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I thought that was easily one of the strongest eps. A lot of the story threads have begun to come together, and many of the murky character objectives clarified. But I’m also a big fan of Maeve, especially now that she is explicitly conflicting with Dolores’ extremist ideologies.

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Just finished episode 8.

 

I think I loved that.  In subtle ways it recasts the story of the entire series, but without seeming at first to have bomb drop story twists.

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Great ep! Probably one of the best in the series. Mainly because it regained an element of mystery. We almost feel like we're witnessing actual Native Americans encountering aliens or Starfleet Prime Directive types, but as Westworld viewers, we know that's not the case. Seems like every world has its own "woke" hosts and they battle through their Pinocchio revelations differently.

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Westworld 2x06 Phase Space

 

Very good!  I liked that we got continuations of all the ongoing storylines this week instead of just some of them with other arcs sitting out for a week.  Well, there was no advancement of the flash forward timeline, but that was to be expected since it's an even numbered episode.

 

Dolores & gang - Dolores wasn't quite so annoying this week. Teddy killing a human in cold blood was a bit much (I guess it raises the stakes).  I didn't really understand what they were blowing up at the end.

 

Maeve & gang - I found myself really not caring about the end of the Shogun World story and was happy to see them all head to WestWorld.  I mean, Sakura and Akane are just robots that will be reset into their loops once all this is over right?  Felt like it was just wasting time stretching out the season.  Anyways, it was no surprise that Maeve found her daughter attached to a new host playing her mother, but the suddent appearance of the Ghost Nation was interesting.  I recognized the lead one as the dude from Fargo season 2.  I'm curious to see where this goes next.

 

Charlotte & Delos crew - I don't see some were so sad to see Peter get bolted to a chair since again he's just a robot.  The new security guy that arrived was interesting, I expect him to die before we catch up to the flashforward timeline.

 

M.I.B. & his daughter - This was fairly interesting, because it's clear there's sooooooo much backstory here we haven't seen yet.  I wonder if we'll ever get it (like in a future season) or later this year or what.  I kinda wish we had learned muc more about them in place of the Maeve / Samurai World stuff!  When Williams told the daughter he'd go back to town with her at sunrise, I was CERTAIN she knew he was lying, and we would next see him getting up to abandon her but her just there waiting for him, and deciding to go with him.  But nope, she's just dumb and really didn't put 2 and 2 together!  Disappointing.

 

Elsie & Bernard - The most interesting storyline in terms of the larger picture.  We learn there's a "cradle" that both stores all the host's code as well as a program that runs park systems, and that "someone" seems to be running it to keep Delos out of things.  Bernard has Elsie cut his little red ball out of his brain and jack into the system and surprise surprise, it was Ford's red ball that Bernard grabbed before he was shot, brought back to the cradle, and jacked into the system.  I loved how this was revealed by showing Bernard walking through Sweetwater to find Hopkins playing piano in the saloon.

 

I don't think it was a surprise at all that Hopkins would be back (especially since we've already heard his voice in an episode or 2 this year and they had his young version in a flashback with Arnold early on just out of frame) but it was still a well-done reveal that wasn't dragged out too long.  So I had guessed earlier that Ford had Bernard take a dump of his consciousness in order to put it in a new host body, but now that we've learned William was unable to get one to stay in a body for more than 35 days means Ford probably never figured it out either (I guess), and Ford's plan was always to be jacked into a computer system rather than a body.  Or something.


Curious to see where this all goes next week!

 

 

 

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Westworld 2x07 Les Écorchés

 

Pretty good ep!  I liked very much that, like last week, we got continuations of all the storylines, and not only that - they actually interacted with each other!  Maeve's story collided with William's, while Dolore's collided with Charlotte's and then Maeve's and even Bernard and Elsie's.  And being an odd-numbered episode, we even got a continuation of the future storyline, too!  In that one, I was actually surprised Charlotte & co found out Bernard was a Host so soon, I thought that wouldn't happen until the end of the season.  After everything else that happened in this episode, I suspect Bernard lied to her about where Peter's control unit is, and he's leading them into a trap (but doing so of his own free will and not Ford directing him).

 

Overall, I thought the ep was very good from a writing standpoint, but REALLY sub-par from a directing standpoint.  For example, the Maeve / Williams combo storyline.  From a writing standpoint, it is fine: the Ghost Nation chases Maeve and her daughter to a house where Williams also is, he thinks she's part of Ford's game, there's a shootout, she turns Lawrence against him but then a Delos squad kills Lawrence, injures her and takes her away, while Williams is alive but wounded and the Ghost Nation gets the daughter.  OK, but the way this was executed was muddy and a bit strange.  Like pretty much during all the shootouts the entire episode, anyone takes one shot to any part of their body and they just fall down dead, but Williams takes like 6 shots to various parts of his body and doesn't even seem to be dripping blood.  I'm sure he'll be find next episode.  And then the Ghost Nation was like, RIGHT on their heals as they arrived at hte house, what did they do, just sit back and wait for her to fight Williams for a while before taking the daughter?  The whole sequence just wasn't handled ideally.

 

All the Bernard stuff was great, though!  His talks inside the cradle with Ford were wonderful and something Season 2 had been pretty light on.  I liked that after he came back out, Ford is still around to lead him around and apparently control him, too!  The reveal that Delos was REALLY interested in having guests come to their parts to copy their consciousnesses to put them in Hosts makes total sense and is clearly where the season has been leading.  I suddenly felt like I was watching a very very long Black Mirror episode :lol: Interesting development that they basically degrade after X days when they have free will, and Ford realized if he takes that away they can live for years (like Bernard).  Of course in that case he took away the Arnold memories too so there's more to the story I suppose.

 

Not really sure what was going on with Dolores, Peter, and Charlotte's storylines.  So the data inside Peter is a massive encryption key, but did they sucessfully copy it all out before Dolores and Teddy showed up?  And then is Peter basically dead now that Dolores took his control unit out at the end?  And what does Angela blowing up the cradle mean? All of these scenes I felt weren't directed that great either, but again from a writing standpoint I like where everything is headed.

 

One more episode till we're finally caught up!

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

And what does Angela blowing up the cradle mean? 

It means that there are no more back-ups for the hosts. Once dead, they won't be able to reset like before. In Dolores' opinion, that's the only way to be free.

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That doesn't make sense.  Every time a Host gets shot and taken out of the park, they need to re-download their entire code from the cradle?  Wouldn't it all be sitting there in the little brain balls?


Or do you mean if their heads gets blown up, they can't re-download into a fresh body

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

That doesn't make sense.  Every time a Host gets shot and taken out of the park, they need to re-download their entire code from the cradle?  Wouldn't it all be sitting there in the little brain balls?


Or do you mean if their heads gets blown up, they can't re-download into a fresh body

I don't think it is the entire code, but their sub-concious and memories seemed to be stored there instead of all in their brain balls. Like a cloud storage for the hosts data. 

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I'm pretty sure it's the sort of "base" version of the hosts and their story loops, there stored on servers if needed.  I did not think it was implied that the backups were used every time a host dies.

 

This way, if Delos regained control of the park they wouldn't be able to just hard reset back to the original story loop of the park.

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Westworld 2x08 Kiksuya

 

I don't get the heaps of praise this episode is getting online; It was good but "one of the best episodes of the entire show"?  Not to me.

 

I enjoyed Akecheta's journey from just another host to fully sentient one, and how he lived for 9 years before dying, etc.  I didn't really understand why that lead tech that came in told them to put him back into the park without updating, though.  That was weird.  I really enjoyed more of an explanation for the maze imagery, and how Akecheta's been spreading it to collect followers and wake up other Hosts.  His talk with Ford was interesting, but a little confusing.  Does this mean Akecheta is part of Ford's "Journey Into Night" narrative?  Or a random outside entity he didn't expect?  Or did he build him into the narrative after their talk?

 

It was a nice reveal that Akecheta was actually telling the story to Maeve's daughter so it could be relayed to Maeve wirelessly.  Convenient that Lee is having the techs keep Maeve alive, too!

 

I'm not sure where everything is going, but I can't wait to find out!

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It didn't really tie in THAT much with the rest, though.  Just little ties.  There's still so much of the story that needs to be told

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23 minutes ago, Jay said:

I didn't really understand why that lead tech that came in told them to put him back into the park without updating, though.

 

 

It was lazy tech people covering up a mistake.  And they did give him the update.  The dialogue is "Give him the update and put him back wherever the fuck he's supposed to be."

 

And again, lazy programmers not sticking around for the update.  I've worked with plenty of the type!

 

1 minute ago, Jay said:

It didn't really tie in THAT much with the rest, though.  Just little ties.  There's still so much of the story that needs to be told

 

Well it worked really well as a standalone story that also colors in a lot of the previous story, which is partly why I liked it so much.  Makes the world seem bigger much more successfully than just adding other parks in.  Completely recontextualizes William as a complete idiot for thinking he's found some secret game with the mazes.  That's great!

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Yea, I did like that.  At first I thought the reveal of the maze imagery after all this time was a bit of a letdown after the buildup, but the more I thought about it the more it made a lot of sense! 


I expect there to be a lot more flashbacks about Arnold's plan in the future

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William, Teddy, Maeve, oh my!

 

The trailer for the finale did the shutter effect thing to obscure all the action! I wonder if this will be the final season or if they'll make a third?

 

So glad Hopkins returned for this season, his character is the glue that binds everything together.

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When the first season came out, I remember reading that, as far as the showrunners are concerned, Westworld was envisioned as one big story in the Game of Thrones mould, told over several seasons (probably at least five). Whether they'll get that is a different matter, of course.

 

They have to make good on the implicit promise made in the first episode with Peter Abernathy's threat: "The things I will do...what they are, yet I know not, but they will be the terrors of the earth." It would be a huge let down if the terrors were to remain confined to the park for the whole show...

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16 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

This season is so much stronger for me than the first.  The show is really firing on all cylinders!  Can’t wait for the finale.

 

Even for those who didn't like it?

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Hmmm, I don't know if it will win over people who outright didn't like the first season.  I found the first season pretty good but deeply frustrating and annoying at times.  This season is much less of that for me.

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Westworld 2x09 Vanishing Point

 

Well.... that was awesome!  Ed Harris has been one of the best parts of the show since day 1, and delving into his back story this week was really terrific.  I could watch him and Anthony Hopkins share scenes all day long.  Did anyone notice when they showed Juliet's suicide, there was 2 different bathtubs shown in different shots?  One of them was darker and had blood mixed in with the water, and one of them was a lighter tub and just had regular water.  I dunno what it means, but I noticed it!


Fantastic ending with Williams killing Emily!  I personally think she was, in fact, a host and not really her, but I love how expertly they made it ambiguous by not having the neck scan of her finish, etc.  I hope we find out next week and it's not held until next season.

 

So Charlotte reprograms Clementine to be able to force other hosts to kill each other.. I guess that'd how they all end up dead in the flooded valley in the flashforwards?  Speaking of the flashforwards, this was the first odd-numbered episode of the season that didn't have them!  What!?  Surely next week the main timeline will catch up to that timeline anyway.

 

I highly doubt that Bernard was actually able to delete the Ford that's in his code.  I think Ford will be back controlling him next week.

 

I really liked how Bernard was abl to get close enough to Maeve to "transmit" Ford over to her as well, and she got his message about how she's his favorite, etc.  Confirmed that he intended her to exit the park, and he didn't expect her to come back for the daughter.  Interesting.

 

The Teddy/Dolores ending was actually kind of sad!  We knew Teddy would die at some point though since his body was found in the flashforwards in the flooded valley.

 

BTW, Angela blowing up The Cradle a few weeks ago means he can't come back to life, right?  The Cradle was where they stored all the hosts consciousnesses?

 

It's good to be all caught up!

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@Jayyep, no more resurrections; the hosts are as vulnerable and mortal as the Humans now.

 

6 hours ago, Glóin the Dark said:

When the first season came out, I remember reading that, as far as the showrunners are concerned, Westworld was envisioned as one big story in the Game of Thrones mould, told over several seasons (probably at least five). Whether they'll get that is a different matter, of course.

 

They have to make good on the implicit promise made in the first episode with Peter Abernathy's threat: "The things I will do...what they are, yet I know not, but they will be the terrors of the earth." It would be a huge let down if the terrors were to remain confined to the park for the whole show...

I think that has been executed through Dolores or will be, besides we know at the time then that Abernathy was reverting to the evil Professor role he once played in a different narrative.

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

So Charlotte reprograms Clementine to be able to force other hosts to kill each other.. I guess that'd how they all end up dead in the flooded valley in the flashforwards?

 

I dunno.... was Charlotte among the people in the farthest timeline in episode 1 that discovered the sea of dead hosts.  It certainly seemed like a surprise discovery at the time.  Of course we know Charlotte is duplicitous and conniving, so who knows what she's holding back at any given moment.

 

2 hours ago, Jay said:

I personally think she was, in fact, a host and not really her, but I love how expertly they made it ambiguous by not having the neck scan of her finish, etc.  I hope we find out next week and it's not held until next season.

 

She had the profile card that her mother had left in the music box, the music box that Emily had thrown away and assumed was lost forever but her mother must have rescued it from the trash.  That convinced me she was his real daughter.  It might be the darkest thing to happen in Westworld yet for me.  William murdering his own daughter in cold blood through his fog of paranoia and stupidity.

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Ah, Stu.  Stu Stu Stu.  William's consciousness dump is just data.  1s and 0s.  It can be stored on a "profile card", a usb stick, a dvd-r, whatever.  Ford could have "burned" it to one card, or one hundred cards.  The card he found in her hand could be the same one he put in Slaughterhouse 5, or it could be a rom of Frogger.

 

The show has, carefully and expertly, crafted it so there is exactly a 50/50 chance that she's real, or that she's a host.  There's evidence supporting both sides and no way to know until you watch the next episode.

 

For ~30 years, Ford and William have been at war with each other.  Ford told him in this episode he has a new game for William to play.  A Host that looks like his daughter and causes him to think he killed his real daughter could all be part of his game.  He knows EXACTLY how to push Williams' buttons, because he got access to his consciousness dump.

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I just heard this super wild theory for this season that I'm gonna put in spoiler tags

 

I think it would be insane if this is true so if you want to have your mind blown if it ends up being right this coming Sunday, don't read!

Spoiler

The theory is that Dolores will transfer her consciousness (I guess that egg thing in host heads) into a Charlotte body in "the Forge"/"Valley Beyond," which is I guess where Delos not only stores human memories but also the new bodies for same.  The theory is that the bodies used to store actual human consciousnesses are somehow different from Westworld host bodies so that Dolores could pass as actual human and as the person in charge in Westworld at the same time.

So basically this whole season, farthest-end-of-the-timeline Charlotte has actually been Dolores the whole time.

 

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Well Stu, here's the problem.  The season finale was shown in London last night at some event, so any "theories" you read online at this point could actually be what really happens because people who attended the event could spread what happens.

 

I was bummed when I found out about that screening, because being FINALLY caught up on the show I was like "cool, I can now actually go online and read theories and stuff!", and then I found out about the London screening and was like "damn, now I can't!"

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Westworld 2x10 The Passenger 

 

Well, that was pretty great.  I love how slowly this show shifted from a cowboys & indians show into a hard sci-fi show :)

 

Much like with Season 1, I feel immensely satisfied by Season 2 and its finale in particular.  What I mean is, it's a show that constantly asks questions and leaves you wondering what's going on, but with both seasons I feel like they truly gave all the answers we needed to end the season, not leaving anything massive open, but still leaving the right amount open to make you want to come back for another season later.

 

The resolution of and explanation of the whole Door metaphor and the purpose of The Forge and what William's project was the whole time, etc was all satisfying.  I like how they didn't even say it in this episode, but it explains why a few episodes back they found 1/3 of the Hosts had no code inside - those are the ones that made it through the door.  BTW, I'm assuming that William's only project was the recording of their 4 million guests and attemping to put them into Host bodies that look like themselves, while it was Ford who actually made The Door we saw (after he learned about it when Akecheta found him scalping Hosts), AND made it bea way for the Hosts to escape our reality, all without William's knowledge ("your project interfered with my stories" meaning Akecheta is doing something different than intended entirely because he stumbled upon The Forge).

 

Interesting how many humans died this episode - Lee, Elsie, and Charlotte - and that one "human" - Stubbs - is revealed to be a Host all along (at least I think that's what their conversation meant).  I doubt the Hosts that "died" like Maeve are really off the show, they'll come back.  We know Dolores got off the island (tons of LOST parallels this episode BTW) with four other Brain Balls besides Bernard's, it will be interesting to see who they are (they could be Hosts OR Guests).  Am I right that Dolores uploaded Teddy into the valley beyond the door, too?  I wonder where she satellite-zapped them all to.  It's interesting that all that Hosts left in the real world have their main driving force (Teddy for Dolores, the daugther for Maeve, the girlfriend for Akecheta) in the Valley Beyond....

 

They did another great job of leaving it ambiguous on if Anthony Hopkins will be back or not.  I am guessing it will be like this year where we won't see him for a while then he'll turn up towards the end.

 

Old Man Williams' journey was interesting.  The dude's had a rough life!  I have no idea where they'll take him next year, other than perhaps hunting down Hosts in the real world somewhere for some reason.  He's lost everything!

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Margo Channing said:

So how about that post-credits scene?

 

Well, I suppose it is purposely ambiguous, but I think the simplest explanation is also the most plausible:

 

The Old Man William (Man In Black / Ed Harris) we've followed for both seasons was the real William, real flesh and blood human, all the way up until he shoots his fingers off and collapses.  Along the way, he really killed his own real life daughter (or, it was a Host put there by Ford and he just thinks he did, that part is still open).  Sometime after the flood, the Delos team finds him and presumably he'll get medical attention and survive (with a robot hand, perhaps?).

 

At some point in the future, someone has taken the recording of his consciousness and put it into a Host body [or, it's all digital like the earlier Delos tests before the body ones] and ran a fidelity test to see how accurately he'd recreate his real life choice, including killing his daughter again, etc.  So, I would say the footage we saw of him getting up with no fingers, wrapping them up, and heading down the elevator into The Forge was not something the real William did in reality, as he was passed out by that point.  I guess he just lied there collapsed until he was found, and they took his hat off, and used the recording in the hat to make the clone, the clone would only have the memories up until the collapse.   

 

But then again, when the Delos squad arrived they only found Bernard's ATV near the Forge door, no Ed Harris body, so maybe he actually did go down into the Forge and did something we haven't seen, and then came back up and passed out again?  IDK.

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I agree, which is the same feeling I had after season 1's finale.  They do a great job (so far) or crafting these finely tuned, satisfying 10 episodes of television, that also can be built on later if renewed and become even more satisfying.  Pretty good stuff here.  Probably the second best show on TV

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Finally caught the finale! I agree that the ending for this season could serve as a neat ending for the entire show should it not return. The idea of Dolores and Bernard recreating themselves in the real world with Ford's help was beautiful, their characters have been so consistently strong that they finally got an ending they deserved, whatever that may entail.

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Yea, I almost don't want to see their adventures in the real world.  But, at the same time, I'm sure Joy and Nolan have cooked up a pretty interesting story for them.

 

I have a feeling season 3 will begin years later, and begin with grand re-opening of Westworld and the other parks after the massacre, and we'll follow some new guests and see some new Hosts in old roles, etc.

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