This review contains spoilers.
2.9 Vanishing Point
Vanishing Point is a tale of two wildly different fathers. One is the father of a real-life daughter, and the owner of the Delos corporation. The other is the father of hosts, who didn’t have a biological child but instead was the father of hundreds of robots, all imbued with his own world view deep inside their code. Ford and William, business partners and eternal antagonists. One is consumed with his own darkness, with solving Ford’s riddle, and Ford is determined to keep William’s project from finding its way off the ground, and with keeping the other man’s darkness in check. They’re diametrically opposed in pretty much all things, with one capable of fantastic feats of love and the other, well… decidedly not capable of loving anyone or anything.
Was the choice to air this episode on Father’s Day, or was that simply an accident of scheduling? In the United States, Father’s Day is the third Sunday in June every year, so if it is something done deliberately, it’s perfect timing for what turns out to be one of the darkest possible episodes of Westworld. Tellingly, it focuses on the show’s darkest character, both in action and in dress, the Man In Black himself, William (Ed Harris). He’s been on the cusp of crossing the line between genius and madness throughout the second season, and with every declaration blaming Ford on every problem he’s encountering, he’s drawing closer and closer to a point of no return.
The bulk of William’s story line has been about perception. At first, he fell for Dolores in his beginning adventure in Westworld. He was taken by her personality, her sweet nature, her surprising capable streak as she shifted from a farmer’s daughter with a penchant for piano and paint to an adventurer, riding alongside William, Logan, and a cast of ne’er-do-wells in search of adventure. He found more than just an adventure, he found an obsession, and it’s clear from the various montages we’ve seen that William made sure to spend a lot of time in his company’s biggest investment, and for reasons other than simply to make sure the guests are satisfied and to make sure that Delos’s secret plan is being followed. He’s obsessed with Ford, and with figuring out Ford’s narrative, and during that process, he’s going to indulge the darkness within himself and reveal himself for who he truly is.
After last week’s brilliant, beautiful episode, Vanishing Point is no less beautiful and no less heart-breaking, albeit from a different angle. Kiksuya revealed that the suffering of a neglected host triggered an awakening of humanity. This episode reveals that the suffering of a neglected family only serves to push a damaged person further away from the human world and into the arms of a world completely under his control. There’s also a lingering undercurrent of darkness, both in reality and in the world of the hosts, that the affected people sell beautifully.
Kudos go out to Ed Harris, who turns in a characteristically strong performance once again with a very difficult character. It’s easy to start twirling moustaches and doing evil tells, but it isn’t that William is specifically evil, he’s simply consumed (and mentally ill, according to his exposed personality profile). Certainly, William’s actions are despicable, especially in Westworld, but he tries his best to keep that secret from his wife Juliet (Sela Ward) and daughter Grace (Katja Herbers). It’s when his secret is outed that he loses his wife and daughter, leaving him nothing but Westworld and the mysteries of the game. William’s darkness, when spelled out by Ford, causes his wife Juliet to kill herself and his daughter to become alienated from him.
Mirroring that, Teddy’s darkness doesn’t drive Dolores away from him, but drives Teddy to kill himself. William couldn’t handle his darker impulses, and retreated from his wife and family to indulge; Teddy couldn’t handle his darker impulses, and took away one of Dolores’ most formidable weapons in the process. He couldn’t leave her side; Teddy is heartbreakingly in love with Dolores. But he couldn’t continue to be her murder puppet anymore, either. He’s not given a way out, or a way to escape himself like William has, and he only has one option.
Both suicides aren’t really surprising. Teddy’s scene is pretty obvious from the beginning, but that’s no slight on director Stephen Williams or writer Roberto Patino. It’s mirroring the suicide we’ve already heard about, that of Juliet. Sela Ward has only a few scenes, but she turns in a fleshed-out performance, making her character less of a cliché and more of an authentic, pained woman. Williams emphasises the artifice of her party performance; she’s laughing and telling big stories and trying desperately to disguise her pained loneliness. He also does a great job emphasising just how divorced from his family William is. Certainly, he does all the expected things—he takes his wife upstairs, tucks her into bed, gives her a glass of water to help her fight her hangover—but it’s all performance, just as false as Juliet but in a much more painful way.
Teddy is also divorced from his reality; he talks of his love for Dolores, but he doesn’t seem to love her. Teddy loves her because Teddy is programmed to love her, it’s his cornerstone. But he can’t put that love into practice because she’s turned his darkness up to 11 and forced Teddy the good-hearted gunfighter into the role of Teddy the terminator. William runs towards his darkness, and Teddy runs from it. William kills the last thing he loves in pursuit of a puzzle, and Teddy kills himself to keep from holding back the person he loves.
Severing that thread is heartbreaking, thanks in no small part to Evan Rachel Wood’s wordless performance. Robert Patino’s set-up to the scene is beautiful, with James Marsden doing a wonderful job portraying the moment when Teddy first sets eyes on his beloved, and the execution is wonderful. There’s a slight delay as Dolores watches Teddy fall, in which she has no response, then she’s plunged into a silent scream of anguish. She’s shocked, or stuck in a processing loop, and then… realisation washes over her face and Dolores is well and truly alone in this world. All she has left is the Valley Beyond.
William is also well and truly alone. His wife is dead. His daughter is dead. Delos, as an entity, will not survive the inevitable rounds of lawsuits and bad press that will come once word of this uprising gets out, no matter how much blackmail material they might have, or how many replicated personalities might be stored in the Forge. A company can protect itself only so much from its own actions. William has no more family, and no more business. All he’s got left is Ford’s last riddle.
Both of them have given up everything for something that they may not even want anymore. A new life without anyone to share it with. Answers without anyone to explain them to. Freedom for hosts who won’t live long enough to enjoy the benefits. Power for a company that has no one to wield it. Immortality bought by sacrificing sanity. What good is any of it? It’s empty quotations devoid of true meaning.
Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Kiksuya, here.
US Correspondent Ron Hogan would love to have just one good tracking shot of himself walking down a hallway or walking through a crowded party. Something to consider for his home movies. Find more by Ron daily at PopFi.