Spoilers below for Westworld’s season-two finale. You’ve been warned!
Always stick around until the very end of prestige cable dramas! If you turned off Westworld when Radiohead kicked in during the end credits of the season-two finale, you’ll be surprised to learn that you missed a pivotal scene involving William (Ed Harris) and his daughter Emily (Katja Herbers). Except, maybe it actually wasn’t William or Emily? Let’s briefly recap it, and do our best to analyze what it means for the show going forward.
Making his descent from the park to a very antiquated-looking underground facility, an injured William soon comes face-to-face with someone who appears to be his daughter. Despite seemingly fresh from killing her in the prior episode — ugh, this family — he appears unperturbed. “Oh fuck, I knew it.†he says. “I’m already in the thing, aren’t I?†“No, the system’s long gone,†Emily responds. “This isn’t a simulation, William. This is your world. Or what’s left of it.†He’s then lead to a room identical to where we previously saw James Delos boogie down to Roxy Music, with this essentially confirming our suspicions: This is a host version of Emily, and this scene takes place in a different timeline from the events in the rest of the episode.
But not only a different timeline! After a bit of dialogue that mirrors the previous William-Delos interactions, Westworld gets as close as possible to confirming that William isn’t actually a human, but rather a host himself. And not only that, but he’s been a guinea pig much like James Delos once was.
WILLIAM: “How many times have you tested me?â€
EMILY: “It’s been a long time, William. Longer than we thought. I have a few questions for you, the last step is a baseline interview that allows us to verify.â€
WILLIAM: “For what?â€
EMILY: “Fidelity.â€
[Cue a close-up of Harris’s hauntingly beautiful blue eyes, realizing he knows as little about what’s going on as we do.]
With Host William now taking center stage, this leaves us with quite a few key questions going into the third season: Why was a host version of William created in the first place? Where is Human William? And when exactly is this scene happening? Thanks for the headache, HBO.