Werstwerld (Westworld)

[Izawwlgood]

Third episode, I am loving the shit out of this show. It's HBO, so, probs fair warning that there are a ton of triggers to be had here (rape, all the violence). The show is doing a fantastic job of exploring theory of mind, though, I'm somewhat put off by the notion that all these people are doing all these depraved things in the park and no one is saying 'Dude, that's pretty fucked up'. Some of the deliveries and explanations are a little hamfisted, but putting those aside, ermagerd.

Spoiler:

Personally, I'm convinced there are >1 AIs involved on the corporate side. Dolores is the Judas Calf. Corporates big goal is AI, and Ed Harris' MO is some kind of corporate espionage. Or he's a host that's woken up, I haven't sussed that out yet.

[Zohar]

I've heard many people talk about this show positively. I've yet to check it out, but I'd like to, just based on recommendations. I don't really know what it's about, except I heard comparison to Firefly.

[Chen]

I've heard many people talk about this show positively. I've yet to check it out, but I'd like to, just based on recommendations. I don't really know what it's about, except I heard comparison to Firefly.

It's like Firefly but without most of the humor and instead of being set in space it's set at a futuristic western themed amusement park full of robots.

[Izawwlgood]

Uh... It's like Firefly, but instead of being about a plucky band of misfits trying to make it on their own it's about something totally different.

The only similarities I'd say are the 'ol West themes.

Third episode is out, shit's getting craycray.

Spoiler:

I think Dolores left the gun in the hayloft for herself, because she's remembering. Or maybe Bernard is nudging her along.

[Chen]

Spoiler:

I think Dolores left the gun in the hayloft for herself, because she's remembering. Or maybe Bernard is nudging her along.

Spoiler:

Yeah I wasn't sure about that scene. I kinda thought that at first too, but then the look the guy made towards his own gun sorta made me think she had somehow taken his? It was a weird look he made and I'm not sure why they added that part to the scene, unless it was something like "I could reach for mine but she might shoot me?" I don't know. Especially after he saw her having trouble you'd think he'd have taken his out and shot her.

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

I had that thought to, but I think based on the gun we see her toying with earlier (when she buries it and when she finds it in the drawer) that it wasn't his. I should rewatch those scenes - there have been a handful of different gun designs that seem too intentional to be just random props grabbed by different actors.

As for why he may not have gone for his gun to shoot her dead - I think the point was he wanted to rape her first.

[Chen]

Spoiler:

I had that thought to, but I think based on the gun we see her toying with earlier (when she buries it and when she finds it in the drawer) that it wasn't his. I should rewatch those scenes - there have been a handful of different gun designs that seem too intentional to be just random props grabbed by different actors.

As for why he may not have gone for his gun to shoot her dead - I think the point was he wanted to rape her first.

Spoiler:

Yeah I'll need to re-watch the scene to see if that look was just something I put too much meaning in or what. As for the raping her first, wasn't he the same guy who told the other bandit in the first episode "she's still plenty warm"...somehow I'm not sure the shooting her first would make too big a difference to him.

[Diadem]

Started watching this. This show is interesting, but I'm hoping this doesn't become another Lost - where they just keep piling up more and more new questions without ever bothered to answer the old ones. It's all still rather confusing. Which is fine, we're only three episodes in. My big fear with they will end up never answering these questions in a satisfactory way.

Spoiler for ep 3:

Spoiler:

So both Bernard and Robert (Anothy Hopkins' character) seem to be plotting ... something. I'm guessing Dolores was able to use a gun because of Bernard's changes. But why was she suddenly invulnerable?

How does the invulnerability work anyway. It's revealed that most hosts aren't allowed to use weapons. But some are, and can even shoot at guests. So it's not just that hosts are programmed not to shoot guests. The bullets themselves must also be fake, except they can shoot each other just fine. So the guns are prepped to shoot real bullets when aimed at another host (or scenery) and fake ones when aimed at a guest? Possible I guess, though that leaves plenty of other ways that guests could end up being hurt. Heck presumably most guests haven't got extensive experience with horseback riding, so just falling of their horses should kill plenty of guests.

Unless the entire park is fake. Some kind of simulated reality. There's some hints there. Like that they step from the office into a moving train, or that they are apparently able to enter the park at widely different locations from the same office. Though if that's the case, why use real hosts, instead of simulated ones. And if the "can't hurt guests" safety is that good, why program some hosts to not be able to pick up weapons.

[EdgarJPublius]

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but the opening theme immediately grabbed me, the score is really good and pairs well with the visuals. I'm loving the player-piano motif, seems very apt to what appears to be the main themes of the show.
Also enjoying the renditions of modern songs. Paint it Black int he first episode was especially well-executed I thought. I was reminded of the anachronistic songs from Bioshock Infinite, which is basically the only reason I'd replay that game.

Speaking of computer games, I wonder if there's any deeper connection between the manufacturing of 'Hosts' in Westworld and 'Synths' in Fallout 4 than just both taking inspiration from the Vitruvian Man?

Ed Harris:

Spoiler:

In episode 2 one of the guys in the Hunger Games room points out to the bladerunner that one of the guests had taken out an entire posse and asks whether they should slow him down, but blade-runner says 'that gentleman gets whatever he wants.'

So he's almost certainly not a Host, and possibly has some sort of deeper connection to the park/it's owners, or maybe he's just got enough airline miles for a permanent upgrade.

I feel like this scene also establishes that the 'maze' he's looking for is not something the lower-level park-staff is aware of, so likely not something as simple as a more advanced 'level of the game', or an easter egg. My guess is the 'maze' is Arnold's hiding place where he's secretly manipulating/modifying the hosts.

He repeats multiple times that he's been coming to the park for 30 years, I wonder what the significance of that is? if it was just lampshading how good he is in a fight and how well he knows the park and its hosts, he wouldn't need to repeat it as much as he does.

Evan Rachel Wood:

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure she takes the one bandits gun. It's fairly well established that she wrapped the one she found and put it in the drawer, and it would be pretty weird to include that shot, but then have her move it to the hayloft off-screen after. Also, the scene where she gets shot is a flashback to an earlier iteration of the loop. We see a repeat of the event leading up to her getting shot, but instead of standing there she jumps on a horse and rides away before the bandit pulls the trigger. She's not invulnerable.

What's really interesting to me is that she doesn't pull the trigger until she sees the bandit as Ed Harris, a guest. Combined with her swatting a fly at the end of the first episode, definite signs of an impending violent robot-uprising.

General thoughts:

Spoiler:

I wonder a lot about time and schedules in the park. Like how-long is the over-arching narrative of the bandits in the hills? It apparently is longer than a week, possibly a lot longer. Is a normal stay expected to be long enough to see that whole plot play out? Or maybe it's timed so that it climaxes during peak times. It seems like Dolores loop is a lot faster than that, is her farm raided every night?

And how long does it take to re-set a host after getting shot? Some of their deaths seem to be pretty violent, doing lots of damage to the body. It seems that hosts aren't duplicated, but are re-used and re-purposed, so it's not like there are multiple Dolores's they can swap out when they need to repair her. Do they just keep a bunch of spare parts around or what?

It seems like they're able to do a lot of stuff essentially over-night, but I imagine that something like the climatic battle in the town would take longer to reset from under normal circumstances. I'm bothered, probably more than I should be, that none of the staff ever seem rushed for time, like 'we need to get this host up and running before it's next loop starts' or when they have the area where the one host had the breakdown with the milk bottle closed off, they're not rushing to record everything then get the place reset before morning.


Some of the interactions on the staff-side of things do appear to be hinting that some of the staff may be hosts, but I'm betting that it's a red-herring, possibly with the subtext of contrasting the real human interactions with the simulated host interactions both to show off how believable the hosts are, and how unbelievable some real human interactions can be.

I do wonder what the ulterior goal the board seems to have is though, if it's not related to the theme-park, it also doesn't look like it involves developing the hosts into conscious, self-aware AIs, though it might. Right now it looks like Hopkins is set up against the board, but that may just be a misconception on the part of the angry writer.

EDIT: The horses are also hosts. I can see why that would be, but it's a bit weird considering how concerned they are about guests being harmed by the hosts to then also throw ton-weight hosts into the mix.

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

So, Dolores doesn't pull the trigger until after she hears the voice in her head saying "KILL HIM". My sense was that was precisely why they introduced Arnold in that episode and the discussion of how the hosts hearing the 'word of God' went effectively crazy. And I think it's an interesting point on what makes consciousness.

Secondly, my impression of the hallucinations Dolores is having regarding the gun (i.e., burying it repeatedly, finding it in the drawers) is just like the hallucinations she is having regarding previous iterations of the story - they're memories she's having from previous wipes. The hosts remembering things is very very very bad, and further begs the question as to what it is to be conscious.

Finally, the scene where she wakes up in the morning and smiles that has constantly replayed is a reminder of the conversations she's having with Bernard - she's programmed to be an optimist, to see the beauty in the world (which is literally her morning monolog), and that's becoming the barometer for how she's starting to buck her programming. In ep3, when she wakes up, I think she didn't smile.

[Chen]

Evan Rachel Wood:

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure she takes the one bandits gun. It's fairly well established that she wrapped the one she found and put it in the drawer, and it would be pretty weird to include that shot, but then have her move it to the hayloft off-screen after. Also, the scene where she gets shot is a flashback to an earlier iteration of the loop. We see a repeat of the event leading up to her getting shot, but instead of standing there she jumps on a horse and rides away before the bandit pulls the trigger. She's not invulnerable.

What's really interesting to me is that she doesn't pull the trigger until she sees the bandit as Ed Harris, a guest. Combined with her swatting a fly at the end of the first episode, definite signs of an impending violent robot-uprising.

Regarding the gun in episode 3:

Spoiler:

I re-watched the two scenes in episode 3 with the gun and its extremely unclear whats going on.

The end scene when the guy falls down after she shoots him it LOOKS like his holster is empty, which tends to imply she did take his gun and is supported by the fact he definitely checks his gun when she aims hers at him and looks surprised. It doesn't show if he's surprised because he has NO gun or because his gun is there and she had one squireled away there.

Watching the scene where she wraps the gun up in the drawer is interesting. She re-wraps it and puts it back in the drawer then looks at the mirror, hears Bernard ask "do you remember" and then has a flashback of the man in black in the barn presumably going to rape and kill her. She then re-opens the drawer and the gun is NO LONGER THERE. This might be similar to her seeing herself get shot at the end of the episode when she goes back to the house and then it "rewinding" to her not being shot and running away. I assume the first time she was shot was her "remembering" that exact circumstance happening in the past and thus when it comes up this time she remembers to run away instead of standing there to be shot. Maybe the gun in the drawer was similar. She remembers in the past it was there, but now she's moved it to the barn? Still very confusing.

[Lucrece]

I find that the series is taking too much time dragging its world building and "mystery" at the expense of deep character development, and that by the end run of this season we may see a rushed, unsatisfying end as a result. I have trouble with the series's pacing.

Feels very much like Leftovers, where you have some really good episodes, especially season 2, but it sputters out really badly because of how much it delays narrative progression and how little attachment the audience gets to have with characters.

[EdgarJPublius]

I feel like things are moving along pretty well actually. Each plot line is advancing discernibly in every episode and we've been pretty consistently learning new things about the park, it's mysteries, what's happening behind the scenes, and who the significant players are and their motivations. We're only halway through the season and lots of stuff is becoming more clear.

[Izawwlgood]

Watching someone Transcend was pretty awesome.

[doogly]

This is all so very dope.

[Chen]

Well that last episode was interesting though I have some MAJOR complaints

Spoiler:

Why in the hell would those guys actually do what she asked? I understand WHILE she was threatening them, but after? I mean they had her coding opened up. You'd think they could just drop things to 0 or right out turn her off and then use whatever deceptive means they had been to keep her under control. Or hell just have her "broken" in an accident or something. And are there no cameras in this place? Elsie showed a recording of some dude fucking a host she used to blackmail him, so I have to imagine there's gotta be a recording of these things somewhere. Enough to show people that this host is going batshit crazy and it's not your fault at all

[Izawwlgood]

Response to Chen

Spoiler:

My sense was they were already so far down the 'we done fucked up' road, that she was basically blackmailing them. If they just deactivated her, there'd be a record of the shinnanigans in her whateverwhatever. Also, part of her character is reading and understanding people, so to some extent, I think her tactics working are because she's read those two goofs and played them.

[Diadem]

"Does this mean the glass if half full or half empty"
"We're engineers. It means the glass has been manufactured to the wrong specifications"

Whahaha. I'm going to remember that one. The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimest says its half empty, the physicist ducks, and the engineer takes another look at the specifications.

*edit* Finished watching the episode. Damn this show is good. Really loving it. I am very happy that they seem to be moving forward the plot, instead of dragging it out endlessly like so many shows do.

One thing I didn't get though

Spoiler:

Why is that programmer that Maeve wakes up with initially helping her? He doesn't seem to have a reason to do so, and every reason to be freaked out and immediately run to his superiors. I get why later he went along, and why the other one went along, I just don't get why he initially did.

[Chen]

Episode 6 continued spoilers

Spoiler:

Thing is everything they do now will either also be recorded or not. If it's recorded than going along with her wishes is just as pointless as going to their bosses. If it's not, then rendering incapable of continuing to blackmail them is feasible. I think it would have worked WAY better if it was just Maeve seductively manipulating the first techy. The second guy seems far more "seasoned" than to go along with these kinds of ridiculous shenanigans.

Also, why can a setting go to 20 if they don't allow any hosts to go that high? Did they buy some freaking generic super advanced AI controller software and not want to change the defaults in it? Do they use this same software for other, non-AI applications and need to have the setting there for their chess computer or something? Seems pretty dumb. At the very least I'd have some sort of alarm in place to go off if a unit with higher than allowed intelligence was allowed to go back into the park. Like a big red light that flashes in the control room warning you that you may have let Skynet loose in the part of paying guests.

[Lucrece]

"Does this mean the glass if half full or half empty"
"We're engineers. It means the glass has been manufactured to the wrong specifications"

Whahaha. I'm going to remember that one. The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimest says its half empty, the physicist ducks, and the engineer takes another look at the specifications.

*edit* Finished watching the episode. Damn this show is good. Really loving it. I am very happy that they seem to be moving forward the plot, instead of dragging it out endlessly like so many shows do.

One thing I didn't get though

Spoiler:

Why is that programmer that Maeve wakes up with initially helping her? He doesn't seem to have a reason to do so, and every reason to be freaked out and immediately run to his superiors. I get why later he went along, and why the other one went along, I just don't get why he initially did.

Some socially awkward, young nerdy guy is confronted by a reasonably attractive, sympathetic woman he sees brutalized on a frequent basis. What do you suppose most straight guys would do under such a circumstance? I don't think that society has gotten to a point where they've socially conditioned men to not have a protective instinct toward a damsel archetype.

[Izawwlgood]

Yeah, literally one of the points that needs to get underlined frequently in this show is that these hosts ARE NOT HUMANS. Not, mind you, for the audience, but for the technicians who are working on them, because they frequently seem to forget that the HOSTS ARE NOT HUMANS.

That's the thing to keep in mind, the notion that people will respond to even a simulated damsel in distress. And that maybe that simulated response is sufficient to make something an actual factual damsel in distress.

[Diadem]

Wow, those were some major reveals in episode 7.

Spoiler:

I'm a bit sad that it looks like Dr. Ford is the bad guy after all. He is such an awesome character.

There's still something weird going on too. Bernard tells Theresa about the hosts seeming to remember previous loops, with his explanation for this. If Bernard knows, it seems likely that Dr. Ford knows. But having hosts remember previous loops doesn't seem to be in the interest Dr. Ford's agenda.

In previous episodes it seemed likely that Arnold was behind this host behavior. But this week's revelations seem to rule that out

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

Bernard: Lifelike, but not alive. Pain always exists in the mind; it's always imagined. So what's the difference between my pain and yours, between you and me?
Ford: This was the very question that consumed Arnold, filled him with guilt, eventually drove him mad. The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops, as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. No, my friend, you're not missing anything at all.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNGGG!!!! A) I called it, btw, and B ) this fucking show, this fucking show!

[doogly]

word, this fuckin show.

[Jesse]

A fantastic Twitter thread by @Wolven discussing

Spoiler:

"Westworld works nicely as a retelling of certain apocryphal tales of the hierarchy of seraphim, angels, & humans, at the beginning of time, with Maeve as Lilith"

Starts here: https://twitter.com/Wolven/status/795118798739308544

[Izawwlgood]

I think there are pretty intentional parallels to divinity, particularly with Arnolds notion of having the hosts hear voice commands

[Diadem]

Damn, that was another great episode. Anthony Hopkins deserves all the emmys.

I didn't quite get one thing though (major spoilers for ep 9)

Spoiler:

Early on the episode Dolores gets stabbed. She then collapses, hears a voice say 'remember' and suddenly she's fully healed again. I thought that was a flashback, her remembering a previous life. Indeed so finds the village that in the present is submerged in the sand, further confirming that it's a memory. But then how the hell can she meet the Man in Black at the very end?

Even assuming the different storylines are not necessarily set at the same time, I can't make sense of that. The Man in Black meets with Charlotte, so those storylines must be set at the same time. That leaves only the Logan and William storyline that might be set at a different time. But if Dolores meets the Man in Black in a flashback, that the Logan and William storyline must be set in the future from all the other events in the series, which doesn't really make sense.

The Man in Black has been visiting the park for a long time, so Dolores meeting him could still be a flashback, though it's not a younger version of him, and you'd think the guy would remember having solved the maze before.

If everything is set in the present, that doesn't work either though. I guess Arnold, or whatever remains of him, might have the power to repair hosts on the fly, explaining Dolores' lack of injury. But that doesn't explain how the church suddenly got dug out.

[doogly]

Ep 9:

Spoiler:

I think you have the main time periods - present, 30 ya, 35 ya - but then Dolores gets snippets from lots of different times, because she has repeated this trip down the maze often. Just like the Bernard + Ford conversation - a reddit* comrade pointed out that the background objects are moving around throughout the scene, so Bernard's wondering "have we had this conversation before" gets an emphatic yes.

*reddit is useful in this particular sub!

[Diadem]

Holy shit. It's not often a show leaves me utterly speechless, but damn, that finale. Holy shit.

[doogly]

Finale Thoughts:

Spoiler:

The disappointing: they threw me zero bones for Elsie and Stubbs. A lil something! Oh well, I'm sure they'll be OK.

The best: How happy William is to be shot. That is such a happy look. So good.

Charlotte thought she was prepared but she is so not prepared.

Bernard all shakin his head that Maeve is walking out of there a tool but she is so not a tool.

And I am excited to see them rustle up the kid Ford later.

[EdgarJPublius]

Spoiler:

I kind of thought Ed Harris was under-utilized in the role he had, especially compared to how much killin' it Anthony Hokins, Jeffery Wright and Thandie Newton were doing. But this episode, and that scene in particular, showed me how wrong I was. And it was Glorious.

Pretty sure Elsie is just dead, but I would not be disappointed in the least to be proven wrong in Season 2.

[Diadem]

Spoiler warning for major season 1 finale spoilers

Spoiler:

Bernard all shakin his head that Maeve is walking out of there a tool but she is so not a tool.
And I am excited to see them rustle up the kid Ford later.

Spoiler:

She's both a tool and not a tool.

The central conceit of this series is that free will is still free will, even if predetermined. Maeve's choice to try to escape was programmed in, but it is still her choice. A mother's love for a child may be programmed in (by evolution for humans, by a programmer in Maeve's case), but it's still real.

Thirty years ago, Arnold programmed Dolores to kill him. In the present, Robert manipulates Dolores into killing him. The show is saying that there is no meaningful difference between these two situation. Not, as most people would argue, because she wasn't free both times, but because she was.

I already loved this show before, but the finale took it to a whole new level. The plot was just resolved so damn well, which such magnificent implications.

I'm really curious where they will go with the second season. They will have to go in an entirely new direction, which means it could be anywhere between really bad and amazing. I do hope a certain major character returns, somehow.

[maybeagnostic]

Got around to watching the show this weekend and basically saw it all over the last 48 hours. I am so happy I managed to avoid almost all spoilers. It was brilliantly planned and executed, while I got the gist of it the first time around there's plenty of stuff in here for a second and third viewing. Dolores' scenes in particular are going to be quite interesting to rewatch.

Spoiler:

Throughout the season I kept thinking how much William seems like what The Man in Black might have started out as and then they showed the photograph of his fiancée which made it all click.

A general thought on the confusing scenes where things kept changing:

Spoiler:

Those were most obviously confusing with Dolores especially when I figured out what I had thought was her primary storyline in the present was actually something that happened 30 years back. I thought I could keep them straight for the most part while they were happening but there were so many of them that I am already forgetting a bunch and I just finished watching the season. I think it is safe to assume the default case for "she gets badly injured but then she isn't injured all of a sudden and continues her story" is that she already died a bunch of times in that situation and just remembered her death but avoided it in this instance. Before the season finale she seems to have only had two unique experiences- the massacre 35 years ago and the adventure with William, and everything else has been repeated thousands of times.

A few stupid logistical questions that really bother me:

Spoiler:

The primary one is the guns- namely how the visitors are protected from the hosts. There is the "can't use weapons" level which seems to be new and mostly redundant, the "can't attempt to hurt a visitor" rule which seems to apply only inconsistently since we see host hit, tie up and shoot at visitors quite a few times and then there are (two?) further levels that really confuse me. One is where hosts shoot at visitors but the visitors are not affected at all and another (rarest of all) is where hosts shoot at visitors but their weapons only hurt about as much as paintguns (i.e. definitely felt and slightly unpleasant). How does that work and what prevents a visitor from accidentally shooting another visitor especially in mind of the fact that the weapons seem to affect humans normally by the end?

The second one is a little related to their magical rebuilding technology where they can restore destroyed towns and repair hundreds of hosts overnight on a daily basis but it specifically relates to why the hosts are now much more human- it is cheaper?!? Were we supposed to assume they used some existing regenerative technology that allows them to make perfectly realistic human bodies easier than manufacturing a robot?

[Chen]

A few stupid logistical questions that really bother me:

Spoiler:

The primary one is the guns- namely how the visitors are protected from the hosts. There is the "can't use weapons" level which seems to be new and mostly redundant, the "can't attempt to hurt a visitor" rule which seems to apply only inconsistently since we see host hit, tie up and shoot at visitors quite a few times and then there are (two?) further levels that really confuse me. One is where hosts shoot at visitors but the visitors are not affected at all and another (rarest of all) is where hosts shoot at visitors but their weapons only hurt about as much as paintguns (i.e. definitely felt and slightly unpleasant). How does that work and what prevents a visitor from accidentally shooting another visitor especially in mind of the fact that the weapons seem to affect humans normally by the end?

The second one is a little related to their magical rebuilding technology where they can restore destroyed towns and repair hundreds of hosts overnight on a daily basis but it specifically relates to why the hosts are now much more human- it is cheaper?!? Were we supposed to assume they used some existing regenerative technology that allows them to make perfectly realistic human bodies easier than manufacturing a robot?

Guns:

Spoiler:

I think the guns are always supposed to somehow act as paintball guns on humans and regular guns on hosts. The only scene that goes against this is the first one where Teddy shoots the MiB with practically no effect. I'm just going to assume he was bracing for it or something and was able to take it after all his experience there. He's pretty beaten up the next time he gets shot and those seem to affect him more like paintballs would.

Either the guns detect who they're aiming at and change what is fired (super risky if you miss a host and hit a human) or the paintball like things just have some sort of weird bullet like effect on the hosts. Of course we SEE Maeve pull an actual bullet out of her so the former seems more likely. The whole park is a death trap anyways. There doesn't appear to be anything to prevent you from accidentally hitting someone with say a shovel and then finding out they're a guest not a host. Apparently the hosts have programming to prevent guests from harming each other (Samaritan reflex) though in the show that's barely fleshed out. The scene where Teddy takes the knife from the MiB when he threatens Ford could be an example of that, but then again it's Ford so could easily just have been a gesture/command from him.

[pseudoidiot]

Thanks to Amazon Prime I got a free month of HBO streaming so over the past week I binged on all the episodes...

Yeah, all the logistic stuff about guns and knives and physical harm bothered me a lot throughout the show. Definitely didn't seem consistent. Would have been nice at some point to have had a side conversation about accidents that had happened in the past and what they did to address them going forward.

After the finale I started thinking...

Spoiler:

When Bernard brought Theresa down to Ford's secret room it showed a host being made with some old equipment. Bernard said something about the quality being just as good, but it would take longer to make.

I know we already saw the family Ford had made, but it made me wonder who that host was. It *could* be something to do with his new narrative, but for that it seemed like he was relying on just taking all the old hosts out of cold storage.

Part of me wonders if he made a Ford host to get shot by Delores. That's not very satisfying though since it takes away a lot of the impact of that scene.

On the other hand, it'll be a shame if there's no/not much Anthony Hopkins in the next season.

[doogly]

Part of me wonders if he made a Ford host to get shot by Delores.[/spoiler]

Spoiler:

Or is the host version the one that is still alive, and he let his meat go? dun dun dun!
Though he does already have the child version of himself around so he could consider himself set on the "persistence" front.

[pseudoidiot]

Spoiler:

Or is the host version the one that is still alive, and he let his meat go? dun dun dun!
Though he does already have the child version of himself around so he could consider himself set on the "persistence" front.

Spoiler:

Actually, I really like that idea. Just leaving behind a host Ford. And it would fit pretty well. Delores kills Arnold -> Bernard. Delores kills Ford -> host-version of Ford.

[Diadem]

A few stupid logistical questions that really bother me:

Spoiler:

The primary one is the guns- namely how the visitors are protected from the hosts. There is the "can't use weapons" level which seems to be new and mostly redundant, the "can't attempt to hurt a visitor" rule which seems to apply only inconsistently since we see host hit, tie up and shoot at visitors quite a few times and then there are (two?) further levels that really confuse me. One is where hosts shoot at visitors but the visitors are not affected at all and another (rarest of all) is where hosts shoot at visitors but their weapons only hurt about as much as paintguns (i.e. definitely felt and slightly unpleasant). How does that work and what prevents a visitor from accidentally shooting another visitor especially in mind of the fact that the weapons seem to affect humans normally by the end?

The second one is a little related to their magical rebuilding technology where they can restore destroyed towns and repair hundreds of hosts overnight on a daily basis but it specifically relates to why the hosts are now much more human- it is cheaper?!? Were we supposed to assume they used some existing regenerative technology that allows them to make perfectly realistic human bodies easier than manufacturing a robot?

Guns:

Spoiler:

I think the guns are always supposed to somehow act as paintball guns on humans and regular guns on hosts. The only scene that goes against this is the first one where Teddy shoots the MiB with practically no effect. I'm just going to assume he was bracing for it or something and was able to take it after all his experience there. He's pretty beaten up the next time he gets shot and those seem to affect him more like paintballs would.

Either the guns detect who they're aiming at and change what is fired (super risky if you miss a host and hit a human) or the paintball like things just have some sort of weird bullet like effect on the hosts. Of course we SEE Maeve pull an actual bullet out of her so the former seems more likely. The whole park is a death trap anyways. There doesn't appear to be anything to prevent you from accidentally hitting someone with say a shovel and then finding out they're a guest not a host. Apparently the hosts have programming to prevent guests from harming each other (Samaritan reflex) though in the show that's barely fleshed out. The scene where Teddy takes the knife from the MiB when he threatens Ford could be an example of that, but then again it's Ford so could easily just have been a gesture/command from him.

More on guns:

Spoiler:

Yeah I don't really get how this works either. It seems likely that many guests visit in groups. Guests are also rich, spoiled kids. Many of them won't have much experience with guns. Put them in a setting with lots of firefights, and it should rain accidents where guests accidentally shoot each other. And guns is just one of the dangers of the park. Horseback riding is pretty dangerous too, if you don't know what you are doing.

For a while I thought maybe the entire park was some sort of virtual reality. Also because they park staff seemed to be able to enter the park anywhere they wanted at will. Having the entire park be VR would of course raise the question of why the hosts are, apparently, real. I'm glad they didn't go that route.

My best explanation is that the gun contains sensors and software that can detect what it's aimed at, host or human, and fire appropriate ammunition. That way guests can't accidentally shoot each other either. The problem there though is that in that case even after they start to rebel the hosts still shouldn't be able to shoot guests. However Dolores was shown using a special gun, and Maeve's group I think uses guns they have taken from security. For the final fight Ford could easily have reprogrammed the guns to remove the safety feature.

And now that I think about it, the park uses host-horses too. This might not be just to avoid animal cruelty laws, but also to make horseback riding accidents rarer.

The only two things this doesn't explain is the MiB sometimes completely ignoring the shots, and being able to shoot a host through a rock in one episode. The guy obviously has some kind of special admin (or maybe just frequent flyer) privileges, but it's still unclear how that'd work mechanically.

[maybeagnostic]

Yet more on guns:

Spoiler:

If the guns can really calculate exactly where their bullet is going to end up with all the complications of moving unpredictable targets and such while also being quick enough to allow for blink-of-the-eye gun drawing fights, they must be smarter than the hosts. We also had plenty of mentions how the hosts are programmed to not hurt visitors and the whole MiB story was about him searching for a host or "game" that can hurt him. He was pretty knowledgeable so you'd think he'd be aware if the guns are special and can't hurt him because that would defeat the purpose of a host willing to hurt him. Besides Ashley (security guy, had to look up the character's name) seems very concerned the hosts might turn on him but you wouldn't expect him to be that nervous if the guns were harmless. Then again he seems just as nervous when they don't have any weapon at all.

Even beyond that, the only time I remember a host trying to hurt a visitor but failing was with Teddy & old-Maeve and the MiB. Every other time hosts are too slow to draw, attack someone else, choose a less forceful approach like restraining or just miss by a lot e.g. that battle with Lawrence's cousins where the MiB miraculously didn't get hit a single time.

On that note, I didn't get that scene with shooting a host through the rock either but I heard something about the MiB using a special gun that shoots shotgun shells which explains how he pulled it off. He still used wallhacks though

On other safety concerns, presumably host horses can minimize the dangers of riding a lot if they won't kick, throw or trample guests and also won't get spooked when a guest is riding them. Add in the guest monitoring allowing them to deal with things like dehydration, sun stroke and other not-immediately-lethal accidents and the park could be reasonably safe aside from host aggression.

[Chen]

Regarding guns/bullets:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 82921.html

So it really is sorta looking like two separate shells or something. It also kinda makes sense why the hosts can't seem to be allowed to shoot people in the face (like in the first episode with Teddy and MiB), since even a paintball/wax bullet is pretty dangerous that close and to the face.