Westworld — Series 2 — Episode 10: The Passenger — A Review

*Spoilers*

21st April, 2019.

You know, I think palaver is possibly putting it mildly.

You see, I was at my family’s, earlier: an Easter Sunday dinner, so you know.

And … ?

Well … my nephew asked me if I could install Fortnite on to his mum’s computer.

That … 



Turned into a lot of palaver: as we couldn’t work out how to reset Ruth’s password, so we could install the thing.

Although I’ve managed to work out the first bit, at home: we’d’ve needed to reset the password.

There’s more.


Fortnite’s made by a games company called Epic.

And it seems to work a bit like Steam.

If I’ve got it right, the Steam app — or Epic launcher — is an application that runs miniature apps — the games — with in it.

Very unlike the Mac App Store: the games I can buy there run independently of the Store.

Of, course, wanting to know what Jude was banging on about: and as the game was free?

I thought I’d download it at my end.

Ha!

NOT counting the Epic Launcher?

That was about forty-five gigabytes game files.

From what I could see, and unlike many apps I’ve used on the Mac?

Something I could only put on the main drive: a main drive too small to contain it.

For want of of a politer phrase?

Bugger that for a lark.

~≈§≈~

It — it has to be said! — almost put me off my stride.

Stride …

Game: an on-going Scrabble clone on Facebook … 

Oh … 

And TV show … 

Yep: it’s a Sunday evening.

One with time free.

Just enough time, in fact, to catch up with the last episode of Westworld, series two.

~≈§≈~

Episode 10 — The Passenger — … is a many skeined episode …

We see Bernard and Dolores (Jeffrey Wright and Evan Rachel Wood) heading for the Valley Beyond: what the Delos Corporation call the Forge, the super secret area where they project to raise the dead is taking place, where copies of every customer who’s ever visited is stored … 

And where the pair feel they can do most damage … or most help … 

As it’s only there that a door can be opened: specifically to allow the hosts access to a digital world only they can survive in.

~≈§≈~

Elsewhere in the park?

Else where in the park, Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and her team have been following many other hosts as they, themselves head for the Door.

Maeve’s overwhelming obsession?

Is simply to help her daughter escape through the door.

Something that proves harder than she thinks.

Charlotte (Tessa Thompson)?   Has managed to get Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) programmed to trigger host to fight each other … and arrived at the Door in time to cause trouble … 

Trouble?

Trouble possibly doesn’t even start … 

~≈§≈~

Now … 

Good … ?   Bad … ?   Ugly … ?



Remember, last night, I said I was hoping this last episode of Westworld’s second season would be suitably climactic?

I think … I think I hit pay dirt with The Passenger.

What the show’s producers have managed to do is close the loop: from Bernard and the security team finding host bodies at the start of the first episode … 

And managed to do so in a rivetingly watchable way.

Granted, there’s been times I’ve found the flashbacks within flashbacks to be hard work … 

But … ?

But at this end point, I’ve found The Passenger closes this series of Westworld wonderfully well.

Should the series never get another airing?

Westworld’s second series ends with hints of menace from Dolores, hints of a coming struggle for Bernard … 

With Robert Ford as potential shadow in the background … 


With Maeve dead … 

And Ed Harris’s Man in Black suddenly — and truly — knowing himself.

As a host!

We would have room to speculate for hours about what could have been.

Wikipedia’s main article about Westworld tells us a third series is due in 2020.

We’ll have to see what happens, won’t we … ?