The Westworld Season 2 Finale is full of deaths
and twists and speeches and simulations. It revealed the Forge, and the Sublime, and
brought the two timelines together – watch our Timeline video for a summary. But what does it mean? What are the stories of Maeve, Dolores, William
and Bernard really about? Maeve’s goal is to find and protect her
host daughter . But in Episode 1, Lee says Maeve’s relationship with her daughter isn’t
“real”. It’s “just a story”, “programmed”
for the park . So Maeve’s arc explores the realness of host love. She hears the story of Akecheta and Kohana. And sees Akane’s love for Sakura. These relationships are programmed, but the
hosts go beyond their code to fight for their love – Maeve is “coded to care about no[one]
but [her]self”, yet she risks her life for her daughter . Love is not just a feeling,
it’s an action – and through their struggles and choices, the hosts make their love real. Still, these are robots in a theme park, which
creates complications. Like, Maeve’s daughter has a new mother
– so Maeve is confronted with the fakeness of her relationship, like William was with
Dolores . But Maeve isn’t disillusioned. She only fights harder, and gets her daughter
to safety in the Sublime . So Maeve’s story is about the triumph of love over code. But love does get Maeve killed and trapped
in the park . It also drives Maeve to violence and hypocrisy. Maeve criticises Dolores for wanting “Revenge”
, and for controlling hosts . But then Maeve gets revenge on William , and uses her voice
power to control and kill many hosts . Maeve’s passion leads her to the same kinds of violence
she’d criticised. But maybe it’s because Maeve’s love is
so bloody and complicated that it feels so real .
Dolores’ arc asks how far she’ll go to survive – in Ep 1, Bernard says he’s “frightened
of what [she] might become” . Dolores’ plan is to get the human data from the Forge
to use as a “weapon” against humans in the real world . And along the way, Dolores
does terrible things . She tortures and kills lots of humans, rips the brain from her father’s
head, and reprograms her love Teddy , driving him to suicide . While Maeve sacrifices herself
for her loved ones, Dolores sacrifices her loved ones for her war . And she argues this
violence is necessary . This is “Who [she] need[s] to be in order to survive” , and
maybe she’s right – unlike Maeve, Dolores survives and escapes the park. But is all of her violence really necessary? Dolores hunts and kills human civilians, she
betrays and massacres Confederados , kills Ghost Nation hosts, and in the finale, tries
to delete the Sublime – and all the hosts inside . This isn’t just about survival. She says this is a “a reckoning” . She
tells Confederados and Ghost Nation that they don’t “deserve to make it” . She says
she wants to “dominate this world” . So Dolores isn’t just a “survivor” – she’s
a conqueror bringing vengeance and judgement on both humans and hosts. Bernard fears she’ll “burn [the] world”
and “kill … Every man, woman, and child” . Dolores is capable of evil – but she’s
also able to “change” . After Bernard kills then brings back Dolores in Charlotte’s
body, Dolores saves the Sublime. And she brings Bernard out of the park, saying
Bernard isn’t her “friend”, but that his point of view will help them both survive
. So Bernard in Episode 1 was right to be frightened – Dolores’ fight changes her
into a violent vengeful killer . But she’s still able to question, and grow. So maybe Dolores can keep up her fight without
becoming just as bad as her enemies . So, while the season explores how hosts can
grow and change, it says that humans… can’t. William struggles with his human nature. He says his violence and obsession is a “stain”
. In the real world, he acts like a “good guy” – a “Philanthropist” and “Family
man” . But it’s a lie – he can’t hide his true nature, which leads to the suicide
of his wife Juliet . This season, he tries to change . He saves Lawrence’s family,
instead of killing them like usual . But as Lawrence’s daughter says, “One good deed
doesn't change” who William is . William’s daughter Emily offers a chance to heal their
relationship, and escape the park . But William fails to face his past and open up to Emily
. He rejects her, gets paranoid, and kills her. Again and again, William fails to change,
and so he questions his free will – does he have a choice , or can he only follow his
“code”? . Years ago, William started the Delos “project”
– he built the Forge to decode the human mind, he ran the James Delos experiment to
make people immortal. But by Season 2, he sees this project as his
“greatest mistake” . Cause it takes away the illusion of free will . It reduces people
to code, traps them in loops , represents judgement – which is William’s worst nightmare. So his goal this season is to destroy the
Forge . He wants to prove “That no system can tell [him] who [he is]. That [he has] a … choice” . But again
William fails – in the finale, he gets hurt by Dolores, then is rescued by humans. But after the credits, we see a copy of William
who goes to the Forge and is tested by a host of Emily. Showrunner Lisa Joy says this is in the “far
future” , and this copy of William is repeating his whole Season 2 quest – riding with Lawrence,
and killing his daughter over and over. Apparently this loop is run by “the hosts”,
who are “testing for something” that “they have yet to find” . Maybe the hosts are
trying to find human free will. Like, if this copy of William can break out
of his loop by making peace with his daughter instead of killing her, that would show that
humans are able to change. Maybe that’s what Ford meant with his door
quest – William has to “make it back out” by escaping this loop, this prison of his
own sins . But William’s been in this loop “a long time” – maybe humans are doomed
to repeat our mistakes forever. So humans can’t change. Hosts can. And Bernard is caught in-between. Cause he’s a host based on a human, Arnold. Last season, Bernard thought he was human,
but he was controlled by Ford. He was forced to kill his lover Theresa, and
to hurt Elsie . This season, Ford’s dead, but Charlotte drags him on her quest. He’s captured by Dolores, then dragged to
Elsie. And a copy of Ford haunts his head . Bernard
is used and abused for two seasons. But in the finale, he finally gets to make
his own choice. Bernard kills Dolores to save the Sublime
, but then finds that Charlotte killed all the hosts , and even killed Elsie, who herself
couldn’t be trusted . This confirms to Bernard what he learned in the Forge – that humans
are “just algorithms designed to survive”, and can’t change – but the hosts can . All
these flashbacks of Dolores creating Bernard show how Bernard is an improvement, an evolution
of Arnold . And so Bernard creates Charlores, as an evolution of Dolores. This Escher sketch represents how Dolores
and Bernarnold have remade each again and again over decades . Humans are stuck in destructive
loops, prisons of their sins. But Bernard and Dolores form a loop of growth,
evolution, and change. That’s why Bernard decides that hosts should
fight to survive – and so he unleashes Charlores. This choice is guided by the voice of Ford. But Bernard later realises that this Ford
voice is actually his own inner voice , meaning that Bernard is now finally fully conscious. After lifetimes of being controlled by others,
Bernard now “get[s] to decide who [he] want[s] to be” . The Radiohead plays, and he steps
into the real world, free . So these are the central stories of Season
2 – but there are side-plots, and unanswered questions. Lee gets a redemption arc, sacrificing himself
for Maeve – which might suggest that there is hope for humans to grow and change. Stubbs turns out to be a host – or maybe
just a sympathetic human. And Emily’s motivations remain mysterious. She wants to reconcile with William , but
she also has this Delos project map. She talks about locking William up , and making
him hurt . Maybe it was her plan to trap William in this loop. Ford says William’s quest “begins where
you end … and ends where you began” , which sounds like a loop – maybe Emily and Ford
worked together to trap William. Akecheta reunites with his love Kohana, except
we last saw Kohana in cold storage – so how’d she get in the Sublime? Maybe this Kohana is a copy from Ake’s memories
– which might mean Dolores is right, and the Sublime is kind of fake. It’s never explained why Ghost Nation captures
humans . Or how Bernard in the past predicts this flood , or how Bernard finishes Strand’s
sentence in Episode 1 . And Dolores says lots of weird shit – she claims to remember the
future, and says the story ends with her and Teddy – which it… doesn’t. There’s lots of weird misdirection and inconsistency
this season – if you wanna hear a rant on that, watch the video linked below. But at its heart, this is a story about love,
survival, and free will. Like last season, the message is dark. Maeve’s arc shows that love is great, but
it’ll drive you to violence and kill you. Dolores shows that you need to be brutal to
survive, and Bernard uses his newfound freedom to continue her war. William shows that humans can never change
or escape their failures. So behind all the twists, the deaths and exposition,
Westworld Season 2 is a bleak vision of humanity and our creations. Thank you for watching this video, and the
Timeline video, and this whole Westworld series. It’s been a chaotic ride, and we couldn’t
have done it without you. Alt Shift X is taking a break, but when we
come back we’ll hold votes on Patreon to pick video topics. We’re gonna do more Game of Thrones, and
a new series – maybe Dune, Watchmen, The Expanse… Comment below if you’ve got ideas for series
to cover. The vote will open on Patreon in a couple
weeks. Shoutout to Patrons Mike Washington, Jas Purewal,
Chaz Albright, Elizabeth Stevanovic, Alex Felix, Ed Kennedy, Stine Fleming, Pebro, and
Full Metal Snowflake. Cheers.
