Bernard Lowe/Trace Decay

==="Trace Decay"===
We hear Robert Ford tell Bernard to bring himself back online, and we see Bernard "wake up" and become more and more upset as he remembers what has happened. He starts to hyperventilate and cry, very distressed. Ford, sitting a couple of meters away from him, looks pleased and tells Bernard just how pleased he is, that Bernard can feel such anguish. Ford peers at him curiously.
Bernard is horrified at what he's done and disgusted - by Ford's suggestion that he should be proud of his feelings because, as a programmer, he'd created so many emotions for hosts to feel. Ford talks about how simplistic Host emotions were until he'd built Bernard specifically to help Ford program Host emotions - things human software engineers had failed at.
Bernard's still focused on Theresa, asks Ford why he made Bernard kill her. Ford quotes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Ford says that Theresa's death was necessary to protect both the beauty of the park and Bernard. He believes that Bernard would have been destroyed if Theresa had lived.
Bernard loses his temper, saying that he will not help Ford. He jumps up from his chair and goes to attack Ford. Ford freezes him with a word or two and then turns Bernard's emotions off with a phrase. Bernard's face relaxes and Ford tells him to cover up all evidence that he and Ford have been involved in Theresa's death. Bernard puts his glasses back on and starts to work.
We see him altering computer logs to hide everything; hear Ford promising to erase the memories of what he's been forced to do. He edits himself out of security video with Theresa and cleans up location logs. We see him collecting notes from her out of his desk, her hair from his bed. Once he's collected everything he takes it down to Livestock Management and incinerates it.
Later we see Bernard and Ford back in the room where Theresa was murdered. Ford thanks Bernard for "dealing with an unfortunate situation". Ford asks Bernard what he really feels as the programmer who wrote the code that is creating and controlling his own emotions. Bernard replies that he understands the technicalities but not the emotions themselves. He asks if they are real, if they are as valid as Ford's own emotions? He talks about the memories of his wife and child and Ford reveals that these were just back-story, that they have never existed. He says that these imagined sufferings make him "life-like" and Bernard replies, "but not alive?". He points out that all pain is imagined, it exists only in the mind, so what is the difference between host and human pain? Ford replies that this was the question which consumed Arnold and, in the end, took his sanity.
It's not a question which troubles Ford. He says that there is no threshold between a simulation and life itself. Just a smooth curve of increasing complexity. He believes that consciousness does not exist, that there's nothing special about humans but that humans are much the same as hosts. He tells Bernard that he is not missing anything; that it is time to erase the memories of his relationship with Theresa that aren't needed now. Bernard asks a final question: Has Ford ever made him hurt anyone else? Ford answers that he hasn't, but we see Bernard remember one occasion where he strangled a woman. Ford presses the onscreen button and erases Bernard's memories.
Later, we see Ashley Stubbs catch up with Bernard in a corridor. He offers his condolences for Bernard's loss. Ashley knows of their relationship. Bernard is genuinely confused and denies all knowledge of it. He walks off.
We see Bernard and Ford responding to a problem with Maeve when she was playing the role of a homesteader and lost her child. She has been brought to Behavior Lab and Diagnostics and is distraught. Nothing the techs can do works. Ford deletes the memories that are distressing her. Bernard sits her down on the stool and she begs Ford not to take all that she has of her daughter, the pain. Ford deletes it and her face goes blank. He attempts to put her into Sleep Mode but instead she stands up, takes a scalpel and stabs herself in the neck.
Category:Tabview Character Plot