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

[Fragile Bird]

It seems to me that Ford is as friggin' nuts as William.

What if the profile Ford slipped to William is actually his own? Ford is a genius, someone at the highest percentile of brilliant. Ford may have been manipulating him for a decade, making him doubt reality. As William said in the bar, Ford was to stay away from Delos and in exchange they would stay out of his storylines. But William is always in the storylines, and paranoid. Ooooh, looks like with justification!

What's that old saying, something about he's crazy, he thinks everyone is out to get him, but if everyone is actually out to get him, is he crazy?

Teddy speaks the central truth of the series: "What's the use of surviving if we become just as bad as them?"

Bernard and Ford have a parallel story, and Bernard has the same POV. Ford hates humans. Anyone who could casually say 'kill Elsie' has to be psycho, right?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

40 minutes ago, Ramsay B. said:

It’s the Ford Force.

That was a pretty wild episode. Hopkins did kill that Maeve scene, and I had to rewind when Bernard finally snapped from having Ford in his head and screamed in frustration. Jeffrey Wright is so great.

I was genuinely shocked when William shot Emily.

The preview for the finale looks crazy:

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Did anyone catch that the sky had like a tear going down it or something? Presumably the door out? The dome cover?

ETA: I was also surprised that Charlotte actually had a slight reaction to the hosts ripping each other apart. A very small face touch but she did look uncomfortable for a second. 

Didn't catch. The rapid montage usually has something. have to watch it on YouTube at .25 speed.

Charlotte has seen a lot of death.  Having come very close herself, maybe she can start to empatize.

30 minutes ago, Summer Bass said:

I loved that the scanners were in the cowboy hats. 

I'm not sure what the significance of Clementine being programmed with a "make the hosts kill each other" code is supposed to be. Aren't they already going to overpower the hosts with their firepower? Is is just that they have some control over the system again? 

I am glad that Elsie lives again . . . for now. Didn't see her in the "flash forward" timeline, so who knows. I know I would have said, "Elsie NOOOO!" if Bernard had killed her. 

Elise is so, so dead.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

[Fragile Bird]

Something that seems obvious is that Maeve will turn Clementine against the humans. She'll over-ride the instructions given by Hale.

And what the hell is Bernard doing, wandering around free? Is the idea that since the humans believe he only just found out he was a host, he has been unaffected by the 'virus'?

After my third re-watch, I wondered about William's paranoia and his wife saying she wished her father was there to see him. You can see the wheels turn - what does she know and who told her? Was that just water he gave her by the bedside?

"I didn't break the agreement, your project did." What the heck did Ford mean when he said that to William? William doesn't understand either.

And why do the hosts always think they are in a dream?

[Ramsay B.]

44 minutes ago, Casablanca Birdie said:

Teddy speaks the central truth of the series: "What's the use of surviving if we become just as bad as them?"

That was a good line. It also clearly hit Dolores when he said it. Poor Teddy.

 

53 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Didn't catch. The rapid montage usually has something. have to watch it on YouTube at .25 speed.

It was towards the end in the background. The preview shows an awful lot, so for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet and doesn’t want to be spoiled I would just avoid it.

[Fragile Bird]

Here's the trailer. It's wild. Avoid if you don't want to be spoiled.

https://winteriscoming.net/2018/06/17/watch-the-trailer-for-the-westworld-season-2-finale-the-passenger/

[Cas Stark]

Fuck.  So, deathbringer and "Billy" deserve each other I guess, both driving their lovers to suicide.  And bonus points for shooting your only child on father's day.  

All that is left to say is:  Go Maeve.  Make your 'father' proud.

[Corvinus85]

7 hours ago, Casablanca Birdie said:

And why do the hosts always think they are in a dream?

I think their intelligence is high enough even under restrictive programming, they can analyze their surroundings, and possibly cause failures in their programming. So the operators always make sure to steer them away from that, and let them know they are in a dream when in a room underground.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

So much for that redemption arc.  

Also, William is not a host.

[Cas Stark]

6 minutes ago, chiKanery et al. said:

So much for that redemption arc.  

Also, William is not a host.

Haha, yeah, I was wrong about that.  I'm glad he's not getting redeemed, but still, his arc is underwhelming somehow, but now that he will presumably be bat shit insane it might get more interesting.

[Fragile Bird]

I think I will not be able to see any episode ever again without thinking about the fact that Ford is a psychopath.

[Cas Stark]

I don't see Ford as a psychopath, he's your garden variety genius control freak...he wants his creations to have freedom, but he still can't let go and give it to them since he thinks he knows best.  

[Fragile Bird]

No, he’s a psychopath. He programmed the hosts to slaughter every human in the parks. He was in Bernard telling him to kill humans and when Bernard balked, he picked up the automatic weapon and killed them, soothing Bernard with the words ‘what’s going to happen isn’t your fault’. He told Bernard he was weak and he had to take control. 

I realize we are meant to sympathize with the hosts because humankind are a POS, but Ford has decided the time for humans has passed and it is the age of the hosts. Built, as he told us last night, in his image. He is not only a psychopath, he’s a megalomaniac psychopath with a God complex. He is judge, jury and executioner of mankind.

Lol, he’s a traitor to his kind. Is this what you will do when the robots roll in, encourage them and lie down to die? Though of course, Ford has protected his existence.

[DMC]

I thought the whole "brain scans in a cowboy hat" thing was rather silly, or at least sloppy.  While I agree that neuroimaging is a fantastic idea to explain how they were able to transmute human consciousness to code, what about all the decisions guests make when they take off their hats?  And of the few female guests we've seen, I believe most weren't wearing hats - let alone guests in other parks.  Seems like you'd be getting incomplete data both at an individual and aggregate level.  Read this somewhere else, but it really left me wondering how much of Delos' business model relied upon guests wearing their hats?  Just struck me as a really cool idea they came up with in the writers room and shoehorned in there without really thinking it through.

11 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

It seemed like when Ms. William got to look at MiB's profile they had three diagnostic codes which combined to make up a "rare" profile that only fit .0072% (of subjects/guests, presumably).  

ETA:

persecutory subtype

delusional

paranoid subtype

I feel like those three would be highly correlated with each other.

[Cas Stark]

Yes, scanners in the hats that no one wears all the time is both stupid and sloppy.  It's science fiction, they didn't even need to have a concrete explanation in a world with technology that advanced, let alone a silly solution like that.

[Corvinus85]

My assumption was that the scanners were in different items of clothing, and other items as well. So no matter what guests chose to wear and carry with them, they were still being scanned.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

46 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Haha, yeah, I was wrong about that.  I'm glad he's not getting redeemed, but still, his arc is underwhelming somehow, but now that he will presumably be bat shit insane it might get more interesting.

I think his arc is clear and fitting for our age: escapism can lead to the destruction of everything you love and hold dear.  

[DMC]

Plus paranoid and persecutory delusions.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, Casablanca Birdie said:

I think I will not be able to see any episode ever again without thinking about the fact that Ford is a psychopath.

Wait, you’re just realizing now that he’s a psychopath? Because I figured that was obvious in season one after he used an android, who he made in the image of a man who he destroyed, to kill one of his employees, and he did so in such a casual fashion that it indicated it might not have been the first time he’d done it.

[Fragile Bird]

19 minutes ago, chiKanery et al. said:

Wait, you’re just realizing now that he’s a psychopath? Because I figured that was obvious in season one after he used an android, who he made in the image of a man who he destroyed, to kill one of his employees, and he did so in such a casual fashion that it indicated it might not have been the first time he’d done it.

Nah, I've thought so for a long time, I just wanted to say it because there were so many comments this season about how great Ford is. Everyone is talking about deathbringer Dolores. Hello there, what about psycho Robert?

Having Bernard kill Theresa could be excused as the dirtiest of tricks in a deadly game of control. Her attacks on him were responded with extreme prejudice, as the saying goes. Evil, yes, but not necessarily psycho.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Casablanca Birdie said:

Having Bernard kill Theresa could be excused as the dirtiest of tricks in a deadly game of control. Her attacks on him were responded with extreme prejudice, as the saying goes. Evil, yes, but not necessarily psycho.

In that case I don't see why his recent actions should be considered psycho.  Ford has been very clear since early in the first season that he thinks the human race has advanced as far as it can - and obviously it was abundantly clear by the season 1 finale that he was preparing his creations to break free and conquer the human race.  If you want to call that psycho I'm not gonna argue (although it should be emphasized we still don't really know what the actual world is like), but all his actions since - including imploring Bernard to kill Elsie - have been fairly regular conduct in a war he initiated.

Anyway, I do hope he's done.  That was a great scene with saying goodbye to Maeve, and even telling Bernard it's up to him now.  I'm sure and hope will continue to get Hopkins in flashbacks, but I hope his consciousness is thoroughly kaput now in terms of the forward narrative.