HBO’s Westworld VI- This Game Is Meant For You...[SPOILERS]

[Corvinus85]

Excellent episode. Both Harris and Mullan were amazing this episode.

I wasn't able to catch the words the Ghost Nation chief told Stubbs. Though it looks like the theory that the Ghost Nation people were secretly rescuing guests is correct. 

[DMC]

Just now, Corvinus said:

I wasn't able to catch the words the Ghost Nation chief told Stubbs.

It was something like, "you only live as long as the last person who remembers you."

[Fragile Bird]

Elsie grasped that Bernard was a host pretty damn quickly. "But you had a wife, you rotated out, where did you go when you rotated out? You had....you had a backstory..."

That answered my question, why didn't people realize Bernard was a host. Because he rotated out, to his family.

I would hazard a guess that William went to see his "father-in-law" just before the big banquet.

Were the Chinese railway workers using humans as railway ties, or hosts? It's hard to tell...

One would think Bernard got the control unit for a new Ford, but who else could it have been? Another Arnold?

Were the drones working on a woman with long dark hair, lying on the table? A Theresa? It wouldn't be Delos, the hair was wrong.

 

[Ser Quork]

I really enjoyed this episode, which is good because I was beginning to wonder if the writers had lost their way after last week's ep.  I confess I'm bored with the whole Wyatt 2-D revengebot scenario, which I think is still completely Ford's game and not sentience (at least - not yet).  Question is: will Wyatt be the villain of this season?  Will it remain William, or is it Bernard? 

It was great to see Elsie and to get a handle of Bernard's frazzled timeline.  I wonder too if Elsie is the "now" or a memory.  Bernard's promise not to hurt her can't possibly hold, I'm sure.

The human/host failure of James Delos was very interesting.  I wonder if Ford had been involved if it could have been perfected (or, indeed, if he has perfected it and that's the pick-up Bernard was making.)

Question then is - who is the core Bernard picked up?  As much as I'd love it to be Ford himself (I really miss Anthony Hopkins in this), I don't think it will be - I think Ford is now music/code/the game - possibly even the park itself. 

Maybe it's Arnold?  Maybe it's Logan, just so Ford can play with William a bit more?  And is Logan actually dead?  William tells James that Logan overdosed, but he doesn't say he died. *ponders*

The sayings that seem portentous this time round - I wonder if some of these are supposed to be triggers or teases from Ford? "You will only live as long as the last person who remembers you," seems an odd thing for the First of the Ghost Nation to say in English to Stubbs. 

And has all of James's code/memories gone or has it passed on in some way.  Are the hand tremors of James/Bernard/bartender all "cognitive plateau" or cortical fluid requirements or something else?

I thought Hale was after just blackmail material originally but I think now it's the human/host programs she's after (or both).

Lots to think about.  

[The Unborn]

My personnal theory is that the core Bernard picked up is for Ford, but maybe not in Hopkins body. Maybe an image of his younger self, so the show could cast an actor who would look a bit like Hopkins in his 30s ?

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

8 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I would hazard a guess that William went to see his "father-in-law" just before the big banquet.

Were the Chinese railway workers using humans as railway ties, or hosts? It's hard to tell...

 

 

On going to see Delos it sounds about right and I had the same questions about the railroad workers using humans or hosts. Could it be a bit of both? But I think it might be hosts only because William didn't seem overly concerned.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

1 hour ago, The Unborn said:

My personnal theory is that the core Bernard picked up is for Ford, but maybe not in Hopkins body. Maybe an image of his younger self, so the show could cast an actor who would look a bit like Hopkins in his 30s ?

I was thinking this as well. Fairly certain Hopkins is not back for season 2 but at this point the concept of memory ("consciousness") transference into a host body is too much of a Chekhov's gun not to have huge significance. Makes sense that he might want to give himself a fresh start by transferring his core into a younger body. 

[Charlie Hustle]

Im gonna go with Hopkins coming back. Whats Ghost nations purpose? Are they the protectors of humans in the background? Is Delso really prioritizing code and IP over humans? You would think that they would want to get Williams out over anyone else.. their biggest investor.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

11 minutes ago, Charlie Hustle said:

Is Delso really prioritizing code and IP over humans? You would think that they would want to get Williams out over anyone else.. their biggest investor.

Not necessarily. Charlotte Hale has her own agenda and it doesn't seem to coincide with William's at all. 

I think she and/or the cadre of management she represents are very much prioritizing code and IP over humans. 

[Cas Stark]

I think William is beyond caring about the corporation's larger goals, that's why he said he wasn't gong to leave the park again last year, and said he's burning it down after satiating his final obsession with whatever he thinks is the last game, his last attempt to derive some meaning from his lifes work.  Charlotte came to him last season to get his approval to oust ford, and he didn't seem to care....white whale. 

 

It seems that Ford must have either downloaded his consciousness into the computer itself  or is a host  human hybrid waiting t be revealed.  

I really felt moved by James Delos host/human, and what a performance.

 

[Fragile Bird]

If they tried 168 times, or whatever the number was, over a 30 year period and failed to recreate Delos successfully, what good is a new control unit?

The Delos character was a some kind of hybrid host with his stored memories. Perhaps Ford had a different solution? Just put the memories in an ordinary host, not a human hybrid, or something?

The fact Elsie killed the remaining drone may be significant. All the other drones killed themselves by snapping their necks, but Bernard said something to the remaining drone to keep him going.

[Cas Stark]

If I had to guess the red brains that they are manufacturing in the secret lab will be the meeting of Westworld with Futureworld where they can send out robot clones of various guests...can't think what else they need a secret lab with an entire tray of these red brain things for, at it looks like more brain units than would be needed to supply the Delos board with immortality, which 30 years later, is still too glitchy to work??

[mcbigski]

The current tech might work just fine and the glitch could be an artifact of James being an early upload attempt.

[Ramsay B.]

I just watched it and damn! That was like information overload. I though ep.3 was one of the weakest of the series, but this one was of the best. So glad they gave Peter Mullan a lot more time screen time as he was incredible in this one. Guy just has a certain presence. I have to watch it again too and sort out all that ‘one below and one above’ and devil talk he was doing. Awesome to see Elsie alive and agree that we will being seeing Ford soon enough in some form or another. 

Ford’s manipulation of William with the rain and dance was really interesting too. Great scenes all around. I’m surprised they had him meet up with his daughter so soon. I thought they would drag it out for a bit. 

A rewatch is definitely in order.

[dbunting]

Some thoughts of my own. Best episode of the season for sure.

Delos and the 149th try. Delos seems to be doing just fine, stable, no tremors. Then only after William gives him the whiskey does he start to malfunction. Earlier scenes he was twitching with the cream at 5 days of "reanimation". Is it possible that William knew it would work now and didn't want it to? When he leaves the room the tech clearly is amazed, says something like it had been 35 days with no signs at all. William tells him not to terminate, which also means no further testing to see if it will work...maybe because he knows it does and wants to stop it?

I think when Bernard promises Elsie no harm, it's a memory to him and not current because not long before that he realized he wasn't really there and turned away from her talking out loud and she never reacted.

The Indians sure seemed to be protecting the humans.

Still unsure of what the single red sphere was that Bernard took. He said they were making a controller(?) and I assumed he meant one of those tablets at first but it was obviously similar to the "code" shown on screen that Elsie had said she had never seen before. I would assume like most that the code is in fact Ford. 

[dooog]

Good episode and it threw up a rake of new possibilities.

 

One thing that has me feeling a bit jaded this season is the fact that practically none of the S1 character deaths were binding and a few too many have miraculously reappeared, Elsie being the latest edition. The only one I really hoped would come back was Ford and last night's episode just paved the way for that.

[GallowKnight]

It was a good episode, but I cant help to think that this was a great waste of some quality Jonathan Tucker.

[Nictarion]

James Delos had good taste in music. 

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

It was a good episode, but I cant help to think that this was a great waste of some quality Jonathan Tucker.

Yeah he's great.  Sorry they blewd him up, tough seeing him coming back.

Totally stoner thought, but what if Grace/Emily is indeed a host - and in fact the host Ford built and got Bernard to retrieve the..whatever in the last episode.  As in, what if it was actually Emily that killed herself, and now Ford is making William "look to the past."  Probably not, but honestly, who the fuck survives a cliffhanger when a damn Tiger is about to maul you?

[dbunting]

7 hours ago, Triskele said:

And this episode was apparently Lisa Joy's directoral (sp) debut.  That's pretty solid.

Despite my complaints about some of the Man in Black scenes I'd agree that this was a great episode overall with the Mullan performance really sealing it.  It sure felt like a lot of the internet felt that way trying to read up on it today.  Fascinating how enough of the main remained for him to put it together and ask William "I must not have made it, eh?" (paraphrasing).  Which absolutely suggests that what they were going for was allowing people to have their consciousness uploaded to live on.  

Another interesting little bit they did was how he struggled to poor his cream into his coffee in one of the earlier iterations but was able to pull it off in a later but still met the cognitive plateau.  A sign perhaps that they were making improvements in the process but just couldn't quite get all the kinks worked out.  

If you remember from the previously on, Ford is making his speach about Lazarus rising from the grave...a clear hint at that

As to the second part, Im gonna stick with my gut and say that William "poisoned" him in some way with the whiskey. I mean what are the odds of him getting the shakes only directly after he drinks it? Of course I guess we could also assume that meeting someone from his past and realizing that all of his loved ones are gone could also cause the mental issue. I prefer the hidden Targaryen whiskey plot!