S02.E06: Phase Space

[Netfoot]

8 hours ago, DakotaLavender said:

And also... why so much carnage and killing in every episode?

Well, they've radically cut back on the T&A, so they have to replace that with something to get people to watch.  And they don't seem to be able to come up with a rational plot, so...

Edited May 28, 2018 by Netfoot

[Quilt Fairy]

4 hours ago, grawlix said:

Edited 3 hours ago by grawlix. Reason: MIB's daughter is named Grace

Actually, MIB's daughter is named Emily.  The character was listed as "Grace" in the credits when she first showed up in the Raj sequence, probably to throw off speculation that she was really Emily. 

 

2 hours ago, Haleth said:

16 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Did you notice that Maeve's group is still carrying around the MacGuffin?

What are they carrying?  I forget. 

AFAIK, they've never said.  When Maeve first assembles her whole crew at the Mesa, Sylvester is carrying this 3-4 foot long thing wrapped in a tarp.  And he's still carrying it, 5 episodes later.

Any reaction to MIB believing his daughter was actually Ford in a host when they first met?  That entire campfire scene seemed to me like they were testing each other to see if they were hosts.  You don't drink, do you remember this, etc. It was interesting that when Emily talks to Stubbs at the Ghost Nation encampment, she says she's not interested in leaving.  When she's talking to her Dad, now she does.  When we first meet her in the Raj, she's hunting for something, and it's not her Dad.  At that time - pre-robot apocalypse - as far as she knows, he's attending the gala.

[leocadia]

I'm not saying that I 100% think she's a host, but it wouldn't surprise me if this "Emily" is a Ford creation.  I'm basing that solely on the fact that they went to great lengths in her first scenes to "prove" that her companion was human, but she didn't undergo the same scrutiny.  Also, since Delos seemed to be deep into collecting guest data, I think it's likely that Ford could have pulled enough from her many visits to create a realistic facsimile of her personality and memories.  She could be as much a part of MIB's "game" as anything else.  

 

Or she could just be his daughter...

[walnutqueen]

Honestly, I am so fucking Lost I'm expecting a polar bear or a smoke monster to appear any minute.  What a clusterfuck this show has turned out to be.  Moments of greatness interspersed with aimless inanity.

[DrSpaceman]

12 minutes ago, walnutqueen said:

Honestly, I am so fucking Lost I'm expecting a polar bear or a smoke monster to appear any minute.  What a clusterfuck this show has turned out to be.  Moments of greatness interspersed with aimless inanity.

Yes I am getting to that point as well. 

Five separate stories going on and none of them are really coming together, which is the difference from last season. 

And now I am not really sure the point of them going to the shogun world or whatever it is called.  Didn't seem to change anything much.  Was like a diversion from her finding her daughter with no purpose. 

56 minutes ago, leocadia said:

I'm not saying that I 100% think she's a host, but it wouldn't surprise me if this "Emily" is a Ford creation.  I'm basing that solely on the fact that they went to great lengths in her first scenes to "prove" that her companion was human, but she didn't undergo the same scrutiny.  Also, since Delos seemed to be deep into collecting guest data, I think it's likely that Ford could have pulled enough from her many visits to create a realistic facsimile of her personality and memories.  She could be as much a part of MIB's "game" as anything else.  

 

Or she could just be his daughter...

I hope its really his daughter.  The trick of finding out the people are really robots is wearing thin. 

The commonality of three stories at least is daughters and parents.  Deloris is trying to "save" her father,  Emily sees herself as trying to do the same.  And then Maeve trying to save her daughter. 

20 hours ago, ShadowHunter said:

I knew William was going to ditch his kid.

I'm happy Maeve found her daughter but said weeks ago she would have a new mom.

Happy to see Ford again.

Teddy was a bit better this week but still he is following Dolores around. I want him to really go on his own but well he does die again so.

Hector and Felix continue to be fun characters to watch and have around.

Yes, Maeve's daughter having a new mom just makes sense.  She is part of the story, of course they are going to replace her with another robot.  Either that or her daughter wouldn't be there, she would have been moved and repurposed as some other host/character.  Nothing else would make sense. 

[arc]

My inner weaboo had a quibble with the seppuku scene: in the ideal form of seppuku, the suicider guts himself and then a trusted second nearly decapitates them -- the goal is to leave enough flesh attached that the head does not fall off the body. But the duel itself between [Miyamoto!] Musashi* and his former lieutenant was pretty badass.

* Miyamoto Musashi was a real-life samurai who was famous for wielding both the short and long swords simultaneously.

I'm glad Japanese Armistice (Hanaryo?) tagged along with Maeve's crew.

The funeral for Sakura was very touching but I couldn't help thinking that the humans and Maeve and possibly Hector and Armistice know that host death is only as final as one wants it to be. The reality of host resurrection drastically undercut the moment for me.

I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but finally when Maeve saw her old homestead house from afar, that's when I finally thought: oh, if her (former?) daughter is here, the Westworld admin probably assigned another host to be her mom. I guess everyone else on the internet was smarter than me.

Last thing: it's an important moment that Maeve broke off her mean cynicism and sincerely thanked Sizemore. The camera lingered for so long on his look of surprise and gratitude, so seems obvious to me that it's an important moment.

I like that the Westworld VR/Matrix looks exactly like real life besides being a wider aspect ratio; no green tint nor the solarization effect Altered Carbon used. And I 100% predicted Ford would be back this season (in offline conversations anyways, but for real, I said "ghost Ford" like he'd be in the cloud or something, and the Cradle is basically that) but I suspected they were going to recast Ford rather than bring Anthony Hopkins back. So that part was a genuine surprise.

20 hours ago, mac123x said:

But instead of uploading him to a new host body and trying to get things to work, they're fine-tuning his program in VR so that he doesn't have the degradation problems that James suffered from.

Makes sense! Makes so much sense that it legit bothers me because to me, the ethical issue is about sapience, not the physicality of hosts. I think I briefly ranted about how all the ethical issues of Westworld probably apply to [this show's version of] VR in the morality thread last season.

14 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I wonder if Maeve is going to use her new-found powers to just make the girl believe she is her daughter again.  Or is that even possible? 

That sounds deeply unethical to me. I don't know if I can reason out why though, because objectively her connection to her daughter is no more real than new mom's connection to the girl either. But also I think it goes against everything that Maeve has learned in Shogun World: that Akane should have the right to her memories, that Musashi should have the right to a real duel without magical backup.

7 hours ago, grawlix said:

Akane cut out Sakura's heart - does that mean that all bots have hearts or is that only for Samurai world?

Elsie says to Bernard that his skull is like hers, reinforcing the thing they've been saying for most of this and last season: while hosts were originally electro/mechanical robots, now they're essentially like human bodies. It was supposedly a budget-conscious move but it certainly also makes gore a lot easier to execute rather than stuffing fake intestines into the robots that can be gutted.

Last thing: having the previouslies be nearly wordless was cool. 

[clack]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

He had all the code uploaded into his head so if the whole park goes up in flames at least they've saved their intellectual property. That's why Charlotte was trying to smuggle him out earlier, just in case Ford wiped out all the IP in a hissy fit.

But there's more to it than just robot-related IP, isn't there? How much is that IP now worth, anyway? It's like having the IP for dirigibles after the Hindenburg.

I assume that there is some super-secret info downloaded into Dolores' father, having to do with, what? Gathering data on park guests? Downloading consciousness from people into artificial bodies? Something worth a lot more to Delos than just amusement park IP.

[SevenCostanza]

21 hours ago, mac123x said:

Visual clue!  Opening scene with Dolores and Bernarnold was shot in a a wider aspect ratio than 16x9 -- black bars at the top and bottom of my TV.  A previous scene with those two in an earlier episode had that also, and it might have been in other Bernard scenes as well.  The final scene with Bernard meeting up with Ford in the CRA-DL  was also in the higher aspect ratio.  I'm guessing that any scenes shot like that are occurring in Virtual Reality, and goddammit I'm going to have to go back and watch the previous episodes again.

 

Another week with white text on white background subtitles.  Ugh.  Even though it made their story rather pointless, I'm glad most of the Japanese contingent didn't go with Maeve's group so we won't have to read more subtitles.  Also, where did they get their change of clothes?  Maeve and the 3 humans were all in Japanese garb, and didn't look to be carrying suitcases.

 

Maeve's daughter has a new mommy now, who could have predicted that other then the entirety of the internet.

 

During her first conversation with New and Improved Teddy, Dolores had an "I immediately regret this decision" look on her face.  Hah!  I still say the real reason she had him altered was he was lousy in bed.

 

Elsie is still my favorite.  Loved Bernard's compliment about her being able to fix things by sheer force of will.  While they were wandering around the Mesa, were they in contact with any of the other people who were with Charlotte / Ashley / Delos?  I honestly thought they kept missing each other.

 

I liked MIB / his daughter, though it was a bit callous to leave her on her own with all the murderbots roaming around.

I said the same thing, all of a sudden they had on different clothes.

[LoveLeigh]

2 hours ago, walnutqueen said:

Honestly, I am so fucking Lost I'm expecting a polar bear or a smoke monster to appear any minute.  What a clusterfuck this show has turned out to be.  Moments of greatness interspersed with aimless inanity.

WALNUT QUEEN, well said! I am more LOST than you are. I do not understand the writers' intent. There is something to be said by building mysteries to a big surprise reveal, but this is just way too convoluted to justify that style. 

I honestly think this season would have been so much better if the writers presented the unfolding story in a linear way so we understood what was going on. It would have been so much more interesting and engaging. If we could view events in sequence, the themes might make much more sense. 

As it is unfolding, it is nothing more than a shtik or a gimmick, designed to give the show a quirky appeal. It makes no sense to string these scenes together so out of order and in such a random way. We are confused and all of the main plot points are lost in redundant and gruesome carnage.

WESTWORLD  wants to be a riddle, but it is a jigsaw puzzle and none of the pieces even fit. 

[arc]

Maeve and the humans got a change of clothes last episode. After Maeve short-circuited the heist narrative, they're seen later in Japanese clothing while watching Sakura dance in the Japanese Mariposa.

[Dev F]

3 hours ago, leocadia said:

I'm not saying that I 100% think she's a host, but it wouldn't surprise me if this "Emily" is a Ford creation.  I'm basing that solely on the fact that they went to great lengths in her first scenes to "prove" that her companion was human, but she didn't undergo the same scrutiny.

To me the more pressing question is, does William think Emily is a host by the time he abandons her? Last episode he realized that he needed to "play along" with Ford's narrative that echoed the conflict between William and his family; if he believed his daughter was a host designed specifically to torment him, wouldn't he find it just as necessary to engage with her in order to progress further?

Now, maybe he thinks it's some kind of meta-game -- that Ford wants him to recognize that Emily is a host and reject the promise of easy redemption. But it's also possible that he abandons her because he's convinced that she's not part of the narrative, and he's more interested in running through Ford's game about family and redemption than trying to redeem himself with his actual family.

[formerlyfreedom]

I'm just along for the ride with this show...it entertains me greatly, even though half the time I'm thinking, "Wait, what?"

Add me to those who were happy to seeing Armistice's Japanese counterpart did make the trip over. Can't wait to see what bad-assery happens next!

[tennisgurl]

I was glad to see Japanese Armistice decided to come along too. More of her and Western Armistice please! 

Honestly, I dont get this season. Its not that I'm not enjoying it, but, I have no clue what the point is for far. And not in a "I cant figure out the riddle" way. I just feel like its a bunch of scenes and plots that arent connecting, and are well shot and acted, but not enough that they justify the lack of narrative. Like, Shogun World was cool, but what was the point? Its like the characters just wandered into another show, and then wandered out, without it affecting much of anything except adding another party member. What does it add to the story? You can say it adds to the theme and the expansion into the park, and it did do that, but to what end? It would be nice if they could make the plot move as well as add to the themes and such. 

Edited May 29, 2018 by tennisgurl

[grawlix]

15 hours ago, SevenCostanza said:

I said the same thing, all of a sudden they had on different clothes.

I'm not sure it has been established in an earlier episode, but I assume that these underground way stations has supplies for techs to work in the adjacent world.  That includes a huge wardrobe relevant to the world above.  Maeve's group probably found the supply room, got cleaned up and headed onward.  The director didn't include the scene for time considerations or because it was established in an earlier episode.

 

14 hours ago, Dev F said:

To me the more pressing question is, does William think Emily is a host by the time he abandons her? Last episode he realized that he needed to "play along" with Ford's narrative that echoed the conflict between William and his family; if he believed his daughter was a host designed specifically to torment him, wouldn't he find it just as necessary to engage with her in order to progress further?

Now, maybe he thinks it's some kind of meta-game -- that Ford wants him to recognize that Emily is a host and reject the promise of easy redemption. But it's also possible that he abandons her because he's convinced that she's not part of the narrative, and he's more interested in running through Ford's game about family and redemption than trying to redeem himself with his actual family.

Interesting theory.  MIB did leave a host behind when he broke up camp.  This implies that he thinks Emily is human enough to provide her protection and/or a guide to get out of a very dangerous area.  If he was convinced she was just a host, he wouldn't use his limited resources on her welfare.

Edited May 29, 2018 by grawlix

[ShadowHunter]

3 hours ago, DrSpaceman said:

Yes, Maeve's daughter having a new mom just makes sense.  She is part of the story, of course they are going to replace her with another robot.  Either that or her daughter wouldn't be there, she would have been moved and repurposed as some other host/character.  Nothing else would make sense. 

Well yes. I never said it wouldn't just called it weeks ago that's all. 

[WatchrTina]

23 hours ago, mac123x said:

where did they get their change of clothes?

There were lots of 'bot corpses underground so I assumed they took what they needed from the "dead."

I have to say I'm REALLY confused at this point -- specifically with regard to Bernard's time-line.  I took advantage of the 3-day weekend to do a full re-watch so I know that Maeve and her crew find Bernard after he has shot himself in the head (at Ford's direction.)  I think that happens before everything goes to hell at Ford's retirement party.  But shortly before Ford's retirement party is ALSO when we see Bernard and Ford talking to Dolores and giving her the gun she will be using to shoot Ford at the party.  How can that be?  How can Bernard be bleeding out in the underground U-Store-It with all the decommissioned 'bots AND be up top with Ford coaching Dolores on her upcoming assassination?  How can Ford and Bernard be so at odds with one another that Ford essentially kills Bernard and yet be double-teaming Dolores to prep her for her big role the same night?

Could there be . . . TWO Bernards running around in this story?  And I don't mean 35-years-ago Arnold.  I mean I think there may be two Bernard-bots active in the timeline that we are seeing in this episode.

Or I could just be confused.

Add me to the list of people who find its inconceivable that Maeve didn't realize her daughter would have been assigned to a new mother.

Another thing I realized during the binge-rewatch <shallow mode on>:  Hector is so hot I'm surprised my TV screen doesn't melt <shallow mode off>.

[paigow]

2 hours ago, arc said:

The reality of host resurrection drastically undercut the moment for me.

 

Nobody is doing any repairs now...Hosts are going to stay dead...

[grawlix]

19 hours ago, paigow said:

Is the train crash a diversion? If the Mesa is destroyed, how does that make finding Abernathy easier?

It is a tactical advantage.  The train is a battering ram that will reek havoc on any established defenses at the train entrance.  It will also cause mayhem and confusion among the human's security force.  Both provide an opening for the hosts to exploit with no loss to their troops.  Assuming the Mesa is a large complex, there will be less resistance when searching for Abernathy.

[Haleth]

At least the crash established that the Bernard/ Elsie storyline is concurrent with whatever else is happening at the Mesa (Dolores/Teddy and Stubbs et al).  At least I think so. Of course the boom Elsie heard could be something else completely. 

[numbnut]

You guys are really helpful in deciphering this mess of a season but the show is literally giving me a headache. So the aspect ratio change essentially means that we're in the Matrix. Got it.  But why does Delores need to freeze Bernard's motor functions in a VR world where anything's possible? And was it ever confirmed that Ford was a host for most of season 1? I don't recall an explanation for how he could control the hosts with his finger (like Angela at the demo party) and his mind.

[Macktor]

21 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I need a freaking flow chart to keep up with all the timelines and such. 

Here you go:

http://www.thisisinsider.com/westworld-timeline-spoilers-2018-4

(I imagine it’ll be updated with latest ep info soon)

[WatchrTina]

14 hours ago, numbnut said:

And was it ever confirmed that Ford was a host for most of season 1? I don't recall an explanation for how he could control the hosts with his finger (like Angela at the demo party) and his mind.

Oooh, you are asking good questions.  I have no real answers.  We saw a rotting corpse that was supposed to be Ford's (with his head blown away and full of maggots -- courtesy of Dolores + a week in the hot sun) so I don't think he WAS a 'bot in Season 1.  And we've seen that he has given himself superpowers over the 'bots (such has having a back-door into the lobotomized brain of Clementine so that Bernard's having her hold a gun on Ford was ultimately pointless) which I think we're just expected to accept as the natural consequence of his god-like relationship to the 'bots.  If anything, Angela using that finger gesture may be something Ford programmed based on the gesture he had already coded for his own personal used.

On a completely different topic, can we talk about Ghost Nation?  Am I right that we saw Emily wash up on the shores of Westworld and immediately encounter Ghost Nation . . . and the next time we saw her she was in good shape with western clothes and a horse.  The same goes for Stubbs ("Ashley") . . . we saw him snatched by Ghost Nation when he went out to check out the anomalous signal from Elsie and then we don't see him again in the timeline until he turns up at the Mesa and Charlotte asks him "Where the hell have you been."  He never answers.  I'm starting to wonder if both of them haven't been replaced by 'bots after being snatched by Ghost Nation.  Stubbs showed a fair amount of outrage at Charlotte's decision to nail Abernathy to the bed.  Could that be because he's a fellow 'bot now?  We've seen that the uploading of full-consciousness into a 'bot doesn't work yet (alas poor Delos) but we've seen humans replaced by look-alike 'bots before (Hello Bernard).  Could that have happened to Stubbs and Emily while they were "off stage."  Daddy-in-Black suspected that at first. He got over it when Emily supplied sufficient insider info . . . or DID he?  Is it possible he ditched her because he's not convinced it IS her? 

This show is so twisty.

One more thought -- does it really make sense that the three humans would be allowed to go off by themselves as soon as Maeve's crew arrives in Sakura's home town?  It seems clear that they were told to go find the entrance to the service tunnel but would they really be trusted to not run off as soon as they got in the tunnel? Felix appears to have a fairly reliable case of Stockholm Syndrome but the other two are not nearly so content with the company they've been forced to keep.  For that matter, why has Sizemore waited until now to use that radio?  He could have used it as soon as the three of them walked off alone.

Edited May 29, 2018 by WatchrTina

[arc]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Nobody is doing any repairs now...Hosts are going to stay dead...

Sure, not right now. But if the hosts can take over the Mesa facilities — or even just one of the remote labs — they’re back in the resurrection business.

[WatchrTina]

I have to give props to the people who pointed out that certain scenes in this episode are letter-boxed, specifically the scenes of Bernard in the Matrix (which makes sense) but also the first scene -- the one that surprised the hell out of me -- when Dolores appears to be coaching an Arnold-bot.  I did NOT notice the letter boxing.

Sigh.  I watched the whole series over the long weekend but now I feel like I have to go do it again to look for letter-boxed scenes.

Edited May 29, 2018 by WatchrTina

[wilnil]

21 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

Am I right that we saw Emily wash up on the shores of Westworld and immediate encounter Ghost Nation . . . and the next time we saw her she was in good shape with western clothes and a horse.  The same goes for Stubbs ("Ashley") . . . we saw him snatched by Ghost Nation when he went out to check out the anomalous signal from Elsie and then we don't see him again in the timeline until he turns up at the Mesa and Charlotte asks him "Where the hell have you been."  He never answers.  I'm starting to wonder if both of them haven't been replaced by 'bots after being snatched by Ghost Nation.  

Did you see the Episode 4 scenes of Emily and Stubbs meeting as Ghost Nation captives? I forget if we see how Stubbs gets out of that, but we do see Emily escaping.

[Dev F]

23 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

We saw a rotting corpse that was supposed to be Ford's (with his head blown away and full of maggots -- courtesy of Dolores + a week in the hot sun) so I don't think he WAS a 'bot in Season 1.

Well, presumably there was a virtual version of Ford somewhere during the time frame of season 1. I doubt he waited until he was dead to activate the virtual version in the Cradle -- he'd at least have to make sure it worked and test it for fidelity, right? But, yeah, unless there's some double-triple-secret twist still upcoming, it's most likely that the Ford we saw live and die was the original human version.

[Bannon]

This is all very, very, tiresome to me. Oh well, I think I'm done.

[numbnut]

45 minutes ago, Dev F said:

1 hour ago, WatchrTina said:

We saw a rotting corpse that was supposed to be Ford's (with his head blown away and full of maggots -- courtesy of Dolores + a week in the hot sun) so I don't think he WAS a 'bot in Season 1.

Well, presumably there was a virtual version of Ford somewhere during the time frame of season 1. I doubt he waited until he was dead to activate the virtual version in the Cradle -- he'd at least have to make sure it worked and test it for fidelity, right? But, yeah, unless there's some double-triple-secret twist still upcoming, it's most likely that the Ford we saw live and die was the original human version.

I don't think that the rotting flesh definitely means that Dolores killed the original Ford -- that Ford could have been a half-human bot thingy with a Minority Report red ball brain (like Delos). I dunno. There seems to be some retconning going on in Season 2.

Edited May 29, 2018 by numbnut

[rebel2u]

7 hours ago, arc said:

I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but finally when Maeve saw her old homestead house from afar, that's when I finally thought: oh, if her (former?) daughter is here, the Westworld admin probably assigned another host to be her mom. I guess everyone else on the internet was smarter than me.

My first thought when I heard Maeve's daughter's call out when she saw her mother was that Maeve had somehow crossed timelines and would be looking at herself.  Yeah, I'm lost, too.

[Dame sans merci]

6 hours ago, arc said:

Maeve and the humans got a change of clothes last episode. After Maeve short-circuited the heist narrative, they're seen later in Japanese clothing while watching Sakura dance in the Japanese Mariposa.

When Musashi has his duel this week, they seem to be outside the Japanese Mariposa, so i'm assuming Maeve and Lee grabbed their clothes whilst they're there (they change back into the same outfits), and Felix/Sylvester/Hanaryo get kitted out once they're down in the tunnel.

[arc]

Ah yes, I misunderstood the initial post as saying they'd changed into Japanese garb rather than out of it. Yes, presumably they got clothing from the tunnels/access points.

[WaltersHair]

I had to flee Reddit and come over here. Damn but everyone has drunk the Kool Aid and are trying to force it down my throat.

I'm tired of the writers being all cutesy with details that may or may not be important. I mean is the bathtub red and does that matter? Is the Elephant story between William and his daughter a test or a story?

If it's all a potential mind f@ck, then nothing is important anymore. Show is losing me big time. Mauve is boring me to tears. And poor Teddy.

I just can't.

[WatchrTina]

45 minutes ago, WaltersHair said:

I had to flee Reddit and come over here. Damn but everyone has drunk the Kool Aid and are trying to force it down my throat.

Wait, you're saying Reddit LIKED something?  Illogical, illogical!  Norman coordinate!

In all seriousness, I'm shocked by that news.  I'm enjoying Westworld but I freely admit it's REALLY hard to keep the narrative thread straight. (The first scene of THIS episode has me completely confused.)  So I'm not surprised that it's losing some fans, which we see reflected in negative comments here.  But Reddit likes it?  REALLY?  This I gotta see.

[WaltersHair]

Quote

 REALLY?  This I gotta see.

open any Maeve thread. Heck. almost any thread at all. It's all cultish all the time. Was starting to freak me out.

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

Well kodus to everyone who guessed that the scene in the first episode of the season Dolores was the one in control! Still don't know what it means and what timeline it is though.

10 hours ago, Haleth said:

At least the crash established that the Bernard/ Elsie storyline is concurrent with whatever else is happening at the Mesa (Dolores/Teddy and Stubbs et al).  At least I think so. Of course the boom Elsie heard could be something else completely. 

omg they already pulled a trick like this already! Remember last season when Stubbs said "we have rouge host" and then there was a cut to Flashback Dolores.

Or when MIB killed Lorence and a scene later he appeared in the beginning of his loop in the DoloresXWilliam flashback

9 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

Stubbs showed a fair amount of outrage at Charlotte's decision to nail Abernathy to the bed.  Could that be because he's a fellow 'bot now?

I agree I saw a clear parallel to Bernard in  episode 1 being horrified at what Charlotte&Co did to the farm boy.

Also in the episode when we see him with  the Ghost Nation hosts one of them says to him the 'you only live as long as people remember you' line and he has his eyes closed and then he opens them and the Ghost Nation hosts are no longer there. While it could be because 'mysterious Ghost Nation people are mysterious' I'm thinking it could be because he's having trouble with his memory and has a flashback to the time when he was kidnapped by them, and when they're not there it's the present.

[WatchrTina]

On 5/29/2018 at 7:48 AM, WaltersHair said:

open any Maeve thread. Heck. almost any thread at all. It's all cultish all the time. Was starting to freak me out.

But . . . Maeve is awesome.  Why wouldn't anyone like her?  :)  Seriously, I am enjoying the Maeve story much more than the Dolores story right now.  I rather enjoyed Teddy being so dismissive of her.  You reap what you sow Dolores. 

Someone upthread made a keen observation that Maeve is is Professor Xavier to Dolores' Magneto.  Both care about the injustice to 'bots that they've awakened to, but their methods for dealing the situation are very different.  Dolores is evolving into a straight-up villain (I'm beginning to think SHE is the counterpart to Yul Brenner's Man in Black from the original movie) while Maeve with her super intelligence (like Dr. Xavier!) is choosing a different path.  Okay the comparison breaks down when you recall all the killing Maeve's crew did last season but still, full marks to whoever came with that comparison.

So I was on Reddit for all of two minutes before seeing a brilliant comment that I am totally stealing and putting here.  Remember how we all snarked about the fact that Maeve failed to foresee that her daughter-bot would have been assigned to a new "mother."  Someone smarter than me observed that Ford says "They can't see the things that would hurt them."  I love the idea that the reason Maeve didn't think of the possibility of a new mother is that she COULDN'T think of that -- it was too painful and her programming wouldn't allow it.

Someone else had a different theory, which I also liked.  They thought that Maeve DID anticipate the new "mother" and that her shocked reaction to seeing her was not a reaction to the mother but to the blowing laundry, which triggered her memory of the attack by Ghost Nation and . . . cue the Indians!  

Those are good theories.

 

On 5/29/2018 at 8:33 AM, Luka1997 said:

Also in the episode when we see [Stubbs] with the Ghost Nation hosts one of them says to him the 'you only live as long as people remember you' line and he has his eyes closed and then he opens them and the Ghost Nation hosts are no longer there. While it could be because 'mysterious Ghost Nation people are mysterious' I'm thinking it could be because he's having trouble with his memory and has a flashback to the time when he was kidnapped by them, and when they're not there it's the present.

Oooooh, yeah I forgot that.  I LIKE this.  Okay, I'm back on the Stubbs-is-a-bot train again.  I hope he is.  It would give Luke Hemsworth something to do.  The poor guy has had one of the most boring characters to-date, one who is repeatedly humiliated, culminating with being dismissed out-of-hand by the external security guy and having Charlotte blaming the whole robot insurrection on him (as if being the short Hemsworth brother wasn't bad enough). I hope he turns out to be a sleeper 'bot with super strength and nefarious goals.

Edited June 1, 2018 by WatchrTina

[benteen]

Good episode, definitely better than last week.  I like the William and Emily stuff particularly.

[Lauren T.]

Even if Emily is real, it seems like MIB thinks she's a host. He's so deep in the game that I could easily see him thinking anyone he runs across in the park whom he knew in the real world must be planted there by Ford to mess with him. If only this were like the movie Westworld, and he could just look at her hands to tell if she's real or host. 

[WatchrTina]

Final thought of the morning:  When I saw Teddy for the first time this episode I actually thought -- for a moment -- that the role had been re-cast.  He looked so different!  Maybe the make-up dept played a role and maybe it was the way he was lit but I like to think that it was all James Marsden, carrying himself differently -- right down the muscles of his face.  Bravo!

[Ellaria]

11 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Honestly, I dont get this season. Its not that I'm not enjoying it, but, I have no clue what the point is for far. And not in a "I cant figure out the riddle" way. I just feel like its a bunch of scenes and plots that arent connecting, and are well shot and acted, but not enough that they justify the lack of narrative. Like, Shogun World was cool, but what was the point? Its like the characters just wandered into another show, and then wandered out, without it affecting much of anything except adding another party member. What does it add to the story? You can say it adds to the theme and the expansion into the park, and it did do that, but to what end? It would be nice if they could make the plot move as well as add to the themes and such. 

I agree about the narrative this season. It feels like it is wandering all over the place.

I understood the need for the non-linear method of story telling in S1.  I am not quite as clear on why we need it this year...at least to this extent. It may be serving the purpose of a big reveal at the end of the season. However, I'm sure that someone on Reddit will have figured it out long before then.

I love Bernard (and Jeffrey Wright) but I am getting weary of trying to figure out which Bernard (or Bernarnold) is where and when he is there. I thought that I had it solved two weeks ago but now I'm not so sure. As I said, I'm sure that there is a reason for the way that Bernard's journey is unfolding to the audience. I just wish that it was a bit more straightforward and less mind-bending.

 

22 minutes ago, Luka1997 said:

Well kodus to everyone who guessed that the scene in the first episode of the season Dolores was the one in control! Still don't know what it means and what timeline it is though.

There are those - again on Reddit - who believe that it is Ford speaking thru Dolores to Bernard (or Bernarnold). As to when it is happening...that's a good question.

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

26 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

Oooooh, yeah I forgot that.  I LIKE this.  Okay, I'm back on the Stubbs-is-a-bot train again.  I hope he is.  It would give Luke Hemsworth something to do.  The poor guy has had one of the most boring characters to-date, one who is repeatedly humiliated, culminating with being dismissed out-of-hand by the external security guy and having Charlotte blaming the whole robot insurrection on him (as if being the short Hemsworth brother wasn't bad enough). I hope he turns out to be sleeper 'bot with super strength and nefarious goals.

Oh and let's not forget that he actually got some screen time and focus this ep so it has to mean he's a host ?

[Ottis]

15 hours ago, walnutqueen said:

Honestly, I am so fucking Lost I'm expecting a polar bear or a smoke monster to appear any minute.  What a clusterfuck this show has turned out to be.  Moments of greatness interspersed with aimless inanity.

I think the Lostness is due to the same cause as that earlier show: Westworld has one great idea (the sentience of robots who can remember how they were used by humans, and who are coming to conclusions that differ as each robot becomes an individual), and it is drawing out any actual movement forward in order to stretch the series. As a result, as viewers we already got the great idea, and we want to see what WW has to say about it - and instead, WW is going on diversions (Samurai World, though the very end was a good example of how woke robots made yet another choice - to stay with their daughter; it just took all sorts of needless gyrations to get there), and having "surprise" developments that should have been obvious to the characters (Mauve's daughter has a new mom, duh), and of course continuing Fun With Timelines.  It's very trying.

And of course, every single human is an asshole. That got old *last* season.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Ottis

[djsunyc]

should've had 2 timelines this season - the current one and the prequel of setting up westworld with papa delos.

imho, they wasted two extra worlds when they didn't need to - shogun/raj.  but maybe this is all going somewhere...like cancellation :)

[grawlix]

1 hour ago, Ellaria Sand said:

I agree about the narrative this season. It feels like it is wandering all over the place.

I understood the need for the non-linear method of story telling in S1.  I am not quite as clear on why we need it this year...at least to this extent. It may be serving the purpose of a big reveal at the end of the season.

 We keep hearing hosts talk about how their memories are jumbled and find it difficult to understand what is present and what are memories.  Seems to be an apt description of Westworld's non-linear narrative.  Maybe they are trying make the audience feel like a host in the process of awakening.

Edited May 29, 2018 by grawlix

[Netfoot]

So far this season, viewing numbers have fallen, episode by episode.  I wonder why?

[Nashville]

On 5/27/2018 at 10:38 PM, The Companion said:

Presumably she panicked because of her PTSD from the remembered attack or she wasn't sure it would work after the incident at the river. 

I don’t think Maeve was panicked - I think she was ENRAGED.  Maeve lumps Ghost Nation in with all the horrible things which led to her separation from her daughter.  Hand-in-hand with that, though, is Maeve’s conflict between her desire for revenge vs. her often-stated policy of letting hosts choose their own paths.  Maeve demonstrated she clearly had the ability to tell the GN riders to cut their own throats in their native tongue (Lakota) - a tactic she had repeatedly verified as effective in Shogun World once she knew the “native tongue” wrinkle - but Maeve apparently did not have the desire to do so.  Maeve is not kindly disposed to GN in any way, though, as was evidenced by the venom in her reply to the GN rider’s offer.

 

On 5/27/2018 at 11:26 PM, Teitr Styrr said:

Dolores didn't seem squeamish to me. Just surprised. 

I get the distinct impression Dolores’ journey on the path to self-realization has not yet progressed to the point of Dolores fully appreciating anything beyond the most blatant potential results of her actions.

 

On 5/27/2018 at 11:26 PM, Teitr Styrr said:

Loved the ending to the Shogun story and I am already in love with our new ninja cowgirl.

I’m glad Shogun World is over (at least for the time being) as well; that story line was giving me heartburn.  ;>

 

On 5/28/2018 at 12:32 AM, Pippin said:

Ford is not in the matrix, Ford is the matrix.

Bingo - no other way could the Cradle be so improvisationally effective in its responses to block Delos’ attempts to penetrate and regain control.

 

On 5/28/2018 at 10:39 AM, grawlix said:

When Teddy gave the tech on the train a gun to kill himself, did anyone else think that he should try save himself by breaking a window with the gun and jump off?

Wouldn’t have done the tech any good; the moment Angela decoupled the cars, the locomotive (to which the tech’s car was still connected) was immediately lightened by a few dozen tons and took off like a house on fire.  By the time the tech comprehended what was going on, I’m guessing his section of the train was already doing better than 50mph and still speeding up.  If the tech had tried jumping and impacted the ground at that speed, the impact would’ve broken his neck or back and killed him instantly - or worse yet, broken his neck or back and NOT killed him instantly.

 

On 5/28/2018 at 12:44 PM, clack said:

does Delos have any plan on how to deal with the fallout when the outside world finds out what happened? Retrieving Dolores's father is important for some as yet unexplained reason, but shouldn't park management also be worrying about their personal future -- that is, the likelihood of financial liability, not to mention prison?

Delos already has a plan, and it’s already in play.  TPTB touched on that in the early Mesa Control Room scenes of this episode; Delos put out an press release stating some unspecified (to us, anyway) epidemic-type outbreak in the Park has required a quarantine of the entire facility and its inhabitants.  

A cover story of a highly contagious and lethal virus would be a pretty good cover story, when you consider it - it takes care of a LOT of issues:

• It explains why nobody (guests OR employees) is leaving the park.
• it explains why the remains of any “virus” casualties aren’t being returned to their families (and potentially subjected to autopsy); the Park “has to” cremate the corpses as still being “contagious” after death.
• it can give Delos a fairly flexible time frame in dealing with the situation - a “virus” which could take anywhere between 6 days and 6 weeks to kill its victim wouldn’t be too far outside the realm of credulity.  Even if no such virus is currently known to exist, there’s always the “hitherto unseen new mutated strain” backstop - which would also have the added benefit of explaining incredibly high mortality rates by “not responding to currently-known methods of treatment”....
• It gives Delos Corporation an avenue of recourse for dealing with guest survivors and their potentially loose lips - in the midst of an epidemic, who’s to say there were ANY survivors?
• It greatly simplifies damage control in the Real World; group-negotiate a settlement with all the families of the casualties, and your corporate responsibility then becomes little more than shipping a bunch of urns with ashes, and an attached settlement check.
• It gives Delos an “out” for blocking access to the Park from external investigatory entities such as WHO, CDC, USAMRIID, etc. by saying Delos wants to limit exposure to -and potential liability from - the outbreak until Delos can get a handle on it.

The only sticking point would be Delos not permitting any degree of communication between so-far “survivors” and any entity outside the Park - press, home-Country government entities, etc. - and that could probably be explained away (a) in individual cases by by saying the person in question is infected and delirious, and (b) in en masse requests by saying communications are restricted until the next of kin of casualties can be directly contacted and notified - “after all, we don’t want families finding out Aunt Margo is dead by some asshole blurting it out during a telephone interview with 60 Minutes....”

 

20 hours ago, leocadia said:

I'm not saying that I 100% think she's a host, but it wouldn't surprise me if this "Emily" is a Ford creation.  I'm basing that solely on the fact that they went to great lengths in her first scenes to "prove" that her companion was human, but she didn't undergo the same scrutiny.  Also, since Delos seemed to be deep into collecting guest data, I think it's likely that Ford could have pulled enough from her many visits to create a realistic facsimile of her personality and memories.  She could be as much a part of MIB's "game" as anything else.  

 

Or she could just be his daughter...

I’m going with Door #2, Monty - if for no other reason than Emily Grace’s reaction when she woke up and found out she’d been ditched by Dear Old Dad.

 

18 hours ago, clack said:

But there's more to it than just robot-related IP, isn't there? How much is that IP now worth, anyway? It's like having the IP for dirigibles after the Hindenburg.

Think the Jurassic Park film series; if there’s enough dollar signs flying around, there will be some corporate suit who’s greedy enough to convince themselves there is no calamity catastrophic enough they can’t “fix this so it never ever happens again”®.

Besides, there’s TWO sets of IP Delos is concerned with: the 95% Delos already has, and the 5% Ford kept hidden from Delos. The Delos-held portion is probably already backed up at a few dozen different data centers around the globe - but S1 featured early on the wrangling between Ford and Delos execs about him giving Delos the hosts’ core personality software which Delos did not already have or have access to.

 

4 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

Someone else had a different theory, which I also liked.  They thought that Maeve DID anticipate the new "mother" and that her shocked reaction to seeing her was not a reaction to the mother but to the blowing laundry, which triggered her memory of the attack by Ghost Nation and . . . cue the Indians!  

Those are good theories.

Then hopefully you’ll like this one. :)  Of course Maeve knew (on at least an intellectual level) she would be replaced by a different “mother” bot on the Little House On the Prairie storyline; within the storyline context, leaving a child alone in the wild lands would be nonsensical in the extreme.  The existence of Maeve’s replacement wasn’t a shock - but its physical similarity to Maeve WAS.  I’m pretty certain when Maeve first saw her analogue, Maeve was also remembering herself in the past; wearing the same clothes, carrying the same laundry basket, standing in front of the same hanging-laundry backdrop, and delivering pretty close to the same dialogue - to the same daughter.

So yeah, it is a memory trigger to  Maeve - but of a slightly different nature.

[shockermolar]

16 hours ago, Haleth said:

At least the crash established that the Bernard/ Elsie storyline is concurrent with whatever else is happening at the Mesa (Dolores/Teddy and Stubbs et al).  At least I think so. Of course the boom Elsie heard could be something else completely. 

No, I think you're right. We see them entering the tunnel into the Mesa and there is no damage - in fact lots of talk about the murdered/decommissioned (?) greeters. So I think it's safe to assume that's concurrent.

[JustCrazy]

On 5/28/2018 at 6:22 AM, SilverStormm said:

Over MiB and his bs, he can die anytime.

Over Dolores and her bs, she can die anytime.

Maeve was interesting until I realised she was ^shocked^ to see her daughter had a new mommy - really? What a disappointment that whole scene was. I like her crew though, so there's that.

Hale and her treatment of Abernathy was almost Austin Powers-esque in its transparency; shooting bolts through him and leaving him writhing in pain/screaming - ^eyeroll^, that is an obvious plot point just waiting to happen - 'oooh what will happen when Dolores finds her daddy like that?' - predictable, bore off.

And the new 'badass' sec team that dissed Stubbs? Yeah, they're marked for death - again, obvious. As soon as we're told instead of shown how they're gonna sort it all out - red flag for 'yep, that's never gonna happen'. Yawn.

The only storyline that really has my interest is Elsie/Bernard. The moment Elsie told Bernard that it was like the Cradle was 'responding to the hacks' and she could 'see the messages but not the messenger' I bloody knew Ford had uploaded himself; so his reveal was expected but interesting nevertheless. Soon as the bar came into view, the only thing I was wondering was whether he'd be playing the piano or acting as the bartender or something else.

I got the impression that Maeve was sad that her daughter didn’t feel any connection to her, not necessarily that she was surprised her daughter had a new mommy.  

I’m really enjoying this season much more than last.  I thought the show incredibly repetitive and tedious last season, and I understand why it was, but damn it was hard for me to sit through.  Season 2  seems to have a much better pace IMO.  Poor Teddy.  He needs a better girlfriend. Delores was so sweet and innocent, and now she’s a blood thirsty killer with a plan that no one understands but her.  He must be feeling very confused and resentful.  And I agree with everyone that Teddy seems to be getting the story arch as the  person who will take Delores down.  He had already been upset with her over the towns people she made him mow down last year.

Edited May 29, 2018 by JustCrazy

[DarkRaichu]

The best scene was the first scene where Dolores revealed that she was re-creating Arnold in Bernard-bot this whole time (or at least in most of the Dolores vs Arnold/Bernard in room with 2 chairs scenes) :P

Dolores changed Teddy and it looks like she is realizing that what made Teddy an individual were some the stuffs she erased / replaced
Same old story really.  Girl meets boy.  Girl changes boy.  Boy is changed per her wish BUT now he is as _________ (fill in the blank) as everybody else. :P

MiB vs daughter dialog was amusing

Interesting that the Delos extraction team arriving on the beach (1st episode) was not the first extraction team.

Bernard and Elsie was in the Mesa the same time as Hale and 1st Delos extraction team. All of them felt the explosion as the train entered Mesa

Ford is the Ghost in the Machine!! Make sense since he has been actively interacting with MiB (ex. causing rebels mass suicide a few episodes ago)

Pretty much no time jump this episode.  Except for 1st Dolores+Bernard scene, everything happened 1 week after robot revolution (ie. before 2nd team from Delos arrived at the beach and amnesia!Bernard was found)

Edited May 29, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[WaltersHair]

Quote

So far this season, viewing numbers have fallen, episode by episode.  I wonder why?

For me, it's become too convoluted. Last season you could watch for the pure entertainment of it, or you could follow the small clues here and there and ask if what we're seeing is present, past or both.

This season is a mishmash of crazy. No one is in charge, every clue means something, or it doesn't. I wish Bernard had not been revealed as a host, because he is untrustworthy by default. No one to root for in this thing (except Elsie and they'll probably screw her up too).

Unpopular opinion, but I'm bored with Maeve and her group. They might be 'woke' but they are 100% still stuck in their characters, so her wisecracking is wearing thin. JMHO. What happened with her daughter was exactly what I thought would happen. Maybe it will break her cornerstone so she can be human, I don't know.

MIB is why I'm still in there. He might be redeemable, but I think Ford is pulling the strings.

Season is half over and they better do something soon, or I'm going to just binge it when it finishes.