Westworld – season 1

I jumped on the bandwagon early on right after the first episode as Westworld seemed something to look out for. Now after season one here are some notes (for self).

Some theories, opinions, facts and stuff:

  • Felix is a host. I had this assumption all along and I believe that on Maeve’s screen it’s him. Also, I think his affection for Maeve is because of this, too. Also, there is the thing about the names: Felix being a host learning from joy, and Dolores being another learning from pain.
  • Maeve did not reach consciousness (by going back). Ford said hosts have to learn by pain over and over until they are able to break their loop by breaking away from their cornerstone. Her cornerstone is her (memory of a) daughter and she failed to break away, so she had to go back to learn evolve further. And she delivered the suitcase to the train, so her mission is accomplished, I guess her being on the train and leaving with the baggage was not mission critical. Also, see the code on Bernard’s screen.
  • Ford will return as a host. When he had Bernard kill Theresa everyone was assuming that the body being printed there will allow Theresa to come back as a host. But she didn’t, apparently. So I assume that body was mean for Ford. And there’s his sentence about musicians being turned into music themselves.
  • William will be left alive. He could have got shot to death right away but got just a scratch. Also he was always pro-consciousness, so Ford’s narrative spared him to face the uprising and have his real fight he was looking for.
  • Elsie is alive.
  • The thread on Reddit about the Finnish subs is hilarious.
  • Good old Jeffrey Wright, came a long way since Basquiat. Still his best acting so far.

But. I loved the show, looking forward what comes next, and all that. But. There were so many painful stupid little things that totally wrecked my immersion. And I just cannot understand why.

  • Glass walls all around and a guy tries to secretly jerk off on a host in the middle of all that with earphones plugged in? This was probably the final and biggest stab.
  • Naked Logan riding away into… death? And no serious investigation into this high-profile guy’s disappearing?
  • Theresa, one of the biggest bosses around, dying just mysteriously and in the super-protected park there is no very specific trace about where she went, who she was last with, etc.?
  • Previous point applies for Elsie, too.
  • Security guards shot down by hosts with a single shot and not getting shot back once (until the story says it needs some shooting back). And security guards wearing no bulletproof armour at all, wtf?
  • Probably the whole concept just got wrapped into itself too much. I mean if you can’t explain something and any time something fucked up happens you say “oh, that guy probably is a host and was hacked to do so” it gets tiring after a while. Like when the explanation is always “because they are Jedi”, and “oh so this is also a dream”. Come on. Beyond a point you cannot take anything seriously.

Anyway. We shall see where we go from here. Until then, here’s a pretty good chronological overview of the season’s storyline.

Westworld s01e01

Dark City meets Ex Machina meets something from the wild west. This pilot was great, I’ll be curious to see where we are going from here, or what greater plot pans out.

Also, Black Hole Sun played by the saloon’s automatic piano, and the Pain It Black under the shooting scene… Pretty much wow music choices and covers.

Footnote: HBO goes mad this year with doing The Night Of first, and then this.