Sizemore Sized Down

Hello everyone.

As we continue our trek through WestWorld, there are some interesting trends that have begun emerging within the show’s presentation.  An important thing to note of these past few episodes is something that has become absent as the storylines begin to develop: Sizemore has disappeared.  While the rest of WestWorld’s human crew has received considerable development and screen time, one of the cockiest among them has vanished as the action continues to rise.  Lee Sizemore seems like an interesting character to observe, especially as the current storyline elements continue to develop.  Cullen remarked early on how Sizemore knew there were bigger forces at play but was “too stupid” to put the pieces together.  Sizemore is then embarrassed by Ford completely shutting down his story idea, despite it being practically complete.  From a story standpoint we could have seen more conflict with Sizemore in this regard, but I feel as though this is symbolic.  Ford has taken the story off the rails and has launched it into uncharted territory.  Everyone at WestWorld is scrambling, hosts and humans alike, as they try to sort out exactly what the park is hiding from them.  Sizemore represents a simple answer and a simple world view in the uncertain terrain of WestWorld.  There’s no place for a content asshole in such layered episodes.  This pursuit of truth becomes a pivotal point in this episode.

In going full on philosophy with this episode, we can see how Mauve and the Man in Black both represent Plato’s allegory of the cave.  Both are viewing a false reality, but through different means.  Mauve’s world around her is fake and she seeks the truth about how it functions, whereas the Man in Black seeks a more ideological truth in finding a purpose.  Mauve wants more of a concrete answer to her world, like how the prisoner from the cave sees what “real” flowers are and what “fake” flowers are, but are unable to explain it to their peers who have experienced nothing else.  The Man in Black aligns more with Plato’s concept of an ultimate truth that can be attained through a state of mind, a concept he expresses in his chat with Ford.

This brings us back to Sizemore in a roundabout way.  Unlike everyone else in WestWorld, one of the key creative members in WestWorld is taking everything at face value.  He inquires with Theresa about it once, and then turns into the show’s punching bag by not engaging with the park on a deeper level.  This episode of WestWorld turns our attention to the fact that the places like Contrapasso are of legendary status because they invoke a certain “realness” to them.  Sizemore tries to capture this aspect of the world with story alone and fails to imitate the nature of real life.