HBO's Westworld Recap - Chestnut

The episode opens with Dolores waking up in her bed in the middle of the night. She walks outside and stares at the vast open field.

We then quickly cut to two visitors, William and Logan, who are riding a swanky train into the Westworld facility. William seems a bit more hesitant about the trip than Logan, who has been there before. When they arrive at the arrival facility, Logan quickly grabs two of the hosts and marches off, while William receives an orientation of sorts from a very attractive host.

At the Westworld facility, Elsie and Bernard discuss Abernathy's breakdown from last episode, which was triggered when Abernathy found a photo in the dirt. Elsie points out that, while the other malfunctioning hosts reacted immediately, Abernathy went back to his home as if he were contemplating the photo. Elsie then warns that whatever Abernathy had could be contagious and asks to examine Dolores again. Bernard turns Elsie's request down, pointing out that Dolores was already examined and cleared.

But Elsie might be onto something. When Dolores heads into town, she has flashbacks to last week's violent shootout. Maeve tells her to move along (as Dolores is standing in front of the brothel), prompting Dolores to repeat the "These violent delights have violent ends" phrase her father told her last week. That seems to unnerve Maeve a little bit, as if Dolores just triggered something from within.

Now in full costume, William chooses from a selection of cowboy hats (he picks a white hat, of course) and then walks through an old-timey door and into a train car. He meets up with his friend Logan (who is wearing a black hat) and then the train starts rolling into the park.

Somewhere in the outskirts of Westworld, the Man in Black rescues a condemned man named Lawrence from the gallows. Like the other hosts, the Man in Black knows Lawrence from his past visits, but Lawrence doesn't recognize the man at all. The Man in Black is recruiting Lawrence to find the maze, which the Man in Black calls the "deepest level in the game".

Maeve tries to seduce a client, but she stops suddenly when she has a flashback to what appears to be a violent raid sometime in her past. Maeve is then hauled into the Westworld command center, as her "performance" (aka how many guests she's seducing) has slipped in recent weeks. The unseen backroom staff decide to up her aggression levels and note she'll be decomissioned if her performance doesn't improve soon.

Bernard approaches Dr. Ford about the possibility that someone is sabotaging the hosts, which is the simplest explanation why the hosts are starting to malfunction. Ford dismisses that idea, though.

William and Logan enter Sweetwater, the frontier town that serves as the entrance for the town. William helps a one-eyed man who had fallen into the mud, but Logan pulls him away and tells him that every host will try to drag him into a different adventure or quest. Before they leave to get a drink, William eyes Dolores, who has started her daily trip into town.

Speaking of Dolores, Bernard secretly brings her in to make sure that her programming hasn't been tampered with.

Maeve's more aggressive personality doesn't pay off, as she fails to seduce another guest. She returns to the bar and offers one of her employees some advice on how to deal with nightmares. Maeve then has another flashback, which is immediately noticed by the command center. Stubbs (the head of security) orders that Maeve be decomissioned in the morning.

Bernard has a brief conversation with Cullen about her recent meeting with corporate, as there's a big new storyline coming soon.

William and Logan have dinner and run into the one-eyed man that William helped before. Sure enough, the man offers William a quest but Logan stabs him the hand in frustration, Logan then takes William to the brothel to work out his newfound aggression. While Logan sleeps with three of the brothel's employees, William turns down Clementine, saying that he has someone at home.

Sizemore throws a fit at the body shop, and then asks Cullen to clear more hosts to make room for his upcoming storyline. Cullen asks if Ford has even approved the storyline yet, but Cullen replies that he hasn't asked about storylines in years.

Speaking of Ford, he ventures into Westworld and runs into a small boy in the outskirts.

The Man in Black takes Lawrence to a small town, and asks him about the entrance to the Maze again. The Man in Black threatens Lawrence's family, before mowing down a second posse of men. Right before the battle starts, a Westworld employee asks Stubbs if they should slow the Man in Black down (as he's already killed one gang today), but Stubbs says he gets whatever he wants. The Man in Black also mentions that he was "born" at Westworld nearly thirty years ago, perhaps hinting that he had something to do with the "incident" mentioned last episode.

After the Man in Black kills all of Lawrence's cousins, he kills his wife when Lawrence still won't talk. That triggers Lawence's daughter to finally give the location of the maze, but not before warning that the maze isn't meant for him. The Man in Black then says he's never going back home, and drags Lawrence away to places unknown.

Ford leads the boy to an empty field, where a church steeple stands buried in the sand. It turns out that the boy is another one of his hosts, and Ford sends him away while looking at the steeple.

Bernard returns to his home (which appears to be inside the Westworld facility) and is closely followed by Cullen. It seems that Bernard and Cullen are an item, and the two share a tender moment together.

Elsie gets her hands on Maeve before she's decommissioned and runs a quick diagnostic. As she's looking into Maeve's code, Elsie's assistant asks if the hosts dream (presumably a reference to the classic Philip Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), to which Elsie replies that while the hosts don't dream, they do understand the concept of nightmares in order to cover up any screw ups made when the hosts go in for maintenance. Elsie tweaks her personality a bit and sends Maeve back into the park, which seems to fix Maeve's problem.

After sending one of the brothel's clients off with Clementine, Maeve chats up Teddy and offhandedly mentions that Teddy has killed someone in his past. As the two try to toast to their "indiscretions", a guest randomly shoots Teddy multiple times and kills him...for the third time this season.

That night, Maeve falls asleep and has a flashback to a past life, when she had a family and lived on a farm away from town. However, her farm was attacked by a band of Indians. As she grabbed her daughter and ran back into their farmhouse, they're chased by a brave. However, it isn't the brave that enters to kill Maeve...it's the Man in Black.

Maeve closes her eyes and wakes herself up from her nightmare, only to discover that she's now in Westworld's body shop with a big gaping hole in her abdomen. (Elsie had previously pointed out that Maeve was in physical discomfort due to a case of MRSA). Maeve grabs a scalpel and freaks out the two men working on her before running out of the body shop and through the rest of the Westworld facility.

Maeve runs into a different part of the building where employees appear to be scrubbing down hosts who have died that day (including Teddy) and drops to her knees, which allows the body shop employees to catch up to her and shut her down a second time.

Dolores wakes up in the middle of the night once again and heads back to the field, this time pulling a gun out of the dirt.

Sizemore reveals his new storyline, "Odyssey on Red River", but Ford shuts it down, saying that it's not enough. Ford says that it's not enough to give guests what they think they want, it's the subtleties of the stories. Ford then says that the guests come back to Westworld because they discover things that no one else has, things that they fall in love with. As he says this, we flash to Westworld where William meets Dolores for the first time.

The episode ends with Ford promising Bernard that he has a new storyline that's "quite original", and takes him to the church steeple buried in the middle of the desert.