"Westworld" think it's on the side of the Man in Black (Ed Harris), and by extension, the audience. The series lectures us constantly about how, in Hale's words, "Most of the guests just want a warm body to shoot or to f---. They'd be perfectly happy with something less baroque." nature of the show, if you'll indulge me, could be a powerful one. Reflecting the tensions in popular entertainment in the divide that places Hale, the late Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), Logan and the Board against the Man in Black, William and even in his own way Ford, could be a powerful thing. The problem is that on balance, "Westworld" is giving us as much of - or more than - the story that Hale, Cullen and Logan want as it is delivering the deeper meaning the Man in Black wants, and the sensitivity that William craves. Again, there's something fascinating about a show that is predicated on oppressed people, especially women, achieving the consciousness that would make them dangerous. There's something especially radical, particularly in this political moment, about suggesting that trauma can be both an anchor for a person's personality and a limitation, a defining experience that doesn't allow a person, or a host, to see too far beyond their cornerstone. But what "Westworld" does in this episode is to subordinate Dolores's experiences to an info dump, to make her the sum of what Ford and Arnold did together, and what Dolores herself did to Arnold. This isn't a story about how trauma has shaped Dolores, and who she's becoming. It's a story about what Ford and Arnold created, how one of their creations lashed out at them, and how Ford, the surviving partner, built Bernard in order to re-create his own lost sense of partnership.
