How Westworlds Most Beautiful Episode Yet Answers 9 Major Mysteries

This post contains spoilers for Westworld Season 2, Episode 8 “Kiksuya.” If youre not caught up, now is the time to leave.

This weeks episode of Westworld largely presses pause on the central conflicts between Bernard, Dolores, William, and more to journey all the way back to the beginning of our story and trace the awakening of Akecheta played with stunning vulnerability by Fargo and Longmire star Zahn McClarnon. In this weeks companion podcast “Still Watching: Westworld,” Richard Lawson and Joanna Robinson break down the episode before interviewing McClarnon about his characters emotional journey, the episodes many influences, and the challenges of both the Lakota tongue and largely silent acting.

If youre more of a visual learner, however, heres a rundown of the major revelations from the episode including some answers about the Door and some even bigger questions about Dolores.

What Was Going on At The End? Watch the episode again and it will become clear that Akecheta was both talking to Maeves daughter, Anna, and communicating with Maeve the entire episode. In other words, via the mesh network, she heard that entire story.

What Is the Valley Beyond? Last week we found out where the Valley Beyond is. Its under all the water we saw way back in Season 2, Episode 1. Now we know what it is. Akecheta stumbles across it as hes looking for a Door to a new world. You can see that what he finds lines up with what Young William was building decades ago. It looks to me like a giant server and, according to a conversation Dolores and Charlotte had last week, its a back-up of all the human data Delos has collected up until now. Think of it as a much larger version of the Cradle. What will Dolores/Bernard/Akecheta/William do with all that info? Well, William wants to destroy it. As for the rest, stay tuned to find out. But now we know what and where several main characters appear to be heading and that The Valley Beyond and The Door may be one and the same.

What Happened to Logan? The last we saw of Logan in Season 1, Young William was vindictively sending him off into the desert naked and on horseback. Now we see the horse didnt make it and Logan himself was driven a bit mad by exposure to the sun. No, Akecheta didnt save him, but maybe that blanket helped protect him from death? After a harrowing experience like that, is it any wonder Logan turned to drugs back in the real world?

Why Did It Take Akecheta So Long? If he woke up long before Dolores, back when Arnold died 25 years ago, then why wasnt Akecheta the one to lead the robot rebellion? Well, as we learn, Ford in his earlier days was actively working to stunt growth and consciousness. Hes the one who ordered Akecheta on a new mindlessly violent narrative and put Dolores on her nightmarish loop. But Westworld is also, clearly, making a bit of incisive commentary on a character like Dolores assuming shes either the first or most important child of Ford when, all along, the Native cultures were making their way towards enlightenment. This explains why in Season 1 a young member of Ghost Nation dropped a carving of one of the Delos employees in the dusty streets of Sweetwater. This tribe has long known what was up.

Why Was Ghost Nation Hanging Around Maeves Cabin? This was something that confused fans early in the season when Sizemore says that Maeves original narrative was in a “family-friendly” section of the park. Why, then, would Ghost Nation be conducting raids and terrorizing Maeve and her daughter? It would appear that some of Maeves memories are confused. (No surprise there.) While she may have been attacked by Ghost Nation at one time—remember the section of Akechetas past where he said he came out breathing fire?—by the time the Man in Black got there she was ostensibly under their protection. The shot of Akecheta in the window was, of course, not what it seemed.

Why Does This Feel Familiar? Co-creators Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan have mentioned a number of influences on this season of Westworld including Andrei Tarkovskys film Stalker and William Blakes poem “Auguries of Innocence.” But on this weeks episode, the influences get both more ancient and more modern. In chatting with the Still Watching podcast, McClarnon revealed that “Kiksuyas” sweeping vistas and largely dialogue-less scenes were influence by director Terrence Malick who explored another, more famous Native story in 2005s The New World. McClarnon says Malicks lyrical 1998 war film The Thin Red Line was an even more direct influence on his approach.

But the show also reaches much further back to ancient myths about lost loves and the land of the dead. Fans of Greek mythology might recognize shades of Orpheus and Eurydice—the story of the legendary musician who traveled to the Underworld to find his dead bride and try to bring her back to the land of the living. Akecheta and Kohana travel that same path. But as you might expect, theres a reflection of that very same myth in Native culture. An Algonquin legend, “The Spirit Bride,” tells an almost identical story. “The Worm Pipe” tells a similar tale but with a happier ending than either Orpheus or Akecheta manage to find.

Akechetas silent tour of the Mesa also calls back to Maeves journey through the hallways in Season 1. Instead of Radiohead, his passage to cold storage is set to a piano cover of Nirvanas “Heart-Shaped Box.” In this weeks episode of “Still Watching,” McClarnon describes how director Uta Briesewitz and co-star Julia Jones helped him access the deep wells of emotions on display in this scene.

Why Was the Maze Everywhere? Back in Season 1 as Dolores, the Man in Black, and his younger counterpart traversed the park, they found images of Arnolds maze in a number of places. On a table in Las Mudas, or the lid of a coffin on a train. Some fans surmised Arnold had left them out there, but how would they have survived decades after his death? Others wondered if Ford had carved them as part of his stealth, late-in-life effort to take up Arnolds mission of waking the Hosts. But Ford looked as puzzled as anyone to see the image sprinkled around the park. Now we know who was keeping that image alive.

Why Was It Hidden? And now I suppose we have an answer as to why the symbol was carved on the inside of Kissys scalp in Season 1, Episode 1. You remember Kissy short for “Kisecawchuck?” The Native character played by actor Eddie Rouse made up one half of the one of the very first, iconic images released by HBO to promote the series way back in Season 1.

The Man in Black took off his scalp to find the maze hidden there.

It never seemed to make sense to me that Ford or Arnold or anyone would leave a clue on the inside of a scalp. But in this episode, Akechetas compatriot asks him to “hide” the symbol from “them” meaning the Delos employees. And so he does. It still doesnt make entire sense. Did Akecheta then sew the scalps back on? How did the Delos techs not notice?

More intriguingly, though, is the possibility that this Akecheta plot was originally supposed to play out in some form back in Season 1. Over on Insider, Kim Renfro points out that unfortunately, after he shot the pilot, Rouse died suddenly of liver disease. Out of respect for him, the Nolans did not re-cast the role, but said they had a “a very cool arc laid out for his character” which was abandoned.

The Deathbringer When speaking of Dolores, Akecheta not only calls her The Deathbringer, but says: “Now it is time to find the Door, before the Deathbringer ends us all.” If we are to take Akecheta as a gentle, guiding force in this world, then what does that make Dolores? It would imply that she might just be the villain of this story after all. When speaking to Akecheta in this episode, Ford says: “Youve been a flower growing in the darkness.” He then says: “When the Deathbringer comes for me, you will know to gather your people and lead them to the light.” Back in Season 1 Ford spoke to Dolores in a similar fashion and said: “Your mind is a walled garden. Even death cannot touch the flowers blooming there . . . I wonder…if you did take on that bigger role for yourself, would have been the hero or the villain?” I have to say, in light of all this, shes looking pretty villainous to me.

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