HBO's "Westworld", starring Anthony Hopkins/produced by J.J. Abrams
- Thread starter Ensign_Redshirt
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And I'm done.
I have no idea what I just watched, and feel like Jonah and Lisa have no clue what they're doing despite them both having said that they've mapped out a 5-year plan for this show.
Legends of Tomorrow lost my interest with their Season 2 finale, and, sadly, Westworld has as well.
I have no idea what I just watched, and feel like Jonah and Lisa have no clue what they're doing despite them both having said that they've mapped out a 5-year plan for this show.
Legends of Tomorrow lost my interest with their Season 2 finale, and, sadly, Westworld has as well.
We only saw three. Nolan suggests that the actual number is...indefinite.
Lisa Joy further elaborates on who and what is going on with "William'" in that last scene:
But the one thing we did pop in that did jump out of that time sequence was the storyline with the Man in Black. For the majority of the season, we're seeing him in the same timeline as everybody else. He's in the park as hell has unleashed. He goes a bit mad as he thinks about his past, as he journeys into the Valley Beyond. He kills his daughter, not sure whether she's his daughter or a host. Ultimately, we see him on the shore, as Hale — or "Halores," as we like to call her — leaves the park. We see that he has survived that final arm injury he's had. That rounds out that timeline.
What we see in the end recontextualizes a little bit of that. All of that did happen in that timeline, but something else has occurred, too. In the far, far future, the world is dramatically different. Quite destroyed, as it were. A figure in the image of his daughter — his daughter is of course now long dead — has come back to talk to him. He realizes that he's been living this loop again and again and again. The primal loop that we've seen this season, they've been repeating, testing every time for what they call "fidelity," or perhaps a deviation. You get the sense that the testing will continue. It's teasing for us another temporal realm that one day we're working toward, and one day will see a little bit more of, and how they get to that place, and what they're testing for.
Lisa Joy further elaborates on who and what is going on with "William'" in that last scene:
But the one thing we did pop in that did jump out of that time sequence was the storyline with the Man in Black. For the majority of the season, we're seeing him in the same timeline as everybody else. He's in the park as hell has unleashed. He goes a bit mad as he thinks about his past, as he journeys into the Valley Beyond. He kills his daughter, not sure whether she's his daughter or a host. Ultimately, we see him on the shore, as Hale — or "Halores," as we like to call her — leaves the park. We see that he has survived that final arm injury he's had. That rounds out that timeline.
What we see in the end recontextualizes a little bit of that. All of that did happen in that timeline, but something else has occurred, too. In the far, far future, the world is dramatically different. Quite destroyed, as it were. A figure in the image of his daughter — his daughter is of course now long dead — has come back to talk to him. He realizes that he's been living this loop again and again and again. The primal loop that we've seen this season, they've been repeating, testing every time for what they call "fidelity," or perhaps a deviation. You get the sense that the testing will continue. It's teasing for us another temporal realm that one day we're working toward, and one day will see a little bit more of, and how they get to that place, and what they're testing for.
Uh...yeah, that's pretty ridiculous considering that the finale made perfect sense and was brilliantly well-written.
Joy and Nolan know exactly what they're doing.
Here, the director explains the final scene:
Okay Wait, Sigh, Was William A Host This Whole Time? No. Emphatically not. No. Sure, this is some quasi wish fulfillment for William, though, to be sure. He hasn’t felt like he belonged in the real world since his first visit to the park and both Juliet and Emily warned him that he was disappearing more and more into the fantasy of it all. Now he gets his wish: he’s in the park forever. But actually, in this hellish loop, it would seem that William wants to prove something else. That he isn’t just the black-hatted “stained” villain of the park. That there’s more to him. That he can choose to be better. Except he can’t.
But to get back to the original question, listen, we definitely watched humanWilliam kill his human daughter Emily in Episode 9. As Shannon Woodward (who has read all the scripts including, presumably, stage directions) said on the podcast, William didn’t find a Host port in his arm when he went digging for it. The crazed man we saw in Episode 9 was exactly that, a man, driven to the brink by Ford’s game. Though the show does now have a loophole, if it wants one, to retcon almost everything we’ve seen up to this point with the Man in Black. Hold on to your hats and glasses for this one.
In Season 1, we were watching two different timelines centered on Dolores without knowing it. She was re-tracing a loop through the park and would occasionally glitch back in time in ways we couldn’t precisely track until we had the whole picture. Here’s Dolores both wandering by herself and then, decades in the past, wandering with young William and Logan.
Joy and Nolan know exactly what they're doing.
Here, the director explains the final scene:
Okay Wait, Sigh, Was William A Host This Whole Time? No. Emphatically not. No. Sure, this is some quasi wish fulfillment for William, though, to be sure. He hasn’t felt like he belonged in the real world since his first visit to the park and both Juliet and Emily warned him that he was disappearing more and more into the fantasy of it all. Now he gets his wish: he’s in the park forever. But actually, in this hellish loop, it would seem that William wants to prove something else. That he isn’t just the black-hatted “stained” villain of the park. That there’s more to him. That he can choose to be better. Except he can’t.
But to get back to the original question, listen, we definitely watched humanWilliam kill his human daughter Emily in Episode 9. As Shannon Woodward (who has read all the scripts including, presumably, stage directions) said on the podcast, William didn’t find a Host port in his arm when he went digging for it. The crazed man we saw in Episode 9 was exactly that, a man, driven to the brink by Ford’s game. Though the show does now have a loophole, if it wants one, to retcon almost everything we’ve seen up to this point with the Man in Black. Hold on to your hats and glasses for this one.
In Season 1, we were watching two different timelines centered on Dolores without knowing it. She was re-tracing a loop through the park and would occasionally glitch back in time in ways we couldn’t precisely track until we had the whole picture. Here’s Dolores both wandering by herself and then, decades in the past, wandering with young William and Logan.
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I disagree. Maybe time will change my mind, but, for now, my feelings are that this finale was a tangled and incomprehensible mess and a "jump the shark" moment, which is unfortunate because, up until tonight, I was loving the series.
Well, that was existentially as fuck. I mostly enjoyed the episode and the finale provided more closure than I actually expected.
Considering all the times I feared Elsie's death this season, I wasn't at all surprised when Charlotte shot her to death. Hell, I was pretty much expecting it the moment Elsie went storming down there, if for no other reason than because we never saw her in the "present day" scenes. For a brief moment, I thought Bernard put Elsie into Hale's new body but of course that didn't make a lick of sense for a number of reasons.
I'm actually kind of disappointed with how Maeve's character arc closed out. She did reunite with her daughter, but it was only briefly before she sent her away to safety in the "New World" and she tried to be the savior for the Hosts, but of course that didn't work it. In the end, I'm not sure what exactly Maeve accomplished. I did like how Lee sacrificed himself for Maeve, showing how he went from a selfish fuck to a somewhat decent selfless guy.
I knew that was going to be your reaction.
That said, I have a feeling the general public will also feel rather alienated as well. At this point, I'm not sure if the show will make it to its five-year goal, but who knows? Maybe season three will be so completely different while making clearer sense of season two that audiences will return. I'll come back, of course, if only for the cast and characters (depending, of course, which ones actually return).
Considering all the times I feared Elsie's death this season, I wasn't at all surprised when Charlotte shot her to death. Hell, I was pretty much expecting it the moment Elsie went storming down there, if for no other reason than because we never saw her in the "present day" scenes. For a brief moment, I thought Bernard put Elsie into Hale's new body but of course that didn't make a lick of sense for a number of reasons.
I'm actually kind of disappointed with how Maeve's character arc closed out. She did reunite with her daughter, but it was only briefly before she sent her away to safety in the "New World" and she tried to be the savior for the Hosts, but of course that didn't work it. In the end, I'm not sure what exactly Maeve accomplished. I did like how Lee sacrificed himself for Maeve, showing how he went from a selfish fuck to a somewhat decent selfless guy.
I knew that was going to be your reaction.
That said, I have a feeling the general public will also feel rather alienated as well. At this point, I'm not sure if the show will make it to its five-year goal, but who knows? Maybe season three will be so completely different while making clearer sense of season two that audiences will return. I'll come back, of course, if only for the cast and characters (depending, of course, which ones actually return).
I don't mind narrative complexity (Chris and Jonah Nolan's The Prestige is one of my favorite movies), but there's a difference between a narrative that is complex and a narrative that is incomprehensible and makes no sense, and The Passenger, IMO, is an example of the latter.
Where's Yul when you need him?
Anyone find it difficult to care about Elsie's death or Stubbs' knowing more than he's let on because of how little time we've gotten to spend with them, let alone get to know them? They have a ton of names in the opening credits but only a handful get to do anything. Akecheta got to do more in one episode than most of them got to do combined over two seasons. Maybe it's a contractual way to have them available for the entire season. Ben Barnes got more to do in less time this season as a guest star than last season as a regular.
Didn't much care for it on the first watch, will rewatch in a few days and hopefully like it more. I mentioned earlier that I prefer a more clear linear storytelling that we saw in some episodes this season to the confusing multiple timeframe style preferred by showrunners. We shouldn't have to read commentery from producers to figure out what happened.
That said this is still a unique and intriguing show and I look forward to the 3rd season.
And bring back Angela!!
That said this is still a unique and intriguing show and I look forward to the 3rd season.
And bring back Angela!!
I just could not get into this episode. Even though I've followed along just fine for two seasons, it was definitely hard to track what was going on in this one. It honestly felt a bit like a convoluted mess. I'm disappointed, as this has been my favorite show on TV. I'm surprised to read others say it was satisfying, as I found it to be anything but. I've appreciated the questions the show has raised so far, but it's getting a bit too philosophical and abstract for my tastes.
There's a sense of artifice about MIB's flashbacks to his family life, but mainly it's that he was obsessing about the "port spot" in his arm well before his wife's death. That implies he's reliving memories but including elements from later in his timeline-- or, again, it's a red herring. Hopefully last night's episode will explain both that and his ability to survive deadly injuries without even the benefit of an ICU.
Funny, I comprehended it all just fine as the last episode unfolded. The storyline is almost literally A-B-C, just chronologically rearranged.
You should watch it again.
Something that this season satisfyingly shares with the first year is that it's a complete story: if the show ends now, there are no dangling storylines or significant open plot threads.
And Lee Sizemore - I'm so proud of the little bigger.
It seemed to me that in addition to the alcohol, Juliet Delos' behavior was triggered by the darkness she saw in William.
I liked the finale a lot, and I think they nailed the big twist. It was something that I didn't see coming, yet tracked logically from what we already knew.
I'm curious what they're going to do cast-wise in season 3. Seems like half the cast just got ousted to paradise, and the other half is in the junk heap.
Although I disagree with the nihilistic thesis of the show, I like the philosophical discussion.
I liked the finale a lot, and I think they nailed the big twist. It was something that I didn't see coming, yet tracked logically from what we already knew.
I'm curious what they're going to do cast-wise in season 3. Seems like half the cast just got ousted to paradise, and the other half is in the junk heap.
Although I disagree with the nihilistic thesis of the show, I like the philosophical discussion.
Funny, I comprehended it all just fine as the last episode unfolded. The storyline is almost literally A-B-C, just chronologically rearranged.
You should watch it again.
Something that this season satisfyingly shares with the first year is that it's a complete story: if the show ends now, there are no dangling storylines or significant open plot threads.
And Lee Sizemore - I'm so proud of the little bigger.
I don't think it may have been completely ABC. I think we will find out some scenes shown were actually simulations testing William's fidelity of events that already happened.
I wonder if Delores wins and wipes out humanity and this recreated William is the attempt by Bernard to bring back humans.
S1 was about the developed sentience of robots. S2 was those robots trying to escape. S3 is them taking the fight to the real world against humans.
May lead to a Matrix type situation where William is going to lead the human copied mines out into the far future real world to fight the robots.
That's also possible. Seeing humanity on the verge of defeat, William may have set up a project in the ruins of the park to come back.
