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HBO's 'Westworld'


Phil

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Idk what the deal is, but the finale of this season better be fucking awesome because adding layer after layer after layer is making me lose interest.

 

They certainly are dragging it along. There's enough character depth. Now go somewhere with this. I can't see this going past three seasons.

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Typical HBO penultimate episode. Ties up a bunch of loose ends and then allows the finale to take one last step before setting up the next season.

 

 

Of course, the major loose ends went right where it was expected that they would. Some nice little twists to them, but now we're just left to see who Wyatt is. My guess, Teddy is Wyatt and Wyatt was designed to be the Host version of Logan, who William kills in the park (what happens in the park stays in the park). Perhaps William/MiB and Ford come to some sort of arrangement/blackmail where William agrees to save the park once he marries Logan's sister in exchance for making Logan's death seem like an accident. This is "the incident" 30 years ago. They haven't 100% confirmed William/MiB but it's 95% there. I guess there's a small chance Wyatt is "William" meaning a Host created in William's image, so then MiB is facing himself at the end. That would give viewers a last moment where they think William/MiB aren't the same person, before realizing they are.

 

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So can someone explain how no one in the show knows that Bernard was made in Arnold's image? I get that Arnold might have been secretive but he was obviously around for the start of the park and he is one of the creators of the hosts, people would have known what he looked like even if the scene with Dolores going below the church is ment to signify that the original park employees all got locked down there and died. The guy is the primary inventor of one of the craziest techs on the planet, no matter how secret he was trying to stay someone there would know what he looked like.

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Typical HBO penultimate episode. Ties up a bunch of loose ends and then allows the finale to take one last step before setting up the next season.

 

 

Of course, the major loose ends went right where it was expected that they would. Some nice little twists to them, but now we're just left to see who Wyatt is. My guess, Teddy is Wyatt and Wyatt was designed to be the Host version of Logan, who William kills in the park (what happens in the park stays in the park). Perhaps William/MiB and Ford come to some sort of arrangement/blackmail where William agrees to save the park once he marries Logan's sister in exchance for making Logan's death seem like an accident. This is "the incident" 30 years ago. They haven't 100% confirmed William/MiB but it's 95% there. I guess there's a small chance Wyatt is "William" meaning a Host created in William's image, so then MiB is facing himself at the end. That would give viewers a last moment where they think William/MiB aren't the same person, before realizing they are.

 

 

I'm still not convinced at all that MiB is William.

 

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So can someone explain how no one in the show knows that Bernard was made in Arnold's image? I get that Arnold might have been secretive but he was obviously around for the start of the park and he is one of the creators of the hosts, people would have known what he looked like even if the scene with Dolores going below the church is ment to signify that the original park employees all got locked down there and died. The guy is the primary inventor of one of the craziest techs on the planet, no matter how secret he was trying to stay someone there would know what he looked like.

 

When Logan is talking to William, he mentions the history of the creators of the park. He tells William the rumor is it was created by a partnership, but the one partner killed himself and that he doesn't even know the partners' name. That's when he mentions that his family's business is considering bailing out the failing park. William says that they must have a team of lawyers working on it and Logan says that they haven't even turned up a name or a photograph. So it seems like Arnold was a mystery to the world while maybe Ford was the public face.

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So can someone explain how no one in the show knows that Bernard was made in Arnold's image? I get that Arnold might have been secretive but he was obviously around for the start of the park and he is one of the creators of the hosts, people would have known what he looked like even if the scene with Dolores going below the church is ment to signify that the original park employees all got locked down there and died. The guy is the primary inventor of one of the craziest techs on the planet, no matter how secret he was trying to stay someone there would know what he looked like.

 

Depending on how the timelines work, it's possible that nobody who works there "now" even knows who Arnold is and that every time we've seen Bernard talking to Dolores, it was in the past as Arnold, until this episode.

 

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I'm still not convinced at all that MiB is William.

 

 

Yeah, I'm not sold. Especially considering that in the last scene we see Delores meet the MIB at the church, in her supposed older "William time frame" clothing, and not the blue dress. It's too simple for it to be that. I'm still going with Teddy being a character based on William. Trying to figure out if Stubbs is a host. Because that could be a link to William/MIB, as the MIB was granted his pyrotechnics by Stubbs, at what looks like the same time he checks out what William is doing. The bone tomahawk native types are a key here too.

 

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Here's a pretty good write up on the story telling craft behind Westworld, and it is as unkind as it is accurate:

 

http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/1/13779362/westworld-season-finale-theories-hbo

Nice find, I think this is the important paragraph in it:

Westworld’s infatuation with mystery has kept its creators from answering the basic questions on which drama is constructed. Who are the people in this story? What are their motives? Why should we care about them?

There's no "rooting interest" so to speak now, because we don't know who/what is real. That makes a show incredibly boring while being so mysterious.

 

The multiple timelines route that they went - same as Man in the High Castle - is just extremely lazy storytelling to me. If you can't make a linear plot, then you really have no plot at all. Confusing the reader/viewer about where they actually are and who/what they're watching is a cheap trick.

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Nice find, I think this is the important paragraph in it:

 

There's no "rooting interest" so to speak now, because we don't know who/what is real. That makes a show incredibly boring while being so mysterious.

 

The multiple timelines route that they went - same as Man in the High Castle - is just extremely lazy storytelling to me. If you can't make a linear plot, then you really have no plot at all. Confusing the reader/viewer about where they actually are and who/what they're watching is a cheap trick.

 

I think it can work, but it just doesn't here. The multiple timelines have to be integral to the plot. It has to explain things better than a linear timeline would, by lining up causes with effects. In WW as you said, it just seems like a cheap trick to add mystery.

 

The only way that won't be the case is if the maze itself is really meant for the viewer and is somehow a guide to how we were supposed to be viewing things. If there's some pattern to the maze which explains the jumping back and forth through time in the show. Something like that.

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Well, that was a pretty great finale. The biggest takeaway is that they'll be able to get away from the multiple timelines trick in the future and the show should be a lot more action-driven.

 

In hindsight, the first season will be good because it provides context, rather than a slow reveal over time as the plot moves forward. I think it will fall under the category of "cool," and glad we had it, but far more excited to see how the show moves forward. Actually, it's kind of similar to GoT, as the whole Ned storyline really wasn't integral to anything except setting up the rest of the plot.

 

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The finale was just OK, imo. It seemed so forced, like "Here I am, I'm the SEASON FINALE! Here's everything we've been hiding for the past 9 episodes wrapped up with this neat little bow! Pretty much Ford explaining everything in narratives to his Hosts. And then FIREWORKS! Season two is going to be E-P-I-C! OMG. Are you impressed!?!?!?! Also, mother fucking Samurai! Now get on social media and spread the word!

 

The dominoes were falling slowly all season long and then suddenly, it all fits nice and tidy, delivered like a hot pizza.

 

Quite a few questions from the finale, though:

 

In early William, the photo of his fiance drops in the buried city. How did it get back to Sweetwater near Delores' ranch?

 

Why did Teddy's bullets hit and impact, but not kill MiB, when we've seen, for instance, Maeve's shotgun blasts earlier not do anything to him?

 

On Maeve's log that Bernard shows her in cold storage, there are a number of Narratives loaded, "Deceive", "Coerce", "Recruit" (which includes an "Escape" subroutine) and then "Mainland and Infiltr...". They are all in folders attributed to W.Arnold that are marked hidden or private. Does this mean Maeve is programmed to go out into the real world to infiltrate humans? Does she go against this programming to find her daughter then?

 

What exactly were the board members watching? Just the final scene as Delores and Logan arrive on the beach? More of the MiB story before that?

 

Management says to send a QA team to the Gala, but presumably everything gets locked down before they can. Then we see these teams of armed response teams trying to hunt down Maeve and crew, yet no one bothers to go to the board members. Who triggered the lock down then? Why weren't there teams sent to the MVPs in the park?

 

I thought the plan was to sneak out Delores' dad with the park data before telling Ford they were getting rid of him, so he couldn't sabbotage the park. Why then do they wait till after Ford is told? That seems pretty stupid.

 

How much of the revolt was designed by Ford, how much did he leave to Maeve and/or Delores? If Delores is really awake, why does she decide to act exactly as Ford wanted at the exact moment he's giving his speech? Seems too tidy for an awakening. So was she programmed to do it again, the way she was with Arnold?

 

 

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What a piece of shit. All of that crap for Ford to just kill the guests and send a host out? Now did Maeve start heading back to the park? Why?

 

I thought the character development sucked donkeys. William killed two people and that made him into this hate filled killer, who then goes on a rampage? Bullshit. Easy way out, crap writing.

 

Who the fuck is the security team at this shithole? Maeve walked around the complex for episodes and threatened that bearded scientist guy how many times? And nobody saw this?

 

Did Stubbs die? What was the deal with the Indian weirdos? Hosts apparently are crack shots with automatic weapons that they never used? "Die well"????? WTF is that shit? That sounds like a shitty Jeanne Claude Vandam line from Cyborg...What the hell was the movie set ending to the Teddy and Delores narrative??? Are the cops and the army on their way? Security had to have called the police when the robots took over the complex, much less the park... I just expected a better twist. The William as MIB was lazy shit writing.. Good peaceful guy just snaps, because the park made him into a tougher person... Bullshit. GOT better end ten times better than this shit

 

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What a piece of shit. All of that crap for Ford to just kill the guests and send a host out? Now did Maeve start heading back to the park? Why?

 

I thought the character development sucked donkeys. William killed two people and that made him into this hate filled killer, who then goes on a rampage? Bullshit. Easy way out, crap writing.

 

Who the fuck is the security team at this shithole? Maeve walked around the complex for episodes and threatened that bearded scientist guy how many times? And nobody saw this?

 

Did Stubbs die? What was the deal with the Indian weirdos? Hosts apparently are crack shots with automatic weapons that they never used? "Die well"????? WTF is that shit? That sounds like a shitty Jeanne Claude Vandam line from Cyborg...What the hell was the movie set ending to the Teddy and Delores narrative??? Are the cops and the army on their way? Security had to have called the police when the robots took over the complex, much less the park... I just expected a better twist. The William as MIB was lazy shit writing.. Good peaceful guy just snaps, because the park made him into a tougher person... Bullshit. GOT better end ten times better than this shit

 

 

 

Maeve seems to have gained consciousness in the moment that she decided to turn around, because it went against her programming. It was her maze moment, because she was able to confront her own thoughts and made a choice that was outside her programmed instructions to escape.

 

I don't see William as someone who became a hate filled killer, but rather as someone who had no inner feelings and simply acted on his ambitions without emotion, and was then driven solely by his desire for the game to have real stakes. I don't think he was ever a good peaceful guy though. He appears to be initially, but by the end you are shown that he is only marrying Logan's sister to gain control of Delos. That being said, he isn't exactly a fully bad guy. He saw WW as more real than the real world, but felt it was held back from perfection due to the cards stacked in the visitor's favor.

 

The entire sequence with the escapees (to me) was to show a polar opposite of Westworld. In WW, visitors have the obvious advantage, but when the hosts are free of their restrictions they have the upper hand. I also speculated that some of the security was not human (I recall ford saying he could automate stuff to stubbs/the young executive chick), but I didn't see it too far fetched that 30 years of no-incidents could have been met with a lackluster response.

 

I think there were some easter eggs online that hint at Elsie being alive, which would mean that Stubbs is also alive. Not sure though; If we don't see them dead, I don't think they are.

 

 

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I don't understand people complaining about the scene where Teddy and Dolores were on the beach and it turned out to be a show for the board members. It did an amazing job of showing how Ford controls literally everything in the park, including what the guests do

 

 

Not sure if you're including my comments in this, but my complaint wasn't that it occurred, but rather that we don't know the scope of how much of Delores' storyline was being viewed by the board. Was it just the last few minutes live on the beach or was it more?

 

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  • 1 year later...
Bump.

 

I'll be honest. I'm watching more out of habit than desire at this point. I feel like this show has a very visible shelf life that is quickly approaching.

I'm curious to see where this season goes. The park is "growing," but other than getting out of the park completely, I don't know where else this show can go.

 

I think there are too many characters, to be honest. Each one is weakened because you get pulled into different perspective and different timelines, and that just waters down each storyline.

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  • 4 months later...
Former Breaking Bad star and Emmy winner Aaron Paul is joining HBO's Westworld for its third season, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

 

The actor will be a regular on the series, but the show is keeping details of his character a secret for now. Paul will be the second Breaking Bad mainstay to appear on Westworld, following Giancarlo Esposito, who had a memorable cameo in season two.

 

The Westworld that Paul will step into may look quite a bit different than the one viewers have watched unfold over the first two seasons, as season two ended with a fully upended status quo. Most of the hosts that viewers came to know across the first 20 episodes were either dead or gone from the park ? including Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), both of whom escaped for new lives among humanity, harboring very different intentions toward mankind.

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/westworld-season-3-adds-aaron-paul-1143139

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