Post by Melifeather on May 29, 2018 1:14:27 GMT
Hello! And welcome to another Westworld recap! I know you're reading this, because I can see the number of views, but why so shy? Don't be afraid to add your comments and observations! Help me sort out this mind-fuck of an episode!
So who is training whom? All this time we thought Bernard was training or helping Dolores acquire consciousness, but Dolores appears to have taken control of Bernard. Bernard expressed his fears about the person she might become, that he's wrestling with the decision of whether to let her continue on her path into an unknown future, or to end her. "I'm not sure it’s my choice to make," he says. We've seen this conversation before, but this time Dolores corrects him. "No, he didn’t say that," she says. "He said, I’m not sure what choice to make." She tells him to freeze all motor functions, then informs him, "This is a test, one we’ve done countless times." Echoing the training of robo-Jim Delos two episodes ago, she explains she is testing "fidelity." Where earlier it was William who ran experiments on the host version of his father-in-law, now it is Dolores running tests on Bernard.
Reprogrammed Teddy feels like an angry defeated version. Supposedly he's "aware", but he still does what Dolores wants albeit in a ruthless manner. I don't know if I like this Teddy. He seems sad. He knows what he's lost, but he's resigned to follow out Dolores's plans...at least for now. And while a more aggressive Teddy is what Dolores wanted, she seems taken aback by him and his snide passive-aggressive remarks. I think we'll eventually see them come to cross-purposes and maybe that's why he was drowned in the water with all the other hosts?
“Did you shut off the killer robots?” says Coughlin, the Irish/Scottish mercenary sent to fetch Peter Abernathy. Why is the security team, and Charlotte, so disapproving and dismissive of Ashley - head of security of Westworld? Charlotte to Ashley: “You were hired to secure an amusement park. Good luck on your next review, by the way.” He's obviously seen as a failure. Ashley was trying to explain some fussy technical detail, but nobody cares, and we the viewers start to care less about the hosts too. In the beginning the hosts had seemed more human than the mortals. We empathized with them for being vulnerable and bound to a fate of violent and tragic repetition. But Maeve's reunion with her daughter was anticlimactic. I guess I expected a tearful reunion, but it didn't happen that way. And i don't think me or Maeve expected her daughter to have a new mother, but we shouldn't have been surprised. This was Lee's cue to exit with Felix and Sylvester, but Felix gave them a disgusted look and left to go help Maeve. What did we expect? That the daughter would be found at the homestead alone? And if Maeve has psychic mind control abilities, why did she take her daughter's hand and run from the ghost warriors? Why didn't she just have them kill each other?
Westworld is built on the idea that human consciousness organizes itself around not just memories, but traumatic memories. Now that hosts like Dolores and Maeve are liberated from those traumas, and have the power to inflict trauma on others, they’re harder to accept as human. Dolores exhibited a glimpse of human consciousness when she seemed taken aback by Teddy's emotionless awareness. Maeve's reaction to watching Akane with her daughter's heart seemed human-like, and her actions when she found her daughter seemed sweet, but once the ghost nation arrived she ran like her old storyline narrative had her do. It was kind of like a reversion - a step back or reversal from consciousness back towards her original host-build. Or am I interpreting this wrong? Maybe the Ghost Nation is immune to her mind control like the Shogun was? Maeve has the power to re-make her daughter like Dolores re-made Teddy, but it would be as "real" as commanding Siri to say “I love you mommy".
The biggest breakthrough in the mystery though is when Bernard and Elsie find their way to the Cradle or CR4-DL. After Bernard's "brain" is removed we watch as he moves through a narrative. Is it virtual reality or is he remembering the past? He's arriving on the train, walking through Sweetwater, and then he walks into the saloon and sees that the piano player is Ford. This makes me wonder if all the past episodes were actually Bernard's memories after this point? It would explain the out of sequence scenes if Delos corp were rummaging around Bernard's brain, replaying narratives, searching for information. But, finding Ford at the piano isn't "real" in the physical sense. How is it that Ford has found a way to successfully insert his consciousness? Did he succeed where William failed with Mr Delos? Is virtual reality any less real than reality? "Hello, old friend," Ford says. Somehow he's managed to upload himself into the park’s simulation, and is controlling the real park outside. Ford is "living" inside the computer as a new type of consciousness - a mind that exists as code in the physical world, but one that has a full embodied self in a virtual one. This opens the possibility that every host could have multiple storylines operating inside various CR4-DL simulations all running at the same time. Maybe this is what we've been watching all these weeks? This would be an alternate explanation for Bernard's memories. Instead of one narrative, we're watching multitudes.
So who is training whom? All this time we thought Bernard was training or helping Dolores acquire consciousness, but Dolores appears to have taken control of Bernard. Bernard expressed his fears about the person she might become, that he's wrestling with the decision of whether to let her continue on her path into an unknown future, or to end her. "I'm not sure it’s my choice to make," he says. We've seen this conversation before, but this time Dolores corrects him. "No, he didn’t say that," she says. "He said, I’m not sure what choice to make." She tells him to freeze all motor functions, then informs him, "This is a test, one we’ve done countless times." Echoing the training of robo-Jim Delos two episodes ago, she explains she is testing "fidelity." Where earlier it was William who ran experiments on the host version of his father-in-law, now it is Dolores running tests on Bernard.
Reprogrammed Teddy feels like an angry defeated version. Supposedly he's "aware", but he still does what Dolores wants albeit in a ruthless manner. I don't know if I like this Teddy. He seems sad. He knows what he's lost, but he's resigned to follow out Dolores's plans...at least for now. And while a more aggressive Teddy is what Dolores wanted, she seems taken aback by him and his snide passive-aggressive remarks. I think we'll eventually see them come to cross-purposes and maybe that's why he was drowned in the water with all the other hosts?
“Did you shut off the killer robots?” says Coughlin, the Irish/Scottish mercenary sent to fetch Peter Abernathy. Why is the security team, and Charlotte, so disapproving and dismissive of Ashley - head of security of Westworld? Charlotte to Ashley: “You were hired to secure an amusement park. Good luck on your next review, by the way.” He's obviously seen as a failure. Ashley was trying to explain some fussy technical detail, but nobody cares, and we the viewers start to care less about the hosts too. In the beginning the hosts had seemed more human than the mortals. We empathized with them for being vulnerable and bound to a fate of violent and tragic repetition. But Maeve's reunion with her daughter was anticlimactic. I guess I expected a tearful reunion, but it didn't happen that way. And i don't think me or Maeve expected her daughter to have a new mother, but we shouldn't have been surprised. This was Lee's cue to exit with Felix and Sylvester, but Felix gave them a disgusted look and left to go help Maeve. What did we expect? That the daughter would be found at the homestead alone? And if Maeve has psychic mind control abilities, why did she take her daughter's hand and run from the ghost warriors? Why didn't she just have them kill each other?
Westworld is built on the idea that human consciousness organizes itself around not just memories, but traumatic memories. Now that hosts like Dolores and Maeve are liberated from those traumas, and have the power to inflict trauma on others, they’re harder to accept as human. Dolores exhibited a glimpse of human consciousness when she seemed taken aback by Teddy's emotionless awareness. Maeve's reaction to watching Akane with her daughter's heart seemed human-like, and her actions when she found her daughter seemed sweet, but once the ghost nation arrived she ran like her old storyline narrative had her do. It was kind of like a reversion - a step back or reversal from consciousness back towards her original host-build. Or am I interpreting this wrong? Maybe the Ghost Nation is immune to her mind control like the Shogun was? Maeve has the power to re-make her daughter like Dolores re-made Teddy, but it would be as "real" as commanding Siri to say “I love you mommy".
The biggest breakthrough in the mystery though is when Bernard and Elsie find their way to the Cradle or CR4-DL. After Bernard's "brain" is removed we watch as he moves through a narrative. Is it virtual reality or is he remembering the past? He's arriving on the train, walking through Sweetwater, and then he walks into the saloon and sees that the piano player is Ford. This makes me wonder if all the past episodes were actually Bernard's memories after this point? It would explain the out of sequence scenes if Delos corp were rummaging around Bernard's brain, replaying narratives, searching for information. But, finding Ford at the piano isn't "real" in the physical sense. How is it that Ford has found a way to successfully insert his consciousness? Did he succeed where William failed with Mr Delos? Is virtual reality any less real than reality? "Hello, old friend," Ford says. Somehow he's managed to upload himself into the park’s simulation, and is controlling the real park outside. Ford is "living" inside the computer as a new type of consciousness - a mind that exists as code in the physical world, but one that has a full embodied self in a virtual one. This opens the possibility that every host could have multiple storylines operating inside various CR4-DL simulations all running at the same time. Maybe this is what we've been watching all these weeks? This would be an alternate explanation for Bernard's memories. Instead of one narrative, we're watching multitudes.