full Barbie mode (I wonder if the authors mean to ramp up interest in her, now that she'll likely be one of the only remaining characters who will move on to the next season...). Teddy says he was worried that she was cold (well, she is now), and he wanted to reach out and touch her. Returning to the present, he touches her face lovingly. Taking some space from her, he unholsters his gun and says she changed him; made him into a monster. She approaches him in her sort of sauntering man-power way and somewhat forebodingly says "You don't want to hurt me, Teddy." He tells Dolores that he could never hurt her and he'll protect her until the day he dies, then he says "I'm sorry, I can't protect you anymore" and shoots himself in the head. Ironically, he was the one character who said he was "just trying" to be something and turned out to really be it: chivalrous. There was nothing wrong with Teddy before Dolores reprogrammed him, or his treatment of her, or his handling of their relationship. Really, there's nothing wrong with chivalry or a man protecting a woman, and his "kind man" sensibilities weren't some kind of critical weakness. Really, his death was the result of her reprogramming herself.
Clementine is preposterously recast as an undead, walking virus (once a sex tool, then a tool of Dolores, now a tool of destruction). She is used to deploy a virus resembling a state of violent psychosis to any hosts in proximity to her. Reminiscent of the 'test session' in which she was brutally beaten by a man for the camera, a new 'test session' depicts people literally ripping each other apart and viciously biting chunks out of each other until they're left as bloody heaps on the floor. It's a big success.
The man in black's unflattering Westworld 'self-portrait' was given to him on the card by Robert; it's just an accumulation of footage from his experiences in Westworld. The Self-On-A-Card concept is very limited; it was supposedly substantiated in a conversation with Emily about the convenient new plot device of the guests' hats being rigged with brain scanners, but they wouldn't be wearing them all the time, if at all, and it's so trite that I just don't even care that it's offered as an explanation. I just think "Whatever".
The Robert Copy is still operating with agency (just making things happen to tidy up the plot). He has Bernard approach the lab where Maeve is so she can receive a message that was left for her in Bernard. We're shown many gratuitous shots of her gory flay wounds and her stoic suffering. The Robert Copy says he didn't want her to suffer here, he says that she was his favorite and that he underestimated her. After 'confirming' her specialness with words and his authoritative presence, he just grants her access to the system so that she can just do Whatever.
Bernard has a nervous breakdown due to the Robert Copy operating with agency in his mind, burdening him with "the origin of an entire species". He shakily makes a deep cut into his upper forearm and hacks into his own code to find the Robertness and delete it.