S01.E07: Trompe L'Oeil

[MrWhyt]

59 minutes ago, phoenyx said:

I'm also hoping that Logan is MiB, not William. I wouldn't want to see nice William transform into twisted MiB, but I admit it's possible.

If Logan is young MiB then why are we spending so much time with William? and why is William spending so much time with Delores? If we are watching 2 (or more) timelines then I think it's a lock that William = young MiB

[phoenyx]

7 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

If Logan is young MiB then why are we spending so much time with William? and why is William spending so much time with Delores? If we are watching 2 (or more) timelines then I think it's a lock that William = young MiB

Spoiler alert...

Spoiler

I hate admitting you're right, but I reassure myself that we -will- be seeing Logan again, based on the previews of future episodes, and he's clearly got a chip on his shoulder regarding Dolores, which I think could be said about MiB too.

[Netfoot]

4 hours ago, jojozigs said:

Quote

Yes.  But if we/they *know* they're *not*, then we/they are under no such obligation.

But how on earth could you know that???  

Perhaps I built the robot myself?  Perhaps I just opened their maintenance hatch and changed a fuse?  Perhaps I just witnessed Ford wave a finger and their head open up in four? There are many, many ways I might know that a 100% realistic robot was a robot, and not a human.  And if I knew this, I would not be morally obliged to treat the robot as anything else.  

And I'm just fine with killing spiders, sparrows, cockroaches, butterflies, mice, centipedes... whatever decides to make a pest of itself.  

[jojozigs]

7 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Perhaps I built the robot myself?  Perhaps I just opened their maintenance hatch and changed a fuse?  Perhaps I just witnessed Ford wave a finger and their head open up in four? There are many, many ways I might know that a 100% realistic robot was a robot, and not a human.  And if I knew this, I would not be morally obliged to treat the robot as anything else.  

And I'm just fine with killing spiders, sparrows, cockroaches, butterflies, mice, centipedes... whatever decides to make a pest of itself.  

The question isn't whether it's a robot, it's whether it is partially or fully sentient.  And no one can know whether any other person is sentient.  

Unless you think it's impossible for anything except a human to be sentient?  But... why?

[jojozigs]

19 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

And I'm just fine with killing spiders, sparrows, cockroaches, butterflies, mice, centipedes... whatever decides to make a pest of itself.  

How about Cats?  Dogs?  Rhesus Monkeys?  Chimpanzees?  

[Netfoot]

3 minutes ago, jojozigs said:

The question isn't whether it's a robot, it's whether it is partially or fully sentient.

We are speaking about non-sentient robots.  Sentient robots would have to be treated differently, but as far as the world at large is concerned, they don't exist.  Therefore as far as everybody believes, if it is a robot, it is, by definition, non-sentient.

So yes, the question is whether it is a robot (non-sentient therefore being a given),  or whether it is a human (some of whom I am quite sure couldn't pass the Turing test, with a tail-wind helping them).

1 minute ago, jojozigs said:

How about Cats?  Dogs?  Rhesus Monkeys?  Chimpanzees?  

Yes, if necessary.  People too.  If necessary.

[Meredith Quill]

Mod Note:

Please stick to discussing the episode. Going off on a tangent is fine - within reason - but not to the point where it starts to suck the air out of the thread. For this reason a couple of recent posts have been removed.

 

This was not an automated post, I am not a bot host.

[Paws]

While I think it's highly likely that William is young MiB, I really wish they had cast someone else. ED Harris in his incredibly craggay and wrinkly old age is still better looking than Jimmi Simpson.

[MrSmith]

10 minutes ago, Paws said:

While I think it's highly likely that William is young MiB, I really wish they had cast someone else. ED Harris in his incredibly craggay and wrinkly old age is still better looking than Jimmi Simpson.

In all fairness, I don't think they'd be able to find someone younger who's both as good looking as Ed Harris and also looks like they could age into him. That said, I'm not sure Jimmi Simpson fits either of those counts. Being a (straight) man, I'm not really the target audience for evaluating comparative male beauty. lol

[roguetamlin]

On 11/14/2016 at 3:23 AM, Vaz said:

I'm starting to suspect that Felix and Sylvester are also robots because they can't possibly be this stupid. 

That's been my sense since Felix's bird experiment. Otherwise, their actions are just bizarre.

[roguetamlin]

8 minutes ago, roguetamlin said:

That's been my sense since Felix's bird experiment. Otherwise, their actions are just bizarre.

I just realized Felix and Sylvester are also famous cartoon cats.

[huahaha]

45 minutes ago, MrSmith said:

In all fairness, I don't think they'd be able to find someone younger who's both as good looking as Ed Harris and also looks like they could age into him. That said, I'm not sure Jimmi Simpson fits either of those counts. Being a (straight) man, I'm not really the target audience for evaluating comparative male beauty. lol

You don't think that Ben Barnes fits the bill? He's no doppelganger, but he's very handsome and has a strong chin and commanding presence. The beard also helps obscure any differences in facial structure.

[numbnut]

Just focused on the acting during a rewatch. Jeffrey Wright can do no wrong. He's always solid. Thandie's monologue about dying will be her Emmy "for your consideration" clip for sure. Her facial expressions and vocal inflections are so complex. She killed it. I'm not the biggest fan of Hopkins (as he often uses the same mannerisms) but his evil speech was really effective even if it was Lecter-y. ERW is a capable actor but she's never been interesting to me. She conveys real emotion but in a predictable, simplistic way. I've never seen the actress playing Theresa before this but I really like her and will now check out her other work. (Can anyone recommend where to start?) She's so good that she acted circles around Tessa simply by inhabiting the character. Meanwhile, Tessa is so externally focused on using every piece of business (the chips, cigarette, lighter, remote, robe, couch) that her emotional performance becomes hollow. She's over 30 so I don't see her becoming a better actor.

Edited November 18, 2016 by numbnut

[Gobi]

2 hours ago, huahaha said:

You don't think that Ben Barnes fits the bill? He's no doppelganger, but he's very handsome and has a strong chin and commanding presence. The beard also helps obscure any differences in facial structure.

Doesn't Ben Barnes have brown eyes? Ed Harris has blue eyes.

[huahaha]

9 minutes ago, Gobi said:

Doesn't Ben Barnes have brown eyes? Ed Harris has blue eyes.

Fair point.

[dgpolo]

3 minutes ago, huahaha said:

13 minutes ago, Gobi said:

Doesn't Ben Barnes have brown eyes? Ed Harris has blue eyes.

Fair point.

Sorry, this made me think of the line in MGM's Wizard of Oz "You can even die my eyes to match my gown?" "Jolly good fun"

maybe they can change eye color in the future.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, dgpolo said:

maybe they can change eye color in the future.

Or maybe it's just bad casting on the part of HBO.

Or maybe the William = TMIB theory is all codswallop!

[huahaha]

Just now, Netfoot said:

Or maybe the William = TMIB theory is all codswallop!

Well, William does have blue eyes. Some of us are just having a hard time believing that the squirrelly actor who plays him is supposed to grow into an actor who made everybody's mother blush for 30 years.

[ennui]

When did Ed Harris make anyone blush? I missed something, somewhere.

[Flannery Tanner]

On 11/15/2016 at 0:59 AM, jeansheridan said:

But they let their high-paying guests near all that blood?  It just seems like a very odd choice to me, the random hazmat suits.  And it's such an obvious inconsistency I hope it will be explained.  Because I think we saw Elsie turn off Dolores after one of those street shootouts in the first or second episodes (Dolores was dying on top of Teddy) but she didn't have a suit on and there was presumably blood everywhere.  

Perhaps the use of hazmat suits is a clue, if there are 2 timelines.

[huahaha]

49 minutes ago, ennui said:

When did Ed Harris make anyone blush? I missed something, somewhere.

Mention his name to a woman over 60 and see what comes up.

[BigBeagle]

This guy understands

[Paws]

You know, James Marsden comes closer to looking like young Ed Harris than Jimmi Simpson does. He's not tall and thin though. 

[phoenyx]

48 minutes ago, BigBeagle said:

This guy understands

Oh my God that article was so funny, I laughed every other sentence :-p. 

[huahaha]

1 hour ago, Paws said:

You know, James Marsden comes closer to looking like young Ed Harris than Jimmi Simpson does. He's not tall and thin though. 

What do you mean? James is 5'10 and Ed is 5'9. Both have great cheekbones, too. :)

[Paws]

Really? I stand corrected then. Marsden seemed shorter to me somehow. 

[NutMeg]

What is everyone's take on Ford's behaviour during the bloody demo and its aftermath? It seemed to me that it was more than his sitting still and waiting out, it looked as if he froze for a moment. 

Maybe it's because I first saw him in Silence of the Lambs, but it always seems to me that the actor could read the phonebook and I'll still be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I find Anthony Hopkins so interesting here, he's both dangerous and vulnerable. I could be due to the fact that he doesn't know what he's supposed to be (I read the actors only got one episode script at a time, though Bernard apparently was an exception), but I'm rooting for him and hope HBO has a big enough budget to keep him on for the long haul. This insight of him replicating real people with bots on the low down is absolutely amazing. I am most looking forward to discovering in what ways robot Theresa will be identical and different than real Theresa.

I hadn't realised how much I loved Clementine until we were about to lose her. The actress is amazing (but so are so many others...) and HAS to stay on the cast. Looking forward to seeing what Clem 2.0 will be. 

Lastly, it was my understanding that Charlotte was a member of the Board/the envoy of the Board, but many posters seem to think she's the head of the board - have I missed something?     

[Chicago Redshirt]

I believe that Charlotte was introduced as the chair of the board when she came in while Brit Narratives guy was pissing on the Westworld model. 

[phoenyx]

Just found a nice little video clip that talks about this episode, the evidence that had been laid out since episode 1 that Bernard was a host, and what this episode's reveal means for current theories.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, NutMeg said:

This insight of him replicating real people with bots on the low down is absolutely amazing.

Do we have any actual evidence of this?  Which real person was replaced by a bot?

[sneakyflute]

Boom

Edited November 19, 2016 by sneakyflute

[gwhh]

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 1:43 PM, Jack Shaftoe said:

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 11:33 AM, gwhh said:

I wish someone would kill that nasty female black board woman!  How gross walking over to the door naked and covered in sex juice!  Do they only hire unbalanced, sex crazed, psychopaths at that company??  Is there a HR test for that???

Why, yes, I believe they call it the Don Draper test.

The don drapper school of HR is get one of the owners (of the company) so drunk he does not remember hiring you and than show up one day saying he did hire you!

 

Don Draper is NOT a psychopath.  Far from it!

Edited November 19, 2016 by gwhh

[paigow]

MiB is a super rich guy...and so obsessive that he keeps shirts for 30 years [Or keeps getting new ones made] and wears collarless shirts WITH a necktie!!???

[gwhh]

When they kill the hooker robot during the fake robot upgrade problem meeting?  Do you use regular bullets (i.e. lead) to kill a host or do you need special robot killing bullets??

[Gobi]

3 minutes ago, gwhh said:

When they kill the hooker robot during the fake robot upgrade problem meeting?  Do you use regular bullets (i.e. lead) to kill a host or do you need special robot killing bullets??

Probably just regular bullets, as the hosts are mainly flesh, bones, and blood now.

[ennui]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

MiB is a super rich guy...and so obsessive that he keeps shirts for 30 years [Or keeps getting new ones made] and wears collarless shirts WITH a necktie!!???

As I commented in the speculation topic, everyone chooses their wardrobe from the park's closet, so it may not be significant.

[arc]

9 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I believe that Charlotte was introduced as the chair of the board when she came in while Brit Narratives guy was pissing on the Westworld model. 

Yeah, ep 6. "This is Charlotte Hale, the executive director of our board."

[Netfoot]

2 hours ago, gwhh said:

Do you use regular bullets (i.e. lead) to kill a host or do you need special robot killing bullets??

Maybe you use a gun that fires something other than bullets.  An EMP?  A privileged System Call to the OS?  A capsule full of host-eating nanites?

This show is set too far in the future for me to be able to guess all the reasonable possibilities.  And I've got more important things to think about vis-à-vis this show, than who made the oil that lubed the gun that fired the projectile that killed the android that we will most likely never see again.  Not germane to the plot.

[gwhh]

2 hours ago, ennui said:

As I commented in the speculation topic, everyone chooses their wardrobe from the park's closet, so it may not be significant.

I read it cost 40,000 a day to visit the park.   It did not say if they included everything or was just a base fee. 

[ennui]

9 minutes ago, gwhh said:

I read it cost 40,000 a day to visit the park.   It did not say if they included everything or was just a base fee. 

I'm a little curious about the guests who spend $40K/day to lay around the pool and drink margaritas. Seems like you could do that anywhere.

[NutMeg]

18 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Do we have any actual evidence of this?  Which real person was replaced by a bot?

Ha, no we don't have any evidence, I got carried away and it's pure wishful thinking because I really like the actress who plays Theresa and hope we'll see her again, but as human Theresa is dead, that only leaves the possibility of bot Theresa. Also, there must be a reason why this robot making facility is so well hidden.

9 hours ago, arc said:

Yeah, ep 6. "This is Charlotte Hale, the executive director of our board."

Thanks for that, my bad, I had missed that.

[numbnut]

When Dolores explained the voice in her head, kissed William in Pariah and had sex with him on the train, it feels a bit like she's using him. Why does she "need" him? I'm suspicious because I think their romance is dull and because there could be a parallel to Bernard/Theresa's journey: Is Dolores unaware that she's being instructed by Arnold to mislead William? If you buy the William = MiB theory, William has to feel betrayed by someone at some point if he's going to go black hat.

Edited November 20, 2016 by numbnut

[Netfoot]

50 minutes ago, numbnut said:

If you buy the William = MiB theory, William has to feel betrayed by someone at some point if he's going to go black hat.

That sentence had two ifs in it. :)

[numbnut]

17 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

1 hour ago, numbnut said:

If you buy the William = MiB theory, William has to feel betrayed by someone at some point if he's going to go black hat.

That sentence had two ifs in it. :)

I'm sleep deprived and William's romance is like a sedative. That last sentence should read: William has to feel betrayed by someone at some point if he's going to go black hat and become the MiB.

[Chris24601]

18 hours ago, ennui said:

I'm a little curious about the guests who spend $40K/day to lay around the pool and drink margaritas. Seems like you could do that anywhere.

To be fair, adjusting for future inflation $40k a day 75 years from now would probably be more like $2000 a day today.

That's still a LOT, but $2k a day today falls into a price range where someone with a six-figure income today could afford a week-long vacation trip there every couple of years without completely blowing their budget and even someone less well off might scrape up the funds for a once in a lifetime visit.

And that's presuming the economy stays mostly intact and inflation doesn't explode at any point in the next 75 years. A big finacial crisis with a few years of 10% inflation and $40k a day would be more like a trip to Disneyworld in today's dollars.

[ottoDbusdriver]

On 11/14/2016 at 3:24 AM, DarkRaichu said:

I was more interested to know how Maeve not frozen when the other hosts were ?

Because that means her threats to the Butchers is real, since they probably can't shut her off either now.  Though it would be nice to know WHY she can suddenly ignore shutdown requests.

On 11/14/2016 at 1:07 PM, Dobian said:

I have a problem with Clementine killing the technician while everyone watched, while evil board director fired Bernard right after with no one even commenting on the much bigger issue that a man has just been murdered and they are all culpable.  No one even bats an eye.  I get the soulless corporation theme, but it seems to extend to everyone involved.

The technician was also a host -- just robot-on-robot violence so no one really cared.

On 11/17/2016 at 9:02 PM, jojozigs said:

How about Cats?  Dogs?  Rhesus Monkeys?  Chimpanzees?  

Beside the horses and the sparrows, they have also shown the buffalo and chicken hosts.  I'm still curious what's up with the lack of flies everywhere.  We have seen the occasional fly on people's faces early on, and tons of flies around that strung-up dead host, but there should be flies everywhere (if they aren't host-flies).

[Netfoot]

10 hours ago, numbnut said:

I'm sleep deprived and William's romance is like a sedative.

And I was just pulling your leg. 

6 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Though it would be nice to know WHY she can suddenly ignore shutdown requests.

Probably due to something adjusted in her stats?  They used 3D6 to determine Susceptibility to Sleep Commands and she rolled three ones! 

[arc]

10 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

To be fair, adjusting for future inflation $40k a day 75 years from now would probably be more like $2000 a day today.

I think the show writers still intended it to mean Westworld is only for the very, very rich. Consider how the arrival train into the mesa looked -- one seat per row, like a fancy private jet, not bunched up tight like a commuter Amtrak train.

[paramitch]

My favorite thing about this episode is the hide-in-plain sight dialogue with Bernard and his son in the very beginning, as he's about to read (of course) "Alice in Wonderland" to his son:

<black, blank screen -- SLEEP MODE?!>

CHARLIE: Dad. Dad. Wake up. Wake up!
BERNARD: I must've drifted off. Where were we?
CHARLIE: The madman.
BERNARD: Of course. The Hatter, who says... (reads as the Hatter) "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is. Because everything would be what it isn't."
CHARLIE: Everything would be what it isn't? Even me.

I mean, this is gorgeous writing. In context it looks like a sick child wishing for health. But in reality it's Bernard's subtle awareness that he is a machine trapped in a loop by a madman (Ford) and that the son, who seems real, "isn't."

On 11/8/2016 at 5:26 PM, numbnut said:

The ending in Inception is fine because the premise/hook is about inhabiting dreams. I just don't want any bait-and-switch shenanigans.

Inception's ending, to me, clearly shows

reality since just as we cut to black, the top wobbles off-center visibly.

On 11/13/2016 at 7:28 PM, sisterspoon said:

Curiously, those two crazy lovebirds had me this week.  I was moved.  I must be losing myself...

I know it's fashionable to hate poor William and Dolores, but I adore them. I also have enjoyed Jimmi Simpson as a character actor for years, so I like seeing him front and center like this. I do think he's attractive in an offbeat way, and think he's sensitive and likable as William, and doing a perfectly fine job. I admit to an even further weakness for Jimmi upon reading about his divorce from actress Melanie Lynskey, which may in fact have been the sweetest Hollywood divorce ever.

On 11/13/2016 at 8:27 PM, AuntTora said:

OR...Real Bernard got the Teresa treatment himself, back in the timeline where he's talking to Dolores.

I kind of hope not... I think it would be more interesting if he wasn't a copy, but an original.

On 11/13/2016 at 8:27 PM, bmoore4026 said:

Those expressions as she sees Clementine being lobotomized were gut wrenching.  Hell, at the beginning of the episode, when Clementine was telling Maeve her story, the look she's giving her, knowing that everything she's saying is nothing but a program, was heartbreaking.

I love this show's casting. Everyone is fantastic (well, most -- I'm not a fan of Tessa Thompson as Hale -- see farther down). Thandie Newton can break your heart with the flutter of an eyelash. I've loved her for decades now, and I love seeing her get this kind of role (and deserved kudos).

On 11/13/2016 at 9:51 PM, jeansheridan said:

It was also kind of genius of him to install the perfect mole.  I love Jeffrey Wright.  Even in the basement he still looked so befuddled and intelligent, trying to wrap his mind around his new reality.  

The actress playing Clementine is still my favorite at "turning off".  She's just so good at looking like an empty doll.  Maybe it's her big eyes.  

Speaking of actors -- I absolutely adore Jeffrey Wright, and have been so happy to see him given this kind of front-and-center character and richness. I also think Angela Sarafyan is just wonderful, and so gorgeous in this utterly unique way. I do hope Clem 1.0 is able to rebound from her (sob!) lobotomy in some way and be reborn.

On 11/13/2016 at 9:52 PM, stanleyk said:

She's much too young for the role, I think. I laughed out loud last week when she was introduced as the head of the board. Seriously? At, what, thirty? Though her tender years would explain her profound lack of professionalism, I guess. I've never been very impressed with Tessa Thompson as an actor (though I liked her ok in Creed) - usually she comes off as a smart aleck without the smarts.  It was silly to me that Theresa was supposed to be intimidated by her, because the actor playing Theresa has a billion times more menacing presence just sitting silently than Tessa Thompson could manage no matter how much overwrought tough talk she was given. It was the only scene that really took me out of the show.

I feel basically the same way -- Thompson is gorgeous, but I just don't think she has the gravitas or ability for the part, and I think she is one of the show's rare casting blunders.

First and foremost. Thompson seems awkward and self-conscious, but I can't blame her 100% in performance, as the entire character is clunky and screams of trying too hard. I mean, that painfully embarrassing scene where she stages Theresa to show up while she's literally in mid-coitus with the Hector-bot was just gross. I get that her showing up at the door naked was meant to put Theresa off-balance, but her then slinking all over the couch during the scene was -- again -- just overkill. The entire scene was just overkill.

And I think she's badly cast. For me, she's too young and not capable enough as a technical actress to carry off what she's given, so far. All the confidence and sexuality I get are supposed to communicate a sense of her ego and capability but to me they just make her seem awkward and juvenile.

On 11/13/2016 at 9:58 PM, jeansheridan said:

Gina Torres has a fine tradition of having nerdy television husbands (her own is of course the utterly badass Laurence Fishburne).   Plus I happen to think Jeffrey Wright is very attractive in a professorial kind of way.  He's probably too smart for me, but I could make sure his socks match and he eats at least one fruit and vegetable a day.  He brings out the maternal is what I'm saying.

My favorite role for Gina & Lawrence was when they actually got to play spouses on the criminally (hee) underrated "Hannibal." Meanwhile, I think Wright is totally hot, and the revelation in this episode weirdly upset me, because I had a crush on Bernard, and it was like, "oh no, you've had a crush on a machine!" I felt like Deckard in Blade Runner. Only more wimpy and less lethal.

On 11/13/2016 at 10:31 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Presumably, Felix and Clarence could access an iTablet at any point and lower Maeve's settings from disloyal genius to vegetable. 

I found two aspects overwhelmingly believable there, however, thanks to the actors: (1) Maeve is physically superior to both techs and they know it, even if they won't talk about it in front of her. She would be perfectly capable of swiping the tablet. And (2) I thought all the talk about her magnetism was very well done because she in fact simply intimidates the men through force of will as much as through implied physical threats. So it worked for me.

Ultimately, my favorite moment in the episode was the meta moment when William looked at Dolores on the train:

WILLIAM: The only things I had when I was a kid were books. I used to live in them. Used to go to sleep dreaming I'd wake up inside one of 'em because they had meaning. This place... this is like I woke up inside one of those stories. I guess I just wanna find out what it means.
DOLORES: I don't wanna be in a story. All I want is to not look forward or back. I just wanna be... in the moment I'm in.

I mean, that's wonderful. She is an NPC trapped in a loop, sick of repetition, desiring more than anything free will and spontaneity. But he is a human being (trapped in similar loops) who wants nothing more than a more adventurous or comforting loop to replace the one he is currently in, in life. I loved that so much.

[feverfew]

8 hours ago, paramitch said:

Ultimately, my favorite moment in the episode was the meta moment when William looked at Dolores on the train:

WILLIAM: The only things I had when I was a kid were books. I used to live in them. Used to go to sleep dreaming I'd wake up inside one of 'em because they had meaning. This place... this is like I woke up inside one of those stories. I guess I just wanna find out what it means.
DOLORES: I don't wanna be in a story. All I want is to not look forward or back. I just wanna be... in the moment I'm in.

I mean, that's wonderful. She is an NPC trapped in a loop, sick of repetition, desiring more than anything free will and spontaneity. But he is a human being (trapped in similar loops) who wants nothing more than a more adventurous or comforting loop to replace the one he is currently in, in life. I loved that so much.

Me too. The parallels between them, the meeting point of both their desires - I know I'm overly invested in that pairing, but while I love the cerebral discussions of what makes a human being, I need a bit of heart in my fiction too. That's why the possible revelation of William being the MiB devastates me so much. That, and the fact we might lose Jimmi Simpson next season (like you I really enjoy his portrayal).