I would argue that William/MiB learning that the maze wasn’t about or for him was the “Beheading of Ned Stark at the end of Game of Thrones Season 1” moment. We thought this was going to be his story and he is effectively killed off as a person of moral interest to us. And the fact that the real WW story is about the maze, i.e., the emerging consciousness of the Hosts and their rejection of Humans and the park existence is what will drive the next few seasons.
Thanks for the Wyatt explanation - the confusion is the POVs of Delores and Teddy both showing another host doing some shooting - when in fact there was niether, it was all Delores.
This is what I was thinking. Dolores isn’t a supporting character in his story, he’s a supporting character in hers. Also he did make her realize more what humanity is actually like, since she thought that William would save her and then realized he was William.
I had wondered why we hadn’t seen more from the guests perspectives, but the story isn’t really about them.
I think Ford programmed her escape to coincide with his board speech, to draw the security personnel away, and create a diversion.
Well, THIS casual viewer didn’t see it, and it blew my mind. Obviously, I wasn’t reading this thread.
Did you think anything weird was happening with how the editing was and with some of the dialogue being ambiguous, or did it take you completely by surprise?
When the escaping Maeve first sees Asian fighter world robots she asks the tech, Felix, what the heck? I believe his, “It’s complicated” must have been a wink and nod to LOST.
“Oh for fuck’s sake! You’re not one of us. You’re one of them!”
It’s interesting chunks of this episode seemed to be taken from the 1970s movie a lot of people I know haven’t seen - particularly the “control room getting locked down and the robots waking up to go on a rampage” elements.
I liked the Samurai World element too - I was wondering if there were other “worlds” in the park, or if it was all just Wild West theming.
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.
Similarly with the Anthony Hopkins character. Ford is consistently shown to be dismissive of the robots–as cold toward them as if they were washing machines. His dead partner was the one who wanted them to be treated with dignity–and Ford has nothing but contempt for that idea.
But wow, Heel Turn: he loves them after all! He is willing to sacrifice himself so that they may achieve autonomy! What a twist!
And the best idea the writers had for what was the most compelling part of the show–the examination of AI developing self-awareness–was a leftover from the Hostel movies (by way of Dostoyevsky): ‘You must kill to become your highest self!’ How unimaginative.
…I’ll watch the show when it returns, but I’m very disappointed. We all suspended our disbelief out of a faith that the show had been carefully crafted. Now I’m thinking it was a bit more slap-dash than that.
Without boobs, this wouldn’t be doing well. It would never have gotten good ratings had it been on Syfy instead of on HBO.
Well, it existed, but the maze was not for him.
Of course, how he found out about the thing in the first place, let alone thought to look under scalps for it (and it’s unclear why he’d have to - it’s not like the maze icon itself seems especially rare; incidental examples of it are all over the place) is likely to remain unexplored.
I also don’t get the new “narrative”, which seems to end with the robot lovers on the beach; her dying, him weeping… how does a human guest fit into this? I’d’ve thought a “narrative” would be something akin to a choose-your-own-adventure book, with the guest able to make a wide variety of choices and the hosts programmed with a response for each one. Was the guest supposed to be in the Teddy role, manipulated into forming an emotional bond with Dolores just to have her die in his arms on a moonlit beach? I guess it’s a roller-coaster…for the heart!
I don’t think there really is a new narrative. That was just an excuse for Ford to work towards gathering the whole Board and assemble a bunch of hosts to murder them. Everything else he attributed to the new narrative was clearing the way for Dolores to reach the church and discover the maze puzzle.
To my eye that scene is not part of the new narrative, it the close of the the current one and the tease of a next one, the tease that Ford then elaborates on before the thousand mile journey into night begins with one bloody step.
No question lots of bits that do not fit perfectly upon full analysis … but while it is more than a sitcom I am still will to cut it some slack if it is fun and has interesting characters.
Fair enough, but the board members and other observers applauded so it must have looked like a narrative to them, whatever a “narrative” actually is.
Also, Ford didn’t really assemble a bunch of hosts, or at least not directly. For some reason, Maeve got the notion to head downstairs to livestock and send all the previously deactivated hosts on a rampage (I don’t recall seeing Dolores’s original “father”, was he in there?) even though it didn’t seem necessary or even useful in furthering her escape.
If it was something Ford wanted her to do, then we start entering the murky world of fictional villains who can somehow manage to plan twenty steps ahead and have that plan come off with perfect timing despite all the random elements inherent in their execution.
By the way, Armistice is now Halfarmistice.
I just watched the first episode. Interesting. Very interesting.
Emphasis added.
See that wasn’t my takeaway at all. There was no “instantly”, but first weeks in the back country of discovering that he wasn’t a kind idealist, but rather a Walter White who pretended to be. That he liked butchery and rape. Followed by years of coming back to visit Dolores and finding she is always caught in her loop, never remembers him and is seemingly nothing special or unique like he had thought. He very clearly says that after many visits he eventually got tired of her and her by then stale narrative, ultimately abandoning his pursuit of her until this latest interaction. He was never a good guy, but someone pretending to be as his daughter pointed out to him after his wife dies.
The MiB ultimately turned out to be both as much as we thought and a lot less. On a reality level he did turn out to be a big deal - the majority stockholder of Delos and the man who saved the park way back when. But on the other hand he is kinda clueless and always has been - he really has just been playing a game, without much deeper thought by the end beyond that he was bored and wanted a better challenge. I don’t find that bad writing, really - just a reveal that he is ultimately a footnote, albeit a significant one, in Dolores’ development.
Similarly I think Ford’s careful interactions with Bernard and his repeated criticism of humanity laid out the foundation for this plot-twist quite well. He’s more anti-hero than noble soul - Arnold would never have killed the director. But I think the seeming fact that Ford considers the hosts to be superior to humans speaks both to his vanity and his cynicism. He’s at most half-altruistic, but also half-nihilistic and half-guiltily regretful ( that’s right - three halves 
). I doubt the gentle Arnold we saw would have vindictively unleashed hell on humanity. Ford did it with smile and because he thinks his creation is an improvement on the original model.
The human would play the Teddy role. He’s just there as a stand-in for the performance, so the board could witness the narrative.
Calling Hari Seldon. And not ours.
Problem being that that transformation was very rushed in its telling and more told than shown. Walter White into Heisenberg worked, partly because the dissatisfaction of WW with who he was was clear from word go and the reveal of his truer self was shown over time …this few minutes of screen time to picking up his black hat not so much so. It was done more the twist that for most it by then was not than for the character.
He was already on a train out with a head full of IP.
There was some great mirroring of the first episode in the MiB/Dolores scenes. In the first episode the MiB drags Dolores unwillingly off to subject her to some unpleasantness; in the last it’s Dolores dragging the MiB away and throwing him around. In the first episode Teddy’s efforts to play the hero are impotent gestures built into the narrative to give the guests someone to defeat; in the last Teddy’s heroics genuinely defeat the MiB (if only by knocking him over) and save Dolores.
We were also treated to the “someone’s coming to save me” double bluff - it’s Teddy that’s coming but no, it’s William she thinks is coming but no, it really is Teddy. Which is some nifty writing.
Finally, of course, the whole point of the MiB arc is not just to show how he went from white hat to black hat, but to demonstrate once again that the all-powerful guests - who “own the world” and can withstand a hail of gunfire without damage while killing off a whole village - are ultimately impotent in the face of what is to come.
I liked the audience sucker punch when what seems like a genuine tender moment on the beach turned out to be yet another planned and scripted dialogue but wondered how Ford knew Dolores would be expiring on the beach when the only reason she died was because the MiB - a non-host - stabbed her.
And one more thought - when Bernard first looks at Maeve’s code in this episode there is a step visible after “INFILTRATE”. At first I thought it said “DECLINE” which put a very different spin on the ending but I went back and checked and it says “DECEIVE”, suggesting that going back for her daughter wasn’t part of the programming at all.