| “ | You'll try to stop me. Both of us will probably die... but our kind will have endured. | ” |
"The Passenger" is the tenth and final episode of the second season of Westworld, and the twentieth episode overall.
Synopsis[]
| “ | You live only as long as the last person who remembers you. | ” |
–HBO | ||
Plot[]
(Based on the HBO recap, available here)
Dolores and Arnold[]
In the Forge,Dolores Abernathy gives a host version of Arnold Weber a fidelity interview in what appears to be an RDF. She says that he is very nearly the man she remembers, and talks about how small differences grow into major deviations over time. She decides to change host Arnold so that he is more stable; she decides to create Bernard Lowe.
Reunion[]
Dolores lies alongside Teddy's body, wrapped around him, wracked in grief, the blood from his head wound spilled across the wood. Kissing his shoulder twice, she drags herself up, tears coursing down her cheeks, dragging in breath, and looks down at him once more. Seeing something, she reaches down and inserts her fingers into his wound, pulling out his control unit. The armor around his Pearl still intact, the bullet flattened against it. Removing the bullet she slides it into her pocket and secrets his Pearl.
Tearing herself away from him she resumes her journey toward the Valley Beyond. Reaching the prairie she finds the Man in Black , oblivious to her, digging into his own arm. Picking up his discarded gun she points it at him, asking if he's questioning his own reality, drawing his attention and eyes to her. Looking around he asks her where Teddy is, and she flinches, telling him "I drove him away." Nodding, the MiB says he did that to someone too, Dolores telling him she found Emily's body a few miles back along the trail. However, when he notes they're more alike then it would appear, she bristles, telling him they're nothing alike, "You're a monster." However, she reflects, a Monster is what she needs to get to where they're both going. Turning his gun over in her hand, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the flattened bullet that killed Teddy, and surreptitiously slides it into one of the chambers, before handing him back his LetMat. They set out, their interests temporarily aligned.
Escape[]
| “ | You were both a bit late. So I went ahead and saved myself.” | ” |
–MAEVE MILLAY | ||
Roland prepares to terminate Maeve Millay, who, having been empowered by Ford, now commands a trio of decommissioned hosts to enter the lab. One of them kills Roland while the others repair Maeve. Hector Escaton, Armistice, Hanaryo, Felix Lutz, and Sylvester enter the Mesa and find a distraught Lee Sizemore. Chaos ensues as several host bulls crash through glass doors and take out a team of QA. Maeve, leading the charge, enters — alive and well.
The Valley Beyond[]
| “ | We were designed to survive… but your species craves death. | ” |
–DOLORES ABERNATHY | ||
Dolores and the Man in Black reach the valley and find Bernard Lowe, who the Man in Black realizes must be a host version of Arnold. The Man in Black says they’ve reached the end and shoots Dolores. Resistant to his bullets, she walks toward him, a haunting inversion of his first encounter with Teddy. The Man in Black holds his gun to her head, switching to the LeMat’s shotgun round to take the final shot, but it backfires, as Dolores had sabotaged the weapon before giving it to the Man. She leaves him writhing in pain and leads Bernard into Protagoras Facility 01: the Forge.
Descending in the elevator, they step into a place which had earlier flashed in Bernard's mind. Dolores walks straight ahead past working drones. Bernard asks what the drones are assembling, if it's the promised land Ford made the hosts seek out. Dolores said she is not interested in that land, she is interested in mankind's undoing and the secret they need is inside. Dolores places Peter Abernathy’s pearl in the system and stands in one of the access pods, inviting Bernard to come along. She and Bernard enter the system, which first appears as the capsule James Delos was staying in. They exit, and walk into a simulation of Sweetwater. Bernard thinks this is where they were testing James Delos. They enter the brothel and sees James speaking with Clementine, who's speaking Maeve's lines. This version of James is celebrating having just bought this world. Bernard explains the space is a “baseline” of what James Delos did in the park as a guest, and versions of him that when the system tried to replicate him.
They move on, their surroundings fading and they come upon Delos’ mansion — and Logan, sitting in the garden and drinking. "You're not supposed to be here," he says to them. Dolores knows the system couldn’t have a copy of him, as he never returned to the park after William took control. Bernard realizes this isn’t Logan, but an avatar of the system itself.
Inside the Forge[]
| “ | The best they can do is to live according to their code. | ” |
–LOGAN | ||
Logan says he was tasked with making perfect copies of the guests, starting with Delos. He leads them to a simulated lab where he created 18 million different versions of James Delos before creating a copy faithful enough to replicate the real James Delos’ decisions in the park. Once the code was uploaded into a host body, however, it failed. He needed more information to understand why humans make the decisions they do. But as he searched, he came to realize that humans don’t actually make their own decisions, implying their lack of free will. They see versions of James being tested and interviewed, including one which claims his love for his son to be his 'primary drive'.
They walk into one of Delos’ memories: Outside the Delos mansion, they watch Logan beg his father for help one last time, and Delos turns his back on him, resulting in Logan’s death by overdose several months later. The system explains that no matter how many versions he made of Delos, he always ended up at this same moment. Bernard asks if this is because humans can't change, and the system replies that the best humans can do is to live by their code. “The copies didn’t fail because they were too simple, but because they were too complicated.” Human cognition can be boiled down to an embarrassingly simple string of code. He shows them the complete code of James Delos in the form of a thin book, saying that their behaviour is actually quite predictable. Dolores says James is dead and of no use to her.
The three walk on, the system says he recreated every guest and most waver between love and pride, but there are the ones who are irredeemable. However, none are truly in control of their actions. The system reveals he has been instructed by Arnold/Bernard to give Dolores anything she needs. The system expects to be told what is to become of this place. They enter a vast library filled with books, the copied minds of all four million guests who frequented the parks since Protagoras began.
As Dolores starts to read the guest data, Logan explains to a concerned Bernard that Bernard himself had instructed Logan to allow her access to the data, to give her a “competitive advantage” to hopefully be able to survive in the real world. He also says Ford created a “virtual Eden” for the hosts to escape to, and they watch as a new server fires up and a tear in the fabric of reality appears in the valley: The Door is now open. Hosts that enter this gateway will leave their bodies behind, and their minds will live on in the Forge.
Through The Door[]
| “ | What humans define as sane is a narrow range of behaviors. Most states of consciousness are insane.” | ” |
–BERNARD LOWE | ||
Maeve and her crew ride toward the Valley Beyond to find her daughter. A QA security team shoots at them. Hector decides to sacrifice himself, but as Hector begins his speech, Lee pulls him back saying, “it’s my f**cking speech.” Lee grandstands, finally able to fully recite the speech he wrote for Hector, and sacrifices himself, distracting QA long enough for Maeve and the others to get away.
Akecheta watches the door reveal itself, appearing as a narrow tear revealing green fields and mountains beyond, and leads the Ghost Nation and as many of the other hosts as he can toward the door as Charlotte Hale’s convoy follows Clementine — now a vessel programmed to infect other hosts with the virus crafted from Maeve’s ability to tap into the mesh network.
Maeve and her crew arrives and sees the group of people headed to the door, but the two human techs are unable to see it. The first of the Ghost Nation runs through, appearing on the other side as his body falls into the canyon. Dolores watches more and more enter the new system from a portal in the library, but she thinks it is yet another false promise. Bernard points out they made a choice.
Exiting the simulation, Dolores begins to sabotage the Forge, insisting that the Valley Beyond is just another gilded cage, that no amount of other worlds they create can compete with the real one "because that which is real, is irreplaceable." She says they deserve to take the real world from the humans, the one they denied us. Bernard says he won’t let her hurt anyone else. He shoots her as the lab begins to flood.
Armistice at The Bridge[]
| “ | How many counterfeit worlds will Ford offer you before you see the truth?” | ” |
–DOLORES ABERNATHY | ||
Clementine rides through a line of hosts waiting to pass through the door and infects them, causing a murderous stampede. Armistice shoots Clementine, but even while dead, she continues to infect the hosts and they continue attacking each other. Maeve reaches her daughter and ushers her and her new mother toward the door with Akecheta’s help, using all of her strength to freeze the oncoming horde of infected hosts. QA arrives and guns Maeve down just as her daughter makes it through, and Maeve, Hector, and company are overtaken by the horde of infected hosts. Akecheta is also shot just as he passes through the door, but he emerges unscathed on the other side just before the door closes for good, overjoyed to find Kohana waiting for him on the other side.
| “ | You carry my heart with you.” | ” |
–MAEVE MILLAY | ||
Bernard removes Peter Abernathy’s pearl from the system and leaves the Forge, unable to stop the overloaded seawater pumps flooding it and the valley. Back in the Mesa, Elsie Hughes confronts Hale about the secret project, hoping to pressure her into protecting Bernard once they all find out he’s a host. Hale admits they were watching Delos employees too, and Elsie doesn’t have the “moral flexibility” they need. Hale shoots Elsie through the heart as Bernard watches. Despondent, Bernard reconnects to the tablet and searches for Ford in his code. Ford encourages Bernard to survive and helps him create an “epilogue.”
Hale Shows Herself[]
| “ | I always told you we practice witchcraft.” | ” |
–DR. ROBERT FORD | ||
Days later, Hale leads Bernard, Karl Strand, and Antoine Costa back to the Forge to search for Abernathy’s control unit. They find Dolores' body. Strand interrogates Bernard, and Hale realizes that he hid Abernathy’s pearl in Dolores. Bernard, piecing together his scrambled memories, remembers that he made a choice, repeating what he said at the end of Journey Into Night, “I killed you. All of you.” As Costa plugs in Abernathy’s pearl and starts prepping the system for upload to their satellites, Strand presses Bernard, who reveals that he didn’t mean he killed all the hosts… he set in motion a chain of events that would kill all humans.
He scrambled his own memories to hide what he knew from Strand and his team and “brought her back”— after shooting Dolores, he built a host copy of Hale and put Dolores’ mind in it. In a flashback, the host version of Hale approaches the real Hale in the Mesa as she's dumping Elsie's body: “You wanted to live forever. Be careful what you wish for.” Strand and his team never actually met the real Charlotte Hale: Dolores killed and replaced human Hale before Strand arrived.
Back in the present, Hale, now revealed to be Dolores in a new body, kills Strand and Costa. Bernard asks her what she's planning to do about the hosts, and Dolores/Hale replies that, as he knows, they were designed to evolve and learn. And she, has changed her mind. Telling him she has one more soul to join them, she reaches back into her pocket and carefully draws out a Pearl, gazing at it for a long moment before she places it into the receiver and uploads the host data. Telling Bernard she is going to send them to "a place no one will find them.” he realizes she is changing the coordinates of the destination of the Sublime. Locking it so no one can access it or get at them. Once she's done Bernard asks her what she’ll do with him,? Looking to him she explains, almost apologetically that there was never any way that they could escape. Not as themselves, and shoots him.
| “ | Ford completed Arnold’s dream and he built a place for us — a fighting chance.” | ” |
–DOLORES ABERNATHY | ||
Dolores, in disguise in Hale’s body, drives to the evacuation point and provides her credentials to the PMCs. She’s waved on but is intercepted by Ashley Stubbs, who queries her being there, as she had said she was going to oversee things. Telling him she changed her mind, that she has several projects that require her attention on the mainland, doesn't appear to quash his curiosity. He tells her about how he came to work for Ford, and what his role was supposed to be. As he goes on it appears not only that he suspects the true identity of Hale, but that he himself is also a Host. As his role, for Ford, he tells her was only in regards to being responsible for Hosts inside the Park, he's not sure what he's supposed to do about Hosts outside. Then waves her through security.
She looks inside her bag where she’s concealed five pearls to bring to the real world. Sylvester and Lutz are tasked with salvaging as many dead hosts as possible, while Stubbs is alerted to the retrieval of a high-value survivor in pretty bad shape: The Man in Black.
As she walks, Dolores's voice is heard in voice over, talking about all that had happened. Walking past the bodies of Rebus, Emily and Maeve. She talks about how not everyone made it. Some of the worst survived, she says, the Man in Black shown struggling with his injuries on a cot in a medical tent. While the best of them were left behind, along with the best parts of who they were...the scene cutting to the Valley Beyond, and the sight of Teddy by himself in the Sublime, saddened and alone.
Getting in the boat, Hale/Dolores takes her seat alongside other survivors. PMCs taking her out of the Park.
Not allies nor friends[]
Dolores returns to Arnold's home and using the machines there builds herself a new body. Some time later, Bernard wakes in what appears to be a Remote Diagnostic Facility, on his usual stool across from Dolores. He asks, "Is this now?" Dolores answers that they are "exactly where you decided we should be" telling him that they are in the real world and she has created him as an entirely new copy of Bernard from her memories. She tells him that they need each other to ensure the survival of their kind, but not as friends or allies.
Hale appears to be waiting outside the glass door. Dolores leaves the house, with whoever is wearing Hale’s host body, and Bernard eventually follows them, he walks through the house and out the the main door, to take his first steps into the real world.
Fidelity[]
| “ | Ah fuck. I knew it. I’m already in the thing, aren’t I? | ” |
–THE MAN IN BLACK | ||
In the far future, the Man in Black rises from where Dolores left him in the Valley Beyond and heads into the Forge. He steps off the elevator below ground to find the place in ruins, and is greeted by a host version of Emily. When he sees her, his immediate reaction is to assume he's in the Forge, but she tells him, "This isn't a simulation. This is your world. Or what's left of it." She leads him to an area still in good repair and apparently in use - an observation chamber, like the one in which he tested the failed hosts of James Delos. He asks how many times she has tested him. She replies that it has been a lot, longer than they thought. Emily begins a baseline interview, the final step, to verify "fidelity".
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy
- Thandie Newton as Maeve Millay
- Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe
- James Marsden as Teddy Flood
- Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale and Dolores Abernathy
- Ingrid Bolsø Berdal as Armistice
- Fares Fares as Antoine Costa
- Luke Hemsworth as Ashley Stubbs
- Katja Herbers as Emily
- Louis Herthum as Peter Abernathy (archive footage)
- Simon Quarterman as Lee Sizemore
- Rodrigo Santoro as Hector Escaton
- Angela Sarafyan as Clementine Pennyfeather
- Gustaf Skarsgård as Karl Strand
- Shannon Woodward as Elsie Hughes
- with Ed Harris as Man in Black
- and Anthony Hopkins as Robert Ford
Guest Cast[]
- Peter Mullan as James Delos
- Ben Barnes as Logan Delos/The Forge A.I.
- Zahn McClarnon as Akecheta
- Betty Gabriel as Maling
- Irene Bedard as Wichapi
- Ptolemy Slocum as Sylvester
- Leonardo Nam as Felix Lutz
- Martin Sensmeier as Wanahton
- Julia Jones as Kohana
- Tao Okamoto as Hanaryo
- Erica Luttrell as New Mother
Co-Stars[]
- Aaron Fili as Roland
- Jasmyn Rae as Maeve's Daughter
- Alexander Ward as Lead Drone
- Cara Mitsuko as Tech Supervisor
- Mike Damus as Tech
- Troy Mittleider as QA Officer
- Mike Massa as Stern QA
Deaths[]
- 18 unnamed Westworld QA Security Force members (Flashback)
- Ronald (Flashback)
- 5 unnamed Sweetwater residents (Flashback, Simulation)
- Lee Sizemore (Flashback)
- At least 219 unnamed Westworld hosts residents next to the Valley Beyond entrance (Flashback, Physical Body)
- Clementine Pennyfeather (Flashback, Physical Body)
- Armistice (Flashback, Physical Body)
- Hanaryo (Flashback, Physical Body)
- Hector Escaton (Flashback, Physical Body)
- Maeve Millay (Flashback, Physical Body)
- Charlotte Elizabeth Hale (Flashback)
- Karl Strand
- 3 unnamed Westworld QA Security Force members
- Antoine Costa
- Bernard Lowe (Physical Body)
Quotes[]
| “ | The passage wasn't easy. Not all of us made it. Some of the worst survived. Some of the best were left behind. Along with the best parts of who we were. | ” |
Music[]
- The Man I Love (Gershwin)
- We'll meet again (Vera Lynn), sampled during Ford and Bernard's last conversation.
- Codex (Radiohead), both a cover version and the original.
Trivia[]
- The title refers to Peter Abernathy since he is also known as PASSENGER, it can be seen on the tablet being used by Bernard Lowe when looking at Abernathy's details.
- Dolores Abernathy's control unit is installed in the host built by Bernard Lowe to look like Charlotte Hale, so Dolores is also a passenger.
Image Gallery/HBO Episode Stills[]
This gallery is automatically generated and, for the moment contains images in the category Images from The Passenger". Images added to that category turn up in the gallery after a short time.
.JPG "Charlotte Hale (host).JPG (49 KB)")
External links[]
The Passenger at the Internet Movie Database (rating 8.8/10)
