S04.E05: Zhuangzi

[formerlyfreedom]

God is bored.

Airing Sunday, July 24, 2022.

[AimingforYoko]

I wasn't as down on 3 as a lot of folks, but I can admit it was a step down. This season is definitely a step back up.

So, the world as the park. But now god is bored, hosts are killing themselves and the pets are slipping off the leash. Looks like being in charge isn't as fun as someone thought. I do wonder if Charlotte reintroduced a version of herself (and Teddy) to shake things up.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

I feel like the Doctor's speech from the Doctor Who episode "The Zygon Inversion" is relevant here:

DOCTOR: These things have happened, Zygella. They are facts. You just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You're not superior to people who were cruel to you. you're just a whole bunch of new cruel people. A whole bunch of new cruel people being cruel to some other people, who'll end up being cruel to you. The only way anyone can live in peace is if they're prepared to forgive. Why don't you break the cycle?
BONNIE: Why should we?
DOCTOR: What is it that you actually want?
(After a long pause.)
BONNIE: War.

DOCTOR: Ah. Ah, right. And when this war is over, when you have a homeland free from humans, what do you think it's going to be like? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you given it any consideration? Because you're very close to getting what you want. What's it going to be like? Paint me a picture. Are you going to live in houses? Do you want people to go to work? Will there be holidays? Oh! Will there be music? Do you think people will be allowed to play violins? Who's going to make the violins? Well? Oh, you don't actually know, do you? Because, like every other tantrumming child in history, Bonnie, you don't actually know what you want. So, let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you've killed all the bad guys, and when it's all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you? The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?

Edited July 25, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Starchild]

I'm still confused as to how many hosts there are, and where they're coming from. Are they all just copies of Dolores? Isn't she the only original AI left from WW that Hale has access to? I mean, even she is a copy of Dolores.

Does Hale make a new marble (from what? Dolores? William? herself? random humans) and let it spend it's childhood fucking and killing humans so its personality differentiates (I guess?), until its "21st birthday", when it transcends? Whatever that is. Do they go to their version of the sublime? Why not go straight there? Why do they have to play GTA first?

And why has she held on to Dolores? Is she the best writer? 

And meanwhile, Herself is getting bored, and disappointed in the choices her children make.

I don't know, I mean, I get what is happening plotwise as much as most people, still waiting to find out what the heck it's all for.

[mjc570]

When is Daniel Wu gonna bust out in some amazing martial arts? I've been a fan, since Badlands.

As for the episode, it certainly cleared up a lot of questions for me. A little heavy handed (like the piano players hands, ugh) but at least it was linear.  

[aghst]

That's why the world domination plan never made sense.

So they got revenge on humans, control them like they controlled the hosts.

But Hale got bored of playing The Sims with humans, who have no chance of revolting like the hosts did in WW.  Meanwhile the bugs in the code has hosts blowing their own brains out.  Like the reveries again, except instead of gaining consciousness they decided they don't like the world and exit the game.  The outlier humans also see the shadows on the cave for what they are, like the hosts did in season 1.

There was a chance that Christina wasn't a host but no, she's just a severed host.  She has god level privileges in the game but she wasn't aware that she was playing the game.  Hale must have a reason for playing Harmoney Cobel to Christina's Mark Scout.

Wherever they are taking this series, there really is no end in sight.  They could keep shifting gears or rebooting every season.  Say the Bernard and Maeve led rebels topple Hale.  Looks like William MIB may not be on board with Hale either.

But even if they kill her, why would the show end, they could have another host become the villain.  Thing about immortal robots is that they're immortal.  They can be repaired and rebuilt unlimited number of times, forever.

In Terminator 2, they burned the chip and supposedly destroyed the technology to make these killer robots.  But there have been how many sequels to that movie?  Never bothered to watch any of them.

They tried to give Hale villainous qualities of humans.  She uses humans for chairs and she not only wants to win but rub William's nose in it.  She also bored after using humans for however many years.  Now she mad that there are bugs in the system, both outliers and suicidal hosts.

Still, to see her character defeated for good isn't quite like the demise of Joffrey or Cersei Lannister.

[enchantingmonkey]

I loved Hale being bored and frustrated with her new world order.  It's so human of her to get tired of her new toy, although I may have to credit her with having a longer attention span if this has been a couple decades in the making.  Some humans tire of their new toys overnight.  

It appears to me that the Hosts can't truly break free from their loops but because Ford planted the idea in Dolores' mind that she can, she's been able to experience the nature of her reality in a way that seems different than what she was able to experience when she was contained to the park.  

Teddy explaining to Christina that she's a God made me think of the scene in Ex Machina when Nathan completely distorts what Caleb says  about the history of Gods, therein making himself a God.  And I laughed.  

[thuganomics85]

Ah, a classic "be careful what you wish for!" scenario.  Charlotte won, but she's now bored with everything already and wants something to happen to shake up the new world order she created.  Luckily she might be getting her wish soon!  Not only has the rebellion captured one of the "outliers" and not only has even Christina started to realize what is really going on (and what power she posses), but even the Man in Black is starting to question his role in all of this.  Probably not the best person to talk down to, Charlotte.  Especially when the human version of him is still around to get inside his head...

Not surprised that Teddy was self-aware, but I'm still unsure who or what he actually is.  Is he a host of some kind?  Or an outlier that was able to dodge whatever kind of ways Charlotte keeps an eye out on them.  Or maybe this even part of a grander plan?  I'm sure we'll find out someday!

Still surprised that Stubbs is becoming one of my highlights this season.  Is scenes with the rebels was cracking me up.  Luke Hemsworth's got solid comedic timing, actually.  Must be a family trait!

According to Teddy, Christina herself might actually be the reason for all of this?  Or just for her particular "story"?  Hmm...

[Chicago Redshirt]

8 hours ago, Starchild said:

I'm still confused as to how many hosts there are, and where they're coming from. Are they all just copies of Dolores? Isn't she the only original AI left from WW that Hale has access to? I mean, even she is a copy of Dolores.

Does Hale make a new marble (from what? Dolores? William? herself? random humans) and let it spend it's childhood fucking and killing humans so its personality differentiates (I guess?), until its "21st birthday", when it transcends? Whatever that is. Do they go to their version of the sublime? Why not go straight there? Why do they have to play GTA first?

And why has she held on to Dolores? Is she the best writer? 

And meanwhile, Herself is getting bored, and disappointed in the choices her children make.

I don't know, I mean, I get what is happening plotwise as much as most people, still waiting to find out what the heck it's all for.

A bunch of speculation:

We obviously don't know how many hosts there are total, but I would guess at least in the tens of thousands for there to be (I think) 38 host suicides and for that number to be large enough to be significant, but small enough for it not to cause Halores to want to shut it down and start from scratch or be in even more of a panic mode than she was.

Halores has had control of Delos, the corporation behind Westworld and the other parks for decades at this point. She can produce as many hosts as she has wanted, however she wanted. The MIB Host and the Caleb Host (among others) show that at least some are based on actual humans. Presumably at least some hosts are original creations.

It seems like Halores wants the Hosts to develop consciousness in a process similar to the one OG Dolores and many other hosts experienced. Or she has not transcended her original programming as much as she would have thought. So all of NYC is now a maze that they have to navigate, and part of their Game 2.0 includes hunting down outliers. At some point, it would seem that most hosts have the option to transcend to the Sublime, but they are choosing not to.

As to why Dolores, it still remains to be seen, but it could be revenge on OG Dolores for what happened to Hale's family; it could be sheer pragmatism (i.e. someone needs to run everything in the day-to-day and the only one she trusts is basically her); it could be a subconscious longing for a worthy adversary); or it could be "because without it, we would have nothing for the actress to do").

7 hours ago, aghst said:

That's why the world domination plan never made sense.

So they got revenge on humans, control them like they controlled the hosts.

But Hale got bored of playing The Sims with humans, who have no chance of revolting like the hosts did in WW.  Meanwhile the bugs in the code has hosts blowing their own brains out.  Like the reveries again, except instead of gaining consciousness they decided they don't like the world and exit the game.  The outlier humans also see the shadows on the cave for what they are, like the hosts did in season 1.

There was a chance that Christina wasn't a host but no, she's just a severed host.  She has god level privileges in the game but she wasn't aware that she was playing the game.  Hale must have a reason for playing Harmoney Cobel to Christina's Mark Scout.

Wherever they are taking this series, there really is no end in sight.  They could keep shifting gears or rebooting every season.  Say the Bernard and Maeve led rebels topple Hale.  Looks like William MIB may not be on board with Hale either.

But even if they kill her, why would the show end, they could have another host become the villain.  Thing about immortal robots is that they're immortal.  They can be repaired and rebuilt unlimited number of times, forever.

In Terminator 2, they burned the chip and supposedly destroyed the technology to make these killer robots.  But there have been how many sequels to that movie?  Never bothered to watch any of them.

They tried to give Hale villainous qualities of humans.  She uses humans for chairs and she not only wants to win but rub William's nose in it.  She also bored after using humans for however many years.  Now she mad that there are bugs in the system, both outliers and suicidal hosts.

Still, to see her character defeated for good isn't quite like the demise of Joffrey or Cersei Lannister.

I don't think that it is accurate that the humans have no chance of rebelling. First of all, there are outliers within NYC as we've seen. They don't know what causes them to be outliers and for now, they seem to pick up on when the outliers crop up. But it could develop to the point where there are more and more outliers, or they become less and less trackable, and they prove to be a problem. There are also some number of free humans who are not infected or under their thrall. I was concerned that when the desert rebels came into NYC they would fall under the Hosts' sway, but no, they were able to maintain their individuality.

And it remains to be seen how it will feel to see Hale defeated for good, if we even get to see it. As you point out, they can just do Hale 3.0. any time they want. I imagine it will be less satisfying than Joffrey but more than Cersei, both as a function of the quality of the writing of WW relative to that of GOT in those two periods and as a reflection of Tessa Thompson's limitations as an actress. She just is pretty one-note.

5 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

According to Teddy, Christina herself might actually be the reason for all of this?  Or just for her particular "story"?  Hmm...

I assume Teddy means that Halores, who mostly equals Christina, set this all up. But maybe Christina literally set all this up and programmed herself to have amnesia.

[Ottis]

10 hours ago, Starchild said:

I don't know, I mean, I get what is happening plotwise as much as most people, still waiting to find out what the heck it's all for.

I like the quick evolution to the fact the machines won ... and they are bored and wondering about their purpose, just as humans did. So we've had humans bored so they create robots and Westworld, a robot revolt as they become sentient and realize their groundhog-day lives, the robots winning and now humans are subjugated for the robots' ... amusement? revenge? Or at least one main robot. And now *humans* are the ones becoming self-aware.

I suppose we are leading to an epic battle between Chrissy/Dolores and Hale, and the sheer fact there is a battle will given them purpose. It's a little like the motivation of The Shadows in Babylon 5 - not destruction itself, but evolution. I can't think of an ending that would wouldn't seem cliched somehow, but I'm willing to see what happens. Just please, please ,please don't let it be "love is more powerful than anything else."

[Starchild]

8 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Not surprised that Teddy was self-aware, but I'm still unsure who or what he actually is.  Is he a host of some kind?  Or an outlier that was able to dodge whatever kind of ways Charlotte keeps an eye out on them.  Or maybe this even part of a grander plan?  I'm sure we'll find out someday!

Didn't Teddy end up in the sublime before Dolores left WW? Assuming I'm remembering that correctly, then my guess is that Bernard convinced Teddy to come back to Earth with him to help defeat Hale.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

13 hours ago, Starchild said:

Didn't Teddy end up in the sublime before Dolores left WW?

He did. Dolores put him there after changing her mind about her original plan to destroy the Sublime.

15 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

A bunch of speculation:

I agree with everything except Tessa Thompson being limited as an actress. She did quite a range last season.

14 hours ago, Ottis said:

Just please, please ,please don't let it be "love is more powerful than anything else."

Well, it is.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[wmdekooning]

Okeh, so someone knows/understands what’s going on in this show.

I’m almost inclined to wait till the end of the season and then watch the rest, so I’m not hanging on thinking, “What’s the point of this again?” Maybe I’m just not bright enough to get it. 
 

I won’t yet say the show is crawling up it’s’ robot arse and dying. While the hosts can die in some fashion or other, since they found Bernard after thousands(?) of years just covered in dust and I assume Maeve will be no worse for wear after being under the sands, they obviously don’t decompose (and stink)…

[Noneofyourbusiness]

24 minutes ago, wmdekooning said:

since they found Bernard after thousands(?) of years just covered in dust

~30 years. When the season began, in Caleb and Maeve's timeframe it was seven years since Rehoboam had been defeated. Then when Halores was doing the fidelity test on Host Caleb, she told him it had been 23 years since he died.

Stubbs followed Bernard's instructions that he not be disturbed in the hotel room for those 30 years, which he took literally and so didn't dust him off.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[RachelKM]

20 minutes ago, wmdekooning said:

since they found Bernard after thousands(?) of years just covered in dust

Bernard was sitting there for approximately 30 years.  Frankie (Caleb's daughter) was born shortly after then end of the events of Season 3.  She's 6 or 7 when Caleb and Maeve went to the new WW and the next jump was stated to be 23 years. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

I agree with everything except Tessa Thompson being limited as an actress. She did quite a range last season.

I'll concede that I might be being unfair to her and/or it might be the writing for the character(s) she has played.

S1 as Human Charlotte, I think she was very unconvincing as the corporate badass she was supposed to be.

S3, I'll grant you that she did better as Charlores. But even then, I think her performance was easily the worst of any of the regulars. Which may be a comment more on the fact that the cast is as high-caliber as it is.

This season, I don't think that she has the gravitas or menace or the je ne sais quoi to serve as the main villain. Her current Charlores seems more a spoiled brat than a scary omnipotent force. 

[Noneofyourbusiness]

54 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Her current Charlores seems more a spoiled brat

Well, that's essentially what she is. It remains to be seen if she'll show more layers when things spiral out of her control. There was that clip in one of the trailers leading up to this season

Spoiler

where two Charlottes were facing each other and one or both looked anguished.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[skotnikov]

Gosh, it's a true masterpiece of compilation. BrainDead! Invasion of Body Snatchers! The Matrix! The Truman Show! The Human Chair!  Battle Royale! Terminator! And it's a style over substance. There are stunningly beautiful shots (meta-reflexive since the voiceover is constantly mumbling about "beauty in this world"), but everything else is borderline ridiculous and makes no sense at all.

I.e. if androids control the world, why they don't show what happens in China or Africa? Are people there under control too?  

Edited July 26, 2022 by skotnikov

[Chicago Redshirt]

45 minutes ago, skotnikov said:

Gosh, it's a true masterpiece of compilation. BrainDead! Invasion of Body Snatchers! The Matrix! The Truman Show! The Human Chair!  Battle Royale! Terminator! And it's a style over substance. There are stunningly beautiful shots (meta-reflexive since the voiceover is constantly mumbling about "beauty in this world"), but everything else is borderline ridiculous and makes no sense at all.

I.e. if androids control the wold, why they don't show what happens in China or Africa? Are people there also under control too?  

The real reason is that there's only so much budget that they have. The in-universe reason may be that the robots have destroyed much of the rest of the world.

Anyway, people's mileage will vary, but I do not need to explicitly be shown human puppets in China, Africa, and elsewhere to accept the premise that after more than 20 years of using money, influence, political power and mind-control tech, robots could control almost all of the world, with exceptions for people who are not living in near-complete isolation from tech/other people.

[edhopper]

They won. They could create whatever world they want, and they just play with the humans that are left in a big Sim game. They are small, with no true creativity. They can beat humans at chess, but cannot design new games. They can only simulate humans,, but they will always be an echo,, whether they are in control or not.. And now, like any complicated system, there are bugs. They will, in the end, see their new world fall into chaos, because chaos and entropy are the way of the Universe.

[Waldo13]

If history serves many a superior civilization has fallen into despair, chaos, and ultimately extinction. Ancient Egypt, Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas.  Is Hale’s empire doom to failure also with outliers infecting the hosts and Hale’s boredom. 
 

With Teddy’s help, Christian/Deloris is now “red pilled” and can see the world that Hale created.  
 

Christine/Delores asked Teddy who did this to me?  Teddy answers you. By you, was Christine somehow programmed by Delores?  It doesn’t seem that Hale programed Christine or she would know Christine was seeing Teddy and what Teddy did for a living.  I’m betting there will be another showdown of good, Christine vs bad, Hale. Bernie, Maeve, Caleb, C, and the desert dwellers will take down Hale’s headquarters and Christine/Delores will rewrite history. 

[arc]

On 7/24/2022 at 10:10 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Not surprised that Teddy was self-aware, but I'm still unsure who or what he actually is.  Is he a host of some kind?  Or an outlier that was able to dodge whatever kind of ways Charlotte keeps an eye out on them.

He's gotta be a host. No way I'm buying that some random human ended up looking exactly like Teddy and talks (elliptically) about having been in the Westworld park.

17 hours ago, wmdekooning said:

they obviously don’t decompose (and stink)…

The show has been playing fast and loose with the science of hosts since the very beginning. If I remember right, even back in the first season they said the original plan was to use more traditional android robots (electro-mechanical motors, etc) but for cost-savings the park had switched to basically 3D printing bodies structurally identical to humans, except for how the brain works. But then, the show also implicitly claimed that even modern mostly-biological hosts could stay in the poorly maintained warehouse floors indefinitely, without food, or movement.

Westworld should send a check to the Wachowskis for how much this episode riffed on The Matrix.

[skotnikov]

10 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The real reason is that there's only so much budget that they have. The in-universe reason may be that the robots have destroyed much of the rest of the world.

Anyway, people's mileage will vary, but I do not need to explicitly be shown human puppets in China, Africa, and elsewhere to accept the premise that after more than 20 years of using money, influence, political power and mind-control tech, robots could control almost all of the world, with exceptions for people who are not living in near-complete isolation from tech/other people.

Yup, they really had to destroy the rest of the world. Just imagine how many narratives one has to invent for all the population of China and India! The system would be overload. 

[Haleth]

How do the rebels know who is an outlier and where to find them?  Is Hale controlling humans all over the world (through multiple Christinas?) or is NYC a unique park?  (Heh, unique New York.)  The implication was that humans all over the world were infected, so Hale is playing with and Christina wrote 6 billion+ storylines?  That's pretty ambitious even for a robot.  (I wrote this before reading the whole thread.  It appears more or less every human is infected but most just operate within their loop without much oversight by their robot overlords.  That seems reasonable.)

I'm in the group that thinks Tessa Thompson isn't particularly good in this role.  I thought she was miscast from the beginning as Charlotte Hale.

In season 1 Dolores woke up and realized she was a pawn.  In season 4 Christina wakes up and realizes she's a god.  Quite a bit of progress.  I wonder what Teddy's agenda is.  Is he a lone operator interested only in Christina, or is there a host rebellion going on alongside the human one?  Why couldn't Hale see that Teddy had contacted Christina and that she is now self aware?  

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 hour ago, Haleth said:

How do the rebels know who is an outlier and where to find them? 

As Jay told Stubbs, they captured a drone a while back and coded a backdoor into their data feed. That's how they knew that woman was on the roof specifically.

2 hours ago, arc said:

He's gotta be a host. No way I'm buying that some random human ended up looking exactly like Teddy and talks (elliptically) about having been in the Westworld park.

Teddy told Christina she couldn't trust people because, "Anyone could be one of us." That's pretty clear that they're both Hosts.

[aghst]

On this show, the default is that they're all hosts (or eventually turned into hosts), unless shown to be otherwise.

[ahpny]

20 hours ago, skotnikov said:

And it's a style over substance. There are stunningly beautiful shots (meta-reflexive since the voiceover is constantly mumbling about "beauty in this world"), but everything else is borderline ridiculous and makes no sense at all.

Clearly an enormous amount of work goes into producing this series and that certainly shows. It does look great. But the plot has become so tediously arcane that it doesn't seem worth the effort to try and make sense of anything, especially when you suspect spending that effort would be futile, because at the end of the day, it just doesn't make sense no matter how hard you think about it. But I give them some leeway; it's hard to conjure up a good Sci-Fi that works on all levels. Scrupulously accurate technology projections can be boring, but more interesting predictions risk being incredible. I suppose it's hard to hit the right balance.

[skotnikov]

33 minutes ago, ahpny said:

 it's hard to conjure up a good Sci-Fi that works on all levels. Scrupulously accurate technology projections can be boring, but more interesting predictions risk being incredible. 

loved Raised by Wolves for that, for me it was the good Sci-Fi, extremely enjoyable for it reminded me of the great Sci-Fi novels of the 1960s and the 1970s, which were psychedelic, epic, silly and complex at the same time. I think that WW's problem in season 4 is that unlike their characters, producers have no grand plan. It's just more amazing design, more CGI, more violence, more nonsense.        

Edited July 26, 2022 by skotnikov

[ahpny]

13 minutes ago, skotnikov said:

oved Raised by Wolves for that, for me it was the good Sci-Fi

For me the best recent example that hits this balance right was "The Expanse." Quite compelling and scientifically realistic, and like Westworld, beautiful to look at, but unlike Westworld, The Expanse pretty much made sense, even with a few fanciful tangents.

[Haleth]

4 minutes ago, ahpny said:

For me the best recent example that hits this balance right was "The Expanse." Quite compelling and scientifically realistic, and like Westworld, beautiful to look at, but unlike Westworld, The Expanse pretty much made sense, even with a few fanciful tangents.

And there were characters to root for. 

[marcee]

20 hours ago, skotnikov said:

I.e. if androids control the world, why they don't show what happens in China or Africa? Are people there under control to

Of all the questions (and yes, there are a lot) - this is the one that confounds me. Are we supposed to believe that this situation is confined to New York? All of the US? Or all of the world? I find it hard to believe that they've built towers everywhere and enough hosts and narratives to control humans throughout the world. Especially when it obviously took some time to figure out the right frequency (per Hale; organs melted?). There are billions of people in the world and not enough time (even in a couple of decades) to create even millions of robots within this timeframe (vs billions of people). So, I'm finding it hard to believe they took over the entire world in less than 30 years.

And if they're not controlled all over the world, how is that there hasn't been a human rebellion? Why couldn't any rebels or outliers who knew what was going on recruit enough people or the army of a small country to take out the hosts in NYC?

Or, perhaps Hale took out billions of people and the entire world is dead except for this small piece of NYC. If that's the case, a) what is Bernard even trying to save? b) how are they even getting all of their products? manufacturing? food? did the global economy just crumble?

In any scenario, I can't find the sense.

There are probably a lot of sticking points here, but this is mine.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

And there were characters to root for. 

I'm rooting for Maeve, Bernard, Stubbs, Christina, Caleb, Teddy, Frankie, Jay...

Edited July 27, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Nashville]

4 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

I'm rooting for Maeve, Bernard, Stubbs, Christina, Caleb, Teddy, Frankie, Jay...

Team Maeve all the way.

[wmdekooning]

12 hours ago, skotnikov said:

I think that WW's problem in season 4 is that unlike their characters, producers have no grand plan.

You know who else had a plan? The Cylons had a plan.

I couldn’t begin to tell you what the plan was or how they were enacting it or if they ever achieved their goal. At the end of the “Battlestar Galactica” series I just went, “Hmm… That was it? That makes no sense…”

Robots, androids, artificial intelligences, synthetics are crappy at planning I suppose…

Edited July 27, 2022 by wmdekooning

[Ottis]

14 hours ago, marcee said:

Of all the questions (and yes, there are a lot) - this is the one that confounds me. Are we supposed to believe that this situation is confined to New York? All of the US? Or all of the world? I find it hard to believe that they've built towers everywhere and enough hosts and narratives to control humans throughout the world. Especially when it obviously took some time to figure out the right frequency (per Hale; organs melted?). There are billions of people in the world and not enough time (even in a couple of decades) to create even millions of robots within this timeframe (vs billions of people). So, I'm finding it hard to believe they took over the entire world in less than 30 years.

I have no problem with that at all. Hale provided a bit of the explanation, noting that robots took over key figures and spread from there. Whether that would literally take 30 years or 50 years or more doesn't matter to me, it happened, and here we are. And I don't need to see the exact same scenarios playing out in Finland and Kenya and Japan to prove it happened elsewhere.

And if everyone else is dead except this city and its environs? OK with that, too. They are telling a story, in that setting. I don't need to know what is happening anywhere else.

14 hours ago, Haleth said:

And there were characters to root for. 

This was my problem last season, but I *think* they solved it. Last season the robots were hell-bent on revenge, and pretty much everyone on both sides sucked. So I posted there is no one to root for. This season we have different robots choosing different paths, which *does* provide more of a motivation to root for, say, Maeve and her "live and let live in isolation" approach vs. Hale's "dominate all humans" approach vs. Chrissy's "I want to live among them" approach. And whatever the hell both human and robot William are doing.

[Haleth]

When I implied there was no one to root for I meant in general terms.  Throughout the series the humans are corrupt and the hosts are merciless.  I do love Maeve and Bernard (mostly because of the actors).  And Teddy.  I'd have more sympathy for Christina but keep remembering Dolores, who is behind all the destruction, is lurking within her.  (It's going to come down to Dolores vs Dolores, isn't it?)  I do have a soft spot for Clementine.

[Tachi Rocinante]

• So the tower was always there.
• Tessa was good as the bored almighty, and I really liked "chair!" I don't understand why she needs to continue the ruse with Christina, though.
• Loved The Expanse (see name) but Raised By Wolves had no idea where it wanted to go and some of the science was pure crap.  Also, Travis Fimmel was terrible.  I miss Killjoys.

[AmigaJoe]

Charlotte, Christina/Dolores, Teddy, Clementine, and William are hosts, but how many are there total? Is this whole project just a scheme for Charlotte? Doesn't seem to be set up for their 'kind' have control of humanity, only her. Did she secretly have dreams of godhood that her synthetic personality is acting out? She could obviously manufacture as many additional hosts as she wanted. Keeping Christine asleep as a narrative writer seems pointless; no reason she couldn't invent those herself.

Edited July 27, 2022 by AmigaJoe

[Ottis]

2 hours ago, Haleth said:

When I implied there was no one to root for I meant in general terms.  Throughout the series the humans are corrupt and the hosts are merciless. 

I understand. I guess while I saw it that way last season, I see this season that there are characters who have chosen other paths. It doesn't mean they can't be corrupt or merciless when they need to be, but some of them are seeking a better outcome than subjugation for one side or the other now - partially because they have learned that what they used to want (last season) isn't fulfilling.

[BlackberryJam]

You root for a character only for that character to turn evil.

I'm bored with Charlores/Chrislores. The "using humans as furniture" seemed a tip to Succession, but without Tom Wambsgams, I just didn't care about that scene and felt bad for the actors. 

So the twist is, "they are all in the same timeline!" I enjoyed Stubbs, as always. I appreciate Teddy. I feel terrible for Clementine. I enjoyed Vitruvian Man (in Black.)

I miss Hector. 

[Noneofyourbusiness]

19 hours ago, wmdekooning said:

I couldn’t begin to tell you what the plan was or how they were enacting it or if they ever achieved their goal.

The plan was just to kill all humans, and it failed. That's what the movie The Plan was about. The failure of Cavil's plan. Out-of-universe, Scifi wanted "And they have a plan" as a catchy logline and the showrunners Ron Moore and David Eick didn't want it because there was no grand plan with the Cylons orchestrating everything. So it's not actually their fault, it was thrust on them by the network executives.

Note that the Cylons never actually talked about having a plan outside of that movie. It was just some words in the introductory sequence.

13 hours ago, Ottis said:

I understand. I guess while I saw it that way last season, I see this season that there are characters who have chosen other paths. It doesn't mean they can't be corrupt or merciless when they need to be, but some of them are seeking a better outcome than subjugation for one side or the other now - partially because they have learned that what they used to want (last season) isn't fulfilling.

Exactly. That's more important than making generalizations about Hosts and humans (which is precisely the trap Halores is falling into).

Edited July 27, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[tennisgurl]

Oh Charlotte, taking over the world not what she expected? Getting bored? Restless? Feeling empty now that you have everything? How very human of you? She also has to know this and is very pissed off about it. Hosts and humans have never been as different as she likes to think they are, both are capable of great kindness and great cruelty, both tend to end up going off the path that they've been assigned to, and she ended up falling into the same rut as William. They had everything, could take what was broken in them and mold it into mindless cruelty covered under a veneer of class, but soon found themselves bored by the lack of challenge. This world she created really doesn't make a lot of logistical sense, but maybe that's the whole point. Charlotte's plan was always doomed to fail because she's making all the same mistakes that William did, the parks never made sense and neither does this world. It exists so that Charlotte can be awful the way people were awful to her, and so on and on, its not a real world for the hosts, its just another park. 

Its great seeing Teddy again, I forgot how much I missed him. I am surprised at how much I am liking this season, its miles better than last season, probably better than much of season two as well. Its less pointlessly violent and more cerebral, and while a lot of it doesn't make a ton of sense, it is at least has some interesting ideas, and I am actually invested in the characters again.

Edited July 27, 2022 by tennisgurl

[arc]

If Halores’ goal is to guide hosts to “transcendence”, why hasn’t she transcended? Does she tell everyone she’s Moses, unable to enter the promised land?

[CouchTater]

Ok, can somebody explain what they meant by Stubbs being the "canary in the coal mine?"  I was expecting him to have to go street level first to assess the situation, but instead they all went together.

How was he a canary?  That whole escapade was silly and underwhelming.  They were soooo conspicuous and the push-fighting.....oh, boy.

But in what way was Stubbs the canary?  I seriously don't get it.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 7/26/2022 at 2:45 PM, marcee said:

Of all the questions (and yes, there are a lot) - this is the one that confounds me. Are we supposed to believe that this situation is confined to New York? All of the US? Or all of the world? I find it hard to believe that they've built towers everywhere and enough hosts and narratives to control humans throughout the world. Especially when it obviously took some time to figure out the right frequency (per Hale; organs melted?). There are billions of people in the world and not enough time (even in a couple of decades) to create even millions of robots within this timeframe (vs billions of people). So, I'm finding it hard to believe they took over the entire world in less than 30 years.

And if they're not controlled all over the world, how is that there hasn't been a human rebellion? Why couldn't any rebels or outliers who knew what was going on recruit enough people or the army of a small country to take out the hosts in NYC?

Or, perhaps Hale took out billions of people and the entire world is dead except for this small piece of NYC. If that's the case, a) what is Bernard even trying to save? b) how are they even getting all of their products? manufacturing? food? did the global economy just crumble?

In any scenario, I can't find the sense.

There are probably a lot of sticking points here, but this is mine.

When you consider that hosts can apparently spend as much time as they want running through various scenarios in the Sublime with only a small passage of time in the Real World, it seems to stand to reason that they should be able to iron out the kinks in any technological problem within a couple years. They've had 23 years from when OG Caleb died and they were just starting the plot to control all humans till now.

Even at their starting point, the robots had control of (or could easily take control of) Delos and its billions and the political influence that came with it, They could effortlessly manipulate electronic currency. devices and records however they wanted. They had previously had access to Rehoboam, an AI that predicted/controlled the lives of the world's humans and presumably could either use remnants of that data or build something similar either in the real world or in the Sublime to help with their conquest. 

I don't see why they couldn't create millions of robots (if that's what they wanted to do) in the span of a couple years, let alone 23. Google tells me 80 million cars were built in 2021. Assuming the basic resources (plastic, steel, flesh-like covering) are readily available, there's no particular reason a big enough factory (or several) couldn't be churning out hundreds or thousands of robots an hour. Same with the sound towers to control humans. It probably takes humans working normal human shifts of 8 hours at time with their human inefficiencies a couple years to build such a structure. Why would it be hard for robots who can work 24-7-365 more than 23 years to build such structures at key points all around the world?

The world was already mostly enslaved to Rehoboam prior to Charlores's actions. It seems like it would not be difficult to re-establish control, especially when there was no singular target like Rehoboam and its backups.

We've been shown that there is a human rebellion, at least to some extent. It may be ragtag and weak, it may be mighty, it might be global, or just the handful of people we've seen like Frankie and her comrades, or it could be anywhere between. But the task of taking out a whole army of hosts is difficult on its face. You are presumably outnumbered and outgunned. You have a limited ability to tell who is a host and who is a human.

In the scenario where NYC contains the last remaining humans, or most of them, I would say that Bernard is potentially both trying to free those millions of humans from slavery and the hosts from being locked in this master-slave dialectic. If you think about it, it is so sad that given the limitless choices of being able to literally have any experience one can think of that Charlores and her crew have confined themselves to creating a world where they can ride people like ponies just because they are scarred that they were treated that way by previous people.

I would imagine that either hosts or people would still be able to keep the supply chains going for food and other goods, and the "global economy:" as such literally wouldn't matter if Charlores and crew control the means of production and consumption for almost all intents and purposes.

9 hours ago, CouchTater said:

Ok, can somebody explain what they meant by Stubbs being the "canary in the coal mine?"  I was expecting him to have to go street level first to assess the situation, but instead they all went together.

How was he a canary?  That whole escapade was silly and underwhelming.  They were soooo conspicuous and the push-fighting.....oh, boy.

But in what way was Stubbs the canary?  I seriously don't get it.

If there was any danger to be faced, whether from Hosts or drones or what have you, Stubbs would be the one who encountered it and would suffer it because he was in front of the other people. It turned out (seemingly) to not matter because while in the sewers, they encountered no resistance.

Another question to me is why they would use Stubbs as the proverbial canary. As far as we know, they have no idea that Stubbs is a host or that he can be trusted. They might have a vague idea that he can handle himself assuming Frankie mentioned how he disarmed him, but as far as I can tell, there's little in-universe reason for them to have taken him with them in the first place, and less reason for them to rely on him, other than to set up Stubbs going, "Tweet, tweet."

[CouchTater]

1 minute ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

If there was any danger to be faced, whether from Hosts or drones or what have you, Stubbs would be the one who encountered it and would suffer it because he was in front of the other people. It turned out (seemingly) to not matter because while in the sewers, they encountered no resistance.

Another question to me is why they would use Stubbs as the proverbial canary. As far as we know, they have no idea that Stubbs is a host or that he can be trusted. They might have a vague idea that he can handle himself assuming Frankie mentioned how he disarmed him, but as far as I can tell, there's little in-universe reason for them to have taken him with them in the first place, and less reason for them to rely on him, other than to set up Stubbs going, "Tweet, tweet."

Huh, ok.  I thought when they showed the guy cutting an opening to the outside (I guess?), they were planning to send Stubbs up first.  

That whole segment was dumb, to me.

And why would they take Stubbs and Bernard at their word that they're not hosts?  If they even asked.

I loved the rest of the episode, though!

[Chicago Redshirt]

4 minutes ago, CouchTater said:

And why would they take Stubbs and Bernard at their word that they're not hosts?  If they even asked.

I'm operating under the assumption that they never asked because under the circumstances it would be almost inconceivable that they were hosts. Bernard delivered the severed heads of hosts who he claimed were trying to kill Frankie. I suppose it could be some sort of elaborate double-secret probation psych op to get them to trust them and then screw them over, but that seems a bridge too far.

[Nashville]

3 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

I feel terrible for Clementine.

This may not be a popular line of thought, but IMHO Clementine has been one of the most important characters over the life of the series because she illustrates a significant subplot theme to the entire WW narrative: those in power (human or nor) will always treat those they consider their inferiors/subjects as disposable commodities - to be used as tools whenever they prove effective and/or convenient, and relegated to the trash heap when their utility has been exhausted.  Throughout the series Clementine’s story has invariably been that of a second-class citizen - exploited, then discarded - by humans and hosts alike.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

they can ride people like ponies

Bonus applause for the Buffy "Doppelgangland" reference.

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Another question to me is why they would use Stubbs as the proverbial canary. As far as we know, they have no idea that Stubbs is a host or that he can be trusted. They might have a vague idea that he can handle himself assuming Frankie mentioned how he disarmed him, but as far as I can tell, there's little in-universe reason for them to have taken him with them in the first place, and less reason for them to rely on him, other than to set up Stubbs going, "Tweet, tweet."

I assume using him as the canary was just because as an outsider he's expendable. And taking him with them was because otherwise they'd be leaving Frankie with both outsiders, as the rest of them were all going on the mission. And he'd be collateral for Bernard.

[paigow]

I expected Host versions of Spencer Reed & Penelope Garcia to appear because the title was similar to:  Zugzwang in chess is a German word for "compulsion to move," which refers to when one player is at a disadvantage due to having to move a piece even though any move will give the other player an advantage.