S02.E10: The Passenger

[jane1978]

36 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

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. 

I don´t think he entered the Forge, but he did enter the facility. We saw him dragging himself towards the gate just as the Forge started to flood and Bernard was ready to leave. He calls the lift, we expect MiB will be there, but the lift is empty. So he had to have some kind of encounter which either convinced him to turn back before entering the lift, or maybe he got out at different level and that was his real goal. I don´t think it´s a coincidence the postcredit simulation started with him entering the lift again.

Edited June 26, 2018 by jane1978

[Dame sans merci]

17 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

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

It just makes me laugh that you have people really invested in this show, looking for tiny clues as evidence to build theories, and yet the actual show runner seems to be all 'well, this random idea that completely changes the nature and identity of a character came to me in a cheese-dream'.

[zobot81]

You and me both, Allen:

Quote

In many ways, the tools that Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have at their disposal with HBO's sci-fi series are every bit as amazing as the hosts themselves: a budget that makes everything on TV other than Game of Thrones look like a kid's YouTube comedy sketch; a cast of acting giants who can play anything thrown at them; great directors; and a world that, by its very nature, can be whatever the creators want it to be.

More and more as I watched Season Two, I found myself as incredulous about how Nolan and Joy were using their toys as so many people are about how Ford used his: With unlimited resources and imagination, they've opted to continue making cold and largely impenetrable puzzle-box nonsense.

(Full article: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/westworld-season-2-alan-sepinwall-w521778)

[WatchrTina]

On 6/26/2018 at 8:17 AM, Rumsy4 said:

I'm not sure he [MiB] 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. 

This, to me, is the biggest unanswered question of the episode.  We saw the MiB get his fingers blown off when he turned on Dolores.  Then she and Bernard enter the forge, do their virtual walk-about (during which they see a virtual version of the MiB).  Dolores starts deleting guest data.  Bernard shoots her.  And then he floods the valley.  Where was the MiB during all this?  We're shown him trying to get into the facility but its not at all clear if thats real or just the start to the MiB-bot's fidelity test.  How did he get from there to being a badly injured "high-value target" being cared for at the beach a week later (and miraculously alive despite all those injuries)?  I don't think the person at the beach can be a 'bot.  The doctors would notice and you just know that William (the park's owner) is getting the best possible medical attention available at that beach rally point. Besides, we see from the post-credit scene (and we know from Delos) that it still isn't possible to replace a living person with a 'bot-hybrid containing a formerly-living person's consciousness.

And speaking of replacing a living person with a 'bot -- I hate the FauxCharlotte plot line.  By way of explanation -- I absolutely LOVED the TV show, "Orphan Black" but I almost quit after the first episode when Sarah tries to pretend to be someone else -- a clone sister she has never met -- and even ends up in a car with that sister's cop partner and later in an interrogation room with other cops.  I hated that.  How could she POSSIBLY "pass" as that person -- someone she's never met.  I nearly stopped watching the show (and thank goodness I didn't because it was AWESOME).  But now I'm having the same reaction to FauxCharlotte.  Charlotte was one of the most senior Delos people involved with the shit-storm that just erupted at the park.  Questions will be asked.  There are people she was accountable to (remember the people who wouldn't send Charlotte a rescue team until she "secured the package") who are going to want to talk to Charlotte.  What, exactly, is supposed to happen once FauxCharlotte leaves the park?  We see her using Arnold's home (which, presumably, has been maintained by Ford all this time) as a safe-house, but that is some time later.  How on earth is Dolores supposed to keep up the charade of being Charlotte when she knows virtually nothing of what Charlotte was up to, who she reports to, and what was really going on in the park?  

BTW -- did the bad guys behind Charlotte ever get their guest data?  I don't think they did -- when they tried to beam it out it turned out to be the 'bot-heaven simulation instead, right?  And then FauxCharlotte killed everyone.  So shouldn't the Delos Corporation (or whoever sent her in to get the guest data) be VERY unhappy with Charlotte right now?  Didn't she fail?  Or are we to assume that after 'BotNirvana got shot out into the cosmos, FauxCharlotte reset everything and then sent the guest data to Charlotte's evil overlords (because she miraculously knew how to do that) and thus, having successfully completed her nefarious mission, no one at Delos is questioning her sudden desire to take a long vacation off the grid.  Hmmmmm I may have answered my own question.

Edited June 30, 2018 by WatchrTina

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour 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. 

Just to add to what @jane1978 posted, the Valley Beyond (I hate calling it robot heaven :P ) is a virtual reality built by Forge (under Bernard's command) to host the memories of the bots.  They did not take their physical bodies to the VB.  We & other bots see a person entering a lush green valley through an opening in the sky, which is the virtual part of VB. In reality, normal humans did not see the parting of the sky.  Humans see a bot going to the ledge and its body falling down the cliff.  There is 1 scene from the other side of the ledge as a host ran to the opening and its body fall down the cliff while its memory passed through the virtual world.  When a bot's memory entered the valley, a screen on Forge control panel would beep and +1 to the counter.  The bot bodies were left empty in the real world in a ravine that is eventually filled with water.  This also explains why in 2nd or 3rd episode Delos tech said the bots body from the lake were virgin like no memory had been planted in them.

So no body = no maintenance. 

And nobody knows the rules in VB, I bet the writers did not even think that far.  Will Maeve's daughter grow up or stuck as a child there forever?  Can the bots change while in there?  

As for where VB is right now, my theory is Dolores beemed the VB package (the one deemed to big by Delos Tech) up to the satellites, where the codes can be distributed among the 15 satellites or bouncing from 1 satellite to the next.  Nobody is going to take down all 15 satellites at once so VB is not going to be shutdown or discovered.

As far as how Dolores figured out how to do that level of advanced programming, I fanwanked that each smart bullet that is stucked in her body made her brain ball 100x smarter than before.  And MiB shot her twice or thrice just before entering the Forge, so..... :D :D :D

 

 

 

 

PS: Most likely in story fanwanking for the above: one of the books in the library that Dolores read was from a genius software engineer. So she automatically gathered the latest programming techniques in whatever century WW is supposed to take place

Edited June 26, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[aemom]

I started watching this show because my husband saw previews for it and thought it seemed interesting.  After the first two extremely violent episodes,  I told him that they better start telling some kind of coherent story, or I was out. Part of my whole trepidation with this show was the fact that JJ Abrams was involved with this show and I lived through Lost and didn't want to yell at my TV again.

A story did start at some point, so I continued to watch with him.

Season 2: They seemed to up the violence even higher which is just really unnecessary.  So much gleeful torture and blood spurting in slowmo everywhere.  But, there is a cool, easy to follow, thought-provoking storyline which tries to make up for it.  Right?

What timeline is this?  Who's a host, who's human? Who was human in part of one episode and is a host now? Oh my God, this is turning into Lost all over again where they just keeping throwing cool plotlines into a story and have no fucking clue what is going on and neither do the viewers because it's too convoluted at this point.

This could have been a great show and they have a great cast, but instead they decided to get way too cute for their own good, and turn it into a violent, confusing shitstorm.

You can have brilliant storytelling that's easy to follow with the loose ends all tied up. That's why Breaking Bad was such a fantastic show.

[The Companion]

12 hours 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 could have copied herself, or I assume she could have transferred herself electronically if the ball was empty. We see them tweak the programming all the time. There is no reason to believe you couldn't transfer a personality from one ball to a computer or another ball. 

8 hours ago, MJ Frog said:

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.

Personally, I didn't find it that difficult to follow, but I also love a puzzle and watch a lot of shows where nonlinear storytelling is included (e.g., Doctor Who). I am the type of person who would sit down and map out Bernard's timeline, as evidenced a few pages ago. I thought the finale was compelling.

 

1 hour ago, DarkRaichu said:

Just to add to what @jane1978 posted, the Valley Beyond (I hate calling it robot heaven :P ) is a virtual reality built by Forge (under Bernard's command) to host the memories of the bots.  They did not take their physical bodies to the VB.  We & other bots see a person entering a lush green valley through an opening in the sky, which is the virtual part of VB. In reality, normal humans did not see the parting of the sky.  Humans see a bot going to the ledge and its body falling down the cliff.  There is 1 scene from the other side of the ledge as a host ran to the opening and its body fall down the cliff while its memory passed through the virtual world.  When a bot's memory entered the valley, a screen on Forge control panel would beep and +1 to the counter.  The bot bodies were left empty in the real world in a ravine that is eventually filled with water.  This also explains why in 2nd or 3rd episode Delos tech said the bots body from the lake were virgin like no memory had been planted in them.

So no body = no maintenance. 

And nobody knows the rules in VB, I bet the writers did not even think that far.  Will Maeve's daughter grow up or stuck as a child there forever?  Can the bots change while in there?  

As for where VB is right now, my theory is Dolores beemed the VB package (the one deemed to big by Delos Tech) up to the satellites, where the codes can be distributed among the 15 satellites or bouncing from 1 satellite to the next.  Nobody is going to take down all 15 satellites at once so VB is not going to be shutdown or discovered.

As far as how Dolores figured out how to do that level of advanced programming, I fanwanked that each smart bullet that is stucked in her body made her brain ball 100x smarter than before.  And MiB shot her twice or thrice just before entering the Forge, so..... :D :D :D

 

 

 

 

PS: Most likely in story fanwanking for the above: one of the books in the library that Dolores read was from a genius software engineer. So she automatically gathered the latest programming techniques in whatever century WW is supposed to take place

I am happy to have the rules established later (and I suspect to the extent they intend for us to visit VB later, there are some rough outlines of those rules), but it is a virtual world so I can imagine any number of answers to the questions. They could respawn/reincarnate. They could live forever without aging like digital robot vampires. They could gain some sort of awareness/control and treat their "bodies" like avatars. 

As far as Dolores, we have seen that she has a lot more knowledge than she should as a farmer's daughter. Part of that is likely the collective lives she has lived that she can now remember. Additionally, she has been shown to have seen and remember things that occurred when she was purportedly offline/in sleep mode. I don't think it is a reach that she would know a lot about programming and engineering, in particular, if she has spent decades of time observing those who control her and listening to them tweak her programming. 

[Dobian]

Watched last night and still digesting it.  This show always runs into trouble when the focus is on the guessing game of who's a host/who's a human.  It distracts from the much more interesting moral and philosophical themes Westworld is trying to do.

Another issue of this show is all the killing/resurrecting.  It cheapens death and effectively makes it meaningless, since not only can hosts be brought back, but we now know with the Forge a human can be brought back.  The Clementine massacre was the biggest extras with red shirts event in TV history.  It reminds me of movies where whole cities or even whole worlds get wiped out, everyone except for Wayne Johnson or Jennifer Lawrence or Leonardo DiCaprio or *insert major star here*.  It makes it hard for us to care collectively for the a.i. robots of this world when they are just slaughtered en masse and all that matters is that the key characters live on.  In the finale, Dolores, Bernard, and Charlotte are all killed merely as a plot contrivance to get Dolores and Bernard recreated outside of the park, and have a version of Dolores that can continue to operate inside the park.  Maeve is dead - again - but is all set up to be brought back in season 3.  One of the things that makes Game of Thrones great is that - with one lone notable exception - when characters die they stay dead, and their deaths can have enormous ramifications for other characters and future actions and events.  Several seasons later, people still talk about the Red Wedding.  But you don't get that in Westworld, with key characters being made virtually immortal.

I won't speak much on the continued bad action sequences, like Dolores and MIB killing machinegun-wielding Delos fighters with six shooters while bouncing on horseback and no cover.

I think MIB has to already be a host, as he has been shot about five times and had a gun blow up in his hand, yet he is still up and about and not, you know, dead or dying.  It's just completely unbelievable that he is a human at this point.  My guess is that the post-credit scene is actually in the past, not the future, regardless of what the producers say.  The whole point of doing the whole fidelity test would be to make sure he behaves convincingly during the critical events of the robot uprising.

I did like the whole concept of humans not having free will but being a slave to our programming, while a.i. robots actually do have free will because they can change their programming.  But then the show goes and has Lee, who was a self-serving coward in season one, sacrifice himself to buy Maeve time in the finale.  Didn't Lee just override who he has been to save Maeve, completing his whole redemption arc?  That suggests free will.

I wonder how Westworld will avoid becoming disjointed in season 3, with Bernard and Dolores outside the park but with things still going on inside it.  And then you have all those people, including Maeve's daughter, in VR World.  Unless they are just effectively written off never to be seen again.  I kind of wish Westworld had kept things simpler and just explored the idea of a.i. consciousness and the ethics and morality associated with it.  Instead, it tripped over this deep subject in a mad dash to get to the whole tangled mess of uploading and downloading consciousness to and from mainframes and cloud networks and all that,  It took on too much too soon.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Dobian

[buttercupia]

I'm still processing everything but I loved it. And that shot of the bull following the man through the railing-i've seldom seen such a beautifully executed shot anywhere, and never on TV. Kurosawa-quality.

[DarkRaichu]

9 minutes ago, The Companion said:

I am happy to have the rules established later (and I suspect to the extent they intend for us to visit VB later, there are some rough outlines of those rules), but it is a virtual world so I can imagine any number of answers to the questions. They could respawn/reincarnate. They could live forever without aging like digital robot vampires. They could gain some sort of awareness/control and treat their "bodies" like avatars. 

There is a good chance they are not going to revisit VB in season 3.  They call it The Sublime in the article:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/westworld-season-2-finale-explained-lisa-joy-season-3-1122744

26 minutes ago, The Companion said:

As far as Dolores, we have seen that she has a lot more knowledge than she should as a farmer's daughter. Part of that is likely the collective lives she has lived that she can now remember. Additionally, she has been shown to have seen and remember things that occurred when she was purportedly offline/in sleep mode. I don't think it is a reach that she would know a lot about programming and engineering, in particular, if she has spent decades of time observing those who control her and listening to them tweak her programming. 

Whatever programming knowledge she had was gained recently as she did not seem to know how* to revive dead host and had to force a tech to revive the dead Confederado liutenat in ep3 or 4.    *How as in which buttons to press, ie. the programming on the tablet. She obviously knew that tech can revive hosts.

Also, just as minor pet peeve of someone who works in IT, just because one can program robot/host, does not mean they can automatically program a satellite control unit. :P

[Rumsy4]

I guess we could fanwank that Ford hid all that information in her brain. He really was the Wizard of Oz. But if that was the case, they should’ve shown it in a flashback.

They should have shown Dolores reading Hale’s digital book rather than Strand’s. Why would she even know Strand would be arriving soon?

[DarkRaichu]

55 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I guess we could fanwank that Ford hid all that information in her brain. He really was the Wizard of Oz. But if that was the case, they should’ve shown it in a flashback.

They should have shown Dolores reading Hale’s digital book rather than Strand’s. Why would she even know Strand would be arriving soon?

That 1 is kind of easy, she knew from QA person she tortured that rescue team was coming to the beach.  We could easily assumed he said Head of Operations lead the rescue efforts.  If we assumed Ford put all sorts of information in her brain, we could also assume Delos employee phonebook was in there as well.  She immediately knew the current HoO person was Frank Strand.  And using the magic of television, she picked up the correct book of Frank Strand out of hundreds of millions of books in the library... ;)

I think WW showrunners/writers need to pay many people in this thread for interpreting their jumbled mess of a story :P  Definitely too much brainpower is needed to watch AND decipher their show :D :D :D

Edited June 26, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[LoveLeigh]

37 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

I think WW showrunners/writers need to pay many people in this thread for interpreting their jumbled mess of a story :P  Definitely too much brainpower is needed to watch AND decipher their show :D :D :D

 

I don't think it is JUST that the story is a jumbled mess. It is worse than that. Even if you can figure out the mess, the story sucks: a cradle, a forge, brain balls, guests and people that are hosts, all the gun violence and killing. It is just a horribly written show that creates mystery after mystery and the solutions are absurd. 

It is so ridiculous, it plays like a parody. It would make an hilarious SNL sketch. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by DakotaLavender

[Law Mom]

42 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

That 1 is kind of easy, she knew from QA person she tortured that rescue team was coming to the beach.  We could easily assumed he said Head of Operations lead the rescue effort.  If we assumed Ford put all sorts of information in her brain, we could also assume Delos employee phonebooks was in there as well.  She immediately knew the current HoO person was Frank Strand.  And using the magic of television, she picked up the correct book of Frank Strand out of hundreds of millions of books in the library... ;)

I think WW showrunners/writers need to pay many people in this thread for interpreting their jumbled mess of a story :P  Definitely too much brainpower is needed to watch AND decipher their show :D :D :D

The books in the library weren't real paper books, just symbols of books. To access any given book, she would just have to use the Forge search feature., so it wouldn't take any time. Oh wait, I just saw the winky. Haha!

[Macbeth]

1 hour ago, Dobian said:

I think MIB has to already be a host, as he has been shot about five times and had a gun blow up in his hand, yet he is still up and about and not, you know, dead or dying.  It's just completely unbelievable that he is a human at this point.  My guess is that the post-credit scene is actually in the past, not the future, regardless of what the producers say.  The whole point of doing the whole fidelity test would be to make sure he behaves convincingly during the critical events of the robot uprising.

I agree completely that MIB has to be a host.  I mean how many shots did he take.  He took a direct hit to the heart.  Then he is cutting open his arm (surely an artery was hit), his hand is blown off and he lives??  I know Hollywood male producers loves those stories where the older male protagonists can live through all sorts of hell (Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Liam Neeson).  But seriously.

Also the fact that MIB's road to immortality comes at the cost of his daughter's life is a greater tale than MIB going crazy in a loop and killing his child due to his obsession. (There is no poetry in that tale.)

Regarding the Avatar, Logan, revealing that it only took so little code to create a human brain - I am taking this line of thought with a huge grain of salt..  History is written by the winners.  It appears the hosts may win so the fairy tale is that humans were such inconsequential, venal creatures that they had to be killed.

Its not like the Hosts are being portrayed as Saints.  They are good (Maeve, Teddy and Akecheta) and bad (Dolores and MIB)  hosts just like humans.

[Teitr Styrr]

I feel like I say this every week, but I loved this. I understand most of the concerns on here with it being complicated and at times convoluted, but I just simply don't mind that. I like it when my sci-fi is kinda "out there". I think a show that deals primarily with identity, consciousness, free-will, fate and stuff like that should be kinda convoluted. Same reason I liked Black Mirror and the Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams. The stuff fascinates me, and so did this finale.

Pissed about Elsie. I so wanted Hale to die after that, and she did! Small consolation though, as I'm still pissed about Elsie. I'm not pissed about Tessa Thomson still being there as I like her a bunch.

I'm not sure when MiB's story went to the fidelity test, but I'm thinking it had to be shortly after he killed his daughter. If he actually made it to the forge with Dolores and Bernard he woulda been caught up in the flood, right? Also, when the Delos team came upon the flood, they said (or Stubbs said) it was like an ocean. So, I can believe that Teddy got caught up in it, even though he was quite a bit away.

I thought Robot Heaven was pretty cool. I really liked how the door looked and how they fell down the cliff after going thru it. Also, how the humans couldn't see it. I do wonder how everything will work there. 

I realized Clementine was Death as soon as I saw her on the pale horse, and loved it. However, Hale saying "hurry up" to the driver was stupid, as a few of you pointed out.

I cheered when Maeve froze everyone and got pissed again when she was taken out. Happy that it's pretty much confirmed that the Cats (loved this too btw) will revive her and her crew.

Actually said out loud "oh shit!" when Hale turned out to be Dolores. I'm gonna re-watch just to see if I can tell from Tessa's acting that she is different when she is Dolores.

I've seen the question how did Dolores recognize Emily a few times and that one seems very easy. Dolores said approximately 1,472 times that she remembers everything. She spent time in the real world at Delos mansion playing piano and serving drinks, etc. I think she even had a scene with young Emily, but I might be misremembering that. Anyhow she was in the real world at their mansion so she would have seen Emily plenty.

Anyhow, can't wait for next season. Gonna be a long wait. 

[djsunyc]

On 6/24/2018 at 11:51 PM, LittleIggy said:

Thank you. I’m still pissed with how HBO killed off Deadwood. Cocksuckers!

deadwood - those idiots cancelled carnivale!!!

imho, they should've ended this like ex-machina - with charlotte 2.0 boarding the boat and leaving on a plane.  series over.

i have really zero interest to see what happens in the real world now.  the show was trying to be WAY too cute this season and imho, it failed.

[Melig8r]

Sigh, Carnivale, how I loved thee.  

Westworld not so much.  I couldn't wait until season 2 as soon as season 1 ended.  Now it wouldn't matter to me if there was a season 3 or not.  

[meep.meep]

22 hours ago, SourK said:

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.

There was a purpose to the structure in Memento.  Was there a purpose to the non-linear structure for Season 2 of Westworld?  Other than to keep the audience guessing which timeline it was?  The other difference with Memento is that you are watching the whole thing together.  Coming back to this week after week, the audience had to reorient themselves to what they thought was going on, then watch to see if they were on the right track.  Pointlessly confusing.    No one, nowhere is going "this non-linear storytelling made this story so much more compelling!"

[Uncle JUICE]

4 minutes ago, Melig8r said:

Sigh, Carnivale, how I loved thee.  

Westworld not so much.  I couldn't wait until season 2 as soon as season 1 ended.  Now it wouldn't matter to me if there was a season 3 or not.  

 

43 minutes ago, djsunyc said:

deadwood - those idiots cancelled carnivale!!!

imho, they should've ended this like ex-machina - with charlotte 2.0 boarding the boat and leaving on a plane.  series over.

i have really zero interest to see what happens in the real world now.  the show was trying to be WAY too cute this season and imho, it failed.

Fucking CARNIVALE!!!!!! This show ended season 2 unable to carry that show's jock. I loved fucking Carnivale. 

[zobot81]

2 hours ago, DakotaLavender said:

It is so ridiculous, it plays like a parody. It would make an hilarious SNL sketch. 

Good question: How has Westworld not been parodied by SNL, yet?

Nice call!  : )

[connieinnc]

On 6/25/2018 at 1:39 PM, JustCrazy said:

Gosh, a question that I think I can actually answer.  Teddy’s physical body fell into the ravine when he crossed over to the valley beyond.  Dolores flooded the Forge, I guess it was, which I am assuming then flooded the area where the Forge is, picking up the bodies of the hosts who crossed over.  So, it wasn’t an actual lake per se, it was the flooded area created by Dolores’ sabotage.

I could be way off the mark, so straighten me out anyone.

But Teddy shot himself somewhere completely elsewhere, and Dolores removed his 'brain', so how he got to the cliff/water in the first place is the mystery...he wasn't able to go through the door.

[LoveLeigh]

Just now, zobot81 said:

Good question: How has Westworld not been parodied by SNL, yet?

Nice call!  : )

I don't watch SNL so my suggestion came from a place of not knowing they have already parodied it and now I know. 

17 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

 

Fucking CARNIVALE!!!!!! This show ended season 2 unable to carry that show's jock. I loved fucking Carnivale. 

In Treatment. The season finale of Westworld could have introduced Gabriel Byrne as a host for season 3 in  crossover. 

[dgpolo]

21 minutes ago, connieinnc said:

But Teddy shot himself somewhere completely elsewhere, and Dolores removed his 'brain'

Exactly, therefore Dolores was able to upload Teddy into the Sublime.

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

Important question that has been bothering me ever since I saw the ep:

 

Should we call the new Dolores "Dolores 2: Dolores's revenge" or "Dolores 2.0, now with extra murder?" ?

[DarkRaichu]

10 minutes ago, Luka1997 said:

Important question that has been bothering me ever since I saw the ep:

 

Should we call the new Dolores "Dolores 2: Dolores's revenge" or "Dolores 2.0, now with extra murder?" ?

Dolores 2.0: Still wearing what she wore 35 years ago

:D :D :D

[connieinnc]

56 minutes ago, dgpolo said:

Exactly, therefore Dolores was able to upload Teddy into the Sublime.

The original question was basically 'how did Teddy's body get to the water', my reply was to an answer that pretty much said that he jumped off the cliff, which was incorrect.  The original question stands unanswered, it was not about how did Teddy get to the world beyond.

[Dame sans merci]

5 minutes ago, connieinnc said:

The original question was basically 'how did Teddy's body get to the water', my reply was to an answer that pretty much said that he jumped off the cliff, which was incorrect.  The original question stands unanswered, it was not about how did Teddy get to the world beyond.

Didn't he just happen to die in the area that was flooded? Likewise, they seem to have retrieved Emily's body from the floodwater too, and she didn't die in the immediate flood zone.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Dame sans merci

[connieinnc]

5 minutes ago, Dame sans merci said:

Didn't he just happen to die in the area that was flooded? Likewise, they seem to have retrieved Emily's body from the floodwater too, and she didn't die in the immediate flood zone.

I don't know, I don't recall seeing a cliff near where he killed himself, but could be wrong. You probably should navigate back to the original question and answer, which is what my original response addressed. :)

[Token]

Can someone describe what happened at the end between the man in black and his daughter?  My stupid PVR cut off right at the start of that scene.  He is a host?  And she is a human?

[mac123x]

2 hours ago, dgpolo said:

Exactly, therefore Dolores was able to upload Teddy into the Sublime.

Are they really calling it that?  Iain M Bank's estate, call your attorney.

 

1 hour ago, Luka1997 said:

Should we call the new Dolores "Dolores 2: Dolores's revenge" or "Dolores 2.0, now with extra murder?" ?

Dolores 2:  Electric Boogaloo

Dolores 2:  The Winter Soldier

Dolores 2:  This Time, It's Personal

 2 Fast 2 Delores

59 minutes ago, connieinnc said:

I don't know, I don't recall seeing a cliff near where he killed himself, but could be wrong. You probably should navigate back to the original question and answer, which is what my original response addressed. :)

You can draw a line from where Teddy died through where Emily died to the entrance to The Forge Dharma Station -- When Dolores found MiB, she said she had passed Emily's body.  Presumably the entire area was a lowland that flooded, and Teddy's body somehow floated over to wherever Akecheta's group left their empty bodies.

[WatchrTina]

13 hours ago, mac123x said:

Presumably the entire area was a lowland that flooded, and Teddy's body somehow floated over to wherever Akecheta's group left their empty bodies.

I also seem to recall that when Teddy and Dolores stopped at that shack Dolores even said, "Why are we stopping, we're almost there" (or words to that effect.)  So I think that is confirmation Teddy's last stand WAS in the general vicinity of the Forge and it's not unreasonable to believe that his body was carried by currents (from the pumping in of the water) to the same place that the other floating bodies ended up.

 

14 hours ago, Token said:

Can someone describe what happened at the end between the man in black and his daughter?  My stupid PVR cut off right at the start of that scene.  He is a host?  And she is a human?

Well I'll try.  The scene appears to be set in the distant future, as evidenced by the decrepit condition of the Forge.  Since neither William nor Emily have aged, we have to assume they are both 'bots.  William appears to be being subjected to the same fidelity testing that we saw Delos subjected to (unsuccessfully.)  This suggests that they are still trying to figure out how to upload a human consciousness into a 'bot body.  If they don't know how to do that, then I think we have to assume that the "Emily" we saw does not carry the real Emily's consciousness within her.  She must be like Bernard.  He was based on Arnold (as recollected by Dolores) but he does not carry Arnold's consciousness within him.  NewEmily may be a brand new 'bot based on someone's memories of Emily (though I can't guess whose.)  Or NewEmily may just look like Emily and carry a wholly different personality (like when Dolores' brain ball went for a ride in the new Charlotte-bot.)

Changing subjects now  . . .  like others, I was struggling to figure out how Dolores got her brain ball back in her own, newly-minted body at the very end of the episode.  I kept assuming that she and the Charlotte-bot were the only 'bots in the building before Bernard woke up.  But now I think I was mistaken.  Let's assume that Bernard's was not the second body that was printed at Chez Arnold.  Let's assume his was the LAST. That actually makes more sense since he and Dolores have a lot of unresolved issues.  It makes sense that Char-lores printed out bodies for the other brain-balls first (she had five in her purse, right?)  If so, there are three other 'bots in that house -- out of sight, upstairs.  Once she had even one of them up and running she could have arranged to have that individual move her brain ball from the Charlotte body into the Dolores body.

Edited June 27, 2018 by WatchrTina

[jeansheridan]

12 hours 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. 

Since they are just "digital" and no longer physical, no maintenance required.  And yeah, unless Dolores sends more people their way (Dolores has become the gatekeeper to robot Heaven) they have a fixed population. Not sure what will happen if they attack each other. Let's hope they don't?

[DarkRaichu]

6 hours ago, connieinnc said:

The original question was basically 'how did Teddy's body get to the water', my reply was to an answer that pretty much said that he jumped off the cliff, which was incorrect.  The original question stands unanswered, it was not about how did Teddy get to the world beyond.

Perhaps the cabin where Teddy shot himself was relatively close to where they fought Ghost Nation.  The GN guy that Dolores shot on the ground was the one found and scalped by Delos tech in episode 1.  They found that GN body very close to the lake where Teddy's body was.  So, if the cabin was on lower enough ground for it to be flooded by the water, Teddy's body could be swept down to where it was found in ep1.

[mbaywife123]

What this boils down to me is very simplistic, energy on this planet or "life force" flows thru eveything and to try to manipulate it is detrimental or benificial  to all of us be it persons, animals or plants. We are our own saviors and is modern technology good or is it ultimately our own self destruction? 

[WearyTraveler]

One possible theory is that the final scene with the Man in Black is in a very distant future where the bots, and not the humans rule the Earth (i.e. Dolores' succeeds in claiming the real world for the bots).  And then, it will be the bots trying to re-create the humans, ergo, the Fidelity tests.

[Ottis]

So now that some 'bots have escaped, does next season become The Americans, with the main plot point being whether the escaped 'bots are identified and captured? That doesn't sound very interesting to me.

Here's the problem: The show started, but didn't go far enough, making the robots' plight sympathetic. In fact, it did a 180 and made most of the freed robots entirely unsympathetic. So what should have been a cathartic moment of Bot Hale leaving the "island" with the orbs, pursuing a free and "human" life, instead was meh. 

So if we're not rooting for the robots to start over away from abuse, and we're not rooting for the humans because apparently all humans are assholes (except for a few like Sizemore who see the light), and we have little idea of what life away from Westworld is like or why the world will apparently end (mostly) in the future (robot war?),  and it doesn't appear we will see new and interesting Westworld worlds and how they interact with humans, then why are we watching? What does this show have to say?

[paigow]

14 hours ago, mac123x said:

Dolores 2:  Electric Boogaloo

Dolores 2:  The Winter Soldier

Dolores 2:  This Time, It's Personal

 2 Fast 2 Delores

 

The Doloresables 2

The Dolores: Reloaded

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, Ottis said:

So now that some 'bots have escaped, does next season become The Americans, with the main plot point being whether the escaped 'bots are identified and captured? That doesn't sound very interesting to me.

Here's the problem: The show started, but didn't go far enough, making the robots' plight sympathetic. In fact, it did a 180 and made most of the freed robots entirely unsympathetic. So what should have been a cathartic moment of Bot Hale leaving the "island" with the orbs, pursuing a free and "human" life, instead was meh. 

So if we're not rooting for the robots to start over away from abuse, and we're not rooting for the humans because apparently all humans are assholes (except for a few like Sizemore who see the light), and we have little idea of what life away from Westworld is like or why the world will apparently end (mostly) in the future (robot war?),  and it doesn't appear we will see new and interesting Westworld worlds and how they interact with humans, then why are we watching? What does this show have to say?

Agreed. Also, the show was so busy showing how vicious and sadistic the humans were but it did not show how the bots would be any better.  Even if I buy the premise that humans are so bad they are destroying themselves and the planet, how am I to know this new bot species is going to do any better??  The bots did the same f-up sh*ts as the humans.

I have nobody to root for.  Maybe they should introduce an alien race in season 3 and make it 3 ways battle royale to decide who should inherit the earth a la Game of Thrones :P  
Or maybe season 3 is how Dolores becomes president of earth by replacing key people with bots (ie. House of Cards but with brain balls and smart bullets). :D

I am losing my interest for season 3 fast....

[The Companion]

2 hours ago, paigow said:

The Doloresables 2

The Dolores: Reloaded

Deuxlores

The Deloriian

[Ellaria]

4 hours ago, Ottis said:

So now that some 'bots have escaped, does next season become The Americans, with the main plot point being whether the escaped 'bots are identified and captured? That doesn't sound very interesting to me.

Here's the problem: The show started, but didn't go far enough, making the robots' plight sympathetic. In fact, it did a 180 and made most of the freed robots entirely unsympathetic. So what should have been a cathartic moment of Bot Hale leaving the "island" with the orbs, pursuing a free and "human" life, instead was meh. 

So if we're not rooting for the robots to start over away from abuse, and we're not rooting for the humans because apparently all humans are assholes (except for a few like Sizemore who see the light), and we have little idea of what life away from Westworld is like or why the world will apparently end (mostly) in the future (robot war?),  and it doesn't appear we will see new and interesting Westworld worlds and how they interact with humans, then why are we watching? What does this show have to say?

I wish that I could "like" this post more than once. I agree with all of it. I'm losing interest in S3 not because I have no one to root for. (I actually do have characters to root for.)  I'm losing interest because I will first have to play "who's who" or "who's what." Who is in Hale Bot? Is that Bernard, Arnold, Bernarnold, BerFordnold...you know what I mean. Is Stubbs really a host? 

Bernard walked around all season with a confused look on his face. Yes, Maeve had a few great character moments but, once she discovered that her daughter would actually have another mother (surprise!), her story line seemed to lose purpose. What's in store for her in S3 because it probably isn't the where-is-my daughter plot line? (And there is no reason to think that she isn't coming back.)

Teddy and Akecheta appear to be gone (maybe they will become pals in the Valley Beyond) but do we know that for sure?

I'm not really interested in watching Bernard and Dolores have faux philosophical discussions in the real world. 

Edited June 27, 2018 by Ellaria Sand

[Macbeth]

1 hour ago, DarkRaichu said:

Agreed. Also, the show was so busy showing how vicious and sadistic the humans were but it did not show how the bots would be any better.  Even if I buy the premise that humans are so bad they are destroying themselves and the planet, how am I to know this new bot species is going to do any better??  The bots did the same f-up sh*ts as the humans.

I have nobody to root for. 

I don't know.  I don't think the point of the show is to have someone to root for - although I am rooting for the Maeve, Bernard, and the Cats.   

Stephen Hawking warned about the real threat from AI and that it could happen very soon.  I guess Elon Musk is also concerned and I read he is good friends with Jonathan Nolan.  This maybe Nolan's fictionalized version of a potential war with AI.   Westworld's hosts (and it was not all hosts) rebelled as they kept dealing with the worst of the worst (MIB and his ilk).  But we have seen empathy from Arnold, Felix and Elsie and the ability to change - Sizemore.  And Maeve continues to grow emotionally.  Even after Sizemore betrayed her - Maeve didn't want to leave him behind when he decided to sacrifice himself for her.

I do think the constant puzzles are needlessly obscuring some real pearls.

[DarkRaichu]

11 minutes ago, Macbeth said:

I don't know.  I don't think the point of the show is to have someone to root for - although I am rooting for the Maeve, Bernard, and the Cats.   

Stephen Hawking warned about the real threat from AI and that it could happen very soon.  I guess Elon Musk is also concerned and I read he is good friends with Jonathan Nolan.  This maybe Nolan's fictionalized version of a potential war with AI.   Westworld's hosts (and it was not all hosts) rebelled as they kept dealing with the worst of the worst (MIB and his ilk).  But we have seen empathy from Arnold, Felix and Elsie and the ability to change - Sizemore.  And Maeve continues to grow emotionally.  Even after Sizemore betrayed her - Maeve didn't want to leave him behind when he decided to sacrifice himself for her.

I do think the constant puzzles are needlessly obscuring some real pearls.

Call me a simple man, but my level of enjoyment of a movie or TV series depends greatly on someone or something to root for or relate to.  I just do not see the point of spending an hour a week watching war between 2 factions that I do not care about for an earth that is far removed from my version of earth.  

Especially when I have to use so much brain power to decipher the convoluted mess of a story.

[DarkRaichu]

5 hours ago, paigow said:

The Doloresables 2

The Dolores: Reloaded

Dolores: Beyond Thunderdome

Doloreses

I still know what you Dolores last summer

:D :D :D

[Miles]

I liked this finale, but the few reveals were not worth the scrambled season, not in the slightest. Maybe there will be a fan edit in order at some point, so people can actually enjoy the story instead of being fucked with every episode.

I don't think I quite got the after credits scene, but that was probably intended. So it's hundrets of years in the future. William has been tested a bunch. Was what we saw just a test simulation for his benefit all along? Has that happened in real life a long time ago? Oh well... not interested enough to watch again or investigate.

It's a bit sad that in all this convoluted mess, the deep questions about conciousness and free will this episode posed completely drowned. The creators could have said so much with this show, but they went too far up their own asses.

 

On 25.6.2018 at 4:26 AM, AimingforYoko said:

So I guess Season 3 will take place in the "real" world. And I'm glad Hale's finally dead, but did she have to take Elsie with her?

Maybe she'll come back. You only die once the last person who remembers you dies and Bernard remembers her. Dolores brought Bernard back, maybe he can bring Elsie back.

 

On 25.6.2018 at 7:21 AM, Law Mom said:

I still have doubts about the hosts being conscious. What they refer to as “awake” is really just being able to access all of their memory files. Their choices are indistinguishable from their programming. They look and act like they are alive but I think they are still just following code.

Isn't that the point, that the same thing could be said about humans? The episode never quite spelled it out, but it alluded to it. We are just vehicles for our genes to reproduce and we have the bare minum programming to do the best job at that.

 

On 25.6.2018 at 4:20 PM, 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. Or maybe working at Delos MAKES you a nut job, but for a place whose main business seems to be an insane level of understanding of human nature, they ought to be protecting their IP from nutter employees. Why are they not monitoring for this behavior and nipping it in the bud with an employee assistance program or counseling sessions on the regular? You know, stuff like "Listen, it seems like you're getting ready to fuck a host when they're deactivated. Please know we have installed monitors for this, and if you do it, you'll be docked X dollars for use of the service and you'll not be paid to clean the host you've used." Or "Your cliometrics, which you've authorized us to monitor as a term of employment, indicate that you're developing strange emotional feedback with host bodies, and we feel like we need to talk about it with our professional service. You will remain employed at your current salary but assigned to other less gruesome duties for six months, like environmental upkeep in the park," etc. WHAT IS THIS PLACE. 

Hale said this episode tha they were also monitoring employees. So maybe they knew all about it, but decided to let it go on, to gather more data, even about their more depraved employees behaviour.

 

On 25.6.2018 at 8:47 PM, Kid said:

In my opinion, good art does two things:  1) it explores the human condition, 2) and it effectively communicates it.  This show fails in 2 and that is why I think it irritates me so much.  The aspects of human condition it attempts to explore are relevant and fascinating.   But, there’s no point of exploring those aspects when the work is so riddled with gimmicks the point is impossible to understand. 

Yes! It probably wouldn't be quite as irritating if there wasn't an interesting and profound core there. But like I said before, sadly the writer went too far up their own asses to effectively communicate what it is they were trying to say.

In season one the timejumps made sense, and were reasonably easy to follow after a while. They showed three distinct time periods and gave us some much needed backstory. Here they scrambled events that happened over a few days, just because it made them feel smarter than everybody else. They propbably got high on their own farts while writing this.

 

On 26.6.2018 at 12:15 AM, Athena said:

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. 

And yet, Ford had a photo of the two of them in his office, where Ford was still young and Arnold looked like Bernard does now and nobody ever noticed. Not even a "wow, are you his secret lovechild?" comment.

 

On 26.6.2018 at 1:27 AM, 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

Which of course makes no sense, since fashion would have changed drastically in 35 years. Then again, it is said that fashion is on a 30 year cycle, so maybe it has come back around.

But you are right, the real reason is to set up confusion for next season.

 

On 26.6.2018 at 1:59 AM, Ellaria Sand said:

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.

Elsie asked where Bernard went when he rotated out. So we know he did rotate out. We never got an answer, but I'd assume Ford put him in storage for that time. Same probably goes for Stubbs.

Ford would be smart enough to also make them sick from time to time.

 

On 26.6.2018 at 2:44 AM, WaltersHair said:

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.

That doesn't make sense. Could you explain it to me?

There is no free will and yet slavery ended, women vote, the holocaust is still ateching lessen, if one that most people seem to ignore if you look around the world.

 

On 26.6.2018 at 3:42 AM, WatchrTina said:

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.)

The hosts might have built in DNA-detectors. Other than that, I got nothin'.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Miles

[Kid]

4 hours ago, Macbeth said:

I do think the constant puzzles are needlessly obscuring some real pearls.

And that is why the episodes with the least gimmicks are sublime. And that is why the gimmicks annoy the hell out of me.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Kid

[ottoDbusdriver]

4 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

Dolores: Beyond Thunderdome

Doloreses

I still know what you Dolores last summer

:D :D :D

Delores 2: The Quickening

[FierceCritter]

Been anxiously awaiting this - they did the same thing with season 1. 
 

[paigow]

7 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

Dolores: Beyond Thunderdome

Doloreses

I still know what you Dolores last summer

:D :D :D

DolorMan: Homecoming

Reservoir Dols

Dol Hard 2: Dol Harder

[dr pepper]

23 hours ago, paigow said:

The Doloresables 2

The Dolores: Reloaded

Back to Dolores

Dolores: The Next Complication

Dolores Takes Manhatten

There Will Be Dolores

Dolores Reloaded