'Westworld': OK, Seriously, Is the Man in Black a Host or Not?

(Major spoiler alert: Please do not read ahead unless you’ve seen Sunday’s episode of “Westworld” Season 2, “Vanishing Point.”)

The penultimate episode of “Westworld”s second season aired Sunday and, of course, that means we have some new questions, one of the biggest being, is the Man in Black a Host?

Now, it’s not like we haven’t asked ourselves this question before. In fact, we’ve probably wondered if every single human character is secretly a host since the very first episode. But as Season 2 of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s HBO sci fi hit approaches its end, the answer when it comes to Ed Harris’ character seems to be turning from a “WTF? Of course he’s not!” to an “Umm…”

Also Read: 'Westworld': Someone Either Screwed Up the Last Episode or Dropped a Huge Easter Egg

This episode, titled “Vanishing Point,” took us into the show’s very recent past for an inside look at an evening with the MIB (aka an older version of Jimmi Simpson’s William) and his family life outside of the park. Set on the night his lovely (but disturbed) wife Juliet, played by Sela Ward, killed herself, we finally find out why she did it.

Juliet and William’s adult daughter, Emily (Katja Herbers), is concerned about her mother — a recovered alcoholic whose behavior becomes embarrassing at a party — and wants to get her back into treatment. Juliet refuses to go, and insists she is fine, placing the blame for her troubles onto William and insisting to their daughter he doesn’t love either of them and never has.

William ignores the remarks and puts his wife to bed. She asks him, “Is this real? Are you real?” after recalling how she fell in love with him because of how different he was from everyone she had ever met. How genuine.

Also Read: Thandie Newton Explains Why 'Westworld' Season 2 Threw Her for a Loop

He waits till he thinks she’s asleep before confessing out loud to the darkness inside of him, confirming her fears that he does not belong to Emily and Juliet, but Westworld. “No one else sees it, this thing in me. Even I didn’t see it at first,” he laments. “Then one day, it was there. This stain, invisible to everyone… except you.”

Juliet waits for him to leave before retrieving something he tried to hide while her eyes were shut: an ID card filled with info on him from the park that Ford (Anthony Hopkins) gave him at the party earlier. She opens it up and sees all of his actions inside of Westworld, which drives her to commit suicide.

Back inside the park in the not-so-distant present day, we see William will stop at nothing to continue his Ford-appointed journey to “find the door.” He’s so obsessed with this that he actually shoots Emily, who he is now convinced is Ford speaking to him through a Host, after she tells him she knows about the ID chip, insisting no one but Ford — who gave it to him — could know.

Also Read: 'Westworld' Shocks Again by Bringing Back a Key Character: 'Hello, Old Friend'

He’s horrified when he walks over to her lifeless body to find that she is clutching the chip in question — the one her mother found the night of her death and hid in a place she knew only Emily would find.

William wanders out to a field in the park, as we hear Harris’ voice say, “What is a person but a collection of choices? Where do those choices come from? Do I have a choice?”

“If you keep pretending, you’re not going to remember who you are,” he hears Juliet say in his mind, as it’s clear he’s questioning his own humanity after what he did to his daughter.

Also Read: 'Westworld': Thandie Newton Tells Us Why Maeve's Superpower Went Into Overdrive in Shogun World

Is it possible the Man in Black is a Host crafted in William’s image? Is the giant game Ford has sent him on to “find the door” a test to see if he can figure it out?

“Were any of these choices ever truly mine to begin with?” he asks, as he begins to cut his own arm open to find out.

The Season 2 finale of “Westworld” airs next Sunday at 9/8 c on HBO.

20 TV Characters Who Came Back From the Dead (Photos)

Dead is dead is dead. Unless you're on TV. Whether it was planned out carefully over several seasons by writers or thrown in without a solid explanation, small-screen deaths don't always stick. It's not uncommon for a TV character to be resurrected after you were sure, so sure, that they were gone for good. Seriously, the trope has been done to death at this point. Click through TheWrap's gallery to see the best examples. And, it really should go without saying, but spoiler alert.

Also Read: Fall TV 2020: All the Premiere Dates for New and Returning Shows – So Far (Photos)
HBO/20th Century Fox/ABC
Bobby Ewing, "Dallas" -- Bobby Ewing was literally dead on this show for an entire season before he was brought back in a very bizarre way. His wife finds him in the shower and suddenly realizes that whole chunk of series was a dream. The was more than a little trippy for fans of the primetime CBS soap.
CBS
Tasha Yar, "Star Trek the Next Generation" -- This was a case of an actor wanting out, then back in, and a show obliging by way of death. Denise Crosby didn't like the direction "TNG" was going in, so they killed off Tasha in Season 1. But then, they had to find a way to bring her back for a few episodes, so when Crosby was on board with returning, the writers created a new timeline where she didn't die. But she was only alive in that timeline. Problem solved.
CBS
Sydney Andrews, "Melrose Place" -- In 1997, viewers of this primetime Fox soap were crushed when a car struck and killed Sydney Andrews on her wedding day in the original series. But in the pilot of the short-lived remake, Sydney is alive -- for about 10 minutes. She's soon found floating in the apartment complex's pool. Sorry, Syd.
Fox
Buffy Summers, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- Here lies Buffy Summers. She saved the world. A lot. Yes, the titular heroine of Joss Whedon's OG supernatural series died at the end of Season 5 in 2001, just before the show jumped to UPN. She sacrificed herself as a "gift" to the world. But not to worry, her super-powerful witch BFF Willow was able to resurrect her by the Season 6 premiere.
20th Century Fox
Taylor Hayes, "The Bold and the Beautiful" -- Taylor died and came back to life twice and both incidents involved the same Moroccan prince. Look, we get that it's a soap opera, but even that was a bit much.
CBS
Tony Almeida, "24" -- Fun fact: You don't always die from a lethal injection. Yes, we said lethal. Tony was thought to have been axed this way, until we found out Jack Bauer's enemy Henderson missed his vital organs on purpose so that he could revive him and use him in his plot to kill the president. Sure, sure, sure.
Fox
Kara Thrace, "Battlestar Galactica" -- The top pilot on "Battlestar Galactica" was killed and presumed dead after her ship imploded during a mission on Season 3. She returned alive in the season finale with a new messianic outlook, and helps the ship find "earth." In the end, it's never clear if she was actually back from the dead, or an angel in disguise.
Universal TV
Bart and Evelyn Bass, "Gossip Girl" -- Chuck thought mommy and daddy were dead. They weren't.
The CW
Lydia Davis, "Revenge" -- Lydia survived both a fall from a high-rise balcony onto a parked taxi and a plane bombing. Don't overthink it.
ABC
Sam and Dean Winchester, "Supernatural" -- Honestly, there are way too many to go over here. Sam and Dean have died multiple times. Sometimes multiple times per season. But, yeah, moving on.
The CW
Jimmy Lishman, "Shameless" -- Everyone thought Jimmy was murdered on his father-in-law’s yacht until he showed up at the Gallagher household during the end credits of the Season 4 finale, blaming the whole misunderstanding on slave labor.
Showtime
Sherlock Holmes, "Sherlock" -- Fans had to wait two long years to find out how Benedict Cumberbatch's character could have possibly survived leaping from a hospital roof to his death. In the end, "Sherlock" decided to tease you for eternity by suggesting a few possibilities, but ultimately never revealing what happened.
PBS/BBC
Maya Lewis, "Scandal" -- For 22 years, Olivia Pope believed her mother died in a plane crash caused by Fitz. In Season 3, we discovered she wasn't. But based on how much trouble Maya caused throughout the rest of the series, dead may have been a better status than alive.
ABC
Elizabeth Keen, "The Blacklist" -- The first time Liz faked her death we were in on it, the second time, not so much. Girl, if you try to do it again no one will believe you. Find a new escape route.
NBC
Michael Cordero, "Jane the Virgin" -- Jane's husband Michael died halfway through Season 3 of The CW series, collapsing suddenly after recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest months earlier. The show immediately jumped ahead a few years, where Jane was finally able to find love again with Rafael. However, in the final moments of the Season 4 finale, we discovered Michael is still alive, but we had no idea how until the Season 5 premiere, when it was revealed Rose faked his death and had covered it up. Straight out of a telenovela, right?

The CW
Alison DiLaurentis, "Pretty Little Liars" -- You may have figured it out before it was actually revealed on screen after a few seasons, but yes, Alison was alive the whole time. And she'd been watching her friends grieving and suffering over her death, and the blackmail that came soon after she croaked, for years. Awkward.
Freeform
Jon Snow, "Game of Thrones" -- And of course, there is the most famous case of all: Jon Snow. We thought he was gone for good, we knew nothing.
HBO
Dan Conner, "Roseanne" -- The ABC sitcom's revival explained away Dan's death on the original series' depressing finale as a joke in the first few minutes of its return. Of course, then the comedy itself was killed off after just one new season, thanks to star Roseanne Barr's tweeting habits. And then it came back to life (sans Roseanne) as "The Conners."

ABC

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Jon Snow’s case is really just the tip of the undoing-on-screen-demises iceberg

Dead is dead is dead. Unless you're on TV. Whether it was planned out carefully over several seasons by writers or thrown in without a solid explanation, small-screen deaths don't always stick. It's not uncommon for a TV character to be resurrected after you were sure, so sure, that they were gone for good. Seriously, the trope has been done to death at this point. Click through TheWrap's gallery to see the best examples. And, it really should go without saying, but spoiler alert.

Also Read: Fall TV 2020: All the Premiere Dates for New and Returning Shows – So Far (Photos)

View In Gallery

20 TV Characters Who Came Back From the Dead (Photos)

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