Entertainment

This Week's 'Westworld' Left Fans With A Major Twist, Here's Your Official Breakdown

by Ani Bundel
HBO

This season on Westworld has not been a kind one to Teddy Flood, the one-time boyfriend of Dolores Abernathy. Dolores is Teddy's programmed cornerstone, he would do anything for her. But when she is reprogrammed to be a dual personality with Wyatt, her requests begin to go against his core programming of a gentle, thoughtful, sensitive soul. So much so, Dolores decides her only choice is to reprogram him into a man as hard as she is. But the results have been terrible, and the outcome even worse. Is Teddy really dead on Westworld? PLEASE BE ADVISED: I'm not kidding when I say "Spoilers for this week's episode of Westworld Season 2 follow."

Dolores didn't realize how much she was losing when she had Teddy forcibly reprogrammed. Perhaps she didn't realize how much she loved his gentle ways, until they were gone, replaced by a man who fired first and never bothered to ask questions later. She regrets her decision to do this, though she won't admit it.

But no one regrets it more than Teddy, who has to actually live with what he's become. Dolores talks about freedom, but she didn't give Teddy his freedom to chose his own path. She forced him to become something he never wanted to be. For the last few episodes, it's seemed like the hardened Teddy was here to stay. But this week, faced with mowing down members of the Ghost Nation, he faltered. This was never the man he wanted to be.

He can't live with the self he's been made into. And so, at the end of the episode, he tells Dolores she must finish the job without him and shoots himself in the head right in front of her.

HBO

But is Teddy really dead? He's a host, can't they just fix him?

Supposedly Dolores destroyed all the hosts' backups when the CR4-DL (Cradle) was blown to bits in episode 7. But this week, we learn there is a second server farm hidden in the Valley Below, the thing Akecheta saw being built, and which I'm guessing is what Dolores attempts to destroy by flooding.

This server farm is called "The Forge." It holds all the uploaded data from every guest who every traveled in the park and wore a hat on their head. (The hats are where the sensor recording their brainwaves is stored, this is why Strand wants "every Stetson.") Why wouldn't it also hold recorded data of all the hosts those humans interacted with, if not an actual full-on Cradle back up? If so Teddy, and everyone else, could still be restored. Even if Dolores does destroy the Forge, a copy of it is in Peter Abernathy's brain muffin.

No wonder everyone's been searching for Peter Abernathy. Now that viewers know Bernard deleted the Ford virus out of his head, I'm guessing it really was him telling Charlotte where to locate Peter's brain muffin a couple of weeks ago. (Whether the deletion is the end of Ford though seems doubtful, especially in light of his appearing to Maeve in the lab and commanding her to get up and find her way to the Valley Below.) Either way, finding Peter is paramount for everyone.

But here's the part we need to square this circle: Teddy's been dead. His lifeless body was floating in the water in the Valley Below in the very first episode this season. So how does this jive with him shooting himself miles from the location where he is found?

HBO

But that's not all. The show has made a big deal over Teddy's body in earlier episodes, focusing on it both in the lake and again in the lab. It's not really obvious in the above shot from the opening of episode 5, unfortunately, but if you go back and watch the scene, it's clear: There's no gunshot wound to the head on Teddy. This Teddy who is lying in the lab, pulled from the flood, is not the Teddy we just saw die.

So what happened? How does Teddy, gunshot-wound free, find his way to the lake, where the teams find him and bring him back? Viewers will find out in the season finale next week.