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HBO's "Westworld", starring Anthony Hopkins/produced by J.J. Abrams

I thought it was a nice touch to have Bernard just quietly take off his glasses and tie before dispatching Theresa. Made the scene even more menacing.

Some someone mention that Bernard Lowe could be an anagram for Arnold Weber. Not saying that is the case for a host of reasons but it wouldn't be out of character for Ford to create a subservient Arnold proxy under his control.
 
Yeah, a few people have been speculating that Bernard might have been a host created in Arnold's image (and that would be an anagram for Bernard Lowes, not Lowe, btw). I'm actually wondering if that was Arnold's workshop and blueprints rather than Robert's, and he created Bernard as a proxy for himself in case something happened. I mean, it had the blueprints for Dolores, too, suggesting that this is where she was first created, and we know she's one of Arnold's creations. So it stands to reason that it might very well have been his shop, and Robert has just taken it over.

I just wish the main storyline would start to come together. Very little seems to make sense in regards to Robert and Arnold. So far the implication is that Arnold was trying to create sentience, but for some reason Robert was opposed to this idea and was (and is) maneuvering against it. Yet if he has all this access and supreme power within Westworld, why is he letting it continue when he clearly knows what's going on? He recognized the maze symbol, he has Dolores' blueprints, he has full access to Bernard, etc.
 
Nooo!

Oh well I think we all knew at least one of the humans was bound to be a Host. As someone said up-thread however I do hope they don't veer too far into NuBSG "everyone might be a Host!" territory.

Bernard's execution of Theresa was pretty brutal, as @Mr. Adventure says it was the calm way he took his tie and glasses off that was the most frightening bit.

So presumably Dolores and Bernard are both organic Hosts, albeit ones that were originally robotic? (Ok Bernard might be a robot but surely someone would have noticed whenever Dolores was sent to the workshop.) If we are to assume the two timeline theory does this mean the Dolores with William is robotic rather than organic? I guess we won't know until she takes some damage.

They're really getting their money's worth out of that gattling gun aren't they?

On the subject of the duel timeline I guess the one question is how meek and mild William who seems to be destined for life as a middle ranking exec, becomes someone not only rich and powerful, but also someone recognisable to the man in the street as some kind of philanthropist. I suppose it's possible that, changed by his experiences in Westworld he goes back and aggressively takes over Delos (presumably) from within, and thirty years is a long time and the changes into the MiB could have been subtle over the course of those thirty years.
 
All the hosts are supposed to be organic now, according to the Man in Black.

As for William, possibly Logan will get killed in the past and when Will marries his sister she'll be their Heiress and end up getting her money.
 
Oh I know they're all supposed to be organic now, but 30 years ago Dolores was a robot, and the plans they found in Ford's cellar seemed to indicate a robotic Bernard and a robotic Dolores. Present day Dolores has to be organic, and given Ford has his own Host manufacturing plant it is logical to assume Bernard is organic, just postulating that its possible he isn't.

Maybe William kills Logan, or contrives for a Host to kill him. Actually if that were the case it might make Delos' takeover of the park even easier, giving Delos a heck of a bargaining chip, sell up for a song or else lose everything?
 
Anwar said:
All the hosts are supposed to be organic now, according to the Man in Black.
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That's not what he said at all. All he said is that it's cheaper to make them organic now. There's also been zero evidence that they complete rebuild models; they just retire them and create entirely new ones instead. That's the same reason there are no multiple copies of any host. (I'm guessing the programming is somehow unique to each host, and you can't simply upload/download them into new ones for whatever reason.)

As for William, possibly Logan will get killed in the past and when Will marries his sister she'll be their Heiress and end up getting her money.
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Logan doesn't have to die. William doesn't really seem like the type of person who would outright kill (or conspire to kill) a real person, at least not at that stage in his life. He could simply outmaneuver Logan in the boardroom, get some dirt on him and then blackmail him, or any other number of things. Or Logan could just die due to some accident (wasn't there mention of something going wrong '30 years ago' at one point? I can't quite remember, but Logan could be one of the casualties if so). Heck, his sister might just have the same number of or more stocks in the company, and combined with William's that could let him get the upper hand. All sorts of possibilities on that front.

But then again you could be right. Something has to drive William to become the more callous Man in Black, presuming that's who he is/becomes. (Though the chances that he isn't/doesn't is almost nil at this point.)

Starkers said:
Oh I know they're all supposed to be organic now, but 30 years ago Dolores was a robot, and the plans they found in Ford's cellar seemed to indicate a robotic Bernard and a robotic Dolores. Present day Dolores has to be organic...
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Why? We've never seen inside of her. We also know first gen/robotic hosts can bleed; we saw Ford's dog doing so when his younger self murdered it.

...and given Ford has his own Host manufacturing plant it is logical to assume Bernard is organic, just postulating that its possible he isn't.
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Why? That equipment was relatively new compared to the workshop itself. And Bernard has been around for some time.
 
General observations: the lab beneath the faux Fords' house is the room where we see Bernard talking to Dolores about dreams and being free while she is clothed - glass walls inside concrete walls, unlike anywhere else in the compound which is all glass, lending credence to the idea that Bernard is indeed a android version of Arnold and it is Arnold who was speaking to Dolores early on, giving her Alice in Wonderland, etc. Especially since Bernard can't even see the door and seems to have never been in that room before.

I don't see where it makes much difference whether Dolores is robotic or organic, but Stubbs does say in Ep. 1 that she has been rebuilt so many times she's practically new.

I suspect Charlotte, the executive director of the Board, is an android. Ford makes a point of telling Theresa that within Westworld, he "made ALL of it" and we've only seen her in Westworld. He also repeats her phrase "a blood sacrifice". Interestingly, Charlotte says, "The gods require a blood sacrifice." while Ford says "The situation requires a blood sacrifice." in the middle of his I have a huge honking God-complex speech, leading me to believe she's programmed. I'm guessing Charlotte crossed him at some point earlier and he killed her and made an android version to do his bidding - as he is going to do with Theresa. The body being constructed in the lab will likely become Theresa.

I'm all about William = Man in Black. I read a theory a couple of weeks ago that William falls hard for Dolores (which did indeed unfold in this week's episode) and in her quest for the maze and sentience, she will end up rejecting him (or she will lose her shot at the maze and never reach full sentience, which he will feel as a betrayal by the park itself), and this will be the penultimate blow that turns him, within the park, into full-on black hat. This would also explain his interest in the maze and Dolores, and why he both regrets that "after all we've been through you still don't remember me" and yet treats her so horribly.
 
Lapis Exilis said:
General observations: the lab beneath the faux Fords' house is the room where we see Bernard talking to Dolores about dreams and being free while she is clothed - glass walls inside concrete walls, unlike anywhere else in the compound which is all glass, lending credence to the idea that Bernard is indeed a android version of Arnold and it is Arnold who was speaking to Dolores early on, giving her Alice in Wonderland, etc. Especially since Bernard can't even see the door and seems to have never been in that room before.

I don't see where it makes much difference whether Dolores is robotic or organic, but Stubbs does say in Ep. 1 that she has been rebuilt so many times she's practically new.

I suspect Charlotte, the executive director of the Board, is an android. Ford makes a point of telling Theresa that within Westworld, he "made ALL of it" and we've only seen her in Westworld. He also repeats her phrase "a blood sacrifice". Interestingly, Charlotte says, "The gods require a blood sacrifice." while Ford says "The situation requires a blood sacrifice." in the middle of his I have a huge honking God-complex speech, leading me to believe she's programmed. I'm guessing Charlotte crossed him at some point earlier and he killed her and made an android version to do his bidding - as he is going to do with Theresa. The body being constructed in the lab will likely become Theresa.

I'm all about William = Man in Black. I read a theory a couple of weeks ago that William falls hard for Dolores (which did indeed unfold in this week's episode) and in her quest for the maze and sentience, she will end up rejecting him (or she will lose her shot at the maze and never reach full sentience, which he will feel as a betrayal by the park itself), and this will be the penultimate blow that turns him, within the park, into full-on black hat. This would also explain his interest in the maze and Dolores, and why he both regrets that "after all we've been through you still don't remember me" and yet treats her so horribly.
Click to expand...

I think you have connected the dots pretty good, can't argue against any of this. I did notice that Bernard wasn't seeing the door, so he was not supposed to go there, at least not by himself. The early scenes of Bernard and Dolores being actually Arnold and Dolores sounds right. I now have to go re-watch those scenes!!
 
Hey, sorry if I'm treading old territory - 24 pages is a lot to go through.

I'm loving this show. Immediately one of my favourites. Everything about it is fantastic.

My personal theory (and I'm sure ,since we're 24 pages in, someone already posited it) is that Arnold achieved the singularity and that's what lies at the centre of the maze. Not just machine sentience but a former of human immortality - which may have been a requirement to discover the former. He then suicides by robot to keep his secret and keep working on his projects in secrecy - as a machine AI. Easier to upload a human brain into a machine and give birth to machine consciousness that way than to program it from scratch.

It's why old man Ed Harris is so eager to find it. It would explain Anthony Hopkins drive , who is disdainful of AI, wants it as well. Hopkins is using Delores, through Bernard's instructions, to solve the maze and show him the key to the singularity. Same as Harris using Lawrence and then Teddy for the same reason.

I suspect the host being made in the house is a replacement for Theresa and that Bernard, instead of a host version or Arnold, is a host replacement of a real Bernard - else it seems unlikely he could pass the stringent security checks to get his job in the first place. And it explains why he has a wife outside the park.

I don't know about the multiple timeline theory. It doesn't quite hold together for me, but I suppose it's possible.

Edit: I also think it's possible that when Arnold uploaded himself, his consciousness was spread out among all the hosts. Hopkins, wanting to learn the truth of the singularity, with the reveries code which allowed "subconscious memory" of past lives, woke up Arnold's thoughts inside the hosts which is why the hosts think they are talking to Arnold - not as an exterior person / consciousness accessing them via network, but inside their own "heads" . That makes the hosts themselves the maze, with the center of it being both the singularity and the reunification of Arnold's consciousness. That's why Harris says he's setting Teddy free. He's setting Arnold, who is trapped is did Teddy, free. It explains why Delores has memories of the path to the maze.
 
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wayoung said:
I suspect the host being made in the house is a replacement for Theresa and that Bernard, instead of a host version or Arnold, is a host replacement of a real Bernard - else it seems unlikely he could pass the stringent security checks to get his job in the first place. And it explains why he has a wife outside the park.
Click to expand...

I wondered about this myself, but came to a different conclusion. The wife and child outside of the park could be implanted memories ala Blade Runner's Rachel. As for passing security checks... I wondered how I would slip in a robot employee among a staff of real humans. In a company that big, maybe it's possible to alter enough computer records, or input information as if he'd been hired and vetted and passed everything. Nobody knows who did the face-to-face interview with him when he applied or everyone assumes someone else interviewed him. Or Ford interviewed him personally.

In any event records and forms were forged so that he simply showed up for work one day and no one questioned it.
 
I have watched all seven episode in the last three days and all I have to say is it's SLLLLLOOOOOWW but so fascinating. I know we will never ever get answers, it's LOST 2.0, but what the hell I'll go for the ride.
 
Well I wouldn't call it slow as much as deliberate. A joy to watch all around, production, directing, acting and scripting. A special series. And Hannibal... I mean, Anthony Hopkins... Wow.
 
It seems pretty clear, at least to me, that Ford is letting Dolores continue on the path she's on right now because he doesn't believe that she's an actual threat to anything that he's doing. There's also a strong possibility that he's using her to unravel the truth of Arnold by leaving her where she is right now and simply letting things play out as they will.
 
Whoa. :eek:

Bernard and Ford both lost their illusion of humanity, in different ways. Bernard is a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford, and Ford pulled the trigger. Ford has lost all sympathy.

And Maeve wants to leave Westworld. Is that even possible? The guy said that everything about her was designed to keep her there, but I wish he would have explained it better. Can she function without the system's wifi? Do all of her cognitive functions, including her awakening sentience, reside entirely in her body? If she does leave, will she die? Or become a vegetable?
 
From that quick glance put the window a couple episodes ago we know Westworld is in orbit, maybe that's what they meant by physically unable to leave.
 
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