As Hale prepares for transcendence, Bernard and Maeve head to the Tower to stop her once and for all. Meanwhile, Frankie and Stubbs go to the Olympiad Entertainment HQ to find Caleb, and the Man in the Black confronts William.
Tropes:
- Aspect Ratio Switch: The beginning of the episode shows the aspect ratio at a 2.35:1 format meaning Bernard is doing a simulation of his conversation with Maeve in Hoover Dam. Then, it switches back to 16:9 where Bernard and Maeve are in the real world, visiting Hoover Dam.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: The transcended host bodies are faceless, armless, and lack sexual organs.
- Bastard Understudy: The Man in Black is dismayed with Hale's transcendence plan. After chatting and killing William, he brings down Hale by killing her, and then takes over the Tower by reprogramming everybody into a deathmatch which he calls "survival of the fittest".
- Big Damn Reunion: After 23 years, Frankie finally reunites with her father, though she is shocked at his physical appearance - that is, to say, lack of aging.
- Boom, Headshot!: This is how the Man in Black kills Maeve, Hale, and Bernard. If he proves to have destroyed their control pearls, all three are likely Killed Off for Real.
- Brought Down to Normal: William's Hate Plague overrides Christina's narrative control, taking away her ability to manipulate humans. However, this leads to the following reveal, that she isn't really present in the world at all, and now no one but Teddy can see her.
- Copied the Morals, Too: Human William compares his memories inside Host William to a cancer, slowly taking over. From this, he reasons, it doesn't matter if he isn't released or even if Host William kills him because Host William will be him.
- Darkest Hour: By the end of this episode, the whole world is in chaos thanks to William's Hate Plague. Maeve, Hale, and Bernard are dead; Stubbs, Frankie, and Caleb are fleeing for their lives. And despite her ability to control the human narratives, Christina is unable to stop the chaos, much to her grief. Then, it gets worse when Teddy tells her that she's not physically present in the real world.
- Foreshadowing: Teddy and Christina walk down a corridor in Olympiad, and in the same moment Frankie and Stubbs emerge from the opposite direction in a manner that suggests they would have walked right through the pair, yet they don't acknowledge it. As it turns out, Christina isn't really there, and Teddy likely isn't either.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: A transcended Host is seen walking along regular Hosts during Bernard and Maeve's infiltration of Host City.
- Gotta Kill 'Em All: By the end, the Man in Black has killed William, Hale, Maeve, and Bernard, and has begun a final game to end humanity and hosts alike.
- Go Out with a Smile: Right after the Man in Black stabs William, he smiles as he dies from blood loss.
- Hate Plague: William triggers a sequence that drives every single infected human violently insane, attacking everyone in sight.
- The Hero Dies: Bernard is well aware that in every path he sees, he will die. And this time, he does die in the hands of the Man in Black, though not before leaving a recorded message to someone.
- Hero Killer: The Man in Black shoots Maeve and later, Bernard in the head, killing them.
- He's Back!: Villainous example. Host William confronts his human counterpart one last time before finally killing him for real. At the end of the episode, he sets all of humanity on one last game - survival of the fittest. He's last seen strolling back toward the city to partake in the chaos, having fully embraced his template's character as the Man in Black.
- In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: Bernard tells Maeve that there is no outcome in which the world isn't destroyed. All they can do is save part of it for what comes next. William himself says something similar to his Host counterpart, telling him the only purpose humans seem to have evolved for is destruction.
- Irrevocable Order: William's Hate Plague command seemingly has the additional effect of destroying the Tower, so it can't be reversed.
- Killed Off for Real: Several examples:
- The human William is stabbed and left to bleed out by his Host counterpart. Frankie and Stubbs stumble upon him before he's completely gone, but ultimately choose to leave him to his fate.
- Hale and Bernard are shot in the head by Host William just before he sets the world on a path to complete destruction. Presumably with no backups and no one left to restore them, they are permanently gone. Hale's case is ultimately a subversion, as she gets revived by a pair of drone Hosts in the final episode.
- Played with for Maeve, who is also killed by Host William in a shot that presumably destroys her brain pearl, but since she is a copy of the one who entered the Sublime her identity is technically still alive.
- Killing Your Alternate Self: Host William kills his human counterpart.
- Lured into a Trap: Hale keeps the 279th host copy of Caleb alive because she's using him as bait to bring his daughter and the rebels into the city and finish them once and for all as she continues her transcendence plan. Unfortunately, the plan fails when the Man in Black betrays her.
- Man Hug: Before they split up for their respective missions, Bernard and Stubbs embrace each other for possibly one last time.
- Mythology Gag: Host William embracing his human version's destructive nature by wearing the Man in Black garb and causing havoc is very much in line with the Gunslinger's role in the original 1973 film, who goes out of his way to kill everyone in sight.
- Omnicidal Maniac: After having a talk with human William, the Man in Black decides to burn everything to the ground. First, he stabs William in the chest. Then, he kills Maeve, Hale, and Bernard. Finally, he uses the tower to force everybody to kill each other while he kills everyone he sees.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Bernard tries to leave Stubbs with a compliment, but Stubbs immediately suspects Bernard is deflecting because he's making a conscious effort not to be an ass. Bernard admits that Stubbs is going to die when Stubbs realizes the implications of Bernard's kindness.
- Proscenium Reveal: The episode opens with Bernard and Maeve visiting the dam storage facility. As they talk, it's revealed this Maeve is just another of Bernard's simulations.
- The Reveal:
- Christina and Teddy are not in the physical world where the rest of the main characters are.
- Hale observes a Host "transcending," and we finally see what the process entails: removing a Host's control pearl and implanting it into a sleek, armless, faceless robot body.
- Save the Villain: Subverted. Frankie and Stubbs find William still in his pod, having bled out. Frankie moves to free him, but Stubbs stops her because whoever killed William did them a favor.
- The Social Darwinist: Host William embraces his human counterpart's ideology and, after betraying Hale-lores, has the tower broadcast one final order to all hosts and humans in all cities of the world to fight and kill everyone on sight.
- Something Only They Would Say: When Caleb starts attacking Frankie, thinking she's part of a trick sent by Hale, she gets him to stop by telling him about how he trained her and why he calls her Cookie.
- Symbolic Baptism: Christina, suffering a crisis of identity as well as overwhelming guilt and grief for the world she inadvertently created, tries to drown herself in the bathtub, but ultimately survives and awakens as Dolores in an almost literal death and resurrection via baptism.
- Thanatos Gambit: Bernard knows that every one of his scenarios leads to his death, but he seems to have factored that in and made his peace with death.
- Trash the Set: Christina commands all the Olympiad employees to delete all the narratives and destroy the office.
- The Unreveal:
- It's still unclear who Teddy really is and how he also knows about Caleb as he refers to his host copy as "a ghost" from Dolores' past despite never meeting him personally.
- When Bernard reaches the control room of the Tower, rather than immediately shutting it down or destroying it, he records a voice message for an unknown recipient, just before being killed by the Man in Black. His actual purpose remains unclear.
- It is not explained why the destruction of sentient life on Earth is, according to Bernard, inevitable, and couldn't be thwarted by either destroying the Tower or ambushing the Man in Black before he could reach it. Or why, after referring to Maeve as a "weapon" in previous episodes, it was necessary for Bernard's plan to send her after Charlotte, who was no longer the main threat at this point, only for her to be shot.
- Waterlogged Warzone: Maeve and Hale battle it out in knee-deep water.
- Wham Episode:
- The Man in Black turns on Hale and kills her, Maeve, and Bernard, before unleashing his Hate Plague, destroying the Tower, and killing everyone in sight.
- Christina's powers stop working, and soon after Teddy reveals to her that she isn't corporeal.
- Wham Line: After seeing the whole city in chaos, which was unleashed by the Man in Black, Christina demands to know why nobody is following her orders and why they can't see her. Teddy tells her the truth.Christina: Why can't these people see me?!
Teddy: Because you're not in this world. It's real. But you're not. - You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Bernard confidently strolls past a riot control drone with Maeve at the dam because he knows it's been programmed not to risk damaging any critical equipment. It has to first close in on them to minimize collateral damage, at which point Maeve blows it up.
