Featured

Westworld: Kiksuya Review

By Bryan Weatherall | June 11, 2018

There Are Spoilers In Our Westworld: Kiksuya Review – Episode Discussion

So the latest episode of Westworld just aired and this one deviates a little from most of the characters we know in the show to tell us the story of Akecheta and the Ghost Nation.

The Ghost Nation is something that’s been present in Westworld for a long time now, but we’ve never really explored who they are or even got to know any of the characters in it at all. So far in this season we’ve seen little moments of the Indians appearing in short segments throughout, but we didn’t really know what they were up to. Even last week, we saw them come and take Maeve’s daughter away, but I had no real idea about what they’d need her for. This week was all about addressing that issue.

It seems from what I interpreted this episode to be, was that the Ghost Nation weren’t the straight forward villains we thought them to be. While they look like villains and are quite dangerous, much of their intentions are interpreted as bad, when in fact they were trying to do good all along. With Maeve’s daughter last week, we saw her get taken and it looked bad because we think of them as a bad group, but as we learn in this episode, that’s not the case. I thought that this was an interesting mix up for the group. But the episode had so much more in there for us to see as well.

One of the most interesting things about Kiksuya was the character of Akecheta. Basically this guy became self aware and had access to everything the bots in the park only started to get this year. He’s been self aware and on a mission for 10 years now. Similar to Maeve, Akecheta’s mission is brought about by love. There’s a woman who he was paired with early on in his story, but through a series of programmings and resets the two became separated. As Akecheta had access to his memories he was able to see things happening in the park no one else could and over the years slipped under the radar as everyone was more interested in Dolores and the rest of the main characters in Westworld. As a result of this Akecheta basically had the ability to freely explore and that he did. During his journey he went to the place the bots are reprogrammed, met Logan Delos and even Ford.

The interesting thing about Akecheta’s journey was that as he became more and more self aware he started waking up the other people in his tribe. Part of this process was drawing the circle we’ve been seeing everywhere since season 1. This is the same circle that has obsessed The Man In Black. What we learn from this episode is that it’s true, the circle was not meant for The Man In Black, but it has completely consumed his life! Secondly, the meeting with Ford revealed that he had been planning for some time for Delores to kill him. What happens next though, I’m not too sure.

Additionally I’d like to add that as an episode, this one really did build up the character of Akecheta quite well. It was very artistic and as a standalone story, this is one of the best episodes of the season so far. The performance from Zahn McClarnon in this was exceptionally good. I am hoping that Akecheta from next week can become one of the main characters in the cast. He’s great. I also really enjoyed that much of the episode was in the Lakota language (sorry if it’s wrong I googled what language it was). It’s such a nice language to listen to and I’m hoping there can be much more episodes in the future with it done, or even other shows on TV as well.

Away from Akecheta’s storyline. There were some small moments from Maeve. She is still thinking about her daughter. But it seems that even though she’s quite injured, she’s been communicating with the other bots in the park. She’s been re-writing stuff. What it is she’s doing I don’t know. But I wonder, if Ford is in there too, how come she hasn’t encountered him? Or is she looking for him?

Overall this episode was beautifully done. There were so many secrets revealed about the park that we learnt about. The character of Akecheta was very interesting and I’m hoping to see more of him in future episodes. Additionally, I really enjoyed watching everything in the Lakota language, it sounds so nice! With all the characters looking to be headed to the same spot next week, I’m really curious about what might happen there.