2) The Man In Black Is Chilling
One of the standout performances of the show so far is Ed Harris’ enigmatic villain The Man in Black. Whereas most of the guests come and go, Harris’ character has garnered an obsession with the park and has apparently been visiting it for thirty years.
Through Westworld, The Man in Black lets out his barely-contained unsavoury vices like rape and murder – shooting down James Marsden’s Teddy in cold blood (or whatever the android equivalent is) and then brutally dragging away a helpless Dolores to rape her. The next day, of course, none of the Hosts will remember him so he can do it all over again.
His character sums up the park’s darker undertones – how letting the guests act out their innermost desires unleashes a darker side of their personality, and can permanently warp their psyches if they lose themselves in this virtual reality for too long. You can imagine that The Man in Black has been lost in Westworld for so long that this persona is probably all that’s left of him.
Casting Harris in the role is also a nice in-joke. He previously starred in The Truman Show, another work of sci-fi about virtual reality, as the similarly sinister Christof, the architect of the fake world that Truman lives in.