【Anissa Kate the Widow XXX】

This recap contains spoilers for Westworld Season 1,Anissa Kate the Widow XXX episode 6, titled "The Adversary." Refresh your memory of where we left off with last week's recap.

It was bound to happen eventually. Westworldwent almost six full episodes without killing anyone off, which, in a post-Game of Thrones TV world, is more or less unheard of. But at the end of “The Adversary,” a rare episode with zero Dolores, William or Logan, the meddling Elsie may have bitten the bullet at the hands of an unknown attacker.Elsie’s foe may be the “adversary” of episode 6’s title, but it’s still unclear who exactly is orchestrating the sinister events going on in Westworld. All signs point to Arnold, a man who has supposedly been dead for decades. So maybe Arnold isn’t as dead as everyone thought, or maybe he built an AI version of himself before he died -- or maybe someone is just trying to make it look like Arnold is behind it all.But who? Based on what we know of Ford, Anthony Hopkins’ character seems unlikely. He was supposedly at odds with Arnold, although his mysterious business partner at some point created and set loose an entire gaggle of hosts that resemble Ford’s childhood family, allegedly for sentimental reasons. (Seems unlikely.) That was one of the creepiest things Westworldhas done yet -- even without watching little baby Ford’s face open up like a clock.

SEE ALSO: Fact: Melania Trump is a Westworld robot

Bernard thinks so too. Then again, he can’t be ruled out as the culprit; he does rather conspicuously ask Elsie whether she’s alone before she’s attacked, though that could also be out of concern. Either way, he’s finally starting to see Ford for what he clearly is: an adversary, regardless of whether or not Ford is the one who’s pulling the strings of the hosts’ mounting rebellion.Speaking of which: Super Maeve anyone? By the end of “The Adversary” it’s clear why the other departments within the company have such disdain for the “butchers” downstairs: Felix and Sylvester are dumb as stumps. It’s a little hard to believe that they actually go along with Maeve’s self-approved redesign. What power does she really hold over them? It’s established that they don’t want to get fired, and Maeve has physically cowed them (she’s pretty handy with a scalpel). But it’s incredible that they don’t seem to fully realize what they’re doing when they crank Maeve’s stats up to supervillain levels.By the way, is it a coincidence that these two idiots share their names with cartoon cats? Probably, but I like it anyway.Watching Maeve deliberately goad a guest into strangling her to death -- in the middle of some very angry coitus -- was disturbing, but that’s about what we should expect from Westworldby now. Thankfully, there’s plenty of high-minded sci-fi intrigue to go along with all the shocking violence, sexual and otherwise.Maeve has so far mirrored Elsie in their dual investigations, but now Elsie may be done for (though in many Peak TV shows, if you don’t see a character die they’re not really gone) and Maeve has more answers than she could have imagined. Will Thandie Newton’s madame use her new powers of perception for good, or will she become a monster -- the ultimate adversary for the company? I’m rooting for the former, though the latter will make for bloodier TV.

SEE ALSO: 'Westworld' bosses are already crafting Season 2, hint at other worlds

This week, another host, Teddy, realized that he’s more of a monster than he thought. As he and the Man in Black faced an entire battalion’s worth of adversaries, Teddy unearthed new memories of his history with Wyatt. And it seems their relationship wasn’t always as adversarial as Teddy believed.Is that part of Ford’s narrative -- that Teddy should, at some point, remember his misdeeds and go ballistic? Or is the handsome gunslinger succumbing to the same breakdown afflicting Dolores, Maeve and who knows how many other hosts?

Mashable Top Stories Stay connected with the hottest stories of the day and the latest entertainment news. Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

---

You May Also Like

---

---

It’s not totally clear how the MiB knows he needs Teddy, or why he was so certain in the last episode that Lawrence is no longer necessary for finding the maze. That’s partially by design, as the Man in Black’s motives and methods are meant to be enigmatic, like he always knows more than he’s letting on. But it also feels like he’s reading signs that aren’t really there, which is frustrating as a viewer.It isfun watching Sizemore make an ass out of himself. He’s been absent for a while, apparently sulking in the sun for much of this season. That probably won’t help him much when new addition Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), the executive director of Westworld's board, starts the “transitions in administration” (i.e. firings, for those who’ve never worked in corporate) for Delos, the mysterious company that runs the park.“The Adversary” also marks the first time this entire show that Ford has seemed off balance, when his younger self tells him he killed the family dog at Arnold’s behest. “If it was dead it couldn’t hurt anything anymore,” the boy says (apparently the same doesn’t apply to Arnold). The dog is clearly a metaphor, but for whom? Ford? The company as a whole? The hosts themselves? Just who is Arnold looking to put down, ultimately?

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

There’s a fan theory that Bernard is secretly a host. It’s strange that some people know about Arnold (like the Man in Black and William’s frenemy, Logan) while Bernie’s never heard of him, yet Bernard knows about the maze, as several other hosts do (including Teddy and the Native Americans, as we learned this week). Westworldcertainly seems to be setting up secret hosts as a possible plot twist; Maeve even asks Felix how he knows he’s human, a valid question to which he doesn’t really have a good answer.What we doknow is that there are dozens of first generation hosts capable of receiving the mysterious broadcasts that are rewriting their prime directives -- including the one that prevents them from hurting living things. Who's behind the signals, if not the (possibly not) dead Arnold? Will Bernard confront Theresa about the data she’s been smuggling out of the park? Who does she really answer to, and what are the board’s true interests? Is it curtains for Elsie, or was that just a sleeper hold?Perhaps we'll find out on next week's Westworld: Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.