When Bernard is brought to Robert's old bunker he remembers killing Theresa, the head of quality assurance, there. He experiences some distress when he recalls killing her per Robert's directive, and so we can just feel bad for him because the murder is the act of a victim.
Digital waterboarding is presented as a torture method as Hale interrogates Bernard and he's made to experience all the effects of this controversial method of inhumane treatment via a control tablet. It's a totally pointless excuse for the authors to attempt to prove how 'clever' they are by finding some pithy way to distort of the concept of torture. The very next thing Hale does is to put Bernard into analysis mode which proves easy enough, and his real problem is that he can't remember information to begin with - something they'd discover by routine analysis anyway, and which they do discover only about an hour later when he remembers and conveys the information she wanted (the location of Mr. Abernathy's control unit). Besides being an excuse for cruelty, the torture scene was another ploy by the authors to try to elevate Hale in her 'power' role with traits presumed to connote authority and power. She's supposed to seem impressively ruthless, but she really just comes across as immaturely false.
In Bernard's virtual visit to the core code, we discover that Robert had Bernard insert a copy of his mind-data into the code so now a Robert Copy there has the power to effect changes. I see the potential for this to be used to just make any number of things happen (now, in the final episodes of Season Two). We also get confirmation that the park was Delos' experiment to cull enough information from the guests to make copies of their minds - his "ugly little project" as the Robert Copy puts it (in contrast to Hale's "turning point for the human species"). This concept will be highly problematic regardless of the variety of ways that that the authors try to describe it.
Also in Bernard's virtual visit is 'confirmation' of Dolores' retroactive recasting as The Authority on Arnold. The Robert Copy advises that of course her memory of Arnold was much more complete and she was hard to fool, so she was the one to train Bernard to be a faithful rendition of Arnold. We're supposed to believe in Dolores as a genuine authority just because it's stated, and we're supposed to believe that she is knowledgeable and astute just because it's stated. There's really no reason to believe any of it - her senseless actions, cowardice, and swaggering thug-headed simplicity contradict the claim. That Robert is played by the authoritative and believable Anthony Hopkins almost makes me forget that the authors are using the characters and this scene as an attempt to rewrite history in their own favor and contradict their critics; simply inserting a new flashback scene meant to alter our understanding of the past by 'revealing the truth' about Dolores, and rendering a flattering appraisal of her with some words from Robert.
Later, as the Robert Copy predictably begins to operate with agency (just making things happen to tidy up the plot), he has Bernard shut down what's left of the park's system so that Dolores will have free rein. Bernard does so knowing that Dolores will "murder them all" (one of his favorite things to say and do now, evidently).
Maeve runs with the child into a ranch home. The man in black enters the room and remarks that the rules have changed for Maeve just like the rest of the hosts, to which she responds that she's "nothing like the rest of them". She opens fire, shooting him in the arm - proving that she's actually just like the rest of them; shooting people not being any special ability here. She then works her 'magic' and just psychically turns his host gang against him; they use the not special ability to shoot him some more. Lawrence shows some resistance to Maeve, but is provoked by her to remember the shooting of his wife which he now recalls with more poignancy than he afforded the original event. He was basically just disappointed at the end of the original scene, but we're now shown a flashback of a very brief moment of distress before the switch to the fairly impassive resolve. Lawrence shoots the man in black in the torso just a couple or so inches below the heart before being shot by military personnel (this time the man in black has been shot up quite enough to just die...).
Disappointingly but predictably, Maeve watches with desperate helplessness as the child runs away and is grabbed by a Ghost Warrior. The human military force then shoots Maeve down. (By the way, where's her crew? They were engaging the Ghost Nation warriors in the same area just a few minutes ago, story time, but now they've disappeared completely - but we're not supposed to remember...) As the melodramatic strings continue to play, Lee jumps out of a security jeep and stops the militia from shooting Maeve again, asserting that they need her and giving yet another go to the very, very tired line that she's not like the others. We're still supposed to believe in her specialness just because it's stated. There's still a lot of justifying talk and showiness in this show, but not much logic and substance; with characters just simply stating over and over again that Maeve is special, and her having completely unfounded and frankly ridiculous psychic powers (but only when it's convenient for the authors).
A suicide bombing is depicted as Angela blows up the facility where the host backups are kept, ending herself and a military commander in the process (ALL variants of suicide must be depicted in this show, evidently). In a scene meant to showcase both the character's empowerment and her sexiness (it's all about her chest), she seduces the military commander into lowering his weapon so she can get close enough to activate an explosive he's carrying at the front of his waist. It's supposed to be 'impressive' because of her provocativeness and the radicality of the act, but she's really not empowered here since she has to use the escort skills she was programmed for and engage the man in an intimate way - her success is dependent on the device he's carrying (a couple or so inches above his crotch, insultingly). This is to say nothing of the fact that she's also made to destroy herself completely in the process, because the host backups are now destroyed and her backup is presumably among them (I say "presumably" because the soaps have a reputation for bringing characters back from the dead over and over again - something done plenty here). And she's also ultimately sacrificing herself in the service of Dolores' agenda as one of her agents. This isn't a scene of a woman's empowerment; it's a scene of dependency, submission, servitude, and unnecessary sacrifice. The authors could have done it differently, but then they would have missed the opportunity for another sensationalistic murder/suicide. And this one was even not like the others - it was special.
Dolores and Hale have an exceptionally pretentious and immature verbal showdown at headquarters where the long-suffering Mr. Abernathy is being held (still bolted to the chair like a sacrilegious depiction of Christ - his burden being the key he's carrying to the backups of human data). Dolores has determined that she will remove the data from Mr. Abernathy and, sauntering over to Hale, threatens her theatrically with promises of pain she'll cause her if she doesn't disclose how to extract the data. Hale responds with juvenile insecurity, impudently blurting in Dolores' face that she'll have to "rip it out of his f-ing brain", as if there's power in simply being obnoxious. Dolores finally threatens Hale with a surgical saw but Hale is suddenly saved from this gory torture at the last second by a soapy exchange that ensues on cue when Mr. Abernathy suddenly recognizes Dolores and she must rush to his side and switch to sympathetic mode. The switch back to brutality mode comes quickly this time as we see Teddy bash a man's face in with his fist in mechanistic, hot-blooded psychopathic anger. Then, back to soapy sympathetic mode as Dolores and Mr. Abernathy tearfully play through their old lines for old times' sake before saying their goodbyes. The final rapid switch to brutality is Dolores powering up the surgical saw to exact the grisly torture she had planned for Hale on her father instead (she's not smart or sympathetic enough to find another way to extract the data from Mr. Abernathy's head, and she already shortsightedly blew up her useful human in a train). Mr. Abernathy is perfectly awake and aware for this savagely cruel sacrifice.
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