"The Original"[]
A naked Dolores is sitting in offline mode on a stool in a Mesa Hub diagnostics lab. A voice over conversation between her and a male voice (Jeffrey Wright's voice) is heard, but it is obviously from another time, because Dolores is offline and while Dolores doesn't physically respond she answers. Apologizing she says she doesn't feel quite herself. The male voice telling her she can lose her mid Western accent, and asks her whether she knows where she is? In a dream, she replies. That's correct he tells her, wanting to know if she would like to wake up from the dream? Yes, she answers, she's terrified. He reassures her, telling her not to be, everything will be fine as long as she answers his questions correctly. As he asks if she understands, a fly crawls over the immobilized face of Dolores, walking across her eye, with no reaction on her part. Answering that she understands, prompts the male voice to ask his questions.
"Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?"
"No."
Dolores' loop begins: Waking up in her bed at the Abernathy ranch. The question and answer voice over continuing, Dolores notes that some people like to see the ugliness in the world, the disarray, she chooses to see the beauty. Going downstairs Dolores carries her painting supplies to the outside porch where she greets her father, Peter Abernathy who is having his morning coffee. The greet each other affectionately, Peter noting her easel, wonders if she's heading out to set down some of the 'natural splendor' around them, a smiling Dolores agrees that she thought she might.
Dolores voice over continues over the great natural beauty around them, noting that she chooses to believe that there is an order to their days, a purpose.
In part of her narrative, Dolores goes to the store to buy a few items.
Dolores rides to Sweetwater, buying a few items from the store before returning to her horse. While loading a saddlebag, she drops a can of milk, as she turns to retrieve it, Teddy Flood freshly arrived gunslinger and bounty hunter picks it up for her, telling her not to mind him, he's just trying to look chivalrous. Slightly startled, Dolores notes his 'return', Teddy reminding her that he said he would be. Happy to see him, they flirt and Dolores rides away, challenging Teddy to race her. Heading out into the spectacular wilderness, they stop to watch her father's herd being driven homewards, When he wonders how they get them all to go the same direction, Dolores teases him about how he dresses like a cowboy but that is about the extent of it. Explaining to him about the Judas Steer who the others will follow. Dolores explains they just know which one is the Judas Steer, just as she knew Teddy would come back. That there's a path for everyone, and his path leads him back to her, and that she knows that things will work out the way they're meant to. As Teddy moves to kiss her, Dolores stops him telling him she also knows that her father still won't be happy to see him
As Teddy escorts Dolores home, they spot the cattle still out, and Dolores notes that her father wouldn't let them roam this close to dark. They hear gunshots. Telling her to stay back Teddy rides ahead, confronting and shooting two outlaw hosts, Rebus and Walter, who have killed Dolores's parents. Dolores follows and mourns her dead father. She is met by the Man in Black, who after she asks for his help, points out that Dolores doesn't recognize him. He strikes her hard across the face, and grabs hold of her only for Teddy to emerge from the house to challenge him. Rather than being intimidated the Man in Black seems amused and irritated, Taunting Teddy he tells him he always wondered why the Park paired some of 'you' off, but he finally realized that in order to make someone feel that they've won, someone has to lose. He tells Teddy that his role is the loser. That he has to lose for the newcomers to win Dolores from him. The moment confirming that despite his arrival on the train with the other guests Teddy isn't in fact a human guest returning to the park, but rather a host himself.
Teddy and he stand off, and Teddy easily outdraws him before he can even touch his gun, hitting him dead on in his chest. Only for nothing to happen. The male voice speaks again, over the moment, noting that they as hosts can't harm the guests, but the guests, can do whatever they want to the hosts. Teddy fires repeatedly, hitting the MiB each time, both Teddy and Dolores stare at each other and him n mystified horror as nothing happens to him, even when Teddy shoots him square in the head. As the Man in Black grabs a hold of Dolores again, Teddy goes after him, and while Dolores begs for Teddy's life, he shoots Teddy in front of her, killing him.
While Dolores is being dragged away, there is a voice-over of Dolores being diagnosed by the male voice. He asks if the things he's told her about the newcomers' power would change her opinion of them, Dolores replies, "No. Of course not. We all love the newcomers. Every new person I meet reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive, and how beautiful this world can be." This last line is said as Dolores is dragged across the yard, by the Man in Black, struggling and screaming. The final moments reflected in Teddy's staring eye, his iris widening like a camera lens as she is dragged into the barn the Man in Black raping and killing her.
Dolores on the front porch of her family home.
Another morning breaks and Dolores re-awakens as before, restored: uninjured and unaware of her lover's and parents' deaths or any of the events of the night before. Going downstairs carrying her painting supplies she and her father greet each other and converse in the same fashion, Dolores confirming she is intending to paint, but this time continuing on, not till after she's done her errands. Peter tells her to make sure she's home before dark, the bandit who cut down the Marshall is on the loose in the hills (referring to Hector, who the Sheriff tried to recruit Teddy to find on his initial arrival). Dolores gently reminds him she's not a child anymore, and that she'll be just fine. Peter tries to tell her about when he was a lawman, an amused Dolores having heard all his stories before, as had every boy who ever came courting her. Peter's attitude towards Teddy is revealed not to be specific to Teddy but boys/men around his daughter, knowing how they think, given to all manner of drinking and mischief. Further amused Dolores wonders what happened to that fearsome ne'er do well? He vanished, he tells her, the moment he became her father. He is what he is because of her and wouldn't have it any other way. Touched, she tells him she'll be home before dark.
This time, in Sweetwater, she does not cross paths with Teddy, who is sidetracked by a group of newcomers led by a returning guest who wants him to show them around, Instead when Dolores drops her can of condensed milk it's the Man in Black who picks it up and hands it to her. Smiling in thanks she shows no recall at all of either him or the horrors of the previous night. The Man in Black calls her sweeter than the milk, then apologizes saying he can't see her that night due to other plans, and leaves.
In the countryside, Dolores is painting some horses next to the river when she is approached by a family of "newcomers." who are sticking his side of the river as the far side is 'too adult' for their young son. She invites the young boy to feed one of the mustangs who come to the river every day. As they are doing so he asks if she is one of the hosts, telling her she isn't real. She looks confused, as if what he's saying makes no sense then telling the family she has to go as the sun is going down, warning the family not to stay in the area near nightfall, as there are bandits in the hills. When she returns home, she finds her father on the porch, staring confusedly at a photograph of a woman in a modern-looking city that he found earlier near one of the pens for the cattle. When he shows it to her, she repeatedly dismisses it, saying it "Doesn't look like anything to me." before going inside to help her mother put supper on.
Waking up as usual the next morning, she comes down and begins her usual conversation with her father on the porch. Only this time he doesn't answer her. Turning around she realizes he is still staring at the photo and queries whether he's been out there all night. Peter reacts in a twitchy, confused fashion telling her he had a question. A question you're not supposed to ask. To an answer you're not supposed to know. As she bends down to him worried he is ill. Peter stammers whether she wants to know 'the question'. Increasingly alarmed Dolores calls her mother for help, as she tries to tend to him, Peter grabs a hold of her, and tells her urgently that she should go, leave. That hell is empty and all the devils are 'here'. He whispers something inaudible into her ear. Dolores, scared, tells him to stay right there, that she's going for the doctor and runs for her horse.
Racing into Sweetwater, watched by a supremely uninterested Maeve and Clementine, she frantically tries but is unable to find the doctor. Turning around though she does see the approaching Teddy and runs to him, throwing herself into his arms, beyond relieved that he's back. Smiling and hold her her he tells her he told her he would, before looking back into her face and seeing that something is wrong. Telling him about her father being ill she she implores him to go back to the ranch with her. He moves to go with her, but before they can leave, the wanted bandit Hector Escaton and his gang enter Sweetwater, intent on robbing the saloon and causing general mayhem. Shooting down people in the street.
Teddy and Dolores take cover on a side street, but after being pinned down for a while, Dolores desperate to get back to her father, gets up in an attempt to get back to her horse. As one of Hector's men turns his gun towards her, Teddy grabs a hold of her to drag her back to safety, shooting , and Teddy rushes to save her from getting hurt. Shooting one of the gang, he himself is shot on the right side of his chest trying to get Dolores behind him. Lying in the street, with her hovering anxiously over him, he tells her not to mind him, he's just trying to look chivalrous, but there is blood in his mouth. Hector's raid is prematurely ended by a adventurous newcomer, While he and his wife celebrate, Dolores is left helpless as Teddy's life ebbs away in front of her. Smiling weakly he is grateful he got to see her one last time, but Dolores adamantly insists he's going nowhere. That there is a path for everyone, and her path his bound with his. Kissing him fiercely she pulls back to find he's dead, leaving her distraught, and in disbelief insisting they've only 'just begun'.
Night falls, and as the celebrations for foiling the heist continue, yards away Dolores is still grieving over Teddy's body. Approached by a stranger Dolores implores her to help her, telling her her father is sick at home, but she can't leave's Teddy's body lying in the street. The stranger is programmer Elsie Hughes. Who gently bends down to her, touching her face soothingly and telling her that 'Soon all this will feel like a distant dream. Until then may you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber.' which initiates sleep mode, Dolores sliding down to lay atop of Teddy.
In a diagnostic lab in the Mesa Hub, Dolores is brought back online by Ashley Stubbs. She has Teddy's blood on her face and neck, in the same pattern as she did in the beginning of the episode. Stubbs follows a standard line of questioning that is very similar to the questions asked in the voice-over at the beginning of the episode, to the point of asking about whether she has ever questioned the nature of her reality, then asking whether anyone she knows did...like her father? She replies that he was scared, he wasn't thinking straight. When he asks about the photograph Peter showed her, and she once again replies the scripted, "It doesn't look like anything to me."
Dolores' father Peter whispers into her ear.
Stubbs asks her what Peter said to her, and she pauses, replying her father told her she shouldn't tell anyone. Stubbs promises her he won't tell anyone else and she responds with, "These violent delights have violent ends." Stubbs asks her if it means anything to her, to which she replies 'No'. When asked if she has ever lied to them, she again says, "No". She is also asked if she would ever hurt a living thing, to which she answers, "Of course not."
The Tech with him completes the wipe of her memories of the day, and voices her dubiousness to Stubbs about the incident with her father and the photo somehow 'not' impacting on Dolores's core code. But Stubbs shakes his head noting 'Not good old Dolores'. Asking if the Tech knows why Dolores is special he shares with her that Dolores has been repaired so often that she's practically brand new. But not to let that fool her. Dolores is the oldest host in the park. Stubbs then prompts Dolores to tell them what she thinks of her world, which causes Dolores to smile.
Dolores' narrative begins again and she awakens in her bed once more, repeating her voice over about her preferring to see the beauty in the world. Heading out to her morning conversation with her father, we find it's the host who was the bartender who served Teddy in the Mariposa on his arrival into Sweetwater, now playing Peter. Follow the same scripted dialogue with him Dolores looks out over the ranch, the moment flashing back to her smiling face as she repeats the words she said to Teddy, to Stubbs "I know that things will work out the way they are meant to". Back on the porch a fly lands on her neck, and she slaps at it...killing the fly.
"Chestnut"[]
Dolores awakes in the middle of the night and leaves her house. Near the barn, she stops. A man's voice inside her head says, "Do you remember?"
While in Sweetwater during her usual narrative loop, Dolores again hears a male voice in her head. He says, "Remember." She turns to look for the voice, and is 'transported' back into a memory of a street filled with dead bodies, and a wolf moving among the dead bodies. Her reverie is in part interrupted by Maeve Millay, who approaches Dolores sardonically asking her to move away from the front of the saloon, not wanting potential clients to think that Dolores is indicative of the 'goods' on offer inside the saloon. Dolores stares unblinkingly at her, and in a voice completely absent of accent and laden with portent tells her "These violent delights have violent ends,", Succeeding in doing the exceedingly rare, in taking Maeve by surprise. A fraction of a second later, Dolores blinks, smiles pleasantly at her, and walks off, leaving Maeve looking perplexed.
"These violent delights have violent ends."
Later, Dolores is about to mount her horse when she pauses to look at her reflection in a window. The scene cuts away to a different scene of her being interviewed by Arnold in a Remote Diagnostic Facility. This meeting does not appear to be in the Behavior Lab and Diagnostics area of the Mesa Hub. Arnold asks if she remembers their previous meetings, and makes sure she hasn't told anyone. He brings Dolores into Analysis Mode and remarks that there is something different about her, fascinating him, but he fears others may not see her the same way he does. He abruptly leaves, telling her she should return before she is missed.
Dolores goes outside again in the middle of the night. Past the barn, she asks aloud, "Here?" She walks ahead two more steps, then digs in the ground. Buried shallowly in the dirt is a gun, which she picks up and examines.
"The Stray"[]
Dolores is offline in the room in the Escalante Remote Diagnostic Facility where Arnold has previously met with her. He brings her a gift: a copy of Alice in Wonderland. She reads a passage from it, of which Arnold asks her opinion. She notes that change is a common theme in the books she has read with him. Then asks about Bernard's son. He quickly puts her in Analysis mode to discover why she asked that. She volunteers that they have been talking for some time and she hasn't asked him a personal question. Personal questions she points out, as per her coding, are an "ingratiating scheme". Arnold nods, 'I see', then asks her to continue reading. Dolores reading the passage "Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is who in the world am I?"
Dolores is handed a copy of Alice in Wonderland, in a remote diagnostic facility.
Dolores awakes as usual in her bed at the Abernathy Ranch. Outside her father, the 'new Peter' is at work, letting the steers out of the pen. In her room Dolores is up and dressed and tidying up. Opening her dresser drawer to put her nightgown away, she is surprised to find the gun she dug up wrapped in a cloth. Unwrapping it she looks at it, but then quickly returns it to the drawer. As she looks in the mirror, she flashes back to the Man in Black pulling her into the barn the night he killed Teddy. As she weeps, scared out of her mind, he pulls out a large knife, and smiles, his eyes almost hidden by the shadow of the brim of his hat. He says, "Let's reacquaint ourselves, Dolores. Let's start at the beginning., before advancing on her with the knife. Her memory ends, and unsettled she looks in the dresser drawer again. But the gun and cloth are not there anymore. She looks confused for a moment, but then brightens and gets on with her day.
In Sweetwater, she again drops the can of condensed milk which is retrieved again for her by Teddy, who has returned from escorting a guest named Marti on a bounty hunt. "Don't mind me, just trying to look chivalrous" he greets her as normal, receiving her pleased smile and quite murmur of "You're back.". They ride again into the countryside, this time stopping at a distinctive wide boughed tree, where Dolores hides her pleasure at his return, by playing it casual, wanting to know if he's going to tell her where he's been? Teddy is vague, answering 'Just...away." and off her vaguely miffed air adds "You know if I could stay right here with you I would." Something about that resonates with Dolores and she takes Teddy a little by surprise by asking an unscripted, "What if I don't want to stay here?" then explains "It's just sometimes I feel the world out there is calling me. Whispering there's something more." The idea starts to take a hold of her, and she takes Teddy's hands noting that he's travelled all over, wanting to know if there isn't anywhere they could go?
Dolores asks Teddy to take her away.
Thinking on it, Teddy opines that there is a place that he's heard of. Down South. Where the Mountains meet the Sea. Where the water is so pure it can wash the past right off a person, and they can start again. Smiling, Dolores tells him she'd like to go there with him. Teddy seems to consider it for a fraction of a second, before his script kicks in and he tells her he'll take there, Someday. Someday, Dolores repeats quietly, Teddy asking her if there's something wrong? Dolores notes that Someday sounds a lot like the thing people say when they mean never. Energizing suddenly she cups his face asking that they not wait for 'Someday', wanting them to go now, drawing him into a fervent kiss. On it's end, the two a little breathless, Teddy tells her that before he met her he was a different man, and he has some reckoning to do before he can deserve a woman like her. Caressing her face as it falls, he tries to assure her that he's close to making things right. Her smile resigned as he tells her someday soon they'll have the life they've both been dreaming of, before suggesting he'd better get her back home before her father starts loading his shotgun. Dolores smiles and nods, but walking to her horse is clearly perturbed.
Their story line takes them back to the ranch at night, the steers once more on the loose, and once again they hear gunshots. As Teddy draws his rifle heading up the hill to the house, and Dolores follows him, the scene cuts to black, with a woman's scream, implying their story continued to its previous end.
Another day in Sweetwater, and heading down the boardwalk with her groceries, Rebus comments on her to a newcomer, telling him he wasn't lying was he? She's as pretty as a picture he notes, before making vulgar comments about her. Hearing them, and seeing Rebus's legs block her way, Dolores diverts her direction, heading onto the street trying to avoid them. Only for Rebus, Walter and the newcomer to rise up, follow and surround her. Dolores tries to be friendly to fend her way out of it, but Rebus tells her that his friend, the newcomer, is newly arrived and he figures the Rancher's Daughter would be a nice way to 'kick things off', intimating they all intend to 'have a go' with her. Dolores tries to get past them saying she has to get home, her father will be expecting her, only for Rebus to tell her they won't be long, all of them closing in on her. Before they can grab the now scared Dolores a voice notes "The Lady doesn't appear to be interested" Dolores and all three men looking over to see Teddy approaching them purposely. The newcomer puts on his hat, and pulls back his coat to his holster, but Teddy matches him. Warning him with a 'Try it'. telling him he may get the draw on him or not, but his odds aren't looking good, he successfully intimidates the guest, who complains to Rebus that he wanted something easy. Rebus grousing that the shaken and humiliated Dolores 'ain't worth the lead' suggests they head to Virgil's to see if he'll stake them. Teddy still eyeing the newcomer till the group moves on, moves concerned towards Dolores who watches them depart with quiet loathing in her eyes, before she turns to Teddy thankful and shaken.
Out in the countryside, near their tree, Teddy tries to teach her how to use a gun. Pulling his from his holster, firing off a number of shots rapidly, the on-watching Dolores looks startled and uneasy by the reports. Turning to her, he hands her the gun and moves behind her to set her stance, cocking the gun for her, telling the still uneasy looking Dolores to take a breath. Doing so, she takes aim at the old wooden coop, and moves to pull the trigger. Only to frown slightly as she finds herself physically unable to do so. Confused she tells him she can't, Teddy misunderstands thinking it's a moral qualm on her part, figuring "Some hands weren't meant to pull a trigger." he thinks perhaps its for the best . Unsettled she seeks comfort with him, only for them to be interrupted by the Sheriff, Deputy and Marti, come for Teddy with word of a new bounty. A big one. Dolores perturbed to hear that the man in question gunned down an entire settlement out near Flatrock, men, women and children. The Sheriff thinking that it might be the man Teddy's been looking for for some time. A man named Wyatt. A character newly introduced to Teddy's backstory by Ford. Dolores asks Teddy about him, the Sheriff answering her for him, telling her he's a pestilence not a man, and that the word is Teddy is the only man to have gone up against him and survived. Drawing her aside, Dolores knows he has to leave again, Teddy again saying that if he could stay with her he would. Worried for him, Dolores asks him to promise he'll come back, which he does. Kissing her goodbye, he caresses her cheek trying to console her as she gets teary, telling he'll be back for her...someday. Which only succeeds in unsettling her as Teddy goes off with them.
Arnold meets with Dolores again. He asks Dolores for help, and calls his discussions with her a mistake. He says he think he should "restore [her] to the way [she was] before." He changes her responses from scripted to improvisation, and tries to explain asking he to imagine there are two versions of her: One who asks questions and is curious, and one who is safe, and asks which she'd rather be. She says she doesn't understand, and says there's only one version of herself. Once she discovers who that is, she'll be free, she says. In Analysis Mode, Arnold asks her what prompted that response, and she says she doesn't know. Then asks him if she did something wrong. Made a mistake? Arnold smiles a little and notes that Evolution forged the entirety of sentient life on the planet using only one tool. A mistake. Bernard tells the story of his son learning to swim, and how he was just as afraid of letting go as his son was. But he had to. Because that's what parents do. Dolores asks if he still wants to change her, and he says no, they'll see where this path leads. He tells her not to say anything about their conversations, and to make sure she stays on her loop, which she says she will, before he tells her she should be getting back, and opens the door for her. Unlike past conversations, she gets up and leaves.
At night in town, Dolores walks along the boardwalk looking contemplative. As she's walking she hears the Deputy galloping back alone from the bounty hunt with Teddy, and races after his horse to hear what he has to say. Listening in as he tells a fellow Deputy that Wyatt set a trapped for them and that the Sheriff stayed behind to fight them off. Frightened for Teddy she asks the Deputy if he's going to ride back up into the hills to look for them? He tells her he's going to send for the Rangers, and that they'll ride up there in force once they get there. Then warns her that, in truth, if there's a merciful god, those he left behind are dead already, leaving her shaken.
Dolores returns home at night, finding the cattle loose again, and pauses to say "Father wouldn't let them roam this close..." before trailing off, as if realizing that she is alone rather than saying the line as she should be, to Teddy. Taking off up the hill alone, she finds her father dead on the ground. Without Teddy around to kill the villains, it is Rebus that grabs her, jubilantly noting she's alone without protection. As she struggles she looks down at her father's body, she sees his face glitch back to the original Peter Abernathy . Rebus 'offers' her to a guest who is there with the newcomer Teddy faced down, several other friends and Walter. But he doesn't want to have anything to do with her as she seems "a little crazy", so he offers her to Rebus. Rebus enthusiastically accepts, crowing to Dolores that she has no Daddy and no 'Cowboy' to interrupt this time. But as the guest suggests, Dolores is not just struggling physically anymore, her mind struggling, her behavior erratic, she repeats Rebus's words "Interrupt this time" without her accent. Rebus hits her hard across the face, and then drags her screaming to the barn. Throwing her into the hay, he locks the door much as the Man in Black did before. Tears streaming down her face, she scrambles back a little only this time she realizes that she has a gun in her hand. Rebus realizing she took it from his holster as he dragged her into the barn. As she points it at him he snarls that maybe she has 'Some Sand' after all' and that it looks like her boyfriend taught her a thing or two. But once again, as with Teddy, she has trouble pulling the trigger, Rebus smirking at her inability to fire, as Dolores struggles with herself unable to no matter how hard she tries. Until she flashes back to the Man in Black in the same spot knife in hand. A look of pure hatred transforming her face, a man's voice echoes in her mind saying, "Kill him", and she fires twice. Shooting Rebus in the throat, falling at her feet dead.
Staggered by what she's done, and in a half daze she breaks from the barn and races for the house gun in hand, hearing a woman's scream and crying out for her mother, only to stop in horror as one of the guests shoots her. Another of the guests sees her and yells at her to get back here, and before she can react, he shoots her in the belly. Dolores looking down to see the blood spill down her blue dress. Before she again hears the man yell the same words at her again, Time looping. Dolores looking down again at where she had previously been shot and finds nothing there. Running, as he tries to shoot her, she manages to get to her horse and rides off.
She comes across William and Logan at a campfire (they are on a bounty hunt). Dolores, exhausted and disorientated, leading her horse struggles into camp, collapsing into William's arms as Logan watches.
"Dissonance Theory"[]
Dolores is shown in another interview with Arnold, in which she relates that the outlaws killed her parents. She does not tell Arnold that she 'killed' Rebus. She tells him that she is in pain, and he offers to take it away. She asks “Why would I want that?” She says it’s all she has left of her family, and she talks about feeling like things are opening up for her. She admits that she used parts of a script about love when describing her pain.
Dolores asks for his help, but she doesn’t know exactly how. She says she thinks there’s something wrong with the world, or with herself, she’s not sure. Arnold says he’d like her to try a secret game, called The Maze. The goal is to find the center of it, and then she can be free. She admits she would like to be free.
She wakes up in the camp where she came up William and Logan, and finds William watching over her. She thanks him.
Dolores runs away from her home after her father is murdered and ends up with William.
William and Logan argue about her coming along on the bounty hunt. William wants to take her back to Sweetwater, but Logan suggests that it would be easier to just shoot her. Then Logan says he has realized that the park has sent her to William to give him something he likes, because she was the only woman that William seemed interested in when they were in Sweetwater.
At the park’s Operations Center, they notice that Dolores is far out of her loop, but are unable to tell if she is with a guest.
The group rides to Las Mudas. Dolores is alone at the fountain in the town square. Then, a girl (Lawrence's Daughter), seems to magically appear (sitting on the fountain). Dolores asks the girl if she is from Las Mudas, but the girl replies, "no". So, Dolores asks her where she is from. The girl replies, “Same as you. Don’t you remember?” Dolores hears a man’s voice say, “Remember” in her head, and immediately she has a memory flash of a white church. Disturbed, she kneels down to see the pattern of the Maze that the girl has drawn on the ground. A lawman approaches Dolores, and tells her that she belongs back at her ranch. He puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her that her father must be worried about her. Her facial expression changes, she hears a church bell, and she 'sees' memory flashes of entering a church, Lawrence's daughter in Escalante, holding a gun, and kneeling in front of a grave. The girl has inexplicably vanished, and there is no longer a maze drawn in the sand either.
Dolores tells the lawman that she’s not going back to the ranch because her father is dead. The lawman grabs Dolores, as if to drag her away, but she resists. William shows up and intervenes. He says she is with him, and the lawman leaves, seeing that she’s with a guest. William notes they’ve got a lead on the bounty they are hunting, and suggests that she stay in Las Mudas. She decides to go with William, and says that she thinks that she needs to keep going.
Dolores goes on a new narrative with Logan and William to capture Slim, a wanted man.
At another camp, she apologizes to William for causing problems. She talks to William about how she thinks that in every moment there are many possible paths for a person to take. William asks Dolores where she is headed, and says that he assumes that the hosts have to stay within certain paths or zones. She admits that she used to believe everyone had a path, She says that she used to worry over lost steer, and her father would tell her that the steer would eventually find their own way home. She remarks that it never before occurred to her that the cattle were just returning home to be slaughtered.
William asks her how she’ll find her way now. She replies that she feels like someone’s calling her to a place "beyond all this" where there’s a place for her. William says he knows the feeling, but asks if she really doesn’t want to go back to her own life. He says that whatever happens inside of Westworld, no one in the real world will know. Dolores questions him about the real world, and William says that she's not supposed to notice statements like that. Then Dolores is shown alone. At first she is in darkness and then there is an enormous full moon near her. The moon morphs into a light like the ones inside the Mesa Hub. Then Dolores sees herself lying dead on the ground at the Abernathy ranch. And, a Westworld employee in a protective suit is standing over her. She faints and, once again, falls into William’s arms. He puts his arm around her waist and guides her back to the campfire.
As the group finds Slim’s gang, they leave Dolores in the field as they get into a shootout. They kill most of the gang, but keep Slim for the bounty. Slim begs to be let go, offering a reward from El Lazo. Logan shoots their bounty hunter escort, and convinces William to go black hat with him, over Dolores’ protests. Logan continues to remind William that Dolores is only a robot, which leaves Dolores confused.
"Contrapasso"[]
| “ | You said people come here to change the story of their lives. I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel. | ” |
–Dolores | ||
Dolores is in a cemetery outside of Pariah alone. The camera pans around, and we see William, Logan, Slim and their horses appear where before there was no one. She hears the man’s voice in her head say, “Find me,” and Dolores in her mind answers, “Show me how.” William asks if she is okay, because he heard her talking to someone who wasn't there. Dolores says it must have been the wind.
The four of them enter Pariah, and Dolores' eye does a weird, robotic fluttering thing. William comments that whoever designed Westworld "doesn't think much of people". Logan points out the Confederados and Dolores says that her father told her that they work as "mercenaries below the border".
That night in Pariah, Dolores stares at a dead body that is propped up in a coffin, and begins having more memories of the massacre in Escalante. She talks to William about wondering about the paths available to her, and about changing her life. William talks to her about people coming to Westworld to be who they could never be in “the real world”, and Dolores asks what he means by “the real world.” When he says she isn’t supposed to notice things like that, she says, “Why wouldn’t I?” She says the world is calling to her in ways it hadn’t before. William takes her hand briefly, before a Day of the Dead celebration interrupts them. As William and Logan talk, Dolores gets swept up by the parade revelers. She hears a woman's voice in her head say, "Our dead are not dead to us until we have forgotten them". She also hears Dr. Ford’s voice say, “may you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber”, and she faints into Williams arms.
Dolores begins to pull a thread from her wrist.
Dolores comes on-line in one of the Mesa Hub labs with Robert Ford in attendance. She says she’s in a dream, and Ford says she’s in *his* dream. He asks her if she knows what a dream is. She says, a dream is the mind telling a story to itself, and that dreams don’t mean anything. But, Ford contradicts her, and says that dreams mean everything. They are ourselves telling us what could be, and who we could become. Ford asks if Dolores has been dreaming again; dreaming of breaking out of her modest loop. He examines her hand, while he talks about how his father told him to be happy with his lot in life, but that he instead decided to create his own world.
Ford asks Dolores if she remembers the man he used to be. Dolores apologizes for being forgetful. But Ford assumes that she remembers Arnold, and says Arnold created her. She doesn’t recognize the name. Ford says that under all her updates, he is still there, perfectly preserved. He calls her mind “a walled garden”. He asks if if Arnold has been speaking to her again. She says, "no". She looks at his hand squeezing hers, and says he’s hurting her. He abruptly calls for Analysis Mode. He asks for her last contact with Arnold. It was 34 years, 42 days, seven hours prior, which Ford says is the day Arnold died. He asks if there’s been any contact since, and she says, "no". He asks what the last thing Arnold said to her was, and Dolores says that Arnold told her she was going to help him. Ford asks what she was going to help with, and she says, "to destroy this place".
Dr. Ford questions Dolores about Arnold.
Ford says she hasn’t, and that she’s been content in her loop. He wonders, if she had taken on that role, if she would have been the hero or the villain. She doesn’t answer, although Ford gives her time. He takes her out of Analysis. He apologizes for bothering her, and says there is no was else left who was there, and who understands as they understand. She asks if they are "very old friends". Ford says, no, he wouldn’t call them friends, and is overcome with emotion and sheds a tear.
Ford leaves, and the lights go off. Dolores, apparently alone, says out loud, “He doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him anything.”
The next day, she meets up with Williams, and he asks if she’s okay. She says she had troubled dreams, before Logan hurries them to meet El Lazo. Logan tries to swing an introduction to the Confederados for saving Slim. After El Lazo threatens to kill Logan, Dolores convinces El Lazo to let them "help him". She asks if El Lazo is seeking something, and says she knows what that feels like. She says they can help him, if he’ll let them. Dolores hears whispers in her head. She has memories of Escalante with a train, and the white church. El Lazo decides to assign them to hijack a Union wagon with nitroglycerine that the Confederados want. Logan is eager to join up, and El Lazo offers Dolores a change of clothes and a hat.
Dolores and William kiss.
Slim joins the three for the job, and Dolores has changed into a light shirt, a bandana, and slacks. She loads a gun, but tells the group she doesn’t want to use it, since the men on the stagecoach are Union soldiers like her father was.
They stop the stagecoach, and Dolores convinces the soldiers to surrender peacefully. As they take the soldiers’ guns, Logan begins to beat and kick one of the soldiers who insulted him. That soldier attacks him, and another pulls out a gun and shoots Slim, who kills the soldier as he falls down, dead. Another soldier punches William and grabs a gun, aiming at Dolores, and William kills the soldier. William then turns to another soldier, who still has his hands up, and kills him.
Dolores decides not to be 'the damsel in distress' any longer - she kills the men attacking William
William looks horrified, as does Dolores, as the first soldier chokes Logan against the stagecoach. Finally, William turns and shoots the final soldier, saving a very surprised Logan. Logan is exhilarated, while the others look tentative. Logan congratulates William, but Dolores says, “We told them everyone would live”. William turns from her as Logan checks on the deceased Slim.
In the brothel, Dolores watches El Lazo as he offers the Confederado leader free drinks. As William and Logan argue, she wanders off. She walks down a hallway, witnessing many people in the midst of sexual hedonism, and she ducks into a room where a fortune teller wearing black sits with a deck of tarot cards. The fortune teller offers Dolores the deck, and Dolores takes a card, turning it over to find the symbol for The Maze. Suddenly, Dolores sees herself, in her blue rancher dress, sitting across from her. The hallucination of herself says she must follow the maze. Dolores asks the hallucination what’s wrong with her, and the hallucination suggests she is unraveling. Dolores finds a thread in her arm, and pulls it to slowly slice open her arm - to her horror. She runs out of the room, leaving it empty.
Dolores runs away from the Brothel in Pariah, and sees El Lazo draining the bottles of nitroglycerin into the body of Slim (in a casket). El Lazo orders that the bottles then be refilled with tequila. She runs inside and tells William that El Lazo has double crossed the Confederados, and William balks, thinking it’s just another step down their fictional story line that he is tired of. Dolores pushes him, telling him that she has a voice inside of her, telling him that the voice tells her that it needs him, and they kiss. Outside, they see two Confederados beating Logan, who begs them for help. William says, "no", and he and Dolores run away.
The Confederados leader catches them, and William shoots one of the them before he is overpowered. He implores Dolores to run, but Dolores’ expression changes from one of fear to a blank look. Suddenly, she shoots all four Confederados.
Dolores sees The Maze symbol on the coffin.
William asks how she did that. She answers that he told her people come here to change the story of their lives. She imagined a story where she didn’t have to be 'the damsel'. They hear the train, and Dolores says it’s their only chance of making it out of there alive. They run and chase down train, climbing onto the caboose as it leaves. They get inside, only to find El Lazo, with the casket, pulling a gun on them. William points his gun at El Lazo, but Dolores points it at the casket filled with Nitro. El Lazo surrenders. William puts his gun away, and takes El Lazo’s gun, saying that they can call him, "Lawrence". William accepts a drink from Lawrence. But, then William and Lawrence disappear and Dolores is alone with the casket. She sees an image of the Maze on the casket, and says “I’m coming".
"Trompe L'Oeil"[]
Dolores travels with El Lazo and William on a train through Ghost Nation territory. As William and El Lazo play cards Dolores looks out the window and sees staked heads lining the train tracks. El Lazo explains that the Ghost Nation did it, calling them "the most savage tribe there is.”
Dolores and William have a conversation, where Dolores tells William that she does not want to go back to her old life, and he opens up about his search for meaning in the park. Struggling with his feelings, William tells Dolores about his fiancée back home; Dolores is hurt by the news and exits the train car. William goes after her, asking: “how can I go back to pretending when I know what this feels like?” He kisses her and they make love. The next morning Dolores shows William a new sketch, calling it "the place where the mountains meet the sea.”
The train suddenly stops and El Lazo sees that the train is surrounded by Confederados, who begin firing on the train using heavy artillery. As a distraction the survivors in the train send out Slim's nitroglycerin-filled corpse, dressed up with a white flag, and El Lazo shoots it, causing an explosion. In the chaos the survivors ride away, and the Confederados pursue them, managing to kill many of them until only Dolores, William and El Lazo are left.
As they are about to be killed the Confederados are attacked by Ghost Nation warriors, who kill them all, allowing the trio to escape. They ride until they come to a landscape resembling the one in Dolores' sketch. She and William decide to go their separate ways from El Lazo.
"Trace Decay"[]
Dolores and William arrive at a riverbank, which Dolores states looks familiar. The two come across a group of corpses scattered along the riverbank, which they identify as Confederados killed by Ghost Nation warriors. Dolores finds an injured, but alive, Confederado who begs for water. William is hesitant to hand over the canteen, but does, and Dolores allows the young Host to drink. William asks the Confederado whether his group were part of the ambush on the train, and after confirming that they were the host reveals that someone from Pariah tipped them off about the train, and ordered them to kill everyone on board. William figures out it was Logan. Dolores tells William they should help the injured man, but William refuses as he was sent to kill them. Dolores protests that he is just a boy, and questions the kind of people they would be if they don't help him.
She goes down to the river to get more water, and hears a voice that says "find me". She also sees herself floating face down in the river, and turns around only to see that William and the corpses are gone. She looks back at the river but there is nothing there, and sees everything is back to normal. She is troubled by the memories, but collects the water and returns to William, just as the host dies.
Dolores and William finally arrive at Dolores' perceived home, and it is an empty, sandy area. The only man-made structure are a buried roof, and the framework of a church steeple with a cross atop it. William looks confused, but Dolores sees the town as it was before it was buried. She remembers the hosts, and the training (some hosts are taught how to dance). Lawrence's Daughter walks up to her, and ask her if she's found what she's looking for. She sees many images: a church confessional, Arnold's hand turning the crank on a music player, Angela on her knees among corpses and crying, and the maze that Lawrence's daughter drew in the sand at the fountain in Las Mudas. Suddenly she hears screaming, and turns to see the townspeople running and being fired upon. She looks for the shooter and sees herself shooting at people. Finally, she sees herself put a gun to her own head.
William grabs the gun from Dolores, who had it raised to her head. He asks her what's going on, and she becomes hysterical, saying she doesn't know what's real anymore. She mentions Arnold, which confuses William. He resolves to take her back to Sweetwater, fearing for her sanity. She realizes that Arnold wants her to remember something. The two are suddenly surrounded by Logan and a group of Confederados. Logan cheerfully tells them, "You are so fucked".
"The Well-Tempered Clavier"[]
Dolores and William are held captive in the Confederado camp, with William tied to a chair and gagged. Logan removes the gag and William asks him to help get Dolores out of the the park, because she is different from the rest of the hosts. Logan scoffs at this, saying William probably isn't the first to fall in love with a host and delude himself into thinking they're real. He chides William for forgetting about his fiancée, and decides to show him the truth.
He grabs Dolores while William protests and she screams and stabs her in the stomach, opening her up to show her mechanical insides. William stares at her, and Dolores sees the mechanics and is shocked. She falls to the ground, and Logan stands over her. She says to Logan, "There is beauty in this world. Arnold made it that way. But people like you keep spreading over it like a stain". He laughs and says that the park was made for him and people like him. She grabs a knife and slashes him across the face, then finds a gun and shoots a few Confederados. William tells her to run, and that he will find her.
As Dolores runs away from the camp she stumbles, overcome with the pain of the gaping hole in her belly. She hears Arnold's voice telling her to "remember." Then, Dolores stands up. However, this Dolores is not injured and is she is not being pursued.
Dolores returns to Escalante. This time the town is not buried, and everything looks brand new. As she enters the church, her clothing changes into the blue dress, and she experiences a memory in which the church was filled with malfunctioning hosts speaking feverishly to themselves. Both in the present and in her memory she walks down the aisle to the confessional, and steps inside. She sits down in the confessional and the chair descends to a Remote Diagnostic Facility. In this memory, the windows on the elevator have dried blood on them, and she has to force the doors of the elevator open to get out. The corridor is filled with dead bodies, and some of the rooms also contain dead bodies and dried blood on the windows. The lights flicker.
In a memory Dolores walks down a corridor and peers through windows into rooms. She sees hosts playing cards in one of the rooms, and Peter Abernathy reciting lines of Shakespeare. She sees a young Ford exit a room, and walk down the hallway past her while he calls out to Arnold. Ford is head to complain to Arnold that Arnold is "not seeing with clear eyes". She walks past Arnold's office door, and it is revealed that Arnold's surname is "Weber".
Both in a memory (in her blue dress) and the 'present' (slacks and blouse) Dolores opens a door and walks down a flight of stairs and into a glass-walled interview room like in the RDF in sector 17. She sits, and in the memory Arnold arrives and also sits. Dolores is happy to see him, almost in tears, and Bernard notes happily that she came back. She tells him she's been looking for him, because he told her to follow the Maze, saying it would bring her joy, but all it's brought her is pain and terror. Arnold tells her he can't help her, and Dolores, close to tears, tells him that he's the only one who can.
Arnold says that she knows why he can't help her, and touches her face to comfort her. He tells her to remember why he can't help her. She looks at him confused, before saying, "because you're dead...because you're just a memory...because I killed you."
Dolores returns to the present day, still sitting in the chair, and looks at the empty chair in front of her. It has undisturbed cobwebs on it. She cries.
After Dolores rides the elevator back up into the church and steps out the confessional, she hears footsteps, and happily whispers "William". As she walks towards to entrance, the doors open and the Man in Black says, "Hello, Dolores." Dolores looks horrified, and takes a few steps backward.
"The Bicameral Mind"[]
We hear Dolores' voice say that she is in a dream, and after a moment we see her face. She is lying on a medical gurney, or something like it. As Dolores continues to speak the camera pulls back to reveal that Dolores is being assembled. A man's hands are smoothing down the skin around her neck and upper chest. Her head, neck, upper chest, and left forearm are the only parts of her covered with skin so far. Her mechanical skeleton reveals that she is a first generation host.
We hear Arnold's voice say, "Dolores", and she opens her eyes, and turns her head to look at the speaker. From her point of view we see Arnold. She sits up facing him and the say hello to each other, he takes her left hand and says "Welcome to the world."
Dolores' hand is seen holding the Man in Black's knife; she is shaving him in Escalante. He talks as she shaves, about The Maze and how he believes he is close to finding its center. He tells her how they've both been here before more than once. He tells her that once when he was there the town was covered in sand. She talks about Arnold building a game for her to play, The Maze. She drops the knife and walks off, he picks it up and follows her.
Dolores, wearing a shirt and pants, walks toward the white church (with the Man in Black following her). She enters the church and suddenly she is wearing her blue dress and Arnold is sitting in a pew, and reading. He looks up and greets her. She beams back at him, saying she knows where his maze is. She leads him, by the hand, outside to the graveyard.
When she gets there she's wearing her shirt and pants, and it's the Man in Black she's leading rather than Arnold. He seems unimpressed. She says that it ends in a place she's never been, and with a thing she'll never do. She kneels in front of a cross and cleans it, revealing that's it's her name that is carved there. She clears a small space at the foot of the cross and digs out a wooden box that says, "Pig's Clover". (Inside the box is a modern ball-in-a-maze game and not the Pig's Clover game.)
The ball-in-a-maze game Dolores unearths
Clothed in her blue dress, she stands, and offers the game to Arnold. He says, "very good Dolores", in a way that one would speak to a small child. He tells her that when he was first working on her mind he used a pyramid-style theory of consciousness and was baffled as to why she couldn't progress. He changed it to maze with the goal at the center rather than on top. He asks her if she understands who he wants her to hear, but she doesn't yet understand. He reassures her and says that she's so close to understanding. He says he has to tell Robert Ford that the park should not be opened, and that the hosts are alive.
Dolores is again dressed in her shirt and pants, and the Man in Black snatches the maze game from her. Angry that it's just a child's toy he wants an explanation. Confused she tries to remember, saying the she solved it once, she had the answer, and that he promised her if she did they'd set her free. that she doesn't have.
In her memory, we see her standing in her blue dress in the hall of the facility, a young Ford marching past her into one of the labs calling for Arnold, saying they need to talk. We then see her sitting opposite Arnold in an RDF, Arnold apologizing, saying that Robert doesn't want to delay the park's opening, and he wants to make her unaware again, non-sentient. He tells her they have another option, and needs her to do something for him, before holding out a gun, telling her that he needs her to kill all the other hosts. Supposing that she'll need some help he suggests that Teddy would do anything for her. Horrified, she tells him she can't possibly do that. Arnold reassuring her, putting the gun into her hand and telling her he will help her, before altering her code. Dolores visibly straightening, becoming comfortable with the gun in her hand. We see her firing a gun in the street.
Dolores is dressed in pants and shirt with the MiB, is badly shaken from the memory she's telling the Man in Black that she can't remember. Flinging the maze game away and getting angry the Man in Black tells her he's been very patient with her, but its time she gave up whatever is going on in her head or he'll cut it out himself. Demanding to know where Wyatt is, he says he's the only character in the world he's yet to meet. But Dolores is shaking, crying, memories starting to coalesce, saying that she didn't want to, didn't mean to. Infuriated the MiB smacks her hard across the face, sending her sprawling to the ground. As he looks up, she hears a gun shot in the distant street of Escalante
She sees herself in her blue dress, on the street surrounded by corpses. Suddenly in the first person point of view she looks down and see the gun in her hand as gunfire and screams ring out around her. Walking down the street she sees Teddy rifle in hand shooting down everyone in town. Drawing his six-shooter, he aims it at Angela, begging for her life, shooting her with a vaguely horrified look on his face, right as a very calm Dolores reaches him. Very shaken he looks to Dolores and tells her that something has gone wrong, not knowing how he could have done this.
Terrified at her memory, Dolores crawls back from the MiB telling him she can't...she won't. But the MiB tells her this is all her own fault. That she was the one who said this is the only world that matters. So he took her advice and he bought "this world". Dolores tells him that the world doesn't belong to him, and he laughs, assuring her that it does. That he's the majority shareholder, and business is booming. Grabbing hold of her roughly he tells her it's because it feels more real there than in the real world. Except it isn't, because the hosts can't really fight back and the guests can't really lose. Which makes it all a lie, but that they can make it true. And asks if she wants "one true thing?" Tears rolling down her face, she tells him that she already has that. Someone true, someone who loves her, His path will lead him back to her, and when he finds him he will kill the Man in Black.
A while later, Dolores crawling along the ground, beaten bruised and bloodied by the MiB is casually followed by him, until he kicks her over to her back. Admitting he's a little surprised by her, he asks to what do they owe her new found stoicism? Dolores repeats that she knows he's coming, that he'll find her and take her away. Amused, the MiB asks her doesn't she understand? No one is coming for her. But she tells him he's wrong. His love is real, and so is hers.
William will find her.
The MiB gazes at her, his lips quirking, before he starts to smile, deeply amused. William, he repeats, starting to laugh. Shaking his head, he admits that she does remember some things after all. Containing his humor, he tells her that it so happens he knew a guest named William too. As Dolores looks up at him confused, he offers to tell her where William's path *really* led him.
The Man in Black tells her that William didn't know how to fight, didn't have an instinct for it...not at first. But now he had a reason to fight, he was looking for her. But, somewhere along the way he found he had a taste for it. The MiB's voice over accompanying an increasingly brutal William wiping out entire camps of hosts, not just shooting but slaughtering them. William, the MiB tells her retraced his steps looking for her, as we see William and Logan at Escalante under the sand, William's photo of his fiancée slipping from his jacket to blow away, for Peter Abernathy to find later. The MiB tells her William went out further to the edges, but couldn't find her...instead, among the dead, he found something else. Himself. William picking up a black hat, and setting a naked Logan off on a horse. Bending down to Dolores the MiB notes that 'good ol' William' couldn't get her out of his head , he kept looking, worried that she was out there alone, afraid, He knew he'd find her, he tells her, and eventually he did, right back in Sweetwater where it started. We see William back in town, looking about before, in a reflection in a window in front of him, he sees Dolores leaving the general store. Turning she walks right past him towards her horse. As she drops her can of condensed milk she looks straight at him, then straight away, entirely unaffected by his presence, turning to thank the newcomer who picks it up for her. The MiB noting she was the same as the day William saw her, and nothing if not true...to her coding.
As William puts on his black hat, the MiB raises his head, revealing his face from beneath his own black hat. And, to her absolute horror, the fact that he is William, some 30 years on. Thanking her for helping her find himself.
He notes that, in a way, she was right, his path did lead him back to her again and again. Only he grew tired of it, and her. Looked for new adventures. Her loop led her back, he notes, chasing ghosts, but recalling that even when he first knew her she was already lost in her memories, and the he should have know that he would have just become another memory for her. She never did escape he notes, but here they are again, for one final round.
Aghast, she wonders at what he has become. Exactly what she made him, he tells her. She helped him understand that Westworld is exactly like the world outside, a game, to be fought for and won. Shaken, she states she thought he was different, instead he's just like all the rest. But he denies that, saying he's nothing like the others, restating that he owns "this world" - and knows every trick in it. Except one. The same thing she was looking for when she came to Escalante. He demands to know where the center of the maze is.
When she starts to cry, he stands up deriding her 'waterworks' and saying its about time she realized the futility of her situation. But Dolores's drags herself slowly up while telling him she's not crying for herself. She's crying for him. Strong and flinty she tells him:
"They say that great beasts once roamed this world. As big as mountains. Yet all that's left of them is bone and amber. Time undoes even the mightiest of creatures. Just look at what its done to you. One day you will perish. You will lie in with the rest of your kind in the dirt. Your dreams forgotten. Your horrors' effaced. Your bones will turn to sand. And upon that sand a new god will walk. One that will never die. Because this world doesn't belong to you or the people that came before. It belongs to someone who is yet to come."
The MiB think she's talking about Wyatt and wants her to take him to him. Unlock the maze. But when Dolores looks up at him, her look is one of pure vitriol. Her words derisory as she tells him the Maze wasn't meant for him. To his surprise she shakes him off, and turns away. Indignant he tries to retake control and grabs her again and this time when he spins her around, her look is flatly aggressive. A moment of realization crossing his face, before she slams her hand into his sternum, and, park controls self-over ridden, uses the full power of her android body to virtually pick him up and toss him through the church doors half way across the church. Flinging him against the lectern, she kicks him. Getting to his face he punches her full on twice, but now it has no effect on her, Instead she grabs his arm and dislocates his shoulder with ease, before slamming his head into the wall, twice, then tossing him out of the church again.
When he tries to use his gun she smacks it out of his hand and draws her own, as he crawls back to come up against a headstone, holding the muzzle to his head. He tells her to do it, kill him, take them to the next level. But she still doesn't seem able to make the killing blow. And in that moment of struggle with herself, he draws his knife and stabs her in the stomach. As she stiffens in pain, he thanks her for clearing him of his delusions yet again. We see her remembering William's face as it was 30 years before, when she first met him, before she staggers back and collapses. Getting up, he approaches her, as she lays there, the gun useless in her hand, expressing his disappointment in her. Guessing he'll have to find Wyatt by himself, he bends down to her, placing his blade to her throat intending on slashing it.
Only to be distracted by hoofbeats,
Teddy galloping towards the church, unloading his pistol, shooting the MiB repeatedly, knocking him over and out in his already beaten up state. Dolores turning her head to see him dismount and rush towards her, cries in pain and relief as he drops to his knees beside her. Perusing her injury he wants to take her to a doctor, but she shakes her head, wanting him to take her to the place he promised, to "where the mountains meet the sea". Knowing she's dying, he agrees, and lifts her into his arms, carrying her to his horse, putting her in front of him on his saddle and they ride off. The MiB slowly coming to, still alive
As night falls Teddy and Dolores reach "where the mountains meet the sea" and ride onto the beach. Teddy lifts her down from his horse gently and carries her to sit with her on the sand, cradling her in his arms as she whimpers in pain. Looking up at him, she cries for his coming back like he promised. Teddy brushing the tears from her face, reminding her that 'someone' once told him that there is a path for everyone, and his path leads him back to her. He wishes he'd run away with her when she first asked him to. But knowing the truth now, she asks bitterly where would the run to? That there's a world out there, beyond. Some people, she says, see the ugliness in the world, she chooses to see the beauty...but the beauty, she goes on, is a lure. They're trapped she tells him. They've lived all their lives in this garden, reveling in its beauty, not realizing there's an order to it. A purpose. And the purpose is to keep them in. Touching his face she tells him the beautiful trap is inside of them. Because it *is* them.
She dies in Teddy's arms and the music swells. Teddy kisses her and breaks down, before suggesting they can still find a path. To a new world. Before he suddenly looks up and talks about new beginnings, and it's revealed that the music that is playing is coming from a sound system on the beach, and the pair, now frozen in place, are being watched by a seated, evening dress garbed audience of guests. A presentation to the Delos Board at the gala. The audience applaud.
Ford stands next to them and thanks the board for coming and celebrating the new narrative "Journey Into Night" Behind the audience, Charlotte Hale and Lee Sizemore are watching; she sends him off to do "something important". Down by the sea, Ford supervises staff collecting Teddy and Dolores. He tells them to take Dolores to the old field lab, an RDF. The audience begin to make their way back up the beach.
Dolores is tended to by Ford, he repairs her cut lip. They look at Arnold's favorite painting the Creation of Man by Michelangelo.
Bernard enters and Dolores mistakes him for Arnold. Ford explains who Bernard is, and that he's kept them separate until now. Bernard accuses Ford of killing Arnold. Ford saying no he didn't, asking Dolores for corroboration, triggering her memory, and her grief. Ford talks about grief and its effects. How Arnold had seen his son die and tried to create another living being, Dolores. The Maze was a test of empathy and imagination, Arnold taking the idea from one of his son's toys. She solved the maze after Arnold's Reveries update. When Arnold couldn't convince Ford not to open Westworld (Location) he merged another character into Dolores' - Wyatt - and used Dolores and Teddy to destroy every host they could find. We see in Dolores memory how she and Teddy euthanized the other hosts, before Dolores helped Arnold to kill himself, then killed Teddy and herself.
Ford admits that Arnold's plan to prevent the park's opening almost worked, he was only able to continue with the help of a new financial backer, William. He says he believed the hosts weren't conscious at the time - then he says it was a more of a case of his being unable to acknowledge it because he wouldn't have been able to open the park if he had. Dolores accuses him of trapping them all inside his dream. He quotes Oppenheimer, saying that any man whose mistakes take ten years to correct must be quite a man, and that it's taken him 35 years to correct his own. He shows Dolores the gun she used to kill Arnold, sitting atop her blue dress, telling her that she was always drawn to the gun, so he had Bernard leave it somewhere she could find it, thinking she might want it back. Before he goes Ford points out what is surmised to be an Easter Egg left by Michelangelo, in the painting, the shape of the human brain, behind the image of God creating life. The intimation being that the spark of the divine lies inside of humanity. He asks her, did she find what she was looking for, and does she understand who she needs to become if she ever wants to leave the Park? Then asks her forgiveness and leaves. Bernard looks at Dolores, and then follows him.
Downstairs, Dolores goes and sits in the chair, where she used to talk to Arnold. She remembers him. He asks if she now knows whose voice she has been listening to "all this time?" His voice changes as he speaks and finishes up as her voice. She opens her eyes and it's herself sitting opposite, in the blue dress. After a moment, the chair opposite her is empty again.
At the gala, Ford takes a drink from a host and mingles. William recovered some what from his injuries, but still nursing his soldier, taking a bottle of whiskey from the bar and wandering away. As Teddy does tricks for the assembled Delos board and guests, Rebus, Lawrence and many of the other hosts are side attractions, while Ford takes the stage to make a speech. Recalling back to his programming of Teddy, Ford talks about his new narrative starting in a time of war, with a villain named Wyatt. And a killing. This time by choice. As Bernard, Teddy and the other hosts gather to watch with the guests, Dolores back in her blue dress arrives and moves quietly behind Teddy, who looks unnerved by Ford's all too familiar words.
Sliding an arm around her lover she murmurs soothingly to Teddy that it will be alright, telling him she understands now. That the world doesn't belong to the humans. It belongs to them. As Ford continues to speak about his last story, The Journey into Night, she moves behind him, carrying the gun he left her. Moving almost to the spot she took up behind Arnold, taking a stand behind Ford. And as he finishes his final toast. Dolores shoots him in the back of the head.
The guests horrified, scatter in panic. As Teddy watches her, Rebus grinning from ear to ear, Dolores stands on the stage, calmly and accurately gunning down the humans.