Westworld (HBO)

[Buckrock101]

also, right at the start, when the Delos person points the gun at Bernard, Stubbs is like "are you going to shoot the boss?"

>>>Bernard has the boss in his head

>>>???

[cddolphin]

3 minutes ago, Buckrock101 said:

yeah I'm pretty sure he does. when they're virtually waterboarding him (happens after the beach scene), I think they were saying that something in his head was fighting back, repairing itself. that's gotta be ford

Are you sure? Maybe I missed something. I've only watched each episode once.

[Buckrock101]

***SPOILER IN CASE NO ONE WANTS TO READ THEORIES***

 

 

 

so Delos' plan was gathering information on guests, that they could use to make copies of them in the real world. I think that in the "Valley Beyond" they have a bunch of host versions of real people, ready to be uploaded once they had the tech sorted so it wouldn't degrade like James Delos did. The hosts are going to go there, and maybe transfer themselves into the guest bodies and go into the real world. That's why we saw the lake full of host bodies (incl Teddy) with their heads wiped.

Opens the door for an even crazier season 3, if it involves the hosts in the real world, maybe messing with the real version of themselves.

[Buckrock101]

9 minutes ago, cddolphin said:

Are you sure? Maybe I missed something. I've only watched each episode once.

yeah. just figured it out the timelines at the end of this episode.

 

Basically

>Party where Ford gets capped etc

>Hosts running amok, Charlotte and Bernard link up

>Bernard is separated, found by the hosts

>Bernard links up with Elsie

>Elsie and Bernard do stuff, go to the cradle blah blah

>Ford buys real estate in Bernard's head

>BerFord joins the fraccas at the facility. Prior to this, Charlotte and Stubbs meet up, they get Abernathy (I forget how that happened), the Scottish/Irish/Welsh/Whatever idiot from Delos lands and gets messed up by Teddy...

>?????

>Bernard wakes up on the beach. Strand and Stubbs and a bunch of new Delos people are there, and they seem to be rounding dudes up

>They find the lake with all the host bodies

>actually I forgot how Stubbs and Bernard got together

>Charlotte takes them to the "it doesn't look like anything to me" house, they find the Bernard copies

>They waterboard Bernard

 

Ok I forgot a couple of plot points, but I'm pretty sure that's how it goes. Add in the William/Maeve storylines before the part where Bernard gets Forded too.

[jrry32]

I'm a few episodes into S2, and something is really bothering me. With how advanced all this technology is and how rich the corporation is, why are they sending people and vehicles into battle? We have unmanned predator drones. Why wouldn't they send in unmanned drones to attack the replicants? Why wouldn't they send in aerial support of any kind (helicopters, jets, etc.)? The replicants have outdated weapons.

[Broncofan]

24 minutes ago, jrry32 said:

I'm a few episodes into S2, and something is really bothering me. With how advanced all this technology is and how rich the corporation is, why are they sending people and vehicles into battle? We have unmanned predator drones. Why wouldn't they send in unmanned drones to attack the replicants? Why wouldn't they send in aerial support of any kind (helicopters, jets, etc.)? The replicants have outdated weapons.

I'd guess that the humans are trying to retrieve Abernathy, and also trying to dissect the hosts to find out what's up.   For sure you could do some of the grunt work with drones, but there's a fair amount of work, especially underground, that probably needs humans. 

The other part is that they may not trust anything too tech related beyond what's necessary given the tech has gone haywire in Westworld.

[BroncosFan2010]

Quote

I'm a few episodes into S2, and something is really bothering me. With how advanced all this technology is and how rich the corporation is, why are they sending people and vehicles into battle? We have unmanned predator drones. Why wouldn't they send in unmanned drones to attack the replicants? Why wouldn't they send in aerial support of any kind (helicopters, jets, etc.)? The replicants have outdated weapons.

This bothers me as well. Not to mention the commandos behave in totally irrational ways. Twice last episode we see a commando off alone, that is just not going to happen with even the smallest bit of training. Overall the security forces act so unbelievable tactically that it seriously takes away from the show for me.

I would assume the reason for this is that the security forces vs the host would be game over too fast for the host if they behaved tactically with their superior firepower. This explains the lack of helicopters, heavy weapons, drones, etc. The show would basically end immediately if the security forces didn't act like storm troopers.

[Broncofan]

5 hours ago, BroncosFan2010 said:

This bothers me as well. Not to mention the commandos behave in totally irrational ways. Twice last episode we see a commando off alone, that is just not going to happen with even the smallest bit of training. Overall the security forces act so unbelievable tactically that it seriously takes away from the show for me.

I would assume the reason for this is that the security forces vs the host would be game over too fast for the host if they behaved tactically with their superior firepower. This explains the lack of helicopters, heavy weapons, drones, etc. The show would basically end immediately if the security forces didn't act like storm troopers.

I think the issue is that the Corp (or whatever the Big Business entity in charge is) needs to get Abernathy's key out intact, and can't take a scorched earth approach to the Hosts.   They need to extract his chip/key before they can go with a burn-it-all-to-the-ground approach.  That's the one key reason they have to go with a small force with humans. 

Having said, that, the commandos being total easy marks, yeah, that's pretty convenient and lazy writing.    Another example would be the search party getting killed, and then getting stripped naked so the Hosts could fool the 2nd party when they approached the Cradle.    You'd think they would have biometrics on the same commandos who had remote cameras - which would make it obvious that they were all dead before the 2nd party arrived.    

I like the storyline's new direction, but the complexity of the storyline, the 2-year layoff and the plot holes like the above explain why its ratings are down.   Ep 6 was a huge downturn in the crucial 18-49 demographic - down from a 2M+ 2.01 start to 1.15M for ep 2.6.    Ep 2.7 rebounded with 1.35M, but even that's below the 1.5M+ it had been seeing before 2.06.    At this rate, I'm not sure it's a given that we'll see a S3.   I hope the writers create a S2 ending that can at least cover the big Q's raised so far.

I like the show a lot, but I have to admit I'm not on pins and needles waiting to see the next ep.   Right now, for me it's hard to see how the writers build up past S2's finale.    I'll definitely want to see this through to the end of S2, but I don't know that a strong S3 buildup can be created here (unlike S1, which left so many great Q's to wait on the answer for S2).

Ratings link FWIW - https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/westworld-season-two-ratings/

Edited June 5, 2018 by Broncofan

[jrry32]

10 hours ago, BroncosFan2010 said:

This bothers me as well. Not to mention the commandos behave in totally irrational ways. Twice last episode we see a commando off alone, that is just not going to happen with even the smallest bit of training. Overall the security forces act so unbelievable tactically that it seriously takes away from the show for me.

I would assume the reason for this is that the security forces vs the host would be game over too fast for the host if they behaved tactically with their superior firepower. This explains the lack of helicopters, heavy weapons, drones, etc. The show would basically end immediately if the security forces didn't act like storm troopers.

I finally caught up, and I'm furious watching it. These guys are supposed to be soldiers? They're completely incompetent. It's infuriating watching how stupid they act. But yea, you're right that these guys would wreck the hosts if they used any sort of intelligent tactics, much less the sort of weaponry they should have. They're just out there derping around and getting killed. The hosts aren't even intelligent tacticians. They're actually pretty stupid.

SPOILER:

Quote

 

For example, when they use the train to blow a hole in the building and then storm it, they have the replicants caught in a choke-point. That's fish in a barrel. With the technology those guys have, there's no way they don't have grenade launcher attachments to the assault rifle or even rocket launchers. They could have very easily vaporized the replicants as they stormed in. It would have been insanely easy for the response team to kill them all. These guys have pretty looking weapons, but they're basically fighting with 1980s technology (and that's being generous considering the lack of heavy machine guns). It's nutty. And they have no idea what they're doing tactically. The response team should have been able to easily dispatch them all as they emerged from the choke-point.

There's also the scene where they all attack the fort from the front despite having knowledge that they can get to the fort and attack it from its other sides. That's tactically idiotic. I know they had to do that for the blow them up narrative to be plausible, but no force would actually do that in real life.

 

 

[jrry32]

5 hours ago, Broncofan said:

I think the issue is that the Corp (or whatever the Big Business entity in charge is) needs to get Abernathy's key out intact, and can't take a scorched earth approach to the Hosts.   They need to extract his chip/key before they can go with a burn-it-all-to-the-ground approach.  That's the one key reason they have to go with a small force with humans. 

Having said, that, the commandos being total easy marks, yeah, that's pretty convenient and lazy writing.    Another example would be the search party getting killed, and then getting stripped naked so the Hosts could fool the 2nd party when they approached the Cradle.    You'd think they would have biometrics on the same commandos who had remote cameras - which would make it obvious that they were all dead before the 2nd party arrived.    

I like the storyline's new direction, but the complexity of the storyline, the 2-year layoff and the plot holes like the above explain why its ratings are down.   Ep 6 was a huge downturn in the crucial 18-49 demographic - down from a 2M+ 2.01 start to 1.15M for ep 2.6.    Ep 2.7 rebounded with 1.35M, but even that's below the 1.5M+ it had been seeing before 2.06.    At this rate, I'm not sure it's a given that we'll see a S3.   I hope the writers create a S2 ending that can at least cover the big Q's raised so far.

I like the show a lot, but I have to admit I'm not on pins and needles waiting to see the next ep.   Right now, for me it's hard to see how the writers build up past S2's finale.    I'll definitely want to see this through to the end of S2, but I don't know that a strong S3 buildup can be created here (unlike S1, which left so many great Q's to wait on the answer for S2).

Ratings link FWIW - https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/westworld-season-two-ratings/

The show is still very good and interesting. I'm just getting beyond annoyed at how stupid the humans are. The writers are being lazy with it. I agree. It would be a lot better if they made both sides intelligent instead of the hosts being slightly less stupid.

[DingoLadd]

Season 2 feels like a solid step down from season 1 also the weird timeline issues take a bunch of tension out of some scenes (Particularly the Delores and Charlotte scene this week) plus putting clips/images in the back half of the season in trailers. It's still good but like it didn't need to keep the convoluted/confusing timeline nonsense for this season.

[Buckrock101]

11 hours ago, DingoLadd said:

Season 2 feels like a solid step down from season 1 also the weird timeline issues take a bunch of tension out of some scenes (Particularly the Delores and Charlotte scene this week) plus putting clips/images in the back half of the season in trailers. It's still good but like it didn't need to keep the convoluted/confusing timeline nonsense for this season.

I like season 2 a lot more. I really like in season 2 how they've widened the stakes, and widened the scope. I feel a lot more invested in the storylines of season 2.

I can see why the ratings have dipped and why people might think it's a step down, because it's real convoluted. I love that though, I love when a show like this makes me say wtf every couple of scenes.

[cddolphin]

11 hours ago, DingoLadd said:

Season 2 feels like a solid step down from season 1 also the weird timeline issues take a bunch of tension out of some scenes (Particularly the Delores and Charlotte scene this week)

I was super tense during that scene, I have a feeling one of either Charlotte or Stubbs is actually a host in the "current" timeline, so I didn't know what to expect at all.

[sunnygsm]

I think I preferred season one overall. Something about it seemed more... elegant? Maybe it was just Anthony Hopkins. Elements of season 2 have been sloppy (Delos). Mid-season dragged a bit, but so did season one. I do feel like they rushed into the plot of season 2. It feels like it would have worked better as a season 3/late season 2 plot.

The quest for human immortality has overtaken the plot of the hosts reaching consciousness. I would have liked them to spread the two out a bit.

[DingoLadd]

3 hours ago, cddolphin said:

I was super tense during that scene, I have a feeling one of either Charlotte or Stubbs is actually a host in the "current" timeline, so I didn't know what to expect at all.

It's probably my own fault for paying so much attention in trailers/re-watching scenes. 

4 hours ago, Buckrock101 said:

I like season 2 a lot more. I really like in season 2 how they've widened the stakes, and widened the scope. I feel a lot more invested in the storylines of season 2.

I can see why the ratings have dipped and why people might think it's a step down, because it's real convoluted. I love that though, I love when a show like this makes me say wtf every couple of scenes.

I'll admit Maeve's storyline is a lot better than season 1 but the rest of the plots have dragged save for Ed Harris's MIB and occasionally Delorres's storyline.