HBO’s Westworld has always been interested in exploring grand ideas — about consciousness, free will, artificial intelligence and the like. While these ideas are always interesting to ponder, the show at times felt detached from human emotions, and often came off as a host yet to solve the maze of sentience. It’s this very obsession with metaphysical concepts that caused the show to suffer in its latter seasons. Indeed, Westworld was at its best when it was focusing on its characters and letting their arc explore these intellectual questions in an organic fashion. Nowhere is this more apparent in Season 2, Episode 8 of the show, “Kiksuya,” which takes the character of Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), who had long been in the periphery, uses his character to carve out a compelling story about love, struggle and even indigenous identity.
