Imo the show plays dirty. By mid first season I thought the multiple timeline theory was correct but hoped it was wrong because I thought they were being excessively deceptive in some of the presentation.
I’m sure I’m missed things in season one. But the different time lines were easier to follow and the multiple timelines became obvious near the end of the season. Also season 1 was 18 months ago, I forget stuff.
Well, this is definitely a show that you can’t watch while you’re folding the laundry. So, immortality was one of the obvious things that Delos was going for, but it also looks like you can throw blackmail of the rich and powerful on the list? (Would it be embarrassing if they have a tape of you peeing on hosts?)
Also, Logan’s line about them fiddling while the species burned, and they lit the match. Hmmm. So it’s not just about immortality and possible blackmail.
Loved some of the dialogue in this episode. Plus the lighting of Ed Harris’ face in the bar. Damn.
Also, I remember seeing Evan Rachel Wood when she was a child actor in that 90s NBC drama Profiler. Damn, she grew up.
Blackmail might be part of it, but William was pitching it more as a particularly effective way to do targetted advertisement, as I understood it. Like, Facebook and whatever can give a ton of useful metrics to advertisers, think how much better they could do if they saw you exploring your every desire without inhibition and tracked every bit of it?
I have trouble seeing blackmail as being super effective if Westworld is widely known - none of it is “real”, after all.
It would also be incredibly risky- as soon as one person calls their bluff the entire scam is blown.
My problem at this point is that certain people are still instigating lopsided fights like they did before the safeties were turned off.
It seems like the only hosts that seem to be truly independent are Dolores and Maeve. That line Maeve drops to Teddy about “do you feel free?” seemed to befuddle poor Teddy.
Then again, is Dolores really free? Or is she part of that elaborate game that Robert set up for William?
They’re definitely the only two who appear to have access to stored memories and are probably the only two who have achieved full sapience or anything like it. Except maybe Bernard. The others aren’t prevented from harming the guests anymore and don’t seem to necessarily process all the simulated damage stuff anymore but do appear to be basically operating according to the script they had loaded at the time.
Oh. This is interesting. In season 1, the photo of the woman standing next to a car in Times Square was a stock image from Getty. The producers found the model in the photo and cast her for the bit part in the show last night.
That’s giving fuel to the theory that Delos Sr.'s memories were perhaps uploaded to the Abernathy host. They drop hints that he’s dying, and it’s believed one of the goals of Delos Corp. is immortality. It would also explain why Abernathy glitches out when he finds the photo in the dirt.
That tends to happen. Maurice Chevalier even sang an appreciative (if by today’s standards slightly creepy) song about it. ;-)
BTW you guys all buried the lede: Giancarlo Esposito was in this episode! Gus Fring himself!
Indeed. I had a big grin on my voice from the moment I heard his voice.
I actually liked this episode quite a bit. If they’re going to be sticking with the multiple timeline stuff, I can handle it if it’s like this. And it’s good to see factionalism breaking out among the hosts.
HBO just confirmed season 3.
Woohoo!
Of course, if it doesn’t come out till 2020 I’ll be a sad panda.
I guess Delos must’ve contracted the lowest bidder for their paramilitary team since walking slowly out in the open while firing towards a dug in enemy force was their go to plan.
Also, British Colonial India World seems like a pretty niche theme park.
As always, the überrich must be catered to if they’re willing to pay enough.
The only thing I can think of is that their security team got complacent since they’ve never had any problem with hosts before, so all their tactical training went to rot.
That, and the poor bastards only have SMGs, so they have no choice but to close the distance.
But, yeah, any half-respecting infantry squad would have been prone in the treeline picking off the hosts with semi-auto fire.
On another note: Katja Herbers!!!
Loving this show, but yeah, some contrived writing. The fort battle was particularly dumb, it looked like a battle from Megaforce, I kept expecting Barry Bosworth to show up. Why would you leave the walls of the fort and stand on the front lawn? Obviously so you can be betrayed and left outside. It’s the old Homer vs. the carnies trick.
But yeah, interested to see where it goes. I like the idea of the entire park being in chaos and a literal war coming, with factions and alliances forming. Also cool the hosts are now autonomous but not necessarily violent, they have leadership and desires and all that.
I was wondering about that myself. Of course, nothing says that the parks all have to be equivalent scale. As far as we know, RajWorld could just be designed to cater to a handful of guests at a time.