# 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:** 55
**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:** [December 8, 2016, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1082 "2016-12-08T02:17:53Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Exactly. We would have to make all sorts of assumptions or guesses to understand how far $40,000 goes in the time period in which the show is set. Since there’s no basis for making any such assumptions, I believe we are only meant to conclude that a trip to Westworld is for extremely rich people. Perhaps then a shame for the AIs to experience humanity only as its most entitled. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1083 "2016-12-08T03:44:02Z")
I don’t remember where it was, but I read an interview with a producer who said that it takes place in the 21st century. If that’s true, how have we eradicated all disease? So, Maeve’s escape programming instructions said “infiltrate mainland”, does this mean the location for Westworld is an island? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1084 "2016-12-08T05:06:54Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Exactly. We would have to make all sorts of assumptions or guesses to understand how far $40,000 goes in the time period in which the show is set. Since there’s no basis for making any such assumptions, I believe we are only meant to conclude that a trip to Westworld is for extremely rich people. I don’t recall saying it wasn’t? There’s not a vast number of people about today who could spend $10k on a weekend away, and even fewer of them who’d want to spend that weekend killing or banging robots in a Wild West/Sengoku/Medieval (I’m guessing, but it seems logical) setting. Part of the fun of the show is the meta, but it seems I’m clearly not cool enough to contribute to that discussion here. ---
**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:** [December 8, 2016, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1085 "2016-12-08T07:29:13Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Exactly. We would have to make all sorts of assumptions or guesses to understand how far $40,000 goes in the time period in which the show is set. Since there’s no basis for making any such assumptions, I believe we are only meant to conclude that a trip to Westworld is for extremely rich people. I recall one of the techs saying something about not being able to afford to visit themselves, so I would guess at least out of the range of low-level professional 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:** [December 8, 2016, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1086 "2016-12-08T09:32:50Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > It said “Infiltrate Mainland”. Different screen. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1087 "2016-12-08T11:27:33Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I don’t recall saying it wasn’t? There’s not a vast number of people about today who could spend $10k on a weekend away, and even fewer of them who’d want to spend that weekend killing or banging robots in a Wild West/Sengoku/Medieval (I’m guessing, but it seems logical) setting. > > Part of the fun of the show is the meta, but it seems I’m clearly not cool enough to contribute to that discussion here. I agree that the cost comment was meant to signal that the park was a 1%'er experience. Classic dystopian set up - see The Time Macine, Brave New World, Elysium, Snowpiercer, etc - the weirdest set ups have a chance to work if they can provide insightful commentary on our class structure and how it affects everyone all the time. **Martini** how are you not cool enough? The “meta” bits were just jostled by the storytelling approach. We were thinking this was William’s, or perhaps William’s and Dolores’ story, but it is the Hosts’ story. Consciousness is the “secret power” the underclass learns it has which can be marshaled to overthrow the elites. The fact that consciousness is hard to learn about and grasp by the underclass equates it to freedom. And the fact that it emerges based on accumulated suffering and being doomed to live a small, awful reincarnated pattern is richly aligned with the Big Questions we humans have been focused on since we were able to focus. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1088 "2016-12-08T13:35:07Z")
Also: how **Planet of the Apes** -y is this? ---
**Author:** ![HelenTroy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helentroy/32/86_2.png) [@HelenTroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenTroy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1089 "2016-12-08T13:44:24Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Yes. And the psychology was bad: he starts out as a kind idealist, and is instantly turned into a sourpuss sadistic asshole by seeing his Robot Love look right at him but fail to recognize him. And he _knows_ that the robot’s minds get wiped. Yet we are still asked to believe in that tired old chestnut: the Good Man, Disappointed By A Faithless Woman, Turns Hard and Cold. Poor, poor guy! > > It was just plain bad writing. > . Except…he wasn’t a kind idealist. That was the lie he was telling himself all along, just like when his daughter told him his wife was terrified of him. That stunned him, for there to be this other picture of their life together. Logan was not the bad guy in all of this in that he was the most correct about the park. It shows what you truly are. William wanted to be the grand hero who discovered the humanity of this poor damsel. He wanted to awaken her and save her and show how he was so much better than Logan. Bullshit. Dolores was never about her own agency to him. She was only important in how she made him feel and her taking that hero narrative from him, in his mind, made him furious. I have spoken to so many women online who see an abusive ex in William. He was able to torture Dolores so easily because she was a means to an end. What was great is what was said upthread; the maze and the story was not for or about him. I can forgive all his crazy for that small smile when he gets shot for real. Yep, here’s your real now, William. Good luck with that! ---
**Author:** ![HelenTroy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helentroy/32/86_2.png) [@HelenTroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenTroy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1090 "2016-12-08T13:47:44Z")
Or what \*\*Tamerlane \*\*said. ---
**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:** [December 8, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1091 "2016-12-08T14:48:07Z")
**HelenTroy** , I see William/MiB as potentially a lot more interesting than that. Unfortunately in this case because the story is not about him, developing the complexities of the character is given no effort (a story _can_ have the secondary characters still having their natures more fully explored). Fully … ehem … fleshed out characters are complex, not White Hat or Black Hat. Again, to the Walter White comparison - it worked so well because he was a mess of conflicting motivations and self-delusions and would not have if he was pure pork pie Black Hat. He _was_ and _is_ a kind idealist just as much and concurrent with being a competitive violent bad ass. I suspect that most people who accomplish significant things are similar and like him in their real world channel their bad-assery to pro-social ends and in a socially acceptable manner with fairly rare flashes of their darker sides showing, sometimes scaring those near them. The William who started off with Logan never would have become the accomplished tycoon and philanthropist that was the MiB in the outside world. Dolores with a consciousness and free will, who he knew, is his life’s true love. The hurt and anger he felt as a consequence of that love being torn from him by Logan was a breaking point. Seeing her reset and believing that he had been fooled all along resigned him to the (false) belief that his life’s true love never loved him, was not capable of it, that Logan had been right and that he had essentially fallen in love with an interactive inflatable doll. So he went through some of the classic grief stages with buried anger staying with him into his long-term acceptance stage (mostly released in a fantasy world upon robots that he is sure are unable to actually feel anything) … except that the truly sentient self-aware conscious Dolores that he had thought was his true life’s love and whose loss he grieved now really exists … and now sees him as pitiful. It’s a tragedy narrative and all of William’s loops in it end up with him ultimately experiencing loss or rejection. Showing more of that unfold rather than having MiB exposit most of it and showing the before and after of it only would have been wonderful … but the show is not for him. ---
**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:** [December 8, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1092 "2016-12-08T16:05:47Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > [Great interview](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/westworld-william-is-man-in-black-finale-interview-jimmi-simpson) with Jimmi Simpson in which he reveals the tiny clue which led him to understand that he and Ed Harris were playing the same character. (The whole cast were kept in the dark about that until they’d shot most of the season but Simpson worked it out very early on. Ed Harris himself didn’t realize until 7 months after Jimmi.) > > Simpson also reveals whether he’ll be back in Season 2. Very interesting - thanks! > [@msmith537](#): > > …Although one wonders why Westworld has tactical response teams armed with FN P90 submachineguns in the first place. Disney doesn’t maintain SWAT teams in case the Pirates of the Caribbean come to live. Well, sometimes, obviously, the hosts malfunction. They don’t have hardwired Asimovian Three Laws. Their “Good Samaritan reflexes” can be altered by a skilled programmer. We saw armed, black-clad security guards in the very first episode, when they went to the lower depths of the Mesa and found Dr. Ford talking to the old cowboy robot. > [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > …I might be misremembering, but I don’t think William has been looking for the maze for 30 years, only since last year when his wife died and he killed Maeve. Before that he was just exploring the place, sometimes with Dolores. And it’s not like he’s constantly at Westworld, he is a famous and successful business titan, who another guest recognized. I’d guess he’s there maybe a few weeks a year. That sounds about right. > [@Enderw24](#): > > …The question is: is she sentient? Is there even an applicable definition of it? Can someone be sentient and yet still beholden to programming?.. > [@Soulcatcher](#): > > Isn’t this true for all of us? Humans are sentient but still beholden to our own evolutionary programming, as evidenced by a wide range of strong instincts and compulsions. Exactly. Human beings can be so conditioned by rigorous training, mistreatment or strong emotion (love or fear, in particular) that they really can act only one way in any given situation. But they’re still sentient. > [@Oakminster](#): > > Am I the only one that kinda hoped to see Caprica 6 in the party scene? That would’ve been _sweeeeeet_. > [@hajario](#): > > My guess is that Elsie saw the programming and realized what’s going on and went into hiding. She got the painted guys to grab her buddy Stubbs to help her. Didn’t we see Bernard impassively strangling her from behind? > [@TimeWinder](#): > > As with all shows except NCIS, elevators are programmed to take exactly one conversation to arrive at the destination. On NCIS, they have to flip a switch to do it manually… Elevators, like the USS _Enterprise_, move at the speed of plot. > [@TimeWinder](#): > > …We saw at least one or two of them get hit in the back, so at least _some_ of them are seriously injured. Dolores was picking them off from the stage. I imagine next season will tell us their fates. I would not put it past Ford to have some hosts impersonating board members, and Dolores and the oncoming host army just shooting them. > [@Enderw24](#): > > No true Scotsman would argue about Free Will. :: head explodes :: ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1093 "2016-12-08T17:04:20Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Didn’t we see Bernard impassively strangling her from behind? Yes, but we didn’t see her die. It’s also potentially significant that the uber-violent Ghost Nation only tackled Stubbs, rather than axing or arrowing him. The theory is that potentially from seeing something in the code or data she found, she discovered that Bernard was a host. She could’ve also seen one of his backdoor commands and maybe even made him forget. Bernard’s memory (in which we saw the slightly more protracted “strangling”) we also know is not really trustworthy. It could go either way and likely _is_ one of those things contingent on contract negotiations for season 2 (more likely, IMO, than the “dead Ford was a host, depending on if they can give Hopkins enough to come back for season 2” theory). There are people we’ve _seen_ die…I guess really just Theresa and Ford? Oh, and Arnold. They’ve already done the surprise Bernard = Arnold thing, so I think another surprise resurrection by host would derail any dramatic impact of the human deaths even we can really never be sure they’re actually human, or that they can “come back” somehow, or it was really a clone that died instead. That’s _The Young and the Restless_ territory, there. But I think we can certainly be suspicious if we don’t actually see the killing, or the body. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1094 "2016-12-08T18:32:49Z")
A co-worker just showed me on his iPhone what Siri’s response is if you ask her about the WestWorld finale. “It doesn’t look like anything to me.” ---
**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:** [December 8, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1095 "2016-12-08T20:46:23Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Ok - so, they re-used the Wyatt Host on Teddy - and that is why I was getting confused. > > …Or was that teddy both times and Wyatt really was all in Delores head? (split personality). Further complicated by Teddy remembering being one of the killers both in civilian garb and in cavalry uniform. > [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > …Dolores and Meave switched roles: I think it’s interesting that the two robots who became self aware did so by different means, and then switched once becoming awakened. Meave achieved her awakening by being violent and bloodthirsty, whereas Dolores achieved slowly and much more introspectively. Yet their decisions after being awakened switched. Meave decided to not kill humanity after seeing the human mother and daughter, and Dolores decided to kill Ford and a bunch of other people. A pretty cool role-reversal if you ask me… Hadn’t thought of that - a good insight. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Another possibility I just thought of – Bernard is “programmed” never to leave the facility, and Ford made sure that no one at the facility worked there when Arnold was alive. Still seems foolish to me to use Arnold’s exact appearance like that. Even the most reclusive scientist could be Googled (or its equivalent) in WW’s time, I would think. Sooner or later someone would probably wonder why Bernard looks just like Ford’s early-career partner and ask some unwelcome questions. Another thought: William dropped his fiancee’s picture, and Dolores’s father found it 30 years later, still in excellent shape. Photo paper in WW’s time must be pretty damn rugged. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1096 "2016-12-08T21:01:13Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Still seems foolish to me to use Arnold’s exact appearance like that. Even the most reclusive scientist could be Googled (or its equivalent) in WW’s time, I would think. Sooner or later someone would probably wonder why Bernard looks just like Ford’s early-career partner and ask some unwelcome questions. So what? Everyone knows Arnold died. Is it a big shock that you can make an artificial face look like a particular person? It shouldn’t be. And if someone tells Bernard, he is programmed not to notice it unless he’s at the point of waking up, which apparently happens regularly and he just gets mindwiped. I suspect it is an open secret at WestWorld. Everyone who care enough to know who Arnold was (the techs didn’t) knows that Bernard is his copy. Only Bernard doesn’t know, and we saw things from his perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1097 "2016-12-08T21:11:22Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Another thought: William dropped his fiancee’s picture, and Dolores’s father found it 30 years later, still in excellent shape. Photo paper in WW’s time must be pretty damn rugged. That crossed my mind; but can we say with certainty when Abernathy found the photograph? How long ago it was? The other element is that William dropped that photo way out on the frontier, but Abernathy said he found it out by his cattle pen. How did it get there? I suspect maybe Ford had Bernard plant it, as he did the gun that Dolores found. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1098 "2016-12-08T21:31:20Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I would not put it past Ford to have some hosts impersonating board members, and Dolores and the oncoming host army just shooting them. I’m curious if next season will describe more about how the self-powdering smart bullets work. Did Ford put real bullets in all of the guns for the party? Or some of the guns? That’s what made me think that Ford was replaced with an android, otherwise the bullet from Dolores would have just powdered against the back of his head if he were human. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1099 "2016-12-08T21:51:33Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > I’m curious if next season will describe more about how the self-powdering smart bullets work. Did Ford put real bullets in all of the guns for the party? Or some of the guns? > > That’s what made me think that Ford was replaced with an android, otherwise the bullet from Dolores would have just powdered against the back of his head if he were human. I would be willing to bet we never really get those kinds of details in-show. It seems WW (as is common for Abrams and Nolan, apparently) is doing a lot of online “alternate reality game” marketing stuff. That’s the discoverwestworld and delos websites, and I think the best glimpses of these technical details might have to come from there. Unless somehow it directly drives the story, it usually seems awkward when a character explains these little details. So instead we get it through the sidechannels of the websites and other non-show materials. Like the diagram of how hosts are delivered to Livestock after they die, and now the security footage with the timestamp (the year is 2052). There are a bunch of emails, too, some from the security team where they mention various systems or whatever, and in one of them they mention “bullet velocity protocols are operating normally” or some such. So that’s still not 100% clear _how_ it works, but I think it does tell us that rather than something like the bullet shattering instead of penetrating, it’s some kind of software restriction or ruleset that restricts the muzzle velocity somehow…and that it can potentially be overridden or malfunction somehow as well. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1100 "2016-12-08T21:55:03Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > That crossed my mind; but can we say with certainty when Abernathy found the photograph? How long ago it was? > > The other element is that William dropped that photo way out on the frontier, but Abernathy said he found it out by his cattle pen. How did it get there? I suspect maybe Ford had Bernard plant it, as he did the gun that Dolores found. Pretty sure Abernathy found the photograph in the “present”, since his malfunction is witnessed by Ford and Bernard in the new facility. It seemed to be related to the reveries update. Abernathy wasn’t set up as Dolores’ father while Arnold was alive. I, too, had wondered how the picture made it all the way from the buried town (Escalante?) to the Abernathy farm. I suppose it could blow around a lot in thirty years, but it’s still a leap. It’s also a leap that Ford found it and planted it at the farm in the hopes that Abernathy would discover it. I’d call it a small plot hole, or a strain on disbelief at least. ---
**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:** [December 8, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413/1101 "2016-12-08T22:45:45Z")
Have to fanwank a bit, but maybe since William lost the photo on his first visit, he makes a ritual out taking the same photo with him on subsequent visits, dropping them in random places. On a fairly recent cycle, he visited the farm, dropped it there, did _something_ to Dolores to “get reacquainted” (it remains unclear what) that, combined with her “father” finding the photo, set her on her current path to the center. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413.md?page=54) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-premieres-sunday-show-spoilers-as-airs/767413.md?page=56)