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HBO's Westworld V - These violent delights... [Spoilers]


.H.

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4 hours ago, GallowKnight said:

It was a pretty good finale to a good and occasionally brilliant season. It liked the reveals about Maeve's plot as that one would otherwise have felt it went too easy. Although security and surveillance at Westworld seems to be quite terrible. Samurai world was a nice touch and I hope we see more of other worlds next season. I wonder what happened to Hemsworth though?

On the other hand all the reveals this season fell really flat, because they were too heavily foreshadowed and too drawn out. I don't think the William is MIB mystery really justified a last episode reveal, it would have been fine with coming up earlier. This (and s2 of Mr Robot) has also made me realize how tired I am off stories that purposefully convolute their narratives to hide rather shallow mysteries. And I think this damaged the show a fair amount for me. Plus I'm also bored with the endless theorizing that comes with it.

Oh, and Anthony Hopkins was brilliant.

After sitting on the finale for a day and revisiting it, I share your sentiments. While initially not liking the William=MiB theory (not doubting it, just not liking it) it became more and more obvious throughout the season with how badly it was telegraphed. The reveal was a given in the finale. In addition, looking back on the season, the MiB/William almost seems pointless in hindsight. He didn't add much of anything to the season. (And, yes, Mr. Robot s2 was frustrating)

Regarding Wyatt=Dolores, I simply saw the Wyatt storyline as the initial critical failure, or Arnold's backstory. Wyatt was always Dolores and she was just playing herself in that role. Ford's new narrative was simply the old critical failure, he just renamed Dolores for it to throw the board (or us, the viewers) off. Of course, Wyatt's army was a new addition to it.

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Hmmm.

I don't know.  If Hopkins doesn't come back, that will be strange...it's also going to be strange as to how they would handle robots going on a killing spree killing the richest and most powerful humans.....there would have to be severe consequences unless the modern world is pure chaos, which is not how it has been presented.  So while a shoot em up killing spree was nice to watch, not sure how that is going to be realistically resolved to set up next season.  

I still think they would have been better to keep Sylvester out of the Maeve storyline and just have Felix by a sympathetic human who helps her, but I loved Thandie and love the character.

I don't buy the MiB going rogue/evil because of Delores or the park, but in the scheme of things, not that important.

I definitely think Ed Harris is back, but I still am not sure that Hopkins is coming back, unless as someone said it's robot Hopkins.  

 

 

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On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2016 at 0:10 PM, karaddin said:

Music selection was truly superb, looping back around to Radiohead with Exit Music (For a Film) also ties into the Violent delights line.

FB I said they're the ones on the cusp, not that they had achieved it. It could still be decades but they're the ones it's working with aside from the on screen ones. Clem wasn't a routine retirement, so I see her as an exception.

Quoting you again.

I'm watching a rerun.  Maeve asks Bernard how many there are like her, and he says, 'A handful over the years', and she asks what happened to them. And that's when he responds about most of them going mad. So the army of Hosts in cold storage are not all on the cusp.

Also, a very brief scene, when Maeve, Hector and Armistice leave Bernard, Felix opens his pad and starts looking for something. Maybe he's looking for Maeve's daughter, but that would be a weird reaction at that moment.  That act just continues my suspicions about Felix.  He could be a secret second Ford helper that Bernard is not aware of, checking the storylines are on track.

In that scene, the army of deleted Hosts were all naked. When the security team returns, they are all dressed. That was damn quick work.

Last night I missed the fact that the Wyatt storyline dates back to before the park opened, and to achieve his means, his suicide, Arnold merged Dolores and Wyatt. It went by too quickly...  Wyatt was always described as heartless and evil and willing to do despicable things, so yah, I think there is a mass slaughter after all.  But humans in the control centre have been locked up tightly, and they will take back control.  I'm sure Bernard plays a key role in the new version of the park, so somehow he escapes so that no one finds out he's a Host.

Now that I've thought about it, I don't think all the humans are killed.  How come the MiB gets shot in the arm, blood spurts, but he doesn't fall over? How could you be shot like that and not fall over? Curiouser and curiouser, methinks!

And the plot line over the next five years shows how the Hosts eventually achieve sentience, and become the new gods of the earth. Presumably they eventually become better than humans, and do not kill other creatures. Lol, after they've wiped humanity off the face of the earth. Or, they fail and become just as evil as humans, which if they wipe humans off the earth, sort of seems like the end result.

Note that Maeve leaves the train without her bag. What was in it? Does it matter, Westworld is shut down at that moment, I don't think the train leaves the station.  How does Maeve sneak back in? Go to a room, Felixes work room, undress and put herself into sleep? Does she kill Sylvester first?

Did anyone notice the note she reads? Does it or does it not say her daughter is located in Park 1?  So there are other parks, are there other computer geniuses?

And the Host emerging from the skin-coating dip is female - a new [Dolores?] Maeve. Hmmm, wanted to cross that out so no else answers the question.  We can't cross stuff out anymore?

 

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1 hour ago, dooog said:

 

 

One thing i'm not clear on... why is it that Ford's old drinking buddy... Wild Bill? had such basic movement and mechanics being an older model, yet none of the hosts from the 35 years ago timeline had these imperfections

Probably never updated. Or malfunctioning and never repaired. Nolan was asked how the robots ''survived'' energy wise and said it would be explored more in season 2.

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Astromech said:

After sitting on the finale for a day and revisiting it, I share your sentiments. While initially not liking the William=MiB theory (not doubting it, just not liking it) it became more and more obvious throughout the season with how badly it was telegraphed. The reveal was a given in the finale. In addition, looking back on the season, the MiB/William almost seems pointless in hindsight. He didn't add much of anything to the season. (And, yes, Mr. Robot s2 was frustrating)

Yes, revealing that William was the MIB just never really went anywhere making the whole mystery around it and the two timelines feeling completely unnecessary.

26 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I definitely think Ed Harris is back, but I still am not sure that Hopkins is coming back, unless as someone said it's robot Hopkins. 

I think Ed Harris is confirmed as returning in some capacity.

8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

And the Host emerging from the skin-coating dip is female - a new Dolores?

Wasn't that just Maeve getting rebuilt after the fire?

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8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

And the Host emerging from the skin-coating dip is female - a new Dolores?

 

I believe that was Maeve. After she recruited Hector she started kissing him in a tent then threw a lamp oil on the floor, thus burning to death.

Hector also didn't have his scar.

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Did I miss earlier discussion on Wyatt's "gang," who seem to be impervious to bullets (making you think they are human) and seem to be out to salvage parts from Hosts?  Also, what is up with the "Ghost Nation" people?  Hosts?  If so, why are they outside of control?

Something is up on the fringes of the park, perhaps people who went in and never came out?

Or Hosts that survive by scrounging parts?  That doesn't explain why they can't be shot though.  I was hoping we would learn more about them, but we never did.

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10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought it was weird that she left without the bag, which she had a gun in.  Seems a little too obvious to be a continuity glitch.

I don't think Hopkins is coming back, I never saw anything very credible that he would.  I think he's done.

The only thing that makes me think he will come back is the host he had cooking under his fake family home.  Did Delores kill the real Ford or a decoy?  Or did he sacrifices himself, but create a host version of himself to help Delores and the rest after he's gone? 

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1 minute ago, Leofric said:

The only thing that makes me think he will come back is the host he had cooking under his fake family home.  Did Delores kill the real Ford or a decoy?  Or did he sacrifices himself, but create a host version of himself to help Delores and the rest after he's gone? 

I feel like he sacrificed himself but created a host version.

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Yeah, good episode. I wouldn't put the season up to the standards of, say, the first season of a Battlestar Galactica, but hopefully Nolan has more long-term idea where his plot is going. Despite some of the key revelations being obviously blown well before (I mean, the Dun-dun-dun! over MiB being William was... well, dudes, we get it), there were still surprises, and solid ones that didn't make a mess of what went before. Most notably, Ford, and the twist on his motivations. Him using Arnold's login to code the rebelions was a nice touch, a red herring that made sense.

Maeve plot was cool in a pure spectacle sense. Still not sure about where it's going but the rampage was very satisfying, and her beating her freedom-programming at the end was good. I wonder if she'll now go back and cause more of a ruckus and get the gang back and out as much as the stuff with her daughter, because look at her face as she's approaching the lift with Hector before he gets locked out- it looks like she knows she's going to leave him behind but not happy about it, almost like she's already trying to fight herself.
 

12 minutes ago, .H. said:

Something is up on the fringes of the park, perhaps people who went in and never came out?


Maybe it's Logan. Okay, I joke, but his ending was one of the weak elements of the finale. Like how freaked out he was about being forced to ride off the edge of the park. Sure, naked and tied up, but he doesn't seem the type to just meekly accept William's threatened takeover, yet he seems to completely fold in the situation.



 

 

1 hour ago, dooog said:

I seriously hope that was a host Ford being killed because this show needs him more than anyone else. It won't be the same if he returns in flashbacks or dreams, he needs to have a proper continuous presence and influence. Ed Harris less so, we saw him take a bullet in his good arm but unless we saw him stabbed, beheaded and burned he's probably still alive.


I'm even more convinced that he was building himself as a host in his lab now, and that he's planning for it to lift itself to consciousness and in that method achieve immortality. We still don't know what the board's mysterious interest is, unless it's just pursuant of the MiB's obsession which seems a poor explanation for the hints dropped earlier, it may well be something like that but Ford's sneaked behind their backs.

If Dolores' talk of the one walking the Earth after man was meant to be taken semi-literally rather than as a general metaphor for host takeover, Ford may well have himself in mind for that.


 

 

2 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Who else but HBO's favorite Swearing man. ;)

Semi-sadly, Al's got his hands full. I say semi, because what his hands are full with are American Gods  (which, by the way, should be the next big talk of teeveeland), and eventually a return to Deadwood too, albeit that will be a one-off movie.
They should get Timothy Dalton to do it.

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25 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 (I mean, the Dun-dun-dun! over MiB being William was... well, dudes, we get it),

Still think everyone's being overly harsh on this. We're internet people, we come here and dissect the shit out of everything. Show makers can't, and never will pander to us because we're a tiny portion of the audience. Either they do absolutely no telegraphing at all and it looks like they pulled it out their ass, or they foreshadow stuff and we figure it out. I just can't see how any writer could possibly write any twist that tens of thousands of people all working together won't figure out. And I'm not saying this was extremely difficult to figure out, it wasn't, but there's a good number of people in the general audience who won't have figured it out. Maybe a majority. And the thing is, even if you do figure it out, if you watch in complete isolation of anyone else, you don't have any reference point for how difficult it was, so instead of thinking "jeez, alright, we figured it out, get it over with", you think maybe you're just pretty smart. Whether you are or not, it's a nice feeling. I felt the same, that the reveal went on too long but, I blame myself for that for caving and reading these threads, not the writers.

Anyway......wow, I figured we'd get the resolutions to the story lines, but I didn't see the whole park going batshit and shooting up the place. Really good finale. It's hard to see how another season will work, how will they regain any semblance of it being a 'park'? Surely the place would get shut down? Is the story now about a bunch of rogue hosts being hunted down? Will the park be the hosts 'base' in some crazy war? Also, can you imagine how many genres people would want to visit before Western and Samurai? How many parks are there? I wonder which is 'Park 1' where Maeve's daughter is?

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I'd say how this show has been showing its cards, I don't think very obviously though, Ford will be a host. That's what he was creating in his parents basement and as we find out he was wrong and Arnold was right. He is doing this as a way to make it up to his partner, albeit 35 years later. And, as a way to gain immortality.

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1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Still think everyone's being overly harsh on this. We're internet people, we come here and dissect the shit out of everything. Show makers can't, and never will pander to us because we're a tiny portion of the audience.

 

I don't think that argument flies in this day and age, to be honest. Everybody is internet people; even the ones who aren't will talk with people who are. I'm fairly sure the proportion of people who hadn't at least heard the William=MiB prior to this episode is much, much smaller than the people who had. It wasn't obscure.
Not to mention, we might have called it early, but by the time last episode confirmed two timelines it was really more likely than not.


In any case, my problem is not with them still playing it as a reveal but that it took so long to do. Bernard as a host, BernArnold and two timelines were all called well ahead of time but I still found the scenes revealing them to be satisfying. This one, not so much.

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The more I dwell on the finale, the more I think about this quote from episode 7 

 

 

 The name of that episode was "Trompe L'Oeil" means "deceive the eye" and is an art technique to create optical illusions. This scene seems more in character than the Ford we saw last night. 

So yeah, I agree with those that think Ford faked his death with a host body he built in that private lab under his boyhood home. He's probably down in one of the seemingly endless levels that were built atop each other as the technology advanced. .

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1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Still think everyone's being overly harsh on this. We're internet people, we come here and dissect the shit out of everything. Show makers can't, and never will pander to us because we're a tiny portion of the audience. Either they do absolutely no telegraphing at all and it looks like they pulled it out their ass, or they foreshadow stuff and we figure it out. I just can't see how any writer could possibly write any twist that tens of thousands of people all working together won't figure out. And I'm not saying this was extremely difficult to figure out, it wasn't, but there's a good number of people in the general audience who won't have figured it out. Maybe a majority. And the thing is, even if you do figure it out, if you watch in complete isolation of anyone else, you don't have any reference point for how difficult it was, so instead of thinking "jeez, alright, we figured it out, get it over with", you think maybe you're just pretty smart. Whether you are or not, it's a nice feeling. I felt the same, that the reveal went on too long but, I blame myself for that for caving and reading these threads, not the writers.

 

Thank you... I agree with everything you say, and have been swaying very similar things around here for years now about other shows, and movies. You phrased this in a way that is particularly poignant.  I thought the writing behind this series was excellent. 

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I too thought Stubbs was the first security guard to die in the break-out. I even mentioned it to my wife at the time: "Well... that's the end of Thor".

And now I read everyone wondering what happened to him and saying he didn't appear in the episode. I'm going to have to look at that part again.

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2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

I don't think that argument flies in this day and age, to be honest. Everybody is internet people; even the ones who aren't will talk with people who are. I'm fairly sure the proportion of people who hadn't at least heard the William=MiB prior to this episode is much, much smaller than the people who had. It wasn't obscure.
Not to mention, we might have called it early, but by the time last episode confirmed two timelines it was really more likely than not.


In any case, my problem is not with them still playing it as a reveal but that it took so long to do. Bernard as a host, BernArnold and two timelines were all called well ahead of time but I still found the scenes revealing them to be satisfying. This one, not so much.

I think if the creators really want to surprise viewers with this (and I get the impression they weren't too bothered if many worked it out) they need to binge release it. That way there isn't time for peope to the theories appear. Then again it seems there were viewers shocked at key scenes from GOT despite them having being in print for 10 years so we maybe do overestimate the average viewers use of the internet.

Personally I think they telegraphed it to hook the keen-eyed and then used editing to apparently discredit it with William = MiB. They did a similar thing with Bernard and the use of his wife as a red herring. It's why we have to be suspicious of Ford's "death".

the fact the zombie hosts shot William at the end heavily implied they were going for a slaughter. But I'm with others in thinking that writes them into a corner. However I can't really see how this keeps the park open/ Maybe William figures that Ford's death means the game is now real so he carries on?

While I loved seeing another park hinted at it leaves me a bit confused. Do other people run the other parks with Ford's tech? If so why the obsession witth just one of the parks - unless the other worlds were after Arnold and they lack the code to become sentient. How do they have other theme parks if this one was under financial strain? I'll not too fussed as long as we get to see them but it felt a little like an idea they'd only thought of late into the season as I don't recall many hints towards it.

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