2x05 Akane No Mai

[9.2/10] There’s a long, interconnected history between the Western and the Samurai film. Whether it’s Seven Samurai being remade as The Magnificent Seven or Yojimbo finding its way into a Clint Eastwood flick or the numerous other ways in which both genres have remade and reinterpreted one another, there’s is conspicuous, notable connection between the gunslinger and the ronin, between the madame and geisha, between the lonely outposts in both the East and the West.

“Akane No Mai” uses that connection on so many different, but no less engrossing levels. It uses them to poke a little fun at Sizemore, with Maeve accusing him of self-plagiarism and laziness. His exhaustion at having to write 300 stories in a few weeks functions both as a meta-commentary about this show’s writers potentially repeating themselves in the midst of this multi-layered, many-charactered storyline, but also gives us an excuse to relive one of the show’s most notable recurring sequence with a thrilling new pallette swap.

Seeing Hector and Armistice’s robbery of the brothel redone as a samurai pulling the same move on a house of Geishas is an utter delight. Seeing bows and arrows in place of shotguns, swordplay in lieu of gunfights, and charming banter between a scofflaw and a femme fatale that is no less endearing when framed with an Eastern bent is a just a fun routine. The Japanese interpretation of “Paint It Black” is an inspired touch, and the whole setup gives the audience a chance to enjoy the similarities and marvel at the differences between this and Hector’s familiar rumble in Sweetwater.

But the comparison also works a sense of certain tropes as universal. There is a commentary in how easily the events we witnessed so many times in Westworld translate to Shogunworld. The archetypes of the woebegotten badass, of the loyal woman on the edges of polite society, of the thrilling chase and sexual tension between the two of them appeal to people across cultures, or at the very least, please the same parkgoers who want the same sense of adventure and fantasy, whether it’s with cowboy hats or top knots.

But not everything translates into a new environment. The other part of the episode, the one that features a return to Sweetwater rather than a visit to its Japanese doppelganger, sees Dolores wondering if there’s a place for Teddy in the new world that she’s creating. If Maeve’s half of this episode is founded on the idea that some essential parts of ourselves, some basic modes of being, persist and survive no matter what the context, Dolores’s half is devoted to the opposite idea, that there are some ways of living, some approaches to the world, that work in one version of it but don’t in another.

There’s something harsh but quietly tragic in the way that Westworld dramatizes that idea here. Dolores has turned ruthless, coming back to Sweetwater in order to jury-rig the train in order to, presumably, mount some assault on Mesa and use it as a base to make their escape. But that type of strategy will require death and destruction; it will require making hard choices about letting others die so that they can have their freedom, and after Teddy’s willingness to let the Confederados go in the last episode, Dolores isn’t convinced that he has it in him to make it through this war and do what needs to be done.

So she gives him a bit of a leaden, on-the-nose speech about what the proper way to handle a diseased herd of cows is. He, true to form, is too naive to realize what Dolores is really asking, and offers some kind form of quarantine as the solution to the problem, while Dolores reveals that her father burned the sick to save the living. It’s a fairly heavy-handed interlude, set at the spot where Dolores and Teddy used to exchange their sweet nothings which gives it a little extra force, but it at least establishes Dolores’s moral dilemma with her paramour without having her simply announce it.

So she essentially gives the old version of Teddy, and with it, the old part of herself, a last meal. They find a spot to be intimate together in Sweetwater, and as they make love, it is conveyed artistically, rather than luridly, as an act of genuine passion and affection, between two people who will cease to be in just a few hours. This is the last gasp of the sweet farm girl and the noble gunslinger who used to inhabit this place. It is the end of something, the last vestige of it, before something else has to take its place.

Because shortly thereafter, Dolores brings Teddy into a room, has her footsoldiers hold him in place, and has their tech who’s been impressed into service adjust him. Into what, we don’t know just yet. But the takeaway is that Sweetwater is dead, and there’s no more place for the man who used to live there.

But there is a place for Maeve, for Akane, for Hector, and for his Ronin equivalent. While the episode both has fun and draws meaning from the connections between Maeve, Hector, and their Shogunate counterparts, that part of the episode also just tells a compelling, standalone Samurai film in miniature.

The tale of the ronin who seeks to defend a woman he clearly cares for, of the Geisha who defends the urchin she rescued from the streets, of the tragedy of the mad king who destroys innocence to suit his insanity and who earns the Geisha’s blade in the process, is elemental and engrossing. Though they’re participants, Maeve, Hector, and Sizemore are as much an audience for these events as we are, witnessing them and reflecting on what these stories say about their own lives in the same way that we humble folk on the other side of the screen do.

In that, “Akane No Mai” is another episode of Westworld that meditates on the power of stories to change people, to use these tales, as William put it previously, as a mirror to hold up parts of ourselves and who we could be. When Maeve’s story is abstracted and transmuted into Samurai pulp, she sees her own maternal devotion realized in different, but no less affecting shades.

There’s humor in the scene where Armistice and her Japanese counterpart eye each other like an old Marx Bros. mirror routine, but there’s power in that idea too, that by finding our equivalents in these stories, by making ourselves a part of them in some small way and injecting ourselves into them -- whether that’s literal in Maeve’s case or more figurative in the viewers -- the spotlight pieces of ourselves, truths about our existence, that become clearer when woven into someone else’s narrative.

The difference is that Maeve can now change her story. The reveal that Maeve has become something akin to Neo from The Matrix, able to adjust her reality, or at least issue commands to her robotic brethren, through thought alone, adds intriguing new possibilities to the show. There is a metaphorical strength in that idea, that Maeve is listening to her own voice, but also a literal power in it, that makes her all the scarier and more impressive with what she can accomplish that her human counterparts cannot.

And yet even she cannot bring Sakura back to life. All she can do is sit and watch as Akane is devastated but steely, graceful but ultimately deadly, and devastated but vengeful. There is the reflection of Maeve’s own relationship with her daughter, that gives her renewed strength in her crusade.

What’s so heartening about the cultural exchange in the way that Westerns fed off Samurai films and vice versa is that the two genres built on one another. By putting those tropes and rhythms in a different cultural context, the exposed the fissures between cultures, but also the commonalities. By using these traditional stories, each type of film became stronger, clearer, more resonant to those who consumed it.

Maeve and Akane have the same sort of cultural exchange, the same innate understanding of one another, that puts them together, gives them the chance to be like-minded guardians of something precious, and clarifies for one another what they are fighting, protecting, and even killing for. The blend of stories, of settings, of persons is one of the richest, most engaging, and most layered episodes Westworld has ever done, that shows the truths exposed when the like and the unlike collide.