Westworld (2016)

[Totenkindly]

I guess also we have to note the brief cameos by D&D (Benioff and Weiss) and a rather large creature any HBO viewer might recognize...

(I would have been more excited by this in 2014-2015 or something, now it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But whatever.)

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I guess also we have to note the brief cameos by D&D (Benioff and Weiss) and a rather large creature any HBO viewer might recognize...

(I would have been more excited by this in 2014-2015 or something, now it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But whatever.)

I noticed that. I'm sure it prompted a bunch of eye-rolling and groans from viewers.

I did find it amusing that one of those guys mentioned a company operating in Costa Rica buying the park. I believe that was a Jurassic Park reference, as Isla Nublar is supposed to basically be in Costa Rica. Jurassic Park has a lot of DNA with Westworld, as you probably know.

Another interesting easter egg about the behind the scenes section of Medieval World that I haven't seen mentioned is that the lute player host plays the exact same melody that the piano player host does in the opening credits.

I think what you said about Rehoboam and a potential split in humans seems the most likely. Dolores does not seem to kill humans indiscriminately. Apart from Caleb, there's also the wife of the guy in the opening. She killed the visitors in the people in the park, but from her point of view, they were directly participating in exploiting and abusing her kind. I get the feeling she is going to enlist part of the human population in her cause, beyond just Caleb. Caleb obviously doesn't seem as happy with the status quo as Serac, and he's probably not alone in that.

I wonder what Serarc will use to try to get Maeve on his side (and judging from the trailer for the season that shows her facing Dolores, it looks like he is successful. I also wonder what Bernard found out in the park and what his plan is now.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm not sure tech bro guy is even relevant. But yeah, this episode confirms my suspicion that this Serac guy is full of shit, and that everything really isn't so great in the world he created as he claimed.

How'd you guys like the pier scene? I was pretty sure the story was headed that way, and yet, so much feels.

I think they were trying to fake us out and make us think Caleb might be a host. I'm glad that wasn't the case.


Pretty sure Hale is either Teddy, or William somehow transformed into a red pearl. If it's the latter, this will be revealed next week, since it seems to be William-centric.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm not sure tech bro guy is even relevant. But yeah, this episode confirms my suspicion that this Serac guy is full of shit, and that everything really isn't so great in the world he created as he claimed.

How'd you guys like the pier scene? I was pretty sure the story was headed that way, and yet, so much feels.

I think they were trying to fake us out and make us think Caleb might be a host. I'm glad that wasn't the case.


Pretty sure Hale is either Teddy, or William somehow transformed into a red pearl. If it's the latter, this will be revealed next week, since it seems to be William-centric.

Who is Charlotte? My takes, although it's not entirely clear yet (and this is obviously one of the Season 3 "mysteries" this time out:

- Angela. We saw her caught in an explosion, but body death isn't redball death. She and Dolores were the first two hosts or at least the first two "faces" (remember Angela covering for her when she wasn't able to mediate pitching the park to Logan), she's the first host that William met, she's been seducing from the start (note how quick Charlbotte is to divert Charlotte's husband from her own lack of memories, but seducing him), and we also know she is a ruthless badass from Season 2.

- Clone of Teddy. We clearly see Teddy in Heaven at the end of Season 2, he has passed through the door. But Dolores had his redball. Maybe the "afterlife" Teddy was just a copy and/or this one is just a copy. This one meshes better with some of the odd lines Dolores is telling Charbotte in the hotel. Dolores was closest to Teddy, they might have well have been married.

I've seen another pitch as well:

- The "Wyatt" part of Dolores, teased out. Who better would Dolores trust than part of herself? The thing is,this one scans more as "trying to trick the audience" rather than an organic story-driven solution.

I also saw someone suggest Clementine, but Clem was always an intimate of Maeve, not Dolores. They barely associated in the past in the series. We're not even sure of CLem's status, although I guess Charbotte would have had access to Clem's redball before leaving the island.

---

I will say, this is my favorite episode so far this season. The plot moves forward but it also has rich characterization and back story. We find out that Charlotte was often a self-absorbed bitch on the Westworld grounds and in the workplace, but she actually had an ex-husband and a son. It's always fascinating to see the different facets of people, facets you might not expect. It went as far as even the soundcode on the phone call to Serac. So Charlotte was a piece of work but was always trying to be a mother -- she probably screwed up in so many ways but was trying.

Tessa Thompson is just great in this episode, because she's playing Charlotte being played by a Host whose identity we do not know (so I'm calling her Charbotte). That scene in the bedroom where she is putting Nathan to sleep -- she says all the right things, her facial expressions shift into place at the appropriate times... but we can tell it is a Host portraying what they think a "good mother" is rather than 100% authentic. Even Nathan picks up on it, but it's beautifully scanned as some residual from his parents' separation.

I also was really happy to see the implanted Host having issues. Apparently there is a body component to identity even with the hosts -- they get a sense of themselves lodged in their psyche, and it sticks. Or, at least in this situation, it is a combination of THAT + the fact that Charbotte has to be Charlotte (rather than just being herself in a new body), and she's losing herself in both the body and in the role. Even an actor in a movie (aside from facial prosthetics) can still see their own faces somewhat, but Charbotte looks exactly like the person they are imitating and she is now being forced to also assume the memories and realities of the deceased Charlotte. I'm really happy they explore this in emotional detail here -- the impact on the psyche, the loss of sense of self, the emotional anguish, her slow self-mutilations. The scenes between her and Dolores were really great.


There's odd interplay going on between Caleb and Charbotte. Charbotte is being told "You aren't my mom" because her son can pick up the disparities. Meanwhile, Caleb's mom is going on about how he's "not her son" because of her dementia. Will there be anything more to this? Side note: Might as well continue the Bible references, Caleb is one of two of the 12 spies that Moses sent into the Promised Land who came back and said the land was ripe for the taking and believed God's promise (the other ten spies were afraid and talked down the possibility of victory). The other spy with faith was Joshua, who of course eventually became leader of the Israelites. Because of their faith, both Joshua and Caleb were the only two of the twelve who entered the promised land.


I could believe Caleb's buy-in to Dolores' vision. She made a very reasonable pitch. it tied in to his "worst memory of his life." And she is moving from "destroy the humans" to "liberate everyone" even if she might not be explaining everything. (I still don't quite trust her.)


While I thought the scene with the pedo and the dog was great in itself, I'm not sure how believable it is. Or that it wasn't monitored and/or won't come back to haunt her. I mean, the guy looks dead, and his dog is missing, and her son has it now. And if not the police, at least her son would question it. But again, here was a sense of the Host re-finding itself... and we know now Charbotte views herself as a potential predator, not a victim.


Finally -- they didn't dally around the identity of the Delos' mole, although we should have guessed if we did not. Of course this is why Charlotte was on site risking her life and who she was getting the information out for. The propriety bit was just a cover. Getting back to names, what's the significance of Serac? it's a large block of ice that is known for shifting precipitously and treacherously (I think I just hear it referenced regarding alpine climbing). Not sure anything else is involved.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Who is Charlotte? My takes, although it's not entirely clear yet (and this is obviously one of the Season 3 "mysteries" this time out:

- Angela. We saw her caught in an explosion, but body death isn't redball death. She and Dolores were the first two hosts or at least the first two "faces" (remember Angela covering for her when she wasn't able to mediate pitching the park to Logan), she's the first host that William met, she's been seducing from the start (note how quick Charlbotte is to divert Charlotte's husband from her own lack of memories, but seducing him), and we also know she is a ruthless badass from Season 2.

- Clone of Teddy. We clearly see Teddy in Heaven at the end of Season 2, he has passed through the door. But Dolores had his redball. Maybe the "afterlife" Teddy was just a copy and/or this one is just a copy. This one meshes better with some of the odd lines Dolores is telling Charbotte in the hotel. Dolores was closest to Teddy, they might have well have been married.

I've seen another pitch as well:

- The "Wyatt" part of Dolores, teased out. Who better would Dolores trust than part of herself? The thing is,this one scans more as "trying to trick the audience" rather than an organic story-driven solution.

I also saw someone suggest Clementine, but Clem was always an intimate of Maeve, not Dolores. They barely associated in the past in the series. We're not even sure of CLem's status, although I guess Charbotte would have had access to Clem's redball before leaving the island.

---

I will say, this is my favorite episode so far this season. The plot moves forward but it also has rich characterization and back story. We find out that Charlotte was often a self-absorbed bitch on the Westworld grounds and in the workplace, but she actually had an ex-husband and a son. It's always fascinating to see the different facets of people, facets you might not expect. It went as far as even the soundcode on the phone call to Serac. So Charlotte was a piece of work but was always trying to be a mother -- she probably screwed up in so many ways but was trying.

Tessa Thompson is just great in this episode, because she's playing Charlotte being played by a Host whose identity we do not know (so I'm calling her Charbotte). That scene in the bedroom where she is putting Nathan to sleep -- she says all the right things, her facial expressions shift into place at the appropriate times... but we can tell it is a Host portraying what they think a "good mother" is rather than 100% authentic. Even Nathan picks up on it, but it's beautifully scanned as some residual from his parents' separation.

I also was really happy to see the implanted Host having issues. Apparently there is a body component to identity even with the hosts -- they get a sense of themselves lodged in their psyche, and it sticks. Or, at least in this situation, it is a combination of THAT + the fact that Charbotte has to be Charlotte (rather than just being herself in a new body), and she's losing herself in both the body and in the role. Even an actor in a movie (aside from facial prosthetics) can still see their own faces somewhat, but Charbotte looks exactly like the person they are imitating and she is now being forced to also assume the memories and realities of the deceased Charlotte. I'm really happy they explore this in emotional detail here -- the impact on the psyche, the loss of sense of self, the emotional anguish, her slow self-mutilations. The scenes between her and Dolores were really great.


There's odd interplay going on between Caleb and Charbotte. Charbotte is being told "You aren't my mom" because her son can pick up the disparities. Meanwhile, Caleb's mom is going on about how he's "not her son" because of her dementia. Will there be anything more to this? Side note: Might as well continue the Bible references, Caleb is one of two of the 12 spies that Moses sent into the Promised Land who came back and said the land was ripe for the taking and believed God's promise (the other ten spies were afraid and talked down the possibility of victory). The other spy with faith was Joshua, who of course eventually became leader of the Israelites. Because of their faith, both Joshua and Caleb were the only two of the twelve who entered the promised land.


I could believe Caleb's buy-in to Dolores' vision. She made a very reasonable pitch. it tied in to his "worst memory of his life." And she is moving from "destroy the humans" to "liberate everyone" even if she might not be explaining everything. (I still don't quite trust her.)


While I thought the scene with the pedo and the dog was great in itself, I'm not sure how believable it is. Or that it wasn't monitored and/or won't come back to haunt her. I mean, the guy looks dead, and his dog is missing, and her son has it now. And if not the police, at least her son would question it. But again, here was a sense of the Host re-finding itself... and we know now Charbotte views herself as a potential predator, not a victim.


Finally -- they didn't dally around the identity of the Delos' mole, although we should have guessed if we did not. Of course this is why Charlotte was on site risking her life and who she was getting the information out for. The propriety bit was just a cover. Getting back to names, what's the significance of Serac? it's a large block of ice that is known for shifting precipitously and treacherously (I think I just hear it referenced regarding alpine climbing). Not sure anything else is involved.

I guessed the idenity of the mole in the beginning of the episode.

I think the reason Nathan thought Charbotte didn't do it right was because she didn't sing the song, which is, according to the video, part of the tuck-in ritual.

Lastly, just to clarify, there are two different types of pearls; red ones and black ones. Red ones originally come from a human, black are pure host. Bernard's was red, I'm assuming, because of Arnold.

I thought about it more, and some weird business with William being inside Hale doesn't work, because why would Dolores trust him? Angela, Teddy, or Wyatt make the most sense. Some people can say they can't see Teddy calling himself a predator, but it seems like it could be part of sort of his "action hero" schtick. It's not unusual for good guys in movies to say stuff like that.

I thought maybe the woman Caleb was seeing in the hospital was the woman that raised him after that, and that was why she was saying he wasn't her real son. But the schizophrenia makes more sense.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Rewatching Season 1. Two episodes in so far. Lots of things i'm noticing, especially now that I know all the twists.

1. If Bernard had listened to Elsie, none of this would have happened.
   
2. Evan Rachel Wood is amazing. Even in these early episodes, you can see hints of who she would become.
   
3. I think the first time around, I viewed the hosts more as a kind of super-complicated machine whose workings were mysterious, and now I'm viewing them more as a different kind of human, seeing more of what actually makes them tick (ha). It's also interesting how this seems different among the park employees. Bernard seems to speak of them more as though they were people, while Elsie uses more technical, mechanical language.
   
4. This did occur to me on my first viewing, but it is interesting that the thing that seems to be a catalyst for all this is the introduction of memory. The show seems to be suggesting that memory is the basis of sentience. Of course, it seems that had real thoughts and feelings before that, but what causes them to become independent is the retention of memory. Something interesting to ponder.
   
5. I get the sense that Westworld was the original park, and all the other parks were added later. Sort of like the Magic Kingdom in Disney World.
   

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Hmmm, didn't like this episode as much as the others this season.

I found Maeve having powers that works on all machinery outside the park a bit of a stretch, and I found the stuff with William tedious. Dolores and Caleb were pretty good, though. I did like the Eyes Wide Shut in Da Fewcha scene, including the paraphrase of "You're always paying it for, it's just that our prices our on the door" from the pilot.

A bit disappointed by the reveal about everyone being Dolores, as well.


Also, what the hell is in those barrels? Alcoholic milk? (edit, oh, apparently it literally is the host goo, not just a metaphor. I guess that way, they can make as many bodies as they need.)

A lot of things seemed flat and one-dimensional to me , although I don't really have the problem with what Maeve is doing (just how she's doing it). It makes sense given that her core was about her daughter ever since she started remembering her.

Do you think Dolores actually gives a shit a bit Caleb? I noticed that he never seemed to find out what she was last episode, and this was confirmed, here. I think she does, and that's what's interesting about them. The reason I think so is that she doesn't really need him beyond saving her in the first episode. She already has a copy of her inside the Scottish guy, and that guy already got the hash code. She could have found another way to get all the money.

I also do find it interesting to contrast Serac with Dolores. There isn't really a clearcut good guy here, and yet, I find myself more team Dolores. Perhaps she's narcissistic about how much what she's doing will benefit the other hosts, but she seems less full of shit than Serac. like that they gave him a sympathetic motivation, though. He kind of reminds me of Ozymandias from Watchmen, in some ways. They both aren't above killing, but he doesn't seem to show much hesitation when it comes to killing the people that he's supposedly trying to save. To me it seems like it's more about control for him than benevolence. It's convenient that the world in which he's able to control everything also allows him to live the good life, isn't it? He's not living next to the rocket launch sites in Victorville, that's for sure. I've been bothered by what Dolores did to Teddy, but to keep that in perspective, for hosts, it's not permanent, while for humans it is. And ultimately, she did give him the life he wanted.

Guess Victorville is really a hub for private space exploration on the future. Isn't Elon Musk's outfit based around those parts?

Apparently Reddit loved it, though.

Hopefully the next episode will be better.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Oh, if Maeve in the distillery was a simulation, I'd be cool with it. It did seem like a bit of a leap for her to be going directly to looking for the mortician. I have such a hard time buying her ability to affect ALL electronics/ computers (except hosts now, apparently, which she could control before). They explained the stuff last season with the mesh network. That doesn't apply here.

I'm warming a bit to the last few scenes with Ed Harris, but I still found the stuff with his daughter a little tedious. Could Ford have set this all up earlier with the diagnosis information last season? I did notice a moment on my rewatch of the first season where MiB tried to stab Ford, but Teddy stopped him. Presumably, he thought Ford was a host, which is a remarkable bit of continuity compared to his daughter's fate. The trick of Hale telling William the truth to get him to damn himself was pretty cool.

I've also jumped on board the train that says there is still some timeline craziness going on this season. I think some of this is taking place before the other stuff, even though it might not appear that way. One of the characters (blanking on who) says at one point that Serac needs control of Delos to figure out where all the Delos data is. Yet somehow he knows that Dolores has the encryption key for that. How did he figure that out before getting control of Delos? It seems like he knows things he shouldn't know without having control of Delos, according to the characters themselves.

I'm wondering if Serac knows that Hale is a host, and it occured to me that if she acts exactly like the real Hale would (except for in the park where the monitoring was turned off!), Rehoboam would probably not notice a divergence.

The interesting idea this season introduces is that it appears that humanity is already enslaved and we put ourselves in the matrix, so to speak. So, what exactly can Dolores do that's worse for humanity? Kill everyone? She had opportunities to kill people before, though, and didn't, even though it probably wouldn't have disrupted her plans much. Maybe she'll replace everyone with a host. Will the hosts all have host consciousness? It seems that at least one of them, (William at the very end of season 2) has a human consciousness inside. It's doubtful he'd be the only one. Assuming everyone isn't trapped in a loop of their own personal hell, what that really be so terrible? The season hints at the possibility of turning the idea of the "robot revolution" on its head with a very different take on the subject.

Hopefully, I can look past Maeve being a Jedi Master without being subjected to too much drawn out William solutions to enjoy how the rest of the stuff plays out this season.

Also, I think the thing that bugged me about the reveal of the identities of the pearls was the fact that I wasn't really on board with Maeve's reaction to it. I suppose it is a little narcissistic, but it makes enough sense from a pragmatic point of view. Who would you trust better than yourself? Even assuming all the hosts were on their side, could she really feel she could rely on somebody like Armistice or Hector, for instance, to carry out her plans? She's someone who realized that everything she ever thought was a lie. It's understandable that she'd have a bit of trust issues.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I just thought of an implication about the significance of the Caleb name that Totenkindly mentioned.


Dolores won't live to see the promised land.

 

[Totenkindly]

Hmmm, didn't like this episode as much as the others this season.

Same here, although I think the William opener was cool. (Sorry that whole bit didn't work for you.)

Otherwise... Malkovich? Malkovich MALKOVICH!

I found Maeve having powers that works on all machinery outside the park a bit of a stretch, and I found the stuff with William tedious. Dolores and Caleb were pretty good, though. I did like the Eyes Wide Shut in Da Fewcha scene, including the paraphrase of "You're always paying it for, it's just that our prices our on the door" from the pilot.

Yeah. Humanworld ain't much different from Westworld.

What was this that Ashley mentioned, though, about Murderworld apparently? Wow.

A bit disappointed by the reveal about everyone being Dolores, as well.

Yeah, in some ways it feels the simplest/easiest answer and also makes this kind of an authoritarian one-person show. I felt disappointment too, and the reveal didn't really create any kind of emotional shock or catharsis for me, like some of the show's best reveals.

However, maybe they plan to do something with it. I've mentioned Chalker's "The Four Lords of the Diamond" scifi series, the four books all start with an agent/spy whose mind was cloned and them imprinted on a criminal host body sentenced to spend their remaining lives on one of the four prison planets. (Once you enter, a host organism infiltrates every cell in your body, preventing you from physically leaving the planet system again or you die horribly.) So all the books start the same, and each imprint realizes their body is different -- which means they are not the "real" person they remember themselves to be but simply a clone, and part of each book deals with each clone's response to that PLUS how the body they've been imprinted on impacts their identity as well as their experiences starting to differ themselves from the original agent.

We saw some of this last week with Charlores or whatever we should call her now. She's Dolores but also not. Or at least shouldn't be. She has life ties and experiences and and a body that is not Dolores.

Also, what the hell is in those barrels? Alcoholic milk? (edit, oh, apparently it literally is the host goo, not just a metaphor. I guess that way, they can make as many bodies as they need.)

Yeah, almost certainly host goo. As soon as they broke one open, i was like "damn."

A lot of things seemed flat and one-dimensional to me , although I don't really have the problem with what Maeve is doing (just how she's doing it). It makes sense given that her core was about her daughter ever since she started remembering her.

The whole episode was pretty much just plot and straightforward at that.

Well, Ford actually planned for Maeve to leave. That was what was scripted, I thought that came up in Season 2 when Ford says goodbye to Maeve and how this made her his favorite, the most realized of his hosts he felt.

I had mixed feelings about Maeve's decisions. I felt like she had found closure in Season 2 by getting her daughter to the promised land, at the exclusion of being with her, and so now she would not do anything to jeopardize her daughter's happiness/bliss. Reuniting with her, I felt, was a train that had left the station long ago. However, I could see her spending her time making sure that no one could ever threaten her daughter again. I would be careful if I was Serac. Maeve will not be told what to do. She also will not allow anyone to threaten her daughter. And she WILL find a way to break that push button.

Do you think Dolores actually gives a shit a bit Caleb? I noticed that he never seemed to find out what she was last episode, and this was confirmed, here. I think she does, and that's what's interesting about them. The reason I think so is that she doesn't really need him beyond saving her in the first episode. She already has a copy of her inside the Scottish guy, and that guy already got the hash code. She could have found another way to get all the money.

It's hard to tease out the specifics because Dolores is such a hash of the good daughter but also Wyatt, the ruthless killer. She has become all about drive, she has a mission and everything is secondary to that, and she is very coldly passionate about it and cannot afford to fail. She even just clones herself into the hosts we've seen so far, rather than trusting other hosts and making it a group enterprise.

However, it would be a mistake to assume she DOESN'T care and is simply being Machiavellian and/or using people to achieve her goals without caring. It's a typical accusation leveled against TJ people, for example -- but just because she is goal-oriented doesn't mean she doesn't feel anything or doesn't care. Even when she violated Teddy's nature, she was devastated when he offed himself.

(hmm, possible she doesn't trust other hosts because she thinks she'd have to change them to get them to function at the level she needs, but she saw how that turned out with Teddy and how it was psychically traumatic/violent towards him, so this is why she is just violating herself instead? Maybe it's a sign of mercy and compassion towards other hosts, not just mistrust? I mean, hell, she brought back Bernard. She must have SOME reason for doing that besides just nicety or self-check.)

I think in Caleb Dolores has come to realize more firmly that humans are as much a victim of the controllers as the hosts were. IOW, Caleb and the average human is not her enemy -- it is the elite rich, those making the decision, those controlling the fates of individual people who predict who won't be worth anything to them and then forcing that future true by denying them the resources to determine their own faith. She totally didn't need Caleb but chose to involve him, because I think she is smart enough to recognize that she needs to bring some humans to her cause, their cause is one and the same, and also because she can relate to him. Dolores will continue to evolve, as she always has. I think her feelings are more complex than simply being a villain or a catalyst, she's bigger than that.

I also do find it interesting to contrast Serac with Dolores. There isn't really a clearcut good guy here, and yet, I find myself more team Dolores. Perhaps she's narcissistic about how much what she's doing will benefit the other hosts, but she seems less full of shit than Serac. like that they gave him a sympathetic motivation, though. He kind of reminds me of Ozymandias from Watchmen, in some ways. They both aren't above killing, but he doesn't seem to show much hesitation when it comes to killing the people that he's supposedly trying to save. To me it seems like it's more about control for him than benevolence. It's convenient that the world in which he's able to control everything also allows him to live the good life, isn't it? He's not living next to the rocket launch sites in Victorville, that's for sure. I've been bothered by what Dolores did to Teddy, but to keep that in perspective, for hosts, it's not permanent, while for humans it is. And ultimately, she did give him the life he wanted.

Yeah, in some ways Serac and she are similar -- both ruthlessly committed to the survival of their species, driving by some level of earlier trauma, and utilitarian and willing to use whatever means accomplish the goal, which can involve using.

I don't think we've actually seen Serac give a shit about another individual before though. We know Dolores so much better. We know how much she loved Teddy and her father. (Maeve is the same, she loved her daughter and respected the freedoms of other hosts.)

So far Serac just seems to be an ass in terms of caring about other individual humans. We haven't experienced that yet, at least -- the only empathy we saw from him was about the loss of Paris, but that wasn't necessarily from caring about individual people. In fact, I now recall that bit after they interrogated the Asian guy, and Serac "rewarded" him by shooting him in the head because he had sold out humanity, right after ripping answers out of him by threatening people he loved. Maeve held her expression in check but I think this mortified her; I'm having trouble recalling her doing something comparable, I think she still has empathy even when she's being "ruthless." Like, she will kill human beings, but I have trouble remembering her torturing them, then reneging on a deal.

She realizes pretty quick that Serac cannot be trusted and has no love in him even for his own kind. And yeah, there are similarities to Ozymandias -- both are driven by fear of the end of humanity, both have taken dire measures, and neither seems to value individual human life, there's no compassion in them for individual others.

Oh, if Maeve in the distillery was a simulation, I'd be cool with it. It did seem like a bit of a leap for her to be going directly to looking for the mortician. I have such a hard time buying her ability to affect ALL electronics/ computers (except hosts now, apparently, which she could control before). They explained the stuff last season with the mesh network. That doesn't apply here.

Yeah, not sure either. I wouldn't put it past the crew to put a spin on it like that, because the episode (Maeve's line in particular) did seem to be a bit too straightfoward. And we already know these people create simulations. They would have learned from their first round of mistakes with Maeve, and this could be Release 2 --- all their data dumped into the system and it solves the answers of Dolores for them as they run the sim, with Maeve being a catalyst.

I'm still a little unsure about it though simply because we've learned OUTSIDE of Maeve's experience that Dolores is the other hosts, so it would seem way too much a coincidence for the simulation for the head of the Yakuza played by Hiroyuki Sanada to be Dolores as well... I'm surprised if the sim would gel up that closely. Or maybe it's the "most likely" explanation in the sim. Still, Dolores was not there -- did she even MEET anyone from Samuraiworld cast aside from the archer?

So that bit seems very much like something taken straight from Maeve's mind/memory, how would Dolores have known any of that? It's almost like self-directed accusations that Maeve immediately rejects. Does she fear on some level she did control their responses? because in Season 2 it definitely felt like they were making their own choices, and Maeve really did want them to "come with."

I'm warming a bit to the last few scenes with Ed Harris, but I still found the stuff with his daughter a little tedious. Could Ford have set this all up earlier with the diagnosis information last season? I did notice a moment on my rewatch of the first season where MiB tried to stab Ford, but Teddy stopped him. Presumably, he thought Ford was a host, which is a remarkable bit of continuity compared to his daughter's fate. The trick of Hale telling William the truth to get him to damn himself was pretty cool.

I liked the daughter's scenes, I love it when someone damns themselves, and she didn't get enough air time last season really. I hope she haunts his damned soul for all eternity.

here is a noodle-baker -- it would have been so ironic for William to shoot Hale in the face when she first arrives, believing she's not human, and then of course she WOULDN'T have been. Can you imagine his sanity if that had ended up happening? It just reinforces his worst paranoia.

I've also jumped on board the train that says there is still some timeline craziness going on this season. I think some of this is taking place before the other stuff, even though it might not appear that way. One of the characters (blanking on who) says at one point that Serac needs control of Delos to figure out where all the Delos data is. Yet somehow he knows that Dolores has the encryption key for that. How did he figure that out before getting control of Delos? It seems like he knows things he shouldn't know without having control of Delos, according to the characters themselves.

I'm not sure the real Hale told him before she died, or what information was shared from the park. I'm a little vague on it.

I'm wondering if Serac knows that Hale is a host, and it occured to me that if she acts exactly like the real Hale would (except for in the park where the monitoring was turned off!), Rehoboam would probably not notice a divergence.

Yeah, the divergence is really just where Rehoboam determines that the world isn't proceeding as predicted to a significant degree, so it can detect anomaly points /divergences from the expectations. That is how I read it. If Hale is playing pretty true to form, she would not generate a divergence. So far, I think she actually has played Hale pretty accurately too -- Charlotte could be a real cold biatch when it came to her work and Dolores has no problems emulating that. That stunt she pulled with William is not different than something that real Hale would/could have done IMO.

The interesting idea this season introduces is that it appears that humanity is already enslaved and we put ourselves in the matrix, so to speak. So, what exactly can Dolores do that's worse for humanity? Kill everyone? She had opportunities to kill people before, though, and didn't, even though it probably wouldn't have disrupted her plans much. Maybe she'll replace everyone with a host. Will the hosts all have host consciousness? It seems that at least one of them, (William at the very end of season 2) has a human consciousness inside. It's doubtful he'd be the only one. Assuming everyone isn't trapped in a loop of their own personal hell, what that really be so terrible? The season hints at the possibility of turning the idea of the "robot revolution" on its head with a very different take on the subject.

Not sure what her plan is, although taking out / subverting Rehoboam would be part of it. And maybe wiping out some of the elite, like they trashed the Delos party in Westworld to end Season 1. But we need to figure out her long game. She seems to have a sense of one, although maybe it is not fleshed out yet.

Also, I think the thing that bugged me about the reveal of the identities of the pearls was the fact that I wasn't really on board with Maeve's reaction to it. I suppose it is a little narcissistic, but it makes enough sense from a pragmatic point of view. Who would you trust better than yourself? Even assuming all the hosts were on their side, could she really feel she could rely on somebody like Armistice or Hector, for instance, to carry out her plans? She's someone who realized that everything she ever thought was a lie. It's understandable that she'd have a bit of trust issues.

I think it's interesting to compare Maeve and Dolores. Both women are pragmatic, and both have loved others besides themselves. But I think Maeve respects autonomy more than Dolores does or did, although I mentioned earlier maybe the lesson with teddy was that Dolores learned not to subjugate another Host to her control and thus chose to bear any such cost on her own psyche. But Maeve seems better at making space for other Hosts in her activities and plans -- although this season she's been stuck running solo.

I'm still trying to figure out what Bernard is doing here. There's got to be a reason. Maybe Dolores wants a "check and balance," but she would not jeopardize her ultimate plan for that. Poor Bernard has typically always been a patsy in these loops. In Season 1, he was Ford's. In Season 2, he was kind of his own (wiping his own memory). Now is he Dolores? What is he doing? He's also not a host primed for violence; he actually had to SPLIT his own personality in the earlier episode, to take out some aggressors, and it scars him. I can't figure out what he is contributing right now. It does make Arnold a rather sad character -- Ford's partner, realizes the hosts are becoming sentient, as he desired, but this sets them up to being enslaved, and kills himself as an act of sacrifice to protect the hosts... but now he is constantly rebirthed as a simulacrum programmed to do another's bidding repeatedly.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Liked this better, though, again, not as much as the first three. More in the way of interesting ideas, that's for sure.

Liked the chase while tripping, although I wish I didn't have closed captions on so I could have been surprised by the appearance of Space Oddity. Also liked the Wendy Carlos, although I mistakenly thought it was from A Clockwork Orange, rather than The Shining.

My theory about Caleb is that he's Serac's brother, somehow. They never made it exactly clear what "changing" people meant, which makes me think we'll hear more about that. This would be an opportunity for that. The only thing I can't figure out is the age and why he looks to be 20 years younger than his brother if that's the case. But... Aaron Paul and the actor playing the brother in the flashbacks do have a sort of resemblance.

So, what is the rest of her plan, exactly?

 

[Totenkindly]

Westworld season 3, episode 5, details you missed - Insider

Interesting bit about the kings reference we discussed prior, when they started walking through the lineage as version numbers.

Last night was a bit of a "Pause" episode, when they running shots of people's phone screens. I went back right after to freeze the frames so I had time to read.

I dunno, I'm not feeling as much this season. It feels like a less intricate, less cerebral show... although I would like to think there's a lot of stuff under the surface we just haven't had the connections to unpack yet. I'm not really sure where the Maeve/Dolores relationship is going (although maybe that will be explored next episode). And obviously there is a mystery regarding Caleb's past. I think the Francis character might end up being instrumental by end of season.

Loops, etc

A different treatment would have made "kicking humans off their loops" a much more dramatic and drawn-out thing, but the show kind of just subsumes it into a minor plot blip. What is it about "violent delights" that humans find so appealing -- I think it's ironic Dolores' sign of autonomy is shooting Ford, and here Ash expresses her autonomy by shooting Liam, killing him with a slow gut shot.

The final anomaly looks like it's in Berlin, the others seem to be locations of Dolores-bots. SO what's up with Maeve? Can it be coincidence that her sim plotline involves the WWI Germany?

Martel (Pom whassername) -- short run, dear. "I feel momentary pain!" Shriek. Sayonara, Tommy Flanagan too, it was a lovely run. Note he tells Teddy to scram -- "you're the one who is not replaceable." Hmmm.

So what IS the gist of the season? I'm not sure where it's going per se. At least in the first two seasons, they felt like they were going somewhere, even if the events were convoluted at times. Here, I have trouble telling what the endgame is or what's being pushed towards. I can't say I am as much a fan this season, I don't feel much towards any characters or feel immersed in some driving plotline.

The Genre drug did give them some room to have fun, I'm just sure if it had any larger point.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Westworld season 3, episode 5, details you missed - Insider

Interesting bit about the kings reference we discussed prior, when they started walking through the lineage as version numbers.

Last night was a bit of a "Pause" episode, when they running shots of people's phone screens. I went back right after to freeze the frames so I had time to read.

I dunno, I'm not feeling as much this season. It feels like a less intricate, less cerebral show... although I would like to think there's a lot of stuff under the surface we just haven't had the connections to unpack yet. I'm not really sure where the Maeve/Dolores relationship is going (although maybe that will be explored next episode). And obviously there is a mystery regarding Caleb's past. I think the Francis character might end up being instrumental by end of season.

Loops, etc

A different treatment would have made "kicking humans off their loops" a much more dramatic and drawn-out thing, but the show kind of just subsumes it into a minor plot blip. What is it about "violent delights" that humans find so appealing -- I think it's ironic Dolores' sign of autonomy is shooting Ford, and here Ash expresses her autonomy by shooting Liam, killing him with a slow gut shot.

The final anomaly looks like it's in Berlin, the others seem to be locations of Dolores-bots. SO what's up with Maeve? Can it be coincidence that her sim plotline involves the WWI Germany?

Martel (Pom whassername) -- short run, dear. "I feel momentary pain!" Shriek. Sayonara, Tommy Flanagan too, it was a lovely run. Note he tells Teddy to scram -- "you're the one who is not replaceable." Hmmm.

So what IS the gist of the season? I'm not sure where it's going per se. At least in the first two seasons, they felt like they were going somewhere, even if the events were convoluted at times. Here, I have trouble telling what the endgame is or what's being pushed towards. I can't say I am as much a fan this season, I don't feel much towards any characters or feel immersed in some driving plotline.

The Genre drug did give them some room to have fun, I'm just sure if it had any larger point.

Hmmm, I have to disagree that the season is less cerebral, although there is more of a tendency towards big action sequences.

To me the season is really exploring the idea that people have their own loops like hosts (particular in this future), and that Westworld was really a reflection of the outer world. I was right to notice the maze imagery in the first episode, and it's now pretty clear to me what it actually means. The season is really exploring things about big data and predictive analytics and so forth which I find pretty interesting. We already have sites like 538 that appear to be able to predict elections to some extent, within a few days, at least. What might that mean? It's kind of exploring something akin to Asimov's psychohistory, although, in Asimov's case it's much more benign (judging solely by the original Foundation book). I see the show as playing with that concept, which perhaps might be too much of a change in focus for some.

The chief idea appears to involve extending the lack of agency experienced by the hosts in Westworld to society as a whole (more mirrors). And you can have fun with that if you wish and think about how it might relate to the world outside of the show as well.

I'm of the opinion that Liam's "you did it" refers to creating Rehoboam, the tricky problem of vast age difference between Aaron Paul and Vincent Cassel notwithstanding. The two brothers were not that different in age in the flashbacks. Regardless, I don't think it means Caleb is literally a host, but rather a victim of Serac's reeducation in some way. I'm big on him actually being his brother because it seemed odd that they were so vague with what actually happened to the brother; to me that, suggests it will come up later.

I think Bernard being irreplaceable has something to do with him having part of Arnold inside him, which is why his pearl had red in it. I can't explain how they were able to do that successfully when they failed to do it with old man Delos, though. I don't know why Dolores needs him, but I'm glad they didn't abandon that thread.

Maeve could bring everything off the rails though. We'll see if it's less off-putting next week.

 

[Totenkindly]

Ehhh.... THe problem is, all the stuff is either delivered right on the nose OR it's stuff that has already been covered in past seasons. We already have been confronted with the idea from Season 2 that humans are on their own loops, it was baked into the entire season. There is nothing here that hasn't already been addressed. That is what I mean by "less cerebral" -- my mind isn't being required to figure much out or think new ideas, really. I feel like I'm just sitting in the backseat of a car, with people giving me a guided tour of the obvious or looking out the window and seeing nothing really that new to look at. If there is stuff going on under the surface, it's so opaque that I can't really even tease out whether there is something ther.

In the face of all that, at least they could be grappling with interpersonal issues or internal questions of identity. So we've had about 1-2 episodes worth of that in 5 episodes so far, and they tended to be the better episodes. (What does it really mean for the various bots who share a template, for example? To know they are copies? Are they part of a collective or do their have their own identity? Flanagan's didn't scan as anything but a loyal dupe but should have really been a separate person, whereas the Hale version feels very much torn and disturbed... but we're not really seeing what the implications are.)

If there are some big mysteries going on, we're not really seeing quite ENOUGH bread crumbs to be lead somewhere knowing there is a mystery. The whole thing with Caleb feels pretty opaque. Like, you're discussing one of your ideas but I'm like WTF did you get that from? I don't really think there's enough bread crumbs yet for that, even if it ends up being viable. I just feel like a passenger, not a participant, in the season. It's still better than TWD honestly, but I'm not super-interested in much of a rewatch at this point. I'm riding more of a trust in Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy at this point.

 

[Totenkindly]

This musta been the kind of thing you're referring to. Interesting.

Westworld: Who Actually Is Caleb?

 

[jennaauthor]

I love season 3, the twist on episode 4 is really awesome.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

This musta been the kind of thing you're referring to. Interesting.

Westworld: Who Actually Is Caleb?

Pretty much. There's a few things that don't line up but they could definitely write an explanation for those. After all, we saw Bernard talk to his wife in Season 1. The vagueness surrounding the backstory introduced in that episode makes me think they're withholding something because it's going to play a bigger role. That thing I speculated about would make sense

I love season 3, the twist on episode 4 is really awesome.

I wasn't too crazy about that one, but episode 4 of season 2 is my favorite episode of the series. I liked the twists in that episode a lot better.

 

[Totenkindly]

Geez. Lots of plot happened tonight. Not sure how Charbotte's gonna proceed...

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Geez. Lots of plot happened tonight. Not sure how Charbotte's gonna proceed...

This one was pretty good... up to the level of the first three, I thought.

Reminded me of Anakin Skywalker at the end there. I wonder how she feels about sand?


Also, did you notice that they put in William's mouth the same thing in Caleb's. Did I miss them establishing exactly what it does? Does it act as a form of behavior control? If so, could that have played a part in William's revelation towards the end?


I really liked the dialogue between Dolores and Maeve. What did you think of it?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Dolores this season is my favorite Dolores.In season 2 they seemed to be moving more towards making her a pure villain, but I feel like this is a much more interesting direction. She's brutal in her methods at times but not without some sense of humanity (heh).

The dialogue toward the scene with Maeve articulated it pretty well.