Also the musical cues matched the first movie, from when Yul was chasing Richard Benjamin through the park. It's a very distinct sound. I noticed it as soon as he got off the elevator and thought of Yul and then lo and behold they pan over him.
This whole butcher thing is such clumsy writing. Why would you let some butchers be able to modify base stats like that? Especially be able to max the AIs out like that? Where the fuck are the safeguards?
This whole butcher thing is such clumsy writing. Why would you let some butchers be able to modify base stats like that? Especially be able to max the AIs out like that? Where the fuck are the safeguards?
Also the musical cues matched the first movie, from when Yul was chasing Richard Benjamin through the park. It's a very distinct sound. I noticed it as soon as he got off the elevator and thought of Yul and then lo and behold they pan over him.
It's the exact same butcher room from the movie. The same mechanical dog parts were on the table. Basically that abandoned level is movie Westworld. Not sure if that is an Easter egg or meant to be taken literally.
Also the abandoned sector Elise went too, was that the town from the movie?
I mean come on. There should be a shitload of safeguards so some random idiot doesn't up anything on their own. The guy was right in that any changes should have been automatically flagged and reviewed.
Seems like there are different factions inside Delos with different goals, possibly military related. Theresa is working with a separate faction and uploading intel from the park to them.
I hope that the Theresa plotline isn't her just selling secrets to the chinese or something like that, it would be super cliche and dumb. Let it be a false flag, no one would use a company computer to talk to their buyer.
Actually the thing that bothered me about Elsie calling out for Bernard right before getting snatched was that I have no idea if it could've feasibly been him. Like what is the physical scale of the offices vs the park? Can they pop up anywhere at all? What is their fast travel system.
Also I thought it was funny when Elsie rhetorically asked Bernard "who else would I tell?" since we literally don't have any other characters in Behavior who she could've talked to.
I mean come on. There should be a shitload of safeguards so some random idiot doesn't up anything on their own. The guy was right in that any changes should have been automatically flagged and reviewed.
Well yeah. It's especially dumb in the writing to have that dude notice someone else making changes. Like... that obviously means he's leaving a trail, too. And how can Maeve credibly threaten him? Once he's logged into her brain just... shut her off and wipe her memory of this whole adventure.
But at least we do have plenty of evidence that West World management is grossly incompetent lol. So at least "shitty access control" is consistent with how much else they bungle.
I hope that the Theresa plotline isn't her just selling secrets to the chinese or something like that, it would be super cliche and dumb. Let it be a false flag.
But at least we do have plenty of evidence that West World management is grossly incompetent lol. So at least "shitty access control" is consistent with how much else they bungle.
Hopkins said he'd fix the dog. But I want to believe he goes to another secret lab where he has a fleet of hosts raising and training a litter of real dogs.
There's no substitute for the real deal, when it comes to dogs at least.
I just saw the movie yesterday and randomly this is the episode where they tie in the movie with the show, insane timing.
It wasn't just Yul Brenner or the music, the room Bernard enters is the butcher room from the movie, complete with the exact same dogs and animal robot parts left on the operating table when everyone died.
So is this an Easter egg or is the movie canon now. I guess it's an Easter egg but man everything is so calculated and this seems so self serving.
You guys keep blowing my mind with what you uncover. That damn photo. Isn't there a scene where they show the past and we see Arnold?
I feel it's clearly canon now, with that room indeed being exactly the same. Though they may choose to use it as mere reference and not canon-in-plot with the movie. To use that one word: it's lore, background information that is relevant to the diegesis, but not actually directly canon. Or at least that what the showrunners have claimed. I don't think you can really be that liberal with showing one thing and then saying it means another, but okay. My reason is avoiding confusion, like I'm clearly presenting now. Is it canon? We don't know. We would assume so from clear visual hints, but word of god says we're not supposed to. You can't have it both ways. But that's my view on that.
Also, on Arnold, quoting myself from last week:
Third, Ford = Arnold, or what's left of him (either himself or andy). No need to spoiler it he nearly says so in the episode ("person I used to be.... Arnold"). He's the only person who refers to the andies being made by Arnold, whereas everybody else says Ford made them. The child version, which showed up again this episode (
and will likely show up for the finale too
), may have been something like a trial run for the purpose of transferring consciousness or something like that. Either way, I speculate Arnold probably only partially succeeded and 'died' in that sense, leaving 'Ford', who is distinctly lacking in certain human qualities (sentimentality, shame, empathy, probably more) that go beyond his creator role. Also, look at how the pictured figures are dressed versus Ford in both present and flashback, in which "Arnold" is never shown. We only ever see the person we know as Ford, so obviously by power of elimination that 'person X is not there', Ford is Arnold. They can't suddenly reveal the guy now. You can't pull a rabbit out your hat after you've shown the trick. If Arnold was a real, different person, we would have seen him on the first flashback. We 'didn't', we saw Ford. Additionally, it would explain his greater degree of control over the park, to the point of snapping his fingers to make things happen. Ford's connection to the park is not in line with a mere human controller. His connection appears to be more intimate than a human could be. MiB's threat at him suggests him knowing that too, if perhaps intuitively. Real question is whether Ford was reverse-triggered by that Shakespeare quote and then started changing narratives, or has been playing the long game.
Unless Bernard turns out to be a host and can't see Arnold on the right, I think we can safely assume that current information would lead to the above outcome.
However, Ford does say that Arnold build them as a gift to him, so I am forced to accept the possibility of Bernard being a host. But I find that to be such a silly thing to do... oh well, I guess the show had to break somewhere.
Other problems are the presence of a physical person at the relay site and that Ford seemed to be genuinely surprised by the action of the boy.
As a side note: it seemed to me the director of this episode didn't give Hopkins time to do his thing and had him say his lines a bit too fast for his acting mannerisms, so thoroughly displayed in episode four. Maybe that's just in my head, but it felt pressed for speed.
Moving on:
This episode functioned as 'the rules' episode, where it finally showed a couple of things, like the lifts, the mechanical hosts, the presumptive original (movie) park being the lower layers, where the fuck narrative guy went, and the relation between the money people and the park management. That is, that Delos may be playing a secondary game. Expect a unannounced third party to show up with Elsie next episode anyway, like Arnold somehow being alive anyway or something like that. Does seem to fit the dollhouse setting. Elsie was so comfortable there because she's in one the entire time anyway. The disconnect between us realizing it's a 'creepy dollhouse' and her not giving a fuck is -I presume- intentional.
Btw, when Maeve talked about that 'lots of young men' she meant he was already doing that, not starting one. It was set up by that footage of a guy not erasing footage in the previous episode.
But, while I had no trouble with that interaction as a plot, the moment he referred to the processing power being greater than a human, the show died for me. The concept of things breaking free is only compelling when we have genuine reason to buy into their struggle to do so, and are not driven by the usual pseudo-science crap that creeps into all sci-fi anyway. So now I have nothing to care for anymore, other than Ford and Bernard plots. Even commando Teddy is somewhat dampened by it.
And not just on Maeve btw. All hosts have the same ability, rendering the core story inert.
Essentially, the show writing has now made the error to explain everything and eliminate the central mystery we should care about when the hosts are the protagonists: can they break free on their own? We no longer have to ask, and that means the story is over. It's just a setting now, with someone giving orders in the back. Wizard revealed, brain given, time to click heels and go back to Kansas. At best we can see how the human protagonists play out now. Or at least that's my view, you're all free to formulate your own and dissent from mine, of course. I'm also not interested in Person of Interest's later seasons for similar reasons though.
edit: some of this may have been a result of production being shut down on episode six though, where they probably had to frontload some stuff to be able to make episodes seven to ten.
So during this whole time nobody notices that Maeve is being paraded through the company by somebody who doesn't even work in these departments. Literally like ghosts.
Every time Maeve is on screen with the asian butcher I cringe so hard, even if the butchers were intimidated by her why not just shut her down?
Nah, lets make her even more dangerous and break critical protocols that not even system admins or security flag.
So during this whole time nobody notices that Maeve is being paraded through the company by somebody who doesn't even work in these departments. Literally like ghosts.
Every time Maeve is on screen with the asian butcher I cringe so hard, even if the butchers were intimidated by her why not just shut her down?
Nah, lets make her even more dangerous and break critical protocols that not even system admins or security flag.
So during this whole time nobody notices that Maeve is being paraded through the company by somebody who doesn't even work in these departments. Literally like ghosts.
Every time Maeve is on screen with the asian butcher I cringe so hard, even if the butchers were intimidated by her why not just shut her down?
Nah, lets make her even more dangerous and break critical protocols that not even system admins or security flag.
The lack of error flagging is what breaks it (in real life it would stand out like a sore spot), though I did like how that played out. It's not an uncommon thought to consider what happens to the mind if it were aware of how it constitutes itself at the same time. The movie Pi had that element in it as well, which is probably where it was borrowed from.
The reason Felix doesn't put her back in sleep mode is because he can't anymore. Either she is physically put down or they have to play along. Of course, in reality the option would be instant termination, but the park seems lax in a lot of things. What is definitely a 'oh boy no' is raising Maeve's intelligence.
Shit had gone too far for them to just stop, it's either continue doing it and hopefully not get caught or tell the higher ups about it and definitely get fired.
Shit had gone too far for them to just stop, it's either continue doing it and hopefully not get caught or tell the higher ups about it and definitely get fired.
You're totally going to get caught though if you jack her intelligence up to the max and she tries to start a robo revolution. Should have just lowered her IQ and increase her loyalty.
The lack of error flagging is what breaks it (in real life it would stand out like a sore spot), though I did like how that played out. It's not an uncommon thought to consider what happens to the mind if it were aware of how it constitutes itself at the same time. The movie Pi had that element in it as well, which is probably where it was borrowed from.
The reason Felix doesn't put her back in sleep mode is because he can't anymore. Either she is physically put down or they have to play along. Of course, in reality the option would be instant termination, but the park seems lax in a lot of things. What is definitely a 'oh boy no' is raising Maeve's intelligence.
They seem to have a system that is intelligent enough to communicate with agents through voice. But you'd expect that when one of the top hosts in the park encounters that many system errors, the people upstairs would get notified. Also of her position, and there are also no security cameras in the workshops? I'm sure Elsie had recordings of people fucking hosts there.
Some one, should have seen Maeve put a scalpel to the guys throat. Or seen them using the QA tablet for things that they should not be using it for.
It feels all a bit too forced and rushed.
They better not kill of Elsie that cheaply either.
People bitching about there not brig an "error flag" who's to say that isn't coming? I mean, the episode ended immediately after they dialed her up. Someone could still be flagged or whatever.
It's also possible the people being notified are the same ones who have been modifying the core behavior of the other hosts.
We just don't know enough yet. It's a stupid thing to get upset about.
The track during the "creation of life" scene as Maeve travels through the offices and the track at the end when Maeve gets her awakening buff. SO FUCKING GOOD.
People bitching about there not brig an "error flag," who's to say that isn't coming? I mean, the episode ended immediately after they dialed her up. Someone could still be flagged or whatever.
It's also possible the people being notified are the same ones who have been modifying the core behavior of the other hosts.
We just don't know enough yet. It's a stupid thing to get upset about.
But it simply won't be the case that next episode someone notices a flag and comes downstairs to just casually undo it. Maeve was the last shot of the episode, imbued with all kind of drama and gravity. The show "believes" that event was significant, and leaves it open as a thread that Matters.
The track during the "creation of life" scene as Maeve travels through the offices and the track at the end when Maeve gets her awakening buff. SO FUCKING GOOD.
Westworld has the worst security ever. Everyone in the company deserves to be fired. Sizemore peeing on the control room is on point, because at this point, you might as well right? No one seems to give a fuck about anything!
Apparently I've seen some spoilers from the next episodes from a teaser, so I kinda know how this Maeve thing will escalate. I thought it would happen in this episode, but it didn't.
It wasn't just Yul Brenner or the music, the room Bernard enters is the butcher room from the movie, complete with the exact same dogs and animal robot parts left on the operating table when everyone died.
Yul was easy to spot, but I'm glad someone else noticed the room and equipment. I don't have access to the movie anymore to confirm, but it was literally what I told my friends as we were watching.
To be fair, it would be impossible to have a show where stuff goes wrong when people are being competent at everything. That's the reason the idiot ball is played in pretty much any thriller / sci-fi / horror, because otherwise there's no threat of escalation.
One of the reason Aliens (1986) works as a movie story, is because Cameron reversed that: the Colonial Marines are competent, they're just up against something way worse than they had expected. Most movies and stories either cannot do that due to setting issues, range issues ("why don't they just run away?"), or because the idiot ball is easier as a patch-fix without having to rewrite the whole thing. Writing isn't an exact science, and somewhere something will have to be covered up regardless.
Also, I doubt Elsie is gone. Gotta have that exposition on 'who dat'.
