Hope you watched the end scene credits after Westworld season two finale because it left one interesting post-credits scene. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy left viewers little surprise at the end. Be warned, spoilers ahead!
In the episode “The Passenger,” there was a scene that focused on the Man in Black (Ed Harris). He made it through “The Door.” This is the destination that he had been searching for throughout the entire season. There was a thought that when he went through “The Door” he would see both (or either) Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright); however, the Man in Black instead ended up in a completely different time.
The Man in Black instead is greeted by his daughter Emily (Katja Herbers), which he had killed only one episode earlier. Or at least someone that looks like her. He is also still at “The Forge,” but as he steps out of the elevator he sees that it is in ruins. Once he sees his daughter he says, “Oh fuck, I knew it. I’m already in the thing, aren’t I?” The thing being the simulated world.
He thinks that he is already in the simulation. the one that he wants to destroy. But “Faux Emily,” tells him to the contrary. She says, “This isn’t a simulation, William. This is your world — or what’s left of it.” The scene ends with him asking, “Verify what?” and her replying, “Fidelity.”
There are multiple theories to what happened and what it all means. One being that Ford or Dolores actually created a version of the Man in Black from the secret data vault. They (or one of them) trapped him in “The Forge” with a printout of his daughter. This is to punished him, which is ironic because it is a taste of his own technological medicine that he would have to deal with forever.
Another theory is that he was created to replace the Man in Black to help Dolores’ mission in the real world. There is also the idea that Emily herself did this. She told Ghost Nation leader Akecheta that she wants her father to deal with a “much worse” punishment. This could possibly be what she had it mind.
Another twist to this might be that the real human version of the Man in Black is actually still at the tent on the beach recovering.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Joy does say, “In the far, far future, the world is dramatically different. Quite destroyed, as it were. A figure in the image of [William’s] daughter — his daughter is of course now long dead — has come back to talk to him. He realizes that he’s been living this loop again and again and again. The primal loop that we’ve seen this season, they’ve been repeating, testing every time for what they call ‘fidelity,’ or perhaps a deviation. You get the sense that the testing will continue. It’s teasing for us another temporal realm that one day we’re working toward, and one day will see a little bit more of, and how they get to that place, and what they’re testing for.”
This means that this is the furthest point in the Westworld timeline, so far. Joy states that it will be explored at some point, but not immediately. She said, “Season three, the main story, will not be leaping forward that far.”