Westworld Showed Us The Door

With two episodes left to go in season 2, Man in Black has been tasked with finding, seeing The Door only raises more questions about what it is, and how it fits with all the clues we've heard about it before.

One of the most deceptively simple questions is whether or not The Door is the same thing as isn't a place, but a weapon that she can use to claim the outside world for herself and the other hosts. While the picture is starting to come together, it definitely feels like we're still missing some pieces of the puzzle.

Westworld season 2, episode 8, "Kiksuya," properly introduces the Ghost Nation warrior Akecheta (played by Fargo's Zahn McClarnon), whose sentience was awakened after finding the massacre left behind by Dolores/Wyatt, and Arnold's maze game. Akecheta's travels off-script led him to discover The Door - which is some kind of heavily industrial-looking facility out in the desert. It's the same location that young William took Dolores to in a flashback earlier this season, where he asked her, "Have you ever seen anything so full of splendor?" Well, splendor might not be the right word for it, but here's our first proper look at The Door:

The facility resembles some kind of power plant, with massive pipes either pumping something up from beneath the ground, or sending something down into the crater. The cylinders rising from the bottom of the pit are particularly intriguing - are they data containers, containers for something physical (like host bodies, perhaps), or simply some other part of a giant machine? Moreover, what exactly is behind that giant door that leads into the side of the earth? And how does it all connect to William and Ford secretly gathering data on all their guests, in an effort to create their own versions of humanity?

The question of where exactly on Westworld's map The Door is might be the most interesting question of all. At the end of episode 7, it was pretty firmly implied that the Valley Beyond/The Door are in Sector 16, Zone 4 - the same place where the sea of host bodies was discovered in a flash-forward at the start of the season. If the sea is the result of the crater above being flooded, to cut off access to The Door, then this season may conclude with Bernard taking drastic measures in order to stop Dolores from reaching the "weapon." Akecheta described it as a "age to another world," so perhaps The Door is actually some kind of a teleportation device (it's a sci-fi show, after all).

Two episodes left, and a lot of mystery still to unravel! Let us know your theories about The Door in the comments below.