Westworld Episode 5 Recap and Preview of What’s to Come

Westworld Episode 5 recap and a preview of what’s to come

For the first time, HBO‘s Westworld opens not with Dolores, but with Ford, having a drink with the old cowboy host, telling a story about the saddest thing he ever saw. As a kid, he and his brother had a pet greyhound. One day, the dog was off his leash, he spotted a cat, and ran for it – much like he had been trained to do as a race dog. Of course, he killed the cat. But that wasn’t what struck Ford as sad; it was that after, the dog looked confused. He spent his whole life trying to catch that thing, and now he had no idea what to do.

The Man in Black is still with Lawrence, but now he has a dying Teddy with him. A young boy — the same one from a few episodes ago, I think — comes up to them. The Man in Black sends him to get some water, which is just a ruse. He enjoyed his time with Lawrence, but believes the path that brought him this far wasn’t to find Lawrence; it was to find Teddy. With that, the Man in Black slits Lawrence’s throat and hangs him from the tree by his ankles, letting him bleed into their spare water sack. He then transfuses Teddy with Lawrence’s blood. The Man in Black laments on how hosts used to be beautiful, intricate machines, but now they are flesh and bone. It was supposed to make them more real, but the Man in Black knows it was just to cut down on costs. Between the blood transfusion and the reminder that they have to go find Wyatt, who made off with Dolores, fire burns in Teddy’s eyes. He’s ready to go.

The Man in Black and Teddy go for a drink in a saloon. Ford joins them, which the Man in Black sees as a rare honor. “Everything good at rotten in your life is thanks to this man,” he says to Teddy by way of introduction. The Man in Black turns his attention to Ford and asks if he is any closer to what he is looking for. Wyatt is a new construct, a “true villain,” which fills the void which the Man in Black sought to fill. He thinks Wyatt was created to stop him from looking for the center of the maze. “If you are looking for the moral of the story, you could just ask,” Ford suggests. The Man in Black is apparently looking for Arnold, and thinks he may have left something behind. He threatens Ford with a knife, which Teddy takes from him with surprising force. Ford is not there to talk the Man in Black out of it, and hands him back his knife.

Logan, William, Dolores, and Slim arrive at Pariah. Dolores hears a voice telling her to find him; it quickly passes. Pariah is a far more wild town than Sweetwater, which pleases Logan. He confides to William that his company is looking to buy a bigger stake in the park. In addition to fistfights and sex out in the open, there are many soldiers, sitting around, waiting. They call themselves the Army of New Virginia, or Confederados – Confederate soldiers who refused to surrender. Now they act as mercenaries. This excites Logan – he is ready for war.

Dolores recalls the shooting in Sweetwater, and tells William that she is starting to believe she has many choices, many paths she could take. It feels like the whole world is calling to her. William is a little confused, because he thought hosts weren’t supposed to think like that. Dolores wanders off to stare at a Day of the Dead parade and appears to see herself, while Logan, once again, tries to convince William to join him at a brothel. He teases William for believing that Dolores, a host, “understands.” Overwhelmed by the parade, Dolores passes out.

She “wakes” in the lab, but finds Ford interviewing her, not Bernard. He asks her if she remembers the man he used to be; she doesn’t. He asks about Arnold, the man who created her; she doesn’t know him. He asks if she has been hearing voices; she simply answers no. Putting her into analysis mode, Dolores confirms that her last interaction with Arnold was the day he died. The last thing he told her was that she was going to help him destroy this place. Ford seems weary and eventually leaves her. Once alone, Dolores says, “He doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him anything.”

When Dolores returns to the park, she believes she had troubled dreams last night. Logan turns Slim into his boss, Alonzo, but instead of money, he wants an introduction to the Confederados. Alonzo declines, whores are offered, guns are pulled. Dolores recognizes that Alonzo is seeking something and offers to help him obtain it. The Confederados are waiting for a shipment of nitroglycerin being brought in by Union soldiers. Logan’s crew agrees to obtain it and head out into the mountains to wait for the soldiers. He assures Dolores that he has a plan so no one will get hurt. With Logan, however, that is easier said than done. When they see the Union soldiers, Logan faces off with them. William and Dolores beg for a peaceful exchange. The soldiers insist they don’t have any nitroglycerin, and when Logan sees they are lying he isn’t happy. Logan starts beating up the soldiers, gunfire is exchanged, and Slim dies. One of the soldiers holds a gun to Dolores, and William shoots him dead. He shoots another soldier, and a third, who is choking Logan. When the dust settles, Logan is proud of William for “getting into it.” They return to Pariah, where Alonzo isn’t too concerned with losing Slim – that’s the cost of doing business. The Confederados are excited to start blowing stuff up, until Alonzo offers them three gold-painted whores. The explosions can wait until tomorrow.

Inside the brothel, every kink and desire is being catered to. The eldest Confederado invites Logan and William to join his crew. William flat-out declines, which pisses off Logan. “You finally let loose!” Things grow heated between the two, and Logan explains that he picked William for this trip because he isn’t a threat to him, or anyone at the company. William throws Logan against a wall, is about to punch him – then stops and lets him go. Checking back at the couch, he sees Dolores is gone.

Dolores is wandering the halls and finds a fortune teller in a back room. She sits and picks a tarot card. It has the image of the maze on it, and she asks what it means. Suddenly, the fortune teller is herself. “You must follow the maze,” the vision of Dolores tells her. “Perhaps you are unraveling.” Dolores sees a thread poking out of her arm and pulls – it tears open her arm. She screams, and her arm is back to normal, the fortune teller gone. Dolores races from the brothel and catches Alonzo’s men filling Slim’s body with the nitroglycerin and refilling the bottles with tequila. Dolores returns to the brothel, where she tells William what she saw. She is worried they will kill them, but believes “together, we can find a way out. There is a voice inside, telling me I need you.” They kiss.

Outside, the Confederados are playing catch with the bottles of nitroglycerin. One of them drops, and they prepare for the explosion – but nothing happens. They turn to Logan and start beating the hell out of him. William and Dolores come out and see Logan getting beat up. He begs for help, but William refuses. He grabs Dolores by the hand and they run, but are confronted by more Confederados, who take this betrayal as a declaration of war. William fires on them; they grab him; he tells Dolores to run. Instead she takes out her gun and kills them all in the blink of an eye. William is shocked and Dolores explains that she decided not to be the damsel anymore. A train is coming; it is their only chance to make it out alive. They run for it and hop aboard. On the train, they come face to face with Alonzo. Everyone pulls guns, but Dolores points hers at the coffin, containing the nitro-filled corpse of Slim. Alonzo backs off and tells them to call him Lawrence. The maze is carved on the coffin lid.

In the lab, a pair of techs are working on Maeve again. It is break time, and while his partner goes out for a sandwich and some VR loving, Felix stays behind to work on a bird he “borrowed” from the park. He is practicing his programming on the bird, in the hopes that he could get good enough for a promotion. When his partner returns to the room, he flips out, accusing Felix of stealing, and reminds him he is a butcher, “that’s all you will ever be!” He says they have another body – and wheels in Maeve, once again.

Elsie is working to recalibrate a host named Bart when she sees two techs roll out the host who tried to kill her. They tell her they are taking it to “livestock,” then the incinerator. Elsie follows. Felix and his partner see her and fear they are in trouble, but Elsie goes to another tech, Destin, and blackmails him. She has a video of him having sex with a host in the lab, and warns that she will spread it around if he doesn’t give her access to the host who attacked her. Destin acquiesces.

While examining the host, Elsie notices something about his palm. She sees something that looks like a little red LED. She tweezes it out, then finds it is a lot bigger than she thought. It goes in a line, all the way up the host’s arm. Elsie goes directly to Bernard and drops a surprisingly big piece of tech on his desk. It is a laser-based satellite communicator. He was being used to smuggle data out of the park. There is a mole.

Back in the lab, Felix is alone, so he goes back to programming the bird. This time he is successful, and quite pleased with himself. Then he notices Maeve, sitting up on her exam table, the bird resting contentedly on her outstretched finger. “I want to have a chat with you,” she tells Felix.

You can watch a preview of what’s to come in upcoming weeks below!