# Westworld - premieres Sunday (show spoilers as airs) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 1, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413 "2016-10-01T21:12:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 34
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/662 "2016-11-17T05:33:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > What is Ford’s actual mode of control of the hosts - hand gestures? Voice commands? In some scenes it doesn’t seem that he actually _does_ anything before the hosts respond to him (as when the farmhands left as one while he was having lunch with Theresa). Could almost be telepathic… Personal magnetism. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/663 "2016-11-17T06:02:55Z")
Dog whistles 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/664 "2016-11-17T08:48:51Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > As I mentioned, Delos probably has interests in the application of autonomous AI beyond robot prostitutes and NPCs in a live-action version of Red Dead Redemption. See, the way they were vaguely and sinisterly talking about IP, I was actually thinking what Delos wanted was basically blackmail material on the world’s richest people. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/665 "2016-11-17T10:35:07Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > No, that was an another indicator of his programmed blind spot, like the door. When Dolores showed Abernathy the photograph she found, he replied exactly the same way “That doesn’t look like anything to me.”. > [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > Right I was just laughing at my daughter’s interpretation of the events. Teresa seemed more robotic than the hosts and I was guessing that was just to mislead. When Bernard killed her by smashing her head in my daughter was sure she must have been a host because they had just shown in the earlier episode how that woodcutter host smashed his own head in. You don’t have to go back that far for callbacks - we had Rodrigo’s character being shown pictures (and not “seeing” them) at the beginning of the episode, and Clementine smashing her assailant’s head into a wall later on. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/666 "2016-11-17T13:30:07Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Remember, too, the lawman host who tried to retrieve her from the Mexican village, but backed off when she resisted and William stepped in. Someone at Mesa HQ seems to want to return her to the Abernathy farmhouse narrative. True, but they also asked ‘Is she with a guest?’, so the fact that she’s accompanying William on his quest seems to excuse her from returning to her regular storyline. Presumably if she was left behind along the way someone would pick her up and take her back. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/667 "2016-11-17T13:49:17Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > why even have him have the affair with Theresa? Why have him work with Elsie the way he did? Or have half the conversations with Ford that he did? In retrospect they were clearly for our (the viewers) benefit and don’t fit within the kayfabe story of “everyone has to think of Bernard as human”. Namely the “This is who Arnold is” conversation. Bernard has no reason to know who Arnold is, and if Ford wanted him to know it, why have a “real” conversation? Why not just download Arnold into his mind for when someone brings him up? It seems pointless. > > And the conversations with Dolores are what? The hosts “practicing normal conversation”? To what ends? Presumably, since he doesn’t know he’s a host, Bernard is programmed to act as human and respond as naturally as possible, so things like his conversations with Dolores and working with Elsie are down to his own improvised responses to situations. I think Ford would want his interactions with Bernard to be as natural as possible for that purpose as well, to emphasise and reinforce his apparent humanity and autonomy, rather than to manipulate his knowledge and understanding through a behaviour tablet. Though I think his convos with Dolores have an additional purpose that Bernard is not (yet) aware of, perhaps part of some deep programming that maybe even Ford is not aware of. Like sending her to find the maze, why do that? We don’t know, and I have to imagine that Bernard doesn’t really know either. And when Ford questions Dolores she doesn’t answer honestly, she hides the fact that she’s apparently been in contact with Arnold (through Bernard?), so obviously Ford isn’t privy to everything that’s going on in the park either. As far as the affair with Teresa goes, Ford reminds her that she instigated that, and Bernard is programmed to be a sensitive kinda lonely guy, so it would be natural for him to respond the way he did. It might be suspicious if he did otherwise; if he was more standoffish he might come across as ‘robotic’ enough to make someone like Teresa question his status. I’d like to add that it’s interesting to see an interracial relationship on an American show where the races of the individuals are not a huge issue, in fact they aren’t commented on at all. I’ve gotten kind of used to that over the past few years, being exposed to British television where you get interracial relationships all the time that aren’t a huge plot point in themselves (first one I noticed was Rose and Mickey in the Doctor Who reboot), but such things have been noticeably lacking in American television in the past, and it was a surprise to me at first to see what a non-issue it is here. Maybe things are starting to change? One can hope. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/668 "2016-11-17T13:55:27Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > No, that was an another indicator of his programmed blind spot, like the door. When Dolores showed Abernathy the photograph she found, he replied exactly the same way “That doesn’t look like anything to me.”. It was Pete Abernathy who showed the photo to Dolores, she’s the one who said it didn’t look like anything. And that blind spot was also reinforced at the very beginning of this episode as well, when Bernard is doing a diagnostic with Hector, showing him images of the modern world. Probably that we would remember it as such when Bernard said it, since the scene with Pete and Dolores was so long ago some viewers might not recall it. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/669 "2016-11-17T14:31:40Z")
> [@Dunkelheit](#): > > I’d like to add that it’s interesting to see an interracial relationship on an American show where the races of the individuals are not a huge issue, in fact they aren’t commented on at all. I’ve gotten kind of used to that over the past few years, being exposed to British television where you get interracial relationships all the time that aren’t a huge plot point in themselves (first one I noticed was Rose and Mickey in the Doctor Who reboot), but such things have been noticeably lacking in American television in the past, and it was a surprise to me at first to see what a non-issue it is here. Maybe things are starting to change? One can hope. Perhaps you haven’t been watching enough American television. For many years now interracial relationships have been common and quite unremarked on US TV shows. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/670 "2016-11-17T14:42:15Z")
HBO series are already filled with edgy stuff - compared to massacres and incestual rape over on GoT, interracial relationships are definitely a non-issue. But such relationships have been quietly creeping into mainstream US television as well for a long time. Which is fine. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/671 "2016-11-17T15:31:03Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > See, the way they were vaguely and sinisterly talking about IP, I was actually thinking what Delos wanted was basically blackmail material on the world’s richest people. Maybe, but I doubt it’s something so prosaic. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/672 "2016-11-17T15:34:16Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I did note Bernard turning to Ford several times in that scene yet being unable to say anything. Which became more understandable later - it wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say, it was that he literally couldn’t implicate Ford. I read that at the time as if he wanted Ford to admit that he was the one who’d written the code, but didn’t want to rat him out himself. Given what we know now, it does seem likely that he couldn’t have said anything even if he’d wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/673 "2016-11-17T15:46:10Z")
> [@Dunkelheit](#): > > I read that at the time as if he wanted Ford to admit that he was the one who’d written the code, but didn’t want to rat him out himself. Given what we know now, it does seem likely that he couldn’t have said anything even if he’d wanted to. The beauty of it is that he didn’t want to. He may have even believed what he said to be true. As for blackmail, I highly doubt it. Firstly, you’re mixing with lots of other guests which is a much higher risk of backmail. Also, to the rest of the world, this place is like playing g Grand Theft Auto. We don’t think of gamers as really wanting to gruesomely kill people. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/674 "2016-11-17T16:14:56Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Perhaps you haven’t been watching enough American television. For many years now interracial relationships have been common and quite unremarked on US TV shows. To be honest, I haven’t watched a lot of American tv on a regular basis for quite some time, so you may be right. But it still seemed surprising in 2005 when I started watching the Doctor Who reboot. In the American shows I _have_ been watching over the past few decades, interracial (especially black/white) relationships have seemed much thinner on the ground than they are on British tv. Enough for me to notice the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/675 "2016-11-17T16:59:41Z")
> [@Dunkelheit](#): > > I read that at the time as if he wanted Ford to admit that he was the one who’d written the code, but didn’t want to rat him out himself. Given what we know now, it does seem likely that he couldn’t have said anything even if he’d wanted to. That’s how I took it. Loyal to a fault, as programmed. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/676 "2016-11-21T03:10:09Z")
I’m having a hard time rationalizing the ‘separate timelines’ hypothesis after this latest episode. After MiB’s little monologue, it’s hard to think of him having been William. Bernard has certainly become a sympathetic character to me after these events, however. His host status, along with his own awareness of it, just serves to make his struggles seem all the more poignant. I’m having a hard time envisioning Hale as an effective foe for Ford, though. Her plan to send a host out with the data seems sort of lame, in view of all the safeguards to prevent that, which this episode revealed. Lots to wrap up in just two episodes. Well two episodes and who knows how many more seasons. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/677 "2016-11-21T03:18:14Z")
It seems likely that Bernard will kill Ford at some point. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/678 "2016-11-21T03:43:34Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I’m having a hard time rationalizing the ‘separate timelines’ hypothesis after this latest episode. After MiB’s little monologue, it’s hard to think of him having been William. … But it does add support to the confusion over when Dolores is now, what is her remembering and reliving and is her “current” experience. I’d be leaning to thinking that William is a complete relived memory for her except that we’ve had scenes with William and Logan and not her. So I am just confused still. I couldn’t make out what the woman said before she stabbed Teddy with the arrow. Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/679 "2016-11-21T04:44:07Z")
The last two episodes had better be pretty good to wrap this up in a satisfying way. Things are confusing, and probably for no good reason. _Are_ there two (or more) timelines? What are the goals and motives of the corporate board? How does the park work? How big is it? Where is it? What exactly is the maze? How does the Man in Black know about the maze? Who exactly was Arnold, and how did he die? What was the incident 30ish years ago? Some of these things may not matter, but it’s hard to tell at this point and the rest of the storylines are becoming less engaging as they go on. Maeve’s story is pretty bad at this point. I still don’t find the two techs’ actions believable. Their motivations are relatively weak, but I can sort of buy them adjusting her personality a bit. What I don’t buy is that they would be _able_ to raise her intelligence that high or have access to her core code. These guys are supposed to be relatively low on the totem pole, right? Why would they have access to the core code? If they are relatively high level workers, then why do they act like unprofessional idiots on a regular basis? For a place run by a genius control-freak, WestWorld is remarkably lax about basic access controls to their intellectual property. I mean, Ford is willing to kill people to protect his control of his park, but lets a low-level tech tinker with his beautiful code? I don’t believe it. I also strongly dislike anything involving the whiny narrative guy. He’s like a weird, exaggerated cartoon. He’s completely unrealistic. Yes, I know it’s a show about semi-sapient bio-robots. I have no problem with that. But I just can’t buy that _that guy_ would have a job that important. I mean, he urinated into the control room for god’s sake! In real life he would be fired, or arrested, or punched in the face, or all of the above. Can he please be thrown into a woodchipper? I really, really want to like this show. I enjoy many things about it. But the last few episodes have me worried that it’s not nearly as clever or well thought out as it’s pretending to be. Specifically, I’m worried that the writers are confusing “hidden information and fractured narrative structure” for “depth and interesting storytelling”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/680 "2016-11-21T07:37:10Z")
> [@BlackKnight](#): > > In real life he would be fired, or arrested, or punched in the face, or all of the above. Counterpoint - Shia LaBeouf still gets film work… ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/681 "2016-11-21T09:29:08Z")
> [@BlackKnight](#): > > The last two episodes had better be pretty good to wrap this up in a satisfying way. The one thing we know for certain is that this won’t be wrapped up in the last two episodes because there is definitely at least one more season coming and probably more. We’re going to be left with cliffhangers. I take your points about the plotlines. The Maeve one keeps getting more and more inconsistent with the rest. How on earth could such major changes to a host escape the all-seeing Ford’s attention? It just doesn’t compute. BTW anyone notice that William has a mole on his face and the MIB doesn’t? Sure, it could have been removed but I don’t see the MIB as being that vain about his looks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413.md?page=33) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413.md?page=35)