HBO's Westworld(v4)- What door? [spoilers]

[Ded As Ned]

7 minutes ago, Castel said:

Ford might be done with Bernard. As he himself said it's time to let go and try to stop trying to change the past. 

Could be... at first I thought Bernard's death would raise too many questions, so it would be expedient for Ford if Bernard were still around.

Upon second thought it fits nicely with Theresa's death.  Bernard killed himself out of grief.  (Plus, with all the other shenanigans going on, questions are going to be raised all around at this point).  Elsie, and now Stubbs (presumably) are missing as well.  Mad Maeve is on the loose. MiB has made it to the church.  

I hope Ford bites it next episode, answers be damned!

ETA: But I still want to know who Ford is printing up there.  I'll be disappointed if it's just set background.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Darzin said:

So I really think Deloros might be Wyatt, we see the Wyatt narrative keep changing and the hosts keep mentioning they are waiting for Wyatt to come back. Also Deloros memories of killing everyone in the town are basically the same as Teddy's.

Agreed.  They clearly wanted to establish Teddy as an unreliable narrator/getting all jumble memory.  Plus, the MIB perks up when Angela mentions Teddy will meet Wyatt in "the city swallowed by sand," then we see him meeting Delores in the church of said city, and not particularly surprised to see her.  Now the question is, who is the guy Teddy thinks is Wyatt??

Her being Wyatt would help explain why Ford/the park staff has been letting Delores apparently wander around aimlessly for the past few weeks (months?)  If Ford's behind it, could also link Ford's reveries to his new storyline, which would in turn help solve the Maeve problem...

2 hours ago, Castel said:

Ford might be done with Bernard. As he himself said it's time to let go and try to stop trying to change the past.

I definitely got the sense in the final scene that Ford was breaking up with Arnold.  At least for the time being.  What that entails though who knows - seems kind of foolish to keep offing upper-level staff, but apparently in the future they've also cured corporations of oversight/investigations.

[Jen'ari]

I watched the first episode last night and quite enjoyed it, second one tonight .

[Jaxom 1974]

After Dolores is cut up by Logan and she escapes and she barrels through the woods and is suddenly not cut...that's her in the "current" timelime.  Where she has specifically been since she left the barn after shooting the one host, I'm not certain, but she's quite obviously following the same pattern she did 35 years ago when she likely killed Arnold, then she is following the same scenario again with William 30 years ago...

[Astromech]

53 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Agreed.  They clearly wanted to establish Teddy as an unreliable narrator/getting all jumble memory.  Plus, the MIB perks up when Angela mentions Teddy will meet Wyatt in "the city swallowed by sand," then we see him meeting Delores in the church of said city, and not particularly surprised to see her.  Now the question is, who is the guy Teddy thinks is Wyatt??

 

It was interesting to see the original city is buried in the current timeline, but seemed to not be when Dolores ran into the MiB at the church. I'm assuming her programing is all out of whack and her "memories"(old church above the sand) are blending with her current observations.

[red snow]

4 hours ago, Castel said:

I'm always fascinated by the discussions on whether the MiB is evil or not. Reminds me of the discussions on whether Samuel L. Jackson's character in The Hateful Eight really did what he claimed to have done in the "dingus" scene. To me it's just.."yeah, he probably did that or would have. Why not?"

How does William think hosts get consciousness? He can just kill 30 of them and be sure none of them are conscious or heading that way? I mean, Dolores is still basically following the game, despite her weirdness so..he can just say for sure all of those others are not sentient and kill them? Hell, Maeve was sentient and her core programming was intact. Someone could have iced her and no one would know. 

The case for MiB is even worse really. If he knew Dolores was special from 30 years ago and he kept running around raping her and others...what are you supposed to think of that?

The same problem that applies to the army shows up for the whole Maeve-child thing. Does he have consciousness sensing superpowers to tell that the child is not sapient or did he not feel anything cause he's an asshole as he stated his family already believed? It seems a bit circular no? Any time he hurts a host it's cause they weren't conscious, or he was helping them? Was he raping Dolores for noble reasons?

What also makes anyone think that he wants to free hosts for any deeper reason than his own game of self-discovery?

Like I said - the dodgy part of William and/or MiB is their apparent distinction between possibly giving a shit about Delores and not any of the others. Once you think one might be sentient then it stands to reason all the others have the same potential. I still think there was something about him acknowledging Maeve's grief as real. It still makes him a monster maybe for the first time as he feels the reaction is real. It seems with all the others he kills this isn't the case.

If MiB actually raped Delores then I'm on board with the whole evil thing. I just get the impression that the show wants us to think that happened in order to pull the rug out from under us in the finale. But at face value yes he seems a piece of shit.

My take is that he thinks Delores was (emphasis on was) unique or that any cases of sentience are deleted by Ford. So to him they are all hosts. He's still a dubious person but he's the same as everyone else playing the game or working for Westworld. Although I guess they are all questionable.

I don't know. I think the point I'm trying to make is that MiB is complicated.

I guess we'll get answers next week now Delores and MiB appear to be in the same room again. I'm still leaning towards him doing all these bad things in order to set her free. So he's a lovestruck maniac.

[dooog]

14 hours ago, Castel said:

The Maeve thing is quite simple to explain for me and the explanation is Doylist before we get into the possible contrivances: her entire plot requires her to gain things from people who not only don't want to give it to her, shouldn't actually be able to in a sane system. 

So every moment of her bootstrapping runs into this same issue again and again. The same cycle of reluctance and resistance and then success and on and on. At a certain point it wears on people

If you buy it you buy it I guess, if you consider the message of emancipation worth it or uplifting the same applies but it's not a surprise that people's reaction is:"Come on, really?", despite their attempts to justify each case.

I don't think it's a plot hole, nor do I think anyone is behind it (it weakens her in the role she's currently playing). It's probably just a contrivance or a string of them.

So much this^^

Add to that the constant eye roll inducing sexual innuendo (e.g "holster your pistol") from the character and the hammy acting from the actress as well as the two WW butchers, the Maeve arc is dragging down the quality of quite an incredible show.

[SpaceChampion]

So William's fiance is the one who as (if he's William) MIB's wife killed herself?  If it really was a suicide...

[Leofric]

1 hour ago, Astromech said:

It was interesting to see the original city is buried in the current timeline, but seemed to not be when Dolores ran into the MiB at the church. I'm assuming her programing is all out of whack and her "memories"(old church above the sand) are blending with her current observations.

I think the original city was buried 35 years ago after Delores (aka Wyatt) and Teddy shot up the whole town before the Park opened.   So it was buried when Delores and William visited about 5 years later just about the time of the "incident" and it was still buried 30 years later when Ford visited with his younger Robert host.    Then Ford had it uncovered as part of his new narrative, so it was restored by the time Delores and MiB return there and meet in the Church. 

[RumHam]

Catching up on the thread I saw a few people wondering if Hopkins would return next season. 

A thread or two people someone claimed Hopkins said he was returning. I never saw a link or anything. 

 

[Astromech]

40 minutes ago, Leofric said:

I think the original city was buried 35 years ago after Delores (aka Wyatt) and Teddy shot up the whole town before the Park opened.   So it was buried when Delores and William visited about 5 years later just about the time of the "incident" and it was still buried 30 years later when Ford visited with his younger Robert host.    Then Ford had it uncovered as part of his new narrative, so it was restored by the time Delores and MiB return there and meet in the Church. 

That could be as well.

[polishgenius]

6 hours ago, Ded As Ned said:

ETA: But I still want to know who Ford is printing up there.  I'll be disappointed if it's just set background.

 

Himself. He dies in the final episode, but the final shot of the season is a new, slightly older-looking Ford, waking up...



Anyway, while I'm still more on the MiB is William side I think there is now a chance it might be Logan. Dolores kills William, he's like 'you malfunctioning shit you killed my friend', goes cray-cray on the park.
I also like the theory that 'the general' Wyatt killed is a metaphor for Arnold.


The scenes with the 'game' on the MiB lend credence to the idea that Ford is deliberately allowing hosts to hurt humans as part of his new plot. Which also slightly boosts the theory that he's controlling Maeve, along with other things in the episode (like, you know, the whole Bernard thing), although at this point I'd hate that idea, unless she realises and breaks free for real by the end.

BernArnold was well revealed in cinematic terms but they were milking an incredibly obvious twist as a surprise for far too long.

[The Monkey]

So if the two timeline theory is right (which it almost certainly is), when was the last time we saw Delores in the "real timeline" (featuring the conflict with Bernard etc)? Was it when she killed that fly on her cheek in episode 1/2?

[RumHam]

I'm really surprised how many people think Logan has a better chance of turning out to be the Man in Black than William. There are way more clues that he's William. Also the Man in Black clearly has blondish hair, not dark like Logan's. 

[polishgenius]

9 minutes ago, The Monkey said:

So if the two timeline theory is right (which it almost certainly is), when was the last time we saw Delores in the "real timeline" (featuring the conflict with Bernard etc)? Was it when she killed that fly on her cheek in episode 1/2?

 

No, when she wandered off after the last attack on her farm, when MiB was there.

[Pliskin]

22 minutes ago, The Monkey said:

So if the two timeline theory is right (which it almost certainly is), when was the last time we saw Delores in the "real timeline" (featuring the conflict with Bernard etc)? Was it when she killed that fly on her cheek in episode 1/2?

When she faced off MIB coming to the church this episode

[red snow]

30 minutes ago, The Monkey said:

So if the two timeline theory is right (which it almost certainly is), when was the last time we saw Delores in the "real timeline" (featuring the conflict with Bernard etc)? Was it when she killed that fly on her cheek in episode 1/2?

Possibly from the point where she killed the milk-drinking attacker in the barn (episode 3) and had that flashback to her meeting with MiB from episode 1.

I think her wanders from that point on have been a jumble between reliving her adventure with William and wandering the same track on her own. Pretty sure a lot of the points since then eg where she's been alone with William are a mixture of the present and her imaging/remembering him. The bits with multiple people are more likely to just be memories. But even in episode 9 they were showing us how blurred things are between now and then for her. She walked into the underground place but it was constantly shifted from abandoned to still being in use. I'm guessing she went on a killing spree after leaving it the first time?

[polishgenius]

Just realised, I don't think Bernard really killed himself. A combination of not actually seeing it, and of Maeve's last words to him (if you're going to get the truth, get the whole truth) makes me think he was just playing along to see exactly where Ford was going with this, and he'll be back, if not next episode then next season.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

Catching up on the thread I saw a few people wondering if Hopkins would return next season. 

  Reveal hidden contents

A thread or two people someone claimed Hopkins said he was returning. I never saw a link or anything. 

 

 

Spoiler

 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11727480

Later on at a stage presentation, he said this: ""I have a delete button in my brain and I don't remember the past very well. I can't remember - we started two years ago. Just watching it now I'd forgotten I was in some of those scenes."

Let's recap. Hopkins is slamming the very medium he's working on. It's a rare event. It doesn't happen, because it shouldn't happen. Steven Spielberg still loves movies. JK Rowling still loves books. Phil Spencer still loves games. Keith Richards still loves music.

Kanye West sort of did it around the release of his recent album The Life of Pablo,when he declared, ""This Tidal Apple beef is f****** up the music game".

But that's Kanye. This is Anthony Hopkins, the 78-year-old film titan who spends 
most of his time playing complex screen characters with ulterior motives.

"Oddly enough, for someone who's not about control or certainty, they give me these very controlling parts to play," he explained. "It's a paradox of my nature, I guess. I know how to look like a control freak."

To be fair, Hopkins did answer questions about Westworld. He chose to return to TV after a lengthy absence because "HBO's got a great reputation". He's signed up for a second season. "I have no idea which way this character's going," he said.

 

 

[Ramsay B.]

2 hours ago, Leofric said:

I think the original city was buried 35 years ago after Delores (aka Wyatt) and Teddy shot up the whole town before the Park opened.   So it was buried when Delores and William visited about 5 years later just about the time of the "incident" and it was still buried 30 years later when Ford visited with his younger Robert host.    Then Ford had it uncovered as part of his new narrative, so it was restored by the time Delores and MiB return there and meet in the Church. 

That's what I was thinking could be the only explanation. Ford visited the buried church many episodes ago so he's had plenty of time to uncover it. Nice job whoever called that the picture Ford showed Bernard a while ago looked to be missing a person on the right.

Thta was an absolute incredible episode. Jeffrey Wright and Hopkins were amazing in every scene they were in. Really looking forward to the 90 minute finale.