‘Westworld’: Where Did Bernard Go When He Plugged Into the Device?
The epic finale of Westworld left fans with some answers about Serac (Vincent Cassel), The Man in Black (Ed Harris), and Rehoboam. But the final scene of the episode left fans wondering what Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) was planning, and where exactly he went.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Westworld, Season 3, Episode 8.]
What happened to Bernard in the season finale of ‘Westworld’?
As the final episode of Season 3 begins, Bernard and Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) are in a stand-off with the Man in Black. Stubbs gets shot, and when Bernard realizes he’s next, he switches his personality to the grittier version of himself.
Bernards attacks the Man in Black, and the two throw each other around until an SFPD truck pulls up. Armed guards point their guns at Bernard, while the Man in Black manages to escape. One of the guards turns out to be Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.), a host from the park who is presumably a another copy of Dolores.
He hands Bernard a metal briefcase and tells him he’s been part of Dolores’s plan all along. Bernard then makes a stop to visit Arnold’s wife to reminisce about their dead son. He leaves and takes Stubbs to a motel room where he situates him in a tub of ice.
Bernard then opens the metal briefcase Dolores left for him and pulls out a device that he wears behind his head. A few seconds after it activates, Bernard’s neck falls, and he becomes unresponsive. Then in the final scene of the episode, it looks as if Bernard is waking up many years later. He’s covered in a layer of dust, sitting in the same spot as when he put the device on.
Where did Bernard go?
Before Bernard puts on the headgear, he tells Stubbs that Dolores was actually trying to save the human race, rather than destroy it. When Stubbs questions why he’s siding with Dolores now, Bernard admits the whole world needed to burn down so that their kind could truly be free.
But he tells Stubbs that there’s still a chance. “The key to the sublime, it was never in her mind, it was in mine, and that’s where I’m going,” Bernard says as he pulls the device out of the briefcase.
He says that in the “sublime” he’s hoping to find the answer to “what comes after the end of the world.” When Bernard puts the device on, he sees a sphere that confirms his access to a “database.”
Season 2 of Westworld revealed the existence of The Sublime, aka The Valley Beyond. Created by Ford (Anthony Hopkins), it is a virtual world where hosts can live free.
Last season, Dolores deleted The Sublime from The Forge and uploaded it to a satellite outside of the park’s network. From the looks of it, Bernard is entering The Valley Beyond through this satellite access.
What ‘Westworld’ fans think about Bernard’s trip to The Sublime
Some Westworld fans are spitballing theories about Bernard’s trip to The Sublime. On Reddit, one fan theorized that he went there to tweak it so humans could live there.
“Trying to refine the Forge, make it so that after humanity extinction he is able to bring at least the 4 million humans that visited the parks,” the Reddit user wrote. “Making them host-hybrids that will live in peace with the other hosts.”
Another fan speculated that Bernard went there to consult with Ford. “He said to find what comes after the end of the world,” the Redditor wrote. “And who else to have answer of it other than Ford?”
It’s going to be a while before fans get any answers about Bernard and his vacation to The Valley Beyond. But until Season 4 premieres, fans can always hit the Westworld subreddits and read all the intriguing theories viewers are coming up with.
