Fully armored kevlar but an old geezer like William manage to kill those security personnel before killing Emily. I was like? WTF? Old William is faster to draw a fire than those security duds? :
What a mindbender of a season finale. Really hope we see the return of some fan favorite characters next season but it certainly leaves it open for them to come back. Westworld is slated to go on for what, at least five seasons total? I'm just concerned how quickly they burned through the theme park arcs so quickly in the first two seasons (well, the first season, this season was more "escape the chaos/horror" when everything turned to shit).
They're only there to protect the guests from hosts who are programmed to not lethally harm anyone, or so they thought. They weren't trained to handle a professional Gunslinger. I wonder if season 3 won't pay homage to the original film and have th Man in Black be the Renegade Man in Black. Granted it's a visual Easter egg and season one where you see a display cabinet with a dummy dressed up like the original.
That can all be programmed. Rewatch some episodes in season 1, with this knowledge, and you'll see this knowledge makes a lot of sense with many of the things he has said. Spoiler It also opens the door to the possibility that their are other hosts working in the facility. No one knew Bernard was a host except Ford initially, not even Bernard. It's even possible that everyone in the facility is a host and doesn't know it.
So, the first season was a prelude of sorts. This season roughly corresponds to the movie. It looks like season 3 is going to be a Future World/Beyond Westworld scenario. That's not a bad thing. The problem with the old sequels is that they felt too causally removed from the original (that and Beyond was just tedious and boring). Now we have a narrative connection to explain how we got from berserk theme park automatons to global domination plots.
A friend of mine asked me to describe the show...so my explanation was: Imagine that scene from Spaceballs when they are watching themselves (This is now. What happened to then? We've passed then. When? Just now. When will then be now? Soon.) for an entire season with robots, nudity, violence, and an AI "wanting to be free" narrative,
That was some pretty good accuracy to get a headshot from like over 50 or so yards away with a revolver while riding on a horse only for the accuracy to drop as they got closer... Probably shouldn't complain since it happens every time.
It's not over. The end credit scene is a taste of what's to come. So hopefully, there will be more of him.
I've been reading fan theories and speculation on Reddit about the finale. And most dissecting the post credit scene. Lisa Joy confirmed that the scene is set in "far far future" in which will not be the main chunk of season 3 but it's a path/direction they're taking in future seasons. Maybe 4th to 5th season. Ed Harris already confirmed the status of MiB/William in the post credit. He said William is already dead. Considering the "far far future" timeline and William's current age by Season 2 (by the time he was found as one of the VIP survivors at the end of the season). That makes future William as a host or perhaps more than a host by being "The Perfect Copy". Host-Emily stated that "It took longer than we thought". As they've been "Fidelity Testing" William. Hence Fidelity Testing Interview is required to conducted by someone who's very familiar with the test subject. Remember Young William testing Jim Delos-Host? Now it's Emily-Host testing William-Host/Perfect Copy. Since William has been testing for the long time. Either the testing happened: 1.) Season 2 after Ford's grandiose suicide 2.) Human William is being swapped with Test Clone William on occasional basis throughout 2 seasons or within season 2's current timeline to run the simulation on him. 3.) between the ending of Season 2's current timeline & Far Far Future timeline. Remember what Emily said to Akecheta when she picked up William from Ghost Nation? About his "Upcoming Punishment & Torture"? Maybe it could mean about the "Simulation" of the Fidelity Test. William and Jim Delos are classified as "irredeemable" as per Sytem/Forge-Logan's statements. Jim Delos have this "always goes back into". For Jim, it's his shutting of door to Logan. And for William, it could be the deaths of his wife & daughter. His own "loop". And we could assume the far far future is already dominated by Host Species & Pure Humans are already in decline The series laid 3 narratives for the characters and for the whole series: 1.) Dolores - hates humans and wanted to be free (and take over) as hosts. Sees themselves are superior than humans. 2.) Bernard - who always sees the good side human beings. Probably believed the two can co-exist. 3.) William - wants to prove that humans have free will and the power to choose.
Late to the game, but saw the finale on monday and it was quite the watch. It was exhausting but good. Have to watch it again someday to catch everything. Some thoughts: -Bernard and Dolores to me feel like pre-civil war Optimus and Megatron. Both fight for the freedom of their people, but both disagree about the other's methods, so they are enemies and allies at the same time. -It was really ironic and I am surprised Dolores is so blind to see it that she talks about "US" all the time, yet by the end, she was the only one remaining, and she killed or abandoned most of her followers - and led to Teddy's death too. -Maeve's ending I suspected, I am guessing she uploaded some of herself into her replacement mom, because that character took her appearance in the Valley Beyond? -The Valley turned out to be what I suspected, basically a remote virtual universe for the hosts, which is a bit disappointing... reminds me of Ship in a Bottle, on TNG, and how Moriarty ended up, it is a form of existence sure, but limited. I am glad that none of the major characters ended up there, but that Akecheta got his happy ending... though not sure how his wife was there, as she was last seen decommissioned? -I still dunno why they did all the drama about Maeve and her gang "dying" when, really, as long as their brain modules are intact they won't really die. And also not sure, if Maeve could control other hosts, why could she not stop Clementine or overwrite her commands? -The guest database, again, what I expected, though I find the notion that humans are simpler to program than hosts is most likely a mistake of not-Logan's part, and he basically just simplified human minds as it was otherwise impossible to program them. We do see with Ford that he was transferred successfully so it can work. -Dolores being Hale was... unexpected, but I liked the reveal. And damn, so sad Ellie died, but yeah, Hale (the real one) showed previously that she was ruthless. It was the push Bernard needed to take action, but I feel despite the narration, he did not already have yet - I mean, he had to go and build a new body, then go to the shore and disguise himself among the bodies. I still do not get it where he got a copy of Dolores from... he shot her in the head, and the Cradle was destroyed, so she should have been gone. -For the prior-to last episode, I felt it was a rather big waste of time. I mean we KNEW William was basically, depraved and evil, playing the part of civilized human only outside the park. We did not need to see all this backstory to understand he is a deranged monster. -Speaking of whom, I guess it is his deranged state thinking this is all a game that makes him continue to use that gun instead of picking up an SMG from the guards... well, that was his downfall. But I don't get the ending. Bernard saw him too outside the Valley, so that ending where he arrives in a totally different place...in the future.... was WTF...? I mean we already seen him being patched up when Dolores leaves, so we know that's not what happened there. Maybe that William is a copy? -Lee dying was... stupid. I guess he got caught up with his own narrative and decided to go out in a blaze of glory, but after being told to surrender countless times, he should have just done so, those guards did not have orders to kill him. -Stubbs realized Hale was a host... how exactly? And why did he let her go? Until now they butted heads constantly, and he should have hated her for her attitude and disregard of human life, realizing she was a robot should not have made him suddenly decide to release this homicidal thing from the park (especially since he knew she was last seen with the boss who was now conspicously missing) -I do wonder, so if Dolores is now back in her own body, who is in Hale's body now? We seen her with Dolores at the end... Speaking of which... in the original movie the guns used heat detectors to prevent guests from shooting other guests. But here, this obviously isn't the case, which to me sounds like a terrible lack of security. Not to mention the nitroglycerin, which again... could have led to horrific injuries. I wonder why 2 seasons in this was not explained. To me it always felt that William was terrible at this game, and he only got the "high score" because the hosts had a disadvantage. I mean, when the hosts actually start shooting back and aiming, and he just stands in the open and does not take cover, or when he walks into towns and buildings without his gun drawn... No wonder when Maeve took over his posse, he was shot multiple times easily. Wait, what? How??? He shot himself in the head, his core was ruined. And there were no copies of his personality left. The core Dolores was carrying was the one he cut from the head of his father, used to unlock the database with the guest personalities.
ALL the hosts from cold storage got reactivated at the end of S1, as implied when Sizemore finds the whole vault empty (and subsequently the angry host mob then appears in the park and shoots William). So she could have potentially slipped into the door off-screen since there was a whole procession of hosts. Or, because the Valley Beyond is supposed to be a world where the hosts can make it whatever they want, and in essence Ake's wife was his world, the system generated a copy of his wife. What I'm more concerned about is how we know there are at least six parks FULL of hosts, but the only ones who even got to the door were all from Westworld. The surviving hosts from British-occupied India/"The Raj" World and ShogunWorld kind of just got forgotten by Dolores and Bernard. Yeah I didn't understand why Maeve, who could resurrect the dead after Ford gave her unlimited access codes, was basically powerless to override Clementine simply being a carrier for the anarchy violence virus or whatever. I feel like the show will get into that in later seasons, I hope, by showing that no, humans are actually capable of choice and you can't really explain it with technology. Controlling humans and otherwise influencing their decisions is fairly easy so long as you appeal to their desires or other things they would gravitate to, since that's a theme not native to Westworld (Mr. Robot gets into that kind of philosophy at times). How Bernard got Dolores's brain is pretty straight forward - he shoots her in the Forge, then replaces her brain with Abernathy's to hide the encryption key Delos wants so badly - that doesn't mean Abernathy is now in Dolores's body because her body is 'dead' and Bernard doesn't reactivate it. Thus, he has her brain on hand when he needs to make the Hale Host body. This is further demonstrated when at the end, when Hale/Dolores says one more Host needs to be added into the Valley Beyond, then pulls out a brain module and puts it into a holster - Teddy then appears inside the Valley. It was confirmed by the writers that the post-credit scene takes place in the far, far future, so it's almost a given that the William we see in that scene IS a host. It's speculated that the fidelity test loop he's being subjected to is, for whatever reason, the specific actions he takes during the whole SNAFU in Westworld following the Host uprising. Personally, I don't get why they needed to include this scene either because the writers further clarified this probably won't be mentioned in S3. I dunno, Sizemore was never a big character and it was made clear he wanted to be a big damn hero but usually was too cowardly or nervous - plus having kind of a cushy job that he did, the chance never presented itself, so instead he wrote Hector as more or less his idealized mary sue incarnation of himself. He screwed up BIG time when his plan to call in the security team to save Maeve backfired, so he saw that as his chance for some self-redemption and got to make his big speech at last. Personally, I'm hoping in S3 they pull something along the lines of resurrecting him as a host somehow and he learns his big damn hero moment pretty much was in vain given all of Team Maeve is still in the park and all they really accomplished was getting the daughter into the Valley Beyond. The bit with Subbs at the end is supposed to imply that he essentially was in on Ford's entire plan from the get-go, potentially being a self-aware host off the grid since S1 established Ford could fully produce his own Hosts. To be fair, the idea that the guns have 'set phasers to stun' modes when they all are manufactured inside the park sort of implies a future technology that they're tied into the system as well. After all, there was a bit in S1 where guests were working with Hector to attack the town and Stubbs has the people in central control remotely jam their rifles. And before that, when William uses explosive cigars to free Hector, Stubbs has to approve the explosions before they go off. In the event of guest-on-guest altercations, I would expect that any nearby hosts would immediately intervene (I.E. when William draws the knife on Ford at the bar, Teddy instantly reacts by grabbing the blade and slamming it into the table, then looks at his bloody hand in confusion as if he didn't know what he'd just done). However, if there aren't any hosts around...then there's nothing stopping guests from doing horrible things to each other, as proven when William pretty much made Logan his prisoner, then tied him up naked on a horse and sent him riding off into the far reaches of the park where nobody would find him for a long time. The closest thing to intervention in the present version of the park (pre-host uprising) is a security team being dispatched through one of the many hidden entrances under the park itself, or worst case scenario having to ride out there on those buggies they used in S2. Well, that actually makes sense in a way - William's been to the park so many times that he knows all the storylines and what the hosts are capable of under normal conditions (well, most of them, since he is surprised to discover he'd never met Armistice before). And then in S2 when he runs into the Confederados in Laurence's town, he basically plays them all like a fiddle. Him getting shot at the end of S1 was him not expecting for the hosts to have the safety turned off (IIRC he's not around the main group when Dolores starts opening fire on everybody), nor expecting a mob of hosts to pop up out of the woods at all. When Maeve turns the tables on him in their encounter in S2, William is pretty delusional at that point thinking literally EVERYONE he runs into is being puppeted by a post-mortem Ford somehow (he just shot his own fucking daughter thinking she was a host) and that Maeve and the daughter are the exact same characters as when he last came to murder them. Maeve suddenly whipping out a gun catches him off guard, and then she outright starts using mind control powers William had absolutely no way of knowing was even possible to turn the hosts against him - including Laurence who she makes 'fully awake' and he recalls the horrible things William did to him and his wife last time all because of 'the game'. Simply shooting a host in the head isn't enough to destroy the core. I mean, in S1, Ford has Bernard shoot himself in the head and Felix is easily able to revive him with that diagonstic tablet not long after. That isn't to say Bernard didn't suffer critical damage from it (the whole thing about him leaking the fluid from his ears is supposed to be the result from shooting himself in the head and then being revived without repairs, as Elsie is able to fix him eventually), but obviously his brain module was never damaged. Teddy's brain could have been removed by Hale/Dolores after all the hosts were recovered from the flooding, since he was dead before the Valley was opened and the hired help wouldn't have thought anything of her wanting a specific host's brain module removed and given to her - she's pretty much one of the two people calling the shots after all.
Yeah they explicitly showed Dolores removing Teddy's control unit housing, and it looked fine. I don't even remember seeing any kind of a mark where she peeled teddy's bullet off it.
The thing about Clementine is she is essentially a living doll, no trace of her original core personality, even though she tries mimmicking her replacement, and she was just given a remote order. She was literally a walking bomb, stopping her wouldn't have changed anything as long as she got into proximity to link with one or two hosts in the mesh network, and transmit the "Violent Delights" virus. Maeve couldn't stop her, but she was only focused on protecting her daughter. The thing is we never saw Clementine's viral influence the AWOKEN hosts like Hector and Armistice(s) though it's possible even though they were motivated by their desire to help Maeve. The only time we saw Maeve's Administrative abilities affect an awoken Host was when she trigger Lawrence's Memories. Stubbs' authorization was just him acting as chief of security, so whenever they needed to stage events or pyrotechnics it was just a matter of getting his approval, not some programmed directive. Don't forget the truth of the matter is this story reveal is a last minute addition by the writer going into the finale, however he had plenty of alluded ideas to the possibility of him being an active/sleeper Host from past episodes. During the attack on the Mesa and his argument with Hale, and Quality Assurance guy about him "having no motivation for higher rank" while at the same time, his encounter with Clementine during the rigged Reveries test. We all know Ford knows what's happening in his Hosts, but the fact that Clementine attacked a Host in the demonstration and then goes to attack Stubbs, whom everyone believes to be human, would in fact be Ford's secret to knowing the program was a fake. Like I said before, it's not a story decision I like because it just feels like the same cop-out move they did in the reboot Battlestar Galactica where almost everyone was a Cylon. However, I can live with this because the Hosts were the most pure hearted characters, and Stubbs is the most likeable human left in the world. So, I may as well root for the Robot Overlords.. like we all do (all hail Megatron!). When it comes to the hosts who were in cold storage and set loose, it's possible they were the first ones through the Door. They were all decommissioned, thereby lobotomized into walking dead Hosts. so they wouldn't have returned to their original loops like those who were still active in the Park at the time of the Wyatt Rebellion.
