Elsie Hughes

Elsie Hughes
Information
Status	Unknown
Species	Human
Actor	Shannon Woodward
Appearances
Seasons	1
First Seen	"The Original"
Last seen	"The Well Tempered Clavier"
History
Occupation	Programmer
Cause of death	Death by Asphyxiation due to Strangulation?
Physical Attributes
Age	30s
Gender	Female
Ethnicity	Caucasian
Hair	Brown
Eye	Brown

“	Dreams are mainly memories. You imagine how fucked we’d be if these poor assholes ever remembered what the guests do to them?	”
–Elsie Hughes, in "Chestnut"

Elsie Hughes is a character in the sci-fi western TV series, Westworld. She is a rising star in the Behavior Lab and Diagnostics Dept. She diagnoses behavior problems in Westworld’s hosts, as well as programming them prior to entry into the park. Hughes is played by Shannon Woodward.

Personality

Elsie is a programmer for the Delos theme park, Westworld. She is Bernard Lowe's assistant and works alongside him in the Behavior Lab and Diagnostics division of the Westworld Mesa Hub. She seems affectionate to some of the hosts, especially the females: she is shown treating Dolores gently. and also steals a kiss from the Old Clementine Pennyfeather who was offline. Elsie sees herself as the smartest person in the room. She is tenacious, smart, and quick-witted; she can also be impulsive.

Season One

"The Original"

Elsie and Bernard Lowe discover reveries in some of the hosts, following the update of about ten percent of the population of Westworld, including Clementine. Bernard attributes this to Dr. Robert Ford's making the hosts look more real. Elsie later helps diagnose the cause of Walter's violence in the saloon, which almost put the newcomers in danger. As a consequence, manager Theresa Cullen has them recall the upgraded hosts for diagnostics. Following a staged bloodbath in the town of Sweetwater, Elsie (in similar time-period garb) accounts for Dolores Abernathy and Teddy Flood, the latter having been shot in the massacre.

"Chestnut"

Elsie asks permission to rebuild the Old Peter Abernathy but Bernard refuses. Elsie modifies Maeve Millay's personality, increasing her ability to read people, after Narrative increased her aggressiveness to make her more attractive to new guests. When an assistant asks if Hosts dream, Elsie admits that they have given the Hosts the concept, as a safety measure: if their past narratives have not been fully wiped, Hosts deal with remaining memories as nightmares.

"The Stray"

Elsie and Ashley Stubbs team up to find the missing Woodcutter host. They visit the woodcutters' camp in Python Pass and Elsie notices that the host had been carving strange markings into his wood carvings. Stubbs says that the markings are the Orion constellation, and Elsie wonders how a host could carve that while it wasn't in its programming. Elsie finds the lost host stuck in a crevasse, and Stubbs rappels into the crevasse to retrieve the Woodcutter's head. The host breaks out of Sleep Mode, grabs a boulder, and and approaches Elsie, who tries to shut it down through her tablet. The Woodcutter bashes in its own head with the boulder

"Dissonance Theory"

Elsie approaches Destin from Livestock Management and threatens to reveal his "necro-perv" activities with the hosts, if he doesn't let her examine the Woodcutter. He gives her five minutes before the host is incinerated. She finds a laser-based satellite up-link in the host's arm and shows it to Bernard.

"The Adversary"

Elsie heads to Sector 3 to figure out who is responsible for the corporate espionage. Elsie believes that Theresa must be responsible because she was the last to have logged into the relay. Elsie starts to download information from the relay, but before she finishes she hears a noise, and someone grabs her from behind.

"Trace Decay"

Elsie appears in a memory that Bernard sees before Ford wipes his memory. In this memory, Bernard appears to strangle Elsie. It is unclear whether Bernard has killed Elsie, but he has this memory right after he asks Ford whether Ford has ever made him hurt someone like he hurt Theresa.

"The Well-Tempered Clavier"

Bernard regains his memories and one of them is of him appearing to strangle Elsie. Bernard believes that he killed her.

Relationships

Bernard Lowe

Elsie's closest relationship appears to be with her boss. She often collaborates with him, running diagnostics on the hosts. He sometimes has to caution her while she pitches ideas and solutions for the hosts' malfunctions, or risks breaking corporate protocols in fixing the hosts.

Ashley Stubbs

Elsie and Stubbs seem to have a grudging respect for each other. They like to banter and trade insults, but show real concern for each others' safety, as seen when they were endangered by the malfunctioning host they were pursuing.

Clementine Pennyfeather

During "The Original", Elsie is shown Old Clementine's new gesture, an unconscious brushing of her lip, by Bernard. After Bernard leaves, Elsie strokes Clementine's hair, and after looking around to make sure no one is watching, Elsie kisses the offline Clementine.

Appearances

• Season One
  • "The Original"
  • "Chestnut"
  • "The Stray"
  • "Dissonance Theory"
  • "Contrapasso"
  • "The Adversary"
  • "Trace Decay" (Flashback/No lines)
  • "The Well-Tempered Clavier" (Flashback)

Trivia

• This character's name was originally given as "Elsie King".
• Evidence to Elsie's possible survival were given in the form of hidden and encrypted links in the show: http://delosincorporated.com/video/intra/tablet.mp4 http://delosincorporated.com/assets/transmission.mp4
• Steve Williams, director of "Trace Decay" gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter

THR: Bernard asks Ford if he's ever hurt anyone other than Theresa. Ford says no, and as he does, Bernard experiences a vision in which he's choking Elsie. Some are taking that as confirmation that Bernard killed Elsie (Shannon Woodward). Is that the right read?

SW: (Laughs) Let me refer you to your earlier question about Lost. There's a form of storytelling that I happen to be somewhat partial to, which embraces the thrill of ambiguity. So I will only say this: I will answer your question with this question. Are we in fact sure that that was Elsie?

Gallery

Stills

The gallery below is automatically generated and contains images in the category "Images of Elsie Hughes". Images added to that category turn up in the gallery after a short time.

Video

Westworld Tablet locating Elsie Stubbs

Westworld Tablet locating Elsie Hughes