‘Westworld’ Season 2, Episode 4 Recap: Bernard Is Shook (Literally)

The episode opens on Mr. Jim Delos (Peter Mullan), the investor whose retirement we recently celebrated in episode two. He’s being held under observation in a spaceship-like capsule. When William pays him a visit, he interrogates interviews the investor to get a sense of his state of mind. (And use it for later reference, natch.)

Jim claims he’s dying from a terminal disease that was defunded years ago, saying, “I think my sense of humor is intact. My patience on the other hand…”

He seems shocked when William hands him a piece of paper and, um, what is happening?

Meanwhile, Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) kidnaps Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and then dumps him in the desert and takes off. She brought him straight to…his former protégé Elsie (Shannon Woodward). Wait, Elsie’s alive?! We thought Elsie met her maker when Bernard “killed” her last season. Wrong.

After Bernard frees her from her shackles, she turns the gun on him and accuses him of choking her out and leaving her for dead. Suddenly, Bernard goes into tech failure. After getting over the fact that he’s a robot, Elsie distracts him with crazy hallucinations while she ties him up. You know, the usual.

She assures him he’ll make it if they send in the cavalry. Oh, Elsie, you’ve missed so much. No one’s coming. Bernard starts to fill her in on “the Package,” but he needs bot fluid, stat. Luckily, there’s a facility right where they’re standing.

In the abandoned lab, Bernard flashes back to a time when everything was normal. His daydream doesn’t last long, and he snaps back to reality when a gun-wielding Elsie fires multiple rounds at a drone host.

Bernard says the drones watched the guests. Are they the ones keeping tabs on murders and rapes? Bernard is trying to piece together what the mystery lab does, while Elsie decides to blow down a set of locked doors, unveiling something Bernard seems terrified of.

Tiger woman (Katja Herbers) from episode three (now called Grace) somehow made it out alive from her previous adventures. She’s taken, along with other survivors, to a campsite and plunked down next to Tubbs (Luke Hemsworth), who assures her they’ll get out of here.

“I’m not looking to get out of here,” she tells him. Sooo, does this mean she’s basically the female version of the Man in Black?

Speaking of MIB, he sits down for a glass of whiskey only to find Major Craddock’s (Jonathan Tucker) gun pointed at his main artery. We’d be OK if this storyline ended right now, but no. Instead, the Man in Black strikes a deal with Craddock, and the two join forces for their journey to Glory.

When Craddock, the fool, tries to take out Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) in some sick display of masculinity, the Man in Black finds a soft spot for Lawrence and ends up killing Craddock and all of his men. The deal is obviously off, but it appears there’s a tiny shred of William left in MIB.  

Back in the space pod, Jim has moved on from the Rolling Stones to “Do the Strand” by Roxy Music. He seems to have better control of his motor functions, but small changes aside, we’re living the same scene over and over. Again, William hands the piece of paper to Jim, who’s understandably shocked because it’s the dialogue they just exchanged. Jim realizes he’s not Jim, and he hasn’t been Jim for seven years.

“I’m not in California, am I?” he asks. “If you can’t tell, does it matter,” William says. Solid point. Robot Jim’s ready to conquer the world, but it’s not that simple. Jim appears to be an experiment that isn’t evolving the way William had hoped, so up he goes in flames. Just like that.  

We’re back to the Jim loop. This time, it’s the Man in Black who walks through the door. Jim is confused, not recognizing the older version of William. Unfortunately, in the years that they’ve been trying to get Jim to work, he’s reached a cognitive plateau, which makes him fall apart after a few hours, days or weeks. They’ve brought him back 149 times, but to no avail.

His body is rejecting Jim’s mind the way a new organ is sometimes rejected after a transplant. “People aren’t meant to live forever,” the Man in Black explains. “The world is better off without you, Jim. Possibly without me.”  

Jim screams for help, but the Man in Black says his daughter, Juliette, committed suicide and Logan (Ben Barbes) overdosed years ago. No one’s coming. Instead of setting him on fire, the Man in Black leaves Jim to deteriorate in his cage. Eek.

Cut to Elsie finding—you guessed it—Jim behind the locked doors in the secret lab. And he’s pissed. When he lunges at Elsie, Bernard intercepts the attack. Right when Jim’s about to take the old man out, Elsie (yet again) sets him on fire.

“Tell me that was a host and not a human,” she says. “I think it was both,” admits Bernard. Rather than just build human-like robots, it appears Westworld is implanting the minds of dead people into new bodies. Well, this is new.

“They’re going to get us all killed so some a—hole can live forever?” Not if Elsie can help it. Bernard remembers printing out a control unit for another human—he just can’t remember for whom. What he does remember is that he is responsible for the death of everyone in the lab. He’s the one who ordered them all dead…but at whose request?

Just when we were about to give up on the Man in Black storyline, it takes an interesting turn. Claire, who successfully escaped a tiger and her captors, rides in and says—wait for it—“Hi, dad.”

Is Claire helping the Man in Black beat the game? Or is she taking him out? What is Bernard’s murderous rampage about? Can we even trust him??