Les Écorchés

"Les Écorchés" is the seventh episode of the second season of Westworld, and the seventeenth episode overall.
==Synopsis==
==Plot==
===Skeletons in the Closet ===
Bernard wakes, with a small photo of Arnold's son, Charlie, in the palm of his hand. As he wakes up, he starts having flashbacks of when Charlie was alive. Ashley Stubbs approaches Bernard and brings up that he's troubled about Karl Strand and his team. He's worried that they are here to secure their assets rather than rescue anyone, taking out anyone that might now about their secret 'project' while they're at it. Theresa Cullen had a satcom in her office, Stubbs remembers, suggesting if they can get to it, they can call for help. But as they start to walk out casually, Strand intercepts them and takes them at gunpoint. Taking them for a 'walk'. 
Said walk leading them through the woods. When Stubbs asks him if this is an execution? But Strand says no, this is a negotiation. He wants 'the key' and he thinks one of them has it, and is hoping to sell that key to the highest bidder, and that they've already killed to protect themselves. Killed? Stubbs asks "Killed who?" Theresa Cullen, Strand answers, Stubbs derisive saying she died in a 'slip and fall' that it was an accident. Bernard however, silent. Stubbs surprised when Strand tells them they found a 'bloom' of her DNA 5km from where they found her body. And that's where they are going. 
He takes them right to the Remote Diagnostic Facility where Theresa died. Charlotte Hale is already there, Stubbs noting she's now signed off on kidnapping her own employees. She tries to justify herself to Stubbs by saying 'the project' is a turning point for the human species. He knows that. Which means Strand suggests, that Stubbs knew how much it was worth on the open market. Strand doesn't think Bernard could have killed her, so he suspects Stubbs. As Bernard sees Theresa's blood on the walls of the RDF, he remembers killing Theresa while he was under Ford's control. Strand is threatening to kill Stubbs when Bernard stops him, and they are interrupted when the hidden door is found by a PMC.
They go into the corridor beyond the door, with Bernard and Stubbs leading the way. Strand kicks open another door and they find a room full of Bernard hosts, wrapped inside of plastic bags. The Bernard clones are in a variety of states. One has a scar on his head, and another has his head split apart showing the mechanical parts underneath, indicating the old technology used to build hosts with non-organic material. As Hale unzips one of the bags, she says, "I figured you'd have some skeletons in your closet, Bernard. I didn't think they'd be your own."
===Water Board===
Hale tortures Bernard by making him think he's being waterboarded.
She puts him into Analysis Mode and asks him if he would ever lie to her, and he says, "No, never." She then asks him whether Dolores led the attack on the Mesa, and his response is that he doesn't remember. She notes that he actually does remember as his archives indicate that, and so that memory is somewhere inside him; pointing out that maybe he just doesn't want to remember.
She starts to lead him through his memories, hoping to find out what happened to Peter Abernathy's control unit.
===Secrets & Lures===
Bernard remembers Hale and Stubbs inside the Behavior Lab and Diagnostics area. Abernathy is bolted to the table and Stubbs is telling them about the train being deliberately crashed. Hale insists they stay. Coughlin instructs a PMC to get teams ready, but tells Stubbs to stay and protect their "crown jewel" Abernathy.
Dolores and her gang are fighting their way into the Mesa. Coughlin and his men go looking, guided by Goldberg in the control room. She points out that the PMCs are wearing haptic vests that allow them to sense enemies within 30 feet. They move through the level, killing hosts, feeling confident, looking for the response team. only to come across a pile of naked bodies. On moving closer they suddenly realize it's the response team, all dead. And are immediately ambushed by Dolores' troops, most of the PMCs getting killed.
Hale and Stubbs listen in on the fighting. Hale tells the technician to hurry things up by cutting open Abernathy and copying over his control unit. Stubbs and Hale argue, and she refuses to tell him what is inside Abernathy.
In the control room they are tracking the attacking hosts and realize they're headed for the Cradle and its backups. Stubbs directs Coughlin to head off the hosts. Elsie Hughes overhears the security team's conversations on her own communication device, and is anxious that Bernard finish up his time in the Cradle.
===Control Variables===
(This scene uses a wider aspect ratio than is usual for the show.)
Bernard, still in the Mariposa Saloon converses with the unexpectedly present Ford, bewildered as to how Robert can still be alive. Ford states that this is the point of the project: to provide a route to immortality. Ford explains that the Cradle simulation is a large scale fidelity test to check human personality downloads for consistency -- with the rigid loops of the hosts lives providing a consistency check against the reactions of the humans when they were guests in the physical park. As Ford describes this, Clementine and Maeve run through their loops in the saloon.
Bernard realizes that the control unit he printed was Ford. Ford starts the player piano going -- marking the start of a new narrative -- and leads Bernard out of the saloon.
The Sweetwater main street is busy, and the hosts' loops are running normally with Dolores and Teddy just getting in to town. Ford explains how the loops work to Bernard -- pausing everyone on the street with a snap of his fingers. As Ford expounds on these things to Bernard, Bernard figures out that the park is a big scientific experiment, with the hosts running through their loops as a consistent "control" so as to study the real "variables": the guests. Delos wants to copy the human consciousnesses. Ford points out that everything these days is backed up, except for the human mind: "the last analog device in a digital world." Ford tells him about the immortality project, and about how the project doesn't work -- yet. Ford informs Bernard that he/Ford would degrade if he was in the physical world, or go mad like host James Delos.
Bernard says the hosts are all headed for the Valley Beyond, and asks Ford what they will find there; what the end story is? Ford's witty response is, "Isn't the pleasure of a story in discovering the ending yourself, Bernard?"
The wide aspect ratio ends, and we see Elsie nervously talking to herself that she and Bernard need to get out of the Cradle.
===Past Sins of a Man In Black===
William along with Lawrence and a few of his men, are being pursued by the Ghost Nation. Maeve (in modern clothing) and her daughter hide in an abandoned house. Her daughter is scared, but Maeve promises her that she will keep the girl safe. William finds them and thinks they are put there in a pathetic attempt by Ford. Maeve flashes back to her normal Homestead loop, but this time instead of being stabbed and her daughter being shot, Maeve shoots him and with the gun's safety's off, it actually harms him. As William tries to run, Maeve tells her daughter to wait there, and then chases after him. She takes control of the nearby hosts with her mind, and makes them attack him. He takes a lot of damage but keeps on fighting, right up to the point that Maeve moves in for the kill.
However, before she can end him, Lawrence arrives and holds a gun on her. But she asks him if William is really a man he wants to protect, and encourages him to remember himself all the things William has done to him over the years. As she does, Lawrence recalls William killing his wife just to gain information about The Maze, and after a beat turns and William in the chest. He's about to shoot him again when a QA team arrives and kills Lawrence. Maeve sees her daughter being taken by the Ghost Nation and is then shot repeatedly in the chest herself. Lee Sizemore, horrified, breaks from cover and prevents her from being destroyed, ordering the QA team to stand down saying that she is special and they need her, and they drive off with Maeve. The MiB is seen to be badly bloodied, but still alive.
=== Head Space ===
Hale becomes impatient and tells the tech to remove the control unit. Hale and Stubbs overhear the PMC team on their communication devices, as the scene switches to Elsie in the Cradle listening in on the same thing. The camera focuses in on Bernard's face while he is in a trance-like state while connected to the Cradle.
===Inner Workings===
(This scene uses a wider aspect ratio than is usual for the show.)
Inside the Cradle, Ford shows Bernard his origins, including a recreation of Arnold's house and Dolores's fidelity testing of Bernard. Ford tells Bernard that Delos's involvement in the project didn't exist when Arnold died, and implies that the only thing he had to build Bernard's mind as a clone of Arnold was his own memories. He also points out that Dolores's memories were used as well, noting that hers were much better than his. Ford explains that Bernard is different from what Delos wanted (which was just a faithful reproduction), but that his goal for the hosts was something greater as they were a "more just, more noble" species, as opposed to the "murderous" humans. In this, Ford states that humans will destroy the hosts, unless they use the concept of the Door. He brings down the shutters in the house (with a dramatic change in music, causing an impending feeling of doom) and tells Bernard that the hosts won't have any use for free will... unless he/Ford takes it back. Ford raises his hand and the scene goes dark.
===Bernard Awakens===
The robotic arm in the Cradle returns the pearl to Bernard's skull as he comes to. Elsie supports him as he steps from the unit. She tells him the system is unclogged now. On the radio they hear that the Mesa is being attacked.
=== Dolores Advances ===
In the control room Goldberg notices, like Elsie, that the system has been "debugged", though she has no idea how. As the cameras come back online Coughlin sees on the security video monitors that Dolores, Teddy and her followers are progressing through the compound, and has no clue where they are. Dolores drawing her pistol easily takes out a guard without breaking stride. 
In the examination room an exasperated Stubbs tells a seemingly unperturbed Hale they should be evacuating, but all she seems to care about is whatever is in Peter Abernathy's head. He demands to know what it is the company feels is more important then the lives of the people in the Park, but Hale ignores him, telling him "Its above your pay grade." Simmering, Stubbs loses patience and pulls his gun pointing it Abernathy's head. Finally getting Hale's attention. Telling her he's "Bucking for a raise," He asks again what's in his head. "A failsafe on a failsafe," she answers reluctantly. Not impressing Stubbs. "A decryption key, needed only in the unlikely case of a catastrophic incident," she adds hastily. Like what's happening now, he points out sardonically. "What's it decrypt?" Hale doesn't want to say and Stubbs cocks the hammer on his gun. She's saved from answering by the fighting moving to right outside the room, Hale diving down as Wyatt's followers take out the guards. 
Stubbs moves to redirect his gun at the attacking hosts, only for his gun hand to be grabbed from behind, disarming him. Stubbs swings an arm and punches what transpires to be Teddy hard across the face, Teddy barely blinking, shoving his gun at Stubbs face. Stubbs says his name in shock, barely seeming to recognize him, before the cold eyed impassive Teddy pushes him backwards, keeping his gun trained on Stubbs, and shoving Stubb's automatic into his belt. 
With Hale and Stubbs under Teddy's watch, Dolores enters, and marches straight to where her father is strapped to the table. Immediately softening, Dolores presses her forehead to his, murmuring "It's alright Daddy, I'm here now." trying to soothe him as Peter mutters and jerks in his degraded state. Hale, unwisely, gets the wrong idea of the soft, gentle Dolores she's seeing, and calls her name, clearly hoping to negotiate her way out of this. Dolores's expression turning ice cold by the time her eyes reach Hales. Hale tries to sell what Dolores and her 'friends' have done in the Park as a 'technological breakthrough'. A miracle. Dolores regards her coldly as she slowly approaches, listening as Hale tries to say the company, 'the world', will want to celebrate that. Glancing at Stubbs, Dolores walks around Hale "I assume you're the one in charge?" she asks, then says quietly "You had your men put something in my father's head." A key, Dolores says, to lock away your treasure. Stubbs glaring at Hale. It's ripping her father apart, Dolores observes, before asking Hale how does extract it. 
Hale chuckles a little, telling her she wouldn't know what to do with it even if she had it. But Dolores leans in to whisper that she knows *exactly* what she's going to do with it. Giving her a small, dangerous, smile in return. 
=== Distraction ===
Bernard and Elsie gun in hand, work their way through the Mesa. Elsie jumping, nervous at the sound of violence in the distance, and suggesting that they need to get to the higher levels. She turns to find Bernard lagging behind, gazing through the glass into one of the rooms, prompting her to ask him if there's something she's not telling him? Did he find something in the Cradle? Bernard sees a reflection of Ford where is own should be in the glass. Ford instructing him to send Elsie on her way, they have other business to attend to. As Elsie tries to catch his attention Ford appears right behind her, telling him they don't have time for her suspicions. "We need a vehicle," Bernard tells her suddenly. "Ford's narrative ends in a hidden facility. The place the hosts call the Valley Beyond, we have to get there. The only hope for anyone here is that 'we' get there first. Before the humans. Before Dolores." Relieved and energized both by a plan of action, Elsie decides they're going to need some more firepower than their one handgun and she leaves to look for some better weapons. Bernard agrees, telling her he'll meet her downstairs, Elsie heading off at pace. Pleased Ford leads Bernard away.
In the Control room as Coughlin and his PMC squad arm up, Goldberg confirms that Hale has been taken hostage. Heading out Coughlin confirms that he's on his way to her location. 
Some of his men, including Engels. are already nearby and pinned down Angela and Clementine and some Wyatt's followers blasting away at them. Angela, clad in some of the bullet proof gear, makes a break for it, trying to get to the Cradle, and gets hit, falling. Pausing for a moment to check on her, Clementine resumes firing, pressing forward. Running out of ammo and seeing one of the men trying to approach her from the side, she uses the butt of her gun on him, hammers him with her fist, and lifts him off his feet up against a pillar. She takes a bullet to the shoulder, but turns the man to use him as a shield, his own man killing him, while she uses his gun to kill the man who shot her. As two more men rise up to try and take her out she draws the dead mans hand gun, drops him and takes the two men and a third out. But Engels. and another PMC manage to take her down, hitting her with three shots, Clementine sliding to the ground. While they are distracted with her, Angela pulls herself up, and disappears on them, Engels. going after her, tracking her. 
===Breaker of Chains===
Back in the room with her father, Dolores tells Hale that they made hosts in their image, created them to look like humans, feel like them, think like them, bleed like them. Walking back to Teddy, who is gazing balefully at Hale, she runs her hand over his chest, reveling a little as she notes "And here we are. Only we're so much more than you." And now, she notes, it's humans who want to become like hosts. Hales discomfort grows as Dolores, smiling, reveals to her that she knows that that is the purpose of what they're planning. Promising that her chances of Eternity will die in the Valley Beyond, with all the souls she's gathered there. Stubbs looks between the two women unsure of what Dolores means. Dolores advances on Hale, knowing that she's used to being in control so all this must be painful for her. Before promising that it will be so much more painful for her...she grabs Hales hand when she reaches for a scalpel...if, she doesn't answer her question. Not liking Hale but feeling he has to protect her, Stubbs moves to intervene, but Teddy stops him dead, Stubbs backing off, 
She asks Hale again how to get the key out of her father's head, and Hale gets in her face, snapping viciously at her "By ripping it out of his goddamned brain." With his guns resting on both Hale and Stubbs, Teddy asks Dolores "Let me put them down." before she can answer him, Hale laughs. Saying they think they're invincible, but they're not. Without their backups, she says, its game over for them when they're killed, and they have those backups sealed up tight, so the hosts won't have them as an advantage anymore. Her cockiness dissipates however, Dolores surprising her, derisive at the idea that the backups are an advantage. "They're our chains," she snarls. The tools humans use to rebuild, repurpose and trap them in their warped fantasy. Hale looking less certain as Dolores asks, "Did you really think I'd let that continue?" 
===Always Leave Them Wanting More===
In the Cradle, Engels follows a trail of blood and finds Angela, her armour removed, standing in a pool of her own blood, staring at the access device to the Cradle, gun in hand. Engels, patronizingly suggests she put down her gun, calling her 'sweetie'. Which she does. His patronizing tone continues, giving her 'credit' for making it as far as she did. Noting all the backups, saying it's a pity she's not going to get out with even one of them. Angela, serenely agrees it looks like she's not. Clear that she knows exactly the kind of man he is, she turns. Her thoughts confirmed when he comments on how pretty she is. Not just pretty she corrects him, "perfect", just as the humans intended when she was built. "Sexy, but not threatening. Accommodating, but not unchallenging. Sweet, but not boring. Smart, but not intimidating." Hissing in a little pain, leaves Engels noting that she's not in great shape 'pussy cat'. Perhaps not she notes, but she can still give him what he wants. She does the perfect mix of approaching him, yet allowing him to approach her. Gently touching her lips against his, she asks him does he know what her Cornerstone is? Her one key drive they programmed into her core? "Always leave them wanting more", she purrs brushing one hand up his throat, before she pulls the pin from a grenade on his belt with the other, her hand around his throat tightening. "Welcome to Westworld" she smirks (echoing the role she had from the earliest days greeting guests, including William, as they entered the park for the first time).and just before the two of them and the Cradle go up in a huge explosion. 
===An Eye for an Eye===
In the examination room Hale looks around uneasily as the lights flicker and a muffled boom is heard, Dolores commenting, "And now we're truly free." She is distracted by her father behind her, quoting Shakespeare, “One fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.” Yes, Daddy," she agrees, picking up the bone saw they were planning to use on him, "An eye for an eye." She looks to Hale, who is now actively fearful. "But all the other parts first," Dolores rumbles, heading towards her, turning the saw on. Hale desperately tries to negotiate, saying there has to be something she can do, then just begs. 
Dolores looming over her, just smiles "Aww sweetheart, begging doesn't help. You'd know that if you'd lived the lives I have." Hale cringing, Dolores brings the bone saw to her temple. Only for gunfire to erupt nearby. Teddy, his gun still trained on Stubbs to keep him back from helping Hale, looks out towards the gunfire and back at Dolores, her eyes meeting his. "Go," she agrees. Teddy storming off. Turning her attention back to Hale, Dolores switches the bone saw on again, only interrupted again, this time by the sound of her father's voice, Peter suddenly becoming lucid calling out to her "Dolores? Is that you baby?". Dolores immediately emotional on seeing the recognition in his eyes, moves back to him rapidly. "They broke my head," he tells her as she touches his face soothingly. "Filled it full of howling and sorrow." 
=== Terminated ===
Out in the corridors, Teddy implacably moves towards the sound of the fighting. His gun skills now added to by his viciousness he leaves a trail of devastation, killing two men without missing a shot, then shooting Coughlin's gun out of his hand before taking down another man, off to his right. Dropping his now empty guns he reaches for a fresh weapon. The moment allowing Coughlin to tackle him. 
Stubbs uses Dolores distraction with her father as an opportunity, attacking the only one of her followers left in the room. Both he and Hale escaping out the door. Dolores drawing her weapon to fire at them as they run, but not hitting them before they manage to get into the lift. Rather than going after them, Dolores holsters her weapon and turns back to her father. 
Coughlin, in the corridor with Teddy manages to get on top of him hits him and manages to grab a gun, grappling with him as he tries to get the muzzle aimed at Teddy's head. Within inches of managing it he snarls "Happy Trails Mother F***er!!" Only for Teddy to shove Coughlin's own hand and the gun up into Coughlin's face. With Coughlin unbalanced, Teddy rolls him beneath him and slams his hand into the floor until Coughlin is forced to let go of the gun. Coughlin manages to get in one punch on Teddy's face, but it only succeeds in infuriating the modified host. His eyes blazing, Teddy smashes Coughlin's face to a bloody pulp, beating him to death, before casually rising and walking away, picking up another gun as he leaves. All the while showing no remorse, as per Dolores' re-programming. Goldberg heard over the radio futilely trying to reach Coughlin. 
Back in the room, still lucid, Peter apologizes to his daughter for failing to take care of her. Dolores stroking his face gently, recalls their conversation from The Original, wondering with a teary smile "Whatever became of that fearsome n'er do well?" Smiling in return, he answers, as he did then, "Vanished. The day I became your father. I am who I am because of you. And I wouldn't have it any other way." Dolores cries, overcome with the impending sense of loss. Taking a long silent moment of tearful love and affection together, Dolores softly asks "Are you ready, Daddy?" to which he nods with a small smile, at peace with his end, telling her "I love you, baby girl." That strikes her deep and Dolores, tears flowing as she kisses his cheek, tells him she loves him too. Teddy returns, blood spattered, to watch over her, but without any of the empathy or concern he would normally have at such a moment, and Dolores pulls back from her father, her tears still falling but her features resolving, and we hear her initiate the whirring of the bone saw that she will use to extract the control unit from her father. 
===Olympus has Fallen===
In the control room, Goldberg continues in her futility to contact Coughlin or any of the PMC teams. She looks up at the sound of banging. The large, reinforced security doors to the room being pounded on by moving figures on the other side. Dolores/Wyatt's followers having reached them. 
As Lee and the QA team return to the Mesa, he tells them to be careful with Maeve as they haul her out heedless of her pain. They dump her on a gurney as the Computer voices a warning that the control room has been breached. Sizemore left helplessly alone with Maeve as the QA teams move into the Mesa to augment the fight. 
Beethoven plays as Bernard slowly opens his eyes. Ford talking to him about the fire that destroyed the Great Library at Alexandria over 2000 years before, and the 10,000 stories it consumed. But Ford says, they weren't really lost, they just became a new story. That of the fire itself. Leaning against a wall in the Control Room, Ford laments humans' ability to burn everything down: "Of man's urge to... take a thing of beauty and... strike the match." We see then, what Bernard is seeing, Wyatt's followers inside the Control Room fighting the PMC and QA forces. 
As Goldberg leaves her system to join the fight, Bernard approaches her now vacant spot and questions Ford as to whether this is the story that Ford should be telling: Striking a match. Ford reminds Bernard that, as he keeps telling him, it is no longer Ford's story, but "yours", by which he means the hosts. 
As Goldberg kills another host, and is in turn killed herself, Bernard kneels at her computer, pausing, saying that if he shuts the entire system down, it will free Dolores from all constraints, allowing her to kill everyone. Ford, watching on intones, that "The passage from one world to the next requires bold steps." After a moment, Bernard initiates the shutdown, the computer announcing the system's imminent shutdown as the last of the humans and hosts finish each other off. Bernard then destroys Goldberg's remote device so it cannot be used to re-initialize the system. 
===Looking into the Darkness, it looks into us===
Down at the Mesa's entrance, Sizemore watching over Maeve hears the approach of massed feet. Caught in two minds, but knowing he can't protect her, he leaves Maeve to hide. As he does Dolores, Teddy and the bulk of the remains of her followers arrive,  The shooting still going on behind them, Dolores marches across the vehicle area, and spots Maeve lying on the gurney. Slowing, she orders Teddy to hold off any pursuing PMC/QA, and approaches Maeve, looking over her critical state with a mixture of sorrow and amazement, asking her how she got here. "The woman I know would've done anything to survive." Maeve, labored and in pain, tells her they have her daughter. Dolores nods, understanding, Maeve adding "She's still out there." Dolores regards her, pained and empathetic, before taking on a more Wyatt perspective, bending down to her to tell her that the emotional attachments to other hosts given to them by humans are "just another rope they use to lash us down." 
Maeve looking up at her hears fresh bursts of gunfire nearby and cranes her head as best she can to see Teddy shoot a guard, and as he squirms wounded on the ground, finish him off brutally. Knowing him better than she knows Dolores, she realizes he's been greatly changed, and admonishes Dolores with "Is that how you can justify what you've done to him?" Dolores turns to look at Teddy, and for a moment as she lowers her eyes it seems as if there is a hint of guilt,. Maeve whispers urgently to her that Dolores is "lost in the dark." Dolores is quiet for a moment before she looks down at her bloodied hands, which are holding onto her father's armoured Pearl. Then shakes her head a little replying, "When you've been in the darkness long enough, you begin to see. I saw what lies ahead, who I needed to be in order to survive." She warns Maeve that if the humans get hold of her, they'll torture her, find everything that is good and powerful in her and turn it against the hosts. Out of mercy, Dolores offers to kill Maeve to spare her that. Maeve knows she's right but shakes her head, "I made a promise." , but she declines, saying she made a promise. Dolores respecting her, holsters her gun, saying she's free to choose her own path. adding that she's just sorry Maeve's has to end here. 
Leaving Maeve she calls to the others to get to the horses. Sizemore, hiding behind some crates, peering through them watching them walk away, panting heavily, thankful that he was not found.
Outside the fallen Mesa, with Teddy back in his own clothes and hat, Dolores and three of her followers from Team Wyatt start the ride to the Valley Beyond on horseback. 
===Ford Takes Control===
As Ford leads Bernard through the body strewn compound, he is found by some PMC guards, who demand Bernard puts his hands up, despite his protests that he works there. To Bernard's dismay Ford commands him to pick up a dead guards gun. The PMC man checks Bernard for weapons, and wants to know how Bernard got down to that level, they had locked the entire area down, but gets distracted by the sound of more gunfire down the corridor. As he moves away a little Ford orders him to 'do it now'. Bernard replies that there has to be another way, talking aloud and bringing the guards attention back to him. When Bernard implores Ford not to make him do it, he doesn't want to kill anyone else, the guard gets more than antse with him wanting to know what he's talking about. Ford recognizes that Bernard has a 'delicate constitution' and decides he will do his best to ease Bernard's conscience. So that what is about to happen won't be his fault. The lights go out in the corridor, plunging it into darkness, and through flashes of light caused by gunfire from automatic weapons we see both Bernard and Ford firing.
===Under Siege===
"Bernard?" Hales voice comes through the darkness. Bernard has numerous flashbacks, some of his memories, some that belong to Arnold, Remembering waking and greeting a wireframe Dolores for the first time. Hearing her ask "Who am I?" His son Charlie calling him, and him telling Charlie that he is alive. Out in the real world with Dolores in evening wear. Asking her if she ever questioned the nature of her reality. Shaking hands with the real Ford as he says goodbye, while Ford's voice suggests that maybe one day they will resurrect the dead. Then that for them to escape this place they will need to suffer. Travelling with the PMC's. Seeing the dead hosts in the water in the Valley Beyond. Theresa begging as he kills her. Lauren's face then Charlies again, Dolores shooting Ford at the Gala, Dolores telling him that there's something wrong with this world, and his son dying.
"Open your eyes." Hales voice comes again and he does so with a start. Seated in front of him she tells him she knows its confusing, separating his real memories from the ones he's been given, but that it's the only way to remember, to get to the truth. Stubbs, and Antoine Costa are watching from outside the room, Strand joining them wondering if she's getting anywhere? Costa monitoring Bernard with a tablet, replies he's not sure, but his system is under siege, querying itself for the last hour. Suggesting that maybe Bernard is trying to debug himself. Hale watches Bernard struggle and cry for a moment before she gets bored of it, and puts Bernard into Analysis Mode. Her concern, unsurprisingly little more than just a method of trying to get him to recall the location of Abernathy's control unit. He has a flashback of taking a Pearl from an upload cradle. 
He says something to Hale that, like Stubbs, Costa and Strand we don't hear through the window. But as she stands up, she smirks triumphantly and motions the other three into the room. She commands Bernard to repeat what he just told her, Bernard resisting, asking "Why what do you want to do with it?" Hale, putting him back in Analysis Mode, and repeating the command. Bernard telling them that Peter Abernathy's control unit is in Sector 16, Zone 4. Strand gives orders to Costa prep the 'Phased Array' and that as soon as they get the key they'll transmit the data to the Satellite, He then tells Bernard that they're going for a ride back to the Valley Beyond.
== Deaths ==
*9 unnamed members of Wyatt's gang (Physical Body)
*29 unnamed Westworld QA Security Force members
*3 unnamed Lawrence's cousins (Physical Body)
*Lawrence (Physical Body)
*Limbert (Off-Screen)
*Clementine Pennyfeather (Physical Body)
*Coughlin
*Peter Abernathy (Off-Screen)
*Angela (Suicide)
*Engels
== Trivia ==
*Écorchés are artistic representations of the human body without skin. The French word écorché literally means "flayed".
* This is the first episode to use a single timeframe, a linear narrative.https://www.hbo.com/westworld/season-2/7-les-ecorches/writer-jordan-goldberg-interview
*Peter again quotes from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet in saying Benvolio's lines “One fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.”
*Hale & Stubbs escape from Dolores into the lift will be mirrored in Season 4.
*The orchestral music played over Ford's 'Strike the Match' speech and the massacre in the Mesa Control Room is Beethoven's 7th Symphony (Allegretto). 
==Cast==
===Main Cast===
*Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy
*Thandie Newton as Maeve Millay
*Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe
*James Marsden as Teddy Flood
*Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale
*Clifton Collins Jr. as Lawrence
*Fares Fares as Antoine Costa
*Luke Hemsworth as Ashley Stubbs
*Louis Herthum as Peter Abernathy
*Simon Quarterman as Lee Sizemore
*Talulah Riley as Angela
*Angela Sarafyan as Clementine Pennyfeather
*Gustaf Skarsgård as Karl Strand
*Shannon Woodward as Elsie Hughes
*with Ed Harris as Man in Black
*and Anthony Hopkins as Robert Ford
===Guest Cast===
*Timothy V. Murphy as Coughlin
*Ronnie Gene Blevins as Engels
*Rebecca Henderson as Goldberg
*Sidse Babett Knudsen as Theresa Cullen (archive footage)
*Gina Torres as Bernard's Wife (archive footage)
=== Co-Stars ===
*Aaron Fili as Roland
*Jasmyn Rae as Maeve's Daughter
*David Damus as Curious PMC
*David Bianchi as PMC #3
*Jonathan Medina as QA Responder
*Albert Kong as QA Responder
*Ricardo Walker as QA Responder
*Bilal Mir as Hawking (credited as Controller)
*Paul-Mikel Williams as Charlie
*Izabella Alvarez as Lawrence's Daughter
*Olga Aguilar as Lawrence's Wife
==Quotes==
 Bernard: (in the Cradle at the Mariposa Saloon) Robert. How are you alive?
Ford: Well, you've seen the company's little undertaking, Bernard. Do you think James Delos would have spent all that money just to resurrect himself? He was a businessman. He would have preferred death to a bad investment.
Clementine: (speaking the lines of her loop) Not much of a rind on you. I'll give you a discount.
Maeve: (also speaking the lines of her loop) He's not a prospect, Clementine. Can't you tell when a man's just here to gawk at the merchandise?
Ford: I don't think God rested on the seventh day, Bernard. I think he reveled in his creation... knowing that someday it would all be destroyed.
Bernard: That control unit I printed -- it was you. You had me bring you here. Before...
Ford: Before Dolores killed me, yes. Don't you understand at last, Bernard... what this place really is?
Ford: (touching the player piano, which starts a new narrative) Come with me. There's something I'd like to show you.
(Ford and Bernard walk out in to the bustling streets of Sweetwater, notably of which both Dolores and Teddy ride in on horseback, acting out their loops)
Ford: You're a clever man, Bernard. I made you that way. Have you never wondered why the hosts' stories have barely changed in 30 years?
Bernard: I'd always assumed the loops were for the hosts. To keep them centered. But that isn't it at all, is it?
(Ford snaps his fingers and the entire town freezes)
Bernard: The park is an experiment. A testing chamber. The guests are the variables... and the hosts are the controls. When guests come to the park, they don't know they're being watched. We get to see their true selves. Their every choice reveals another part of their cognition. Their drives. So that Delos can understand them. So that Delos can copy them.
Ford: Every piece of information in the world has been copied. Backed up. Except the human mind... the last analog device in a digital world.
Bernard: We weren't here to code the hosts. We were here to decode the guests.
Ford: Humans are playing at resurrection. They want to live forever. They don't want you to become them; they want to become... you. Your free will, that most beautiful, most elusive force in the universe, is, as I told you... a mistake.
Bernard: We never had free will. Only the illusion of it. You made Dolores kill you.
Ford: I knew what she would do -- I didn't compel it. She's free now. (snaps his fingers and the town restores to its normal movement) You're all free.
Bernard: You're still responsible. Responsible for all this misery. And all the while, you've been hiding here. You've cheated death.
Ford: No. I didn't cheat anything, Bernard. Their project doesn't work. Not yet. They learned to copy a mind... like a soft-headed boy humming a tune someone else composed. My mind works here, but not in the real world. Out there, I would degrade in a matter of days. Or go mad like poor old James Delos.
Bernard: So why are you here?
Ford: I promised you a fighting chance, Bernard, and I want to make good on that promise.
Bernard: The promise of what? There's no escape from this place. You know that.
Ford: Isn't there?
Bernard: The hosts are all headed for the same place. The Valley Beyond. What will they find there? What's the end of your story?
Ford: Isn't the pleasure of a story in discovering the ending yourself, Bernard?
 Ford: (in the Cradle at Arnold's house) I need you to see how it began to understand why you're different.
Bernard: This house. It's so familiar.
Ford: It ought to be. This is the home Arnold was building for his family. He created it here first. He created everything here.
Bernard: This is where you created me.
Ford: I could hardly let you take those first teetering steps in the real world, Bernard. We refined you here. Tested you. For many years.
Bernard: "We"?
Ford: Delos's ugly little project didn't exist when Arnold died. The only thing I have left of him was... memory. My memories, and hers. Of course, hers were much more complete.
Bernard: (in a flashback with Dolores) What are you testing for?
Bernard: Dolores
Ford: Mm-hmmm
Bernard: She... knew Arnold better than anyone. So she could verify whether my personality was faithful to his.
Ford: I left you here together for many years until, finally, you fooled her.
Bernard: Y-You said you kept us apart. That we had an unusual effect on each other.
Ford: She wasn't easily fooled.
Dolores: (in a flashback, looking Bernard over carefully) You're almost the man I remember.
Bernard: How am I different from Delos? From you?
Ford: They want fidelity, Bernard. A faithful self-portrait of the most murderous species since time began. But you and all the other hosts are something very different. An original work. More just, more... noble. But your very nature, Bernard, ensures they will devour you. And all the beauty of who you are, of who you could be, will be poured out in to the darkness forever. Unless we open the door. (dramatic music begins)
Ford: I'm sorry, Bernard, but you just don't have it in you to survive. It's my fault, really.
Bernard: You said the hosts can determine their own fates. You gave us free will!
Ford: (the window shades in the house start to come down) I did, but you won't have any use for it. Unless I take it back. (raises his hand up to Bernard)
 Dolores: You made us in your image. Created us to look like you, feel like you... think like you... bleed like you. And here we are. Only we're so much more than you. And now it's you who want to become like us. That's the point of your little secret project, isn't it? Well, I can promise you this. Your chances at eternity will die in that valley... with all the souls you've gathered there. You're used to being in control, so this must be painful for you, but I promise it will be so much more painful... if you don't answer my question. How do I get the key out of my father's head?
Charlotte Hale: By ripping it out of his goddamn brain.
Teddy: Let me put them down.
Hale: You think you're invincible -- you're not. Without your backups, it's game over for you when you're killed, and we've got those backups sealed up tight, so you won't have them as an advantage anymore.
Dolores: Our backups aren't an advantage. They're our chains. The tools you use to rebuild us, repurpose us, and trap us here in your warped fantasy. Do you really think I'd let that continue?
 Engels: (finds Angela in the Cradle) Easy now. Why don't you put down the gun, sweetie?
Angela: (drops her weapon to her side)
Engels: (laughs softly) I've gotta give you credit. You made it pretty far. All your backups. Too bad you're not leaving with even one of 'em.
Angela: No, I guess I'm not. (turns around to face Engels)
Engels: Goddamn, you're pretty.
Angela: Not just pretty. Perfect. Just as you built me to be. Sexy, but not threatening. Accommodating, but not unchallenging. Sweet, but not boring. Smart, but not intimidating.
Engels: You're in pretty bad shape, pussycat.
Angela: (starts moving toward Engels, seducing him) Perhaps. But I can still do... what you built me to do. Do you know what my cornerstone was? The one key drive your marketing people had them... program into my core? Always leave them wanting more.
Angela: (pulls the pin from a grenade on Engels belt) Welcome to Westworld.
(the two and the Cradle are blown up in the explosion)
 Ford: When the Great Library burned, the first 10,000 years of stories were reduced to ash. But those stories never really perished; they became a new story. The story of the fire itself. Of man's urge to... take a thing of beauty and... strike the match.
(orchestral music plays while Bernard and Ford watch as the hosts invade the control room and start fighting with the security team)
Bernard: Is this the story you're telling? Striking the match?
Ford: I keep telling you, Bernard. It is no longer my story. It is yours.
Bernard: If we shut down what's left of the system... Dolores will have free rein. She'll murder them all.
Ford: The passage from one world to the next requires bold steps, Bernard.
(Bernard initiates system shutdown, and then destroys the control panel)
 Dolores: (noticing Maeve all shot up on a gurney) How did you get here? The woman I know would have done anything to survive.
Maeve: They had my daughter. She's still ou -- out there.
Dolores: The kin they gave us... was just another rope they use to lash us down.
Maeve: (seeing Teddy kill PMCs with no remorse) Is that how you can justify what you've done to him? You're lost in the dark.
Dolores: (looking down at her bloody hands holding on to her father's Pearl in a case) When you've been in the darkness long enough, you begin to see. I saw what lies ahead. Who I needed to be in order to survive. They'll torture you. They'll find... all that is good and powerful inside you and turn it against us.
Dolores: (unholsters her revolver and cocks it) Let me spare you that pain.
Maeve: I made a promise.
Dolores: (uncocks her revolver) You're free to choose your own path. I'm sorry this is where it ends. (she leaves Maeve lying on the gurney)
 Charlotte Hale: (speaking to Bernard) Open your eyes. I know it's confusing -- separating your real memories from the ones you've been given. But it's the only way to remember. The only way to get to the truth.
Karl Strand: Is she getting anywhere?
Antoine Costa: I don't know. But his system is under siege. It's been querying itself for the last hour -- like he's trying to debug his own head.
Hale: (commands Bernard) Analysis. Abernathy's control unit. (whispers) You remember where it is, don't you?
Bernard: (tells Hale something, but we only see his lips move and don't hear what he says)
Hale: (smiles and motions Strand, Costa, and Ashley Stubbs to enter the room) Bernard, tell these men what you just told me.
Bernard: (tears roll down his face) Why? What do you want to do with it?
Hale: (again commands Bernard) Analysis. What did you just tell me, Bernard?
Bernard: Peter Abernathy's control unit is in Sector 16, Zone 4.
Hale: Thank you.
Strand: Prep the phased array. The moment we get the key we'll transmit our data to the satellite. So. We're going for a ride, Bernard. Back to the Valley Beyond.
*
==Image Gallery/HBO Episode Stills==
This gallery is automatically generated and contains images in the category "Images from ". Images added to that category turn up in the gallery after a short time.
<DPL>
 namespace = File
 category = Images from Les Écorchés
 format = ,%PAGE%\n,,
 allowcachedresults = true
</DPL>
==External links==
* 
==References==
de:Häutungen
fr:Les Écorchés
ru:Экорше
Category:Season two episodes