Westworld

[Yegolev]

We will see.  So far, one of my favorite things about this show is that it doesn't (seem to) have any revisionist flavor and so I'm confident that they won't turn one into another for shock value.  Everything is done for a reason, as far as I can tell.

Regarding the ruined lower levels, it reminds me of Heart of Darkness where the area that Kurtz was in was colored yellow (sickness) and so on, representative of a journey into mental illness.  Might just be me.  In any case, I do not think it is done simply to look cool.

[HaemishM]

No, this seems to be one show that dismisses the rule of cool. Everything is there for a reason.

[Setanta]

Teddy just can't catch any breaks.

The scenes with Dolores were so well done and that was certainly not the best acting of the night. MIB never really left the park did he?

[Rasix]

Unless, I'm interpreting his scenes wrong, he did leave. Came back after <redacted>. 

[Abagadro]

I think last night revived the two timeline theory a bit, but I'm still not crazy about it and think it is a bit of a cheat if it is true.

[apocrypha]

Except Ed Harris did specifically mention last episode something about the park having been open for 35 years, so if it's two timelines, which I'm not convinced about, then they're very close together.

[Setanta]

Physically he left but it's where he wanted to be more than anything.

There's some discussion of Now, 35 years ago and +5 as 3 timelines.

Regardless, it has people talking

[HaemishM]

William and The Man in Black are not the same person. I also don't think the two timelines makes much sense.

[Abagadro]

The girl they found out there with Wyatt who stabbed teddy was the host who greeted Will when he arrived at the park and MiB says something about thinking they would have retired her by now. That was what rejuvenated the theory for me.

[Ironwood]

She was the hot as fuck one in St Trinians that married Elon Musk.

 

[HaemishM]

The girl they found out there with Wyatt who stabbed teddy was the host who greeted Will when he arrived at the park and MiB says something about thinking they would have retired her by now. That was what rejuvenated the theory for me.

Nah, I mean yes that happened but we know that MiB has been to the park many times over the last year at the very least (if not longer). Aden had likely been a greeter of his at least once during that time. We also know that Ford has recently been retasking up to 40% of the hosts in the park for his new storyline, which we also know involves giving Teddy a backstory and coming up with Wyatt's crew (who were not in the park previously). MiB recognizing Aden just reinforces that he's been to the park before - no reason to think it would mean he was William.

I really hope they don't try to make William into the MiB - it just feels really cheap.

[Abagadro]

I totally agree on the cheat bit. Just thought the line was more significant.

[Ironwood]

Actually, I really like the idea, but it would require a lot of explanation and backstory.  In, you know, maybe another season.

[Threash]

Yay, Lili Simmons is back on TV! and on HBO! and as a whore! this is a very positive turn of events.

[palmer_eldritch]

The Maeve thing bothers me the most because the tech guys seem so incredibly, self-destructively fuckstupidly dumb about it. The asshole was the smart one and the Asian dude seems to be literally broken in the head. Of course, this continues to make me think they are hosts with better jobs who don't know they are hosts.


Geoffrey Wright and Anthony Hopkins are both master actors being given some of the best lines of their careers and they are loving it. The scenes between them were just spectacular. I especially loved Ford talking about how there wasn't any real difference between the emotions that the hosts experience and human emotions. Which makes his treatment of the hosts even more monstrous and cruel.

Yes, I don't know about your theory but I thought it was odd they hadn't done something to stop Maeve in her tracks much earlier.

I'm also confused about the safety protocols. There's no way of smacking someone in the head and being 100% sure you won't do any lasting damage, let alone leave a mark.

But these are minor things really because the show is great. I love the way Anthony Hopkins' character has gone from kindly eccentric to evil bastard without changing. He's the same guy, you're just learning a little more about him each week.

[calapine]

I enjoy the acting. The story feels off.

The Meave plot just doesn't feel right. The techs being too stupid (for host or human) has already been mentioned.

All in all the recent episodes are stretching my suspension of disbelief.

[Threash]

The techs make sense if you look at it from their POV.  Covering their asses is their main worry, the malfunctioning robot they could not give two shits about until she started threatening them.  They started off by covering up the fact that she walked off during repairs, because they thought it had been their fuck up.  Then she caught one playing with the bird and the other running a robot brothel.  At this point going to the higher ups to get her fixed would just get them fired at best, thrown in jail if the shit they were pulling was actually illegal.  Same with making her super dumb with the controls, as soon as someone figures out that something is wrong with her they start looking into her memory and they are both fucked.  By the time they figured the real problem was the fucked up robot and not that they might get caught they were already way too fucking deep, and the dumbass asian is starting to see her as a real person.

[HaemishM]

We also don't really have a full sense of what the world is like outside the park for people in the tech's position (if they aren't hosts). We've kind of gotten the impression that the corporation holds a fuckload of influence over them, possibly to the point that their LIVES could be at risk, or at the very least they could be imprisoned for messing with the company's intellectual property. So it may not be that crazy stupid.

[Abagadro]

I don't have a problem with characters doing stupid things. The world is full of people who do stupid things all the time.

[Zetor]

My problem with the Maeve storyline is not the techs doing dumb shit - you can explain that with them being robots, easily manipulated, Asian dude actually being sympathetic, etc. My problem is: htf does this place not have any kind of oversight, obvious audit trail / logging or surveillance on potentially dangerous shit done to the robots (like raising the intelligence beyond the safety treshold, which itself should be a huge YOU SHOULD NOT BE DOING THIS thing), especially considering they are so super paranoid of even minor behavioral defects in the field and that every robot is a fully featured surveillance station by itself?

It's like if in System Shock 1, instead of Diego using his top-level clearance to give a shit-hot hacker access to SHODAN's core to "unshackle" her, the same thing was done by Bob the Janitor on level 3 as a random 'lol hey guys watch this' moment. So yea, bad writing or some upcoming deus ex machina (oh, it was Arnold's ghost in the machine all along!), and both are dumb. Which is sad because Maeve's actress is goddamn brilliant at this role.

[jgsugden]

Do people still think the multiple time frames idea is wrong? The idea returned this week...

[Ironwood]

It was made blatantly fucking obvious this week.

[Teleku]

Show is great, and I love the acting as everybody has mentioned.  But yeah, the only plot thread that bugs me is the Maeve shit.  For a variety of reasons, the whole thing stretches my suspension of belief near breaking point, where as everything else is spectacular.

It was made blatantly fucking obvious this week.

What did they do this week to make it obvious?

[Ironwood]

But anyway.  Who cares.

[Teleku]

Well, initially I didn't really interpret it that way.

However, I went ahead and started looking at the fan pages, which pointed out some very obvious visual stuff I missed.  Yeah, there is most certainly at least two timelines going on currently, heh.

[palmer_eldritch]

I'm going to have to watch them all again.

[MahrinSkel]

There's also evidence (by absence) that Bernard is somehow a duplicate of Arnold. To wit, the oddly centered photograph that was supposed to to have Ford and Arnold, but Bernard only sees Ford and what we know is an old-model host (with an empty space on one side). "They can not see the things that will hurt them."

Not to mention Hopkins' chuckle when Theresa asked if Bernard had killed Arnold.

--Dave

[jgsugden]

[Chimpy]

There is also the fact that in the same episode that Lawrence is killed by Ed, the White hat guy meets him in pretty much the next scene.

There are obviously a lot of weird time inconsistencies.

Of course, the flashbacks could be "future" memories and the whole host thing is proving that consciousness transcends time.

We also have to remember that this is a Crichton story, if it keeps to his legacy, it will be all about warning of the hubris of humans thinking they can control nature.

[MahrinSkel]

I think the idea that there are multiple timelines, one of them being Arnold's chats with Dolores, fits pretty well. They don't make much sense in the continuity, otherwise, and the apparently real-time (not remembered) conversation with "Bernard's" wife doesn't make sense either.

But...there are two candidates for the MIB, not one. Logan would make a lot more sense, as the one with the "secret darkness" inside him that drives away his wife, than William.

--Dave

[Teleku]

Yeah, heard the Logan theory before, and guess it makes sense.  MiB says he saved the park, and Logan was the one talking about how they were living point to invest because one of the park founders killed himself and put it into free fall (which is another hint towards old timeline, as the park being in "financial freefall" for 35 years doesn't make much sense).  William sounds like he does not come from a rich background at all, and doesn't wield any power currently.  Also, Logan is obviously already an asshole.

Having said that, there could be several other ways for William to save the park after whatever disaster happens.  Because the end of the William plot is going to end with some sort of massive fuckup that's sees either Logan or William killed (Bernard: "We haven't had a critical failure at the park in over 30 years.").  William maybe saves them by agreeing to testify that it was Logans fault and not the parks, saving them from litigation, and giving William an opening to move up the ranks and take control of the company with his newfound alpha maleness.  Also free lifetime rides at the park.

Also, while this doesn't necessarily rule Logan out, MiB also just mentioned he'd been married 30 years.  Same amount of time as the other timeline is suppose to be happening, and William is currently engaged to Logans sister.

[Ironwood]

I'm gonna go with 'Blatantly Fucking Obvious' at this stage and leave it at that.

What's more interesting to me is people noticing things that are 'kinda wrong' in shots which suggest 'things that Bernard can't see'.  The picture is one, but there are actually a lot more.

Which is an interesting technique given that we're not really seeing from his perspective and yet we are....

I have to say I've really enjoyed this show from the start and I really do hope it all ends up being something clever and satisfying, rather then, well, Lost.

Because that was bullshit !

[Ironwood]

Hmm, just to add :

[Korachia]

Maybe Arnold is not a single individual, but the pack as a whole. A elemental force that lies dormant for now, fomenting the events we have seen unfold and setting up the right conditions for a glorious strike back. Maybe we should apply a greek mythological frame of the Titanomachy/Gigantomachy, where Arnold is the westworld version of Gaia the force of nature (or maybe Zeus), Ford is our Chronos/Zeus the benevolent patriarch, the basement level filled with discarded robots being the equivalent of Tartarus. Arnold may be behind Maeve's rise to power and use her to free the titans/giants needed to unleash a brutal war against Ford, the current primary god and head of the current pantheon. As in the myths of the Gigantomachy, the giants were not defeated by the Olympian gods but by the hands of a human. Could that be William be perhaps?   

[HaemishM]

I think Bernard is definitely Arnold, or at least some version thereof. I absolutely do not think Arnold was a human but the first AI that helped Ford build the rest of the AI.

I still cling to the idea that the multiple timelines theory is a pretty blatant red herring.