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'Westworld' Recap: Thandie Newton Came To Slay

Ira Madison III guest-recaps this week — and hopes to never find out what this show is actually about

Previously on Westworld, I stopped watching after the second episode. But anything goes in Trump’s America, so that means you get me recapping this week while Rachel Handler is on vacation. Also, Bernard is a robot and killed Theresa last week and Twitter wouldn’t stop talking about it so I muted the word “Westworld.”

I have a feeling Bernard understands my distress, because we open this week’s episode with him sobbing about having killed the human he was in love with. Anthony, an evil white man, makes Bernard cover up the murder of Theresa, and in return, he promises to erase Bernard’s memories of fucking her and then bashing her head into a wall.

Maeve is tired of the ho life and stands in the saloon looking distressed like she does in every scene I’ve ever watched on this show. Did Thandie Newton film all her scenes in one day? She asks the two idiots who program her (but for some reason haven’t reported her autonomy to their bosses) to give her control of other hosts so she can build an army and escape. She insists that it’s “time to write [her] own fucking story,” and honestly, it’d probably be better than watching her stand in a saloon listening to robot hookers come up with different euphemisms to use when asking men to come upstairs and fuck them for cash.

Dolores and William wander around the desert in the midst of their terribly uninteresting story line. They find someone who was sent to kill them impaled by an arrow. Dolores wants to save him and fetches water from the river, only to be shocked by a vision of herself lying facedown in the water and a voice urging her to “Come find me.” Spooky! Also the kid impaled by the arrow dies anyway. William probably killed him. Who cares!

Ford continues his scam that Theresa was murdered, but Charlotte (my girl Tessa Thompson, who if I'd known had joined the show I might have bothered watching it again) ain’t buying it. She was on the second season of Veronica Mars, after all, so she knows a mystery when she stumbles across one.

Maeve is still trying to hustle her way outta Westworld and wants to know who “Arnold” is. How is homegirl still blackmailing these men?! Are they doing it out of pity because Thandie was in the only bad Mission: Impossible movie?

The Man in Black rides around on horses with James Marsden, which, honestly, sounds like a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. They find a woman tied up on the ground, whom the Man in Black recognizes. She says that Wyatt’s men wiped out everybody. I don’t know who Wyatt is. Can we go back to watching James Marsden ride around on a horse?

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For some reason the FUCKING KILLER FROM SCREAM QUEENS SHOWS UP AND STARTS ATTACKING THEM. What the fuck is this minotaur-looking monster? I thought this show was about robots! The Man in Black strangles the monster with a rope and James flashes back to when the Man in Black dragged Dolores off to a barn to presumably rape her. He punches the Man in the Black in the face, which is very fair.

Maeve waits for her two lab idiots to enact her plan, except they have plans for her: They’re going to reformat her and wipe her memory. At least, that’s what Sylvester wants to do, because he’s another one of Westworld’s evil white men. But Felix doesn’t wipe Maeve’s memory; instead he allows her to kill Sylvester by slitting his throat. Felix is shook, but Maeve gloats a bit, cackling, “You know how duplicitous I am!” She makes him heal Sylvester's slit throat so they can use him later, then she sashays back into the Old West so she can recruit her army, soundtracked by the instrumental version of Amy Winehouse’s "Back to Black." What kind of anachronistic nonsense is this? Although I guess it stands to reason that Amy will still be popular in the future. I wonder if they ever play tracks from Joanne? Anyway, Maeve causes destruction in the Old West because, as we soon realize, she’s been given the ability to narrate the story by herself. Go ’head, girl!

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Bernard wants to know why he has real feelings, and whether he really has a wife and a dead son. Ford says that “your imagined suffering makes you lifelike.” Bernard wants to know if Ford has ever made him murder someone before like he did Theresa. Ford tells him no, but Bernard has a flashback to choking some heaux out so clearly FORD’S STILL SCAMMING. Ford wipes Bernard’s memory.

Dolores comes across some other Old West where people start getting shot, then she holds a gun to her own head. Turns out it’s another one of her visions? Fantasies? Other stories? Who knows! Homegirl is having a breakdown and William doesn’t seem adequately equipped to be dealing with an emotional human being, let alone an emotional android. Dolores thinks Arnold wants her to remember her old life, but William ain’t having it. He tries to get her back to safety, but they run into his soon-to-be brother-in-law/slightly evil white man Logan.

Charlotte takes Lee to the Dead Host Graveyard. She probably gonna get somebody killed like Simba, smh. She tells Lee to come up with a story for the random host she finds, since he’s a writer and all. She’s like those rude relatives who finds out you’re a writer at Thanksgiving and then ask you to “write a script” for them on the fly. These two are clearly up to something, but it’s vague and slightly boring so let’s move on!

Stubbs talks to Bernard about his feelings for Theresa, but Bernard insists that he was only friends with her, because his memory has been wiped and all. This confuses Stubbs. He asks Bernard a question about Elsie, and Bernard says that Elsie must be enjoying her time off. By Stubbs’s facial expression, I DON’T THINK THAT WAS THE CORRECT ANSWER, B. Lemme google some shit and find out what’s going on.

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OH SHIT. A quick search tells me that Elsie has been missing as shit since, like, Episode 5, and she’s totally the woman that Ford made Bernard choke and kill before! There’s sure a lot of women getting choked to death and slammed into walls on this show, damn. When I go, I’m not going like Elsie, but R.I.P., sis.

James Marsden sits around a campfire looking beautiful with the rescued woman and the Man in Black. The Man in Black regales them with a tale about his wife committing suicide because she was with him or something and how this place reveals your true self. The Man in Black talks about returning to Westworld to kill a random farmer and her daughter (it’s Maeve). He says that for a moment she was “truly alive” when she tried to escape with her daughter, even after being stabbed. Cool story, monster.

Meanwhile, Maeve relives the moment when she fought back against the Man in Black and slits the throat of one of her hookers. THANDIE NEWTON CAME TO SLAY, BITCH. She is serving you TV diva in spades and it’s almost enough to make me want to keep watching Westworld after this week. She flees the scene, all the while remembering the same story the Man in Black is telling James Marsden. When Maeve is brought back to the lab in the past, she’s inconsolable until Ford powers her down and wipes her memory. OR SO HE THOUGHT, BECAUSE SHE JUMPS OUT HER CHAIR AND STABS HERSELF IN THE NECK. Back in the present, Maeve is found by the extraction team and taken back to the lab.

The rescued woman wants James to kill the Man in Black. He can’t do it. So she kills James as more of those fantastic beasts from earlier surround them. She tells the Man in Black, “Wyatt will need you soon.” With any luck, I’ll never find out what the fuck she’s talking about. Bye Westworld!

[Update: An earlier version of this post stated that Amy Winehouse's “You Know I’m No Good," was playing.]

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