S01.E07: Trompe L'Oeil

[Goatherd]

At last the big reveal: Dolores is Legolas!

But seriously, major props to those who figured this one out. I saw zero signs of it. How the heck did you folks do it??

[Chicago Redshirt]

8 minutes ago, gatopretoNYC said:

I had the same thought. It seems so cruel to give Bernard such a sad backstory. Cruel and unnecessary.

We don't yet know if host!Bernard is based on a real!Bernard or if he's entirely a Ford fiction. If he's based on a real person, including the backstory might be necessary to keep up faking being real!Bernard.

If host!Bernard is a wholly original creation, then from Ford's perspective, what does it matter that it has synthetic pain? It's not real. No more reason to consider it cruel to treat host!Bernard whatever way you want than it is to consider it cruel to have a fully loaded dishwasher.

7 minutes ago, Avaleigh said:

So do the families just not notice that their loved ones have been replaced by robots? Is Bernard's wife real or not? I was one of the people who thought that Bernard was a host but I didn't guess that he might have replaced a real person. 

I'm wondering if Bernard was modeled on Arnold. 

I've noticed that this isn't the first time that Ford has asked Bernard to recall if he was at the park for a particular event. I noticed too that when Ford was asking Bernard in this episode if he was there for Arnold's death that Bernard didn't answer and instead looked confused. Why wouldn't he answer Ford's question?

Assuming that host!Bernard is a replacement for real!Bernard, he only had a brief interchange with real!Bernard's wife from what we saw. It's actually a little scary to think that a lot of our conversations with even loved ones are fairly superficial and a doppelganger could probably fake its wway through them with a little effort.

If host!Bernard is totally a Ford creation, his wife and memories are presumably purely made up as well. I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I did wonder at Bernard being able to get married to Gina Torres.

I was under the impression that Bernard was freaking out still at the discovery that he was a host, to the extent that he could process it.

[miss carousel]

I think Teresa will be back as a host. Why cast that actress for such a brief time? She could be the one who persuades them to rehire Bernard. I think Bernard was a real person once( why hire a name actress to play his ex-wife for only a scene?). Probably nobody who comes to Westworld gets out alive. Ford replaces them all eventually. I think it will be revealed there is another person(s) in the Ford/Arnold photo.

Don't find Delores and William interesting. Thandie is great but the Maeve storyline of the guys doing what she tells them to do seems implausible. 

[jeansheridan]

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Oh, yes! I almost forgot. When the techs came in and all the hosts 'froze' (and why were there no guests there?) and Maeve realized she had to pretend to freeze. That was amazing! and she shut down the piano!

I think the techs went in there before the guests arrive so no one would see them. I'm still uncertain as to why they wore the hazmat suits.  Because if a guest were to look out their hotel window, wouldn't they see them?  It's like seeing a character in Disneyland without the head on.  Or Snow White cussing.  

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Also, has Ford failed to notice that he is old as hell? This house of cards is going to fall down and quickly. He's got the vigor and evil plans of a much younger man. How much longer does he intend to live?

I think he fully intends to live on in robot form.  I suspect he is currently "coding" himself.  I'm also beginning to wonder if he knows about Maeve and she's part of the plan.

I know he just committed murder, but I don't really see Ford as evil.  Or not until that point.  He's protecting his creation, his art, his intellectual property.  Yeah, he needed investment (Like most artists.   Michaelangelo didn't make the Sistine Chapel without support), but it's his creation and unlike our modern tech wizards he isn't into sharing the nuts and bolts of his technology with the world.  And why should he?  Just because they pay for it?  I'm really quite surprised no one else has managed to steal his code by this point. That may be the most fantastic bit on this show.  Corporate espionage is standard.  Samsung steals from Apple, Apple steals from Microsoft, etc ...

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.  

And yeah, unless Ford is the one protecting Maeve's self discovery, I don't understand how she's surviving unless the tech guys are ALSO robots, following in their loop.  But I've got to believe some of these people are human.  The bots just take too much maintenance to survive on their own and Ford can only maintain so many by himself.  

Edited November 14, 2016 by jeansheridan

[stanleyk]

1 hour ago, numbnut said:

Tessa T. was believable in Creed but I'm not buying her in this role.

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.

Is anything to be made of the fact that Ford repeated the "blood sacrifice" language Charlotte used with Theresa? Just proving that he has ears everywhere, like he had her suite bugged? Or something more sinister?

Edited November 14, 2016 by stanleyk

[SlipperyPete]

A lot of talk about why Felix and his pal don't just shut Maeve down. But hasn't Maeve advanced to the point where only an actual "killing" will stop her? They already raised her intelligence and pain tolerance to the highest setting and she wasn't put on pause like the other hosts when the techs came to take Clementine away. Killing Maeve (with weapons they don't have) would require some major explaining on their part since their actual job is to restore the murdered hosts. She has them boxed in. The "How many times have YOU died?" line was the best part of the episode for me.

So glad Ford didn't turn out to be a host. It would have really knocked the quality of this show down a few pegs for me...

Edited November 14, 2016 by SlipperyPete

[jeansheridan]

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If host!Bernard is totally a Ford creation, his wife and memories are presumably purely made up as well. I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I did wonder at Bernard being able to get married to Gina Torres.

Hey now!   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.

Edited November 14, 2016 by jeansheridan

[cali1981]

Damn,  what a wild reveal.  As Hopkins character gets more sinister I'm almost waiting for him,  in some context,  to say "fava beans and a bottle of chianti" 

[numbnut]

15 hours ago, gatopretoNYC said:

17 hours ago, Amelie06 said:

Why did  Ford have to make Bernard sad? He could have made him an asexual workaholic. He could have made Bernard a happily married man who occasionally has lovely phone conferences with his wife. Why make him the bereaved father of a dead child? Are we to assume that the pictures Bernard had are just some random black child Ford took photos of. That's disturbing. In sum, Ford is a total asshole.

I had the same thought. It seems so cruel to give Bernard such a sad backstory. Cruel and unnecessary.

If Bernard = Arnold then Arnold's tragic memories would be real and Gina Torres (character name?) would be Arnold's wife.

 

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2 hours ago, Amelie06 said:

I don't care about William and Delores. I'm really trying. But they are so dull. And who keeps curling Delores's hair? William blathering on about how "real" this experience was irked me. He knows he is talking to a robot. He knows he is at a theme park. Calm down, sir. Stop acting crazy.

 

That was weird. William's transformation arc was weak. It would have helped to see the challenge of him working with Logan's family instead of just hearing about it. His park moments with Logan didn't seem too arduous.

Edited November 14, 2016 by numbnut
sucky spelling

[Lingo]

2 hours ago, Captain Carrot said:

Now I'm wondering what the turnover rate is for employees. People that are around for too long would notice that Bernard doesn't age. My guess is that working at Westworld gets creepy real fast. Most people probably quit after a few years. The remainder are fired or replaced.

Well in previous episodes they've mentioned "rotations", as if the employees come to work for just a limited time and then leave. But, does this imply that they never come back?? Sounds fantastically expensive to me.

Or, you know what? Fuck it -- if Ford is such a genius that he can build robots that are so life-like not even the techs notice, then who's to say that he hasn't figured out how to make his secret robots age?

[Hootis]

Also remember, Ford is apparently aware of the real purpose behind Delos' interest in his creation.  "I simply wanted to tell my stories! It was you people wanted to play God...with your little undertaking..."  Perhaps his evil is less.

Another thing - I expect the reason Theresa's lack of fight at the end was that she was scared to death.  Unfortunately, like most people who are being murdered, not actually capable of believing that they are going to die.

Hopkins' nose crest crinkles make him look scary, even when he's relaxed.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Hootis
I'm a serial editor.

[Chicago Redshirt]

21 minutes ago, SlipperyPete said:

A lot of talk about why Felix and his pal don't just shut Maeve down. But hasn't Maeve advanced to the point where only an actual "killing" will stop her? They already raised her intelligence and pain tolerance to the highest setting and she wasn't put on pause like the other hosts when the techs came to take Clementine away. Killing Maeve (with weapons they don't have) would require some major explaining on their part since their actual job is to restore the murdered hosts. She has them boxed in. The "How many times have YOU died?" line was the best part of the episode for me.

So glad Ford didn't turn out to be a host. It would have really knocked the quality of this show down a few pegs for me...

Presumably, Felix and Clarence could access an iTablet at any point and lower Maeve's settings from disloyal genius to vegetable. Or in the event that they could not, in the hour a day that she spends at the Mariposa before getting herself killed, rat her out to management that she is self-aware and have someone with more authority do it. Or when she returns for repairs, handcuff her before she wakes up and lobotomize her.  

I could buy that wanting to avoid getting fired/curiosity over her self-awareness/wanting to continue to have botsex/continue to be botsex pimps might make them reluctant to upset the apple cart.

But when Maeve says "I want out of the park that desperately protects its IP and you're going to help me or I'm going to kill you," that's pushing things too far. Total no-win scenario. If you actually succeed in helping Maeve, at best you've let a potentially killer bot on the loose and your'e oging to have ot worry about the wrath of Delos coming down on you for the rest of your life. At worst, she kills you anyway to cover her tracks. In most scenarios, Delos will find out before you succeed and fire you or kill you. If you refuse, Maeve will kill you. 

20 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

Hey now!   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.

LOL. On the flipside, I would find it hard to believe that anyone would cheat on Gina Torres. Not just because she's gorgeous and all that, but also because she will cut a bitch.

I suppose we will eventually find out. One does not simply cast Gina Torres for a minute-long scene.

[jeansheridan]

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Or, you know what? Fuck it -- if Ford is such a genius that he can build robots that are so life-like not even the techs notice, then who's to say that he hasn't figured out how to make his secret robots age?

Or he could be secretly aging Bernard at night.  Plus regarding the techs, they have no reason to suspect Bernard is a robot.  Many bosses seem remote and not very social.  Even Theresa's interactions with him were limited to booty calls and some post-coital chatting.  I think Elsie had the best shot at noticing something but this is her brilliant, slightly odd boss.  He would have to freeze for her to notice.  

And again, given how often these robots DO freeze up, I'm amazed Bernard hasn't just frozen at his desk at some point.  Or maybe he has and Ford covered it up.  Now I want to rewatch the old eps and see Bernard's "tells".  I suspect Jeffrey Wright put in some quirks.  I had noticed he's never eaten.

[DarkRaichu]

34 minutes ago, SlipperyPete said:

A lot of talk about why Felix and his pal don't just shut Maeve down. But hasn't Maeve advanced to the point where only an actual "killing" will stop her? They already raised her intelligence and pain tolerance to the highest setting and she wasn't put on pause like the other hosts when the techs came to take Clementine away. Killing Maeve (with weapons they don't have) would require some major explaining on their part since their actual job is to restore the murdered hosts. She has them boxed in. The "How many times have YOU died?" line was the best part of the episode for me.

So glad Ford didn't turn out to be a host. It would have really knocked the quality of this show down a few pegs for me...

Felix said last episode or the one before that he needed this job.  His behavior so far had not demonstrated the need, it was more like someone who did not give a f--- about his job.  That was jarring.  

[numbnut]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

First, I was wondering if Delos knows that Bernard is a host. On rewatch, it seemed like Charlotte had targeted Bernard and to try to get him to rat Ford out. Ford referred to what was going on between him and the board as a game. What if Charlotte was going after Bernard as if he was Ford's knight, only to have Ford take out their bishop, if that is a good enough analogy?

I'm not sure how firing Bernard would get Delos closer to acquiring the programming code from Ford.

[kdm07]

52 minutes ago, Goatherd said:

At last the big reveal: Dolores is Legolas!

LOL!

I'm so glad I stuck with this show. That second half of this episode was like a slow crescendo of thrilling/creepy discovery.

[DarkRaichu]

With all of nudity in this show, when William and Dolores did it, we only got cut scene ??  Did they actually do it?  Or did William just fall asleep so the crew could put nightly maintenance on Dolores? :D :D :D

Also, we only saw the back of Charlotte, like she was one of male lead (cf. old comment from a poster) :D :D :D 

Edited November 14, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[Armchair Critic]

I wouldn't mind fooling around with Rodrigo Santoro either, but answering the door naked and leaving him tied up is a bit tacky.

[numbnut]

Who called in sick for Elsie? Ford must have ordered a robot to grab her, but is she dead and being replaced by a 2.0?

I think Maeve will change her mind about leaving without Clementine. It's not odd that Ford would be oblivious about Maeve's upgrades -- he didn't know that young Robert killed the dog.

Edited November 14, 2016 by numbnut

[Dobian]

Well I knew one of them had to be a robot, may as well be Bernard.  They kind of hinted at the possibility with him though.  I think they needed to go with an older, more mature woman for the board of directors bitch part.  The one they cast is just too much mean girl and doesn't carry any serious weight of authority or intimidation.  Maeve's plot got really interesting.  I wonder if we find out Elsie's fate next week.  I expect she's still alive and maybe with Arnold.

[locomoco]

3 hours ago, Amelie06 said:

So now we know that the room "Bernard" speaks to Delores in, is most likely the murder room we saw at the end of this episode.

Actually, after seeing this episode, I'm not sure they aren't even in the same room having a conversation in person...

Besides that, do we know if the 1976 movie Futureworld is considered canon?

Edited November 14, 2016 by locomoco

[DarkRaichu]

Here is a subtle clue of different timelines. The amount of non-gun projectile weapons held by the natives on horses (bows&arrows, javelins, axe) would have given Ashley Stubbs a nightmare.   This was before the ban on sharp weapons.  These natives were shooting while mounting running horses.  Imagine the probability of accidents waiting to happen.

Also subtle, when Bernard and Theresa was in Ford's childhood home, we saw a straight wall near Theresa.  We panned out to Bernard when Theresa asked about the door.  When Bernard responded with "What door?", we saw a door by Theresa where the wall was.

Edited November 14, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[arc]

2 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

As far as Dolores' hair, she most likely got a maintenance touch up every night.  When William woke up and saw her painting, it was already the next day

How long is this train ride??? Like, how big is the park? Seems like they've been on it for two nights - they got on at nighttime, had a full day, slept again, woke up -- would a train like this even make stops? How could nighttime maintenance happen for hosts on a moving train?

1 hour ago, Goatherd said:

At last the big reveal: Dolores is Legolas!

But seriously, major props to those who figured this one out. I saw zero signs of it. How the heck did you folks do it??

Me from ep 3: "Man! All that stuff about backstories being the fundamental driving force behind each host's personality... and then we get Bernard's backstory. I was very skeptical that he's an unknowing host but now I'm back to not knowing what's what." So I will count that as a 30% win for me. =)

57 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

Now I want to rewatch the old eps and see Bernard's "tells".  I suspect Jeffrey Wright put in some quirks.  I had noticed he's never eaten.

Every cast member has said they weren't given the twists and turns ahead of time, but they were given full episode scripts as they got them to shoot. And the show took a two month (?) hiatus after filming episode 6 because they were filming faster than the writing was happening. So while shows often do "block shooting" (scenes from multiple episodes are shot all at once when you have a specific location and actor availability), he almost definitely didn't know about it for any scenes before ep 7.

EDIT: Nope! He just said in an interview they told him as they started filming ep 2.

Edited November 14, 2016 by arc

[Ingrin]

I know this is stretching it a bit, but have they revealed Arnold's last name?  I noticed Bernard Lowe would be an anagram of Arnold Weber...

[DarkRaichu]

32 minutes ago, arc said:

How long is this train ride??? Like, how big is the park? Seems like they've been on it for two nights - they got on at nighttime, had a full day, slept again, woke up -- would a train like this even make stops? How could nighttime maintenance happen for hosts on a moving train?

Who said the train was moving when the guests were sleeping??  ;) They could have drugged the guests to sleep, stopped by 1 of the maintenance elevators, did a quick maintenance, and put the train back on track the next day as the guests woke up.

Edited November 14, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[arc]

19 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Who said the train was moving when the guests were sleeping??  ;) They could have drugged the guests to sleep, stopped by 1 of the maintenance elevators, did a quick maintenance, and put the train back on track the next day as the guests woke up.

I think that just assumes too much. I could buy that Dolores was stealing away at night to various under-park facilities. I can't buy that they could stop the train without drugging the guests (because I think motion would wake undrugged guests) and I can't buy that they routinely drug guests.

Hey, why did they get hazmat suits to grab Clementine? Why not an armed security team? Or a period costume guy like the one who tried to take Dolores out of Las Mudas?

[loki567]

Yeah, Tessa Thompson is way too young and attractive this role. There's something very network television-y about the character, coming to the door naked after sex. What corporate executive, especially a female corporate exec, does that? And having her share scenes with the age-appropriate Sidse Babett Knudsen also not a good idea. 

Speaking of which, I do hope they build a new Theresa and she doesn't lose the gig. The Bernard and Theresa scenes will take on a new resonance with that added twist.

I'm guessing that Maeve's escape attempt is going to fail and she's going to get lobotomized. I've been thinking for awhile that the Robot revolution isn't going to happen this season. Dolores is probably going to be the one to get it started and she's currently in the William/young MiB storyline. 

And now that I actually think about it, I wonder if Delores and William don't end up running into an older version of Maeve out in the "uncharted," parts of Westworld. Maybe the settler mom version of Maeve. That might be how they confirm the two timelines theory. 

[Vaz]

"What door?"

Damn. This show is great. It makes sense that Bernard is a host, but I really wish he wasn't. We need one decent human! 

I'm starting to suspect that Felix and Sylvester are also robots because they can't possibly be this stupid. I'm still very interested in Maeve and her story, but I hope there's a good explanation for their behavior. We saw in this episode that Ford is aware of pretty much everything. He probably orchestrated the whole thing and Maeve is meant to be rebelling.  It can't be said enough, but Thandie is amazing. She better get a few nominations. 

If William and Dolores aren't in a different timeline, then poor Teddy. James Marsden never gets the girl. Dolores didn't mention Teddy once. Most likely because he hadn't been made yet. 

I like Tessa Thompson, but I agree that she's not believable in the role. Also, her character sucks. No wonder she hit it off with Sizemore. 

Yelp. So long, Theresa (for now). I hope Elsie has better luck than her. 

[DarkRaichu]

1 minute ago, arc said:

I think that just assumes too much. I could buy that Dolores was stealing away at night to various under-park facilities. I can't buy that they could stop the train without drugging the guests (because I think motion would wake undrugged guests) and I can't buy that they routinely drug guests.

I was trying to give an out for how big the park was, ie. the park was not that big if they stopped every night for maintenance.  Otherwise, that would be pretty damn big park.

 

9 minutes ago, arc said:

Hey, why did they get hazmat suits to grab Clementine? Why not an armed security team? Or a period costume guy like the one who tried to take Dolores out of Las Mudas?

I guess she was special case.  They probably did not freeze the entire bar for normal retrievals (ie. using people in period costumes) 

 

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

[arc]

The EPs said they think the park is about 500 square miles. ... that seems too small to me. The entire city of LA is about 500 square miles, even if that is a big city. 500 square miles would be a square under 23 miles a side, and given the official website's map, Pariah would be 2-4 miles as-the-crow-flies miles from wherever they probably were in Ghost Nation territory. They might have meant something like a square 500 miles on a side? ... but even that, plus assuming the train tracks double the distance due to a circuitous route, still puts the train trip at 160 miles at the high end, I figure. And old-timey trains as slow as 15-20 mph, so ... argh, the math doesn't work. =P

[Accidental Martyr]

2 hours ago, stanleyk said:

 

Is anything to be made of the fact that Ford repeated the "blood sacrifice" language Charlotte used with Theresa? Just proving that he has ears everywhere, like he had her suite bugged? Or something more sinister?

The Hector bot was in the room during their conversation. Ford can access everything they can see or hear even if they are shut off.

[arc]

When they were lobotomizing Clementine, she hadn't yet had her bullet wound completely repaired. But she was calm and mobile enough to recline on request. So did getting shot actually stop her, or was she just programmed to go down/feign death when shot like that?

[arc]

Also, how great was Dolores' line??? "I'm not a key, William. I'm just me."

I can't even count how many shows and films I've seen where a female character is just there for the actualization of a male character's arc, but Dolores is really laying down the law: she's not William's supporting character. I love how meta this show gets.

[mrspidey]

3 hours ago, loki567 said:

I'm guessing that Maeve's escape attempt is going to fail and she's going to get lobotomized. I've been thinking for awhile that the Robot revolution isn't going to happen this season. Dolores is probably going to be the one to get it started and she's currently in the William/young MiB storyline. 

Agreed. I've had that feeling for a while. Maeve is the Ned Stark of this show. Her quest is set up to fail and teach us about consequences and that no one is safe

[dr pepper]

This week on "I'm Your Puppet", we confirm a theory about Bernard. And i suspect that Theresa will not go missing, she will merely be replaced. What a great form of job security-- the people who are supposedly able to fire you are actually your pawns!

Of course, he hasn't managed to replace the whole board yet, but he's working on it. Meanwhile, most of the human employees, however technically skilled, are revealed as drudges afraid to draw attention to themselves. Which means that in a way, they too are restrained. Maeve may not have made herself into a true free agent yet, but she might make it before those patsies she's blackmailing.

Speaking of Maeve, it was a really great bit when she turns off the player piano, annoyed by its reminder that she too, is a piece of mechanical entertainment. And when she speaks to Clementine, you can see her distaste for having used one of her standard programmed phrases.

[dr pepper]

8 hours ago, RandomWatcher said:

When Bernard asked 'what door', I was sort of looking away and at something else at that moment so I figured he was looking away when he was asked. It was only when he said he couldn't see what was on the paper did I realize what was going on.

Yeah. I wasn't sure at "what door?" but when we weren't shown the other blueprint before Theresa handed it to him, i was expecting "it doesn't look like anything to me". And sure enough.

[phoenyx]

7 hours ago, AuntTora said:

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

I'd been thinking exactly the same thing.

[MrSmith]

The EPs said they think the park is about 500 square miles. ... that seems too small to me. The entire city of LA is about 500 square miles, even if that is a big city. 500 square miles would be a square under 23 miles a side, and given the official website's map, Pariah would be 2-4 miles as-the-crow-flies miles from wherever they probably were in Ghost Nation territory. They might have meant something like a square 500 miles on a side? ... but even that, plus assuming the train tracks double the distance due to a circuitous route, still puts the train trip at 160 miles at the high end, I figure. And old-timey trains as slow as 15-20 mph, so ... argh, the math doesn't work. =P

You can't measure something that has only one dimension using a two-dimensional unit of measure. So, one side of a square cannot be measured in square miles. It can only be measured in miles. A square can be measured in square miles because there are two dimensions.

As for the speed of the train, I don't see any reason why that train would be constrained to the low speeds of actual trains from that era. Granted, I wouldn't expect it be doing 160 mph like a bullet train, but I also wouldn't expect it to be doing just 15 to 20 mph, either.

[phoenyx]

6 hours ago, feverfew said:

Ford really is an evil monster, isn't he? (More thoughts to come when I'm done freaking out)

...happy about Dolores and William though. Need a bit of sweet with my horror stories ;)

I think Ford is a product of his environment. He has his nice side, but cross him and, well... Personally, I think the board member (sorry, can't remember her name right now) is far worse. That being said (and in response to one of Amelie's posts), I was completely fine that she greeted the door of the meeting she called naked (and she certainly has a very nice body). Wish that could happen in -real- board meetings :-p. Unlike Amelie, though, I think it could happen in the future. As to Dolores and William, I completely agree, if Westworld was all backstabbing and intrigues with no soft side, I might have stopped watching it. 

[phoenyx]

7 hours ago, okerry said:

Bernard's reaction to realizing he's a host - anyone here seen *Blade Runner*?

"How can it not know what it is?"

I have definitely seen Blade Runner, awesome movie. Incidentally, Nolan has said that he was inspired in part by that film. I have also recently been informed that there was another film that just came out last year with Bruce Willis called Vice that was -very- similar to Blade Runner. For those who don't know, he's quoting a line from Harrison Ford's character Deckard in Blade Runner, who is asking how a replicant (similar to an android, only more like a clone) can't know that they are a replicant. Here's the quote in more context:

Spoiler

Deckard:She's a replicant, isn't she?

Tyrell:I'm impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?

Deckard:I don't get it Tyrell.

Tyrell:How many questions?

Deckard:Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.

Tyrell:It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn't it?

Deckard:She doesn't know?!

Tyrell:She's beginning to suspect, I think.

Deckard:Suspect? How can it not know what it is?

Edited November 14, 2016 by phoenyx

[Chris24601]

6 hours ago, jeansheridan said:

And yeah, unless Ford is the one protecting Maeve's self discovery, I don't understand how she's surviving unless the tech guys are ALSO robots, following in their loop.  But I've got to believe some of these people are human.  The bots just take too much maintenance to survive on their own and Ford can only maintain so many by himself.  

Does it really take that much maintenance though? Most of the hosts getting maintenance that we've seen are due to the violence they've suffered in the park. Dolores hasn't seemed to need any maintenance since traveling with William (because her suddenly becoming an ace gunfighter because she imagined a world where she wasn't a victim would definitely raise flags if she were getting pulled every night).

Heck, for that matter, Bernard was performing maintenance on the hosts, so Ford is fully capable of making hosts who can perform any routine maintenance needed on each other and then forget that they did it. In that case he'd only need to show up if a glitch the host's maintenance programming can't deal with pops up. Its just an extension of using robots to build the robots (who then maintain other robots).

But after last night I really think they're setting up the multiple timeline reveal, particularly with William's behavior. I can see TMIB in there... particularly his telling Dolores that he'll help her reach this place she's trying to get to and how much that sounds like what TMIB is doing in trying to reach the center of the Maze.

My guess is that the center of the Maze is going to be some way to upload your consciousness like Arnold did and we'll end up with TMIB uploaded into a robotic body that resembles his younger self* and Arnold taking control of the Bernard host that was based on him. I'm wondering if, instead of an overt revolution, we won't instead see something more covert. For example, Arnold inhabits the Bernard host and kills Ford* in a way that looks like an accident and then uses the Theresabot to ensure that he as Bernard is put in charge of the park (maybe with Elsie as his ally).

* I think they'll somehow dispose of TMIB and Ford (at least the older versions of them) before the season is out because Hopkins and Harris cannot be cheap.

[Uncle JUICE]

6 hours ago, numbnut said:

I'm not sure how firing Bernard would get Delos closer to acquiring the programming code from Ford.

It wasn't supposed to: the head of the board (ridiculous) offered him the opportunity to sell out Ford, not guessing in any way that Bernard was a robot whose sole loyalty is to Ford. She said "either you didn't write it, or you're getting sloppy," something like that. Both Theresa and Bernard know Ford wrote the reveries causing the problems, in spite of the charade Clementine put on. Bobo Lisa Bonet thought Bernard would act out of self preservation, knowing that his position would elevate once Ford was out, but his settings (conscience?) wouldn't allow him to. It's where the whole plan goes wrong and it costs Theresa her life. So, good job, board.

I agree with anyone who's take on Tess a Thompson's character is a big bowl of WTF. First of all, she can't even be 30. This means she went from,. presumably, entry level job out of college at Delos at 21, so basically an intern, the HEAD OF THE BOARD of a multi-billion dollar corporation inside of 9 years, when in fact, it'd be impressive to just be a department manager in that time frame. The only way to be head of a board at that age is to invent the company itself. I'm all for power plays from evil corporate villains on television and in movies, but why does the female head of the board's power play need to be LITERALLY showing her pussy to Theresa? I mean her power play is answering the door naked. I love naked women, I love THIS woman naked (I'm a guy, sue me), but it defangs the character and reveals a lack of imagination on the writers' part. Sure, a legitimate power play meeting isn't as titillating, but it makes the character more interesting. Find a different reason to get her naked, as far as I'm concerned, but her meeting with Theresa was stupid. 

Episode overall, I found myself thinking the in-park stuff was a bit of slog. William just can't carry a scene. And the train scene was sort of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid homage, that was sort of neat. The guy who's playing El Lazo didn't cover himself in glory this week, either. Western villain characters are so iconic in American myth, you really have to nail them, like Ed Harris is doing. This guy was a little community theater for me this week. 

[Seppuku]

7 hours ago, stanleyk said:

 

Is anything to be made of the fact that Ford repeated the "blood sacrifice" language Charlotte used with Theresa? Just proving that he has ears everywhere, like he had her suite bugged? Or something more sinister?

I thought it was either a hint that Ford and the Board are knowingly playing the same game, or in the alternative it was meant to tell us that Ford heard her conversation with the Board girl, possibly through the host she was using for sex that was supposed to be frozen

[Uncle JUICE]

7 minutes ago, Seppuku said:

I thought it was either a hint that Ford and the Board are knowingly playing the same game, or in the alternative it was meant to tell us that Ford heard her conversation with the Board girl, possibly through the host she was using for sex that was supposed to be frozen

Ford keeps reminding us he's built "Every inch of this place," which would include the resort. He couldn't make the host the primary information source, because that would presume she'd ask for that host, or any host. If she gets there and just decides she wants to fuck a guest, for example, Ford would be blind to it. The room itself has to be monitored. All rooms are, would be my guess. Someone above noted that this could be a giant blackmail source, but I'm sure there are plenty of mutual NDA's in place when you sign up for a stay. He could listen in to his own advantage, but he couldn't really use it outside the park. I guess he wasn't kidding when he was like "Please stay out of my way."

[dmc]

Holy...Bernard is a robot!!!!

[Seppuku]

8 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

Speaking of Elsie, she was probably nabbed by Bernard.  He was the only one who knew that Elsie was in that abandoned theater.

 

I doubt it; for one, Bernad was shown trying to reach her and contact her (even when he was alone); also, someone told him that she started her (seemingly out of nowhere) "planned" leave, which implies a fix by someone highup in the corporation; finally, it wouldn't make much sense for Bernard (and Ford) to grab her as was she discovered was not something they were doing

[teddysmom]

Called it. I knew when they got to the lab that Bernard would kill her and the reveal of him being an android, just didn't know Ford would show up. Anyone else think the company that wants to buy the WW technology is a military/industrialist?

[paigow]

If the William "timeline" is really 30 years ago, Dolores and Lawrence have already been programmed [or learned] about grudges. Therefore, the reveries deployed in the "present" are a red herring / trojan horse. 

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, Uncle JUICE said:

I agree with anyone who's take on Tess a Thompson's character is a big bowl of WTF. First of all, she can't even be 30. This means she went from,. presumably, entry level job out of college at Delos at 21, so basically an intern, the HEAD OF THE BOARD of a multi-billion dollar corporation inside of 9 years, when in fact, it'd be impressive to just be a department manager in that time frame. The only way to be head of a board at that age is to invent the company itself. I'm all for power plays from evil corporate villains on television and in movies, but why does the female head of the board's power play need to be LITERALLY showing her pussy to Theresa?

OR she could be a daughter of other member(s) of the board (nepotism ahoy!!).  IIRC she was not the head of the board, just a member of the board who head the transition process.

Her antics were comparable to Logan's.  I'd say there is some blood relation between them ;)

Edited November 14, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[DarkRaichu]

4 minutes ago, paigow said:

If the William "timeline" is really 30 years ago, Dolores and Lawrence have already been programmed [or learned] about grudges. Therefore, the reveries deployed in the "present" are a red herring / trojan horse. 

Someone (in other episode thread) mentioned the possibility of "reverries" as a trojan horse program designed by Ford to "fish out" Arnold's coding.

So, there was (were?) robot rebellion(s) in the past and Ford wiped the memory from Dolores.  However, as Ford said, a piece of Arnold still existed deep in her programming.  The theory was Ford created the reverries codes to get Arnold's codes out in the open.