HBO Charlotte and the Man in Black
In the premiere of Season 2 of Westworld, we see a woman in a yellow dress accompanying Bernard. This woman is Charlotte Hale, the Executive Director of the board of Delos Destinations. If it’s been awhile since you’ve seen Season 1, you might not remember all the details of Charlotte’s plotline. Here’s a recap to help you along.
Charlotte, played by Tessa Thompson, has a very important role in Season 1. Her role will only grow more important in Season 2.
In Season 1, she was part of some type of secret plot to transmit data out of the park. In “Trompe L’Oeil,” she met with Theresa Cullen about transmitting the data out of the park. The plan was a failsafe in case Ford wiped the hosts’ memories after he was forced out of the park. During their conversation, Charlotte said something strange about how “the gods require blood sacrifice.” Theresa thought this referred to undermining Ford so he could be removed (i.e. the “gods” referred to the board members.) But at the end of the episode, Ford himself says “the situation demands a blood sacrifice,” when he’s in his secret house with Bernard and Theresa, ordering Bernard to kill her.
Charlotte is also the one who fired Bernard after he took responsibility for a glitch that allowed the hosts to access past memories of past personalities and, thus, turn violent.
In “Trace Decay,” Charlotte is there when Theresa’s body is brought to the Mesa Hub. Theresa’s body was found with a transmitter that had core code from the hosts. This makes Charlotte nervous, and she asks Stubbs if he knows who the information was intended for. He does not. She’s relieved, but says she is suspicious about how Theresa died.
Charlotte and Ford have a discussion after this, and Ford said that the demonstration (that Bernard was fired for) was actually a hoax because the host’s code was altered to make it fail the demo. The narrative will go forward, he announces against Charlotte’s wishes. So Charlotte agrees to reinstate Bernard.
In a later scene, Charlotte meets with the chief narrator Lee Sizemore, and reveals that Theresa was doing secret work for Delos, not a competing company. She takes him to Cold Storage, where she picks Peter Abernathy to hold the stolen code that Theresa was trying to transmit. She asks Lee to write a thin narrative for Peter, just enough of a personality so he can leave the park and not raise suspicion. But she doesn’t know Peter was decommissioned because he had erratic, dangerous behavior.
In a later episode, she asks the Man in Black if he would like to help overthrow Ford from Delos.
In the finale, she tells Ford that after he introduces his new narrative, he will be forced to retire, and the hosts will be simplified. She says she has no concern that he will destroy everything before he goes. Obviously Ford had other plans, as we learned in the ending scenes.
If you’re interested in crazy theories about Charlotte, we have some for you. One is that she’s actually a host created by Arnold and placed on the board to act as a “foil” to Ford. She’s the only person who stands up to Ford and survives. This theory grew partially from the idea that Charlotte is the female form of Charlie, the name of Arnold’s son who died young. And she spoke the same “blood sacrifice” phrase that Ford used.
Another is that she’s a spy for another company, despite her insistence that she’s working for Delos.
Others theorize that she’s the daughter or granddaughter of Arnold. Perhaps she was born after Charlie died, and named after Arnold’s first son. Or maybe she’s the daughter or niece of the Man in the Black. We know he had a daughter named Emily, but maybe he had more than one daughter.
Who do you think Charlotte really is? Or is she simply exactly who she appears to be: the executive director of the board, whose loyalty lies with Delos above all else?