Westworld VIII: Forging On

[Fragile Bird]

50 minutes ago, chiKanery et al. said:

 

 

My argument has been that he’s probably a host. A human being cannot sustain that much physical damage without damn near immediate medical attention. Also, he probably would have gone into shock from having his hand blown up. Something isn’t right here, and perhaps it is correct to say that this was from a future timeline.

The other thing I still can’t shake is his daughter. It seems fairly conclusive that he killed her, so how is she back, and more importantly, why would host Emily be torturing her host father. That seems odd and out of place, considering she was trying to help him in the park.

 

45 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Emily 2.0 is probably a host created by the AI or someone, using her because him killing her is his cornerstone, I would say it was the AI manifesting as Emily for the same reason, but since [I think] it's supposed to be the real world, not the virtual world, it probably isn't the AI as a hologram.

I just did a rewatch and they let you have a good look at what William is digging at in his arm, and it ain't a human arm. We are being screwed with on timelines, methinks.

At one point someone said something about the hosts thinking humans are gods, maybe in Season 1. Am I remembering that correctly? Now the hosts are gods. All I could think of was the myth of Sisyphus, up the hill and down the hill, for eternity. The Greeks could imagine time loops a couple of centuries ago. It was punishment for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness.

William was very cruel to his father-in-law. It may have been deserved cruelty, from what we saw of Delos. But being stuck in the same loop his father-in-law was in is a very fitting version of hell for William. However, I think this is in the Forge, since this is way in the future according to the interview linked a few pages ago, not the real world.

[Relic]

You live as long as the last person who remembers you, so host Emily was recreated to then bring fidelity to host William. Or something. 

[dbunting]

The question of "who" is in the "brain balls" should be resolved early in S3. Now, it shouldn't be anyone who didn't die near Delores, or who she didn't come in contact with right? Since she decided to save some hosts after the host database area was destroyed, so no host back ups should be available anywhere. The brain balls she has should have been pulled directly from hosts she came in contact with after deciding to save them.

Or, actually, she could have saved them as Hale...dammit. Too many timelines and things to keep up with. So if she saved them as Hale then she was in the main area with a lot of dead hosts, but Maeve and her crew were not there, they were all dead in the plains and she was shown to leave and not be anywhere near them. Also any host we saw enter the sublime is out of it because they are the same hosts we saw "drowned" in ep 1 and their minds were wiped clean when they entered the new world.

As to William I will say I was right. He clearly, to me anyway, was a host during some episodes this season, I'd say anytime he dug at his arm should be a give away, and the amount of damage he took this season. He also likely was human during some episodes.

Overall I am ok with how the season turned out. I do think they are doing themselves and casual fans a disservice with the alternate timelines being so hard to decipher. People who are on sites like this are more hardcore and even we had a hard time keeping up.

[Cas Stark]

34 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I don't usually get this confused, i'm quite good with multiple worlds and timelines and stuff but this season my brain is just like: ''whaaaa'' I think after some rewatches I'll get it but this is definitely niche TV. 

I stopped bothering to figure out some stuff, like 'when is XX' happening with Bernarnold, and I was right, it didn't matter, the show finally told the end of the story and which timeline he was in in what episode didn't matter, just like it's not going to matter which Ed Harris this season was present v. future, the show will ultimately show us whatever is important.  That's the major weakness this season, confusion for it's own sake.  The two timelines last season served a purpose...to see a 30 year journey from both ends, and yes, to be a twist.  But, nothing this season had any narrative reason for being, it was purely to confuse the audience and for no other reason.

[Theda Baratheon]

24 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I stopped bothering to figure out some stuff, like 'when is XX' happening with Bernarnold, and I was right, it didn't matter, the show finally told the end of the story and which timeline he was in in what episode didn't matter, just like it's not going to matter which Ed Harris this season was present v. future, the show will ultimately show us whatever is important.  That's the major weakness this season, confusion for it's own sake.  The two timelines last season served a purpose...to see a 30 year journey from both ends, and yes, to be a twist.  But, nothing this season had any narrative reason for being, it was purely to confuse the audience and for no other reason.

I think the messed up timeline was to reflect how Bernard had messed up his memories and screwed around with them and put them in the wrong order so anyone’s with his brain couldn’t figure it all out instantly 

[Mark Antony]

35 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I stopped bothering to figure out some stuff, like 'when is XX' happening with Bernarnold, and I was right, it didn't matter, the show finally told the end of the story and which timeline he was in in what episode didn't matter, just like it's not going to matter which Ed Harris this season was present v. future, the show will ultimately show us whatever is important.  That's the major weakness this season, confusion for it's own sake.  The two timelines last season served a purpose...to see a 30 year journey from both ends, and yes, to be a twist.  But, nothing this season had any narrative reason for being, it was purely to confuse the audience and for no other reason.

Really did seem like they were more worried about not letting /r/westworld figure out the twists and turns this time. Needlessly confusing is exactly what I’d call a lot of thIs season. 

I still enjoyed it for the most part but it felt like a chore to watch at times. 

Ramin Dwajadi mvp of season two.

[Cas Stark]

24 minutes ago, Marko Antonivic said:

Really did seem like they were more worried about not letting /r/westworld figure out the twists and turns this time. Needlessly confusing is exactly what I’d call a lot of thIs season. 

I still enjoyed it for the most part but it felt like a chore to watch at times. 

Ramin Dwajadi mvp of season two.

I agree.  This season was muddled and for no good reason.  I still love it, its insanely beautiful, and insanely ambitious, but I'd like to see them unmuddle a bit so that the ratings improve and they get their full 5 years, not the typical hack job condensing 2 more years into 2 long episodes when they get the word of no renewal. 

Ramin Dwajadi is a fucking genius and should already have a room full of Emmys. 

[Ramsay B.]

2 hours ago, Marko Antonivic said:

Really did seem like they were more worried about not letting /r/westworld figure out the twists and turns this time. Needlessly confusing is exactly what I’d call a lot of thIs season. 

I still enjoyed it for the most part but it felt like a chore to watch at times. 

Ramin Dwajadi mvp of season two.

Totally agree. It’s like they took it as a challenge to confuse the masses. 

So I finished it this morning and I’m still taking in what I just saw. I need to see like charts and get all the little timeline stuff explained to me because a lot of that was a complete mind fuck. I’m sure the 8 new pages of this thread will help things out though.

I did love the use of Codex for that last sequence. What a great song.

Poor Elsie.

[williamjm]

I thought it was a good finale, and did help some parts of the season make more sense in retrospect. Overall I thought the season had a lot of high points but I agree with some of the complaints that it sometimes felt that the narrative structure was needlessly confusing. I suspect like the first season's multiple timelines it will probably make more sense on a rewatch.

The Hale-is-Dolores twist was well executed, and it's another thing that could be interesting on a rewatch to see how many hints there are about it. I remember after the first season people were speculating that maybe Ford was printing a host to replace Hale (by the way, we never found out who he was printing, did we?) and infiltrate Delos. It seems they did eventually do that plotline, but not in the way we expected.

I'm not sure how I feel about the post-credits scene. While intriguing, I am a bit bored of William's character now, he served a purpose in the first season but his storyline was probably the least interesting of the second season plotlines.

16 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

ETA:  Man, the internet is creepy.  The advert from Amazon to my left is now for a book called "Pale Horse" per your comment. 

I'm seeing an Amazon advert for a book titled "The Body Has It Reasons: Self-Awareness through Conscious Movement", which is an advert I feel displays far too much understanding of some of the themes in Westworld.

14 hours ago, karaddin said:

As I said above, I only watched a handful of episodes from the first season and even of those that became relevant later...I wasn't a fan. I have very little interest in the procedural side of the show but loved the long running story. If you don't even want to watch those handful of episodes from the first couple of seasons you could really just read summaries of a few things and jump straight to season 3.

While I did like the early procedural episodes of Person of Interest, I agree it's the longer-term storytelling, particularly in the later seasons, that really becomes interesting and I think it had some great long-term character development. Michael Emerson and Amy Acker are both great in it. I don't know if I'd suggest jumping straight to a later season, but if someone didn't want to go through all the Number-of-the-week episodes it would probably be possible to draw up a shortlist of the episodes with things that will become important later on.

The show does also give me some faith that Jonathan Nolan is capable of plotting out a long-term story arc that makes sense. There are definitely times where it is a bit reminiscent of Westworld, in particular I see a lot of similarities between Grier and Ford and what seems to motivate them. The suggestion that humans are mostly predictable is also fairly key to both shows.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Setting aside what I was talking about before, I really feel like season two of Westworld is comparable to another HBO series’ second season: True Detective. Both seasons follow a first season that was critically acclaimed. Both seasons were decent to good, but didn’t always feel that way due to the prior reason. Both seasons had some sloppy writing and at times were needlessly complicated. Both seasons ended a strong note. Etc. I see a lot of similarities between the two, and hopefully the writers, directors and show runners learned from their mistakes and produce excellent third seasons for both shows.

[Nictarion]

Nothing in True Detective S2 even came close to the quality of WW 2x08 (Kiksuya) though. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Nothing in True Detective S2 even came close to the quality of WW 2x08 (Kiksuya) though. 

WW was better, no doubt. I'm just saying there are a lot of parallels between how the two shows have developed. 

[Cas Stark]

I thought the second season of True Detective was flat out bad.  Not less good, but bad.  Stupid plot, terrible writing, huge plot holes everywhere, which no amount of name actors could fix.  IMO

[Relic]

I dunno, i think i enjoyed WW S@ a good deal more than S1, which i found to be...tedious for long stretches. 

[DMC]

12 hours ago, karaddin said:

I dont think the original payload is the sublime transfer, nor is it the guest data so I think this is another of the mysteries. What was Dolores attempting to send to the Delos servers? It seems reasonable to assume it was not going to be helpful to Delos.

After she kills them all she changes the destination and says she's decided to preserve the sublime world, which wasn't her original plan so still doesnt fit that being the first data transfer.

Yes this is my interpretation as well.

13 hours ago, PetyrPunkinhead said:

Yeah, it's set up to look like the two red gloved lackey's will try to revive/save Maeve in the park for S3. However, I'll gladly take the bet of all the money in your pockets that the writers are gonna make that a switcheroo and Host-Hale will end up being the "real" Maeve. 

The trick is I have no money in my pockets.

11 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

*Count me as glad I stopped worrying about what the fuck Bernarnold was doing 'when'...it didn't matter really...which kind of indicates that this was a little too much subterfuge on the part of the show.  

I agreed the timelines were pointless and even a narrative clutch until the finale.  They were using it to set up the Halores reveal.  Still, they should probably stop as it is unnecessarily gimmicky.  The Nolans definitely have a weird obsession with time.

8 hours ago, chiKanery et al. said:

My argument has been that he’s probably a host. A human being cannot sustain that much physical damage without damn near immediate medical attention. Also, he probably would have gone into shock from having his hand blown up. Something isn’t right here, and perhaps it is correct to say that this was from a future timeline.

While I agree some of what we saw was likely in the "far far" future, William's healing ability has been ridiculous throughout the season.  It's definitely something in which you just have to suspend disbelief or roll your eyes and move on.  He's an ~ 70 year old man and he got shot in the season 1 finale.  Dude should have had to tap out at that point.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought the second season of True Detective was flat out bad.  Not less good, but bad.  Stupid plot, terrible writing, huge plot holes everywhere, which no amount of name actors could fix.  IMO

Yup.  There was a lot of potential there. Shame. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, DMBouazizi said:

 

While I agree some of what we saw was likely in the "far far" future, William's healing ability has been ridiculous throughout the season.  It's definitely something in which you just have to suspend disbelief or roll your eyes and move on.  He's an ~ 70 year old man and he got shot in the season 1 finale.  Dude should have had to tap out at that point.

It's also possible William is a hybrid at that point. Even if a human mind in a host body is a failed project, they have to be doing something with prosthetics or engineered organs or life enhancing medical tech.  Any society advanced enough to do what Delos is doing has to have a few other tricks.   

[dooog]

I would give S1 a solid 9/10

This season? It was just irritating.

Needlessly convoluted rubbish. First off, practically every character that "died" in the S1 massacre reappeared in some shape or form this season, so this instantly made reduced the "stakes" for S2. I'm sure the vast majority of characters that just perished in the S2 finale will sure enough be back next year, so their deaths meant absolutely nothing to me this week.  No emotional investment.

I said first off above, but I couldn't be arsed getting into everything... I will say I'm writing this on a Tuesday because I only just finished it, switched it off at my first run the other day the moment when that hack writer needlessly sacrifices himself to buy Maeve time to escape... even though he literally had just bought them enough time and his subsequent absurd death added about 4 seconds to said escape. How did those redshirts even recognise him so quickly before shooting him down anyway? the redshirts in the previous episode took a while to recognise the head honcho Ed Harris at close range.

To its credit, although the finale ultimately failed to deliver on or satisfy a snailpace slow burner,  I will say this season was for the most part very watchable. In the same way Game of Thrones is watchable. In the same way Lost once was. In the same way Walking Dead was in the first couple of seasons... all watchable shows but by no means good shows.

[HexMachina]

Who died in the massacre and came back? MIB, yes he was shot and there has been justifiable critique of his healing capability. Ford is the only one that died and he didn’t even come back. So I’m not sure you’re criticism makes much sense

[Mexal]

What a mediocre season. Really disappointing. Outside of episode 4 and 8, wasn't a real big fan of much of it. Only really 3-4 characters I cared about and they were all secondary or tertiary. That's a big issue. Not at all looking forward to season 3.