“Akane No Mai,” the Japanese title for this week’s episode of Westworld, roughly translates to “the dance of Akane”—but Akane is both a name and a word for “deep red,” aka BLOOD, aka a thing we saw a lot of in our first glimpse at Shogun World, the park for when Westworld is too boring. It was also a turning point in the story, and whew! Was it a lot.




SPOILERS NOW.

For this week’s Westworld Conspiracy Corner, Senior Editor Joanna Rothkopf and I ask the most important question: Since we’ve not once seen a host take a piss, does that mean they’re all walking around with kidney infections? Also, we discuss the way “Akane No Mai” seems to be pulling all the threads they’ve set up this season so far and putting everything in place: Maeve, the “witch,” is learning her “new voice,” a.k.a. hacking into the mesh network and controlling other hosts, omniscient god-style; Dolores becoming ever-more-savage and controlling the hosts her own way, via reprogramming and—possibly—erasure?; Lee being a lazy-ass and creating exactly parallel characters, leading Armistice to find her Shogun World parallel and possibly they’re gonna do it; and, last but not least, the long-awaited reveal of Teddy’s butt.


Stick with us, kid, we’ll get you out of here alive.