In this fourth installment of Westworld, I was able to notice at how the creators of the show created a major shift to focus in short, quick, snappy flashback shots. One of the main stress of the episode was to start to build tension by having the abused androids of the park be tormented while remembering their past. These interjecting snippets of film not only are able to show the confusion of androids Dolores and Maeve, but they also confuse the viewer by constantly inputting new, not seen before content of the cosmetic surgeries the androids are given once they are killed in the park.

Maeve remembering one of her traumatic surgeries.

One of the main effects of this filming behavior has caused the viewers, like myself, to view the actions which are occurring through the show in the perspective of the android. This confusion in the perspective therefore dehumanizes the human workers which are fixing the “working parts” of their business while sympathizing with the Maeve — who is struggling with a major identity crisis about what her existential purpose really is — as she transcends beyond her mental ability to simply function. Furthermore, we are also beginning to understand the deeper inner workings of the park in which the transition from machine to man takes place (ironically, the religion of the Native Americans in the show and also where Dolores’s painful  flashbacks are guiding her).

Finally, the effects of such intense flashbacks are contrasted with the long-retracting camera angles of talks between Dolores and Bernard — one of the managers of the park — to show how man is trying to understand how machine is developing the consciousness. These long scenes drag out for seemingly ages to make the viewer ponder about their own struggle with existence, something which many of mankind substitute with religion. The depth which these scenes provide almost touch into mankind’s early attempts to fathom their own existence.