HBO's Westworld VII: Abort?.Retry.Fail

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I will rewatch tomorrow and note the times he uses English. I think those are significant moments.

Yeah, I'm rewatching now, although it's halfway through the episode...

On thing I wanted to mention that I forgot to - the locations of this episode really, REALLY, reminded me of John Ford's films.  Haven't looked into it much, but I know Westworld filmed in Utah, which was one of (John) Ford's areas.  There's a scene in the ep around a cave that looks exactly like the climactic scene in The Searchers.  I'm very curious if these were the same locations.

[Fragile Bird]

One minor point - we saw confirmation that Arnold must have told Dolores to kill herself after shooting him.

The fascinating thing is that the Indian tribe was out there all the time and Arnold did not have them killed off as well. Until now I was assuming that first slaughter of hosts was a slaughter of all hosts. Yet...it clearly wasn’t, after all. Why?

[Nictarion]

35 minutes ago, DMBouazizi said:

Yeah, I'm rewatching now, although it's halfway through the episode...

On thing I wanted to mention that I forgot to - the locations of this episode really, REALLY, reminded me of John Ford's films.  Haven't looked into it much, but I know Westworld filmed in Utah, which was one of (John) Ford's areas.  There's a scene in the ep around a cave that looks exactly like the climactic scene in The Searchers.  I'm very curious if these were the same locations.

Yeah, probably the best looking episode to date, imo. 

[DMC]

K, just finished watching the second half, and you may be on to something @Fragile Bird.  The only time he speaks English is when Ford puts him in analysis mode, then at the end.  He tells Maeve's daughter "don't be afraid."  Then Emily/William's daughter shows up and they have a conversation in Apache or whatever, then he turns back to Maeve's daughter and says:  "It's time to go.  I've always kept you safe, and I always will."  Then there's a beat and he says "I couldn't help* you."  *Even though it was a couple minutes ago, can't be entirely sure if it was help or save.  Damned whiskey.  Hmm...

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The fascinating thing is that the Indian tribe was out there all the time and Arnold did not have them killed off as well. Until now I was assuming that first slaughter of hosts was a slaughter of all hosts. Yet...it clearly wasn’t, after all. Why?

Because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!  Seriously, I think - and expect - that's a question only Arnold can answer.

[DMC]

BTW, it does deserve emphasis how cool it is the god of Westworld is Ford.  Not only is it a clear homage to John Ford - the undisputed King of Westerns, but it also harkens back to Huxley's Brave New World - in which all of society is predicated on worshipping Henry Ford and the assembly line, down to fixing how they measure the years.

[Mark Antony]

8 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It was good, but it required a lot of suspension of disbelief

Seriously. Ake went diwn that escalator like a pro for a first timer. 

6 hours ago, Triskele said:

Are you guys thinking that everything in Ake's story was just Ford directing it all?  

Ford seemed genuinely surprised by some of the shit Ake told him.

[Ser Quork]

I really enjoyed this episode and found I believed far more in Ake's sentience than I do in Dolores' or even Maeve's and found his communication with Maeve very affecting. That said, far too much is not explained or hand-waved.  That Ake goes straight to his wife in the lower floors of Westworld - and unchallenged too - is a tad irritating (just like the useless security guards last week).

MiB surviving those wounds and his daughter turning up and speaking Lakota also stretching my suspension of disbelief too far.  I think I'll have to go with the daughter being a host now - how else would she know to turn up for him?

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

I think I'll have to go with the daughter being a host now - how else would she know to turn up for him?

While I agree it's all a bit too contrived, this isn't something I had too much of a problem with.  If she's determined to continue on her quest, who else was she gonna run into?  If anything, they established this ep the Ghost Nation is on the outskirts.

[Cas Stark]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

One minor point - we saw confirmation that Arnold must have told Dolores to kill herself after shooting him.

The fascinating thing is that the Indian tribe was out there all the time and Arnold did not have them killed off as well. Until now I was assuming that first slaughter of hosts was a slaughter of all hosts. Yet...it clearly wasn’t, after all. Why?

I'm going with plot hole. But I could be wrong.  

[Ser Quork]

Another thing that didn't quite work for me was Sizemore being apologetic and upset about Maeve's condition.  I don't find that consistent with what he's shown us of himself.

[Jace, Extat]

19 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

Another thing that didn't quite work for me was Sizemore being apologetic and upset about Maeve's condition.  I don't find that consistent with what he's shown us of himself.

Huh? That was a pretty well set up character moment, Jace thought.

Regarding the episode, it was the most Nolan thing I've ever seen. The entire episode left me cranky and resentful (having cooked a steak for the episode) until Ford showed up from whence point it was a very entertaining and enlightening joy.

I just didn't give a fuck about Ake telling his well shot and acted story until, y'know, characters I actually knew were involved. Crazy Logan In the Desert isn't quite enough of a connection for a 40 minute solo tale with a dude who has been on screen for less than four minutes combined through the rest of the show.

[Cas Stark]

I expect Sizemore is going to save Maeve, and this feels fine to me, they did a good job with that relationship this year.

But, overall, [cliche incoming] Westworld this year feels like less than the sum of its parts.  It has a lot of beautiful shots, great acting, amazing segments, but most of it still feels like we are running in place.  We've gotten a lot of interesting nuggets this year, James Delos as a host, Shogun World, this latest episode....but none of this has really advanced the story much.  No one except maybe Maeve has even had a 'story' this year.  Deathbringer is bringing death.  Bernarnold is confused.  The parks are still in chaos.  Ed Harris continues his quest for the white whale, though much less interesting this year.  Charlotte Hale is still one note awful.  Even the daughter hasn't added much.  She loves him, she hates him, blah blah.  

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Westworld this year feels like less than the sum of its parts.

They seemed to put the parts together pretty well last episode (7).  Based on the trailers, I anticipated this was going to be an excursion to explaining Ghost Nation and overall it was...fine.  I'll withhold judgment until after the finale.

[Cas Stark]

Except for all the plot holes, LOL.  So, he exists for a decade without being killed.  Okay.  The techs take his wife for being off her loop, but leave him.  He gets to the edge of the park and sees whatever, but no techs come to wipe his memory.  Unlike every other host who is 'updated' he retains all of his memories, just because.  He is able to walk around HQ without triggering any alarms.  Ghost Nation is carving the maze in their scalps and no one but Ford notices. Arnold had the deathbringer kill all the hosts, but forgot about Ghost Nation.  I'm sure there is another half a dozen plot holes I didn't even pick up on.  It was a beautiful episode, but requires a lot of not caring about the rules of the world they set up to make it work.

[Spring Bass]

That wasn't bad for a mostly self-contained episode. It's nice to know that the Ghost Nation aren't just running on auto-pilot, rescuing guests.

I can't remember - was Ake the native from the first episode whom Dolores shoots and says, "I told you friend not everyone is going to the Valley Beyond"? It looks like from the next episode trailer that there is going to be a conflict between the tribe and Dolores' gang (It's looking a lot like Dolores and her group were set up to be sacrificed by Ford to destroy the Cradle and accumulated guest data before being destroyed themselves, while giving time for other Hosts to escape).

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, Summer Bass said:

That wasn't bad for a mostly self-contained episode. It's nice to know that the Ghost Nation aren't just running on auto-pilot, rescuing guests.

I can't remember - was Ake the native from the first episode whom Dolores shoots and says, "I told you friend not everyone is going to the Valley Beyond"? It looks like from the next episode trailer that there is going to be a conflict between the tribe and Dolores' gang (It's looking a lot like Dolores and her group were set up to be sacrificed by Ford to destroy the Cradle and accumulated guest data before being destroyed themselves, while giving time for other Hosts to escape).

Might be.  The show invested so much in her character, and then turned her into deathbringer, I sort of feel like some other twist or something that brings her back to sympathy will happen.  Her scene with her father before she cut his brain out was very moving, but overall, she remains incredibly unsympathetic this season.  I do tend to think she is much more under Ford's control that she thinks she is, or than we are supposed to think she is.

[Jace, Extat]

Dolores is my favorite

[Spring Bass]

32 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Might be.  The show invested so much in her character, and then turned her into deathbringer, I sort of feel like some other twist or something that brings her back to sympathy will happen. 

I suppose it's possible, too, that she will survive the flood that destroys the back-up and fills the canyon with water. Or that she and a handful of the other hosts will sacrifice tons of their followers (including Teddy) as a distraction. You're right that they've invested a ton in the character.

[Kyoshi]

Hope I'm not just being dumb, but regarding the switch between Lakota and English, for some reason I felt it was meant to indicate that throughout the episode Ake was actually talking to Maeve. I feel like since the daughter remembered things from before, and we saw that she wasn't afraid of him (having given him water and made friends and all that), in this whole episode Ake was actually trying to justify himself to Maeve. This made way more sense in my head. But Maeve is the one host we've seen switch languages. I think they all have this built in but yeah....I'm rambling now...

My favourite epsiode of the series so far. Mostly because Ghost Nation's separateness from everyone else finally makes sense to me. So the plot holes don't really seem like holes to me.

[Corvinus85]

7 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

Hope I'm not just being dumb, but regarding the switch between Lakota and English, for some reason I felt it was meant to indicate that throughout the episode Ake was actually talking to Maeve. I feel like since the daughter remembered things from before, and we saw that she wasn't afraid of him (having given him water and made friends and all that), in this whole episode Ake was actually trying to justify himself to Maeve. This made way more sense in my head. But Maeve is the one host we've seen switch languages. I think they all have this built in but yeah....I'm rambling now...

Yes, I think most of his story was for Maeve.