Westworld Season 1 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Watch Westworld on Amazon - Free HBO 30-day Trial to Prime Members 
Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
Westworld  is a ten episode thrill ride. The plot unfolds masterfully while each episode also reveals more about how a park like this functions. Each episode feels like a big reveal as we learn about the characters, their plights, and how it all connects.
The core mystery engages you. With a one week break in between episodes as they aired, I wondered what could the maze be? What is Ford really doing?
This show is adept at leading you down a path and pulling the rug out from under you. by the end we do reach the center of the maze. No matter what you guess this conclusion will surprise you. HBO has finally conquered the sci-fi genre.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme park stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

The setup isn't revolutionary. Robotic hosts are poised to become sentient, but the journey of how that happens comprises the first season. A new programming update has produced a glitch in the hosts. Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Maeve (Thandie Newton) are the main hosts, struggling to reach sentience, unsure of what's "real", and plagued by memories they shouldn't have. The pilot sets up the season's arcs deftly. It's a great episode, but all of the episodes are great.

The Man in Black (Ed Harris) wants to find the deepest level of the game, the maze.

We've got the mysterious Man in Black (Ed Harris) who leaves a path of destruction in his wake, anxious to find the mysterious maze, while Ford (Anthony Hopkins) spends most of the season crafting a big story line for the park. I initially wondered if he saw himself as a father figure to the hosts, but that's not quite accurate.
Arnold, his partner that helped develop the park and died thirty years ago in a related accident,  is a big influence on the characters. His programming contains a latent memory for some of the hosts.

The question of what's real is the theme of the show. The image of a player piano is prevalent, causing you to wonder if the park has control over the hosts or only thinks they do. As real as Westworld is, without irrevocable stakes, it's always an illusion. The Man in Black wants to move past the illusion.


Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is a park director that is becoming too close to the hosts. He has to ensure that Dolores and the others aren't approaching sentience. He's devoted to Ford and episode seven provides a big reveal about their relationship. That episode would be a season finale for any other show.

Is it a metaphor that Maeve as at he center of the maze when Man in Black first saw it? Probably not.

This season has a number of swirling stories that seem disparate, but just over half way all seem to be headed to the same point. The maze is the center of the mystery and the center of the plot. The story brings everything together with a mystery that teases all the way until the end.

There is no way this doesn't get a second season, though I expect it will be a much different story. In season one humans still had control over the hosts, I expect season two to be a very different dynamic.

Westworld Season 1 Episode 10 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 10 -The Bicameral Mind

Watch Westworld on Amazon - Free HBO 30-day Trial to Prime Members 
Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
What a ride. While we get answers, this show still manages to leave some big questions. We finally figure out the maze, and Ford becomes the story.
These violent delights have violent ends. Season two is going to be crazy.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

The finale opens with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) being built by Arnold (Jeffrey Wright). He welcomes her to the world, and she then awakes, shaving the Man in Black (Ed Harris) with a knife. He states it's fitting she takes him to the center of the maze once again, because she's brought him there before. She denies it, though the town is uncovered because Ford (Anthony Hopkins) has uncovered it.

Teddy Flood (James Marsden) is starting exactly where we saw him in episode one, riding into town on a train. As he's walking, Arnold's voice urges him to remember. He sees everyone in the town dead, Dolores weaving a path between bodies. Teddy awakes, instinctively killing a host that bumps into hims and mutters, "Dolores."

Teddy is a man on a mission, though we're not quite sure where he's headed. My guess is the now unburied town. 

This episode is moving fast!
Dolores finds Arnold in the chapel, telling him, "I know where the maze ends." The scene then cuts to Dolores and the Man in Black at a grave labeled with Dolores's name. The scene cuts back to Dolores and Arnold. The maze, Arnold explains, is an artificial being's journey to sentience. He used his voice to guide her, but he wanted her to hear her own voice. The journey isn't scaling a pyramid, it's a circular journey inward. The maze isn't for the Man in Black as various hosts have told him, because it's a journey to sentience.

Dolores's memories are flooding back. Ford wanted Arnold to roll Dolores back, but he can't do that. Arnold wants to break the loop before it begins. He wants her to kill all the other hosts to delay the opening of the park, urging her to get Teddy's help and promising to help her. Arnold wants to destroy the park.
The Man in Black wants to meet Wyatt, the only character he hasn't encountered.
Teddy is having memories, of what he thought was Wyatt's murder spree, with thoughts that he assisted it. This is part of, what we thought, was Ford's new story line but why is Ford potentially creating a story line so close to something that actually happened? Right now, Dolores is the Wyatt character for Teddy. The villain he remembers.

The Man in Black tells Dolores the world belongs to him because he owns a majority share. While this world feels more real, there are no stakes for guests, no danger. That's what the Man in Black craves.

It seems likely that Wyatt, the maze, Dolores, and William will all collide, but to what end?

Dolores tells the Man in Black that someone is coming to save her. William (Jimmi Simpson) will save her. The Man in Black laughs at that. It's the reveal we've been waiting for, the Man in Black is William.
The Man in Black tells Dolores where William's path really led. He wasn't a fighter, but he became one while searching for Dolores. The knife William is carrying as he slaughters the camp with Alonzo is the same knife the Man in Black always carries.

So Ford is resurrecting an old story line, this Wyatt character? Teddy seems to be present day Westworld. William is thirty years earlier. What a mind trip that is. Now I need to go back and watch this again, and work out the time periods. There were more than a few clues. The Westworld logo was different when William first appeared. The white hat he first chose, he eventually traded in for a black one

It's Willi... I mean the Man in Black... who is really...

William, now the Man in Black, finally finds Dolores right where he first entered Westworld. Hold on, two years ago MiB murdered Maeve, wanting to do something truly horrible. What was his Dolores fueled rampage? I suppose it's different based just on intentions, but did he not kill for twenty eight years after his first spree?
It seemed like the stories change often, but Dolores has been living the same story for more than thirty years.
Whatever happened to Logan (Ben Barnes)? William plans to take over Delos and Westworld and tells him as much. We know Logan didn't die in Westworld, there has only been one casualty, so what happened?

Dolores tells MiB the world doesn't belong to him, it belongs to someone yet to come. She tells him the maze wasn't meant for him, and we know he's about to find the center. Dolores throws a few punches. She's outside of normal programming now, and MiB is finally scared. He finally gets what he wanted, real danger, real stakes, and consequences. Dolores and William finally reach the center of the maze.
He stabs her, commenting that she has, "cleared him of his illusions yet again." Teddy rides in and shoots William.

Man in Black asking if this is really the maze, just a kid's game?

Ford confronts William. He's found the center, but William is disappointed. He wanted the hosts to stop playing by rules. He wanted a host willing to fight back, to kill.
Ford tells William the new narrative may be more satisfying. What does that mean? Has Ford been preparing for this since the first episode? Has he awoken hosts and is planning to enact a revolt for his retirement? Is Ford going to bring down the entire park?

The Delos board is coming in for a visit. Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) is going to push Ford out, and she promises Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) creative control, provided he makes the hosts simpler.
Charlotte visits Ford in his office, informing him that the board has unanimously voted for his retirement

The new Maeve body.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) is readying her escape, disabling security and awakening a host army. It appears Sylvester is making a new Maeve host. I bet this one lacks the explosive fail safe in the vertebrae preventing hosts from leaving the park that we learned about in episode eight.
It seems the body shop has free reign to molest hosts at their leisure. In the park it's encouraged, but I suppose workers should pay to play. Is their no supervision? Felix and Sylvester have been able to do whatever Maeve has asked them to do. Two new techs are getting killed by Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and Snake Tattoo lady and nobody seems to realize.
Sylvester informs Maeve that someone with the access code Arnold revised her core code so she could wake up at will.

Maeve goes to the host storage basement. Felix discovers Bernard dead and wonders for a moment if he could be a host. Maeve quickly disabuses him of such a notion. Ford killed Bernard last episode.

Bernard tells Maeve she isn't the first to awaken, but most hosts just go insane. While Maeve wants the memories of a daughter removed, Bernard informs her memories are the cornerstone of consciousness. Bernard asks her if she's ever considered why she's doing these things. Her story has been altered. She's doing this as part of programming. Bernard begins to read her story, but Maeve doesn't believe it.

Does Maeve's story tie into Ford's planned narrative? Maeve isn't sentient. Wow.

It was all a show, a charade. This scene is a metaphor for the season.

Teddy takes Dolores to the ocean where she dies in his arms. Then the lights switch on and it's the board watching Ford's narrative. How did Ford know she'd get mortally wounded? How could he have predicted the Man in Black. I can't comprehend this.

Ford's new narrative is "Journey into Night."

The entire facility goes into lock down. I would say this is Maeve, but I'm guessing this is Ford. Security is hunting for the the hosts that killed a lab tech, but now Escaton and Snake Tattoo girl are armed.

Check out all the samurai.

Maeve enters a lab area for feudal Japan world. The sign reads "SW." Is that Samurai world? This is too much! Are the facilities the core, and all parks linked to the core? How many parks are there? I figured there had to be multiple parks, but on the same site? Obviously Westworld has to be the original, it's the only one Ford seems interested in. Is it the one with the most advanced hosts?

Delores and Arnold on the big day thirty years ago.

Ford and Dolores are having a chat. He introduces her to Bernard.
Ford explains that he and Arnold disagreed about delaying the park. Arnold had given Delores the 'Reverie' update that helped her solve the maze, but Arnold merged her with the Wyatt character.
Arnold's bid was to have Dolores kill him and all of the hosts, but Ford found an investor in William that allowed him to open the park anyway.

Ford didn't want to acknowledge her consciousness. He saw it then as Arnold pulling the trigger. Ford asks Dolores if she knows who she must become to leave the park and walks off.

Ford tells Bernard that Arnold couldn't save the hosts, but Ford can. Suffering is the key, that and time.

Dolores realizes that it wasn't Arnold guiding her, it was her own voice. That is the center of the maze, Dolores confronting herself and who she must become. What is Ford's plan? How could he predict all of these things coming together on this night?

A little story line called the Ford finale.

Ford addresses the gala's inhabitants and states he created a story for those paying attention. Maeve exits the train, going back for her fake daughter. Lee goes to cold storage and find it completely empty as William hears something in the woods.
Ford continues that the story begins by the villain Wyatt, and this time the killing is a choice.
Dolores tells Teddy the world doesn't belong to them, humans, it belongs to us, the hosts. Ford announces this is his final story.
Ford wants to become the story. So he does when Dolores kills him. Dolores has become Wyatt, and William finally finds the story he sought. The one with real consequences. These violent delights have violent ends.

I have to watch this season again. Wyatt was a phantom. The split timeline with Dolores. Ford planned for the board to push him out.
Where does season 2 go from here? There is no way this doesn't get a season 2. HBO did a great job with this.
The park is locked down with human and hosts inside, but now this is the host's story. Jonathon Nolan stated the first season was defined by control and the second season will be chaos. I hope it's not a human survival story line in season two, it seems possible but would be disappointing. This show is about more than that, and now it seems to be about the hosts.

Can this season be topped? It functions fairly well even as a self contained story, but I definitely want more West world.

Westworld Season 1 Episode 9 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 9 - The Well-tempered Clavier

Watch Westworld on Amazon - Free HBO 30-day Trial to Prime Members 
Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
Last episode the player piano metaphor became complete. Ford is pressing buttons and thinks he's controlling the hosts. We thought he wasn't. This show is great at leading you down a path and pulling the rug out from under you. It's hard to out guess it.
This episode brings us ever closer to the maze, without quite getting there. While this episode is a big information dump, that includes more than a few big reveals. There is still one more episode, which I can barely fathom. What will happen next?
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is questioning Maeve (Thandie Newton) about her murder of Clementine last episode, and this scene becomes gripping when Maeve stops faking. She realizes Bernard is a host, but he has no idea what he is. Maeve is a force with which to be reckoned. She orders Bernard to clear her and he does.

Logan (Ben Barnes) has detained William (Jimmi Simpson) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood). William wants to get her out and into the real world, but Dolores rebukes them for assuming she wants out. If the outside is so great, why do so many people visit Westworld? Logan has become a villain, an officer in the army.
Obviously William is reactive. What would happen if he even got her out?
Hold on, the picture of William's fiance is the same picture that caused Dolores's dad to break in one of the first couple of episodes. How did that photo travel?
William tries to convince Logan that Dolores is special, but Logan plans to prove she's just a host. He guts her, exposing the underlying mechanics. William and Dolores are both shocked, but Dolores uses the moment to cut Logan and kills a few men to escape. She then hears Arnold's voice and  is no longer wounded, entering a vision.
William admits he got caught up and Logan harbors no ill feelings. "What happens in the park, stays in the park."

Dolores is on foot, seeking the town, the very first town. We've seen it in a vision before. As it stands, it's buried.

Logan wakes up to the aftermath of a  massacre. Bodies and limbs litter the camp. William tells Logan, at knife point, he figured out how to play the game. He's going to find Dolores and Logan will help. Since Logan has a knife to this throat, he readily agrees.

Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and Bernard have a discussion in the Westworld cellar. The most elegant parts of the hosts were built by Arnold, not Ford. Bernard speculates that Arnold had a higher purpose for the hosts.
Bernard wants his mind unlocked and has a devious plan to get Ford to comply. While Bernard can't harm Ford directly, he's got that worked out.
Ford tells Bernard how the hosts passed the Turing Test within the first year, but that wasn't enough.
Ford's narration to Bernard intersects with Dolores's vision as she enters the church and descends into the ground via elevator.
Arnold believed the sad stories worked best. Bernard returns to his cornerstone memory, where his 'son' died. Bernard realizes what the viewers have. Bernard is Arnold. She followed the maze back to Arnold, but Arnold is now just a memory. Dolores killed Arnold.
How did she get into the church? The place was buried up to the steeple in prior episodes.

There's a back door built into all the hosts that Ford uses. He had hoped Bernard would choose to be his partner. Ford ends Bernard. I thought Ford's control was just an illusion, but it seems it's not. He's not a player piano.

Maeve meets with Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), revealing exactly how his story plays out. When the events unfold and the safe they stole is empty, Escaton agrees to help her, "rob the gods blind."

Teddy (James Marsden) and the Man in Black (Ed Harris) are bound, at the mercy of Wyatt's crew. Teddy recounts how he followed Wyatt, killed for Wyatt. Wyatt didn't influence Teddy, the true memory surfaces. Teddy killed a town.

Their captor tells the Man in Black the maze isn't meant for him, and the Man in Black wakes up tied to a horse. He frees himself and Charlotte (Tess Thompson) informs him that Theresa died securing "their" information. She wants his vote to push Ford out. He is the one that kept Ford in place, but the Man in Black doesn't want Ford's narratives. He's headed to the city swallowed by sand.
We knew the Man in Black was a high ranking business man, but he's trying to smuggle information out, or at least his company is. He seems completely caught up in the game.

He runs into Dolores at the chapel right after she remembers everything. Obviously there is a maze. The hosts tell Black it's not for him, because it's for the hosts. It almost seems specifically for Delores. Is the maze remembering everything? If so Delores found it. Is Black going to be satisfied to find out what it is. Is there more to it?

Arnold has a bigger part to play in this yet.

Westworld Season 1 Episode 8 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 8 - Trace Decay

Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
This show is amazing. The disparate stories are coming together. Why does the Man in Black think there is a connection between Ford's grandiose story and Arnold's maze? The player piano metaphor is slowly becoming clearer. The buttons Ford presses to execute commands on hosts may not be doing anything.  He just thought they were.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is a host. I can still hardly believe it. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is fascinated by Bernard's emotions over killing Theresa. Ford built Bernard to give hosts a wide range of emotions, those same emotions are on display in Bernard. As Ford says, no human could program what Bernard did.
Bernard wants to stop Ford, threatening to "raze this place to the ground." Ford admits that Arnold felt the same way, but failed to stop him. Ford wants to preserve his art.
Bernard, modeled after Arnold, has to be a trophy for Ford. He bested Arnold, and now he can do it time and again, ordering Bernard to do his dark bidding.

Once Bernard erases all traces of Theresa's murder, Ford will delete those memories of killing her.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) sees her world for what it is. It's routine. The person she knew as Clem is a new host running through the same dialog.
She doesn't want to know her past or the whys. She knows the stories were created to keep her in the park. That, and each host has a fail safe explosive in their vertebrae. Maeve demands administrator privileges to alter her design. She's going to create a host army to get her art and solve the explosive dilemma.
Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and William (Jimmi Simpson) are close to home, according to her. Is home the maze?
They discover the aftermath of a Ghost Nation attack against a detail sent specifically to kill he and Dolores. It was Logan (Ben Barnes) who informed on him, so they're told from a young man near death. Dolores wants to help the boy, but William states he's too far gone. William seems almost sinister, at least by the music. So far he's been amazed at the experience, the near reality of it. He's been a person of compassion. Why is he so indifferent now?
Security finds Theresa in the same ravine that the rogue host of episode three was found. They found a drive with proprietary data and evidence indicates she fell.
Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) indicates Ford could be a suspect in her death, but Ford counters that the demonstration with Clementine in episode 7 where she killed another host was obviously a manipulation from Theresa. Everything is coming up Ford in this episode. He's got Theresa out of the way and Bernard reinstated.

Sylvester is nervous about Maeve and the investigation into Theresa doesn't help. Maeve begins a soliloquy about the nature of her being, how she was designed to do things just out of her reach with abilities that lie dormant. She asks about Arnold, and tells them if they can get her to behavior she will be a problem for someone else.
Sylvester plans to wipe her brain once in behavior, while Felix is more concerned, I suspect Maeve has planned for that.
The Man in Black (Ed Harris) and Teddy Flood (James Marsden) are in Wyatt's territory, with the Man in Black claiming Wyatt has Flood's girl Dolores.
The Man in Black tells Teddy Ford only lets him remember a very little bit.
Teddy and Man in Black fight a man that's formidable, wearing a bull's head. They dispatch the beast man, but Teddy remember Man in Black taking Dolores in a previous episode. Teddy pistol whips the Man in Black.
The Man in Black is impressed that Teddy remembers. This should be a great game for him. The Man in Black tells Teddy the rules of Westworld prevent Teddy from killing him, but he can change that.
The Man in Black states he owns "not just this world."
If there's a wild west theme park, how many additional parks exist? I thought the rule wasn't that hosts can't kill, but they couldn't even harm them.
We have the Man in Black that claims to own the park, William and Logan that claim to be potential buyers, and Charlotte and the board of Delos. How do none of these three have a more direct connection?

Is it a metaphor that Maeve as at he center of the maze when Man in Black first saw it? Probably not.

The Man in Black jumped into the world after his wife's death two years ago, who killed herself rather than live with him. His daughter tells him that despite the fact he never harmed them, there was something dark in him.
The Man in Black entered the world to see if he could do something truly horrid. This world reveals your true self after all. He killed the host that is Maeve. Maeve cut his throat which explains the scarf he wears. He admits he felt nothing upon murdering, but he witnessed a host truly alive. That's when he first saw the maze.
That maze is the key to everything. While Ford's game has boundaries, Arnold's game is deeper, dangerous.The Man in Black believes Wyatt is the key to the maze, but why does he think that?
Wyatt is part of Ford's story, but the maze is Arnold's.

Of course at the same time we hear the Man in Black recount his story, which coincidentally is what set Maeve on her path indirectly, Maeve enters a trance and kills another host, which registers with security. She's now on the run.
After the Man in Black killed her child, she couldn't be shut down. Despite Ford shutting her down and erasing her memory, she still remembers, how? Is it Arnold? When Ford deletes her memory he specifically states he's using a trick from an old friend. That has to be Arnold. Ford also deleted Bernard's memory about Theresa. I'm willing to bet that comes back into play.

Felix and Sylvester get Maeve into the behavior department and shut her down. Multiple times they've thought she is asleep, only for her to awake. There is no way they get to reformat her. She's got a plan.
Maeve had recruited Felix to help her. She knew Sylvester was going to kill her. She slashes Sylvester's throat to the surprise of Felix. She shrugs, telling him he knew how duplicitous she is. She orders Felix to save Sylvester and he does. She might need him. What a show of power.
It's a new day for Maeve, and now she can influence other hosts. She tells both the bartender and Clem exactly what to do. They do it.
She's going to use Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and his outlaw gang to her advantage or is this just a display for the audience? Looks like she's just practicing her power of suggestion.

Charlotte visits Lee Sizemore, letting him know that Theresa wasn't a traitor. Everything she did was at the behest of Delos, at least that's what she tells him.
Lee thinks he is creating a villain for Ford, but Tessa reveals it's busy work. She has a job for him.
They go to the basement host storage area. Charlotte is uploading data to a host. She wants Lee to make a story that gets the host out of the park. Quite the coincidence that the host she picks was Dolores's dad in episode 1. Does Charlotte realize the hosts explode if they leave the park? Does Lee? Either way, that host is going to go off the rails.
I thought Maeve's army was going to come from inside the park, but is she going to intersect the dad, another host with an existential crisis, and get him to recruit hosts from storage?
The truth may be that Theresa was uploading data. If she does everything Delos ordered, I'm willing to bet they ordered that. Now Charlotte needs to finish getting the information out.

Bernard and Ford debate the difference between life like and alive. Pain is always imagined in the mind, what's the difference between a host and a human?
Ford reveals that is the question that plagued Arnold. Ford believes there is no threshold. You can't define consciousness. Bernard asks if he's ever been made to hurt someone before. Ford tells him no, but we see a flash back to Bernard choking Elsie.
All the while, Ford is planning this big story line. Does he just want free reign to create stories and experiment with his hosts? Is this going to be a grand finale for him? Does he just not like outside control?

Head of security Stubbs offers condolences to Bernard over the death of Theresa and is glad Bernard is back. He finds it weird that Bernard seems to not remember his relationship with Theresa. It's more than just being discrete, little does Stubbs know.
Stubbs has mentioned the Man in Black in a previous episode, but just said he was important. Though I get if you call out who he is, some employees will want to see what kind of depraved person the head is. Stubbs hasn't mentioned William and Logan, so he may just not know them.

Dolores is home, but what is home? It's abandoned, but she has a vision of it filled with people. This appears to be an exercise. If not the first hosts, they are early hosts. Dolores is going mad, and it turns out the town has been buried. We see just the steeple of a church. The same steeple from episode 2 when Ford revealed to Bernard he was working on a big story. Does this big story somehow tie back to the origins of the park? At the time that location just seemed relevant to Ford's new story.
Arnold wants Dolores to remember, but remember what. Somehow these reveries have allowed hosts to remember. Did Arnold implant a directive? Did he make it that it's impossible to truly delete host's minds?
Logan finds William and Dolores and he seems quite villainous. It's all just a game, even he said that. I wouldn't believe him now though.

Westworld Season 1 Episode 7 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 7 - Trompe L'Oeil

Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
What a crazy reveal! This episode brings almost everything into question. This is the kind of episode that is usually a season finale. With that in mind, what is this show going to do for the actual finale?
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

 A trompe l'oeil is a visual trick to make a painting or other artwork appear three dimensional, to appear real.

Episode seven opens with Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) dreaming about his deceased son Charlie. While he told Ford (Anthony Hopkins) he didn't like the idea of unregistered hosts, the thought of making his son a host has to have crossed his mind. Maybe that's the difference between he and Ford. Bernard knows where to draw the line. This thought I had at the beginning of the episode is completely turned upside down by the end of the episode.

Bernard is running a diagnostic on a host, checking to see if it's self aware. One of his employees tells him they are almost through the backlog and that Elsie (Shannon Woodward) started leave today. In episode six, Elsie was exploring a repeater and discovered something big that may relate to Arnold. Then somebody or something grabbed her from behind. Elsie on leave has to be a sham, but that means whoever got her has the power to alter things like that. Bernard should be freaking out at this news. He tries to locate Elsie to no avail.

Bernard and Theresa have a terse conversation where she disparages his employees and he assures her they are done second guessing her.

Always best to check hosts thoroughly.

The new staff member handling transitions, Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) introduced in episode six, is having "fun" with a host just before Theresa meets with her. It's the same host Bernard was diagnosing in the first scene that was priority request for management. Charlotte is rather blasé about it, while Theresa is uncomfortable. I get it, we're not supposed to like Charlotte.

Charlotte tells Theresa that her company sees the park as a research project. They want the raw data from the park, and they know that Ford has it under lock and key. Charlotte's employers want to demonstrate how unsafe the park is by staging an accident.

Always bring a gun to a Clementine fight.

Theresa and Charlotte have a presentation for Ford and Bernard. They wake up Clementine and demonstrate that the reverie code allows hosts to remember, causing violence. Clementine can't be shut down and security is forced to shoot her. Theresa explains that hosts form grudges, not wiping properly. Obviously this is staged.
Charlotte is painted as the villain and rightly so, but it's just so blatant. Theresa has no problem throwing Bernard under the bus and blaming him for the faulty code. Ford does nothing to protect or help Bernard who gets fired on the spot by Charlotte. It was Ford's code. Theresa is surprised Bernard is fired, but does nothing to stop it.

I don't think I missed it in previous episodes, but this one indicates that the Westworld offices are hidden in and behind the mountains of the park.

Maeve has plans.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) repeats another day, yet we can see she's putting on a charade. She's fully aware it's a repetitive simulation. It could be she's too smart now. Her intelligence is off the charts.
When techs pause the simulation to get a host, Maeve prepares to attack, afraid they found her out, but the techs are after Clementine.
Maeve gets shot to return to Felix so she can find Clementine. She witnesses Clementine's lobotomy by Sylvester as Theresa watches.

Bernard interrupts Theresa to tell her he saw right through the charade and that if he saw it Ford did. It's obvious the code was manipulated. As he says, "If your team was any good, they would be working for me."
Bernard does think there is a link to memory and improvisation. He takes Theresa to sector 17 where Ford keeps his unregistered hosts. This may seems strange that Bernard is helping her, but just wait. The house happens to be on top of a remote diagnostics lab where Ford is making his own hosts.

He's interested in more than just stories about cowboys.

Theresa sees a door and Bernard comments, "What door?" In that moment I knew Bernard was a host. In the lab Theresa discovers the plans for the Bernard host. Bernard mechanically states, "I don't see anything." Of course at that same moment Ford appears.
This brings up some big questions about Ford. How big is this conspiracy? How many hosts does he have implanted throughout the park and the administration?
Ford informs Theresa that while the board tests him every so often, she will not be the one to stop him. He built all of the park. There is nothing he doesn't know. Is Ford's big story just a story or is there more to it?

Bernard did appear uncharacteristically robotic once it was revealed he was a host. I get it's for effect, but it doesn't feel true.

Maeve wants out and wants help. Mave threatens to kill Felix and Sylvester if they don't help her. She reminds them she's died hundreds of times. She's great at it.

Welcome to Ghost Nation. The locals are friendly, really.

 William (Jimmi Simpson), Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), and Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr) travel by train through Ghost Nation. William is fascinated with Dolores, and she's just trying to figure her life out while compelled to follow the maze.
William admits to Dolores that he's engaged. It's clear he has an emotional attachment and sees her as more than a host. Little does he know, she is more than a host. He will help her find the place she seeks, but he can't stay. He's obligated to return. William's future brother in law Logan stated in episode four that his family wants to buy a stake in the park. Is he part of the same company for which Charlotte works?
William and Dolores share a moment that he doesn't seem to regret.
He muses that the park doesn't pander to your base self, it reveals your true self.

Dolores has found her dream.

Their train is then ambushed. They manage to escape the confederados, but are now on horseback in Ghost Nation land where Lawrence stated earlier they wouldn't last more than an hour outside of the train.
William and Dolores part ways with Lawrence, finding a land that Dolores had only dreamed about. This has to be a pathway to the maze. Did Arnold hard code certain hosts to return? If so what triggers it.

Westworld Season 1 Episode 6 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 6 - The Advesary

Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
Another awesome episode. I love to see how this park works, and we get quite a bit of that this episode with a quick tour behind the scenes. There is a lot happening in this episode. Initially I thought Dolores would be the main host that awakens, but looks like Maeve will have a big role too. She's gone farther past the park than any other host and she's poised to be a super host.
Arnold is still a big mystery, but Ford is becoming a concern. Bernard and Elsie begin uncovering a conspiracy.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

A host is created.

I haven't mentioned it in my episode reviews, but the credits song is good. It's got great music and imagery, showing 3-d printed hosts as well as a player piano, which is obviously a metaphor as each episode often shows a player piano. The game keeps going even when no one is controlling it. The hosts don't need someone controlling them.

In the last episode Maeve (Thandie Newton) woke up and spoke to the body tech, Felix. What happened between then and now? In one of her first scenes, she wants the guest, I assume this guy is a hurdyto kill her. The reason was so she could continue her conversation with Felix.

Maeve's startling revelation.

Felix is telling her that she has no control. She is programmed. He explains that he is human and she is made. While her processing power is much more powerful than a human, hosts don't have choice. Felix can't understand how Maeve wakes herself up or remembers. Felix tries to prove it to her and almost literally blows her mind as Maeve can't process such a revelation. She stutters and freezes.
He manages to get her back on line and she wants to see upstairs. He protests, but relents. We, through Maeve, get a much deeper look at the behind the scenes of the park. She sees hosts being cleaned up after a day in the park, animals, characters being tested in various scenes, and new faces being sculpted. Their tour is capped by a video trailer for the park.

Maeve isn't playing.

Another body tech, Sylvester threatens to turn Felix in, but Maeve assaults him, holding a scalpel to his throat. He quickly realizes that her mandate to not harm guests no longer applies.

Maeve is still learning about how the park works, specifically her attributes. While hosts' intelligence is capped at 14. She's eager to change that. In the last scene of this episode, she modifies those attributes.

Elsie (Shannon Woodward) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) are discussing the satellite uplink Elsie found in the stray host from episode three.
The host was an older model and to access the geo cache information, Bernard has to enter a restricted part of the facility, that, as it did before, looks like an abandoned shopping mall. Is there a reason this park never throws away anything? Is it they have the space so why not or do they always need parts? It can't be for parts because so few people have access. This area is the old creepy basement to the extreme.


Bernard has to go all the way down just to access a computer terminal. Seems unnecessarily complicated. Why do the lights flicker. That has to be mood lighting. While Bernard is checking the stray host's data, he finds five additional unregistered hosts with anomalies like that one. They are all in sector 17. The sector is off limits and designated for future narratives. This park has an entire sector they aren't even using. How many states big is this park?

Elsie claims she's close to finding the saboteur, but Bernard isn't admitting what he found. Elsie is hoping for a raise and additional amenities for discovering the espionage. With Theresa being head of security, she'll be held responsible. Of course this presents a dilemma for Bernard who had a relationship with Theresa, but was also just dumped by her in this episode.

Nothing like an original gen host.

Bernard explores sector 17. He finds a family in a house, but they aren't from the West, this is more the '50s. This is the same boy we've seen before, and there is Ford too. These hosts only respond to Ford's voice commands. They are first generation hosts originally built by Arnold and now maintained by Ford. They are Ford's family. The boy is Ford, just like I guessed back when the boy first appeared.
Why doesn't Ford ask Bernard how he found this place?
Bernard goes back to his office and looks up the names of all first generation hosts designed by Arnold.

Elsie determines the satellite is the parks. The voices the hosts hear appear to be someone broadcasting to them through relays in the park. The relay system was abandoned long ago, but someone is still using it.
Are the hosts hearing voices all first gens by Arnold? If they are, why now? Is this whole series predicated on the fact that everything just seemed to happen all at one time? Ford's big story, hosts waking up, and the Man in Black's quest all seems to have started at the same time.
Elsie heads to sector 3, looking for a relay. It seems a bit strange for Elsie to be doing this alone. Park security is scared of hosts, not wanting to enter the park without weapons. Elsie is hunting for a rogue person solo. I'm guessing that will be her downfall.

Beware the anomalies in sector 17.

Bernard brings Ford's five anomalies to Theresa. Now Bernard is concerned about Ford after seeing sector 17. Elsie lets him know that Theresa is sending the relay. While Elsie tells him something big is going off, Bernard doesn't let her finish.

Theresa is using the signal system for a satellite uplink,  but someone else has been modifying hosts, changing prime directives. As far as Elsie can tell, it's Arnold. Who, as you remember, is dead.
Elsie finds something big in the data from the relay. Of course, someone grabs her, before we find out what.

Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is still undertaking massive terra forming for his new story line. It's crazy that story lines don't just involve new hosts or even a few new buildings. The park is changing the actual terrain and adding a canyon. That can't be a cheap undertaking. The people doing the work seem to be park staff, which means this must happen often.
Then again, this is in essence an interactive zoo. Why create a new exhibit or story line when you can create a new zoo. He decides to stop the canyon just short of whatever town he is in, but he sees the same maze marking on a table. I'm guessing Arnold must have left these symbols throughout the park. It's a riddle that doesn't seem to have a start point. Maybe the man in black has seen enough of the park and enough of the symbols reappearing that he's determined there is something to it, and as this show suggests, there is merit to that idea.

On his quest to find Wyatt, Teddy (James Marsden) tells the Man in Black (Ed Harris) about the legend of the maze. A man built a house in the center of a maze so complicated only he could find it. This sounds like Arnold. The original founder who 'died' at the beginning of the park. Arnold hid something, or himself.

Watch out for Teddy, the one man wrecking crew.

Teddy and the Man in Black infiltrate a camp as they try to catch up to Wyatt. They get caught, but Teddy mows down the entire camp single handedly, impressing even the Man in Black.

Theresa ends her relationship with Bernard. It raises too many questions and what if scenarios of partiality.
We get to see a park lounge. Theresa wants Lee to plug story line holes that Ford has created with his secret project. We last saw Lee in episode 2 where he was being a primadonna and his story was shelved for Ford's. Now Lee is on sick leave by the pool and doesn't want to help. Theresa tells Lee to get over it and start writing. If Ford fails, Lee could fill the gap, but not if he's on sick leave.I love that Lee, the head writer, can't come up with a better line to pick up a girl. Theresa sends a message and puts him in his place.
Lee urinates on the park map in the control room, obviously drunk. The girl he tried to pick up at the lounge is a new employee to handle administrative transitions. It's a great first impression.

Westworld Season 1 Episode 5 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 5 - Contrapasso

Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
This episode doesn't provide many answers. We get more information, but it just makes everything more confusing. It's an intriguing episode all the same that makes the excitement for a or the final revelation all the more overwhelming. It could just be that all paths lead to one point in this strange confluence of events. Solid episode, and better than the last one.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is talking to an outdated host, the same one from the first episode. He tells a story of a racing dog that caught what it was after but didn't know what to do with it once it had it. I assumed he was talking about a host, maybe Dolores, but by the end of the episode maybe he's referencing the man in black.
Why is it Hopkins prefers to talk to an old host with repetitive responses. Is it that it makes him feel better than talking to himself?

That same voice as before is urging Dolores to "Find me." It's a safe bet she has a few more clues than what we're aware. It's Arnold, but what is he doing and why has it taken this long? Arnold has been long gone. These voices and memories seemed to be triggered by a change Ford made, but that hasn't been referenced lately.

As we learned in episode four, Logan's (Ben Barnes) family is looking at purchasing a stake in Westworld. He is William's (Jimmi Simpson) boss. Logan's hedonistic behavior is widening the rift between he and William.

The man in black is the villain he thinks the world needs.

The man in black (Ed Harris) runs into the same boy Ford spoke to in episode two. The man in black seems certain that fate and destiny are intertwined. His goal is the maze, but he seems to think this is more than a game or theme park.
The hosts can bleed out too. How real it seems, and the man in black laments the fact. Humanity is cost effective. That is the reason this park has made hosts more realistic.

Ford sits down with the man in black. The man in black asks Ford if he's getting any closer. The man admits he always felt Westworld lacked a villain. That is his contribution, and he hopes Wyatt is a worthy adversary, someone to stop him from finding the maze.
The man in black boasts he's the reason the park didn't die when Arnold did. Is it just coincidence that the man in black's quest for the maze coincides with hosts waking up?

Ford asks Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) if she remembers the man he used to be. He asks if she remembers Arnold, the man that created her. He's sure she does. He knows she hears voices, but she denies it. She states her last contact with Arnold was thirty-four years ago. Ford remembers it was the day Arnold died. Once Ford leaves she admits to the voice that is Arnold that she told Ford nothing.
How do they take her out of the park to talk to her and put her back without William or anyone else noticing?

From Lawrence to Alonzo without a hitch.

William (Jimmi Simpson) and Logan meet Alonzo (Clifton Collins Jr.), formerly Lawrence of the Man in Black's care. Logan is convinced they're onto a big game. William feels certain Dolores is prescient.
They're robbing a stage coach for Alonzo and William has a big moment where he kills a couple of Union soldiers.

Is it cliche to say she holds the key?

Dolores is having strange visions. She keeps seeing herself, and she even sees a psychic with a "maze" card.
Alonzo double crosses the Confederales and Dolores urges William to chase Alonzo. William ignores helping  Logan and witnesses Dolores displays some keen gun slinging skills.
She and William both are defining their own stories.
Evan Rachel Wood does an amazing job in this. She deserves recognition.

Elsie discovers yet another plot point.

Elsie (Shannon Woodward) was told to not investigate the defective host from episode three, but she can't leave it alone. She finds an implant in the host's arm. It's a laser based satellite uplink, and she tells Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) straight away. Someone is using the hosts to smuggle data out of the park.

One of the body techs, Felix, is working on bringing a host bird to life to secure a raise. He's laughed at by his associate. There is no way to climb the ladder at Westworld. This seems like an unnecessary story, where there are so many stories being juggled.
It turns out this does have a point, or at least a lead in to another plot point. Maeve (Thandie Newton) wakes up and tells Felix, "It's time we had a chat" She can wake up at will and knows his name.