In Sunday night’s episode of Westworld, Grace (Katja Herbers), the latest addition to the show's ranks of badass women, casually smokes a cigarette and looks around like she’s waiting for time to pass. She’s in Raj World, Westworld’s homage to colonial India. Grace is something that many visitors to the Westworld parks aren’t: completely alone, and completely uninterested in socializing with hosts.
At the sight of such alluring apathy on such a pleasant face, Nicholas (Neil Jackson), a visitor to the park, can’t resist sitting down with her. “What brings you to this part of the world?” he asks. “I have a little time to kill. Among other things,” she responds. Without letting her explain further, Nicholas assumes that Grace is referring to hunting Bengal tigers, which is what brings him to Raj World.
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Grace doesn’t correct him. Instead, she speaks in tantalizing half-truths that mask her identity, her mission, and her intentions. But make no mistake: Grace is headed somewhere deliberate. Various clues have led redditors and semi-professional Westworld theorists to believe that Grace’s cutting nature — and suspicion of hosts — stem from the fact that she might be William’s estranged daughter. The Man in Black (Ed Harris), aka old William, has only mentioned his daughter once. He told Teddy (James Marsden) that his daughter blamed him for his wife’s suicide. “Emily said that every minute with me was sheer terror, at any point I could blow up or collapse. Like some dark star,” he said.
Hold on, you might say. Isn’t William’s daughter named Emily, not Grace? Yes, but this is Westworld – and anyone can choose any name (or any identity) for herself within the parks. Plus, listing the name "Emily" on IMDB would spoil a tremendous surprise, and be antithetical to the very nature of Westworld. Chronologically, this mystery woman could most certainly be Emily. During the flashback to James Delos’ retirement party, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) encounters William’s young daughter — about 4 at the time. This party took place 25 years ago, meaning that Emily is the right age to be Grace.
But we have more convincing evidence than simple chronology (though in a show like Westworld, which interweaves so many timelines, that’s something). Behaviorally, Grace aligns with the Man in Black. She clearly knows enough about the parks to be suspicious. Like the Man in Black, Grace demonstrates intense familiarity with the park. She knows what to expect. So, when the hunting trip goes strangely off the rails, she raises the alarm far quicker than Nicholas. He posits the hosts are giving the new lovers privacy. “This isn’t how it works,” Grace says, dismissing his naive suggestion. Because after a lifetime spent around the parks, Grace knows how things work.
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Her skeptical nature especially emerges during her first encounter with Nicholas. While hooking up with him, she remarks how physically perfect he is – perfect enough, even, to be one of the park’s creations. “Think the park would go to the trouble of having one of them pretend to be one of us?” Nicholas asks, writing it off. “I wouldn’t put it past them,” she says, like she knows why she shouldn’t.
To ensure that Nicholas is a human, Grace proposes she shoot him with a pistol. If he's a host, he’ll “die.” If he's a human, he’ll be knocked down by the bullet’s impact, but remain uninjured. After Grace's experiment, Nicholas turns out to be a human after all — a human who remains surprisingly affectionate to a woman who shot him.
Sure, Grace’s hesitation to sleep with a host could stem from discomfort. But suppose she’s really William’s daughter. After years spent surrounded by Delos family doings, she might have accrued knowledge regarding the intentions of the family business. Namely, that Westworld is harvesting the DNA from people who interact (or have sex with) the hosts.
Grace may also be hesitant to interact with hosts because she’s on an independent journey through the parks — one that has nothing to do with the park's pre-written narratives. Sounds like William's mission into the maze, or to find the door, right? We get a glimpse into Grace's journey when she opens her notebook during the trip into the jungle. Scrawled upon a handwritten map is a curious symbol of interlocking hexagons. We see the hexagon symbol later in the episode, when Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) logs into the special access panel. Some redditors have connected the logo — which they call the “Protagoras” logo — with Delos-controlled secret outposts.
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So where is her journey taking her? Likely, to Delos’ Corporate Research Group, where all the shady information-collection is going down. Whereas the Man in Black is on a metaphysical, almost philosophical, journey through the park, Grace’s mission seems more practical. She's going to the room where it happens.
Alternatively, if you’re not sold on the daughter theory, Grace could be a journalist, or working for a rival company. What’s evident is that she, like the Man in Black, is looking to achieve a deeper understanding of the park. And it all connects back to the hexagon symbol, Westworld’s equivalent to the octagon of the Dharma Initiative in Lost.
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