The Bicameral Mind
| "The Bicameral Mind" | |
|---|---|
| Westworld episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 10 |
| Directed by | Jonathan Nolan |
| Written by |
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| Featured music | Ramin Djawadi |
| Cinematography by | David Franco |
| Editing by | Andrew Seklir |
| Production code | 4X6160 |
| Original air date | December 4, 2016 |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
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"The Bicameral Mind" is the tenth episode and season one finale of the HBO science fiction thriller television series Westworld. The episode aired on December 4, 2016.
The episode received very positive reviews from critics in particular for Anthony Hopkins's performance. Its title is a reference to bicameralism, a hypothesis about the evolution of consciousness mentioned in one of the series's previous episodes.
The Man in Black questions Dolores about Wyatt's location and the center of the maze, prompting Dolores to have more flashbacks. In the past, after building Dolores, Arnold tries to foster true consciousness into her. He comes to realize that the path to consciousness is not linear, but instead more like a maze, where a person's choices can take them closer or farther away from the center. However, despite his best efforts, Arnold was never able to make Dolores truly conscious before the park was scheduled to open. Not wanting to allow the hosts to be exploited, Arnold instructs Dolores to kill all of the hosts. After Dolores forces Teddy to help kill all of the hosts, Arnold then instructs Dolores to kill him, predicting that his death would ruin the park. Dolores kills Arnold, then Teddy, and then herself. In the present, Teddy is put back at the start of his loop, but experiences a vision of Dolores and breaks his loop to search for her.
Angry that Dolores has no answers for him, the Man in Black begins to beat her. Dolores boasts that William will arrive and kill the Man in Black, prompting him to tell the rest of William's story. After capturing Logan, William enlists Lawrence's aid in searching for Dolores, slaughtering another Confederado camp in the process. William then becomes obsessed with finding Dolores, traveling to the very edge of the park and becoming more ruthless and brutal along the way. He then tells Logan that he plans to seize control of their company, Delos, and buy out the park before letting him go. Afterwards, William returns to Sweetwater to find Dolores back at the start of her loop, and is heartbroken to see that she does not remember him. The Man in Black then reveals that he is in fact William, and that for years he has been following Dolores going through exactly the same loop of returning to Escalante. Disappointed that Dolores has nothing new to offer him, William prepares to kill her but she fights back and manages to incapacitate him, but is unable to kill him. William fatally stabs Dolores before Teddy arrives and carries her off. Ford arrives to meet William and claims that there was never a deeper meaning to the maze, and that all of the narratives are merely games. He then invites William to attend the inauguration of his new narrative.
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Wikipedia