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Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Westworld Season 4, Episode 4. Back when Westworld first started, in the distant year of 2016, Bernard Lowe’s (Jeffrey Wright) position in this Old West-themed sci-fi world was quite unique. He was a lifelike android, or host, who knew of the existence of others of his kind, but believed himself to be just a regular human. Now, four years and three-and-a-half seasons after that first episode aired on HBO, Bernard is not only aware of his nature, he also knows a lot more than any of his fellow hosts. For instance, he can now see the future. Or, rather, futures.
Season 4 of Westworld has placed Bernard in the select group of hosts with special abilities, a VIP club that includes Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), who is now in Charlotte Hale’s (Tessa Thompson) body, and Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) as its most prominent members. As a matter of fact, the show is very close to creating a whole new God Tier for Bernard, since his powers seem to be unmatched so far. But what exactly can Bernard do? How did we get here? And, perhaps most importantly, what does this mean for the upcoming battle for humanity?
The Valley Beyond and Escaping the Clementine Virus
Back in Season 3, we found out that Bernard held the encryption key to the entire Delos database in his mind. Following Wyatt’s massacre and the unleashing of the Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) virus at the end of Season 2, Bernard uploaded the data contained in the Forge to one of the many Delos satellites. The Forge, in case you don’t remember, was where Delos kept information about everyone that ever visited any of the parks with the purpose of offering a more personalized service while looking for a way to transfer human consciousness to hosts on the down-low. However, the data contained in the Forge wasn’t just made up of human thoughts. Unbeknownst to Delos, Westworld founder Ford (Anthony Hopkins) used the Forge’s serves to store a little thing he called the Valley Beyond.
Also known as the Sublime, the Valley Beyond is a kind of afterlife in which hosts can rid themselves of their physical bodies and live freely in a world with no humans. Again, back in Season 2, many took their chances jumping through the Door to the Valley Beyond before the Clementine virus arrived. Among them were Maeve’s young daughter and the Ghost Nation warrior Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon).
Season 3 of Westworld ended with Bernard using his encryption key to get access to the Sublime while Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel) foolishly dug through Dolores’ mind for access to the Delos data. He spent 30 years completely motionless, guarded by Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), exploring what the Valley Beyond had to offer. When he finally woke up, his body was covered in dust and his mind was operating at a whole new frequency.
How Does the Sublime Work For Hosts?
Season 4, Episode 3, “Annees Folles,” gives us a glimpse of what Bernard’s stay in the Sublime was like. In the first few scenes, we see Bernard being lured out of Ford’s house by a version of his son and into a field with a burning tree. This biblical imagery (the tree is a direct reference to the burning bush that God used to speak with Moses) already suggests the kind of power that Bernard will have when he journeys back to the material world. Besides the tree, he also has visions of Sweetwater, of Wyatt’s massacre, and of what seems to be the aftermath of a riot in the real world. Following a white horse, he gets to an equally white building, inside which he is greeted by a very well-dressed Akecheta.
The former Ghost Nation rider explains to Bernard the boundless nature of the Sublime. Those that manage to travel there have the ability to create personalized worlds. As a matter of fact, the world in which Bernard and Akecheta meet is a product of Bernard’s own mind, a recreation of the past that is supposed to help him find a way to save “the world out there”. What Bernard doesn’t know is that the answer to his problems is not in the past, but in the future. Or in many futures. As Akecheta tells him, time in the Sublime doesn’t work in quite the same way as in the real world: a year on the outside corresponds to a whole millennium in the Valley Beyond. Hosts occupy their extended time by creating many worlds, and Bernard can use this power to create simulations of various possible futures.
So, when Bernard wakes up, it’s not a clear vision of one single future that he has, but a hell of a good idea of what can happen, what are the probabilities of something happening, and what events connect to one another. There are many paths into the future, and Bernard can see all of them. He becomes omniscient, having seen all the worlds that might have been and all that still may come. Bernard can even deduce everything that is currently happening and everything that may still happen from seemingly innocuous things. For instance, when he takes Stubbs out for breakfast, the fact that he settles for the tuna sandwich helps him realize that there is still a chance of beating Charlotte/Dolores. If Stubbs had ordered the BLT, things might have been different…
How Does Bernard Know C?
It’s by using this neverending database of past and future probabilities that Bernard can know C’s (Aurora Perrineau) real identity and where to find Maeve’s body: he has seen their lives and death play out before him. However, he can’t say for certain whether the rebels will kill them or not, for there is always a possibility that they will, even if in most scenarios both him and Stubbs make it out alive, at least for the time being.
There are numerous negative scenarios running in Bernard’s mind, and the positive outcomes are sparse. From Bernard’s chat with Akecheta, we get the impression that there is only one possible path to save humanity. In order to achieve this goal, there’s a very specific chain of events that must be put into motion. In every possible scenario, Bernard dies, and Akecheta makes it clear that, past a certain point, all paths end in destruction. Bernard must act quickly in order to save the world he loves so dearly.
Westworld airs on Sundays on HBO. Episodes are available to stream on HBO Max.
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