Westworld 2.8 Review – ‘Kiksuya’

[Warning: spoilers abound for those who have not seen Sunday’s episode of Westworld.]

By and large, Westworld is a show that has followed the Lost party line that more mystery is better. Much of the series’ appeal is built on questions tailor-made for Reddit sleuths to debate. In season one, mystery and speculation were paramount to its appeal. Who is Arnold? Who is the Man in Black? What’s wrong with Dolores? While season two has been more straight-forward, it is still built on enticing puzzles about Delos’ motivations, which time period is which, Ford’s plan and exactly how the hell Maeve is doing what she’s doing. Much like William, in Westworld we’re walking through a game in which the rules aren’t clear and the prize is only hinted at.

Considering how much that Westworld has made its bones on enigmas, it’s perhaps ironic that the best episode of the season largely takes a break from the riddles. “Kiksuya” is an odd episode, in that it takes what has largely been a momentum-heavy season and stops it in its tracks for a side story. Oh sure, there are some big questions and answers. And we’ll get to those. But generally, this week is far less concerned with macro questions than it is the narrower scope of Akecheta and the Ghost Nation. The result is a smaller but infinitely more focused and emotional hour of television. It’s a powerful break from the metaplot before the final two episodes will likely bring us down the home stretch.

The Ghost Nation has largely been a trope come to life in Westworld so far. The Native American hosts have been trotted out as the bogeyman when appropriate in a way that’s always seemed vaguely icky. To be clear, I mean intentionally icky. Delos’ creations are subject to the whims of their creators. And the show’s writers have always been quite clear that Lee and the other Delos employees haven’t exactly had cultural sensitivity as a defining factor of their narratives. Regardless, it has created an image of these characters that perhaps, unlike their European-featured counterparts, they are not as fully realized as they should be.

“Kiksuya” turns that perception on its head. It’s a bold move, stopping the main story for an episode on characters that have been little more than cyphers. But in the hands of writers Carly Wray and Dan Dietz, it pays off. Akecheta almost instantly becomes one of the most intriguing characters in the show through this episode. He’s certainly one of the most sympathetic, as he is put through the ringer over a thirty-some year period. Akecheta’s transition from peaceful husband to savage warrior, then to a man burdened with terrible knowledge, is believable and heartbreaking. “Kiksuya” is Lakota for “remember,” and like all myths about knowledge, his memory is both a blessing and a curse. In the span of an hour, he goes from being an impenetrable symbol of the park’s dangers to a tragic and important individual in the grand scheme of things.

I imagine there’s going to be some debate over whether the show needs to add another point of view character at this point. It’s a fair question to ask. Between Maeve, Dolores, William, and Bernard, there are a lot of story arcs already playing out against the meta-narrative. Adding Akecheta could easily be one thread too many to what’s being woven. However, there are still gaps to fill in the story that Westworld is trying to tell. It’s difficult to see where one of the other POV characters could accomplish what Akecheta can. More importantly, he comes into the POV role with connections of Maeve already established. His arc in this episode — coming across Arnold’s Dolores-assisted suicide, his interaction with William in the present, his conversation with Ford — add more. Already, we have encounters that we can anticipate and look forward to going forward.

Because Akecheta’s arc in “Kiksuya” doesn’t exist in a vacuum, we do get to fill in some of the blanks of the park’s history. The episode retcons Akecheta as a threat to Maeve and her daughter into a man who was trying to help them. We see what happened to Logan after William sent him off on a horse. And, of course, there’s the conversation with Ford and everything involving Maeve. Some of this seems fairly incidental, and that’s fine. This episode is Akecheta’s story, and he’s not there just to service someone else’s storyline. But it’s nice to see the dots connect a bit. It’s also a sly way for the showrunners to turn Anna into more than just Maeve’s MacGuffin without fully resolving Maeve’s quest for her.

As with all retcons, there are some places where I think the story doesn’t quite hold up. For example, at this point there’s every reason to wonder why no one noticed a host wandering out by his lonesome for ten years. I realize that there’s a lot for techs to keep track of, but not one person noticed? Maybe they did and that’s part of the mystery, but it still strains credibility just a touch. I’m not sure if his spreading the maze symbol holds up perfectly either. At one point it is implied he’s the one carving it into scalps, but then how does it get inside some apparently previously-unopened heads? There may well be explanations to these coming, but they are jarring in the moment.

That said, these are minor levels of storyline dissonance. As a long-time comic reader, I’ve grown to accept a certain level of jagged edges to retcons. I suspect not everyone will be as okay with them, but that’s the nature of the beast when you’re going back and reframing an arc. The more you try to keep the audience guessing, the more risk of not all the pieces fitting. And ultimately, these little “But wait…” moments are an acceptable trade-off for what we get in return.

The big question now is where Akecheta will fit into the overall storyline. He’s a leader like Dolores, an alpha host who knows the truth. But his goals and methods are very different than hers. She’s the Deathbringer, while he’s Moses leading his people out of the desert. He has his connection to Maeve through Anna and that will surely play out in interesting ways. And he’s inherently opposed to William and Delos. His sad journey through the Mesa to find Kohana’s lobotomized body in cold storage takes us down a similar road as we’ve seen before, but with a different effect on him. I wouldn’t have said before “Kiksuya” that I wanted to see another arc added into this twisting storyline, but I’m all in on this one.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on Maeve’s presence in this episode. In the one big non-Akecheta revelation, we learn that (no surprise) her telepathy is basically the ability to send commands via the hosts’ networks. More importantly, we learn that she’s able to communicate at a very long distance, as she learns Akecheta’s story and gets to know him. I think everyone knew what Maeve’s unique skill was already, but it’s nice to make it explicit in the text. I’m looking forward to the possibility of interaction between Charlotte and Maeve. These are the side dishes of the episode, but they keep the overall plot moving ahead just enough so the show doesn’t derail too much.

Some Final Thoughts:

• I know I’ve missed the last two weeks, and I apologize for that. My Sundays have not been great on me, but I’m working on getting back on track for the home stretch.

• Our song anachronism this week was Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” which was first heard in the season two trailer.

• I know technically Maeve’s daughter has no name yet, but she’s called herself Anna so I’m sticking with it. It’s easier than constantly saying “Maeve’s daughter.”

• One subtle moment of horror came with the reminder that the hosts die so often, Delos just waits until it happens to run their software updates. Seriously, think about how much your phone OS or Xbox has to update. And those are phones and Xboxes, not artificial intelligences.

• Lee finally displaying some real humanity over Maeve’s plight was a nice moment for him. He was the most irritating character of season one, but I’ve enjoyed him this season.

• Grace may think that whatever she has planned for William is worse than Akecheta’s plans. But somehow, I doubt that’s the case.

• Next week: William gets some spotlight, with Sela Ward playing his now-dead wife Juliet. That should be dark and emotionally brutal.

9.0

The final score: review Amazing

The 411

Westworld makes a bold move with "Kiksuya," pausing the forward momentum of the plot in the closing stretch of the season to introduce an entirely new perspective. And yet, it works. Zahn McClarnon makes Akecheta an interesting and sympathetic character, while the dive into his past delivers just enough answers to keep things from feeling like they stalled out for an hour. The result is one of the best (although likely also one of the most polarizing) episodes of the season.