Westworld: Kiksuya (2x08)

Not my favorite episode, unfortunately.

Cons:

I'm going to start with a disclaimer, alright? I'm not equipped to talk about the nuance of media representation when it comes to Native Americans. I can only speak to what makes me a little twitchy, and that's what I'm going to do here. See, I've been complaining for weeks that the portrayal of the native characters in the park has been... less than ideal. They spoke in stoic, one-worded remarks, when they spoke at all. We only ever saw them in their full face makeup. We saw them committing acts of violence. We didn't really see any alternative to this representation.

Finally, we see a nuanced portrayal. A man named Akecheta tells Maeve's daughter a story, a story of how he learned the truth (or at least some version of the truth) of his own existence, and began to seek a door to another world. My problems with this story are many, although I have heaps of praise for the man playing Akecheta, Zahn McClarnon. My first problem is that this story seems, for all that it's about a robot Native American, kind of cliche. It seemed to be vaguely "spirit quest" like, and it fell into a pattern of storytelling that I feel like I've seen before. Stoic native man bravely soldiers on in the face of his pain.... I don't know. Maybe I'm reaching. It just felt like it came through in the tone of the episode, with the music, the dialogue, the long shots of scenery... eh.

We discover that Akecheta isn't the only one of his people who has some memory of his past lives, and knows that something strange is going on. In fact, his tribe seems to have created something of a religion around the idea of this other world where people are taken. This is troublesome on a couple of different counts. One, I'm distinctly uncomfortable by the idea of a religion where the Native American characters are essentially praying to their creators, most of whom are white. That sucks a lot. It all comes to a head when Akecheta seems to reach the end of his quest, or at least a new echelon of understanding, after he finally meets Ford, who is as close to a god as the hosts are going to get. Just some icky undertones there.

The second problem I have with the basic plot here isn't about the optics, but rather about the practicalities. The whole show thus far has been developing this idea of the robots going rogue through Ford's machinations, with one particular host as a catalyst: Dolores. Maeve follows closely behind. It's pretty important to the shape of the story and the characters as I've understood them thus far that these two women, along with Joe Abernathy, are the aberrations that Ford has used to set his evil plans into motion. Dolores is planned, Maeve has maybe taken destiny into her own hands... and now we learn that before all of this, when Dolores was still off adventuring with young William and Logan, you have this other host - Akecheta - who knows he's lived multiple lives, who has walked around in the interior of the facility, has gone a decade without being upgraded... suddenly, everything we think we've understood about how the hosts began to go rogue is thrown out the window. And of course, Ford knew about this too.

The issue isn't that we've gotten a plot twist. The issue is that Ford is way too all-seeing at this point, and it annoys me. And the other issue is that there are only two more episodes of the season. It feels a little late in the game to be introducing so much brand new establishing information. I still feel like the whole pacing of this season is off.

Pros:

Okay. Enough of that. There were a lot of good things about this episode, and I don't want to make it seem like I hated every aspect of it. For one thing, even if I'm not sure this episode was a slam-dunk in terms of portraying the Native American characters on the show, I'm happy that we got a more meaty story that actually put a human face on these characters. And Zahn McClarnon, who played Akecheta, did an astounding job. I felt his pain and anger and fear come through every second he was onscreen. He did so well towing the line between "stoic" and "totally bland and uninteresting." He never crossed over into the latter. His love story was very generic - we don't know anything about the woman he was in love with. But oddly, this didn't bother me, because it was really more of a character study of the man. There are also some interesting ideas in here about human beings manufacturing "love" in these hosts - to what extent is this emotion real? Did Akecheta have a real relationship, or an idealized, sanitized version of one?

There were some very effective choices made in the directing and writing of this episode as well. I really liked the way that the vast majority of Akecheta's narrative is subtitled, and spoken in Lakota, as you're forced to really pay attention. And then there are just a few moments where he breaks unexpectedly into English. One of these moments is as he's narrating the part of the story where he first met Maeve's daughter, and she offered him water at his lowest and most desperate moment. The transition between languages was so seamless that for a moment I didn't recognize it. That was a powerful moment.

Another powerful moment - Akecheta makes his way into a storage unit for the hosts, finds his love, frozen as a statue, cries over her, and then... he decides to go back into the park and, more or less, behave. The idea here is that since he is one of few who can remember those that have been taken, he owes it to them to grieve for them and remember them, when nobody else can. Dude is seriously a saint. That moment gave me chills.

We saw Logan again, going mad from heatstroke in the middle of the park. I question whether his father wouldn't have gotten him out of there, but whatever. It was oddly good to see him again. I have such a weird fascination with Logan. He intrigues me in a way I wouldn't have expected. He's not a good person, but the things that William has put him through make me sympathetic to him almost by default.

One quick note on Dolores - Akecheta calls her the "Deathbringer," which is both a very cool nickname and also a troubling sign of the future for Dolores and Akecheta. What happens if these two come face to face? Is that where all of this is leading? I really can't tell. I like Akecheta, even if I think it's odd to give a new character so much attention near the very end of the season. I hope we see more of him, and I'm definitely interested in the idea of these two hosts who have been "awake" longer than most, coming face to face.

There's also the reveal at the end, as we learn a bit more about Maeve's powers. Turns out, she is sort of "hooked in" to the network of hosts, and has been listening to Akecheta's story through her daughter's eyes. That was a super cool moment, and it solidifies the extent of Maeve's reach and influence. This lady is POWERFUL.

And... the humans know it. This is obviously troubling in the extreme. I can only imagine what sort of plans Hale is going to have for Maeve now that she has her in her custody. I will say, I was oddly moved by Lee (the writer) reacting to Maeve's plight. I wondered at first if he was feeling guilty about his own role in writing the suffering of these hosts. He's spent so much of the season shooting off at the mouth and making it pretty clear that he thinks of the hosts as things, as characters in a story he's writing. But here, we see him seemingly acknowledge that Maeve is more than that. It was a powerful moment, and one that I didn't realize I needed until I saw it.

Okay. This is a long review. As I wrote it, I realized that my feelings for this episode were more complex than I first imagined. I started off thinking this was going to get a low-ish score. But as I take stock, I realize that a lot of questions were answered here - we understand more about the maze now. About why the Ghost Nation members have always seemed disconnected from the rest of the world. I'm not convinced that this portrayal should get an A+ in terms of representation, but I also don't think it was a total failure. And I'm undeniably curious to see what's next! Take that for what it's worth.

8/10