Last week, we finally had the pleasure of meeting Charlotte Hale on Westworld , the enigmatic character played by Creed actress (and future Thor: Ragnarok star) Tessa Thompson. At first glance, she appeared to be an excitable guest at the park, decompressing at Westworld's luxurious resort before returning to the real world. Then she was revealed to actually be the representative mentioned earlier by Dr. Ford, the Executive Director of the Delos board sent to investigate the various goings-on at the park. This week, Charlotte proved herself to be a worthy foe when she made a bold move against Ford himself.
In the eyes of the Delos Corporation, Ford is officially now more trouble than he's worth. He's undertaking a massive new narrative that is sucking up resources and causing disruptions in other ongoing storylines. He's hoarding the company's intellectual property, refusing to let it be backed up on any outside servers for emergency purposes. And let's not forget he's responsible for the recent host glitches thanks to his experiment in "reveries." (Bernard may have publicly taken responsibility for that one, but Charlotte saw right through that charade.)
Charlotte needed a way to prove that the problems caused by Ford's reveries were making the hosts dangerous in order to get him removed from his position. So she abducted Clementine from the Mariposa and had her brought belowdecks, where the sympathetic sex worker became a pawn in the corporate maneuvers. Charlotte put on a show for Ford, Bernard, and Theresa in which she had an employee punch Clementine in the face; and when she ordered Clementine to reset and wake again, the host appeared to remember the assault and viciously attacked her attacker.
There were two twists to this scenario, one public and one private. The public twist was that the "employee" was actually just another host, although Clementine wasn't programmed to know that. However, the private twist was that the entire scenario was manufactured by Charlotte and her own team of programmers. Clementine didn't actually attack anyone of her own free will, and it certainly wasn't caused by the reveries. It was all just a ploy to get Bernard to admit that Ford was the one who coded the reveries.
However, Charlotte's plan backfired when Bernard refused to betray Ford — so she just fired Bernard instead. (Another twist later in the episode made Bernard's intense loyalty to Ford even more understandable.) Charlotte may not have won this battle against Ford… but she's determined to win the war.
Images: John P. Johnson/HBO (2)
