S01.E05: Contrapasso

[ElectricBoogaloo]

In the first episode, I thought yay, nudity that doesn't seem gratuitous! As someone who watches GoT and other HBO/Showtime shows, sometimes it feels like there is nudity for the sake of nudity. The naked hosts made sense though so I was pleasantly surprised that this show wasn't going overboard with boobs just for the sake of showing naked breasts. Then I watched this episode and thought okay, we're back in regular HBO territory!

I'm really interested in the guy who was working on the bird. Is he just curious about what he can do with their tech? Does he think this is a way to get a promotion? Does he have some more specific goal? Of course, all that went out the window when I saw that Maeve was awake!

[arc]

7 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I'm really interested in the guy who was working on the bird. Is he just curious about what he can do with their tech? Does he think this is a way to get a promotion? Does he have some more specific goal? Of course, all that went out the window when I saw that Maeve was awake!

It is a fairly common thing in the videogame field (I bring up the games industry a fair bit the parallels are intentional) for people on the lowest rungs to try to learn more, sometimes on company hardware after hours. That is, as you say, how to show one's superiors that one would be qualified for a different, and more demanding, job elsewhere in the company or in the industry.

[Scooby Dont]

Gratuitous nudity...on HBO?? No!!!! Look at murals on the walls of Pompeii. We've been obsessed with the nude body since the beginning. I am not that put off with HBO using it so much as I am with the disparity of nudity between men and women. But there is an increasing number of penis shots, for better or worse depending on your point of view. Westworld is an example as is GoT. I suppose male nudity is the last barrier to be broken on TV but it's coming.

Westworld is an interesting show for sure. I am a fan. But do get annoyed with I guess are plot holes. I see the 3D image of the park but it seems as if there are no borders...where is the park at? Why is there never any bad weather?

Why do the hosts "sleep" and reset each night? Do the guest story lines last only one day? If I kill Teddy, does he keep coming back each day for other guests? Do the guests sleep in the park too?

How do the guns only kill hosts and not guests?

Why the hazmat suits?? Is there some need for the park workers to be protected from some sort of disease?

Nonetheless I love the series so far. Lots to think about, lots to look forward too. And lest I mention the awesome Sir Anthony Hopkins. A legend.

[LucyHoneychrrch]

I think the gratuitous nudity serves a purpose in this episode. It's an episode about the park laid bare, as it were; William is starting to see how terrible it is; Delores is starting to see that she's more than she was programmed to be; the Gunslinger is very obviously trying to see beyond the facade into something deeper. The whole point of this episode, I think, is to emphasize the sleazy, ultimately fake nature of the park. We've spent the last few episodes being dazzled by its realness, and now they're showing us, literally, the naked nature of the beast.

[LeGrandElephant]

I feel like Westward is making less and less sense as a theme park. Introducing this whole other city with orgies and stuff this episode didn't make me think "oh yeah that makes sense for a theme park", it made me think "I guess they got a bigger budget for sets and extras in this episode and made up a lame excuse for having this other city". 

It doesn't make any sense that they'd start guests off in Sweetwater and have all these other big cities that even repeated guests have never heard of before. It also doesn't make sense that they act like Sweetwater is the tame and friendly starting point, when people are constantly getting killed gruesomely there. I guess that would be believable if it was an adult-only park, but they've established that families bring kids. 

And much of the time spent in this theme park just seems boring and uncomfortable. Its entertaining to read or watch about people who spend all day traipsing through the desert and then have an adventure - its not fun to actually spend all day walking or riding in the hot desert getting tired and sunburned and covered in sand and now apparently punched and choked also. 

And gold-painted naked ladies has nothing to do with the wild west. 

Edited March 9, 2017 by LeGrandElephant