mac123x

Charlores beamed the Valley Beyond to somewhere no one would ever be able to find it... what? It's a virtual reality. Whoever's servers it is running on will notice eventually. Maybe it's like the Framework on Agents of SHIELD in that it's distributed across the internet. Either that or she sent it to Alpha Centauri and season 4 will be Westworld IN SPACE! At least Charlotte Hale is dead. Tessa Thompson is a good actress so now she should be able to play something other than nasty and mean. Definitely. When he was portraying the Architect in the Matrix, err, Forge, I think he had black contact lenses in -- his eyes looked creepy. In an oddly sexy way.

Last season finale I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. This one, I'm only mildly interested in finding out 1) who is occupying RoboCharlotte now that Dolores has built herself a new body 2) who was in the other 1/2 dozen control units she smuggled out (I assume NOT Teddy since he went into the Valley Beyond) and 3 WTF is going on with MiB.

Ordnance like explosive. I think they're being clever with it too, since it's a C4 Screen -- it appears that the C4 explosive is located in the C4 vertebra (lower neck).

To be fair, it's not like Ford is a good parent, considering he thinks suffering is essential for his children to grow and achieve consciousness. Ford : Maeve :: Thanos : Gamora. Also, Charlotte needs to die.

Looking closer at the QA guys' scanner they used on William, I don't think it proves he's a human after all. The device shows the following text:

From the recap: I rolled my eyes SO HARD at that, especially considering Anthony Hopkins could have delivered that exact sentiment non-verbally -- just have the camera linger on his face while a slight smirk develops. Let your world class actors actually act, Show! I got serious Lost flashbacks to Dharma Initiative station names like The Swan and the Flame. [shudder] Okay, sure, for Westworld and probably the Raj, but I didn't see a lot of hats in ShogunWorld. Also, people take hats off for past times like sleeping, bathing, fucking -- does it have to be on your head to scan correctly, or is proximity enough? This is some serious magitech. Plus the QA redshirts did the neck-thingy on him and it showed "Clear". So either he is a human or he's a heretofore unseen version of Host that can pass the test. Or he's right and the whole thing was a set-up from Ford and the neck-thingy test was a fakeout. Except they didn't show him the results, just the camera, so I doubt it was part of a narrative. According to the Googles, she's 61! If I didn't know better I'd have guessed early 40s and WAY too young to play Ed Harris's wife.

So, MIB thinks he's a host, right? That's why he was cutting into his forearm, to expose circuitry or some such. Emily was right when she told the QA redshirts that her father has had a psychotic break. He's going to wind up catatonic when he realizes he's a real boy after all and that he murdered his own daughter. Yikes. I found Ford's wording to MIB unusual: he referred to Delos's experiment as "it". I initially thought he meant that "the valley beyond" or the "forge" was a super AI or something, because Ford commented about what "it" was learning about humans. But apparently it's just another VR like the Cradle but populated with digitized Guests. The scenes with Man in Black and Mrs. in Black were incredible. Well written and two fantastic actors. I just wish it didn't retcon season 1. MiB had told Lawrence that he didn't realize she had killed herself until Emily told him. There is no reason for season 1 MiB to lie to a host. RIP Teddy. I wonder how his body winds up in the flood since they weren't at the valley beyond yet. At least he didn't drown in the flood, because that'd be carrying nominative determinism just a bit too far. Glad Elsie is stranded in the park far from the action. I want her to survive and take over Charlotte's job once she is inevitably killed. Actually, Elsie can go back to dental school for all I care, as long as she survives and Charlotte dies, but mostly as long as Charlotte dies.

I think they were on a resetting loop. Maybe not daily, but they did show Ake attacking a group of other hosts (settlers? cowboys? wasn't clear) repeatedly - axe in one guy's chest, slit the throat of another. It looked like that was a set-piece for guests to participate in - "fend off the attack, be a hero" kind of thing. The odd part is that Ake never got killed in that loop until he deliberately provoked a guest. Maybe his normal MO was to attack then escape when any guests fought back, or maybe it was such an awful boring narrative that guests rarely participated in it.

I forgot that one was on my list too. Also, why did lady-who-was-in-charge-before-Bernard tell them to return him to the park unchanged? Updated software but the same hardware apparently. Whimsy or some diabolical scheme? It's also difficult to believe that an Alpha-2 model mechanical host never needed maintenance in 9+ years. The hosts are mechanical at the beginning of the park. They switched to 3D printed "organic" hosts later. We know for a fact that Akecheta in that scene was mechanical because of him still being an Alpha-2 model at that time. They don't need to eat, so showing them catching / prepping food only makes sense when it's part of a narrative that guests can interact with.

A few minor complaints before my major complaints: 1. 80% of the dialog in subtitled. If I want to read, I'll pick up a fucking book. 2. Another episode spent on characters we've never really interacted with. I like Akecheta - the character was well acted, but I couldn't get invested in his story because of (1) above and we've never met any of the other Ghost Nation people before tonight. It's episode 8 out of 10, not really the right time to spend the bulk of the show on guest stars. 3. White subtitles on light background, again. My optometrist appreciates your efforts to keep him in business, HBO. 4. Everything in the park is a host, including all the wildlife except flies. Ake brought a boar to the village to trade, and also caught a couple of rabbits to feed him and his wife while they were on the lam. What? Do they eat the mechanical innards? Every time they had the GN hosts behave as if they were real Native Americans existing independently of the Guests it took me out of the scene. Now on to the main event. Holy retcons, Batman! 1. The image of the maze triggered something in Ake. Why? In the wise words of Tazerface, "It is metaphorical!". The symbol represents the journey inward to self awareness, it's not a literal "look at this and become sentient". 2. Arnold's massacre of the hosts was intended to kill ALL of the hosts so that the park wouldn't open. Now we're supposed to believe that he didn't tell Dolores and Teddy about the large tribe living just over the hill? Why wouldn't Arnold include them? 3. Ake became self-aware 20 years before Maeve and Dolores, and Ford didn't know about it? Okay, they kind of tried to explain it with that scene with Ford scalping a guy, but I still don't buy it. 4. Ake is responsible for various hosts having the maze tattooed under their scalp. That's one I could actually buy. Overall opinion, another one as bad as Shogun World.

I'm hoping that the bunker-o-Bernards that Charlotte discovered in this episode was just a storage bin where Ford kept retired versions. He probably replaced Bernardbots every few years to a) make him appear to age and b) keep up with advances in host design (one of the Bernards in the bunker was mechanical with its face opened up like boy!Ford!bot)

I heard one theory that Charlotte is working for a 3rd party. The theory is that the Irish guy and his security goons are from this other company (Acme Robots or whatever). They were in a hurry to extract Abernathy's brain box before the real Delos security team arrived, but got interrupted (and subsequently killed) by Dolores's attack on the Mesa. Charlotte survived the attack but none of the other Acme people did. Flash forward to the 2-week ahead timeline, after Strand and the real Delos people are there, and Charlotte is still trying to get Abernathy's brain-box for the third party. Bernard whispers her the real location, she then instructs him to give a false lead to Strand. "Bernard, tell them what you told me" was really "tell them the false lead I just told you but pretend it's true". When the group heads off to Bernard's coordinates, Charlotte will find an excuse to slip away and go to the real location. Hopefully to be murdered by Dolores. Or Teddy. Or Lawrence's wife. Or a murderous animatronic ferret. I'm not picky.

I thought of an aluminum-foil hat theory to explain how MIB is still alive despite taking at least 4 shots (one from Maeve, one from each of the redshirts, one from Lawrence). Serious crackpottery to follow: What if that's a host getting shot up, but it's still the real MIB in control? Like he's in some bunker strapped in to a heavy-duty tele-presence suit that gives him complete sensory immersion (including feeling pain when shot) and control of the host's body, so he thinks he's actually there, but in reality he's safely tucked away somewhere while his host/Avatar is doing the adventuring. It'd be a major cheat, because that sort of technology hasn't been established. Logan Delos mentioned people trying to get him to invest in "AI, AR, VR" 35+ years ago, but that's the only reference I can think of. I'll now go remove my foil hat and put the foil back where it belongs, covering my windows to keep the NSA mind control rays out.

I think he'd work for a little bit but eventually fail like James Delosbots -- his identity is at least partially tied to his physical form, and "these aren't my hands! This isn't my dick!" would get to him. I'm guessing. I don't get the value of lighting up when hostiles approach. Is it to give the hostiles an easier target? "Center mass is in the middle of these lights -- AIM HERE" Might as well be a bulls eye. Cable time-traveled back 30 minutes before the fight and put solid lead Skee-ball tokens in MIBs coat, vest, and pants to absorb the bullets. I mean, that's just science.

That's possible, though I thought I saw blood splatter on the wall behind him when the first guy shot him. Then again, there is so much blood every episode that it tends to blur together. Narratively that would explain how he survived, but it'd make me go all Cathy Bates in Misery on it. "He didn't get out of the cockadoody car!" It's such a cheat to end one episode with a mortal peril cliff-hanger like that only to pick it up in the next episode with William merely slightly bruised by suddenly ineffective bullets. It would also invite further scrutiny of just how the damn bullets are supposed to work. The mechanics for bullets that blow a host's face off but only sting a guest can't be as readily dismissed when those mechanics become a plot point.

When Dolores was threatening Charlotte with the cranial saw, I was yelling "do it!" at the TV. Then I remembered that Hale is alive in the forward-most timeline. Dammit. Letterbox Dolores / Bernard are flashbacks to when Ford was assembling the initial Bernard? As far as shocking reveals go, that's slightly underwhelming. I'm glad Ford is along for the ride with Bernard now, and that he confirmed Delos's drive for immortality was a failure. How on earth is MIB going to survive that? He took at least 3 bullets. I guess the modern health kit he got back in ep 1 will miraculously heal him. I did enjoy his reunion with Maeve and once again mistaking someone for a Ford avatar. I don't understand the Peter Abernathy thing at all any more. Last season, Charlotte had Sizemore copy 30 years of code into Abernathy's brain. He was supposed to take the train out of the park, basically acting like a mule to get the data out. Now they're saying he has a decryption key that will allow them to download the information via Delos's satellite. What? That really doesn't make a lot of sense.

First one was the opening scene in episode 1, which was so vague and ambiguous that I couldn't place where it was in the time line. At the time it seemed like a 35+ years ago scene between Dolores and Arnold, but now I'm guessing it's a contemporary scene between Dolores and.... who the fuck knows. Her comment tonight about checking fidelity think that she (or Ford speaking through her) is doing to Arnold what William/MIB attempted with James Delos. But instead of uploading him to a new host body and trying to get things to work, they're fine-tuning his program in VR so that he doesn't have the degradation problems that James suffered from.

Visual clue! Opening scene with Dolores and Bernarnold was shot in a a wider aspect ratio than 16x9 -- black bars at the top and bottom of my TV. A previous scene with those two in an earlier episode had that also, and it might have been in other Bernard scenes as well. The final scene with Bernard meeting up with Ford in the CRA-DL was also in the higher aspect ratio. I'm guessing that any scenes shot like that are occurring in Virtual Reality, and goddammit I'm going to have to go back and watch the previous episodes again. Another week with white text on white background subtitles. Ugh. Even though it made their story rather pointless, I'm glad most of the Japanese contingent didn't go with Maeve's group so we won't have to read more subtitles. Also, where did they get their change of clothes? Maeve and the 3 humans were all in Japanese garb, and didn't look to be carrying suitcases. Maeve's daughter has a new mommy now, who could have predicted that other then the entirety of the internet. During her first conversation with New and Improved Teddy, Dolores had an "I immediately regret this decision" look on her face. Hah! I still say the real reason she had him altered was he was lousy in bed. Elsie is still my favorite. Loved Bernard's compliment about her being able to fix things by sheer force of will. While they were wandering around the Mesa, were they in contact with any of the other people who were with Charlotte / Ashley / Delos? I honestly thought they kept missing each other. I liked MIB / his daughter, though it was a bit callous to leave her on her own with all the murderbots roaming around.

Sizemore said they should go to Snow Lake because there's an access point to the underground facilities. Shouldn't there be multiple access points in Japanese!Sweetwater so the technicians can come in and clean up the multiple bodies every night?

So who's on the escort quest with a reckless NPC that aggros every bear, giant spider, and zombie within 300 yards then complains because the player isn't adequately defending him, MIB?

He said that 1/3 of the hosts' minds were blank, but that it didn't look like they were deleted so much as the code had never existed in the first place. It made me wonder if those hosts had had their brain-boxes removed already and replaced with pristine unused ones, and if so, by whom. Bernarnold? The recycled Paint It Black scenario was giving me flashbacks to Lost Season 6, where the writers reused dialog from earlier seasons. "John just said to Jack the same thing Jack said to John back in season 1! Aren't we clever?" No, no you're not. I was thinking "Milwaukee" but Albuquerque works well too. Alternatively, Dolores decided to reprogram Teddy because she discovered that he's not very good in bed. "Sorry to do this to you Teddy, but you're kind of a two-pump chump and I need more than that from a man."

Me too, but I'm also having a hard time caring about it either. She was telling that story about the blue tongue epidemic the whole time I was thinking "that didn't happen; it's just backstory someone created for Dolores". Same thing with Teddy saying he's loved her his entire life. He's only been effectively "alive" for a few days -- before that, his love for Dolores was a fucking narrative.

I knew I was going to hate the episode when I was glad to cut to the Dolores / Teddy plotline. Nice butt shot of James Marsden, I will give them credit for that. So they copied the "Paint It Black" scenario (including BGM) and repurposed it for Shogun World - to quote Deadpool, "That's just lazy writing". Having Lee Sizemore point out the direct ripoff doesn't excuse it. Plus Sizemore contradicted himself: not 3 minutes earlier he said Shogun World was for people who found Westworld too tame. Reusing the plotline but with bows and arrows and therefore less gore makes it more wild? No. I know the show writers were going for some sort of parallel / allegory / syllogism or whatever between Maeve and the Madam, but I so didn't care. I've never met any of these characters before so I didn't give a shit if they lived or died. I also found it really choppy and hard to follow. It seems like the entire adventure took place in less than 2 days (one night in Japanese!Sweetwater, one evening in the warcamp). But Sakura acted like she'd been traumatized by the Shogun for weeks, including having had enough time to do a massive back tattoo. The only interesting bit was Maeve finding her new voice, which I assume is some form of that subconscious network that Bernard accessed for Charlotte. Best episode of the season last week, worst one this week. Considering how much of the plot rested on guest stars, it felt like an old-fashioned second-unit episode.

Mask her identity from the audience most likely. There might be an explanation in her conversation with MiB. "Emily, what are you doing here?" "I'm here for blah blah, and don't call me Emily. I haven't gone by that since 3rd grade. I use my middle name, Grace" though probably written better because they're much better at dialog than I am.

Until proven otherwise, I'm voting for continuity error. I can understand MiB concocting a "took the wrong pills" cover story, except he was telling the story to Teddy (I think. Might have been Lawrence). He'd have no reason to lie to a host, who he knew wouldn't remember anyway, and the reason he was telling the story was that he didn't know his wife committed suicide until his daughter told him. He was confessing to Teddy (or Lawrence) that he didn't even realize his family was scared of him. That whole scene becomes pointless if he knew his wife killed herself.