Westworld Season 1 Episode 9 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 9 - The Well-tempered Clavier

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Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
Last episode the player piano metaphor became complete. Ford is pressing buttons and thinks he's controlling the hosts. We thought he wasn't. This show is great at leading you down a path and pulling the rug out from under you. It's hard to out guess it.
This episode brings us ever closer to the maze, without quite getting there. While this episode is a big information dump, that includes more than a few big reveals. There is still one more episode, which I can barely fathom. What will happen next?
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is questioning Maeve (Thandie Newton) about her murder of Clementine last episode, and this scene becomes gripping when Maeve stops faking. She realizes Bernard is a host, but he has no idea what he is. Maeve is a force with which to be reckoned. She orders Bernard to clear her and he does.

Logan (Ben Barnes) has detained William (Jimmi Simpson) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood). William wants to get her out and into the real world, but Dolores rebukes them for assuming she wants out. If the outside is so great, why do so many people visit Westworld? Logan has become a villain, an officer in the army.
Obviously William is reactive. What would happen if he even got her out?
Hold on, the picture of William's fiance is the same picture that caused Dolores's dad to break in one of the first couple of episodes. How did that photo travel?
William tries to convince Logan that Dolores is special, but Logan plans to prove she's just a host. He guts her, exposing the underlying mechanics. William and Dolores are both shocked, but Dolores uses the moment to cut Logan and kills a few men to escape. She then hears Arnold's voice and  is no longer wounded, entering a vision.
William admits he got caught up and Logan harbors no ill feelings. "What happens in the park, stays in the park."

Dolores is on foot, seeking the town, the very first town. We've seen it in a vision before. As it stands, it's buried.

Logan wakes up to the aftermath of a  massacre. Bodies and limbs litter the camp. William tells Logan, at knife point, he figured out how to play the game. He's going to find Dolores and Logan will help. Since Logan has a knife to this throat, he readily agrees.

Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and Bernard have a discussion in the Westworld cellar. The most elegant parts of the hosts were built by Arnold, not Ford. Bernard speculates that Arnold had a higher purpose for the hosts.
Bernard wants his mind unlocked and has a devious plan to get Ford to comply. While Bernard can't harm Ford directly, he's got that worked out.
Ford tells Bernard how the hosts passed the Turing Test within the first year, but that wasn't enough.
Ford's narration to Bernard intersects with Dolores's vision as she enters the church and descends into the ground via elevator.
Arnold believed the sad stories worked best. Bernard returns to his cornerstone memory, where his 'son' died. Bernard realizes what the viewers have. Bernard is Arnold. She followed the maze back to Arnold, but Arnold is now just a memory. Dolores killed Arnold.
How did she get into the church? The place was buried up to the steeple in prior episodes.

There's a back door built into all the hosts that Ford uses. He had hoped Bernard would choose to be his partner. Ford ends Bernard. I thought Ford's control was just an illusion, but it seems it's not. He's not a player piano.

Maeve meets with Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), revealing exactly how his story plays out. When the events unfold and the safe they stole is empty, Escaton agrees to help her, "rob the gods blind."

Teddy (James Marsden) and the Man in Black (Ed Harris) are bound, at the mercy of Wyatt's crew. Teddy recounts how he followed Wyatt, killed for Wyatt. Wyatt didn't influence Teddy, the true memory surfaces. Teddy killed a town.

Their captor tells the Man in Black the maze isn't meant for him, and the Man in Black wakes up tied to a horse. He frees himself and Charlotte (Tess Thompson) informs him that Theresa died securing "their" information. She wants his vote to push Ford out. He is the one that kept Ford in place, but the Man in Black doesn't want Ford's narratives. He's headed to the city swallowed by sand.
We knew the Man in Black was a high ranking business man, but he's trying to smuggle information out, or at least his company is. He seems completely caught up in the game.

He runs into Dolores at the chapel right after she remembers everything. Obviously there is a maze. The hosts tell Black it's not for him, because it's for the hosts. It almost seems specifically for Delores. Is the maze remembering everything? If so Delores found it. Is Black going to be satisfied to find out what it is. Is there more to it?

Arnold has a bigger part to play in this yet.