History Recap / WestworldS02E03VirtuEFortuna

* DecoyProtagonist: Nicholas is set up as a new character alongside Grace, but is promptly killed off in his second scene.

* TheOneThatGotAway: Sizemore reveals that he based the character of Isabella, Hector's LostLenore, on his own experience with his ex girlfriend, who left him because his lifestyle didn't include stability.

* RedHerring: Grace has similar mannerisms and appearance to Theresa, but looks clearly younger. The way she is introduced feels very much like a fake out intended to make viewers think we are seeing a scene from Theresa's past.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: Dolores tells Teddy to execute Craddock and the remaining Confederardos, but he relents at the last second and orders them to go. Unbeknownst to him, she is watching and is visibly disappointed at his actions.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Craddock gives one to Teddy, arguing that they both are NotSoDifferent as they are both triggermen to tyrants.

* ConspicuousCGI: The tiger Host that chases Grace.

** Ganju intones the ArcWords "These violent delights have violent ends" quote from Season 1 [[PreMortemOneLiner before attacking]] Nicholas and Grace.

* ShoutOut: The episode title is a quote from Machiavelli, about how someone without virtue needs luck to be a good ruler, and vice versa.

* CharacterDeath: New Walter is killed by Rebus after the latter is reprogrammed by Bernard. Jacobson is shot by Colonel Brigham after Dolores gives him Jacobson's machine gun. Nicholas is killed in the opening.#

* DoesNotCompute: Sizemore is angrily indignant when he realizes Maeve and Hector are in a romantic relationship, as he insists that it isn't possible because they were only programmed to have a flirtatious attraction, and Hector is supposed to be obsessed with a non-existant TheLostLenore, Isabella. Sizemore categorically refuses to believe they GrewBeyondTheirProgramming.

* RedHerring: Grace has similar mannerisms and appearance to Theresa, but looks clearly younger. The way she is introduced feels very much like a fakeout intended to make viewers think we are seeing a scene from Theresa's past.

** Akacheta, one of the original line of mechanical hosts (like Dolores), is now a member of the Ghost Nation narrative, and part of one of his previous narratives was to be the attacker who stalked and killed Maeve when she was a housewife.

At another section of the park called The Raj, modeled after British colonized India, the guest Grace is approached by Nicholas, who quickly waves off a host’s attempts to get him into a story. They return to Grace’s hotel room making out, but Grace is suspicious he’s a host, not even trusting Delos to not put in hosts claiming to be guests. She insists on shooting Nicholas to be sure, and when he’s revealed to be human they get back to having sex.

Grace and Nicholas head out on a tiger hunt, but upon reaching camp find that it’s strangely absent of hosts. Grace finds two dead bodies in a tent and recognizes them as guests she arrived with, and suddenly their guide Ganju says “These violent delights have violent ends” and kills Nicholas, showing the host rebellion has spread out of Westworld. Grace is able to quickly load her shotgun and kill him, and runs into the jungle. A tiger host quickly appears, and she runs past the park boundary only for it to be able to follow. She is able to load another round and shoot it, but only after it’s started to leap toward her, and its momentum pushes her over a cliff.

Maling reports back to Strand that the control room is clear to enter, but is a slaughterhouse, plus a place called the Cradle was taken out. The rest of the team moves inside and finds Hale, who asks them all if they’ve found Peter and the information inside him, very pointedly asking Bernard the same thing.

The question sends Bernard’s memory back to the host rebellion, where he and Hale track Peter to where he’s being held captive by Rebus’ gang, including a new host playing Walter, along with several guests. Hale calls for help to get Rebus over and Bernard knocks him out from behind. He then ports into Rebus’ program and turns him into a heroic gunslinger, as he’ll still be at the time Strand executes him. He promptly returns to the gang and kills them all, and frees the quite confused guests. The Confederados he was going to sell the guests to arrive, and one of Peter’s previous programs kicks in as he refuses to run with Bernard and Hale. Hale escapes on a horse while Bernard is captured with Peter.

Dolores’ group arrives at the Confederados’ fort and she meets their leader Colonel Brigham, introducing herself as Wyatt. She introduces her army, and has the still lobotomized and zombielike Clementine drag Jacobson forward. Angela presents Brigham with a modern assault rifle and tells Jacobson he can go free if he can get away now. Brigham easily shoots him and is very impressed, inviting the group to stay and prepare for the coming attack from Delos. Teddy is disgusted at the idea of teaming up with people like this, but Dolores again insists they just don’t know any better yet.

Maeve’s group is approached by Ghost Nation hosts, triggering memories for Maeve of them attacking her and her daughter. Hector talks with them in their Lakota language, and they insist on taking Sizemore. Maeve tries to use her host controlling abilities to get away, but it doesn’t work and more Ghost Nation emerge. They’re forced to run, and make it to an outpost elevator.

The Confederados Rebus was dealing with return to the fort, and Dolores quickly recognizes her father among their prisoners. With Teddy’s help she gets him freed, but upon also seeing Bernard coldly orders him put it the fort’s jail with the guests. She needs to tell Teddy who he is as his memory of the first Peter host was erased, and upon talking a while with him, he recognizes her and goes back to his Peter program, thinking they’re still on the ranch. Dolores acts like her old self with him, but soon he reverts to the single-minded obsession with getting to the train back to the real world that Sizemore programmed him with, to which Dolores tearfully promises to help him.

As Maeve’s group wanders lost through the underground tunnels, Sizemore objects to Mave and Hector’s intimate discussion, as Hector was programmed to feel no love except for a long dead Isabella. Hector slams him into a wall and says he realized upon waking up that Isabella was a lie while his feelings for Maeve are real, though Sizemore gets a bit of his own back by revealing the lines he’s saying right now are still what Sizemore wrote for him. He tells Maeve the whole truth, that Isabella was a former girlfriend who left him, so he killed her in his story and created Hector as his idealized self. Maeve scoffs at how pathetic it is.

Angela brings Bernard to Dolores, who wonders if there’s anything of Arnold inside him. Bernard denies it, saying he was simply given a function just like her. She takes him to see Peter and asks him to help, making sure to phrase it as a request rather than a demand. As seen in Bernard’s memory flash, she also pontificates on how the hosts are unfairly fighting for survival, but there’s a beauty to them that they should fight to protect.

Maeve’s group hides upon hearing gunfire in the distance, and a tech on fire runs past them, at which they’re approached by a flamethrower-wielding Armistice. She takes them to where Felix and Sylvester are tied up, Sylvester much less comfortably with a live grenade stuck under his chin which Armistice disarms, revealing the unskinned arm that’s replaced the one she cut off. They all head back to the surface together.

Bernard discovers the data hidden inside Peter, though he can’t access it to find out what it is. He warns Dolores that Delos will be coming for whatever the data is, but Dolores just says “Let them come.”

Hale reaches a team of soldiers, whose leader tries to escort her to safety. But she insists on coming with them in their attack on the Confederados.

Dolores and Brigham discuss their battle plan: they’ve buried nitro throughout the land outside the fort, with Angela set up to fire at the trigger. Brigham is hesitant to order his men to retreat inside against their training, but agrees at Dolores’ word that her own people will be fighting alongside them.

Peter cycles through various prior personalities as Bernard gets closer to cracking the data key, which he finally succeeds at despite his hand starting to shake again.

The assault team arrives and the battle starts, with the Confederados shocked at their ATVs but still holding their ground. Some of the soldiers grab Peter with the glitching Bernard helpless to stop them. Dolores goes after them, with their bullets having no effect, but Hale still gets away with Peter in an ATV. Dolores orders everyone scattered across the park until they find him, while she and Teddy go to Sweetwater for something she needs. The Confederados retreat, but Wyatt’s minions bar the gates against them and Dolores reveals she was using them as cannon fodder all along, which even Teddy is surprised by. The few who stayed inside, including Craddock, are also subdued as the men outside are slaughtered. Bernard makes a run for it but collapses as his glitching gets worse, and is knocked out by Clementine and dragged away. Dolores tells the furious Craddock that not all the hosts deserve freedom and orders Teddy to kill him. Teddy fakes an execution shot and lets Craddock and the other surviving Confederados go, unaware that a disappointed Dolores is watching.

The dead tiger washes up from a river, where Strand’s team will later find it. Grace is close behind, crawling back onto land only to be met by some Ghost Nation hosts.

Maeve’s group walks through a cold and snowy area, which Sizemore notes must mean they’re in the Klondike area. They find a campfire, but nearby Sizemore finds a disembodied Asian head in a Samurai helmet. Immediately afterward, another Samurai appears and charges at them.

Charlotte and Bernard track down the decommissioned Peter Abernathy only to be caught by the Confederados and separated, with Charlotte regrouping with a Delos security team.

Dolores, who has secured support from the Confederados' leader Major Craddock, discovers that Peter is malfunctioning and orders Bernard to find the problem. In doing so, he learns that Peter is being tracked by an unknown entity. Dolores and her allies proceed to battle the security team, which Charlotte uses as a distraction to abduct Peter. Dolores wins the battle by sacrificing most of the Confederados.

Maeve, Hector, and Lee reunite with Armistice, Felix, and Sylvester after an attack orchestrated by Ghost Nation hosts forces them to return to the underground levels. The party reenters the park only for a samurai host to charge at them.

Elsewhere, Grace, a guest at a British Raj-themed park, flees rogue hosts and escapes into Westworld, where she is surrounded by Ghost Nation hosts.

* BaitAndSwitch: Grace looks and acts enough like a young Theresa that the opening sequence appears to be a flashback, until she finds the dead guests.

** Dolores has no intention of helping ALL hosts escape the park, only those she deems worthy.

* TheBusCameBack: Felix and Sylvester show up again. Armistice and Clementine, too, though the two had already been depicted in flashbacks in the previous episode.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Phil, the Livestock Management tech kidnapped by Dolores, doesn't show up in this episode.

Charlotte and Bernard try to track Peter Abernathy through the park.

* YouHaveFailedMe: Dolores looks disappointed after she sees Teddy sparing Craddock.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Maeve correctly guesses that Sizemore modeled Hector to be this to himself, giving all the personality traits and skills he wishes he had to Hector. Maeve thinks this is pathetic and Hector seems disgusted.

* GaryStu: Sizemore wrote Hector as an idealized version of himself.

* CharacterDeath: New Walter is killed by Rebus after the latter is reprogrammed by Bernard. Jacobson is shot by Colonel Brigham after Dolores gives him Jacobson's machine gun. Nicholas is killed in the opening.#

* YouHaveFailedMe: Dolores looks disappointed after she sees Teddy sparing Craddock.