S01.E04: Dissonance Theory

[Tara Ariano]

Quote

Dolores joins a bounty hunt in the badlands with William and Logan; Dr. Ford and Theresa talk about the park's future; Maeve is disturbed by a vision; The Man in Black makes a significant discovery on his quest.

[Primetimer]

A little bit Beyoncé. A little bit Veronica Mars.

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[benteen]

Excellent episode.  I like how we learn more and more every week and it doesn't feel like the show is going to draw out its information. 

A lot with Ed Harris as the Man in Black today, which is a good thing.  I laughed at his "This is my fucking vacation" line.  Ed Harris playing a character that takes what he does very seriously really works for him.  There are outtakes on The Rock DVD for Ed Harris keeps flubbing a line and he legitimately responds by cursing and smashing the phone he's using into the table.

Strong episode for Thandie Newton and a great scene at the end with Rodrigo. 

Ford is a very dangerous man.

Edited October 24, 2016 by benteen

[dgpolo]

I spent most of this episode saying WTF!!

Ok, MiB runs a charity and he threatened a human. Ford knows all (which means he knows about Bernard's sessions with Dolores). There are 'neighbors' complaining about the noise. Did we see the board member Ford mentioned? Can the little girl not go back to her programming?

Edited October 24, 2016 by dgpolo
clarification

[SeanC]

I'm kind of confused about where/how these scenes between Dolores and Bernard are taking place.  Last episode she collapsed in William's camp, and she wakes up there, with no indication from the guests that she was removed at any point (considering they're speculating about why the facility sent her there).  But her conversations with Bernard seem to be keyed to how her story is progressing episode-to-episode, and in the opening she was talking about the events of the previous episode.

So the MIB is playing within the park's rules, rather than being some rogue.  He's also apparently looking for the same thing that Bernard says Dolores should look for.

Edited October 24, 2016 by SeanC

[VCRTracking]

MIB is a philanthropist which in the real world. A twist I should have seen coming.

[bmoore4026]

Anyone else think tonight's episode was kind of boring?  I mean, yes, the scenes with Ed Harris were kind of interesting.  But I couldn't care less about William, I care about Teddy.  Fuck William.  I hope Dolores shoots him.

[parandroid]

22 minutes ago, SeanC said:

I'm kind of confused about where/how these scenes between Dolores and Bernard are taking place.  Last episode she collapsed in William's camp, and she wakes up there, with no indication from the guests that she was removed at any point (considering they're speculating about why the facility sent her there).  But her conversations with Bernard seem to be keyed to how her story is progressing episode-to-episode, and in the opening she was talking about the events of the previous episode.

I've been thinking about this for a few episodes as well. I'm beginning to suspect that there is a copy of each character over in the control center, and these copies are aware of whats happening to the "field copy" but not vice-versa. So the "consciousness" of the field copy can transfer over to the control-center copy and be interacted with / analyzed. While this is happening, the field copy freezes.

[ACW]

37 minutes ago, SeanC said:

I'm kind of confused about where/how these scenes between Dolores and Bernard are taking place.  Last episode she collapsed in William's camp, and she wakes up there, with no indication from the guests that she was removed at any point (considering they're speculating about why the facility sent her there).  But her conversations with Bernard seem to be keyed to how her story is progressing episode-to-episode, and in the opening she was talking about the events of the previous episode.

This is one thing that's still keeping the William-is-young-MIB theory (barely) plausible for me. Yes, Delores-with-William has what seems to be the same gun that we saw her use in the "main" storyline; but it looked shiny and new to me, not like when she dug it up.

[Ottis]

Another slow episode. They are drip, drip, dripping the details out and it's not holding my interest. The Old West setting isn't helping. Do we have to watch each android's realizations one by one?

[ACW]

1 hour ago, PreviouslyTV said:

A little bit Beyoncé. A little bit Veronica Mars.

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"Henry"?  I think you mean "Teddy."

Also: I agree that Maeve is awesome, but given how WW guns seem to work, I'm having trouble figuring out how she can have an actual solid bullet inside her.  Unless it was put there as part of the new secret storyline?

[FemmyV]

Loving Maeve right now. She is so wise and full of street smarts - and so confused at the same time. And now will MiB and Teddy team up, or will/does MiB see the Wyatt stuff as just another distraction?

[henripootel]

3 minutes ago, ACW said:

This is one thing that's still keeping the William-is-young-MIB theory (barely) plausible for me.

I'm pretty sure this is right, and that we're seeing how William ended up as the MIB.

I'm still stuck on what the hosts really are and what are their capabilities.  I think we're supposed to believe the that the hosts think they're real, but I can't imagine why they'd program them to 'think' that.  It can't be because this helps them to better pretend to be fake humans.  We know they're programmed to ignore things that would clue them in that they're not human - they ignore comments from guests about obvious guest-related subjects, they don't sleep, and their memories must be full of holes (such as: how come I only have memories of the last week or so of my life?).  I'm having trouble seeing them as thinking they're human and constantly faced with obvious evidence that they're not.  

It is too bad I'm having trouble turning this corner because the implications are fascinating.  The world they live in is a constructed artifact, not unlike how many humans see our world.  If we exist to fulfill the will of some sort of creator, does this mean our world also means nothing?  We're heading into Phillip K. Dick material now, always interesting.  Too bad I'm having trouble intuiting that robots can be programmed to both think they are human and yet ignore that this is obviously false.  

[numbnut]

15 minutes ago, ACW said:

I agree that Maeve is awesome, but given how WW guns seem to work, I'm having trouble figuring out how she can have an actual solid bullet inside her.  Unless it was put there as part of the new secret storyline?

Didn't she recall being rushed out of surgery? They were yelling something about not having time to remove the last bullet, so that's the bullet she found.

This ep was a little less exciting as I'm not strongly interested in the MiB or William's asshole friend (who isn't a strong actor IMO). It's also not compelling if it seems like everyone (Ford, Bernard, MiB) is trying to free the robots. More Maeve please. It's interesting that the Native Americans recall seeing the technicians and think of them as spirits.

9 minutes ago, henripootel said:

26 minutes ago, ACW said:

This is one thing that's still keeping the William-is-young-MIB theory (barely) plausible for me.

I'm pretty sure this is right, and that we're seeing how William ended up as the MIB.

I was hoping that theory wasn't dead. William did agree to be a black hat. I'm also clinging to the idea that Bernard is a robot -- Dolores mirroring his comment about losing a loved one could be another hint.

Edited October 24, 2016 by numbnut

[itainttippithebird]

Quote

I'm having trouble figuring out how she can have an actual solid bullet inside her.

As far we know by now, it seems the hosts are biologically identical to people, at least as far as how they respond to injury - they are actually shot, they can get actual infections (this part blew my mind more than any bullet, actually), they can be bruised and broken, etc. So I don't think it's weird that the bullet actually pierces her? (Especially given the VO early on where they talk about just stitching her up prior to completely extracting the bullet, because they want her back on the floor.) So within story, this tracks, so far, as far as I understand it. (Outside that, though, it is seemingly very inefficient and cost prohibitive for them to suffer actual - and not virtual - injuries every day that then require bodily reconstruction, but that's one of those WW mysteries, at least for now....)

Mega side eye that Native Americans, in this fake world, appear to have some kind of extra-sensory perception that allows them to see the game from a distance and they incorporate into their mythology - so are the coders purposefully building in some Magical Native trope?! Mmmmmkay.

[itainttippithebird]

Quote

William did agree to be a black hat.

Uhhh, when? Isn't he both literally and metaphorically a white hat? Apologies if I missed something!

Also, again, I might be missing something, but while the "William and MIB timelines aren't concurrent" theory is intriguing, MIB has been coming to the park (so he says) since its inception - and William is definitely experiencing the park in its current (or at least very recent) iteration - hosts are super advanced in a way they weren't at the parks inception, Dolores is who she is now in terms of growing consciousness, Maeve is in a scene with them and she wasn't always madam in park storyline, etc. So for William to be a flashback this is pretty much entirely debunked as a possibility, no?

[henripootel]

12 hours ago, itainttippithebird said:

Mega side eye that Native Americans, in this fake world, appear to have some kind of extra-sensory perception that allows them to see the game from a distance and they incorporate into their mythology - so are the coders purposefully building in some Magical Native trope?! Mmmmmkay.

Well, this is a constructed world built on stories about the Old West.  The real old west would be far less exciting, less beautiful prostitutes and fun, more filth and Deadwood.  It's always instructive to note that the actual 'old west' didn't really exist, not like we see it today, and to the extent that it did, it didn't last all that long.  I'm guessing that were guests faced with the actual reality of the old west, they'd be in turns bored and disgusted, and unlikely to pony up 40k a day to come back.  This is the thing that surprises me the most about 'the world' you can see at Epcot - some people prefer it to the actual world.  I'm not surprised that the Indians are Magical Indians. 

Edited October 24, 2016 by henripootel

[itainttippithebird]

Quote

I'm not surprised that the Indians are Magical Indians. 

True, in terms of supplying guests with stereotypes, but would they really be careless enough to give the Native characters awareness of the "real" park operations just to make them fit stereotype? THAT'S the part that specifically weird about it - giving them awareness of the techs who work on them every night.

Also, to my earlier question - I *do* remember the other dude pleading for William to "go black hat with him", so I know what the OP is referencing, but does he really agree to BE a black hat, or just sort of...move along for now?

[phoenyx]

1 hour ago, dgpolo said:

I spent most of this episode saying WTF!!

Ok, MiB runs a charity and he threatened a human. Ford knows all (which means he knows about Bernard's sessions with Dolores). There are 'neighbors' complaining about the noise. Did we see the board member Ford mentioned? Can the little girl not go back to her programming?

Ford just -says- he knows everything. I'm fairly certain he doesn't. For starters, he's greatly underestimated the effect of allowing the hosts to retain some of their memories post death. Personally, I think Arnold had it right- the hosts have essentially become human. Another thing- it seems clear that Arnold is the one who created the maze and it looks like Bernard is following the path that Arnold walked before him. Which leads me to wonder- did Arnold and Bernard work together, or did Bernard find the maze himself? Also, how much does Bernard know about the maze? Also, anyone else seeing a similarity between the maze and the Matrix?

[phoenyx]

35 minutes ago, itainttippithebird said:

Uhhh, when? Isn't he both literally and metaphorically a white hat? Apologies if I missed something!

Also, again, I might be missing something, but while the "William and MIB timelines aren't concurrent" theory is intriguing, MIB has been coming to the park (so he says) since its inception - and William is definitely experiencing the park in its current (or at least very recent) iteration - hosts are super advanced in a way they weren't at the parks inception, Dolores is who she is now in terms of growing consciousness, Maeve is in a scene with them and she wasn't always madam in park storyline, etc. So for William to be a flashback this is pretty much entirely debunked as a possibility, no?

I kind of agree, I think William is essentially white hat. That being said, he's clearly a bit of a coward, never fully standing up to his "friend" Logan whenever Logan does something barbaric with one of the white hat hosts. To be fair though, in this last bit where he agreed to go 'black hat', his new found romance had just been about to be killed. I can understand why he'd be wary of going against Logan, seeing as Logan might turn around and shoot her in spite.

Edited October 24, 2016 by phoenyx

[Quilt Fairy]

1 hour ago, itainttippithebird said:

True, in terms of supplying guests with stereotypes, but would they really be careless enough to give the Native characters awareness of the "real" park operations just to make them fit stereotype? THAT'S the part that specifically weird about it - giving them awareness of the techs who work on them every night.

It's not carelessness, it's actually a neat touch. The doll that the girl dropped was a Pueblo Indian kachina doll, which are pretty freaky looking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kachina

Edited October 24, 2016 by Quilt Fairy

[phoenyx]

1 hour ago, itainttippithebird said:

True, in terms of supplying guests with stereotypes, but would they really be careless enough to give the Native characters awareness of the "real" park operations just to make them fit stereotype? THAT'S the part that specifically weird about it - giving them awareness of the techs who work on them every night.

A question that I haven't seen asked is- when did this native thing for making dolls that look like the guys in suits start, before or after Ford started giving the hosts memories? Here's something else I've been thinking about. In Episode 3 (the stray), Ford has a conversation with Bernard about the theory of the bicameral mind. For those who aren't aware, the name of the 10th episode is "The Bicameral mind", suggesting that this theme is pretty important. Here's part of his dialogue with Bernard:

**

Ford:

But that wasn't enough for Arnold.
He wasn't interested in the appearance of intellect or wit.
He wanted the real thing.
He wanted to create consciousness.
He imagined it as a pyramid.
See? - (chalk scratching) - Memory, improvisation, self-interest And at the top? Never got there.
But he had a notion of what it might be.
He based it on a theory of consciousness called the Bicameral Mind.
The idea that primitive man believed his thoughts to be the voice of the gods.

Bernard:

I thought it was debunked.

Ford:

As a theory for understanding the human mind, perhaps, but not as a blueprint for building an artificial one.
See, Arnold built a version of that cognition in which the hosts heard their programming as an inner monologue, with the hopes that in time, their own voice would take over.
It was a way bootstrap consciousness.

 

**

And then (in my view) the punchline:

**Ford:

As for the hosts the least we can do is make them forget. But some of them are remembering. Accessing fragments of Arnold's code.**

Now up until going over this line, I had just assumed that Ford was being completely honest with Bernard when he said that -he- was the one who was causing the androids to remember things. But now I'm thinking it's not quite so simple. Maybe the -reason- that Ford introduced this memory thing (or "reveries" as he called it) is because he already knew that it would make the guests far more realistic, because Arnold had already proven that to be the case. I find it interesting that Ford has said that Arnold's the one who went insane, not him, because Arnold, atleast, was being honest about what he was aiming for- to create androids so real they were essentially human. Ford still seems to harbour the illusion that he can make them more and more real and yet never get to the point where they are human and thus, deserving of human rights.

Edited October 24, 2016 by phoenyx

[phoenyx]

Found an article that reviews Episode 4, pretty nice :-)... 

‘Westworld’ Star Jimmi Simpson on Evan Rachel Wood, Plot Secrets, and Why Logan Is Such a Jerk

Edited October 24, 2016 by phoenyx

[Bannon]

3 hours ago, bmoore4026 said:

Anyone else think tonight's episode was kind of boring?  I mean, yes, the scenes with Ed Harris were kind of interesting.  But I couldn't care less about William, I care about Teddy.  Fuck William.  I hope Dolores shoots him.

Yeah, I found it pretty boring, in any scene that featured the guests, except Ed Harris. Which is kind of ironic, the writers giving the hosts more life than the guests.

[CofCinci]

MiB is William's future father-in-law/Logan's father.

[thuganomics85]

I see this was the episode where Anthony Hopkins finally was like "Oh, guys.  Y'all have been letting Ed Harris hog all the creepy glory on this show.  It's time for me to get in on it!" about his performance and character.  Ford quickly switching from his normal wise and calm self, to revealing just how much he knows about Theresa (and everyone else), and then "politely" asking her to stop looking into his work, was chilling.  What is he up too?

Glad to see more of The Man in Black in this one.  Still a lot of questions, but it basically sounds like he believes this maze is suppose kind of hidden level or endgame, where even guests can get hurt in, and I guess he really wants to get to the bottom of it.  I guess he's going to keep on interacting with the normal hosts; like Hector and Armistice in this one; until he gets there.  Until then, he and Lawrence have become a surprisingly comedic duo.  Oh, and Teddy!  He actually didn't die (for once), but I'm guessing MIB is going to drag him along now.  Poor Teddy!

Thandie Newton has been killing it so far.  Maeve slowly, but surely learning more and more about what goes on when she is in the real world, is very intriguing, and I can't wait to see if/when she finds out the entire truth.

They really seemed to be playing up the video game-ish aspects with William and Logan's stuff, with Logan taking one of the guests gun and calling it an "upgrade," and even the tiff between him and William came off like one of those debates wherever video games makes people more violent and whatnot.  A bit too on the nose, plus Logan is just such an unlikable asshole anyway, that I could care less about any of that, and want him to be the first to go, once the robot revolution happens (fingers crossed!)

Definitely starting to think that the Dolores/Bernard scenes might be taking a place at a different time then the rest.  Something is going on.  But I am all for every episode with those two in at least one scene.  Evan Rachel Wood and Jeffery Wright are becoming one of my favorite duos on the show.

Seems like this Wyatt character is pretty much on every hosts shit list, at the moment.

This Arnold guy is so going to be one of those mysterious that they keep dragging out for the entire season, heh.

Probably the slowest episode so far, but I'm still completely intrigued by the story and mystery, and the actors are just owning it on pretty much every level.

[arc]

5 hours ago, ACW said:

This is one thing that's still keeping the William-is-young-MIB theory (barely) plausible for me. Yes, Delores-with-William has what seems to be the same gun that we saw her use in the "main" storyline; but it looked shiny and new to me, not like when she dug it up.

I think this theory is fans overcomplicating a show that's already complicated enough. The same control room oversaw TMIB's cigar bombs and a stray host (Dolores). And the show told us from the pilot onwards that the original hosts were not very convincing. Old Bill looked human when still, but all his movements were herky-jerky, and his conversational abilities were limited. Every host William has interacted with, from Dolores to Clementine, the bounty hunter, and Slim, have been easily comparable to the modern hosts.

Plus, Dolores talked to that girl drawing the maze. Seems to me most likely that there's just a single timeline going on.

4 hours ago, henripootel said:

I'm still stuck on what the hosts really are and what are their capabilities.  I think we're supposed to believe the that the hosts think they're real, but I can't imagine why they'd program them to 'think' that.  It can't be because this helps them to better pretend to be fake humans.  We know they're programmed to ignore things that would clue them in that they're not human - they ignore comments from guests about obvious guest-related subjects, they don't sleep, and their memories must be full of holes (such as: how come I only have memories of the last week or so of my life?).  I'm having trouble seeing them as thinking they're human and constantly faced with obvious evidence that they're not.  

They have distinct memories of the stuff that goes on in the world while it's active, and then written backstories for the rest. To be honest, I don't remember most things from even a few months ago in great detail. Important things, sure. But it's not that strange a situation.

The most distracting thing for me was that Lawrence had a distinctly longer haircut briefly, when TMIB was slaughtering snakes. Must have been a reshoot.

Hector's last name (as seen in the pilot) is "Escaton", which is Spanish for "eschaton", meaning (got this definition from Google:) "the final event in the divine plan; the end of the world." Man, one fun about this show is sometimes you can't tell if the actual writers are too obviously showing off or if the in-show narrative designers (Sizemore, Ford) are.

[BooBear]

I agree that the William is MIB theory is done. But I am disappointed. This episode was better than last week but it still feels like we are stalling. I hope they can recover but... it is slow and plodding at the moment.  It seems like multiple hosts are becoming aware and no one (except Shannon Woodward) seems to be noticing.  And I am wondering where Teddy's partner (from last week) went off to?

[Bill1978]

I found this week's episode to be the slowest. And I put it down to too much plot occurring in The Wild West. When they were advertising the start of the show I was hesitant to check it out because of the western theme. But I thought I would give it a go and I was hooked. But tonight, I just kept wanting them to get back to the 'sci-fi' aspect of the story. True there were lots of plot points hit with MiB but I felt it dragged on to get there. Plus I don't really care about the MiB. My interest lies in Dolores, Teddy, Maeve, Bernard and Ford.

Ford's scene was chilling, very chilling. I'm still convinced Bernard is a robot. And something MiB and Bernard said about being free, makes me wonder if everybody but Ford is an actual robot of some sort. Like if you make it through the maze you become 'human' and develop free will. So in theory MiB is actually a robot and all the guests are robots returning to relive their robotic history. (i'm never good at solving mysteries that are complicated. Scooby Do mysteries are a totally different story)

[ACW]

It's Old Man Brynner!

 

[ACW]

1 hour ago, BooBear said:

I agree that the William is MIB theory is done. But I am disappointed. This episode was better than last week but it still feels like we are stalling. I hope they can recover but... it is slow and plodding at the moment.  It seems like multiple hosts are becoming aware and no one (except Shannon Woodward) seems to be noticing.  And I am wondering where Teddy's partner (from last week) went off to?

The black deputy took Teddy's guest partner back to town.

The WiMIB theory isn't looking good... Unless Security-chief Thor is a host.  Which is a preexisting theory, though it seems like a bad idea in-world.

[Avaleigh]

8 hours ago, ACW said:

This is one thing that's still keeping the William-is-young-MIB theory (barely) plausible for me. Yes, Delores-with-William has what seems to be the same gun that we saw her use in the "main" storyline; but it looked shiny and new to me, not like when she dug it up.

I thought that the theory was intriguing, but I can't get past how there's no difference in the quality of the hosts in William's time if his scenes are supposed to take place thirty years earlier. I agree that all of the characters seem to be in the same timeline although I agree that there's something weird about how Dolores seems like she's able to have these conversations with Bernard without anyone getting wise to it. 

Interesting idea that Bernard could be a robot. So the backstory with the son is what 'anchors' him?

I want to know how MiB is connected to Arnold since Ford made it seem like Arnold was sort of scrubbed from the records and there aren't all that many people who know about him. Could Arnold have been a relative of MiB's? 

[Uncle JUICE]

8 hours ago, itainttippithebird said:

Mega side eye that Native Americans, in this fake world, appear to have some kind of extra-sensory perception that allows them to see the game from a distance and they incorporate into their mythology - so are the coders purposefully building in some Magical Native trope?! Mmmmmkay.

I didn't see it as they are built with ESP. I viewed Maeve's discovery of the doll much like their programming to understand the idea of nightmares, which the Ricki Lake lady says "Is to ensure that if someone forgets to wipe them completely after a maintenance cycle, they have an explanation." The artifact is potentially reinforcement for "where did my mind make up this character from?" 

 

I don't know, maybe I watched it a little differently, but I found this epsiode to be my favorite of the four so far. I can't get enough Ed Harris as the ominous man in black, and I like that every week it seems some level of the puzzle is hinted at, only to have two more questions pop up. I'm pretty sure base don his interation with QA this week, and the way Ford said "Be careful with Bernard," that he's a robot, it was hinted at last week but seems more assured with corroboration this week. And I loved the scene at the restaurant with her and Ford. 

[phoenyx]

6 hours ago, CofCinci said:

MiB is William's future father-in-law/Logan's father.

How do you know this?

[phoenyx]

6 hours ago, Bannon said:

Yeah, I found it pretty boring, in any scene that featured the guests, except Ed Harris. Which is kind of ironic, the writers giving the hosts more life than the guests.

I didn't find any of it boring, but I do agree that the writers are generally giving certain hosts more interesting things to do than the guests. I think it's intentional. Anyway, I'm curious as to why you think that William's role was boring in this episode. But then, I'm enamoured with Dolores, so I may be a bit biased :-p.

[ACW]

9 hours ago, itainttippithebird said:

As far we know by now, it seems the hosts are biologically identical to people, at least as far as how they respond to injury - they are actually shot, they can get actual infections (this part blew my mind more than any bullet, actually), they can be bruised and broken, etc. So I don't think it's weird that the bullet actually pierces her? (Especially given the VO early on where they talk about just stitching her up prior to completely extracting the bullet, because they want her back on the floor.) So within story, this tracks, so far, as far as I understand it. (Outside that, though, it is seemingly very inefficient and cost prohibitive for them to suffer actual - and not virtual - injuries every day that then require bodily reconstruction, but that's one of those WW mysteries, at least for now....)

Mega side eye that Native Americans, in this fake world, appear to have some kind of extra-sensory perception that allows them to see the game from a distance and they incorporate into their mythology - so are the coders purposefully building in some Magical Native trope?! Mmmmmkay.

1 hour ago, Uncle JUICE said:

I didn't see it as they are built with ESP. I viewed Maeve's discovery of the doll much like their programming to understand the idea of nightmares, which the Ricki Lake lady says "Is to ensure that if someone forgets to wipe them completely after a maintenance cycle, they have an explanation." The artifact is potentially reinforcement for "where did my mind make up this character from?"

Bullets: 

  I can believe in guns which fire fake bullets, which trigger real wounds in hosts, more easily than I can believe in guns which fire real bullets, with the bullets themselves being smart (and 100% reliable) enough to ALWAYS self-destruct just before hitting a guest.  Though I admit that real bullets would make it easier to shoot up random bits of scenery.

Native Americans:

  My assumption is that the Magical-Native stuff is part of Ford's new scenario, and didn't exist in-show until this week.  It has to be part of *some* scenario or general background, and not just emergent behavior, since other characters are aware of the mythology.

  Which does raise the question of why the hell Ford is getting so meta, since the show otherwise seems to have pivoted away from the suggestion that he's deliberately trying to nudge the hosts to self-awareness.

[Uncle JUICE]

9 hours ago, itainttippithebird said:

8 minutes ago, ACW said:

Bullets: 

  I can believe in guns which fire fake bullets, which trigger real wounds in hosts, more easily than I can believe in guns which fire real bullets, with the bullets themselves being smart (and 100% reliable) enough to ALWAYS self-destruct just before hitting a guest.  Though I admit that real bullets would make it easier to shoot up random bits of scenery.

 

The bullets don't self destruct before hitting guests though, we clearly see their impact in clothing, etc. Maybe the clothes they outfit them with have a sort of smart technology that "squibs" when fired at, or the bullets are extremely soft and break before hitting the guest's skin, or their clothing is in fact a super advanced lightweight kevlar sort of alloy (Mithril? :)), though that seems like they're really taking the chance if a host shoots a guest in the head or skin, but there's definitely a projectile fired. Still, if the projectile were so soft or clothing dependent, the hosts presumably would not be able to stand up to what must be a hundred other forms of physical trauma the guests dish out on these robots.

Also, I can't fucking wait to get rid of this Logan character. He's a terrible caricature of man's baser insticnts taking over when completely unhinged from consequence and society. But I don't like William, either. He's too much Clay Aiken and Christian Slater Lovechild for me. I guess by design he's supposed to be a bit bland, a blank slate, but in a show with characters like Ford, The Man in Black, Bernard, Maeve, even Escaton, this guy's just not interesting enough. 

[phoenyx]

2 hours ago, Bill1978 said:

I found this week's episode to be the slowest. And I put it down to too much plot occurring in The Wild West. When they were advertising the start of the show I was hesitant to check it out because of the western theme. But I thought I would give it a go and I was hooked. But tonight, I just kept wanting them to get back to the 'sci-fi' aspect of the story. True there were lots of plot points hit with MiB but I felt it dragged on to get there. Plus I don't really care about the MiB. My interest lies in Dolores, Teddy, Maeve, Bernard and Ford.

Ford's scene was chilling, very chilling. I'm still convinced Bernard is a robot. And something MiB and Bernard said about being free, makes me wonder if everybody but Ford is an actual robot of some sort. Like if you make it through the maze you become 'human' and develop free will. So in theory MiB is actually a robot and all the guests are robots returning to relive their robotic history. (i'm never good at solving mysteries that are complicated. Scooby Do mysteries are a totally different story)

I definitely care what MIB's doing, but I think that, like many of the guests, he's too cavalier about the hosts. Still, he's better than a fair amount of them, and to his credit, he's pretty rough with guests too (his bit in this episode where he tells a guest he'll cut his throat if he keeps on talking spoke to that). He's obsessed with finding the maze, like some last level in game, but I think he's got the game wrong- like Lawrence's daughter told him in episode 2 (the chestnut): "The maze isn't meant for you." I think there may be 2 reasons she said this:

1- The maze is only meant for androids, to become free.

2- Even assuming it isn't only meant for androids, he's going about it wrong. I think a big component about androids being free is being accepted as human, and capable of "programming" their own story lines. What other "freedom" could there be? Conversely, I think that anyone trying to find the maze without understanding that it's meant to free androids (and that androids should be treated with respect) will never really find it. Going along with this theory, I think the -reason- that the maze starts off with going to see snake woman is possibly that the only way the androids are going to get free is if they stage a revolution and she's front and center on doing that- for one, like Neo in "The Matrix", she's freeing her friends from prison, and she's also going to town to rob it. Another line from Lawrence's daughter that struck me. Right after telling MiB that the maze wasn't for him, and him insisting that he wanted to know, she told him:

"Follow the blood arroyo to the place where the snake lays its eggs."

It now seems to have been established that Snake woman is the snake. So what eggs is she laying? Could it be the eggs are the seeds of a revolution?

[Uncle JUICE]

You could definitely sell me on the maze being an escape route, per se, only meant for androids, and Bernard having been an android that bested it. Which is why he now works in the park's infrastructure. Eventually it becomes a self-sustaining employee force. Business wise, it's much more cost effective because you wouldn't have to pay the robots, you could leave that requirement out of their overall programming. Rather than shut down androids who've exceeded the limits the park places on their AI, treating them instead like malfunctioning robots (Abernathy is shut down because he's malfunctioning, not because he's on the cusp of anything like Dolores, is my view), the ones who exhibit real signs of evolution and awareness become like super 'error correctors'. 

Who knows, I love watching this show though. 

[xaxat]

I enjoyed this episode. At this point, I actually find the corporate plot more interesting than what's going on in WestWorld. 

As someone who is about to be dragged into the enormous time suck that is Skyrim once again, I kind of appreciate the MiB's sense of completionism. 

I agree that the William is the MiB theory is mostly dead, but at one point Logan tells William that his company (Delos?) needs to increase their stake in the park. Later on Ford mentions the time that Arnold and he debated about letting the money people in. 

[phoenyx]

1 minute ago, Uncle JUICE said:

You could definitely sell me on the maze being an escape route, per se, only meant for androids, and Bernard having been an android that bested it. Which is why he now works in the park's infrastructure. Eventually it becomes a self-sustaining employee force. Business wise, it's much more cost effective because you wouldn't have to pay the robots, you could leave that requirement out of their overall programming. Rather than shut down androids who've exceeded the limits the park places on their AI, treating them instead like malfunctioning robots (Abernathy is shut down because he's malfunctioning, not because he's on the cusp of anything like Dolores, is my view), the ones who exhibit real signs of evolution and awareness become like super 'error correctors'. 

Who knows, I love watching this show though. 

Glad you like my escape route idea :-). Also think the idea that Bernard is an android to be intriguing, and you connecting the maze with the idea of getting into the position of pretending to be a human (and that Bernard is in such a position) is also quite intriguing :-). And yeah, I love watching this show too- it always keeps you guessing what's really going on.

[Uncle JUICE]

This show really is missing SOMETHING though: it can't 'lighten up,' for lack of a better phrase. It's the big weakness in gaining viewers down the road, that and the heavy serialization which I always love. This show is going to have an extremely difficult time finding moments of levity, which isn't unusual for a Christopher Nolan project (I know this is J. Nolan, but maybe it runs in their family, this sort of sensibility), if it's always bringing up uncomfortable questions about moral implications of this level of AI. At what point, for example, do we drop the A? Is fucking one of these androids cheating on your significant other? Does a guest's indiscriminate killing make them a black hat for real, or are they just playing at it? if they're just playing at it, where is the line that's inevitably crossed into "now you're a real villain"? Even Deadwood used Al's biting sense of humor to cut some of the darker moments. Even Game of Thrones has some laughs from time to time, mostly with Tyrion, but with Podrick and Brienne, too, so that it isn't all death and despair. This show is more about the darker shadows in many of our fellow men, and there's really only so much you can do with that. Look at what The Walking Dead has become with similar themes (people are bad by nature, etc), but much much clumsier execution. 

Did HBO renew this yet, as they often do early? I hate feeling like I'm going to get to the end and leave a bunch of shit unanswered, a la Carnivale and Deadwood. 

[CofCinci]

Dolores beats the Maze and becomes an employee next season. 

[numbnut]

2 hours ago, phoenyx said:

"Follow the blood arroyo to the place where the snake lays its eggs."

It now seems to have been established that Snake woman is the snake. So what eggs is she laying? Could it be the eggs are the seeds of a revolution?

Easter eggs. That's my guess.

How did Logan know William uncovered an Easter egg? Why is a new adventure/mission deemed an Easter egg? (Clearly I'm not a gamer.)

I like how MiB's match was a signal to the control room to use his pyro cigars.

I like the theory that MiB is Logan's dad, though it's not intriguing like Wm = MiB.

I was mistaken earlier: William didn't agree to be a black hat -- Logan was riding off with the formerly captured dude (name?), not William.

Was the guy that tried to take Dolores home a robot or a park employee?

So Wyatt is Arnold? I thought Wyatt was killing all the robots but Arnold wants them to evolve. It's confusing when they only offer vague exposition about major characters.

Edited October 24, 2016 by numbnut

[parandroid]

1 hour ago, phoenyx said:

Glad you like my escape route idea :-). Also think the idea that Bernard is an android to be intriguing, and you connecting the maze with the idea of getting into the position of pretending to be a human (and that Bernard is in such a position) is also quite intriguing :-). And yeah, I love watching this show too- it always keeps you guessing what's really going on.

I don't know. Many people are on the "Bernard is an android" band-wagon because they like the plot-twist this would entail. But how does one explain his wife away that we saw in the last episode? Is she an android too? Occam's razor says that Bernard is not an android. It would be too difficult to make an android rise to his level of technical sophistication. Not to mention dangerous. Would you really have an android in charge of maintaining the code behind androids? That's pretty much going to lead to a robot revolution that is the stuff of numerous sci-fi nightmares, and I can't see a human choosing to do that.

IMHO, making Bernard be an android would be very lazy writing and I'd be done with the show with that reveal.

[parandroid]

1 hour ago, numbnut said:

So Wyatt is Arnold? I thought Wyatt was killing all the robots but Arnold wants them to evolve. It's confusing when they only offer vague exposition about major characters.

I'm going to take Ford at face value. He says Arnold is dead, and I'm ok with that being reality. To me the really interesting questions are what Arnold's work that has survived him implies for the future of the robots. On re-watching "Stray", I noticed a small tid-bit that seemed really significant. Early on in the episode, Ford described how Arnold wanted to make the robot's programming the voice that they heard in their heads. Their god (so to speak) telling them what to do. Like Jehovah telling Abraham to kill his son. This all comes to a head when Dolores is trying to kill her attacker in the barn and she is unable to. And then right after she sees Ed Harris' character (the man with no name?), she hears a voice saying "Kill him".

And she does.

I don't think it means that Arnold is alive. But his work certainly is. Boy oh boy.......what did he do? I think the the inevitability of the consequences of his design choices are far more interesting than if he were still actively pulling the strings somehow.

Edited October 24, 2016 by parandroid
added emphasis

[Uncle JUICE]

17 minutes ago, parandroid said:

I don't know. Many people are on the "Bernard is an android" band-wagon because they like the plot-twist this would entail. But how does one explain his wife away that we saw in the last episode? Is she an android too? Occam's razor says that Bernard is not an android. It would be too difficult to make an android rise to his level of technical sophistication. Not to mention dangerous. Would you really have an android in charge of maintaining the code behind androids? That's pretty much going to lead to a robot revolution that is the stuff of numerous sci-fi nightmares, and I can't see a human choosing to do that.

IMHO, making Bernard be an android would be very lazy writing and I'd be done with the show with that reveal.

The wife is explained, in that scenario, as a fictional memory implanted to support Bernard's backstory, in my view, until we see her interacting with someone who isn't Bernard, without Bernard present. And I'd be hesitant to say any technical sophistication would be "too advanced" on this show, given the technology we're looking at. And it's not necessarily dangerous, at least we could see a path to where the designer, in some level of arrogance, would consider it LESS dangerous, because the supposed limits of an android's creativity can be artificially limited, its emotions can be expressly programmed, and code can be written to eliminate the idea that the robot would then start a revolution. I don't think it'd be lazy, it might be an obvious idea, but lazy we'd have to see how it was executed.

[blackwing]

I found this episode a little slow as well.  Best part of it was Maeve's continued awakening.  

I think the problem with a show like this when there are lots of mysteries and few explanations is that fans seem to push their theories continuously which then somehow seem to be accepted as fact.  I've never seen any reason for why William is the young Man in Black.  If this is true, and we have been viewing this world at two different points in time, well, then it's even more confusing than I had thought.

I'm utterly confused about the significance of Snake Tattoo Girl.  When I first saw her, I assumed she was the blonde Annie Oakley type sidekick of Hector.  They look similar enough in colouring and hair colour.

What happened to some of the other guests?  The woman who joined the sherriff's hunt that ended with Teddy getting axed by that crazy mob? I thought it was said somewhere that the minimum stay in Westworld was a week.  Why can't we follow multiple guests instead of just William?   Frankly, I couldn't care less about William, his desire to be a white hat and getting lured over by his brother in law to go over to the black hat side.  I want more of Teddy and Dolores.

[maystone]

11 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

It's not carelessness, it's actually a neat touch. The doll that the girl dropped was a Pueblo Indian kachina doll, which are pretty freaky looking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kachina

I was coming here to say pretty much the same thing. When I saw Maeve's drawings and especially when I saw the little girl's doll, "Kachina" kept popping into my mind. I worked at a museum of anthropology that specialized in Native American culture; I've seen and read a lot about the Kachinas, and it really does fit into the story that Ford seems to be building. I  mean the Kachina culture appears to be a bastardized version, of course, but it can't be an accident that it was chosen for this world. Also, Wyatt's warriors dress in a similar fashion to Kachina spirit dancers, but again bastardized and to a much more violent purpose.

[iMonrey]

I find myself less interested in this show with every passing episode. I recognize that it tries to be smarter and deeper than the movie it's based on, but I don't think it really works given its premise. These androids are essentially computers programmed to do very specific things. What sense does it make to have a computer that doesn't know it's a computer? Especially when you need to put it into self-diagnostic mode from time to time?

The episode began with Bernard questioning Eleanor. He tells her to "take herself online" and she awakens, in character as Eleanor the Rancher's Daughter. Then he tells her, drop the emotion. Then she recites some kind of poem and he asks if they wrote that for her and she replies she cribbed it from something she read.

So, seemingly, the androids can slip in and out of awareness that they are androids. The host who greeted William, for example, knew she was an android. So what is the implication, really, that Maeve or Eleanor are starting to become "aware" they are androids? They are aware of this whenever they go backstage and have conversations with Bernard and the other programmers. Isn't it as simple as switching their awareness on and off?

And what purpose does it serve, really, to make the computers unaware that they are computers while they're role playing? Other than making the moral implications of AI "deep" and "thought provoking," that is? None that I can think of. It's a plot point that's driving this show but doesn't make much sense.

There's also a lot of disconnect between all the various storylines: the Man in Black, William and Logan, Bernard and Eleanor, Maeve and Clementine, etc, etc. A lot of disparate ideas going on and none of them really gelling. 

I think they took the idea of the movie and made it more complicated than it can really be.

Edited October 24, 2016 by iMonrey