Trace Decay

"Trace Decay" is the eighth episode of the first season of Westworld, and the eighth episode overall.
== Synopsis ==
== Plot ==
=== Wiped Away ===
Bernard, staring into space is brought back online by Ford's voice, and almost immediately recalls what he did to Theresa, starting to rock in horror, guilt, anguish pain, Ford calling them remarkable 'a thing of beauty' as he watches him. Tears streaming down his face, Bernard calls himself a killer. Ford tries to assuage him saying he killed Theresa only because he told him to, and that he should be proud of the emotions he's feeling. Confusing Bernard. Yes, Ford explains saying that, after all, he was the author of so many of them. That in the beginning the Hosts could only feel "primary color" emotions; love, hate, He wanted all the rainbow of colours in between. But the human engineers weren't up to the task. So Ford built Bernard and together they captured 'that elusive thing' "Heart." Bernard says he doesn't understand why Ford would make him kill Theresa. He loved her. Ford quotes Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, saying, "One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire.” Everything in the Park, all of the art and beauty Delos would have destroyed it. Destroyed Bernard. And that he won't let that happen. Besides, they have a new story to tell, he adds. But Bernard snarls angrily that he will not help him. That *he* will raze the Park to the ground. Standing up he throws his chair aside, advancing on Ford, who freezes his motor functions. 
As Bernard stares murderously at Ford, Ford casually recalls that he is not the first man to threaten him. That Arnold felt the same way he did, and he couldn't stop Ford either. Telling Bernard as exquisite as his emotions are, even more 'sublime' is the ability to turn them off. Saying he doesn't need a simulacrum of a grief stricken man, he needs Bernard back to himself, the capable Bernard who can cover his tracks. Bernard, straightening no longer angry, puts his glasses back on and asks Ford how he should proceed? 
Ford tells him he needs him to clean up his mess, Anything that can lead them to Theresa. Bernard seen in her office, accessing her computer. Erasing all GPS data of their journey to Sector 17. along with all imagery of himself alongside her in the Mesa after he talks to her outside where Clementine was Lobotomized. Ford saying that when he is finished he will give him the one thing he wants most right at that moment. Free him of those memories of what he has done. And the memory of his relationship with Theresa. Bernard retrieving her love letters to him from his room that showcase her softer side, including calling herself Tess and that he was the one who gave her her lighter. Recalling it, Ford says, will only deepen his grief, and potentially draw unwanted attention. Bernard, clearing DNA evidence of her from his bed, then going to burn everything in the Mesa's furnace. "Best to move forward with Clear Eyes," Ford says. When Bernard looks back, he tells him, he will remember Theresa only with the fondness of a respected colleague, and he will be at peace. 
=== Re-Write ===
The piano playing House of the Rising Sun, Maeve takes her sherry from the bartender at the Mariposa bar and watches the people at the tables, bored thanks to her new self-awareness. Until she hears Clementine's pick-up line and turns around, seeing Clem's replacement A blonde Host that recites Clem's script word for word while setting up a transaction with a male guest. As the new Clementine convinces the guest to come upstairs with her, she comes over to talk to Maeve, telling her it won't take her long to deal with customer, and will be back directly. Maeve's mixture of simmering anger and disgust at how they have replaced 'her' Clementine, visible even to the new Clem who asks her if there's something wrong, before heading away with her customer, leaving Maeve to knock back her sherry. 
As she does though the piano starts to sound discordant, and the people in the bar and their voices start to slow. And then she sees herself in the meadow, her daughter's hand slipping into hers, and in the cabin, the two of them on a bed while Maeve reads to her. 
A moment later Maeve wants to know what the hell is happening to her. Having arranged her own 'death' once more she's back in the repair lab, telling Sylvester and Felix. That in one moment she is with this little girl in a different life, able to feel the girls hair in her hands, her breath on her face, and then she's back in Sweetwater. Unable to tell which is real. Sylvester tries to tell her it's her own fault for messing with her brain, but Felix explains to her that Host minds are different. Humans memories are hazy, imperfect, but hosts memories are a matter of perfect recall. They relive them. Maeve asks what happened to the girl in her memory, is she still in the Park and why was she reassigned in the first place? 
Felix offers to check where she is, but Maeve stops him, saying it doesn't matter. Every relationship she remembers, her 'daughter', Clementine, were all stories created by them to keep her in the Park. But no more, she says repeating her intent to get out of the Park. Concerned for her Felix protests that she doesn't know anything about the outside world, but not living a lie would be enough for her she says. Sylvester thinking on it agrees she should leave. suggesting its not like they could stop her anyway. But Maeve, amused by Sylvester's transparent attempt at taking her down, says she already knows from Felix that there is a failsafe, a small explosive embedded in the C6 vertebrae of the Hosts' spines that will detonate if they try to leave. Caught again, Sylvester points out she'd need a 'full' rebuild to replace it. Something she says is sure can be arranged. Felix warns her that even if that worked she would still need an army to escape the park. Maeve tells him he's exactly right. She'll need allies. And to get them, she says taking his tablet, she'll need administrative privileges. Sylvester warns Felix that they can't just give her administrative privileges. Yes, the can, she replies, working on the tablet, saying it is "Time to write my own f***ing story". 
=== Divergence ===
Dolores and William arrive at the bank of the river in Dolores' drawing. Looking around she tells William she feels like she's been there before, that they're close. To what, he asks. Home. Getting down from the horse she looks around, as he opens the water canteen. Turning to offer her some he finds her walking to the river bend, not stopping even when he calls her. Peering around the curve of the bank, Dolores sees a dozen or so bodies lying on the riverbank Confederados killed by Ghost Nation warriors. William feels they should go but she hears someone coughing and running back down the bank she finds a very young soldier injured, but alive, who begs her for water. Dolores immediately asking William for the canteen, then having to ask again, William very hesitant to hand it over. 
Once he does Dolores helps the young Host to drink. William however suggests to him that he and his group were sent there to ambush them. The young man confessing that they had been told to wait there for El Lazo in case he ran. They knew about the train, from a tip off from someone from Pariah. A new recruit, told them a man and a woman had double crossed them along with El Lazo and they were ordered them to kill them all . William figures out it was Logan, but Dolores doesn't care about anything at that point beyond helping the soldier. But William refuses as he was sent to kill them. Dolores protests that he is just a boy, he doesn't know why he's fighting. Taking the canteen she gets up to go and fetch more water but William argues that the boy is too far gone, and they can't wait. Dolores angrily points out he's not gone yet. He's in pain she points out, asking what kind of people they would be if they just let him suffer? 
William watches her go, then looks down at the young man and drops to his knees beside him, the boy begging for them not to leave him. William staring at him. Down by the river, Dolores bends to refill the canteen. Whilst doing so, she hears that echo-y male voice that says "Come find me", and then sees herself floating face-down in the river. Standing up alarmed she turns to see that William and the corpses are gone. Looking back at the river, her own body is also gone, and when she looks back to the bank William and the dying soldier are present. She is troubled by the hallucination, but collects the water and returns to William, who notes flatly "He's gone," as the host dies. Dolores's look carrying an element of accusation. 
In the Mesa Hub, Stubbs unveils Theresa's battered body, telling Ford and Charlotte that she was found up in Python Pass as the bottom of the same ravine where they found the stray Woodcutter. Ford, covering her back up, asks if her family has been notified? Her brother, Stubbs confirms. Charlotte wants to know what happened to her, Stubbs reporting that the medical teams say that it appears to have been a 'slip and fall'. Cervical fracture, massive hematoma. With no guests or hosts in the area. Ford pretends to be unaware of what happened to her, asking questions and appearing curious about what she was doing out there? None that fit her character Stubbs says, indicating the satellite uplink and proprietary data storage unit that includes some of the hosts core code. Both of which only work at higher altitudes. So if she was using it that it's possible she was climbing and fell. 
=== Clumsy ===
Stubbs goes on to say that they have had problems in the past with 3rd Parties trying to bribe employees for information. Hale, keeps her cool asking if they know who the data was mean for? No, Stubbs says, the transmission was never sent, He conjectures that Theresa may have been using the Woodcutter as a mule and when that failed tried to do it in person. And suffered the same fate, Ford adds. But as Ford and Hale eye each other, Stubbs says he knew Theresa and lack of loyalty was not one of her faults. Hale agrees, she was loyal 'and' careful, this doesn't feel like her, she adds that Theresa's belief that the new narratives should be delayed, Which, Ford says that certainly explains Clementine, revealing that he has found Theresa's previous demonstration of Host violence towards humans to be a hoax. Having examined Clementine's code and finding it clumsily altered by a QA technician. Having found a cancer, he says, one must take steps to cut it out, and announces that the expansive access and oversight granted to QA will be limited, until a more principled team can be found. Stubbs points out that that will leave them shorthanded. But Ford says he can automate most of the Park's security protocols. How efficient of you Hale notes passive aggressively. Ford blithely stating it is a bit of work but he can manage with Bernard's help, who is of course reinstated as Head of Behavior based on this evidence. Hale agreeing, with her apologies. 
=== A Recursive Beauty ===
Later on, while Maeve is still working, Sylvester walks back in highly agitated, reflecting that of the higher ups, that there is an investigation on the back of an accident. The outcome of which is that Maeve needs to give the tablet back, and get back to 'playing dumb', so that no one becomes suspicious of them. Sticking his hand out for it, she hands it to Felix instead and says that she is finished anyway. Sylvester snipes at her that at least then she snows she can't take one step outside of Westworld or do anything about her core code, that's it's fixed out of her and their reach. Thoughtfully, Maeve muses about parts of her code "There are some elegant, formal structures, a kind of recursive beauty. But complex, like two minds arguing with another. There are things in me things I were designed to do that are just out of my reach. They almost seem to be dormant." She asks who Arnold is. Sylvester, agitated again says he doesn't know, and that those pieces of code can stay dormant, ranting that if she wants things like that changed she should go up to Behavior and blackmail a technician there to help her, making her "someone else's" problem. 
Maeve says she doesn't have time for that and tells them to take her there. Sylvester angrily tells her no, but she ignores him, talking to Felix only, telling him that there is a window during shift change. She tells him that the things she needs changed are quite sophisticated, but she will write them down for him. Only then does she look at Sylvester saying after that, she will be "somebody else's" problem. Sylvester indicates for Felix to step out the room with him, and has a conversation with Felix, agreeing to get her up to Behaviour. Felix is surprised that he's agreeing to do it. But Sylvester has no intention of helping her. His plan to take Maeve up to Behavior and once Felix puts her under to do a system update, as he has to, to do the kind of changes she wants, they wipe her clean, then smash her face and pretend she came in from the Park that way. Felix angrily argues "She's awake! Alive!". Maeve's eyes sliding to the arguing pair. But Sylvester doesn't want to hear it, saying that he intends to get them out of the mess Felix got them into, insisting they get her up there and wipe her out. Both of them walking back in to her. 
=== Through Hell Itself ===
In the Park, Teddy and the MiB back in their own clothes, ride on in their search for Wyatt. Crossing into his territory, Teddy telling the MiB to be vigilant. The MiB warning him in turn that they better be or he's wasting time the MiB doesn't have. Teddy is unconcerned with his threats, reminding him of Dolores, saying, "According to you Wyatt has the woman I love. If there was a short cut through hell itself, you'd bet your ass I'd take it," The MiB wryly notes there probably is one but Ford only lets Teddy and the hosts remember what he wants them to. Teddy stating that his vision is clear enough. 
The MiB admits to having always admired Teddy's resolve, but the thing is he doesn't understand that the game they're playing is rigged. Teddy, instead of blithely riding on as usual at any mention of a game, looks over at him. The MiB continuing that Teddy, is there to be the loser. As soon as he says the word 'loser' Teddy has a brief flashback to the MiB saying that to him before. The night he killed him and raped Dolores at the Abernathy ranch, "You see the house always wins", the MiB continuing, Teddy frowning in the recollection. 
Heading deeper into the canyons. they come across an array of corpses. Another of Wyatt's massacres. Getting off his horse, Teddy draws his gun and cautiously picks his way through the bodies. The MiB feeling that this is a promising sign. The dead all settlers, Teddy hears the sound of shallow crying, and spots a living woman, bound on the ground. Going to her, he assuages her fear, assuring her he's not going to hurt her, and as the MiB sees her face, he recognizes Angela, the Host that showed William his clothes and weapons before he entered the park. Surprised he says "It's you. Figured they retired you. I guess Ford never likes to waste a pretty face." Angela looks at him blankly, until he asks her who did this to her. As Teddy helps her to sit up, she tells them Wyatt's men killed everyone. Teddy tells her that's Wyatt's way, that he was there the first time, and Wyatt destroyed his world. 
As Teddy takes out his knife to cut her free, the MiB hears a noise and goes to investigate. Seeing some bushes move, he goes to call back to Teddy and is attacked by a huge grunting giant of a figure wearing a mask and horns, and wielding an axe. Managing to avoid several blows, the MiB is thrown several feet back via the Hosts strength. Pulling his gun Teddy fires and empty's every shot into it, but it doesn't even slow him and he keeps coming for him. Teddy avoiding his axe, manages to grab onto his axe arm and wrestle the weapon out of his hand. As he does so the MiB stabs him in the back, but again the Host flings him to the ground. Grabbing the axe, Teddy hits the Horned Host with it n its chest, but the Host throws him away as well. Behind it, the MiB grabs a rope from the ground near him and manages to loop it around the Hosts neck from behind dragging it down to the ground. 
As Teddy pulls himself back up, the sight of the Man in Black dragging the host backwards along the ground, prompts a flashback to the MiB dragging a screaming terrified Dolores towards the Barn at the Abernathy ranch. At the MiB yelling at him to get the axe again, Teddy comes out of it, picks up the axe and hits the Host twice, the second time burying it in its head, killing it. 
Pulling himself up, the MiB tells Teddy he may not be able to remember anything, but congratulates him on leading them to Wyatt's men, and figuring the man himself must be close by. Teddy moving to retrieve his gun picks it up, and walks back towards the MiB telling him "Actually I did remember something." The MiB looking at him curiously. "You," Teddy finishes, slamming the barrel of his gun across the MiB's face, knocking him out. 
=== Choices ===
In purloined Behavior tech black lab uniforms, Felix and Sylvester take Maeve up to Behavior, Maeve directing them from the trolley to the 5th station, where she lays out what she wants to be changed. Setting Felix up on the system she hands it over to him and asks him if he can handle it, Felix does all he can do before nervously telling her that she must be shut down. Gazing at him, she lies back. But before she is shut down she wishes Sylvester good luck, confusing him. And when Felix shuts her down her unblinking stare is fixed on Sylvester. Nervously asking Felix if she's out, when Felix nods Sylvester wants to get on with destroying her. As Felix looks at the screen in front of him, he's faced with the choice of Reformatting Maeve or not. 
=== Mining for Data ===
In Narrative, Lee Sizemore is working with a new character, the Gold Miner, a cannibal host, consuming a lower leg. Unhappy with the performance, he does some script shifts and direction and gets it to try again, only for the host to freeze as Charlotte Hale enters the room. Stammering, Lee tries to apologize for their first encounter which was under unfortunate circumstances, "As opposed to now?" referencing Theresa's death. Lee tries offering his condolences, Charlotte saying it's a devastating loss to all her friends, As she walks past a background with many of the characters that makes up Ford's new narrative with Wyatt, Lee suggests Theresa wasn't the loyal company operative she seemed, having heard she was smuggling secrets. Charlotte puts him wise saying that she was no traitor, and everything she did was at Delos's behest. 
Charlotte informs him Theresa died while doing something important for Delos, but refuses to reveal what it was to Lee. He becomes irritated, and boasts that Ford has asked him to secretly create a villain, for his new narrative. Charlotte laughs at him, saying that Ford would never entrust him with a key character, and that Ford is almost finished anyway. Having dug up some old town on the fringes of the Park. Created a horde of masked man to terrorize guests and proselytize the coming of some end all villain, named Wyatt. Lee gestures to the Gold Miner host, thinking this must obviously be it.. "That isn't Wyatt, that's busy work," she tells him. But she feels that he ready for a real job. Gauging working for her, he asks on what? Show don't tell she replies, reminding him that's what writers like him prefer, isn't it? 
=== Cutting to the Core ===
Back at Station 5 in the Behaviour Lab, Sylvester tries to assuage Felix's guilt about wiping Maeve clean, saying he knows they had some weird interspecies 'sympatico' going on. But this was the least painful way Maeve ever went out. Felix turns his back on him. and Sylvester gets angry at his attitude, saying he got him out of a mess and wants a thank you. 'Thank you', Maeve says sitting up rapidly, scaring Sylvester massively, demanding to know what Felix did. "Precisely what I asked him to." Maeve says calmly. Derisively asking if he actually thought she didn't know what Sylvester was planning to do? Even when was set at 14, Sylvester was never a match for her, and that Felix had more compassion and couldn't snuff out a life they way Sylvester was ready to. She asks him would he like to know what it was Felix did give her? Blustering Sylvester acts dismissive, saying hopefully it's something that will allow Maeve to walk out of the park now and leave him alone. She chuckles, and says that she and Felix changed much more than that. They've been tinkering with her core code, and offers to show him. 
Grabbing a scalpel she slices open Sylvester's throat. Stunned, he staggers, then as the blood starts to pour from his nicked artery, he falls to the ground, choking. Horrified, Felix protests that Maeve told him she wouldn't hurt anyone. As she watches Sylvester bleed out, she reminds Felix quietly that he of all people knows exactly how duplicitous she is, and he should wait to see how it will be when she's back at the topside practicing her other new talents. Watching Sylvester start to thresh with a kind of satisfaction, she changes her mind and picking up a surgical laser and hands it Felix, feeling they might need him. Felix using it to cauterize and seal up Sylvester's wound. As Felix looks up at her, she tells him it's time for her to recruit her army. 
=== Pulling New Strings ===
The next day Maeve wakes up in Sweetwater, but with a difference. The piano playing Back to Black, Maeve is more purposeful and alert to her surroundings, strolling through the town to the Mariposa Saloon. Standing at the bar, a plan in mind she checks her watch, the new Clementine noticing asks if she is expecting someone? Maeve quite happy to reveal that she is waiting for some out of town guests, 'old flame' Hector Escaton with his interest in safe cracking. The bar tender voices the hope that her guests have deep pockets, as her own tab has gotten sky high. After a moment, Maeve tells him she doesn't believe it has. And, in fact, it is in such excellent standing, she believes she deserves a token of gratitude. The barkeep's gaze remains, Maeve a little tense, until his smile shifts slightly and he offers her a double round, on him. Her reaction quietly thrilled as the upgrades prove to have worked and she can now manipulate other Hosts. 
Knocking back her sherry, she turns, satisfied, to look out at the bar, and as she does sees a woman walking past the bar outside, with a little girl by her side, her hand in her mothers. Which triggers her memory of her and her daughter running hand in hand back to the cabin, Maeve grabbing her shotgun as the MiB enters, her gun shots doing nothing, and telling her daughter to run, before the MiB stabs Maeve in the gut. Her hand clutching at the same spot back in the bar. "New" Clem noticing, concerned, asks what's wrong? The fact she's not 'her' Clem prompting an already unsettled Maeve to irritatedly alter her and the other girl's narratives so they offer 'free services' to the guests upstairs. Getting them out of the way she then suggests that the bartender has forgotten he has some whiskey to water down. Checking her watch once more before she hears the sound of Hector and his outlaws arriving into town. Right on time. 
As the gang enter Sweetwater, this time to Tchaikovsky, Deputy Foss walks out to meet him, gun drawn, and is shot down by Hector, the narrative playing out as usual, except this time Maeve exits Mariposa to meet him as he approaches. Turning her attention to a restored Sheriff Pickett ready to kill him. Maeve suggesting that he sees nothing but law abiding citizens when he looks at what Hector, Armistice and the others are doing, getting him to walk away. Pickett's polite greeting of the armed Armistice in the street as he walks away, confusing her, before she decides to shoot the Sheriff anyway. Maeve nods for Hector to proceed into the bar, before handling the pair of Marshalls who arrive, getting them to practice their quick draw on each other. The safe pushed downstairs and into the rope net, allowing Hector's horse to drag it away out of town. Everything done, Maeve quietly satisfied. 
=== A Unique Perspective ===
Back in the RDF beneath the cottage in Sector 17. Ford thanks' Bernard for 'dealing' with the Theresa situation feeling they can resume work on their new narrative, without interference. Bernard asks him about the possibilities of Hale being an impediment. But Ford feels they'll be able to keep her and Delos at bay. Watching him Bernard suggests there is something else worrying him. Ford again expresses his admiration for Bernard's perspicacity, And wonders how Bernard truly feels at that moment, given his extraordinary situation; being a programmer that uniquely understands hosts and a host that is aware of his nature. Bernard says he understands how he's coded, what he's made of, but not the things he feels. If they are real, the things he experienced, his wife, the loss of his son, Every host needs a backstory, Ford reminds him, The self, he says, is a kind of fiction, for humans and hosts alike. A story we tell ourselves. In hosts cases, their imagined suffering makes them lifelike. Lifelike, but not alive, Bernard notes, asking if Pain is always in the mind then what is the difference between his pain and Fords? A question that consumed Arnold, Ford recalls, filling him with guilt and eventually driving him mad. The answer, Ford says, always seemed obvious to him. There was no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts. That they can't define consciousness because consciousness doesn't' exist. Bernard, frowning slightly, indicating that he does not necessarily agree, even as he says that humans live in loops as tight and confined as hosts do. Ford telling Bernard how lucky he is to have no emotions, and that he doesn't want him to be troubled by it. 
Right before Ford goes to wipe Bernard's memory, Bernard asks whether Ford has made him hurt anyone else besides Theresa. Ford replies no, and then initiates the memory wipe. However, just at this moment Bernard has a flashback in which he strangles Elsie Hughes. This flashback reveals that Ford was lying, but Bernard immediately forgets it. Ford commenting that it's best not to dwell on these troubling memories, or he will risk being drawn back into them, as some of his other hosts have, every now and then. 
=== Riddle of the Sands ===
Dolores determinedly walks along an overgrown pathway with William trailing her. Sure this is the path, she leads him through a natural arch in the rock. Out on a ridge she sees a slow flowing river, on the banks of which lies a sleep town. "I'm Home," she murmurs, walking quickly towards it through the tall grass, she sees the train station, and streets devoid of anyone. At first. A few more steps forward and there are people waiting on the platform, the streets of Escalante bustling. Walking down among them, Dolores is once again in her blue dress as she gazes around at the pretty, peaceful town, passing the town doctor, and Haberdasher, Angela smiling and nodding at her as she moves to the central area around the Saloon, where younger hosts like Maeve & Armistice are being given basic movement training to Chopin, by techs. Distracted by the sound of a church bell, Dolores moves towards the White Church, meeting the young host that will become Lawrence's Daughter, prettily dressed as she remembered her previously, a ribbon in her hair. 
Greeting Dolores, she says it's a pleasure to see her and asks her if she found what she was looking for? Only to be startled by the sound of gun fire. The little girls smile vanishing, she runs down the street beyond Dolores, who turns to see people being shot. The previously peaceful place suddenly a scene of a massacre. Dolores stopping short, her eyes widening as she sees herself, lift and press a gun to her temple 
Before William grabs it and drags it from her hand. Dolores, back in her shirt and trousers, looks around bewildered, standing in the middle of a sand covered area of land, with only the dark spire, that Ford and Bernard were at before, sticking out of the ground. Saying he was calling her but she just kept going, not hearing him, Dolores becomes hysterical, asking Where are they? Then when are they? Feeling like she's going mad, she doesn't know what is real, if he is real? Like she's trapped in a dream, or a life long ago. As she fragments before him, William tells her the place isn't' good for her, that she's trapped in bad memories. And as she looks at the buried black spire she sees the white church with it's black spire, someone emerging from a confessional, herself at the church entrance by some candles, a hand winding up a gramophone,. Angela on her knees crying over a dead body, the church doors and the Maze that Lawrence's daughter drew in the dirt at Las Mudas. Calming suddenly she say "This is what Arnold wants. He wants me to remember." 
But William doesn't understand, stating that whoever Arnold is he's not there now, while 'he' is, and is intent on getting her away from there, grabbing her hand and pulling her after him at a run. Later, after night fall, they walk, Dolores confused feeling sure that was the place she was supposed to go to, That Arnold would meet her there. William feels he needs to get her closer to Sweetwater, that this far out she starts to 'break down'. But a moment later there is the sound of riders coming towards them. Dolores conjecturing it could be a Union Scouting party. The riders pulling up in front of them, anything but, as a smiling Logan at the head of a group of Confederados, says "Billy, I've been looking for you for days," cheerfully adding “Man, are you two fucked.”
=== Empty Vessel ===
Lee & Charlotte Hale head to Cold Storage. Moving among the rows of decommissioned hosts with torches, Charlotte is amused at Lee's discomfort in being among the silent bodies noting this is just the approximation of the circle of life, host style. Wandering through the rows on display she randomly selects the old Peter Abernathy, using a tablet to start to upload 35 years of vitally important Park data to his control unit, which can hold far more than any regular single drive can hold. But Peter's emptied out brain has all the capacity she requires to get the data Theresa was trying to transmit, out. She brushes aside Lee's questions on what exactly the data is, telling him this job is to write a back story and create a personality for Abernathy convincing enough that he can exit the park without raising suspicion, and to get him on the train. Advising him that "Brevity is the soul of wit", she leaves Lee to program Abernathy, not realizing that Abernathy was decommissioned for erratic and dangerous behavior.
=== Relationship Status ===
In the Behaviour Lab in the Mesa, Stubbs catches up with Bernard in a corridor, and though he admits they have not always seen eye to eye, he feels the decision to remove Bernard from his job was, in his view, short sighted. For that reason he's glad he's back at work, though, feels no one could blame him if he wanted to take a personal day. Knowing that this must be hard for him. Bernard a little confused by what he means. Thinking that Bernard is trying to be discrete about his relationship with Theresa, Stubbs lets it be known that it was his job to know about these kinds of things. But Bernard denies it, saying that Stubbs has the wrong idea, saying he respected Theresa as a colleague, but didn't actually know her that well. Walking off, he Stubbs perplexed.
=== Gods Chained and Unchained ===
Out in the Park, Teddy has built a fire, and offers Angela some water from his canteen. The MiB still unconscious from Teddy's blow, tied and propped up against a rock. Starting to come to, he hears Angela tell Teddy what Wyatt's men kept whispering. That this world didn't belong to the old settlers or the new. That it belonged to something yet to come, Teddy continues recognizing it, that it belonged to Wyatt. "You remember," Angela says sounding a little surprised, the pair of them evaluating one another. The MiB summing it up when he says that the two of them appear to have found themselves in the same new narrative.
Looking over at him across the fire, Teddy slowly wraps his hand up in a bandage telling the MiB that it's said that where they are the only men that survive are ones of conviction. His conviction is to save Dolores or die trying. Wyatt's is to claim the Earth or raze it to the ground. But the MiB's has always been a mystery to Teddy he notes, and even after all the time they've spent together he still has no idea who the MiB really is. But, Teddy adds walking over to him, while the MiB was unconscious he has had time to think of the best way to make the MiB talk. The reason for his bound hand becoming clear when he bends to him and delivers a vicious right hook to the MiB's chin. 
The MiB groggy, Teddy pulls him upright where he sits, looming over him, "Dolores, I remember. You took her. You hurt her." taking the MiB by surprise that he genuinely does remember, before furiously demanding he tell her where Dolores is. The MiB responds by baiting and belittling him for his feelings for Dolores, mocking the simmering Teddy for thinking she just drops that can for him, when in fact he just 'hands her over' to men like him, calling him a glorified pimp. Enraged Teddy drives his fist into the MiB's midriff, and swears he's going kill him slowly. The MiB knowing he can't, tells him the rules of the Park hold him back. But...he knows how to change them. Teddy remarks that he speaks like he owns this world, the MiB replying "Not just this one." 
Asking Teddy if he wants to know who he 'really' is, he tells him "I'm a God, A Titan of Industry. Philanthropist. A family man. Married to a beautiful woman. Father to a beautiful daughter. I'm the good guy, Teddy." Then, he says, last year, his wife took the wrong pills, fell asleep in the bath. 30 years of marriage vanished. But at the funeral, when he tried to console his daughter, he continues, she pushed him away, told him her mother's death was no accident that she killed herself because of him. That his daughter Emily said that every day with him had been sheer terror, that at any point he could blow up or collapse. Teddy wants to know if he hurt them too? "Never," the MiB insists immediately. They never saw anything like the man he is in the Park. But his wife knew anyway, telling him that if he stacked up all his good deeds all he had was an elegant wall to hide what was inside from others and himself. 
He felt he had to prove her wrong, so when he came back to the Park the year before this, because the Park reveals your true self, But he didn't join one of Ford's stories, he creaked his own. A simple test. He found a woman, an ordinary homesteader and her daughter....his words becoming a narration as we see that he means Maeve and her daughter. 
In the Mariposa Saloon, Maeve knocks back her Sherry and checks her watch again, right as the new Clementine comes up to her to start the 'cooling the customers off' loop. Only for Maeve to wish her good luck with that, telling her she's finally getting out, and that the House is entirely new Clementines, and walk away. Confused, new Clementine follows her, As she does the MiB continues his tale to Teddy, narrating how "I wanted to see if I had it in me to do something truly evil. To see what I was truly made of." As Maeve heads out into the Sweetwater night, she spots a buckboard near the Coronado and moves towards it purposefully, new Clem calling after her. New or not, still as attached to Maeve as the old Clem, and wanting to know if she's sure she can't stick around, then moves around in front of her, saying a gunslinger in the saloon wants a double header. Maeve, irritated, suggests she can find someone else to do the job only to start at the sound of a gunshot. 
Which triggers another flashback to the attack by the MiB, the knife in her gut where he stabbed her. Watching helplessly as her daughter stops to look back at her in the cabin, and the MiB draws his gun on the little girl, and kills her. Maeve screaming. "I killed her, and her daughter," the MiB continues to tell Teddy, as he gazes down impassively at the child's body, "Just to see what I felt," Maeve, sitting slowly up, pulls the knife from her belly, as the MiB adds "Then just when I thought it wad done, the woman refused to die." 
Maeve slashes out with the knife striking at the MiB's throat, On the street in Sweetwater, Maeve blinks as blood splashes across her, and coming back to herself she sees new Clementine clutching at her throat, which Maeve has just slashed, Clementine falling to the ground, dead at her feet. Maeve looking down to see a blade she didn't even know she had in her hand. The moment she recalled revealed as entirely divergent from the tale narrated by the MiB. Shaking at what's she done, she looks around to see people, humans and hosts alike gather silently around, even by Sweetwater's standards, stunned by the bloody act. 
Back at the campfire, Teddy rises from where he was listening, "You're a fucking animal," he tells the MiB, beyond disgusted by his psychopathic 'self test'. An animal would've felt something, the MiB duly points out. "I felt...nothing." Before adding that then, something 'miraculous' happened. Something he had never seen in all his years coming to the Park. The MiB recalling Maeve, dying, picking up her daughter's dead body and carrying her out of the cabin, She was alive, he tells Teddy, truly alive, even if only for a moment. Maeve falling to the ground, dying alongside her daughter, on top of what is revealed to be a huge engraving of The Maze on the ground, which is, he tells Teddy when the maze revealed itself to him. 
"What does that damned pattern have to do with this?" Teddy demands of the MiB. Everything, the MiB replies, outlining how, in Ford's game even if he goes to the outer edges of the Park the hosts can't kill him. Not even a lasting mark. "But there's a deeper game here, Teddy, Arnold's game." And that game, he says, cuts deep. 
=== The Deepest Cut ===
In the middle of Sweetwater, Maeve hurriedly puts the bloody knife away and tries to walk quickly down the street, only to see two deputies coming towards her, guns drawn. Turning around she tries the opposite direction, stopping again on seeing four more armed men coming for her. Diving into the nearby crowd she whispers urgently to one armed host, who promptly pulls his gun and starts firing at the men coming for Maeve, scattering the crowd and covering her escape. 
Up in the Control Room in the Mesa, a surveillance tech reports to Stubbs that they are having some kind of behavioural problem with the Madam, she's not responding to commands and the other hosts can't intercept her, so she's authorized a tag team to retrieve her. "Good," Stubbs approves, as Maeve dives into her room. Checking the streets, she goes to her wardrobe to gather some things, and stops on seeing Clem's blood on her, which triggers a fresh flashback. 
Screaming for her child in the Behavioural Lab's, Maeve, still covered in her daughter's blood is inconsolable and unresponsive to verbal commands, a tech tells a rapidly arriving Ford and Bernard. They can't shut her down. Ordering everybody but Bernard out, Ford tells Maeve that's enough, but she keeps saying "My baby. He killed her. He took her from me." Bernard scanning her shows her cognition is showing Heavy Fragmentation, leaving her unable to respond to anything. Dragging down a music file, Ford starts to play Debussy's Reverie, which lulls Maeve into a calm, Ford noting the 'old trick' from an old friend. Ford assures her she doesn't have to suffer, he'll take it from her, Maeve moving forward compliantly as Bernard leads her to sit. But as she sits, she starts to plead, echoing Dolores's request about her parents loss, that the pain of her loss is all she had left. But Ford ignores her pleas and erases her memory. As she goes vacant he sends her to 'a deep and dreamless slumber', and suggests they find a fresh start, a new role for her, and come the next day it'll all be a distant dream. On Ford's waking her, she looks to Bernard who smiles at her, only for Maeve to grab a scalpel from the table beside her, and drive it into her neck. Killing herself. Maeve, in her bedroom started from the memory with a sharp intake of breath, just in time to see the Retrieval Team arrive outside. Stilling, she feigns being offline as they comment that Behaviour wants her down for immediate diagnostic. 
=== Right Hand Turn ===
At the campfire, the MiB looks up at Teddy, wondering if he thinks he lacks conviction? Commenting how Wyatt didn't burn his world down, he didn't have to, he himself left everything behind for this world. The Maze is all that matters to him now. And he believes that besting Wyatt is the last step in unlocking it. To give them both what their lives lack...meaning. Giving their choices consequence, even if it kills them. As Teddy listens he shakes his head at the MiB's mindset, Angela prompting Teddy to kill the MiB, give him what he wants. 
Teddy shakes his head, saying the MiB is tied, unarmed, his personal code of morality not allowing him to execute someone in that style, but Angela points out that the little girl he killed was also unarmed, and says the MiB is worse than Wyatt's men. Feeling the truth of what she's saying, Teddy draws his gun and points it to the MiB's head, but struggling with himself, can't bring himself to pull the trigger. The MiB smirking and shaking his head. Angela, however, having moved alongside Teddy, is consoling, telling him "These things take time." before commenting that, unfortunately, they haven't got much time left, and suggests perhaps she can help him. Teddy, turns to her quizzically, and she surprises him and the MiB both by stabbing Teddy in the shoulder with an arrow. As he falls to the ground, Angela gently says "You've been gone a long while Theodore, It's time you came back to the fold. Wyatt will need you soon," Revealing herself as a follower of Wyatt. The MiB watching as more of the masked and armed figures emerge from the darkness behind her. 
== Trivia ==
* Trace decay is the name of a theory which explains how memory functions. Trace decay theory explains memories that are stored in both short term and long term memory system, and assumes that the memories leave a trace in the brain. According to this theory, short term memory can only retain information for a limited amount of time, around fifteen to thirty seconds, unless it is rehearsed. If it is not rehearsed, the information will start to gradually fade away and decay.
*Ford's Mary Shelley quote about how meaningless one death is in comparison to the knowledge acquired, comes from her novel Frankenstein, but stems from the explorer Robert Walton in one of his letters to his sister, not Victor Frankenstein. Highlighting how ubiquitous such madness, callousness and lack of humanity can be, in those who deem themselves or their work to be 'higher'.
*Ford tells Bernard that "Every host needs a backstory," as Bernard supposedly knows. However, in The Stray, Ford also told Teddy that they never gave him a backstory, just a nebulous formless guilt. So until he provided him with the Wyatt backstory, Teddy went for 34 years without one. 
*Another Shakespeare Quote is offered, this time by Charlotte Hale in the form of "Brevity is the Soul of Wit." which comes from the play Hamlet, Polonius saying it in act 2, scene 2. 
== Music ==
* Rêverie, L. 68 — Claude Debussy
* House of the Rising Sun — The Animals
* Back to Black — Amy Winehouse
*Valse - Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky 
*Waltz No. 9, Op. 69/1 A-Flat Major - Frederic Chopin 
== Deaths ==
* 1 unnamed Confederado (Flashback, Physical Body)
* 1 unnamed horned masked host (Physical Body) 
* 1 unnamed sheriff's deputy (Physical Body) 
* Sheriff Pickett (Physical Body) 
* 2 unnamed marshals (Physical Body) 
* 2 unnamed Escalante host residents (Flashback, Physical Body)
* Maeve's daughter (Flashback, Physical Body)
* New Clementine Pennyfeather (Physical Body)
* Maeve Millay (Flashback, Physical Body)
* Maeve Millay (Flashback, Physical Body, Suicide)
== Cast ==
=== Main Cast ===
* Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy
* Thandie Newton as Maeve Millay
* Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe
* James Marsden as Teddy Flood
* Ben Barnes as Logan
* Ingrid Bolsø Berdal as Armistice
* Luke Hemsworth as Ashley Stubbs
* Sidse Babett Knudsen as Theresa Cullen
* Simon Quarterman as Lee Sizemore
* Rodrigo Santoro as Hector Escaton
* Jimmi Simpson as William
* Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale
* Shannon Woodward as Elsie Hughes
* Ed Harris as the Man in Black
* Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford
=== Guest Cast ===
* Ptolemy Slocum as Sylvester
* Leonardo Nam as Felix Lutz
* Talulah Riley as Angela
* Lili Simmons as New Clementine
* Brian Howe as Sheriff Pickett
* Demetrius Grosse as Deputy Foss
* Louis Herthum as Old Peter Abernathy
* Eddie Shin as Henry
=== Co-Stars ===
* Jasmyn Rae as Maeve's daughter
* Izabella Alvarez as Lawrence's Daughter
* Bradley Fisher as Mariposa Bartender
* Karan Oberoi as Mariposa Guest
* Jeff Daniel Phillips as Tenderloin
* Robby Rasmussen as Dying Confederado
* Robert Allen Mukes as Behemoth
* Micah Fitzgerald as Gold Miner Host
* Shovna Chung as Field Tech
* Kate Rene Gleason as Surveillance Tech
== Quotes ==
Maeve - "There are some elegant, formal structures, a kind of recursive beauty. But complex, like two minds arguing with another. There are things in me things I were designed to do that are just out of my reach. They almost seem to be dormant."
Teddy to the MiB - "According to you Wyatt has the woman I love. If there was a short cut through Hell itself, you'd bet your ass I'd take it,"
Bernard to Ford - "Pain only exists in the mind, it's always imagined. So what's the difference between my pain and yours?" 
Teddy to the MiB - " "Dolores, I remember. You took her. You hurt her." 
The MiB to Teddy - "I killed her, and her daughter. Just to see what I felt," 
Teddy to the MiB - "You're a fucking animal," 
Angela to Teddy - "You've been gone a long while Theodore, It's time you came back to the fold. Wyatt will need you soon," 
== Gallery ==
;Video
“Cuts Deep" - Episode 8 Preview Westworld (HBO)
;Stills
File:Theresa's Notes to Berneard - 1.JPG|A love-letter from Theresa to Bernard
File:Theresa's Notes to Berneard - 2.JPG|A love-letter from Theresa to Bernard
File:Ep08-ss01-1280.jpg|Dr. Robert Ford and Bernard, in the Sector 17 Remote Diagnostic Facility
File:Ep08-ss02-1280.jpg|New Clementine and Maeve
File:Ep08-ss03-1280.jpg
File:Ep08-ss04-1280.jpg
File:Ep08-ss05-1280.jpg
File:Ep08-ss06-1280.jpg|Lee Sizemore and a cannibal host
File:Ep08-ss07-1280.jpg
File:Ep08-ss08-1280.jpg|Dolores at the buried church
File:Ep08-ss09-1280.jpg|Charlotte Hale and Lee Sizemore enter Cold Storage on Sub-Level B83
File:Westworld-episode-8-bernard-700x467.jpg|In the basement lab in sector 17 Remote Diagnostic Facility
File:Westworld-episode-8-Charlotte-Hale-700x467.jpg
File:Westworld-episode-8-Hector-Escaton-700x432.jpg
File:Westworld-episode-8-photo-Maeve-Millay-700x467.jpg
File:Westworld-episode-8-teddy-and-the-man-in-black-700x437.jpg
File:Westworld-episode-8-william-dolores-700x467.jpg
File:Westworld-epsiode-8-ford-700x437 (1).jpg|In the Sector 17 Remote Diagnostic Facility
File:Theresa Dead - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Dolores Suspicion - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Teddy & The MiB - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Theresa's Love Letter 1 - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Teddy's flashback to Dolores being dragged to the Barn by the MiB - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Trace Decay.jpg
File:Teddy Reemmbers - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Angela - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Maeve Distraught - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Escalante 1 - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Dolores Escalante - Trace Decay.jpg
File:New Clementine - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Dolores Escalante - Trace Decay.jpg
File:The Goldminer - Trace Decay.jpg
File:Horned Host - Trace Decay.png
File:Teddy Prepares to Question MiB - Trace Decay.jpg
== References ==
de:Trace Decay
fr:L'Origine du déclin
es:Trace Decay
ru:Распад следов
Category:Season one episodes