The series opener of Westworld introduces us to a whole new a new kind of theme park. One where the elite can spend 40K a day and live in the old west. They can drink in an old-timey saloon, they can hunt for buried treasure, and they can even wrestle cattle. In Westworld, visitors can live out their wildest dreams and their darkest desires.

Summary

The Original begins with Dolores Abernathy sitting naked in a chair in what a futuristic looking lab room. You can hear the voice of a man asking her questions. They are talking about the nature of life. As they speak, a fly lands on her head, but she doesn’t appear to notice. The voice asks Dolores if she has ever questioned the nature of her reality or noticed routines in her life. Dolores tells him that there are patterns in everyone’s life and hers is nothing out of the ordinary.

The moves down her face, across her nose, and rests on her eye. Dolores doesn’t more in response.

The show progresses from the cold dark of the lab to a bright sunny morning on a farm. This is Dolores’s home, a ranch in Westworld. As the show progresses, we meet other characters in the narrative. Some are visitors to the park. Others are hosts; realistic robots programmed to act out a storyline.

The Original repeats the same storyline three times within its 1 hour and 6 minutes running time. Each reset of the story brings changes to it. These changes ultimately reveal a glitch in a recent software update to Hosts. It seems like the glitch is something that the hosts and the visitors will have to deal with throughout the first season.

Big Moments in The Original

This being the series opener, there were a great many seemingly important bits of information. The show is not only rich in character development, but the plot seems like a tangle of sagebrush that will be a joy to unweave with each passing episode. There were a few moments that seemed to stand out in this particular episode.

Dr. Robert Ford’s Update

It’s implied that the John-Hammond-like creator of Westworld, Dr. Robert Ford, is off his rocker. The park and the creations in it are his brain child. He has a connection to it that not many other people behind the scenes share. But while his mental acuity is called into question during the episode, the glitch I spoke of early is a result of an update he released.

The update allowed the hosts to recall their previous interactions. This adds a new layer to the reality that these robots provide. The problem is that many of the hosts have lived horrible lives, with experiences that are a result of the deepest level of depravity. These memories seem to cause some of the hosts to break down while others don’t seem affected at all.

But was the glitch accidental? There’s a moment when another programmer calls our Dr. Ford, telling him about the mistake. Ford claims that it was a mistake, but I think there is more to it. I think Ford has plans that we as an audience are not privy to yet. I think we will see them unfold as the season progresses.

The Man in Black

The man in black, played by Ed Harris, is a visitor to the park and he is on a mission. He’s been coming to the park for more than 30 years. He has history and a backstory with almost all of the main hosts we’ve meet so far. While other visitors are content with drinking, whoring, and shooting, the man in black is on a mission.

With each interaction, we learn a little more about who he is. He is looking for a deeper level of the game. After spending so much time and money in Westworld, he has realized that there is more to the world than most people ever get to participate in.

After a particularly gritty scene where he tortures a host for information, he walks away with that man’s scalp. On the side opposite the hair, we can clearly see an intricately drawn maze. It is this maze that the man in black want to find and I think we will see him spend the entirety of season 1 getting there.

Dolores, the Original (Spoiler)

The episode ends where it began, with Dolores talking about her view of her home. Throughout the show, we see time and time again flies landing on hosts. Over and over again we hear the people who run the park say that the hosts could never hurt a visitor. When Dolores is asked questions at the beginning and end, she is asked if she would ever hurt a visitor. The answer is a resounding no. She loves the visitors.

At the end of her interview, we learn that Dolores is actually the oldest host in the park. This means she’s been through the most, has had the most experiences, and has had the most updates. Earlier in the episode, we learned that the first generation of hosts, Dolores’s generation of hosts, were prone to breakdown.

But through all the years, Dolores has endured.

In the last scene of the episode, Dolores is yet again standing on the front porch of her in Westworld. As she looks out over the world in which she lives, a fly lands on her neck. This time, instinctively, she slaps it, killing the fly.

Now, I know there were other great moments in this episode, and there have to be other meaningful things that took place that I just missed. What did you like about The Original? Leave a comment in the section below.