Westworld season 2 HBO April 2018 spoilers discussion (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Didn't William grab one of the packs the park uses to repair the organic matter in the hosts? Given that everything in the hosts (except their control units) are flesh and blood at this point, it's possible that the pack would also work on a normal human.

 

[Walter Kittel]

You may have a point there, Adam. He did pick up some supplies in an earlier episode this season, but I thought he had already used them. He wasn't carrying anything, but maybe he has something stashed with his horse? I would agree that anything that could repair the hosts (other than their noggins) should work on a flesh and blood person. Maybe you are on to something.

- Walter.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

"Just like William’s search for deeper meaning, Westworld keeps digging toward some new level of profundity; and just like William, it’s hard not to wish the show would relax a little and just have some fun for once, instead of making such a big damn deal about everything."​

https://www.avclub.com/a-violent-westworld-continues-through-its-loops-1826520229

My sentiments exactly.

 

[Francois Caron]

This is becoming a bit too confusing for me, and I'm used to programming highly complex bits of computer code!

It's as if the showrunners forgot they're telling a story to an external audience that can't see what's inside their heads. I've done the same thing a few times while writing technical documents, and having someone ask me what it was that I had just written. That's when I realise I had forgotten to provide the appropriate context.

It's how this show is starting to look. How is everything related to everything else? I can't follow it anymore.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Focusing entirely on one host's story awakening to consciousness (Ake) is better than jumping all around trying to make the concept of this series much more complex than it has any need to be (or is), but it's still a bit of a 'been there, done that' trope. But we got some nice acting, good scenery and a really good haunting score. I definitely enjoyed this 'meditative' journey.

At this point, one has to give a shout out to a sci-fi show episode that already decades ago perfectly encapsulated the idea of a android gaining consciousness enough to love and be loved by a human in The Twilight Zone episode "The Lonely."

 

[SamT]

I have not started season 2 yet but skimming rapidly over this without getting spoiled, I don't even want to start it now. Season 1 was already incomprehensible and not enjoyable to me. This season seems worse.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I have not started season 2 yet but skimming rapidly over this without getting spoiled, I don't even want to start it now. Season 1 was already incomprehensible and not enjoyable to me. This season seems worse.

The episodes that don't focus on the mumble jumble as much, such as this one, rise above and are enjoyable by themselves.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I can't help but feel that much of this season is playing out almost as if it's stalling from whatever the real point or objective is. We seem to be spending an awfully long amount of time focusing on what feels like very little story content.

I enjoyed last night's episode and I'm still enjoying the series, but it feels like a significant drop-off from where it had been in the first season.

 

[Walter Kittel]

This was probably my second favorite episode to date for season two. The episode did a nice job of generating some real empathy for the hosts in this world. The landscapes were used to good effect also with some of the prettiest compositions highlighting the beauty of WestWorld.

If I had any criticism, this episode brought home one of the storytelling devices that I feel the writers rely upon too much; the reversal of expectations where we are led to believe (through incomplete information or outright misdirection) one thing and then a latter episode reveals the opposite to be true. They have kind of went to the well a bit much with that construct, at least for me.

So Maeve has 'anomalous code' that permits her to access administrative functions. A gift from Ford or Bernard?

BTW, I didn't see anything in the episode that made me think that William could survive multiple gun shots including one to the torso. I'm not surprised that he was reunited with Grace however.


- Walter.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

At this point I'm fairly convinced that Maeve going back to save her daughter was the only action unanticipated by Ford since his endgame was set into motion.

Even:

Spoiler

William murdering his daughter because he thought she was a host replica

was anticipated by Ford. After all, it was just the kind of paranoid behavior one associates with those suffering from persecutory delusions, which fits his profile to a "t".

More so than than the first season, this second season has been one giant puzzle box. And there's something cold and distancing about that. The episode before the finale, I don't really have any emotional investment in any of the characters.

 

[Greg.K]

Happy Father's Day from HBO!

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Ugh. It's not even that William is a villainous character, he's just not even developed beyond "I have a darkness." Lame. Lazy. Who cares. There was a lot of hoopla about this second season being so exciting. Sure it had some good action sequences, but they didn't add up to anything or we didn't care. Too interested in the 'puzzle' and no real investment in character development or storytelling. Sorry to keep carping about this show, but man, what a missed boat.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Interesting (and obviously deliberate) juxtaposition between William and Teddy. Teddy was 'made' to be evil and couldn't deal with the implications; William's dark side has a different origin and he could not pull the trigger.

I'm enjoying the second season; but I agree that the nature of this season makes it difficult to establish any sort of emotional resonance with the characters. Of course the show is painting the hosts (well, most of them) in a more sympathetic light with most of the humans in the series portrayed as either broken or driven by their ambitions to set aside any semblance of morality. I guess that is one of the central questions of the series; does the creator have any responsibility to treat their creation in a moral or fair manner? Charlotte Hale certainly has no misgivings in this department.

It certainly appears that William is so confused and paranoid, and perhaps plagued by guilt over the shooting that he is questioning his own humanity; based on his final scene.

I was a little bit confused over the references to William's daughter as Emily when she was addressed as Grace in one or more prior episodes and the show's IMDB listing for this week's episode credits her as 'Grace'. Maybe a middle name that her family uses?

- Walter.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Now that the writers have laid their cards out on the table, I'm left with the question: Did the big reveal justify the nonlinear narrative? Were the surprises of the finale worth the confusion along the way?

I'm not sure. Had the story unfolded linearly, with many of the key moments of this finale coming around the halfway point of the season, and the motivations and identities of characters been clear to the audience for the remaining half of the season, I think it actually might have been a stronger season. As Alfred Hitchcock once said:

"There is a distinct difference between 'suspense' and 'surprise,' and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

"We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, 'Boom!' There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!

"In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.” ​

The writers this season traded suspense for surprise. Had they taken the other approach, I think I would have been a lot more invested as a viewer. The middle of the season would have culminated with a major episode, and the subsequent episodes would have had me on the edge of my seat. As it was, I had a moment of appreciation for one big surprise I didn't see coming. I think I would have rather had the journey than the moment.

I really liked the use of visual metaphor in this finale, using relatable iconography to convey abstract concepts. The idea that the effort to duplicate people failed not because we were too complex but because we were too simple was intriguing; we are the culmination of tens of thousands of years of Darwinian natural selection. The result was not a higher being but a new apex predator. It gets back to The Matrix (and all of the even earlier works that inspired it), with the idea of humanity as a virus. The library of souls inside the Forge was quite a sight; there was something delicious about the idea that some volumes are thicker than others.

The pre-credits ending seemed to set up an enticing, and far more lineal, third season -- with Dolores out to destroy humanity and place the hosts atop the food chain as the newly ascendant apex predator, and Bernard out to stop her, be the Professor X to her Magneto. But something tells they'll find a way to muddy that and complicate it.

The post-credits ending would seem to serve as confirmation of that; Emily, or a version of her, wakes William up in the real world. The setting is familiar, but far more worn. The familiar sequence of events for humans in host bodies repeats itself, only with William in Delos's position and Emily in his. It would seem the technology has been perfected, finally. But what year is it? Is it concurrent with the events following Dolores and Bernard, or is it decades (centuries?) later? If Emily's backup survived, did other human backups survive as well? Is there, for instance, a hostified Elsie running around?

 

[SamT]

I have not started season 2 yet. Now that is finished, how is it compared to season 1?

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I had high hopes for Season 2, but the writers were more obsessed with theme than in telling good stories with compelling characters.

Spoiler

They should have ended the show here. The big reveal of Dolores and Bernard ready to go at each other with their separate agendas in the real world means what? Don't call it Westworld anymore? And who really wants to see that? This theme they kept hitting of hosts gaining consciousness is older than Amazing Stories, and yet all they did was make it seem far more complex than it needed to be. And the post credit sequence just tells us, what, that William, like Delos is just being rebooted as a new android over 30 years? Ho hum.

They don't start shooting the next season until a year from now next June, but I doubt anything that happened in Season 2 was really enough to keep us hanging on that long (new episodes probably wouldn't air until 2020). I just see this series as a big missed opportunity that lost all the simple fun and story-telling that the original premise promised.

This review pretty much sums it up for me...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/westworld-season-2s-insane-finale-what-the-hell-just-happened?ref=home

So much of the first two seasons of Westworld centered on this crazy maze that was integral to the plot. The unpleasant thing is, after having invested so much time in solving it, we still feel woefully lost in it. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling enough reason to try and find our way out. ​

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Okay, reading this interview with co-creator Jonathan Nolan, I'm even more convinced they don't know what they're doing and are just jerking off in front of us. I liked Memento and had no problem following that backward narrative, but his evasive non-answers here just tell me they know how to tease, but have no clue how to deliver. If you want to make an existential musing show, fine, just label it as such and don't try to pretend it has any coherent narrative. He can't even explain why their are two Dolores in the present day real world. Oops. Sorry, just feel like I wasted a bunch of time with this show.

http://ew.com/tv/2018/06/24/westworld-season-2-finale-interview/

 

[Josh Dial]

Now that the writers have laid their cards out on the table, I'm left with the question: Did the big reveal justify the nonlinear narrative? Were the surprises of the finale worth the confusion along the way?

I'm not sure. Had the story unfolded linearly, with many of the key moments of this finale coming around the halfway point of the season, and the motivations and identities of characters been clear to the audience for the remaining half of the season, I think it actually might have been a stronger season.

[Emphasis added]

I disagree. In fact, I don't think this season's story could have unfolded in any way other than nonlinear. Specifically, I don't think that Bernard's story beat of "scrambling" his memories would have translated to the screen. We would have been "reminded" a few times that his memories were out-of-order (as he is being interrogated), but telling the story straight would have undersold the nature of Bernard's confusion.

Further, the nonlinear story emphasized the film noir-esque nature of the interrogation of Bernard by the Delos team. Bernard has the "information" (which in a film noir might very well be a McGuffin...), and Delos needs it.

Lastly, the nonlinear story--in which the audience comes to realize "the truth" at the very end of a long journey--mirrors the journey Bernard goes through in achieving true consciousness (which he recognizes the moment he realizes that Ford is only in his "mind") and understanding of his timeline. We understand what's going on just as Bernard does. Rarely does a television show so expertly pair form with content.

While the second season continued the first season's theme about the nature of consciousness, it really was more focused on exploring the nature of agency. For most of the season Dolores was ostensibly "freeing" the other hosts, yet she was also robbing them of agency (or preventing them from achieving a level of consciousness that allowed agency) by making their choices for them. Even as she closed the "door" and diverted their Eden to a new secret location that only she knows, Dolores prevented the hosts' actions from having their intended consequences. It was only after her own "ah ha!" moment that she changed her mind (which is also an interesting bit of AI development) and realized her error.

Connected with this is the exploration of whether humans themselves have true agency and indeed real free will. If a "perfect" copy (having achieved true "fidelity") can be distilled down to 1249 lines of code, and can make 100% of the choices made by their "original" human, then were those choices really choices after all, or were they simply one time through a loop?

This question is reinforced with the post-credit scene, which clearly takes place at some time far off in the future. The William 2.0 we meet has finally (or maybe not--the episode is indeed unclear on this point, I think) achieved fidelity by running through his last park adventure 10,000+ times. We can consider everything we've seen so far as either a) the original run by human William (1.0) or the final run by William 2.0--it literally doesn't matter. Everything except for the single shot of William 1.0 sitting under the tent recovering could have occurred in either iteration (iteration 1 or iteration 10,000).

Other shows have explored consciousness and AI, and have done a great job--the Moore BSG re-imaging being one of the best. But Westworld is exploring different questions, and pairing those questions with analogues about human consciousness and free will. Personally, I find it both fascinating and entertaining.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Your arguments are persuasive, and probably align with Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's thinking when mapping out the season.

I just don't know that it was a satisfying experience for this viewer. It was elegant but, for large stretches, intellectually interesting but not emotionally involving.

The interesting thing about this version of "Westworld" being the story of the AI instead the story of the humans is that the humans -- at least in our original meaty biological containers -- might prove to be an overall small part of the story. I think of A.I. Artificial Intelligence, where the Mechas unearth David as the closest surviving analogue to their creators in some far distant future. The post-credits scene -- where many, many, many, many years appear to have passed -- seems like a big bold announcement that this show is interested in larger questions of mortality and immortality.

People assume that the conflict between humans and hosts will drag out the length of the series. I think it's quite possible that Dolores achieves her genocide by the third season finale, and subsequent seasons explore what comes after us.

I'm also not sure anybody we saw die in this finale is gone for good. The finale made a point of noting that it wasn't just the guests who were being studied, whose memories were being downloaded, that it was the staff running the part, too. So I wouldn't be surprised if Elsie's backup, for instance, was one of the control units that [Charlotte]Dolores smuggled out of the park. Assuming that the version of William in the post-credits scene finally achieved fidelity without degradation, then the line between human and host might blur even more next season. Bernard, after all, was a faithful, careful recreation of Arnold from the outside in. But he is not the same as he would have been if they'd taken Arnold's downloaded memories and 1300 lines of code and popped them into a host body. The fact that he's a recreation rather than a duplication makes him more interesting and valuable than a true Arnold facsimile would have been.

 

[Walter Kittel]

I don't know; I believe I have at least a modicum of intelligence and I'm still attempting to form a cohesive view of season two.

Very confusing and obtuse at times. Sort of like 'David Lynch meets the Matrix'. Sorta.

I understood the implications of the post credits denouement; but it kind of makes the entire season feel pointless. The uncertain nature of all that has transpired kind of undermines the impact. If it was just another 'run' for William then does it really matter? Kind of like the Nth version of Delos in the episode 'The Riddle of the Sphinx'. While it speaks to the process does any one run really stand out from another?

Perhaps it is merely my ego speaking but the notion that human consciousness can be reduced to N numbers of code seems to downplay the complexity of the human brain. If you examine cellular automata it is obvious that complex patterns can emerge from simple rules and algorithms but I thought the series overplayed this element.

I'm sure I'll be back - but I'm left with a mixed reaction to season two. Great moments and some interesting developments, but as a whole I'm left with a lot uncertainty.

- Walter.