Westworld - The Adversary - Review: “Now then, where were we?”

Almost from minute one of the pilot, Westworld has felt a little like watching a bomb tick down in slow stages, refusing to adhere to any human perception of time. As if it were able to slow its countdown just to tease the unfortunate individual locked in the room with it. In this metaphor, we are the individual in the room; the bomb is the hosts’ plight into self-awareness.

“The Adversary”, however, indicated that the bomb has already gone off, with Westworld barely batting an eye at the explosion.

Ever since her self-awakening in the second hour, Maeve has been the key to unlocking the true nature of what Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy want to explore: how AI can become dangerous. (For brevity, that’s the abridgement of an abridgment. You get the idea.) And since then, I’ve been waiting for the show to make it feel like a hard-hitting moment whenever the line is crossed. Here, the line was crossed, and while there were numerous scenes where I couldn’t help but be completely transfixed that contributed to the thought of a big moment, it ultimately boiled down to the show having done it without us really noticing.

The hour’s final scene sees Maeve, now completely aware of all that goes on inside of the facility and with the knowledge that her personality traits are designed, force Felix to alter some of the attributes she desires to make herself the best Maeve she can be. That includes raising her bulk apperception to 20 - six points higher than any other host. What’s perhaps most worrisome about this is that she doesn’t necessarily need it. Apperception, the way someone makes sense of an idea, is a common theme in the hour, particularly as she’s led around the facility to expose her to the true reality. As she and Felix walk around, Maeve appears far more comfortable with everything than he does - he has more to lose, though I’d still expect more of a reaction from her - and although she needs certain things explained to her, she never seems to struggle to grasp the concepts for more than a moment. (She later tells Sylvester that it took her five minutes to work out why the technicians can activate hosts and erase their memories.)

It’s fascinating, too, given that Maeve is clearly intelligent enough (*) to know how to get to Felix, both in her dream-state and within the park on a regular day, and it raises the question over whether she even needed to go to 20. Yes, of course she wants to be even more able to fathom everything around her, and her status as the most intelligent being the park is no mean feat. But this is now inherently and fundamentally dangerous for the park, the administrators, and the guests.

(*) Though there is no attribute for intelligence on the personality chart, there was a second layer of traits underneath. It may feature on there, but even if it does, it’s interesting that intelligence isn’t considered as important as the other traits she alters; presumably, the assumption is that bulk apperception qualifies as the variable intelligence level after each host’s basic intellect.

Were Maeve to only comprehend her false world while out of it, the situation wouldn’t be so dire. But that her understanding of things translates into the park version of her - at this point, I’d be relatively confident in suggesting that they’re one and the same where Dolores, for example, isn’t quite there yet - is a problem, because now, Felix and Sylvester, and indeed all of the other blissfully unaware employees, must rely on the hope that Maeve won’t expose the charade to anyone else. Given the likely trajectory of the series, that’s a pipe dream that may not even last another full episode.

Thandie Newton, who was so, so good in that walkabout sequence in episode two, and who has been consistently great throughout, stole the show in “The Adversary”. Her quietened contemplation at every turn - from getting a full view of the hosts’ ‘birth’ and ‘death’ to exploiting Sylvester - was wonderful, capturing the essence of a character who wants to learn as many of the uncomfortable truths as she can but who understands how to process them. The only deviation from this came early in the hour, Felix’s insistence and eventual proof that her thoughts and speech and actions are all programmed sent Maeve into a frozen state (*) in which Newton was again excellent. What Westworld allows its actors to do is impressive, any of the hosts’ performers - or, at least, those who don’t exclusively feature within the park - given the chance to play several different sides to one character in several different ways. To play Maeve inside the bar is to play her as human as possible (thanks to the reveries); to play her in this particular scene, Newton needed to detach herself from the realms of humanity and tap into a different nature. It amounted to the personified equivalent of watching a computer screen crash, and it was highly effective.

(*) Felix should have tried turning her off and turning her on again. It works for my laptop, and a human-like robot can’t be that complicated, right?

One of the other major threads to come from “The Adversary” concerned last week’s revelation that someone was transmitting data from the park using devices embedded inside hosts. Elsie, determined to discover the truth, uncovered not only that Theresa is the one that’s been stealing data, but that someone has been retasking hosts for weeks, leaving it open to the possibility that they may revolt and be able to harm humans. And supposedly, it was Arnold that altered the code.

It was frustrating watching Elsie’s time in the abandoned house and accompanying phone call to Bernard. Having him learn Theresa is responsible for the espionage while he stands in a room about to tell her their discovery of it is the textbook way of revealing the secret before the reveal while attempting unsuccessfully to create tension. Equally disappointing was the inevitable moment where Elsie was taken hold of. Her time in the house was paired with a tense piece of score from Ramin Djawadi, clearly leading up to something, and though this is the story they want to go with, it would have been nice had Westworld not made it so abundantly obvious that it was going to happen.

Flawed as they may be, however, these moments create some potentially exciting ramifications for the remaining four episodes of the season. The motives behind Theresa’s espionage may define the park’s future, while Elsie’s kidnapper may or may not be Arnold (who may or may not still be alive). Irrespective of who it is, her disappearance is going to arouse suspicion pretty quickly, and I’d be surprised if - particularly considering the introduction of Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) as the Board’s representative - it didn’t point to larger issues within the park.

Bernard’s conversation did yield one shift in perception: he’s beginning to doubt Ford after discovering his five secret hosts - modelled after his family as a young boy. This is far from a surprising reveal; even if we hadn’t seen the boy in the second episode in similar attire whom Ford seemed to have a knowledge of, it’d be hard to believe that a man who creates an entirely artificial world with artificial people and artificial settings wouldn’t have a little something from personal experiences (*). The point Bernard attempts to raise, both to Ford and to Theresa, is a good one. Unsanctioned hosts in the park is a troubling thing, particularly ones that respond only to Ford’s voice, even if they’re supposedly harmless. The Board wouldn’t approve, certainly, and were anyone to be somehow hurt by these hosts, the accountability would fall squarely on an old man who everyone is already doubting. It’s dangerous for the park and it’s dangerous for Ford.

(*) Arnold made them for Ford as a gift, and it’s unclear whether Ford would have otherwise made them himself.

And now that he’s discovered a young Robert being told to kill his pet dog by a voice, in order to “put it out of its misery”, not only are the cards on the table for more hosts to experience the same, but Ford has now witnessed it first-hand. I’d assume he’ll remain quiet on the matter, perhaps investigating it by himself, but with only four episodes remaining in the season, events will likely get out of hand far quicker than he can control them. When that happens, there’ll be hell to pay.

A really strong episode this week, minus the aforementioned predictably clichéd moments. Maeve’s storyline has quickly become the most engaging on the show, while the aspects around it are coming together nicely, and the progression across the board (in comparison to last week’s somewhat slower hour) was good to see.

Other thoughts:

• Teddy and the Man in Black ran into some trouble while trying to pass Wyatt’s group, though it was nothing a minigun couldn’t fix. Some enjoyable stuff there, though it’s been three episodes since Teddy died. I’d imagine that, given Man in Black’s need for him, Teddy won’t die again until the finale at the earliest.
• Sizemore returned, supposedly on sick leave, which apparently involves getting drunk by the pool in the facility and urinating on the park map. Classy.
• Maeve’s way of returning to the real world in the opening scene - insulting a newcomer’s sexual drive, resulting in him strangling her - was dark.
• I don’t want to dwell too much on where in time Westworld is - both in the reviews and while I watch the show - but if the computer on floor B82 is considered old (and Bernard used it in his early days), that would place current events somewhere around 2035, since that thing looked quite late-2000s.

What did everyone think of “The Adversary”?