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 AduroT wrote:
Yeah, that scene seemed Highly contrived.

Agreed but Angela/Ms Riley did look gorgeous (as always)

I am confused now about what the plan is for the Hosts - they seem to be on a suicide run?

Unless they are going to all upload to the satellite and head out into the web? I mean Angela is "awake" but she was quite happy to blow herself up for the cause but what is the plan - that's the piece I am missing......

The two of us watching it are now certain that the MIB is in a host body - he has been shot about 6 times now without dying.

Loving Ford - especially his hypocrisy - yeah you have free will but only if you do what I want you to do

I am also wondering of William is in a host. He has taken a lot of punishment, but is still trucking. On the other hand, we see hosts take a bullet or three and keel over.

I would have thought that the routines that make them 'she's when shot by guests would have been disabled. On the other hand Delores' crew kill and then reanimate a bunch of hosts.

Don't they have a robot frame underneath a 'meat suit' so that they can bleed and react to pain as their role as a host requires.

I don't know if Plot Armour is muddying the waters as to who is or isn't a host.

For example, William is laying at Maeve's feet when she is shot. Next time we see him he is propped up behind some wood.

If he dragged himself there why didn't the QA guys rescue him or kill him? Unless they are under orders not to interfere with him?

But that could just have been a poorly cut scene. Or the QA guys just failed to notice him dragging himself to cover.

QA or Quite Awful. Dear God. They had such a build.up.but then are just terrible. I understand that the robots are meant to be better than the humans but I think that should have been gotten across by them being faster, smarter and stronger than their former masters.

They wear body armour that in the glorious tradition of movies stops neither bullets nor knives. They don't seem to have any particular methods for dealing with errant hosts. Maybe they don't have EMP or Bolt rounds...but should they be shooting the hosts in the head, where their control unit's are?

Given how well the rest of the story is written their ineptitude seems jarring. They should have just been more rentacops.

As I suspected at the end of Season One, Ford is still pushing all the buttons (directly taking control of poor Bernard to commit murder).

But the robots as 'control vs human variables' twist is interesting.

Teddy does know what Delores has done to him, he outrightt tells her so in one episode. The shift in manners by the actor is very well done, IMO. Subtle but telling.

I loved Shogun World, too. The reuse of plots and characters was a nod towards computer games and/or the idea of a limited amount of stories in the world.

At the beginning of the series I was a little disappointed as the hosts just seemed to be acting as badly as the guests but things have picked up now. With Maeve and Delores we are seeing a I treating division in goals.

I am finding the flashbacks within flashback within flashbacks a bit much at times.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
The promo for ep 8 looks intriguing. seems like its going to be a Ghost People centric episode.

While I'm sure I'll end up enjoying diving into this character, I feel like there is too much going on right now to introduce another storyline.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
The promo for ep 8 looks intriguing. seems like its going to be a Ghost People centric episode.

While I'm sure I'll end up enjoying diving into this character, I feel like there is too much going on right now to introduce another storyline.

Shogun World was a new storyline. And it appears it might have been a one off/filler. (the Japanese Hosts are off their loops but don't appear to be self-aware, so I doubt they'll have much significance going forward. Especially considering they're just copies of the Westworld characters).

Whereas this storyline has already been introduced. This Indian is one of the Ghost People, who have been a constant if mysterious presence since Season 1. Looks we're finally going to get some answers regarding the Ghost People.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Whereas this storyline has already been introduced. This Indian is one of the Ghost People, who have been a constant if mysterious presence since Season 1. Looks we're finally going to get some answers regarding the Ghost People.

Ya, I get what you're saying, its just that there is a multitude of other questions regarding many other characters that need some answers as well. Not looking forward(too much) to another timeline to keep track of.

Maeve + Supporting cast
Dolores + Supporting cast (much reduced at this point, but still cracking)
William + Supporting cast (also much reduced, and also still cracking)
Bernard + Elsie + now Ghost Ford (which are flashbacks within flashbacks)
Bernard + the black woman, the tall dude and newer security team

Thats alot to keep track of, and I'm worried the show will cut corners or lose focus on all those loose threads.

Like I said though, I'll probably end up enjoying this sequence. I loved this actors understated performance in Fargo (season 2 I think).

Really impressive and interesting episode.

This has been a great second season....

 Mr Morden wrote:
Really impressive and interesting episode.

This has been a great second season....

Ya, I agree.

I think Westworld is at its best (IMO) when its focused, like this episode.

Looking forward to what looks like a William + Daughter focused episode next week!

Episode 8...an incredibly well told story.

Loved it.

Its slightly odd that Maeve's kill team of Ninja girl and the two bandits plus techie have vanished.......

William is either in a host body or his plot shields have become a bit silly.

What? No. He’s totes fine.

I hope William isn't a host, personally

It would be neat, but it seems too obvious. I'd rather him just be a deeply flawed human being, and the damage he received last episode just be sloppy writing.

The gunfighting in this series has been pretty suspect and its consistently my main gripe (the security team walking right up to the pretty heavily defended "Confederate" base was mind blowingly annoying to me). So William surviving the shots he took a few weeks back and still surviving might just be a continuation of that sketchy writing.

Eager to find out though.

The gunplay action sequences have definitely been a low point, comically bad to the point of narrative disruption. Ive enjoyed this season a lot, but between the Armistice flamethrower scene, the attack on the "confederate" camp, and the inability of trained and experienced dudes with automatic weapons to deal with almost anything when confronted with naked, unarmed or black powder armed opponents has made it difficult to take some stuff

I keep flip-flopping on whether William is host or not.

On the one hand he's been shot a lot with minimal consequences, plus he seems obsessed with the same things as other awakened hosts (the maze last season, that place they all want to reach this season).
On the other, the show has pointed out just how difficult and time consuming it is to make a host that can pass as a "real" person.

As for the inept security guards, I think the original on-site team were little more than your average theme park security staff (it's not like they had much to do before everything went wrong).
The second team did quite well against Delores's Killbots (except that guy who thought he was going to get laid in the middle of a gun battle), there just wasn't enough of them.

William being a host seems like a twist so obvious that it isn't even a twist anymore. We've also seen that one already with Bernand...I don't expect them to go back to that well, at least not in that way.

Do we know how long the current timeline is? Not including the past stuff from the first season. Just the modern stuff.

 AduroT wrote:
Do we know how long the current timeline is? Not including the past stuff from the first season. Just the modern stuff.

It all seems to be taking place over two weeks - I think

Well, Bernard was a host but didn't know it. Old Willaim could be a human 'mind' in a robot body.

In the flashbacks it was young William trying to get a host version of his dad. I don't know how old Ed Harris' William is supposed to be, but it is possible that several decades have passed since the abortive tests trying to build his father.

Perhaps, while they are still very difficult or expensive to make, the bugs have been largely fixed.

 Souleater wrote:
Well, Bernard was a host but didn't know it. Old Willaim could be a human 'mind' in a robot body.

In the flashbacks it was young William trying to get a host version of his dad. I don't know how old Ed Harris' William is supposed to be, but it is possible that several decades have passed since the abortive tests trying to build his father.

Perhaps, while they are still very difficult or expensive to make, the bugs have been largely fixed.

Its not Williams dad - its his stepfather - I thought the fidelity tests were fairly recent - it did not look like he had been in the room that long when Bernard and the tech girl found them ?

I agree with the William's mind in a host body - although it also makes me wonder who is running the company and who Charlotte Hale is reporting to.

Also William def seemed to be in two minds about the tech. That may be more Altered Carbon moralising about longevity (I hope not - that was a very annoying change from the books - stopping ageing / replacement bodies is not inherently "bad" its the society that can be built around that that can be, otherwise its just transfer of wealth from parent to child rather than just the parent keeping it. Who it is will make no difference to the vast majority of the have nots)

Pretty nice touch of having William putting his "profile card" in Slaughter House 5. Its also a story that has different timelines, questioning of reality, "Billy Pilgrim" is the protagonists name and Williams wife calls him Billy and asks when he's going on his pilgrimage. Tiny little detail that I appreciated.

Dolores hasn't had much to work with this season but she was excellent when Teddy decided to check out. Her reaction was so great and believable. Excellent actress in my opinion.

Its always fun watching Anthony Hopkins get his monologue on, but it seemed weird when he said he loved Maeve the most, when I barely remember them interacting last season. Thought he was all about Bernard, unless he's lying to Maeve to get her to do his bidding "willfully". I have no clue.

Once again, absolute gak gun play rears its head. Dudes with bows and arrows stand right in front of other dudes with rifles and pistols and it was pretty much a stalemate. :( At least the QA guys have an excuse this episode, getting waxed by William was believable, as it was a complete surprise.

Kind of worried about this show going forward, to be honest. "Season Finale" next week and I still have no idea whats going on or where its going. Alot of what I liked in this show is turning out to just be filler. I mean, I enjoy the show immensely, but for me the magic is wearing off. I think the introduction of the "Valley Beyond/Forge" plot device (never mentioned in previous season (afaik) is where it went off the rails for me.

I'm pretty sure Teddy and Dolores have been talking about the Valley Beyond ever since the Pilot Episode.

Ah, nice! I'll probably rewatch once this season wraps up.

Don't quote me on it though, its been a while since I've watched Season 1 myself.

They've definitely been talking about running away together at the very least.

Teddy....

So that was a pretty good episode (prefer last week's which has been the standout so far) and I love Ed Harris so episodes centred around William are always really good.

Some interesting points brought up this week.

well that was a pretty dark episode

 Mr Morden wrote:
well that was a pretty dark episode

And it came out on Fathers Day in the US.

Grim!

 nels1031 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
well that was a pretty dark episode

And it came out on Fathers Day in the US.

Grim!

They are killing off all the characters I like as well :( - Maeve better survive!

I’m kind of expecting Maeve to jump bodies, possibly losing the actress but keeping the character.

 AduroT wrote:
I’m kind of expecting Maeve to jump bodies, possibly losing the actress but keeping the character.

Is her original body still about _ I can't recall?

Well it appears that Delos keeps multiple back-up copies of a Host's chassis on standby, judging by that room full of Bernards we saw. Maeve could just transfer herself into a spare copy of herself.