S02.E05: Akane No Mai

[Quilt Fairy]

I don't think Dolores is really "woke" and free, I think she's still playing out Ford's last narrative.

[WatchrTina]

32 minutes ago, Miles said:

Also wondering if guests have to actually learn japanese to participate in Shogun world.

Nope.  One of the humans accompanying Maeve (Sizemore?) said that when he spoke English the 'bot should have switched into English too.  He goes on the explain that all the 'bots can access all the languages supported by the park.  The fact that the Shogun-world 'bots didn't switch to English to accommodate the humans that crossed over from Westworld is yet another clue that the park is off the rails.  Well, that and the fact that the 'bots slaughtered all the security personnel -- that was definitely another hint that the 'bots were glitching.

Edited May 22, 2018 by WatchrTina

[Miles]

Okay, I guess it's a sign that I'm not really invested anymore, considering how little attention I seem to pay. But thanks for the clarification.

 

It still feels like a stretch that commands in english don't work anymore, but commands in japanese do. That's just not how robots work. Either commands work or they don't. Robots don't just decide "oh I'll just rewrite these commands to another language", no matter how much they are glitched at the moment.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Miles

[arc]

So Shogunworld is like a reskin of Westworld. Outstanding.

Rehashing similar variations on a theme happens everywhere. I think about superhero comics, where Jim Shooter headed up Marvel’s New Universe, then Valiant Comics, then Defiant, and each one had a lot of similarities to the previous effort.

or, more thematically related, the resonance between westerns and samurai movies, where the brothel heist is repurposed for the geisha house heist is an allusion to how The Magnificent Seven was a remake of Seven Samurai...

And as for Akane being a new character that’s hard to care about right away, I don’t understand that at all. The whole point of her character in this episode was to be a mirror for Maeve. Her concern for Sakura is Maeve’s concern for her own lost daughter. And it was genuinely compelling to me that Akane was offered freedom/awakening and pulled back from it because she didn’t want to stop caring about Sakura. In a sense, Maeve was offered a sort of inverse of that. If I understood s1 correctly, including what Nolan and Joy have said about Maeve’s arc, most of her awakening in the Mesa was fake, a weird meta narrative Ford wrote for her, but she still learned the truth about the hosts and her daughter even so — and so at the end of s1 she truly became free when she departed from her narrative to leave the park and instead reentered Westworld for the sake of her daughter. So Akane was offered real freedom and truth but withdrew because of love for her sort-of daughter, while Maeve was offered the illusion of freedom and turned it down (not that she knew it was an illusion) for her daughter from a past life.

Also, C.R.E.A.M. as covered on a shamisen was a banger. Paint It Black on a shamisen too.

The Dolores/Teddy story felt like a lot of setup and/or wheel-spinning to get to the new plot development of modifying Teddy. I hope he got that brain boost Maeve did (“bulk apperception”) though because it’s been annoying week after week how behind he is in understanding all these things Dolores has been telling him.

[QuantumMechanic]

2 hours ago, arc said:

The Dolores/Teddy story felt like a lot of setup and/or wheel-spinning to get to the new plot development of modifying Teddy. I hope he got that brain boost Maeve did (“bulk apperception”) though because it’s been annoying week after week how behind he is in understanding all these things Dolores has been telling him.

Looks like he did.  That freezeframe upthread showed Aggression, Bulk Apperception, and Hostility all maxed out, and Compassion dialed all the way down.  So does that mean he's gonna be an evil Maeve?  And what has Dolores already unseen done to herself?

Edited May 22, 2018 by QuantumMechanic

[Uncle JUICE]

7 hours ago, Miles said:

That commands only work in the language the robots were programmed in is pretty hard bullshit. First, all the technicians seem to speak English, the Chinese technician even says he doesn't know Japanese. So how would the technicians give these robots commands? Second, why would you ever fragment your command language? That is just a programming headache waiting to happen. You decide on one language and one language only. The writers were really reaching here... Right up their behinds.

THis is oddly along the same lines as my robosex question. This one's totally correct, too, and further calls into question the insane management at Delos, and makes me wish there were an Office / Parks & Rec sister series about people who work there. THere MUST have been someone in those meetings wondering "Wait, why would we make it harder to access subsets of hosts for administrative purposes this way?" Maybe there's an explanation, but if you're mass producing, you want as much uniformity as possible. 

[QuantumMechanic]

27 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

THis is oddly along the same lines as my robosex question. This one's totally correct, too, and further calls into question the insane management at Delos, and makes me wish there were an Office / Parks & Rec sister series about people who work there. THere MUST have been someone in those meetings wondering "Wait, why would we make it harder to access subsets of hosts for administrative purposes this way?" Maybe there's an explanation, but if you're mass producing, you want as much uniformity as possible. 

The explanation is, as Sizemore said, that the hosts should have responded to Maeve's commands in English, but because of the "infection"/wokeness/whatever, they were refusing/unable to use or acknowledge anything in a language other than Japanese.

Edited May 22, 2018 by QuantumMechanic

[grawlix]

32 minutes ago, QuantumMechanic said:

Looks like he did.  That freezeframe upthread showed Aggression, Bulk Apperception, and Hostility all maxed out, and Compassion dialed all the way down.  So does that mean he's gonna be an evil Maeve?  And what has Dolores already unseen done to herself?

My guess is he becomes the Yul Brenner version of MIB.

[benteen]

I was disappointed by it.  I like the look of Shogun World but the story in this episode just wasn't interesting enough for me.  Dolores is detestable and I hope that she failed miserably in her quest.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's Previously.TV's EPIC OLD-SCHOOL RECAP of the episode!

Westworld Reduces, Reuses, And Recycles

Our EPIC OLD-SCHOOL RECAP of Westworld's fifth episode of the season hits a new level of blood and gore, so make sure to keep your Delos-branded barf bag handy!

[grawlix]

7 hours ago, Miles said:

Okay, I guess it's a sign that I'm not really invested anymore, considering how little attention I seem to pay. But thanks for the clarification.

 

It still feels like a stretch that commands in english don't work anymore, but commands in japanese do. That's just not how robots work. Either commands work or they don't. Robots don't just decide "oh I'll just rewrite these commands to another language", no matter how much they are glitched at the moment.

It could be that hosts have a primary language mode to maintain continuity for that world.  Once they hear an alternate language, they are suppose to switch to that language to easily interact with those specific guests.  But as part of the glitch, the switching mechanism/language translation isn't working.

[terrymct]

On 5/21/2018 at 8:35 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

I don't think that Shogun World is tougher to beat than WestWorld. It's just bloodier. Swords lend themselves to dismemberment, decapitations and evisceration in a way that the main weapons of WestWorld - guns, knives, lassos and nooses -- don't.  I find it harder to picture smart swords that can cause that gore with hosts but have no effect on guests, but oh well.

I'd guess MiB probably has sampled all of the Delos parks over the years, but had the same frustration that since there's no real risk, there's no real reward for beating them.

 

If Westworld is the oldest of the parks and Ford's favorite, it might be more likely to hold more puzzle pieces for William.

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, QuantumMechanic said:

Looks like he did.  That freezeframe upthread showed Aggression, Bulk Apperception, and Hostility all maxed out, and Compassion dialed all the way down.  So does that mean he's gonna be an evil Maeve?

Maeve is currently maxed beyond the highest level allowed by the sliders, isn't she? Wasn't that the point of the scheme last season where they smuggled her into the room in the Mesa with the special programming equipment?

[Dobian]

I don't see the point of the Shogun World story.  It doesn't advance the plot any other than to show off Maeve's new WiFi command capabilities, and why am I supposed to care about these new a.i. characters?  The weakness of this show has always been in its handling of emotional drama.  Maeve meets Akane and Sakura and before the hour is out,  she has this powerful bonding moment with Akane that we're supposed to be invested in, but the characters and their relationship haven't earned that investment.  If she had met Akane three episode ago, and the two had gone through a bunch of stuff together, and *then* Sakura got murdered, then there would be an emotional investment.  But all in the same episode?  No.

And the show's budget was very apparent in this episode as other have said, with the re-purposing of Westworld sets.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Dobian

[The Companion]

36 minutes ago, grawlix said:

It could be that hosts have a primary language mode to maintain continuity for that world.  Once they hear an alternate language, they are suppose to switch to that language to easily interact with those specific guests.  But as part of the glitch, the switching mechanism/language translation isn't working.

I would also point out that the hosts are often controlled by non verbal means. Presumably, if you were coming into a different part of the section and a robot was glitching and not communicating in the same language, you would just use your tablet to shut them down.  You would want the tablet to be the primary way to control them (and we definitely saw techs following behind hosts with tablets doing just that) because you wouldn't want the verbal commands to be so strong that you could have them accidentally triggered. It's also why they have the different diagnostic mode, presumably. You wouldn't want a guest accidentally freezing a host through verbal commands. The same mechanism that is making them unresponsive to the tablet is probably what is making them unresponsive to verbal commands.

[WatchrTina]

The recap said:

Quote

Strand is more upset at all the lost IP, but still has the foresight to mutter, "How did all these disparate threats come together to create this nightmare?," as we watch Bernard gazing at Teddy's naked body atop a pile of hosts. "If we figure that out, we'll know how the story turns." 

Wait, what?  Teddy was dead in the pile of bodies?  Did anyone here see this?

If that's true, I wondered if he's been de-brained yet.  If not (cue the spooky music) I wonder if super-evil Teddy is not really "dead."  Dun dun DUN!

31 minutes ago, Dobian said:

And the show's budget was very apparent in this episode as other have said, with the re-purposing of Westworld sets.

The similarity between Shogun-world's set and Westworld's set is a deliberate plot-point.  The characters talk about it.  The Japanese town is as much a doppelgänger for Sweetwater as Akane is a doppelgänger for Maeve.  it's not an accidental similarity based on the show-runners trying to save money.

Edited May 22, 2018 by WatchrTina

[Ellaria]

6 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

The recap said:

Wait, what?  Teddy was dead in the pile of bodies?  Did anyone here see this?

If that's true, I wondered if he's been de-brained yet.  If not (cue the spooky music) I wonder if super-evil Teddy is not really "dead."  Dun dun DUN!

Yes, I saw that. His dead body is on top of the pile of dead hosts, as the recap says. Teddy's story is not over. 

[Uncle JUICE]

1 hour ago, Dobian said:

 

And the show's budget was very apparent in this episode as other have said, with the re-purposing of Westworld sets.

They also repurposed Eb farnums hotel from deadwood. It was jarring but I am always glad to see it. 

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

5 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

Looks like he did.  That freezeframe upthread showed Aggression, Bulk Apperception, and Hostility all maxed out, and Compassion dialed all the way down.  So does that mean he's gonna be an evil Maeve?  And what has Dolores already unseen done to herself?

Oh man I didn't think about the possibility that Dolores modified herself. Maybe that's how she became bulletproof...

 

Can I just point that when the technician changed Teddy the tablet had the word 'override'? This seems too much for a character stat change. It seems like he was overriding him completely - as in deleting Teddy and installing a completely new narrative character.

[arc]

But he specifically said to Dolores that it would be dangerous to do whatever modifications he was making without a full wipe of the existing personality (vaguely paraphrased from memory). So Teddy 2.0 will still have Teddy’s memories even if he has a distinctly different personality.

[Nashville]

8 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

Looks like he did.  That freezeframe upthread showed Aggression, Bulk Apperception, and Hostility all maxed out, and Compassion dialed all the way down.  So does that mean he's gonna be an evil Maeve?  And what has Dolores already unseen done to herself?

Went back and looked at the freezeframe - the image resolution wasn’t great, but here’s what I could make out:

• Max’ed out: Apperception (self-awareness), Coordination, Cruelty, Self-preservation, Decisiveness, Aggression, Tenacity, Courage.
• 90%-ish: Loyalty.
• 50%: Candor.
• 30%: Charm.
• 0%: everything else.

So - with the exception of loyalty (to who, exactly?), Dolores just turned Teddy into a murderous sociopath.

[Kid]

On 5/21/2018 at 10:32 AM, Uncle JUICE said:

Can someone explain why Dolores and Teddy fuck? 

Thank you!!!!   I thought the same thing.

In general, I’m in the camp that thought this episode was terrible.   In fact, for me, I found it to be the worst one they’ve aired.   First of all, Dolores was in it. Second of all, Teddy, who is the only character that is more boring than Dolores, was in it.   Finally, it followed last week’s episode, which is the only episode I watched twice and which is the only episode that I found really, really well acted and well written.  I also liked the whole concept of exploring a way to find immortality that is not religious in nature.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Kid

[ihartcoffee]

20 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Now I just keep picturing Maeve and company going from park to park, finding new versions of themselves in different forms. Meet ancient Roman Maeve! Colonial India Maeve! Prohibition Maeve! The last few weeks have almost been one off stories, but I have to think they're building up to something big, leading to whatever happened in the flash forward, thats ties into all of this. Maybe?

For someone who is always going on about being awakened, Dolores has, ironically, a startling lack of self awareness. Everything she has said she hates about humans and how they treat hosts (killing them pointlessly, reprogramming them to suit their needs, treating them as disposable) is stuff she is now doing herself. I guess when you only gained sentience for real a few days ago, you dont have a lot of time to reflect, or look at the woman in the mirror. 

Isn't she Wyatt too? 

7 hours ago, Luka1997 said:

Oh man I didn't think about the possibility that Dolores modified herself. Maybe that's how she became bulletproof...

 

Can I just point that when the technician changed Teddy the tablet had the word 'override'? This seems too much for a character stat change. It seems like he was overriding him completely - as in deleting Teddy and installing a completely new narrative character.

I think she raised her pain tolerance.  

[paigow]

7 hours ago, Nashville said:

Went back and looked at the freezeframe - the image resolution wasn’t great, but here’s what I could make out:

• Max’ed out: Apperception (self-awareness), Coordination, Cruelty, Self-preservation, Decisiveness, Aggression, Tenacity, Courage.

Is sexual endurance included in these attributes?? Dolores may want to see if Teddy can play rougher.....

[arc]

11 hours ago, Luka1997 said:

Can I just point that when the technician changed Teddy the tablet had the word 'override'? This seems too much for a character stat change. 

I vaguely recall in S1 that while the sliders go up to 100%, certain stats for park hosts (maybe all hosts) are locked from going higher that a safe limit. It seems silly that techs like the guy Dolores kidnapped (does he have a name?) or Felix have authority to override the limits, but <shrug>.

[thuganomics85]

Not surprised this episode was polarizing as hell, but I'm more or less in the "I enjoyed it camp."  It certainly helped that Shogunworld was populated with a bunch of awesome Asian actors (Rinko Kikuchi!  Hiroyuki Sanada!  Tao Okamoto!), and I got a kick out of it being a blatant ripoff of Westworld, because that is totally something that a hack like Sizemore would do, and the company wouldn't care about as long as it brings in the guests (and I'm guessing Ford was too busy with his grand plans to care.)  And I don't mind that the new characters are enigmas, because I suspect most of them are going to factor in later, so I'm willing to remain patient.  My biggest issue is that the Shogun was an idiot for killing Sakura like he did, and not expecting Akane to retaliate.  Talk about arrogance.

But more importantly, Maeve now has the ability to control hosts with her mind and do her bidding?!  That is definitely going to shake things up a bit.  Dolores is so going to be jealous over that development!

Speaking of which, Dolores has now gotten so cold and ruthless, that she's basically forcing Teddy to get reprogrammed, in order to be more violent and loyal (I guess.)  Some things are absolute.  Water is wet, blood is red, and Teddy must suffer!

Original Clementine eyeing New Clementine definitely peaked my interest.

I do think this season is struggling compared to the first one.  The overall arc just isn't gripping me, yet.  And strangely, I think I actually miss the human characters.  Other then William/MIB and watching Sizemore hilariously get dragged around, the rest have been mainly stuck in the background.  I kind of missed the scenes and debates between the likes of Ford, Elsie, Theresa, Young William and Logan, and Bernard when we all thought he was a human.

[Haleth]

22 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

Wait, what?  Teddy was dead in the pile of bodies?  Did anyone here see this?

Yes indeed.  The pile was the bodies pulled from the water.  Teddy was there.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Haleth

[Netfoot]

On 5/20/2018 at 10:03 PM, DakotaLavender said:

I found it unbearable and unwatchable. The show is all over the place and I just lost interest in the characters I loved last season. This show is a hot mess . . .

Very well said.  The cinematography is great, but it's random, meaningless tripe -- a Dadaist's dream.

And Toyota Camry is all inexplicable actions, leading to some indeterminate goal.

On 5/20/2018 at 10:27 PM, Ottis said:

that was the dumbest shogun ever. What did you think Akane would do after dancing her way toward you?

With a hairstyle composed of 60% ironmongery?  Really.  Saw that coming before the Shogun's flamboyant Chiburi was complete!  As did we all, I'm sure.

On 5/20/2018 at 10:40 PM, WatchrTina said:

I didn't actually see because I had to look away but . . . damn.

It wasn't clearly shown, but I saw enough to conclude it was... unusual.  (I won't go into gory details.)

On 5/20/2018 at 10:44 PM, Sader87 said:

Hopefully we get back on track next week.

Far as I'm concerned we have yet to find some sort of track this series.

On 5/21/2018 at 12:34 AM, Dev F said:

And not only did this episode deal honestly with this inevitable element of the show's premise, it did so in a fun and surprising way, presenting not literal duplicates but the sort of lazy copy-paste doppelgangers that overworked coders would quite believably resort to. 

I found this completely unbelievable.  Since it is quite likely that clients would try out various different options when they went on different holidays, I highly doubt that the entertainment directors would allow recognizable duplication of programming loops from one world to the next.  Clients who visited Westworld one year would have a legitimate reason to complain if they visited Samuriaiworld the following year and encountered Dolores~san.

[WatchrTina]

On 5/23/2018 at 2:57 AM, thuganomics85 said:

My biggest issue is that the Shogun was an idiot for killing Sakura like he did, and not expecting Akane to retaliate.  Talk about arrogance.

Well, in his defense, he was leaking cortical fluid from his ear.  I think it was Sizemore who noticed that and panicked, saying "He's not awake, he's glitching!" (or words to that effect)  So perhaps we should attribute his failure to anticipate Akane's attack -- at least in part -- to technical difficulties, though I agree that arrogance played a part.

Edited May 24, 2018 by WatchrTina

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

I found this completely unbelievable.  Since it is quite likely that clients would try out various different options when they went on different holidays, I highly doubt that the entertainment directors would allow recognizable duplication of programming loops from one world to the next.  Clients who visited Westworld one year would have a legitimate reason to complain if they visited Samuriaiworld the following year and encountered Dolores~san.

It depends on how much parkgoers care about the narrative. If they're like most gamers today, they're probably much more interested in the gameplay. For instance, World of Warcraft players don't seem to mind that quest flow has made no sense for years -- the story you experience at the lowest levels takes place after the story you encounter later at higher levels, and some characters have to play through events that took place before their respective races were introduced into the game. Critics probably slammed Shogun World for its unimaginative and derivative storylines, but then gamers swarmed the comments to whine that the article was biased against Ford because he was a white man making a game about feudal Japan, and the author was just jealous because he wasn't good enough to fight with swords and he should go back to Westworld where he can shoot fake guns like a pussy.

[Netfoot]

7 minutes ago, Dev F said:

but then gamers swarmed the comments to whine that the article was biased against Ford because he was a white man making a game about feudal Japan, and the author was just jealous because he wasn't good enough to fight with swords and he should go back to Westworld where he can shoot fake guns like a pussy.

I just love this!

[The Companion]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

It depends on how much parkgoers care about the narrative. If they're like most gamers today, they're probably much more interested in the gameplay. For instance, World of Warcraft players don't seem to mind that quest flow has made no sense for years -- the story you experience at the lowest levels takes place after the story you encounter later at higher levels, and some characters have to play through events that took place before their respective races were introduced into the game. Critics probably slammed Shogun World for its unimaginative and derivative storylines, but then gamers swarmed the comments to whine that the article was biased against Ford because he was a white man making a game about feudal Japan, and the author was just jealous because he wasn't good enough to fight with swords and he should go back to Westworld where he can shoot fake guns like a pussy.

Pretty much. They also accused the people complaining of being total noobs for hanging out in Sweetwater. 

 

In practice, a lot of games have repetitive storylines and dialogue. They have recurring characters and bad guys re-imagined in a new telling (e.g., the many iterations of Legend of Zelda) or repetitive tasks (climbing in Tombraider) or repetitive quests (mining in Mass Effect). I would expect the same type of thing here.

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

23 hours ago, arc said:

But he specifically said to Dolores that it would be dangerous to do whatever modifications he was making without a full wipe of the existing personality (vaguely paraphrased from memory). So Teddy 2.0 will still have Teddy’s memories even if he has a distinctly different personality.

Really? I remember that he said it's dangerous to do this when he's awake (not in dead mode), not without wiping his personality

Does someone remember?

[The Companion]

Just now, Luka1997 said:

Really? I remember that he said it's dangerous to do this when he's awake (not in dead mode), not without wiping his personality

Does someone remember?

I THINK they said without a reset. 

[Macbeth]

I liked this episode but I lowered my expectations for this show at the beginning of the 2nd season when I heard an interview where one of the producers said that when it came to developing the show she realized she needed to familiarize herself with how video games worked so she could understand the dynamics of the show. 

Video games means lots of violence and endless repetitions until you level up.  Which is really what the show does.  It has great concepts regarding who is human and who has value, but it is essentially a video game.  And it explains why it is so violent.

[mac123x]

57 minutes ago, Macbeth said:

I lowered my expectations for this show at the beginning of the 2nd season when I heard an interview where one of the producers said that when it came to developing the show she realized she needed to familiarize herself with how video games worked so she could understand the dynamics of the show. 

So who's on the escort quest with a reckless NPC that aggros every bear, giant spider, and zombie within 300 yards then complains because the player isn't adequately defending him, MIB?

Edited May 23, 2018 by mac123x

[The Companion]

12 minutes ago, mac123x said:

So who's on the escort quest with a reckless NPC that aggros every bear, giant spider, and zombie within 300 yards then complains because the player isn't adequately defending him, MIB?

As long as there is no Navi, though it would be funny to watch how the MIB responded to a character incessantly buzzing around his head yelling "HEY" and "LISTEN."

[MJ Frog]

While it was very sad, I couldn't help but think of this when Old Clementine was imitating New Clementine:

[crookedjackson44]

I was shocked by the number of people here who trashed this episode, which I thought was pretty good, so I rewatched it carefully.  I'm pretty sure it is an excellent episode!  The settings and dressing/makeup were absolutely first-rate, and the story was terrific, too.  I don't have to watch a character for numerous episodes to like his/her predicament and get emotional connections.  The Japanese actor were awesome, and the ties to Kurosawa are easy to see.

[Netfoot]

41 minutes ago, crookedjackson44 said:

I'm pretty sure it is an excellent episode!  The settings and dressing/makeup were absolutely first-rate . . .

Production-wise it was fine, but for me, there seems to be a complete lack of direction in the plot, and that goes for the whole season, so far.

This was episode #5 of 10, so we're halfway.  Yet, the entire season remains a disjointed, unconnected series of scenes and scenarios with no cohesive sense to any of it.  I'm sure that TPTB want to spring a Gee-Whillikers, Zap-You-Up-The-Arse, Amazing Plot Twist at the end of the season to wow us all, but so far, nothing makes any sense, so I'm not sure I will still be around to be wowed.  Last week's glimpse of the Raj was interesting, but did little to clarify what's going on (the opposite, if anything), and all the action in Bushidoworld this episode while very well done, was equally as unhelpful.

So, to be plain, I'm not bad-mouthing Episode #5, I'm bad-mouthing the whole of Season #2, or at least the parts of it we've seen so far.

[arc]

7 hours ago, The Companion said:

I THINK they said without a reset. 

Right, I was paraphrasing from memory and took a different interpretation of 'full reset' than what Luka1997 did, though on further reflection just shutting Teddy down into the maintenance mode seen inside the Mesa makes more sense than a personality wipe.

For what it's worth, the tablet said it was overwriting Teddy's "base level heuristics". Other files of his, like backstory, narrative, and attributes were untouched. (Here's a Youtube clip of that scene, in 1080p.)

[Scaeva]

8 hours ago, The Companion said:

Pretty much. They also accused the people complaining of being total noobs for hanging out in Sweetwater. 

 

In practice, a lot of games have repetitive storylines and dialogue. They have recurring characters and bad guys re-imagined in a new telling (e.g., the many iterations of Legend of Zelda) or repetitive tasks (climbing in Tombraider) or repetitive quests (mining in Mass Effect). I would expect the same type of thing here.

There is even a player created meme poking fun at a similar thing in popular role-playing games created by Bioware.

Westworld & Shogunworld having copy-pasted storylines and character types was brilliant because it mimicked something often seen in video games. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by Scaeva

[Miles]

On 22.5.2018 at 2:25 PM, QuantumMechanic said:

The explanation is, as Sizemore said, that the hosts should have responded to Maeve's commands in English, but because of the "infection"/wokeness/whatever, they were refusing/unable to use or acknowledge anything in a language other than Japanese.

Which doesn't make sense, since the commands are clearly set phrases. It's "freeze all motor functions", not "stop!". You would not translate these phrases and they shouldn't be effected by language glitches.

[dgpolo]

4 minutes ago, Miles said:

Which doesn't make sense, since the commands are clearly set phrases. It's "freeze all motor functions", not "stop!".

Maeve doesn't use set phrases, almost everytime she makes, or tries to make a host do something it just sounds like conversation to me. Like when they encountered the Ghost Nation she said something like, you'll just ignore us and let us go on our way. Or something. But beyond that Ford could command without any words at all. Just a finger in one case (on that Hacienda place)

[Pallas]

9 hours ago, The Companion said:

it would be funny to watch how the MIB responded to a character incessantly buzzing around his head yelling "HEY" and "LISTEN."

"Fuck you, Robert."

[Dobian]

16 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Production-wise it was fine, but for me, there seems to be a complete lack of direction in the plot, and that goes for the whole season, so far.

This was episode #5 of 10, so we're halfway.  Yet, the entire season remains a disjointed, unconnected series of scenes and scenarios with no cohesive sense to any of it.  I'm sure that TPTB want to spring a Gee-Whillikers, Zap-You-Up-The-Arse, Amazing Plot Twist at the end of the season to wow us all, but so far, nothing makes any sense, so I'm not sure I will still be around to be wowed.  Last week's glimpse of the Raj was interesting, but did little to clarify what's going on (the opposite, if anything), and all the action in Bushidoworld this episode while very well done, was equally as unhelpful.

This always happens in any show where they split up the main characters and set them off on their own separate plot paths.  This was the norm in every season of Lost.  It can work if the writers have a plan to pull all the separate plots back together at some point into a cohesive narrative.  Lost failed to do this properly.  It tried at the end, but had to invent this whole contrived scenario to just override everything and force it to happen.  Westworld is a long way from digging itself into the same hole, so I have to give the writers the benefit of the doubt that there is a master plan behind all this.  So let them take Maeve and Dolores and Bernard and M.I.B. on their separate journeys, and hopefully they (and we) will know more about themselves at the end of this season.  And next season maybe merge their paths together.

[diebartdie]

Great episode, lush visuals, clever music, all good but let's talk about Teddy and Delores and what they did together on that bed that left Teddy utterly spent and sleeping. Was that two robots fucking or was that two newly sentient, former objects of depravity, non-human beings mutually consenting to a profound way of self expression? I mean, it was both, right and it really was different from when Meave and Hector shagged in the tent that time. When M & H did it, Maeve was just waking up, Hector was not awake at all, but with Delores and Teddy, things really are different. They represent utterly different archetypes than Hector and Meave in really important ways.

Hector was the formerly good guy turned rogue while Teddy was the good guy made to die. Maeve apparently at one point had been a good woman made to die, she was remade into the Madam with a heart of gold and a boatload of moxie too. Somehow, possibly just repeated sloppy handling at the hands of bored techs between each of her lives, Maeve begins to gain consciousness. Delores though, she was almost a prototype, maybe she should be considered one so she has a long, complicated history, she was built to serve complicated and conflicting forces eventually though, she was made to be the damsel in distress, built for rape and death.

We the audience expected to see Maeve and Hector fuck, nobody raised an eyebrow over that. We never really had to consider sex between Teddy and Delores, they were the ultimate doomed old timey couple, doomed to never consummate their love due to (usually but not always) MIB, it was just their story line, they did not get to have sex, not with each other, not ever. Delores, from what we saw last season was literally built to be a damsel in distress, she was built to be threatened, be raped, be murdered. Perhaps with other guests she was rescued by the ruffians but still, she wasnt built to have sweet sex with her boyfriend.

Now this episode happens to be when they do have that. It's cool, really that some folks are getting hung up on the audacity of two robots fucking. I mean, you see this and it's weird, like two cars suddenly hugging each other. It really is sort of jarring, the idea that these inanimate objects are expressing themselves so intimately, all naked and Delores rocking her O face. You know, the people creating the show could have shown this passionate sharing of self expression some other way. It was important to show that they were really expressing themselves OUTSIDE of their established current imposed story line (Teddy born to die, Delores born to be brutalized) so how could you do that? Let's say you show that via the spontaneous creation of "art". Well, stay too close to the established story lines (Delores plays an original composition on the piano, Teddy tools a leather belt), you fail to show sufficient deviation from the line. Go too far (they jointly create a kinetic glass and human entrails sculpture) you risk most of the audience going huh?

I know my argument is weak, I mean ultimately they chose to show them having sex and that was comfortably within tolerance of their story line, you could imagine along with them when they wistfully gazed off into the distance together last season, you knew "someday" for sure included sex. But in this context, it worked to show they are pretty far deviated from whatever story lines they used to have. They both, for the first time in their lives, CHOSE to have sex  whichever way you look at it, that's a mighty fine way to share self expression. Delores though, is she broken? Is she running Ford's last story?  Is it some bug in the code everywhere? All f the above maybe.

TL;DR If you see Delores and Teddy as non-human people, they had sweet sex. If you see them as = a smart phone, they pointlessly pantomimed fucking. 

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, diebartdie said:

If you see Delores and Teddy as non-human people, they had sweet sex. If you see them as = a smart phone, they pointlessly pantomimed fucking. 

Like it or not, they are machines, designed for a purpose.  Why would they have been created to feel desire, and physically enjoy sex?  Sure, they might have been designed to pretend these things, but the expense of making them actually so, would be hard to justify.

[dgpolo]

7 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Sure, they might have been designed to pretend these things, but the expense of making them actually so, would be hard to justify.

Um, why? I really don't think anyone at Westworld, or whatever the over-arching park is called, gives a shit about expense. All that stuff we see at the beginning of episodes? I can't see that it would be -more- expensive to to have a 'nerve-like structure' connect to a 'pleasure experience' structure, than to have a bunch of sensors sending messages like 'this is supposed to induce pleasure therefore react in this way' Also, Ford designed Bernard (who we know has had sex thinking he was 'human') did he 'download' Arnold at all? James Delos -was- downloaded and was masturbating, why?

[Netfoot]

Why would they have built in the ability to feel desire and to experience sexual gratification -- the addition of which must have come at a cost?  They made thousands and thousands of robots, and the accumulated costs would be large.  And successful businesses usually don't overlook cost-cutting.  I saw Toyota Camry get shot in the shoulder without blinking an eye.  This leads me to believe that the machines don't really feel pain.  Why would they feel pleasure?