‘Westworld’ Season 2 Finale: What Did The Bonus Scene With The Man In Black Mean?
The Season 2 finale episode of HBO’s Westworld ran for 90 minutes, making it the longest episode to date on the sci-fi robot series. However, it was a bonus scene at the end that has viewers talking.
SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses the Season 2 finale episode of HBO’s Westworld. Please proceed with caution if you have not yet viewed Episode 10 (titled “The Passenger”) and would like to avoid spoilers.
After the dust had settled on Episode 10 of Westworld Season 2, HBO surprised viewers with a bonus scene. In this scene, the Man in Black (Ed Harris) was seen in the elevator leading down to The Forge. As the doors opened, he comes face to face with his daughter, Emily (Katja Herbers). His daughter leads him into a room and starts questioning him.
The first confusing part of this scene was the emergence of the Man in Black’s daughter, Emily, since he had killed her in Episode 9 of Westworld Season 2. In this bonus scene, it is unclear whether Emily is a human or host and the scene is reminiscent of the ones seen with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright). It has already been confirmed in Season 2 that these scenes showed Dolores calibrating the host Bernard to resemble the human Arnold, of which Bernard was a replica.
If this is true, it is possible Emily is a host that has been created to calibrate a host version of the Man in Black. With Emily telling her father that she was checking for “fidelity” — a word Dolores has used in reference to the Bernard host — this seems highly likely. And it seems that Westworld creator Lisa Joy might have somewhat confirmed this idea in an interview she did with The Wrap.
“Katja Herbers in the future talking to the Man in Black is now a host version of Katja Herbers.”
As for whether the Man in Black is a host or not, Joy told the Hollywood Reporter that he probably isn’t one.
“Just to clarify, we don’t necessarily say he’s a host. A host refers to a creature like Dolores, someone who is pure cognition, someone who is made up of nothing and has a fabricated body as well. It’s definitely a sequence that’s indicative of a direction we’re going to.”
If the Man in Black isn’t a host, what is he?
Emily appears to take the Man in Black into a room that bears a striking resemblance to the one in which the human/host hybrid, James Delos (Peter Mullan), was taken in Episode 4 of Season 2 of Westworld when he was being tested by William (Jimmi Simpson), the younger version of the Man in Black. So, it seems possible the Man in Black is now a human/hybrid host moving forward into Season 3 of Westworld.
If the Man in Black really is a hybrid human/host, it will be interesting to find out why someone has done this to him. However, as per usual, fans will just have to wait until the next season of Westworld premieres to confirm what happens next.
Westworld has been confirmed for Season 3 according to Variety. However, shooting is not expected to start until June of next year according to an interview Ed Harris did with the Huffington Post.
