Westworld Wednesday: These Violent Delights

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THIS SHOW IS GOOD.

And on that note, I want to continue my thread from last week about trying to unpack twists being detrimental to story telling. In this episode, Ford chastises The Man In Black (WILLIAM! Who became the man in black because Delores is a robot…and he has issues.) for not looking at the story, only looking at the game, “The maze is not meant for you,” was literal, it wasn’t a clue. The maze isn’t a maze at all, but a metaphor for the discovery of consciousness that Arnold used to test the hosts. If they understood the metaphor and realized that the voices in their head were not his, but their own, they were conscious beings.

Once William decided to play the game instead of follow the story, he lost that thread, and lost the fundamental understanding of both the park, and of Delores and the other hosts.

Ford does understand them, but that doesn’t mean he can control them, and at this point, I’m not sure that he wants to. I do think that he’s alive. There was too much of a hold on that handshake between Ford and Bernard. In the first episode Ford tells Bernard that a dead giveaway of the first hosts were the hands.

If Ford built a host of himself, and if Delores/Wyatt killed that host, what comes next?

I know I said I was going to stop speculating, but it’s pretty much impossible.

Maeve is great, and she looks fab in her little black dress. I think she’s off to find her daughter, but I’m more excited about Snake Tatoo Lady and Hector going all Terminator oh AND THAT GLIMPSE WE SAW OF SAMURAI WORLD.

Let’s also talk about how we got a scene where Delores dies in a weeping Teddy’s arms, because my God, Westworld knows what I like and why I like it.

So it’s apparently going to be two years before we get more of this show…that’s a long time to not speculate. But, there’s two seasons of Game Of Thrones in there, so I can deal with it.

Westworld Wednesday: I Remember You

Guys! A couple of big things happened this time around.

First things first, Teddy now remembers The Man In Black and his attack on Delores. He want to kill him, but of course he can’t, which he still thinks is because of his morals not because of his being a robot. But The Man In Black is now being taken hostage by a woman who’s involved with Wyatt, who I think we’re meeting next week and who I have a creeping suspicion might be William.

Unless The Man In Black is William. But who the hell knows at this point.

Maeve is now playing the game on God Mode, and it’s amazing. She’s rewriting storylines, she’s remembering that The Man In Black killed her and her daughter, and that was the first time that she couldn’t shake a memory. This is played out beautifully, cut between Maeve, The Man in Black and Ford. Also, music is so important to this show and while Maeve subtly plays with Hector’s raid on Sweet Water, we hear music from The Nutcracker, which, if you don’t know, is a story about toys that come to life and fight their own battles.

Hmm…

Oh, also, Board Member Tessa Thompson enlists Lee Sizemore to help her foil Ford, who, probably won’t be foiled. Oh, and Other-Other-Hemsworth (Luke?) tries to be nice to Bernard, who is having a bit of a crisis, and can you blame him? But he basically brushes him off. While I’m excited to see what happens with Bernard, if it’s not helping Maeve lead the robot uprising, I barely care.

William and Delores also do a thing, and she has a vision of shooting herself in the head, and OMG THIS IS SO BORING.

Two more episodes. I hope we get some convergence soon, or at least confirmation that there are multiple time lines, other wise, bad story telling.

Westworld Wednesday: There Isn’t Much Difference These Days

If you’d asked me back in episode 1, which Host was going to figure out that she was a host first, I would not have said Maeve. Hell, if you’d asked me last week, I still would have gone with Dolores.

Honestly, if you’d asked me last week, I would have said a lot of things this week would be different.

Nope everything’s fine. Everything’s normal.

Anyway, Maeve spends this episode getting her act together, re: sentience. Teddy, meanwhile is still riding around with The Man in Black yammering about Wyatt and how he’s got to get back to Dolores. Who, unless the dual timelines theory is for real, is not waiting for him, but is running around on the fringes with William robbing stage coaches, or whatever.

Poor, stupid, still stuck in his loop Teddy.

Anyway, Maeve. She gets herself to the repair shop by goading a customer to choke her hard during sex. (Ah, HBO.) While there, she basically convinces her techs, Felix, and Obnoxious Beardy Dude (I’m sorry, I’m tired and depressed and don’t feel like looking up his name. I have no patience for White Men at the moment. Y’all done fucked up big this time.) to show her around the Westworld facility. She learns about her programming and her past lives and admits that she remembers everything. She tells them that she wants an intelligence upgrade.

I’m really excited to see where this is going.

Elsie is poking around and learns that the malignant code is coming from Arnold. But how? Since he’s dead and all? Well, she shares this information with Bernard, who shares it with Theresa. Bernard also meets Ford’s robot family, and it also appears the maze is done.

I have to admit, I really love Maeve. But I also missed Delores. But Thandie Newton is incredible and I’m glad she’s getting to play this much more active role than it seemed she would initially. (Plus I love the White Girl Protagonist Trojan Horse at play here.)

You know what else I miss? Believe in the better natures of my country men.

*SIGH*