<em>Westworld</em>: From Cradle to Grave
Every week for the second season of Westworld, three Atlantic staffers will discuss new episodes of HBO’s cerebral sci-fi drama. Because no more screeners will be made available to critics in advance for the rest of Season 2, we’ll be posting our thoughts in installments.
Sophie Gilbert: If you discount the flashback scene in which “Arnold” was revealed to be “Bernard,” and in which “Dolores” was revealed to be “Dolores-Wyatt hybrid (Dolyatt? Wores?),” this episode began and ended with characters sitting at the mechanical piano. In the first scene, Dolores trilled a few keys before chatting with her newly hostile and homicidal lover, Teddy, about finally breaking out of their loop for good. And at the very end of the episode, “Bernard” (I have no idea anymore but am guessing) entered the Matrix-like hard drive of the park only to encounter Ford sitting at the piano, happily making music.
, as we know, loves symmetry, pairings, and parallels. Consider last week’s “Akane No Mai,” when Maeve, Hector, and Armistice encountered their Shogun World counterparts, or how the show foreshadowed the reveal that “Grace” (Emily) was the Man in Black’s daughter by having him rescue Lawrence’s child. So now we
