"The Riddle of the Sphinx" is the fourth episode in the second season of the HBO science fiction western thriller television series Westworld. The episode aired on May 13, 2018. It was written by Gina Atwater and Jonathan Nolan, and directed by Lisa Joy.
Plot summary
Grace is taken to a Ghost Nation camp, meeting Stubbs and captured guests. Grace refuses Stubbs' offer to escape, believing these hosts won't harm guests and desiring to explore the park. The prisoners are taken to Akecheta, a Ghost Nation elder who prepares to sacrifice them. Grace escapes.
Clementine abandons Bernard outside a cave. He finds Elsie, whom he abducted and left in the cave when operating under Ford's instruction. Elsie discovers Bernard is a host. They discover the cave hides the entrance to a hidden bunker where they find dead technicians and drone hosts. Exploring the bunker further, they discover a locked room and an insane host resembling James Delos. A series of flashbacks reveal that William and James tried to implant James' consciousness in a host body to create a human-host hybrid and achieve immortality. However, in over one hundred attempts, each host reached a "cognitive plateau," where they became unstable, and William terminated the program as he believed that people are meant to be mortal. Elsie destroys James' hybrid and agrees to help Bernard further on the condition that Bernard does not lie to her. Bernard accepts, but in a subsequent memory, he realizes that he ordered the drone hosts to kill the technicians and destroy themselves after retrieving a second human-host control unit.
William and Lawrence return to Lawrence's home town. They find Major Craddock has overrun it. Craddock demands to know the location of a hidden cache of weapons and proceeds to torment and kill the townspeople. William deduces that Ford's new narrative sees himself and various factions within Westworld heading west to the "Valley Beyond," or as Craddock knows it, "Glory." He reveals the location of the cache and offers to lead Craddock to Glory; Craddock accepts, only to continue tormenting the townspeople by forcing them to play games with nitroglycerin for his amusement. William overpowers Craddock and kills his men, then force-feeds Craddock the nitroglycerin. Lawrence shoots him, causing Craddock to explode. Speaking through Lawrence's daughter, Ford reminds William that one good deed does not redeem him. William dismisses Ford, telling him that his motive was simply to play his game. William, Lawrence, and a group of men from the town head west until they encounter Grace, who is revealed to be William's daughter.
Production
"The Riddle of the Sphinx" was the directorial debut of co-showrunner Lisa Joy. She had been drawn to the script, written by Gina Atwater and Jonathan Nolan, as it gave them the opportunity to explore the character of William in more depth. Her goal for the episode was to mix a number of different genres into the episode.
The opening shots panning through James Delos' apartment were based on trying to capture "this mysterious, futuristic environment that you feel somewhat displaced in" from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some critics believed the introductory shot of this episode, which showed James starting his day in a closed room, was an homage to the first episode in the second season of Lost, "Man of Science, Man of Faith", which started with a similar montage of scenes. Joy stated this was purely coincidental as she had never seen the episode. Instead, she was inspired by the idea of circles, playing on the theme of loops that the hosts act out, from the room being circular to be watched from the outside, to a retro-inspired vinyl record player and an exercise bike. She also selected the Rolling Stones song "Play with Fire" for the first scene as part of a fire motif, while she allowed the actor Peter Mullan, who played James, to select Roxy Music's "Do the Strand" since he would be seen dancing to this song.