Season 4, Episode 6, titled “Fidelity,” turned out to be the Frankie and Caleb show. We learned nothing more about Delores, but something very important about Charlotte Hale/Halores. And it may be setting up the endgame on Westworld.
Caleb-278
The best part of the episode was seeing Host Caleb, version 278, play through an escape scenario that hundreds of his prior versions had tried before, only to fail horrifically. Eventually, he reaches a communication device that allows him to send word to his daughter, Frankie. But then we discover that was all part of Halores’ plan.
Halores has had it with the outliers and believes Caleb (at least the human portion of his mind uploaded into his pearl) holds the solution to the problem. Ultimately, Caleb-278 fails to give Halores what she wants, so she snaps his neck. But Halores is no quitter. She prints Caleb-279 and undoubtedly plans to start the loop all over again.
Team Frankie
Frankie is struggling with whether she can trust Bernard and the other good hosts, even vowing to destroy Maeve once she learns what she can about her father. But after Maeve saves Frankie’s life from the host who infiltrated her band of outliers, maybe the bonds of trust will start to grow. And that needs to happen soon. Because it’s clear that unless Frankie goes all-in with Bernard and Maeve, she and the world may be doomed.
How the World Might End
We know that Bernard’s mission is to save the human race, all of whom appear trapped in Halores’ New York-style park (though it’s apparent from the flashbacks that Halores was also controlling cities on the West Coast at one point). And I believe “Fidelity” gave us clues as to how humanity might meet its end.
Because Halores is f*cking losing it.
We’ve already seen evidence that she’s become like a bored Greek god. The mythological gods often toyed with their human subjects but eventually abandoned them. That fits Halores in part, but I think she has some Old Testament-style vengeance inside her that would make Zeus look timid.
Not only is our god-level host bored with humanity, but she’s becoming extremely frustrated with her growing outlier problem, particularly as they affect her hosts. And by the end of the episode, when Caleb tells her the outlier hosts would rather kill themselves than live in the world she created, Halores is beginning to crack.
In the next scene, we see her take out her frustration on her Caleb creations by incinerating the whole lot of them. This *might* be some big-time foreshadowing. As her anger and frustration grow, Halores may decide to burn her self-created world to ashes. Unless Team Frankie can stop her.
What About Delores?
One nagging question is how Delores and Teddy factor into this story. Earlier in the episode, Bernard explains that the original Westworld started as a simulation. That got me thinking about my original theory, and I began to question again whether Delores may be living in a simulation.
But Delores has made contact with an outlier — the homeless man — and we’ve seen proof that he lived in Halores’s park in the real world. So, for now, my guess is she’s in the park, living the loop that Halores set her on until Teddy helped her question the nature of her reality.
Another thing we don’t know is whether she and Teddy are on the same timeline as Team Frankie. The existence of the homeless outlier suggests they are, but we’ve already been fooled about the timeline earlier this season.
With only two episodes left, let’s hope we get some answers soon!