Westworld Review: Contrapasso (Season 1 Episode 5)
Things get muddier and muddier (and not in a good way) on Westworld Season 1 Episode 5, “Contrapass0.”
The strength of Westworld has so far been in its slow world building and the unravelling of the park’s seemingly infinite mysteries. All of that halts in “Contrapasso,” in what can mostly be described as a mid-season filler episode.
The Dolores Dilemma
Development certainly occurs on the Dolores front — finally, after five episodes of having to stay within the park’s archaic female archetypes, Dolores breaks out in a triumphant defeat of her programming’s limitations and saves the life of William.
Dolores’ awakening (done in pants and everything, signifying her transition from damsel to dangerous) comes at a price to the audience. We have seen many “versions” of Dolores at this point: the Dolores who has existential chats with Bernard, the Dolores with William, and the Dolores the Man in Black knows, just to name a few.
The big mystery of the show is the maze. The big story is the Hosts’ rise to sentience. The big bad seems to be forming with Ford. With Dolores’ flashbacks/forwards happening more frequently, and her being pulled to have conversations (whether naked or clothed) with the park staff, it just seems odd to throw the audience out of the show’s own world with brief scenes where she waxes poetic about the nature of sentience through thinly veiled Alice in Wonderland references.
The liberation of Dolores from her code is certainly satisfying and cause for a huge cheer, but having it interplay with her other selves (whether they are duplicates, or Dolores’ from different moments in time) feels like an unnecessary twist that’s been thrown in to lead the audience off the main scent while the show figures out what it wants to do next.
Prince William
The other true plot-advancer in this episode is William finally coming into his own.
At this point, we know that William and Logan are future brother-in-laws who both work for a company that has an interest in Westworld. We can conclude from Ford’s conversation with Theresa in “Dissonance Theory” that Logan is likely a plant from that company to take a hard look at Ford’s current work. But we don’t really know what William’s role is in the park.
It seems now that his fate is, in fact, to take down the entire park from within — at the side of Dolores. William has been pulled enough out of his ordinary world and enraged enough by Logan to abandon the man and choose to believe that Dolores is more than just a Host dedicated to his enjoyment of Westworld.
This added dimension to him is expected, but nice. It’s refreshing to see someone unquestioningly believe Dolores and believe in Dolores, particularly as William is someone who has no agenda with her. He isn’t Ford, her creator, or Bernard, her tinkerer. He’s an objective third party, and his role as the person who may unintentionally help free an entire race of robots is not only Gaius Baltar-esque, but intriguing, as well.
Stray Thoughts:
- Maeve continues to the be a total stealth badass — she’s clearly purposefully dying over and over again to get herself back underground to the maintenance area. What does she know, and why is she the absolute best? (Because she’s Thandie Newton, that’s why.)
- While it is shocking to see the Man in Black sit down with Ford, we essentially learn nothing from their conversation. Teddy having Ford’s protection built into his programming is cool, however, even if I don’t really see much of a use for Teddy going forward.
- Is Theresa okay? Has she stress smoked an entire pack of cigarettes yet? Does she know the dude she’s hooking up with keeps messing with the brain of a robot? So many questions, so few answers.
- Boy…how about those naked gold robots…did HBO have a nudity quota that Game of Thrones just wasn’t meeting?
What did you think of this episode of Westworld? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Westworld airs Sundays at 9E on HBO.
Brittany Rae
Brittany is a writer and avid TV blogger hailing the infamous year of 1989. She trained at Vancouver Film School in screenwriting for television and film, and has gone on to become a graphic designer and blogger in her free time. When she’s not watching the Food Network, she’s trying to consume every bit of sci-fi television she can get her hands on (current favorites include The 100, Person of Interest, and Doctor Who). She’s always up for female-led dramas and, of course, a literal interpretation of the phrase “Netflix and chill."