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.
Tropes:
- Anachronism Stew: An instrumental version of "Seven Nation Army" plays during the opening scene in The Raj.
- Armor Is Useless: The Delos security team is seen wearing body armor, but it fails to protect them from any shots from the rebelling hosts.
- Artificial Limb: Armistice has had Felix and Sylvester upgrade her with a fully robotic limb after she was forced to hack off the other during a firefight last season. She seems to get a kick out of threatening Sylvester with it.
- Call-Back: Several:
- Ganju intones the Arc Words "These violent delights have violent ends" quote from Season 1 before attacking Nicholas and Grace.
- Abernathy begins randomly cycling through previous builds, including the Gertrude Stein and King Lear quoting cult leader "The Professor" from the first episode of Season 1, and quotes both.
- Abernathy and Dolores talk about him being worried about their cattle back at the ranch, and she tries to assure him that she will "bring them home". This foreshadows her leaving the Confederados to die, as she had previously told Teddy that the cattle come back to the ranch because of the "Judas Steer" who leads them to a place knowing it will cause their deaths, under the guise of taking them home.
- Character Death: 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.
- Chekhov's Skill: Hector's familiarity with the Ghost Nation, which he used to explain Maeve's drawings of the park staff in Season One, come back into play here. Turns out he is fluent in their language.
- Cold Open: Introduces us The Raj (AKA Park 6) and to Nicholas and Grace, before Nicholas is killed and Grace is forced to flee into Westworld.
- Decoy Protagonist: Nicholas is set up as a new character alongside Grace but is promptly killed off in his second scene.
- Does Not Compute: 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 nonexistent The Lost Lenore, Isabella. Sizemore categorically refuses to believe they Grew Beyond Their Programming.
- Dramatic Irony: Rebus' death in the first episode of the season retroactively becomes this, as it's revealed Bernard reprogrammed him to PROTECT the guests from the other hosts.
- Face Death with Dignity: Craddock remains calm and defiant after Teddy is ordered to execute him.
- Facial Horror: Ganju, a Host, gets most of its face blown after being shot by Grace.
-
Gary Stu: Maeve correctly guesses that Sizemore wrote Hector as an idealized version of himself. She thinks this is pathetic and Hector seems disgusted. - Heel–Face Brainwashing: Bernard reprograms Rebus to become a "the most virtuous, quickest gun in the west", thus causing him to turn on his gang to protect the kidnapped Guests instead of selling them to the Confederados and raping one of the female Guests.
- Holding Hands: Sizemore is upset when seeing Maeve and Hector holding hands since both characters were not supposed to have a romantic relationship in the narrative.
- Hollywood Tactics: The Delos security team has vastly superior weapons and technology. What do they do? They charge straight for the fort in only a single direction, leaving them easy prey for Dolores' trap.
- Impostor-Exposing Test: Grace shoots Nicholas to make sure he isn't a Host before she has sex with him. Lucky for him, this is before all the guns are reprogrammed to work on humans. It seems to be a common kink with her when she visits the park, as she has an arsenal of guns set up right beside her bed. Nicholas himself mentions this isn't his first time either.
- Internal Reveal: Bernard learns that Abernathy was uploaded with the Host source code.
- Madness Mantra: Due to the bare-bones narrative written by Sizemore to get him out of the park, Abernathy constantly mentions his need to get to the train.
- Make Sure He's Dead: Dolores' troops stab the bodies of Confederados to make sure they are properly dead.
- Man on Fire: A security guard is up in flames running across the corridor from Armistice and her flamethrower.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Due to a combination of the Host source code being uploaded into his brain and a bare-bones personality, Peter Abernathy keeps alternating between fragments of past narratives left over in his code, barely able to remain coherent for more than a minute or so.
- Oh, Crap!: Several:
- All of the Confederados when they realize Dolores locked them outside the fort during the battle.
- Sizemore freaks out when he realizes they've stumbled upon a samurai camp.
- The One That Got Away: Sizemore reveals that he based the character of Isabella, Hector's Lost Lenore, on his own experience with his ex-girlfriend, who left him because his lifestyle didn't include stability.
- Out of Focus: Phil, the Livestock Management tech kidnapped by Dolores, doesn't show up in this episode.
- Out of the Frying Pan: Grace survives being attacked by Ganju and then the tiger and swims to Westworld, where she's caught by Ghost Nation warriors.
- Pet the Dog: Teddy spares Craddock and what remains of his men.
- Prolonged Prologue: The Cold Open at The Raj lasts for almost 11 minutes.
- Properly Paranoid: Grace is smart enough not to trust that anyone in a Delos park is human without testing it, and refuses to become intimate with hosts. Later she immediately spots when a narrative is not playing out like it should.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Craddock gives one to Teddy, arguing that they both are not that different as they are both triggermen to tyrants.
- Recycled Script: In-Universe. Sizemore reveals that the way Hector describes Maeve is recycled from how he is supposed to describe his dead girlfriend, according to his narrative. Hector is horrified, as he hadn't realized how scripted his thoughts were, but Maeve takes it in stride because their entire relationship should be impossible.
- Red Herring: 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.
- Refuge in Audacity: Abernathy begins singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (an American UNION song) to a bunch of the Confederados. He does this because he is cycling between previous builds, and Dolores' father Peter had a backstory as a retired Union soldier. They don't shoot him because they've been ordered to capture all guests, and he's dressed as one.
- The Reveal: Several:
- Park 6 is based on the British Raj, with most Hosts modeled after Indians, and is directly adjacent to Westworld. The name of the park is The Raj. It is also on the same island as Westworld, and the border between them is a holographic fence that humans can easily pass through buts hosts aren't supposed to be able to.
- The tiger from the first episode of the season washed ashore in Westworld because it chased Grace over the border of the park, and tackled her into the river, causing both to float onto the riverbank of Westworld. Grace's body wasn't with it because she was captured by the Ghost Nation.
- Sizemore based Hector in part on everything he wished he could be, invalidating old William's theory that he was designed by a committee.
- Bernard's Self-Surgery from the first episode was only a quick fix, and he is shutting down again.
- Abernathy still has remnants of his old builds, causing him to move quickly between cult leader, rancher, a righteous ranger, and a desperate desire to get on the train leading out of the park.
- Akecheta, 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.
- Armistice is still effortlessly gunning down the squads sent after her. Also, she has a flamethrower and a new robotic arm.
- Secret Test of Character: Dolores tells Teddy to execute Craddock and the remaining Confederados, 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.
- Shout-Out: The episode title is a quote from Machiavelli, about how someone without virtue needs luck to be a good ruler, and vice versa.
- Smash to Black: The episode ends with a samurai host charging the camera.
- Stealth Pun: Grace escapes from one kind of Indian Host only to run into another.
- Tap on the Head: Bernard takes out Rebus with a rock to his head.
- This Is My Boomstick: Dolores impresses the leader of the Confederados with an automatic shotgun.
- Took a Level in Badass: Bernard also upgrades Rebus to become a superb shooter.
- Undeathly Pallor: Clementine's look, presumably because she's been left offline for quite a while and she was't given any kind of makeover after being reactivated by Bernard.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Nicholas is introduced, given a little characterization and then promptly killed off. Similarly, Colonel Brigham is also introduced as the leader of the Confederados, shares some scenes with Dolores and ends up killed thanks to Dolores' trap.
- We Have Reserves: Dolores' attitude towards the Confederados.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Hale and Bernard use this trick to take out Rebus.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- The captured security guard is allowed to run so Colonel Brigham can test out his new P-90 by using the guard as a moving target.
- After defeating the Quality Assurance strike team, Dolores orders the surviving Confederados to be executed.
