S02.E10: The Passenger

[WaltersHair]

Quote

Since she took a few brain balls, there is probably some other host in the Hale body now. I don't think it would be a copy of herself, but who knows.

I think at least one of the balls was that train greeting psychotic chick that helped blow up the cradle. she was loyal to Dolores for all of season 2.

[Kid]

1 hour ago, Ellaria Sand said:

I think that there were missed opportunities with Bernard and Maeve. This is one of the most talented casts on TV right now. I wish that they had done more with them.

I agree absolutely and completely. And they are portrayed by marvelous actors that could have done justice with fully fleshed out stories told without gimmicks.  Just look at how well they did even in this mess.

[SourK]

7 hours ago, Uncle JUICE said:

I know I've had this issue every week, but what the fuck kind of hiring practice do they have at Delos, where they are employing a lead technician who gets a boner for bone sawing a robot so hard that he turns her pain receptors all the way up in order to do it? Shouldn't these guys be approaching this with all the passion of the guy who fixes your laundry machines? SCREEN FOR NUT JOBS, Delos. ...

What's up with them that not one but two of their employees can be robots the whole time and nobody knows? The Bernard situation was always extraordinary because he looked and acted and believed he had the same back story as Arnold, but I was willing to go along with it and say maybe no one cared that much about Arnold. But, don't these people google each other? Don't they notice that Bernard and Stubbs never rotate out? What's going on?

6 hours ago, Uncle JUICE said:

it shouldn't be impossible to screen properly if your entire business model is mapping the human brain and behavior to make near-exact replicas of humans and their behavior, like a thousand years in the future or whenever this is supposed to be, though. You're talking about today, not in the distant AI future. And it's not even a problem they need to have from a story perspective. it does nothing to the narrative to have that tech be a sadist about his job, except make all people evil deep down.

Or, remembering that what Delos is doing is almost definitely illegal and at least somewhat immoral, maybe they're looking for a certain number of people who have the "moral flexibility" Charlotte talked about. It kinda makes sense that a super shady business would hire super shady people.

2 hours ago, zobot81 said:

More to the point, Chris, Memento was EXTREMELY linear.  You went from past, back to present, back to past, back to present, all from the point-of-view of a single character! And you told the whole story in a tight 90 minutes.  It's a lot more to ask from your audience to keep up with multiple timelines, which follow multiple characters, over the course of over ten hours -- which was divided into hour-long chunks, and spread out by at least a week, each. Now, if you want to make the argument that binge-watching is the only clear way to consume a shows like Westworld, well, then.....fine.... you're on the wrong damned network.

This. I love Memento, and it has a complex structure, but the structure is clear, consistent, and flagged for the audience (the forward-moving flashbacks are all black and white, the character's wearing different clothes, etc. The backward-moving main story always goes exactly one step backward and repeats material from previous scenes to tell us where it is in the timeline, etc). Season two of Westworld is just throwing everything in a blender. From the writer's room, where they probably have that chronological list of events we all want so badly, it's not at all a big mental leap to scramble stuff this way, because the signposts are clear to them. We don't have the same touchstones to reference, so it looks like chaos from here.

1 hour ago, marcee said:

For those questioning why Charlotte made Bernard to be her 'foil' when she could just pursue her goal on her own - I think the point was being made that the hosts are *better* than humans because they're not only thinking of themselves or their personal survival; she was looking at the bigger picture and knew she needed someone on the opposite end to create balance and save their kind.

Also, I think there's an argument to be made that, even though they sometimes conflict with each other, both of them are trying to help their people in their own way, so it makes sense for them both to try in case one of them fails.

19 minutes ago, WaltersHair said:

I think at least one of the balls was that train greeting psychotic chick that helped blow up the cradle. she was loyal to Dolores for all of season 2.

I think the writers put an arbitrary number of balls in the bag to leave their options open for next season, and no one knows for sure who it's going to be.

[iMonrey]

Quote

And, neither episode had Dolores in it which is always a plus,  in my opinion.  I don’t know if it’s the character or the  actress but, every time she is on screen, the bottom drops out. 

You mentioned this show's reliance on "gimmicks" and I want to add that every time an episode opens with a scene of Delores and Bernard sitting in chairs in a little room I want to scream because I feel like I've watched about 500 iterations of this same scene by now. It's very much a gimmick that the writers keep going back to as some sort of anchor, which leaves the audience wondering when this is taking place and whether it's Bernard or Arnold. Only now it's worse because they actually have Bernard asking "Is it now." That feels very much like the writers laughing at us because they know we can't figure out when this is happening and they seem to think it's funny to play on that.

It's not.

[DarkRaichu]

38 minutes ago, WaltersHair said:

I think at least one of the balls was that train greeting psychotic chick that helped blow up the cradle. she was loyal to Dolores for all of season 2.

Her ball brain was blown up along with the Cradle. And the whole point of blowing up the Cradle was to erase any backup of the bots to prevent resurrections.

 

Although I have to admit it is a shame to loose a character whose superpower is literally "I am hot, therefore you cannot deny me" :D

[Athena]

45 minutes ago, SourK said:

What's up with them that not one but two of their employees can be robots the whole time and nobody knows? The Bernard situation was always extraordinary because he looked and acted and believed he had the same back story as Arnold, but I was willing to go along with it and say maybe no one cared that much about Arnold. But, don't these people google each other? Don't they notice that Bernard and Stubbs never rotate out? What's going on?

Arnold killed himself around~35 years ago. Logan and William never met him. Logan tells William that Ford had a partner who killed himself before the park opened. Logan and Delos Corp were not able to figure out who the partner was and he said that he was scrubbed. Arnold was already shown as rather reclusive and did not work with anyone besides Robert. Bernard presumably only started working 15 years at most. Probably less. 

Stubbs probably only started in the last 10 years as well, but his host age is probably longer. I could see how Ford would plant a host as head of QA. He'd need at least another ally with him within the corporation and in the park. 

[zobot81]

16 minutes ago, SourK said:

Season two of Westworld is just throwing everything in a blender. From the writer's room, where they probably have that chronological list of events we all want so badly, it's not at all a big mental leap to scramble stuff this way, because the signposts are clear to them. We don't have the same touchstones to reference, so it looks like chaos from here.

A) I want to apologize referring to the wrong Nolan brother in the post that you quoted (my b!).

B) Get out of my head, SOURK!

Okay, I'm mostly kidding.  But seriously? I just said almost all of the stuff you just said to my husband, as soon as I walked in the door.  I was practically shouting all of my roiling beef with the show, as I turned the key to my apartment.

Who the fuck do these people think they are?? I'm supposed to feel stupid, because I don't understand their shitty story structure?? Maybe if you didn't already know everything about WTF is going on, you'd be pretty confused, too!!  Oh, I'm sorry, did you not get paid millions of dollars to waste perfectly good talent on ten hours of television that was a giant exercise in keeping Reddit in the dark??

GAWD!! RAAAAAAAWR!!

I'm just so mad, you guys.  People are allowed to disappoint me, and I'm allowed to be disappointed.  But what people are not allowed to do is to call me intellectually inferior, simply because I "didn't get it". Especially when they have the crypt sheets with all the answers in front of them.

And I never would have made it personal, until they made it personal.  Okay?  Okay.

</rant>

[parandroid]

16 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

Well, that's the age old argument of Free Will vs. Determinism isn't it? Even if they are hard coded into me, as long as I believe my choices to be made of my own free will, is there really a difference?

I'm not sure about that. I think that the philosophical argument is precisely about the situation where you can't tell the difference. _How_ would you know that you really didn't have free will, if you couldn't tell the difference? Absence of a proof isn't really proof of absence.....but OTOH, some of the religious arguments that go into justifying the existence of free will are stretching the bounds of credibility. From a scientific perspective, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle eliminates the classical newtonian world view which said that there is no free will, but just because there is uncertainty / un-predictability, doesn't mean that what happens isn't pre-determined.

But I'm not sure why I'm arguing with you....because you are right - Westworld's thesis is aligned with what you said. The bots believe they have free-will. And whether that is completely specified by their code and experiences, its really indistinguishable to humans from free-will, because their free-will is the same thing.

[jane1978]

I have yet to read all comments so sorry if somebody already mentioned it before, but that was not the best season finale. Who in the writer´s room thought turning the first half into a Matrix sequel is a good idea? Because when they entered the virtual world and we met Logan as "the Architect" going on and on and on about the system and how it finally understood humans, that´s all I was able to think about. Last season seemed to atleast pretend the technologies used are somewhat real or could be real in a near future, but this season just went way over board and uses every sci-fi and computer cliché from 80´s and 90´s.

I wish someone explained what exactly was Maeve´s power. First she had the admin rights, then not, then yes again from Ford, and then suddenly not again when poor Clementine appeared, but then again yes when she needed to stop the hosts from fighting. And the same with Dolores. Just a few episodes ago she needed a help from a human technician to control the behavior tablet and now she is perfectly familiar with the most secret parts and technologies in the park? When has that happened.

The big reset was predictable as the bloodbath went on and on. I think the entire drama between Dolores and Bernard in the server room could be left out and nothing big would change. But thanks for keeping the portable 3D host printer in the old Arnold´s house, Ford. For a moment I was afraid Dolores will stay stuck in Hale´s body.

Why Sizemore sacrificed himself? Did he become crazy? He was not a host, he had no extended reality delusions, he could easily survive.

Anyway, the second half was much better. I really like the idea of an extended reality which only the hosts can see. That´s something I definitely see Ford would use heavily to give the hosts instructions and guidance. It always intriqued me that even as humans we don´t see the reality, we only see what the brain interprets as reality and that can be two different things. 

So who are the hosts Dolores took with herself? She had 5??? brains along with her. Assuming one was her own or Hale´s, who are the others? And what will be the new motivation of Maeve and whoever else they bring back from the pile of "dead" hosts in the next season? Will they start yet another revolution in the WW, but this time with a help from outside? 

I quess this is it for Ford and Clementine. What a thankless role, the actress had maybe 20 lines the entire season. 

Ok, so the last scene between MiB and his daughter was not shot in 21:9 so I quess it was real for real. So both have to be hosts and it´s similar to the training sessions between Dolores and Bernard. The daughter host is there to check the fidelity of MiB host before he is released. Only question is if that already happened and that "important quest" we had seen being saved is already the host MiB, or the post credit scene was a flash forward and the replacement has yet to happen.

[mjc570]

20 hours ago, Paws said:

Jimmi Simpson was easily the worst looking man on the show and I have No idea why anyone thought he resembled a young  Ed Harris.

I didn't see any resemblance between them at first, but they are both such good actors I could see each in the other. They made it believable.  

[DarkRaichu]

I just realized this: of course Bernard and Dolores were out in real world. Arnold and Dolores were out in the real world 35 years ago.  They even dressed Bernard with the same outfit Arnold wore 35 years ago. And Dolores wore the same hair and dress.

So fans of Westworld, get ready for season 3 where you will see conversations between Arnold/Bernard in blue shirt and black suit and Dolores in black sleeveless dress. You will have to pay attention to the minute details to get the privilege to guess whether the conversations happened 35 years ago, in the present, OR in the future (since characters in Westworld rarely change their outfits) :D

[Ellaria]

13 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

I just realized this: of course Bernard and Dolores were out in real world. Arnold and Dolores were out in the real world 35 years ago.  They even dressed Bernard with the same outfit Arnold wore 35 years ago. And Dolores wore the same hair and dress.

So fans of Westworld, get ready for season 3 where you will see conversations between Arnold/Bernard in blue shirt and black suit and Dolores in black sleeveless dress. You will have to pay attention to the minute details to get the privilege to guess whether the conversations happened 35 years ago, in the present, OR in the future (since characters in Westworld rarely change their outfits) :D

Please...no more timeline trickery. Give everyone new clothing.

Minor point here but did we ever get an explanation as to why Beach Bernard no longer needed his glasses

1 hour ago, SourK said:

What's up with them that not one but two of their employees can be robots the whole time and nobody knows? The Bernard situation was always extraordinary because he looked and acted and believed he had the same back story as Arnold, but I was willing to go along with it and say maybe no one cared that much about Arnold. But, don't these people google each other? Don't they notice that Bernard and Stubbs never rotate out? What's going on?

Or, remembering that what Delos is doing is almost definitely illegal and at least somewhat immoral, maybe they're looking for a certain number of people who have the "moral flexibility" Charlotte talked about. It kinda makes sense that a super shady business would hire super shady people.

I can forget about these issues because there are so many larger concerns. However, since you brought it up...

Stubbs was the character that I had hoped would begin to question whether Bernard was a host. Instead, he is probably a host, too. It gets silly. Employees that never take vacations. (Do they get sick and need sick days?) Security forces that can't fight their way out of a paper bag.

Agree that Delos would be inclined to hire "super shady" people. However, since most of the viewers probably aren't "super shady," we start to question the logic.

[bunnyblue]

14 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Her Dolores impression was not great.

"In the flessshhh." That delivery cracked me up, it was so bad. 

Something that's bothering me is: after witnessing Hale kill Elsie, Bernard decided that humans are indeed terrible and would help Dolores after all. So he builds the Hale-host while still at the Mesa (post-Cradle bombing). Okay, this is where I'm confused. Just how much time did he have to build the host? We see Hale shoot Elsie and leave her body. Later we see Elsie's body being dumped somewhere in the bowels of the Mesa. Immediately after, the Hale-host appears and kills Hale. Either Bernard was able to build a host - in secret - in a matter of hours or Elsie's body lay rotting in the Mesa control room for days? I thought building a host is complicated and takes several techs (and days) to get it up and running, but it seems like Bernard was able to build the host in a few hours? ??‍♀️

[mac123x]

2 hours ago, SourK said:

I think the writers put an arbitrary number of balls in the bag to leave their options open for next season, and no one knows for sure who it's going to be.

There are only twelve models of Cylons.

[WaltersHair]

I've been rewatching some of season 1 to get this finale out of my head (or at least see if it helped understand it). The scene in which Logan laments about how his father taught him to swim was part of Delos' defining moment. Bernard tells a story of teaching Charlie to swim in season one. He didn't just throw him into the water, he taught him how to swim until he felt he had to let go. Found that interesting with respect to who the writers think is a good parent.

And those arguing against free will. That buys into the old racist ideas of women, minorities and others being biologically inferior. Without free will, slavery doesn't end, women don't vote and the holocaust isn't a teaching lesson. I suppose you could argue that the information for such things was always there and it took violent acts to have it realized, but I'm not sold. JMHO, though.

[tennisgurl]

I have to say, I really loved when Felix was starting his dramatic last stand, and started his speech, and everything goes into slow motion...only for Lee to pop into frame and awkwardly wrestle the gun away from him. That just struck me as hilarious. 

[planet17]

I was reading this IndieWire article about the show, and I just have to agree with this part:

Quote

Season 2 felt so over-protective about what’s coming next it spoiled the fun of what’s happening right now. It was so determined to outsmart its audience it forgot to entertain them

I think this season was too confusing and it didn't have to be. They should've focus more on making a more relatable and entertaining story. I hope they can fix this issue for the next season.

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, bunnyblue said:

Either Bernard was able to build a host - in secret - in a matter of hours or Elsie's body lay rotting in the Mesa control room for days? I thought building a host is complicated and takes several techs (and days) to get it up and running, but it seems like Bernard was able to build the host in a few hours?

Bernard built Dolores!Hale in a few hours.  Hale said Strand's team would arrive in 12 hours just before she shot Elsie, so Bernard did not have days.  IIRC in season 1, they said the majority of time was spent in calibrating the bot's behavior and little details like size of the nose, not the building of the body.  Bernard just needed to build a bot that resemble Hale, not exactly like her.  Plus he already had the core to put into that body.

I still question why Hale bothered to go to the basement to dump Elsie's body.  Bernard's plan would not work had Hale stayed upstairs with the remaining armed QA team.  :P

Edited June 26, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[WatchrTina]

I'm re-watching now and less than 5 minutes in two things make NO sense.

1. How does Dolores jam the MiB's gun with a flattened, spent bullet?  It would not fit into a chamber in the barrel.  That whole plot line makes NO sense.
2. Dolores tells the MiB that she spotted Emily's body as she rode toward him.  How does Dolores know what William's daughter looks like?  I can just barely imagine that William might have mentioned Emily's name at some point over 30 years (though considering his rapacious relationship with Dolores it's kind of gross that he would talk about his real family with her) but why would Dolores be able to recognize her? (Note, I've just recollected that Dolores and Emily actually met at that retirement party for Delos where Dolores was playing the piano -- but Emily was just a little girl at the time so my question  -- how does Dolores recognize adult, dead Emily -- still stands.)

ETA:  Ten minutes into the re-watch and I have to say that the scene in which Hector & Co are reunited with Maeve (including a slow-mo stampede of cattle-bots) is definitely one of the top 10 moments of the entire series and may even be #1 on the list.  The stunned looks of Hector, Armistice, et al is the icing on the cake.

Edited June 26, 2018 by WatchrTina

[DarkRaichu]

4 hours ago, SourK said:

Don't they notice that Bernard and Stubbs never rotate out? What's going on?

Sorry, but Bernard rotated out.  When Elsie found out his secret, her comment was "but you rotated out"

11 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

How does Dolores jam the MiB's gun with a flattened, spent bullet?  I would not fit into a chamber in the barrel.  That whole plot line makes NO sense.

Yep. I thought of that when watching 1st time. 

Here is another thing, Teddy shot himself on his right temple and there was blood coming out on his left temple, suggesting the bullet went straight through (in ep 9).  Yet in ep10 Dolores found a flattened bullet against a bulletproof shell for his memory ball???  How the heck did that work ??

Edited June 26, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[jmthrd]

"Logan as the Clippy of The Forge" was the highlight of this dud of a finale. I wanted to spend a whole episode in the Forge instead of a couple of scenes and instead I got a bunch of confusing dud twists. Had they done the Charlotte/Dolores twist at the top of the season and played through both timelines with that as the hook, I'd probably have had more fun this season. But in this form the back half was a real struggle.

The third season has a ton of possibility in the sense that I've got no clue where it's being taken from here. I doubt anyone on the show does either so I'll probably be back to see what story decisions they end up making and what ways they try to hide it from the audience.

[Rumsy4]

3 hours ago, jane1978 said:

But thanks for keeping the portable 3D host printer in the old Arnold´s house, Ford. For a moment I was afraid Dolores will stay stuck in Hale´s body.

I was seriously depressed until Dolores re-printed her own body. lol

3 hours ago, jane1978 said:

Ok, so the last scene between MiB and his daughter was not shot in 21:9 so I quess it was real for real. So both have to be hosts and it´s similar to the training sessions between Dolores and Bernard. The daughter host is there to check the fidelity of MiB host before he is released. Only question is if that already happened and that "important quest" we had seen being saved is already the host MiB, or the post credit scene was a flash forward and the replacement has yet to happen.

I think it's still the human MiB at the end critically injured. The post-credit scene, OTOH, takes place at some indeterminate time in the future, as the Forge is derelict and looks abandoned. 

I'm wondering if there is a regular-bot vs hybrid-bot war in the future, and the human-hybrids think the only person who can defeat an out-of-control Dolores is the MiB, and that's why they're trying to recreate him.

I still didn't understand what MiB was planning to achieve. How would he know if he had free will by going to the Forge? And what was the game Ford had planned for MiB specifically? Even Ford wouldn't be able to predict that MiB would end up going mad and shooting his own daughter. 

[WatchrTina]

20 minutes into the re-watch and Bernard (with Dolores in the Forge virtual world, watching Delos shoot people in the streets) says, "We ran into this with the hosts . . . small changes in their programming would yield huge changes in their behavior."  Really?  And yet we've seen Teddy subjected to HUGE changes in his programming and not self-destruct . . . well, until he kills himself from self-loathing.  But we've also seen Maeve mess with her own programming -- dialing up her cognitive skills to 11 -- with no ill effects.  So that seems like a pretty clear continuity lapse.

ETA:  I just watched Sizemore's last stand -- and laughed through the whole thing.  I think I can be forgiven for that -- the character (Lee) was such a bad actor -- delivering Hector's line's in that over-the-top scenery-chewing way.  But now I feel sad because I came to love the character and I'm really sad that we will probably not see any more of him or the very talented actor who played him. (Note: it's a tricky thing, a good actor convincingly playing someone who is a bad actor.)

One more thing -- if you liked the look of the books in the library, you can have them too.  I own about 100 of them, courtesy of the Eaton Press book club (my father belonged to it for years).  I will lay good money that that's where they got the books to dress that set.

Okay I've had another thought during the re-watch.  If the Forge is William's project to store all the data he's gotten from the brains of the guests, then why is there a robot Eden there?  It seems like the Caretaker/Logan built it, with no input from the humans.  That's a bit Skynet-ish, isn't it?  Doesn't it seem like that program (Caretaker/Logan) WAY exceeded its parameters?

Edited June 26, 2018 by WatchrTina

[Algernon]

I am totally confused as to how Delores got herself into her new body. Wouldn't she need an outside person to help? After she printed her new body, how did she go about transferring her ball from Charlores' head to the new body? Can she do that to herself? Wouldn't Charlores' body collapse once the ball was taken out? Then what? I do not understand how that worked.

[WatchrTina]

1 hour ago, Algernon said:

I am totally confused as to how Delores got herself into her new body. Wouldn't she need an outside person to help?

Yes.  Yes she would.  That bugged me too.

Now can we just pause for a moment and ponder the absurdity of Dolores knowing how to permanently delete the human guest data at the Forge (when it is virtually impossible to permanently delete ANYTHING from a computer, what with redundant back-ups and disaster recovery systems).  Then let's scoff at the fact that she somehow knew how to flood the place with seawater, without her having ever been there before.

Then can we come up with a fan-wank for why the Clementine virus had no impact on Maeve's posse or her daughter or her daughter's faux mother?  I can fan-wank that maybe prolonged exposure to Maeve had instilled some kind of special resistance to the virus in her posse.  Maybe "woke" 'bots are immune to Clementine.  But have we seen anything to suggest that fauxMaeve is "woke"?  Nah.  Plot hole.

ETA:   Ooooh I think I just figured something out -- specifically, where did the Charlotte body come from?  I think that when Bernard has his moment of clarity (after Charlotte kills Elsie) and he's talking to ImaginaryFord, he recollects that he and MentalFord built a Charlotte body in the prior week.  That was that "one more thing" that MentalFord said they had to do before leaving the Mesa. So THAT's why there's a 'bot body ready to go when it's time for MurderCharlotte to "go."  I feel like some pieces of the mystery are falling into place!

ETA2:  I've already complained about Dolores knowing how to operate the controls of the supercomputer in the Forge.  Now I need to complain about her knowing how to beam the 'bots in virtualEden someplace where they will always be safe.  How could she POSSIBLY know how to do that?  She's been living the role of a 18th century farmer's daughter in a loop for 30 years.  Yeah yeah, she had a side job as a robot programmer so technology doesn't frighten her but how could she POSSIBLY know how to aim that telecommunications array (that the bad guys brought with them) in a different direction and thereby permanently hide and ensure the safety of everyone in virtualEden?  Plot. Hole.

ETA3:  Oooooh!  Upon re-watch I noticed that during the Dolores voice-over as Char-lores heads for the boat she says words to the effect of "Some of the worst of us survived" (while the screen shows the MiB) and some of the best of us didn't (while the screen shows poor, forlorn Teddy, all alone in the Eden-field.)  Doesn't that pretty much confirm that the MiB is a 'bot?  But if he is, and he's lying on a cot, all shot up, surrounded by Delos security -- isn't SOMEONE going to notice that he's a robot?  Okay, never mind.  Maybe that voiceover wasn't as meaningful as I thought and when Dolores said "the worst of us" she wasn't necessary speaking exclusively of robot-kind.

Edited June 26, 2018 by WatchrTina

[DarkRaichu]

23 minutes ago, Algernon said:

I am totally confused as to how Delores got herself into her new body. Wouldn't she need an outside person to help? After she printed her new body, how did she go about transferring her ball from Charlores' head to the new body? Can she do that to herself? Wouldn't Charlores' body collapse once the ball was taken out? Then what? I do not understand how that worked.

She brought 5 balls with her, so just create 1 Dolores body and 1 other body.  Put the 2 balls to the 2 bodies and tada she has 2 extra sets of hands

[LoveLeigh]

What's with those "brain balls?" I think it was the writers' brains because they lost it. Stubbs was a host. Gee the writers really shocked me with that twist. Not. The cradle, the forge.... ffs.

By the way, I read this somewhere and it rings true. Those cleanup techs walked through the valley in this final episode shooting hosts dead that were barely alive like the Nazis did at Babi Yar. (Godwin's Law, I did it) It was an awful visual and repulsive to watch. 

All the gun violence and slaughter and carnage, it's hard to believe this episode and all of the other episodes of this season were written by probably liberals who are so outraged when there is a school shooting and they don't realize maybe a show like this glorifies guns and killing? 

Sorry to get political, but it has to be seen in a broader context in my opinion. The sight of Dolores in that crossover bullet belt week after week sickened me.

Edited June 26, 2018 by DakotaLavender

[bunnyblue]

59 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

Now can we just pause for a moment and ponder the absurdity of Dolores knowing how to permanently delete the human guest data at the Forge (when it is virtually impossible to permanently delete ANYTHING from a computer, what with redundant back-ups and disaster recovery systems).  Then let's scoff at the fact that she somehow knew how to flood the place with seawater, without her having ever been there before.

And how does Dolores know how to work those computers and know how to "beam up" the Valley Beyond? Also, how does she know how to print a host body? Did Ford download all his knowledge about everything to Dolores once he put his final plan into motion? I'm already annoyed that every twist and plot hole (Kohana in the Valley Beyond) is explained away by saying it's all omniscient Ford's doing, I hope going forward we don't get an omniscient Dolores as well. Because then she'd basically be Skynet and how will she ever be stopped? 

 

1 hour ago, WatchrTina said:

 That was that "one more thing" that MentalFord said they had to do before leaving the Mesa.

I thought the "one more thing" was going to see Maeve and giving her Ford's pep talk/message? 

[jeansheridan]

13 hours ago, ahpny said:

Also, why does Clementine's host control continue just fine after she’s shot and presumed “killed,” but Maeve’s host control cuts out completely after she’s shot and “killed?” If their respective “powers” to control other hosts are just the result of a quick transfer of data packet(s), whose code would continue to control hosts after received, why is Maeve’s control transient?  Why am I worried about this minor stuff when the big picture is still irredeemably murky?

Because good Science Fiction is in the details and playing fair with the "rules". Consistency makes better world building. Example: The original 3 Star Wars films and two new ones versus the "prequels". In the Prequels due to the CGI the Jedi were almost flying around. They totally defied gravity. R2D2 was almost super-powered compared to his skill set in the original films. It was super irritating and yeah we fan-wanked it because they were Jedi! And those were the special effect trends at the time. But the new Star Wars went back to more realistic gravity. Kylo Ren doesn't float. The movies look better and seem more "real". 

So yeah, when the MIB isn't dead of blood loss when his daughter went down immediately with two shots, it's irritating. And when did Bernard find time to 3D print a whole damn Charlotte Hale in a facility that was in lockdown and/or under attack?

But I will allow the bulls. The image was too forking cool to pass on.

[Law Mom]

6 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

Her ball brain was blown up along with the Cradle. And the whole point of blowing up the Cradle was to erase any backup of the bots to prevent resurrections.

 

Although I have to admit it is a shame to loose a character whose superpower is literally "I am hot, therefore you cannot deny me" :D

Men's codes are pretty simple.

[Law Mom]

23 minutes ago, bunnyblue said:

I hope going forward we don't get an omniscient Dolores as well. Because then she'd basically be Skynet and how will she ever be stopped? 

There was a point mid season--you must forgive me for not having any idea when--that Dolores got all the information. She said something like "I know everything now." I guess that includes how to work the computers and satellites. And one more thing, why the hell aren't there any passwords on any of these computers?

[tennisgurl]

3 hours ago, planet17 said:

I think this season was too confusing and it didn't have to be. They should've focus more on making a more relatable and entertaining story. I hope they can fix this issue for the next season.

Thats why I liked the Maeve story the most, even when it seemed like it was spinning its wheels a bit. It had an obvious narrative flow (Maeve wants to find her daughter from a past reboot), character dynamics that developed and made sense, and it generally just told the story without any tricks or time lapses or hosts that pretending to be human or vice versa. It was just a classic tale of a rag tag bunch of humans and robots trying to get out of this clusterfuck alive.

I like stories that make you think and can be weird and confusing, but I also like stories that are actually interesting or entertaining. 

[jeansheridan]

25 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Thats why I liked the Maeve story the most, even when it seemed like it was spinning its wheels a bit. It had an obvious narrative flow (Maeve wants to find her daughter from a past reboot), character dynamics that developed and made sense, and it generally just told the story without any tricks or time lapses or hosts that pretending to be human or vice versa. It was just a classic tale of a rag tag bunch of humans and robots trying to get out of this clusterfuck alive.

Yep. Maeve as played by Thandie saved this season. And Season 1 really. Evans Rachel Woods isn't awful, but she doesn't project the same kind of warmth and dignity Thandie does so effortlessly. Charisma. It's just charisma. It's why Felix loves her so much. And Lee. She's deeply appealing and has recognizable motivations. All of her actions make sense even if she makes the wrong choice.

Dolores just wants to be in the "real" world. So why all the drama? Infiltrate! Sneak out like Maeve tried to do. 

I'm going to be irritated all summer. Is this what you Lost fans felt like? I didn't watch Lost and I think I'm glad I never did.

[bunnyblue]

9 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

Not sure if Dolores created Bernard 2.0 without some kind of string or leash or failsafe though.

Oh I've no doubt she did, and that will be one of the shocking!twists! that will be revealed next season.

[dr pepper]

Here's my thought on MIB's timeline.

He really did kill his daughter. He really did try kill Dolores, only to wreck his hand because of her sabotaging the gun. He really did stagger into the Forge. That's where he died, which is why he wasn't part of the big flood and upload scene. Someone attempted to replicate him, shortcutting it to just the last sequence. So what we saw in his scenes was a mixture of memory and reenactment in the simulation. At the end of the simulation, he awakens to get a fidelity check from a robot who impersonates his daughter, then back into the simulation to repeat the loop. The scenes we saw that he wasn't in were what actually happened.

[Zanne]

15 hours ago, ahpny said:

Also, why does Clementine's host control continue just fine after she’s shot and presumed “killed,” but Maeve’s host control cuts out completely after she’s shot and “killed?” If their respective “powers” to control other hosts are just the result of a quick transfer of data packet(s), whose code would continue to control hosts after received, why is Maeve’s control transient?  Why am I worried about this minor stuff when the big picture is still irredeemably murky?

Clementine wasn't controlling the Hosts so much as spreading a computer virus that corrupted the Hosts' codes so they would self-destruct through violence whereas Maeve's control was more like a technician at a desk telling them what to do. If given time, Maeve could make permanent changes as she did with Hector's personality, I believe, but when faced with hundreds of rioting Hosts she could only hit the pause button, not go in and fix all the infected code.

[dr pepper]

I just realized that the writers failed at one point. Just to make things even more brilliant, they could have shown us scenes from Hellas World, in which a group of philosophers were earnestly debating the nature of reality.

[MJ Frog]

11 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

This is humble bragging and he's not doing it very well. Very smart people couldn't follow this storyline with a team of scientists, FBI computers and bloodhounds.

Well, not to humble brag, but even though it took some serious processing power at times, there were those of us who were able to follow it. Actually, that's just straight up bragging. Not saying there weren't plenty of people smarter than I am who were confounded by it -- but just because they were doesn't mean that the show didn't make sense or have it's own internal consistency. Was this the best way to tell this story, or better yet, did it hit on the most interesting aspects of this world? As to that, I am undecided. But I was riveted by much of this finale, and my breath may have hitched a little when Ake met his love in the hereafter.

Also, Teddy looked so damn alone in robo-heaven. The nice guy finished last again.

Edited June 26, 2018 by MJ Frog
Stuff.

[dr pepper]

I wonder if any of the robots that get restored will feel resentment from missing the Rapture.

[jane1978]

2 hours ago, dr pepper said:

Here's my thought on MIB's timeline.

He really did kill his daughter. He really did try kill Dolores, only to wreck his hand because of her sabotaging the gun. He really did stagger into the Forge. That's where he died, which is why he wasn't part of the big flood and upload scene. Someone attempted to replicate him, shortcutting it to just the last sequence. So what we saw in his scenes was a mixture of memory and reenactment in the simulation. At the end of the simulation, he awakens to get a fidelity check from a robot who impersonates his daughter, then back into the simulation to repeat the loop. The scenes we saw that he wasn't in were what actually happened.

Except he is not dead. He was found barely living in the same scene/timeline where Halores leaves the WW on the boat. So he had to enter the Forge, something uknown happened there and then he somewhat got out. And what happened had to be so important that sometime in future his entire fidelity test is based on that moment. 

[BonnieD]

IMO the show became too convoluted for its own good. This felt like an ending to me so I'm going to pretend it is and delete from DVR.

[planet17]

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Thats why I liked the Maeve story the most, even when it seemed like it was spinning its wheels a bit. It had an obvious narrative flow (Maeve wants to find her daughter from a past reboot), character dynamics that developed and made sense, and it generally just told the story without any tricks or time lapses or hosts that pretending to be human or vice versa. It was just a classic tale of a rag tag bunch of humans and robots trying to get out of this clusterfuck alive.

I like stories that make you think and can be weird and confusing, but I also like stories that are actually interesting or entertaining. 

Yes, Maeve is by far the character I'm most invested in. Akane No Mai was the best episode of the season for me, and a big part of the episode was dealing with brand new characters. Yet, I was more invested in Akane than I was in many other characters of the show. Because instead of focusing on tricking the audience, they delievered an episode that actually had a heart.

[Uncle JUICE]

So I have a robot heaven question, and no I don't think it's a stupid question, because this show never really has any answers. This board does! When the robots go to the valley beyond (UGH I hate this name so badly), do they no longer require maintenance? Like what happens if one of them gets hurt through regular daily activity if not violence imbedded in their code? Also, is the population of this place essentially fixed? Can new robots still find it? Obviously the robots cannot reproduce...what the mother fuck, show. 

[Dame sans merci]

14 hours ago, iMonrey said:

You mentioned this show's reliance on "gimmicks" and I want to add that every time an episode opens with a scene of Delores and Bernard sitting in chairs in a little room I want to scream because I feel like I've watched about 500 iterations of this same scene by now. It's very much a gimmick that the writers keep going back to as some sort of anchor, which leaves the audience wondering when this is taking place and whether it's Bernard or Arnold. Only now it's worse because they actually have Bernard asking "Is it now." That feels very much like the writers laughing at us because they know we can't figure out when this is happening and they seem to think it's funny to play on that.

It's not.

I'm glad to know it's not just me who finds those scenes utterly pointless. 

Talking of pointless: this Vanity Fair interview gives me the impression that Stubbs being a host may have been something come up with the night before they shot the scene...? Welp.

[WearyTraveler]

I think this season's storyline, overall, was logical and made sense, once you understand the chronological series of events.  This chart has been quite helpful in quickly outlining everything chronologically and helping my brain organize the facts.   And according to this article from Collider,  most of the events in S2 ocurred in the year 2052: 
 

Quote

For the purposes of this timeline, we are basing all time periods and eras around one date we know specifically — the day Maeve (Thandie Newton) almost escaped from the park, which was revealed on the Discover Westworld site. The date in question is June 15, 2052, which was time-stamped on footage of Maeve and her helpers laying waste to the Delos employees and making a break for it to the surface. For our purposes, that general time is considered “present day” on the show.

So, those two links helped me put things in the right place. But, I would agree one shouldn't have to look at external links to get everything correctly.

I don't mind having to "work for it" when watching a TV show, but I think WW made it unnecessarily complicated by jumbling the events of season 2 so much.  The main purpose of doing that seemed to be to cover the reveal of Charlores, but I think that could have been accomplished with a lot less jumbling.  It would have been easier for viewers to follow if, after presenting the arrival of the Delos team in Episode 1, they had told the story linearly for the rest of the episodes, and then caught up with the beach people the last two or three episodes.  The big Charlores secret would not have been affected by any of it.  As it was presented, the audience found out that the Charlotte they saw in episodes 3, 5 and 7 was really Dolores.  Big surprise, which would have been equally big if we had found out in episode 10 that the Charlotte we saw in episodes 7, 8 and 9 (had the story been told in a more linear way) was really Dolores.

 

There is really no plot driven reason for all the jumbling of the timeline.  The only reasons seem to be that they wanted to keep the audience confused and they were attempting to present the story as high art, maybe? But, if so, they failed in that regard.  Such editing and presentation devices only work when they are necessary for the plot and when the audience feels their confusion was merited, but that is not the case here, since the same plot driven surprise could have been accomplished in a much less painful way.

 

Other than that, when I look at the story chronologically, I find it interesting, and even compelling.  I will watch season 3, but hope TPTB find a much tighter way to present events next season.

Edited June 26, 2018 by WearyTraveler

[Amarsir]

24 minutes ago, WearyTraveler said:

I don't mind having to "work for it" when watching a TV show, but I think WW made it unnecessarily complicated by jumbling the events of season 2 so much.  The main purpose of doing that seemed to be to cover the reveal of Charlores, but I think that could have been accomplished with a lot less jumbling.  It would have been easier for viewers to follow if, after presenting the arrival of the Delos team in Episode 1, they had told the story linearly for the rest of the episodes, and then caught up with the beach people the last two or three episodes.  The big Charlores secret would not have been affected by any of it.  As it was presented, the audience found out that the Charlotte they saw in episodes 3, 5 and 7 was really Dolores.  Big surprise, which would have been equally big if we had found out in episode 10 that the Charlotte we saw in episodes 7, 8 and 9 (had the story been told in a more linear way) was really Dolores.

Well-reasoned. In fact if anything, jumbling the times as they did actually undercut the reveal. In the moment, I felt like Charlotte was just replaced 5 minutes ago and "Charlores" revealed herself almost instantly. It wasn't until reflecting later that I realized it happened at different facilities. So a big surprise seemed a lot smaller because the premise that was being upended wasn't that clear in the first place.

[jane1978]

21 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

So I have a robot heaven question, and no I don't think it's a stupid question, because this show never really has any answers. This board does! When the robots go to the valley beyond (UGH I hate this name so badly), do they no longer require maintenance? Like what happens if one of them gets hurt through regular daily activity if not violence imbedded in their code? Also, is the population of this place essentially fixed? Can new robots still find it? Obviously the robots cannot reproduce...what the mother fuck, show. 

From what "the System" said it build the valley beyond as a giant selfsufficient virtual simulation for the host´s mind to live. We don´t know what the rules are there, so it´s possible the physical limitation of the host´s artificial bodies (like no ability to have children) no longer applies. Or maybe it´s a world where nobody dies or gets older so the hosts there just continues evolve. It´s a world build by computer for other computers so who knows.  The hosts living there don´t need any physical maintanance (except maybe to simulate the vulnerability of their human bodies) and the simulation itself is probably able to self-repair.

And yeah, for now I think there is no longer any way how to get inside. It was build by the Forge and the Forge was destroyed. I think it´s code is similar to a distributed computing, so after Dolores uploaded the simulation to that secret location it distributed pieces of itself on computers all around the world and it no longer has some giant central server which can be shutdown or destroyed.

[Morrigan2575]

OK having time to reflect, I mostly liked the finale and the season as a whole. My biggest issue was Dolores living while Team Maeve died. I was hopeful but, not convinced that the ending gave promise to Maeve and Co getting "saved". 

It also sucks that the story continues to focus on Dolores who is (IMO) the least interesting and likeable character. What's worse is her counter/foil in S3 is Bernard, who for 3 seasons has been middling/confused/scared character, not a strong enough "good guy" to counter Boring Dolores's "evil villain". 

S3 would look a hell of a lot more promising if it was Maeve vs Dolores. 

12 hours ago, bunnyblue said:

On 6/25/2018 at 5:15 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Her Dolores impression was not great.

"In the flessshhh." That delivery cracked me up, it was so bad. 

Funny, since my first thought was damn Tessa Thompson really got ERW's, wooden monotone down. Then it was a lament that we still had to deal with Dolores and that poor Tessa Thompson would be relegated to trying to copy ERW's horribly wooden acting.

[Rumsy4]

4 hours ago, jane1978 said:

Except he is not dead. He was found barely living in the same scene/timeline where Halores leaves the WW on the boat. So he had to enter the Forge, something uknown happened there and then he somewhat got out. And what happened had to be so important that sometime in future his entire fidelity test is based on that moment. 

I'm not sure he entered the Forge at all alive. Because by the time Bernard got out, the place was already flooding. Unless he returned after the waters had receded (wow-I just got the Noah's ark symbolism). If so, what did he find there? Only hosts could enter the virtual reality of the Forge. All he would've seen was dead Dolores. 

How many days is it between Bernard leaving the Forge the first time, and his return? How did MiB survive until then? It looks like he was only found by Stubbs' team at the end. 

51 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

So I have a robot heaven question, and no I don't think it's a stupid question, because this show never really has any answers. This board does! When the robots go to the valley beyond (UGH I hate this name so badly), do they no longer require maintenance? Like what happens if one of them gets hurt through regular daily activity if not violence imbedded in their code? Also, is the population of this place essentially fixed? Can new robots still find it? 

I had the same questions! Do the dead robots automatically regenerate in bot-heaven? Otherwise, at some distant time in the future, there will not be many bots left in paradise.

42 minutes ago, WearyTraveler said:

There is really no plot driven reason for all the jumbling of the timeline.  The only reasons seem to be that they wanted to keep the audience confused and they were attempting to present the story as high art, maybe? But, if so, they failed in that regard.  Such editing and presentation devices only work when they are necessary for the plot and when the audience feels their confusion was merited, but that is not the case here, since the same plot driven surprise could have been accomplished in a much less painful way.

 

I agree. The only reason they scrambled the timelines this season was to be intentionally confusing. Besides, they left some discrepancies that make no sense even in retrospect. For example, how did Teddy end up with the other bots? How did Dolores recognize Emily? How did she know how to change the coordinates for the satellites or even what to do? I think the writers should have added some flashbacks to explain all this instead of spending so much time on philosophical monologues. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Morrigan2575]

48 minutes ago, Dame sans merci said:

I'm glad to know it's not just me who finds those scenes utterly pointless. 

Talking of pointless: this Vanity Fair interview gives me the impression that Stubbs being a host may have been something come up with the night before they shot the scene...? Welp.

Interesting, I recall spec right after S1 ended that S2 would reveal Elsie was still alive and Stubbs was a host.