[TV] Westworld

[Deleted]

I hope there's only 1 or 2 more seasons before they write themselves into a corner. One season of Bernard and Dolores stretching their legs in the real world trading esoteric whispers about free will and being 'alive'. Then a final season where their ideas go to war. We know the simulation tech lives on.

2 seasons max. A season 5 would butcher this hard.

[elaina]

video

so good

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The post-credits scene is the 'far, far future' at the same place James Delos was tested for fidelity in episode 4. MiB should have relived the same defining moment (killing his daughter) a hundred times over to succesfully make the humanhost transfer. iirc that room is near the Cradle cuz Elsie and Bernard were there in episode 4.

Yeah I know that. It is still the Forge we see which I think melds into a room similar to where Delos was in ep4. Pretty sure MIB in this scene is in the Forge digital world being loop tested (same digital world where Dolores and Bernard went and saw Delos in the finale).

[Deleted]

Yeah I know that. It is still the Forge we see which I think melds into a room similar to where Delos was in ep4. Pretty sure MIB in this scene is in the Forge digital world being loop tested (same digital world where Dolores and Bernard went and saw Delos in the finale).

It'd have to be digital, there's no way that room and the Forge have the same physical location.

[dvaz]

Meh.

I guess thats one way to race change a character :/

I was hoping Hale to die an horrible death. Getting headshotted by Dolores / Hale was super unsatisfying.

Dolores been stupid enough to leave her guard down with Bernard to get heads hooted like a nub didn't fit her character either.

That whole part with Logan explaining shit reminded me of Matrix Reloaded.

Lee Seizmore saccing himself was cringe and totally unnecessary.

Not very interested in Season 3 TBH.

[elaina]

It'd have to be digital, there's no way that room and the Forge have the same physical location.

I agree. The Forge looked dilapidated too and I'm not sure what the motivation would be for showing it that way other than shock value to William, but maybe that was why.

[Collegeguy]

This show is such a mindfuck, but I really like Hale's pants.

[elaina]

This show is such a mindfuck, but I really like Hale's pants.

They are well pressed.

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I guess thats one way to race change a character :/

It was just to escape. She changed back, as we saw. I did find my hatred of Hale making me not like the "disguise". Really wish the buzzsaw in Ep7 (I think it was) had at least drawn blood on her >.>

Lee Seizmore saccing himself was cringe and totally unnecessary.

I wasn't really sure why he needed to die so badly, but the artist sacrificing himself to protect his work is poetic I guess.

I liked the Logan usage. Kind of a weird thing about this show is it can essentially bring any actor back for any reason because of stuff like that. I have mixed feelings about that.

[dvaz]

It was just to escape. She changed back, as we saw. I did find my hatred of Hale making me not like the "disguise". Really wish the buzzsaw in Ep7 (I think it was) had at least drawn blood on her >.>

Yeah but it wasn't her plant tho. She legit got owned by Bernard, the fact that he chose to rez her in Hale's body was because he got mad his girl (RIP Elsie, #Neverforget) got dropped right in front of his eyes. For all intent and purposes, Dolores revolution died right there if not for Bernard.

Anyhow, why would DoloHale create the Clementine virus and have her allahu akbar all the hosts to begin with, just to save them at the end.

[Vakir]

This took a giant steaming shit all over my personal enjoyment of the series, frankly. It asks a whole bunch of new questions and entertains a whole host of new philosophical concepts, but little to none of them align with the questions and stories that were introduced in Season 1, and instead it devalues most of those same concepts that were so compelling.

1. The Man in Black having been a human-host all this time having his fidelity tested completely undermines the story surrounding him and contrasting it pre-heel turn William from Season 1. It means that the experience we've seen for the him up until now has been one colored by a Host that isn't the exact same person as the original William. Our actual involvement with William is limited to almost exclusively scenes with Jimi Simpson. You can ask the question until you're blue in the face "Is a host copy the same as the original?" but it's ultimately made irrelevant if he has actually gone through thousands-odd recreations of the scenario in that "fidelity testing."

It also means the Maze not being for him is completely crapped on, because he's still ultimately a host, just a host with a human consciousness already transferred. The whole "immortality" angle is interesting on its own - The Riddle of the Sphinx was an exceptional episode and probably the only one of the season I truly loved, but the thing that made the Man in Black so compelling was his story and potential trajectory as a human being disconnected from any further twists like this one. He was a human, and in the process, a deeply tragic and flawed character that reflects our understanding of it. Adding more ambiguity into his own psyche undermines that it's a plot hook driven by emotion and ethics, not intellectualism and states of consciousness.

It went from a story about how people when left to their own desires can lose touch with their own compass of morality and turned into something completely different. What could've been a cool second season about William's ability to reconnect with his humanity or potentially rejecting that possibility and going further down the hole into villainy was instead...neither and stupid.

2. Instead of coming up with new ways to cram Dolores' overwrought speeches into a new, equally talented actress, why not do the sensible thing and just not fucking kill off Hale? There's a cool idea on paper that "oh, the most dangerous person is now walking in the skin of the leader!" but it completely overshadows and obfuscates everything else surrounding it when there's too many convoluted details being added into the picture. You had a great human antagonist and instead you opted to just...give Evan Rachel Wood's lines to Tessa Thompson instead, but also both of them. Uh, OK?

3. Is Dolores "not so different" from humanity, or is she the exact same? Because the trajectory of her arc through the entire season has been that she's repeating the same behaviors her captors did to deprive people of choice, but she still resurrects her absolute biggest threat and I guess also his copy son and grants him that choice. And while you can make that an awkward story idea for a Season 3, it falls apart the moment you realize that giving someone the choice to do that is irrelevant if you've already planned to undermine their choice regardless. What constitutes someone having "that choice" if you're obviously going to futureproof your invasion plan for their choice to be meaningless? Does she just awkwardly let Bernard and his son leave? Did she buy them a hut in the woods, or do they both just amble out to do whatever the hell? What the fuck is the endgame of something so ridiculous?

4. The emotional resonance in Season 1 of Bernard and Dolores' deep connection, and how it reflected Arnold and Dolores' connection as a repetition of the past, goes right out the fucking window when we learn that Bernard was made in part by Dolores. It means her overall power, control, and ascension of her as a character with control and agency was already well in the workings before we could connect with it as the audience. Our journey with Dolores over the course of Season 1 doesn't matter because the character is frankly so completely different on top of her already being competent enough to pop out Bernards like it's nothing.

5. This seems minor, but it isn't - Stubbs is a Host. OK. Except now we're hitting BSG "Who is a Cylon?" territory. That wasn't the point of the damn show before. Bernard being a host was a big fucking deal because it wasn't that kind of story. It felt like a special and extremely specific circumstance that came from Ford's inability to let go, his extreme sense of nostalgia and sentimentality, especially since it reflected him making host copies of his family. Hell, Bernard's construction was housed in the same freaking building, there was a clear thematic relevance there. Westworld was a story about a clear division between humans and hosts and how they had completely different worlds, with Bernard being an extremely confused and conflicted case because of his dual nature. But now, nope, it's theoretically possible that entire sweeping generalized chunks of Westworld's grunt work could be Host-driven, and it completely craps on the whole thing. It exists basically to just bust out more "X is a Host!" Reddit spam for the sake of generating clicks on media websites to drum up ratings.

6. Literally the entirety of Season 2 with Bernard was Jeffrey Wright walking around looking bewildered and doing things for the sake of the plot with no actual character motivation. He is literally just a tool for the narrative on either side to push things around to get from Point A to B so the flood could happen and Dolores could have a hole put in her first head. "But isn't that the point, what a tragic figure being used by both, etc." Yeah...except when we hit the point that he's supposed to have made his own decisions and act with clarity, his decision is completely baffling and is contradicted 5 minutes later.

So Bernard proceeds to stop Dolores because she's creating a nightmare. But then Bernard is stopped by Elsie (in a moment where she stops being one of the most empathetic characters in the show and becomes a complete prick) just so she can get fridged for his own personal development after it already happened a season ago. Except when he finally makes his own decision to bring back Dolores in Hale's body...not 10 fucking minutes later he actively resolves to stop her in the real world from wiping out humanity despite that he already made the decision to bring her back in the first place and effectively said "you're right."

So, in short, over the course of about 20 minutes, Bernard has gone from being against Dolores to being with her to being against her again after being the entire reason for her ascension and transfer into the real world. Boy, I sure do love it when my defacto protagonist at this point literally has no substance to his decisions because at any given time he can just spontaneously shift to a nonsensical one to advance the plot.

It feels like Westworld is senselessly cramming in new details and plot hooks and twists at any given time for the purposes of almost showing that they can rather than because it actually amplifies the story. When we had the dual-timeline in Season 1, sure, it was confusing...but there was a purpose in that it reflected that we had a heroic character and we were seeing their fallen self out of time. It hurt to see the fall from Jimmi Simpson's side of the character and get that revelation at the same time Dolores did, whether it was obvious or not. It also reflected the loops the hosts themselves experienced so when there were elements of repetition, it was woven into the themes of the show itself - it caused the viewer to experience the same elements of deja vu as the Hosts and how it connected to the way their stories progressed. Here? I don't get any of that. I get the sense of two showrunners too up their own assholes in how god damn clever their doctorate term paper was to deliver a compelling connection. A combination of that and of artificially creating hype and theories on social media/in journalist outlets for the sake of bumping ratings.

[Mister K]

This took a giant steaming shit all over my personal enjoyment of the series, frankly. It asks a whole bunch of new questions and entertains a whole host of new philosophical concepts, but little to none of them align with the questions and stories that were introduced in Season 1, and instead it devalues most of those same concepts that were so compelling.

I am still halfway through the episode atmo, but all I can say it has indeed answered quite few questions but created about 100 different new ones. This is good, in order the story not to be too conclusive, we have answers to search for in Season 3, which is of course intentionall. Why else have Season 3 when you can close the gaps in Season 2? This was pretty much the case in Season 1, which was all a setup/pre-quel for season 2.

It's very Ridley Scott/Alien like. To be asking such questions, is the privilege of experiencing the story and overall outcome in the end.

It's all a mindfuck, but a good one.

[Vakir]

That's not really the issue. My problem is that the questions that are asked are asked for the sake of being questions and to have a season to enter.

They don't thematically mesh with what the show was about up to now and they're largely stupid questions disconnected from the at least somewhat relatable speculative qualities of the first season. At a certain point, a question becomes so manic, disjointed, and ridiculous that the answer ceases to be anything other than "who cares?" because it's so overwhelming in how pseudointellectual it is and it doesn't actually convey any kind of truth about the human experience.

Or to put it simply, plot overtook character, emotion, meaning, and connection. There's tons of plot, tons of revelation, tons of twists, but I have no reason to care about any of it anymore.

Westworld was about all kinds of twisty ways of conveying information about stories because those stories told "deeper truths" about characters that reflected things that we experience on a relatable level in the waking world. They're metaphorical concepts conveyed through fiction, with speculative elements that can happen that actually impact the present manner of thinking, which is what good science fiction does.

There is no deeper truth, hidden meaning, or understanding of anything with a soul to the things that S2 introduces. It's almost all shocking swerves for the sake of them. Bernard meandering for 10 episodes with no actual individual drive of his own only to kill Dolores only to bring her back only to regret bringing her back in the course of around 15 minutes told me nothing about humanity, the ethics of robotics, the future of technology, mortality, morality, or anything in-between. It existed purely to set up 10 more episodes.

[Mister K]

That finale was packed. One could argue they should've left out all the Shogun world stuff and spread the reveals of this finale over the season.

Not as good as season 1, but I'm still fine with most of what happened.

They need to start letting go of (certain) characters though. Sure, we lost like 3 in this finale but how many bullets do MiB and Maeve need to just die of blood loss alone. Even these recent deaths don't feel that impactful because we've seen people eat a dozen bullets and live.

It had some cheesy moments, but overall I dreaded them to jump the shark completely, which they haven't.

Agreed, they need to start narrowing it down in Season 3.

Season 1 a setup, the idea has been ingrained into our heads.
Season 2 becoming "real", and "self-aware" answering some concepts and story plots while creating more for season 3.
Season 3 should expect narrowing down on characters, the overall plot to working towards the conclusion of the series.
Season 4, 5 & 6? Well all depends what we get in Season 3, obviously.

Could see this as a strong trilogy.

[Deleted]

[QUOTE=Vakir;49628184]1. The Man in Black having been a human-host all this time having his fidelity tested completely undermines the story surrounding him
Glad you paid no attention while watching! MiB was HUMAN always apart from the S2 after credit scene.

I get the sense of two showrunners too up their own assholes in how god damn clever their doctorate term paper was to deliver a compelling connection. A combination of that and of artificially creating hype and theories on social media/in journalist outlets for the sake of bumping ratings.

And here we have the typical bad human complaining about something to complex for him blaming the creators for his inabilities....

[Vakir]

Glad you paid no attention while watching! MiB was HUMAN always apart from the S2 after credit scene.

Except even by Lisa Joy's own words, the jury is still out on this. We know that at some point, a human-host hybrid of MiB, whether it be the primary one or an off-shoot following the events of Season 2, is repeating those same behaviors as part of a fidelity test far into the future under the supervision of a host-hybrid of his daughter.

The problem is, if he has done thousands of iterations of this, we are still uncertain of whether the MiB of Season 2's events is one of many iterations acting this out before the late-late variant of the park we're seeing.

I got that much. It's not complicated. My point is more "What does this truly, actually say about the character?" We already had it drilled into our skulls in the most hand-holding and basic way that humans are not complicated and they follow the same trajectory over and over again. Humans amount to around 10,000 lines of code. Delos repeated the same situation over and over and always lets Logan go. Et cetera. None of this is new, and none of it is new to anyone who has had much human interaction to begin with. "Humans are not complicated" is not some revolutionary thesis statement, but they treat it like it is.

So to reinforce that, yes, William would proceed to follow the exact same series of behaviors thousands of times to end up at the park in the same situation isn't news to us. It exists to have a snappy post-credits scene for people to flip out over.

There's other problems - "How the hell does he act out all of these events in that order over thousands of iterations, up to him having his hand blown off in the exact same way, when many of those events would've required recreation of all of those complicated events?" but I guess we can just chalk that up to the Hosts continuously recreating those scenarios either virtually or with other Hosts to check his "fidelity."

And here we have the typical bad human complaining about something to complex for him blaming the creators for his inabilities....

But see, I understand everything going on. It's not terribly difficult.

My problem is that in attempting to make the story complex, nothing is added to it. It feels like the equivalent of overcompensation - like a middle aged man buying a snazzy sports car to get his mind off his pending mortality and small penis. It's awesome to have complicated stories, but only as complicated as they need to be to express their ultimate point with a degree of brevity.

If I write a story, but I feel like it is either weak or doesn't strike a chord with a reader in the way that I intend, adding more twists is at least a surefire way to get attention.

At its core, Season 2 felt to me like a betrayal in that way. It's two extremely smart and creative people - Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy - trying way, way too hard to make me feel that they're intelligent, even if I already believed them, and instead ending up looking ridiculous and pretentious.

[RobertoCarlos]

Interesting finale, I liked it.

Clementine running out in front on a horse in a bloody dress loaded up with a virus was such great imagery and quite creative.

The bernard arc explains a lot with mixing up his memories so he couldnt be stopped but it was kind of a stretch/random and the show asks so many more questions but it was an enjoyable season.

One thing I dont quite understand is, the idea of immortality turning yourself into a host is kind of weird because its not you. You're not gonna experience and have memory of that life, Its just a robot acting like you. So I dont quite understand why you would bother making hosts of yourself unless you're some kind of Elon Musk inventor type constantly working and making new things. For your average joe though I dont get it

[Deleted]

Agreed, they need to start narrowing it down in Season 3.

Season 1 a setup, the idea has been ingrained into our heads.
Season 2 becoming "real", and "self-aware" answering some concepts and story plots while creating more for season 3.
Season 3 should expect narrowing down on characters, the overall plot to working towards the conclusion of the series.
Season 4, 5 & 6? Well all depends what we get in Season 3, obviously.

Could see this as a strong trilogy.

Yeah season 3 needs to go back to a more 'grounded' setting like season 1 and wrap things up. Maeve controlling other hosts with her mind was fine and all, but in that last scene where she extends her hand and holds the berserk hosts of was just a bit over the top. Same with the bull's charging and that cgi door (which fair enough, only the hosts could see).
The show needs fresh blood as well. How many new characters did season 2 introduce? 1 or 2?

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One thing I dont quite understand is, the idea of immortality turning yourself into a host is kind of weird because its not you. You're not gonna experience and have memory of that life, Its just a robot acting like you. So I dont quite understand why you would bother making hosts of yourself unless you're some kind of Elon Musk inventor type constantly working and making new things. For your average joe though I dont get it

I suppose the idea is to create such an accurate version of someone's mind that they'd function the exact same as the human original. What that means for memories, idk, I assume they're there?

[RobertoCarlos]

The show needs fresh blood as well. How many new characters did season 2 introduce? 1 or 2?


I suppose the idea is to create such an accurate version of someone's mind that they'd function the exact same as the human original. What that means for memories, idk, I assume they're there?

There was the new security guy, the Japanese lady, the native american guy. The man in blacks daughter.

Im aware they try make them as accurate as possible by collecting data by witnessing them and collecting their base line. What im saying is, why would you bother, its not gonna be you and will live its own life after you have died

[Deleted]

There was the new security guy, the Japanese lady, the native american guy. The man in blacks daughter.

Im aware they try make them as accurate as possible by collecting data by witnessing them and collecting their base line. What im saying is, why would you bother, its not gonna be you and will live its own life after you have died

New security guy is dead, japanese lady (archer and dancer) likely aren't coming back, Akecheta was there in season 1. MiB daughter is also dead/'dead'.

Idk, I suppose the writers haven't explicitly implied if you'll have your memories or not. I think once you reach fidelity you'll become conscious like a host and make your own decisions, confined to your very own human loop.

[fakaroonie]

Yes it was messy and not memorable as the last season finale, but when you're dealing with so many stories at the same time, and so many arcs, it's hard to please everyone.

Of course I wanted more Hopkins screentime, and they actually seemed to make his time little on the screen, to make it more precious. To me, that was a bad idea. More Anthony on the screen is always better than less.

The thing between Dolores and Arnold - Bernard is still hard for me to grasp, I probably need to rewatch the whole thing.

And the death wishes of Maeve, her cowboy BF, and Lee were as well hard to digest.

Maeve could literally stop everyone if she wished. Remember what she did in Japworld.

The best part for me was William. I wonder if the game actually gripped him and went mad and died, and then his daughter recreated him, or, he abandoned the park as he got older, and the best way to bring his personality was to put him in westworld.

[elaina]

Yeah but it wasn't her plant tho. She legit got owned by Bernard, the fact that he chose to rez her in Hale's body was because he got mad his girl (RIP Elsie, #Neverforget) got dropped right in front of his eyes. For all intent and purposes, Dolores revolution died right there if not for Bernard.

Anyhow, why would DoloHale create the Clementine virus and have her allahu akbar all the hosts to begin with, just to save them at the end.

Yeah that was actually Hale. The switch was after all that. The forward timeline with Strand from the beach onward (after the flood) was all Host Hale.

And indeed RIP Elsie