Multiple timelines and multiple Bernards abound as all parties converge on Abernathy to extract the essential data held in his head.

After the previous episode’s predilection to just move everyone along in small increments, this instalment responds by dropping huge exposition bombs and feeling narratively significant enough to be a season finale, even though there’s still three hours left.

Of course, having Anthony Hopkins’ Robert Ford turn up at the end of episode 6 did suggest that big things were about to be revealed, and we weren’t disappointed, as we now know the real rationale for the park – to spy on the guests when their guard is down to harvest data and help construct immortality. Wow, it’s come a long way since Michael Crichton’s theme park. Westworld now resembles Crichton’s better-known theme park – the one with the dinosaurs – with the locals massacring humans en masse. Apart from the plot revelations, this is a very violent, action-packed episode as host and human start thinning the respective herds.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) has a great showdown with Ed Harris’ Man in Black, and he gets shot-up pretty badly, but it’s a shame that the show doesn’t have the conviction to finish him off – his many bullet holes surely suggest it’s only a matter of time. There’s also a new jeopardy now that the Cradle has been destroyed, meaning that a host can no longer have their consciousness downloaded into a replacement body – if they die now, they stay dead.

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) finally meet up, and this confrontation is a battle of who will be the alpha female, though unfortunately the event is disrupted by gunfire and Ms Hale makes another lucky escape – that lady has more lives than a cat. And on the subject of multiple lives, there’s a wonderful pre-credits scene where Bernard’s synthetic true identify is uncovered by finding a roomful of his dormant model.

Verdict: Action-packed and significant, this is the best hour since Season 1’s finale, my only concern being that they may have shown their hand too early with three episodes to go. 9/10

Nick Joy