Also: there is absolutely no need for season 3.
I seriously hope they surprise me though.
Also: there is absolutely no need for season 3.
I seriously hope they surprise me though.
I have a feeling season 3 will be mostly outside of the park, which could bring a breath of fresh air to it all or be it's downfall.
Sadly, they've already gloated about how many timelines they want to have in the next season (and presumably subsequent seasons). I'm not 100% sure where it'll go, but I'd imagine season 3 will be a bit of a mix between Spoiler: events outside of the park, stuff in the new "eden" where some of the hosts escaped, and stuff AT the park that we weren't shown during this season. But really, they could theoretically just jump around wherever they want now, heh. I just hope they keep themselves in check and don't make themselves a big convoluted plot mess.
A solid ending for the season, though! It wasn't my favorite episode but it was definitely one of the better ones this time around. The way Bernard ended up EXACTLY where we picked up with him at the start of the season felt so clean and fitting.
I SCREAMED at the reveal of Spoiler: HALE ACTUALLY BEING DELORES IN A NEW BODY FUUUUUUUUCK WHAT A HYPE TWIST.. Lots of great moments there. And the post-credits...I just...Yes. Please give me more of that. I saw an article earlier that details the reasons why it may actually be a preview of what's in store for the series finale, but 1) I didn't read it, so I'm not entirely sure, but I have every intention of tracking it down and analyzing the shit out of it, and 2) If that's the case, then I want this show to either end after 3, maybe 4 seasons. This is a show that I could see tripping over its own feet if we get into 5 or 6 seasons.
I second the idea of doing fewer, bigger episodes, too. At any rate, even if they stick to 10 episodes and don't "walking dead" it by making every season longer than the last and splitting it up into "mid-season finales" (fucking hate that concept SO MUCH), they should do just fine. They've proven they're capable of great writing, they just have to keep it up and blur these lines more and more.
Time to watch S1 and S2 back to back and look for consistencies and inconsistencies!
Edit: The Man in Black (I like that name better, heh) continues to be one of the most interesting characters of the show. So glad his thread's continued on with the overall story. Ed Harris is the man.
Last edited by ImTheWiseJanitor; 06-25-2018 at 05:58 PM.
Spoiler: So.... there's 2 Dolores? One in Charlotte's body and the other being the actual Dolores?
This show has devolved into a bunch of long, empty, boring monologues by characters who's motivations change at the snap of a finger, and where character death means nothing. There's no one to relate to, and nothing is consistent. The writing has completely shit itself this season. It is a fucking tragedy but the whole thing really was just bad.
The filler feel I agree with as well with story arcs dragging a bit with little moving forward every episode. It fatigued at times, but almost every episode had a hook ending. Maeve's end had me in tears as well, but there is an opening for her coming back 😁.
To add, I like the four episode idea!
I would have to concur. It basically ended on a fairly good note. If they were to do a season 3, it’d be interesting to have a prequel of sorts. However, that would also be tough as well since they pretty much did a very good job through the first two seasons in covering the past as well.
If they were to do a third season, I would like to see them follow a linear timeline. If they continue jumping through timelines while attempting to end on this great “WOW” moment, it would just feel way too damn redundant.
One major question I do have:
Spoiler: So with that final scene, was it supposed to basically say that everything we have come across with “The Man In Black” over the last two seasons has essentially been part of this major simulation like he conducted with Delos?
I sincerely hope not, and if that ends up being the case, this show will immediately be dead to me.
"It was a simulation the whooole tiiime!" has to be the laziest and most boring bullshit twist in any media. Not to mention that it retroactively sucks any tension out of some of those scenes to know that it meant just fuck-all. I don't even know if I'd be able to watch it again knowing that was the case, hah. They can do that shit in small instances throughout the show, just because of the nature of having a show about androids/AI/simulations, but to say an entire character arc was that way after two seasons...bruh. Y'all could come up with better than that.
Remember, at LEAST six timelines for season 3. ^^' I dunno if I should be excited or skeptical.
That's the problem. Nothing means anything in this show, and on several scales. Characters can make decisions simply because the writers want them to. Characters can come back to life and then it turns out they didn't. They can kill off the entire cast and it means nothing, because some or all of them will be back for any fucking reason at all.
Once you get to the second half of that finale the drama is so elevated but there are still no stakes at all so it's hard to care. As you watch all these characters line up to pass through a barrier that might not exist, who's meaning is completely ambiguous, we JUST learned about, still trying to figure it out, and they die or they don't die or they go berserk or they kill each other or they're all stored in a ball in dolores' purse and the man in Black killed his daughter or he didn't because she's a robot or he's a robot or they're all in a simulation.
Like fuck all of that. That is not story telling, that is a cluster fuck of pretentious bullshit with no substance
Well the way I see it:
Spoiler: the real actual William died or was close enough to death that someone decided to transfer his consciousness. We're pretty damn sure that his adventures took place in the actual park, right? And they checked him to make sure he was human before he shot his daughter (killing my favorite theory.) He says "oh goddamnit, I knew it" when he sees his daughter because he is AFRAID he's slipped into a simulation. But she explicitly tells us that he hasn' t. SO, this is years in the future and the Emily host he so feared is checking him for fidelity. He looks so haggard in that final shot. This is like hell.
Also @Bachy , I noticed that all scenes in the cradle and the forge had these black bars on top and bottom of screen. The final scene DIDN'T. I think that's important to understanding it (IF I'm right here)
Spoiler: Yes, even the creator Lisa Joy said that the final scene was set way in the future. It still doesn't tell us how much of the show was William as a host. I'm thinking only the final scene, and the second season is the original story start (the one that they simulate over and over).
Spoiler: Given that this appears to be a physical simulation and not a software one, the scale of the operation would be enormous, unless it's basically just the Dolores/Bernard/William meetup onwards. It's a hell of a lot to set up just for one man. I think it has something to do with whether William is redeemable. The 'quality' they're looking for could be whether he chooses to shoot Emily, shoot Dolores, shoot himself, or possibly whether he shows contrition. Or maybe if he's able to see life as more than just a game - we see him help hosts earlier in the season, but the takeaway from the subsequent conversation with Ford seems to be that he did it out of gamesmanship rather than compassion.
Personally I've loved this season. It's challenging and mysterious, but rewards attentive viewing, and usually has pay-offs later. Some big emotional beats. Fantastic performances, particularly that thing about Charlotte Hale which makes you go "ohhhhh so THAT'S why!" when it's finally revealed. Lots of great moments. Some episodes that felt like filler, but Reunion (where you learn about the park and Dolores' early history), Riddle of the Sphinx (James Delos loops) and Kiksuya (the Akecheta bottle) were some of the best times I've spent in front of a screen this year. Felt more meandering than the first season, but its high notes hit vastly higher.
On the downside... the show has an issue with mortality. I know the point is to reflect how we play violent video games, but death happens so often, with so little build-up or consequence, to so many people we don't have reason to care about, that it becomes kind of meaningless. I'm not fussed about them choosing to reanimate dead major characters in some way, because it has an actual bearing on the story, but they really need to lower the bodycount next season. I thought this reached its apex in the ShogunWorld episodes: again, I get the point, but can we... a little less, please? On a similar subject, the way combat was handled has been awful, so they'd be well-served to bring on soldiers as consultants next time.
The other big letdown for me was when Dolores and William finally reunited. She's finally achieved what he wanted from her decades ago - she's real, what she does matters, she can remember everything - but it doesn't seem to compute for him in the slightest. Such an anticlimax, particularly given that their story together was the lynchpin of the first season.
But overall... Westworld has gone from something I wasn't quite sure about until the last couple of episodes of season 1, to one of my absolute favourites.
I'd like to second most of what @Vertigo said. There's no way the whole series so far has 'been' Spoiler: a simulation in MiB's head or something. I think the end scene is a Spielberg-"A.I."-type far-flung future which bridges from the narrative of MiB's life.
I think that S2 has been more consistent and more artful, tone-wise, as well as having superior direction (meaning, by the directors and editors) than S1. The first season felt very HBO-y, with sex and other things, whereas this season the show was very much feeling its uniqueness. Think about that sex scene with Spoiler: Dolores and Teddy, before she does decide that his original programming is too 'weak.' That was affecting stuff. The contemporary music inclusions, either diegetic or non-diegetic, were less flashy and very apropos. I've been loving the use of the sparse piano cover of Spoiler: Heart-Shaped Box during 'Kiksuya', as well as Codex by RH, of course, and the quoted lyrics from Hurt in 'Vanishing Point's tagline. I love character and tone more than actual A-B-C plot so I've been fascinated by S2, especially MiB and Maeve.
Spoiler: For the MIB post credit I initially saw it as the end of that character. He was going to suffer eternal punishment for the irredeemable acts that he had committed. He was committed to hell essentially. I feel that would have been a more satisfying send off than a vague "this is the future sometime blah blah blah"
Ah yes, the fact that this is all a hell heaven purgatory metaphor makes it that much more like lost
Thank you for that. I haven't read a thing about the second season and waited until all episodes aired so I could binge-watch it. What the fuck happened to this amazing series? I loved the first season and think that it's one of the very best out there – can't praise it enough. But this was just ... wow. I gotta give them credit for advancing the story and not dragging everything out for a thousand seasons, but c'mon. It was getting more and more ridiculous with every fucking episode. Holy shit, man.
Don't get me wrong, there were some great moments in this. To me, one of the best episodes was the fourth one, with James Delos and William and the baseline testing. Those were some amazing and intense and artistically interesting scenes. But especially towards the end they really jumped the fucking shark in my opinion. This kind of feels like what the Matrix sequels did to the first one.
Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy Tease ‘Radical Shift’ for Westworld Season 3
When asked about their vision for season 3 Nolan said, "I think it’s a radical shift. What’s compelling and appealing about these characters is that they’re not human. As we said in the show, humans are bound by the same loops the hosts are, in some ways even smaller. You couldn’t expect human characters to withstand and survive the kind of story that we’re telling. The hosts have a different version of mortality, a different outlook. I think clearly with Dolores, as she’s laid out, there is a longer view here, a larger set of goals. They’re existential. They span eons. And that’s a fascinating level of story to engage in.”
“It really is like repiloting,” added Joy.
Nolan concluded, “Yeah. And that’s terrifying and exciting in equal measure. I’m just thrilled that we have this incredible group that we’re working with to build it.”
http://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/96...world-season-3
Well this sucks...
The set of ‘Westworld’ has been destroyed in a major fire
https://www.nme.com/news/tv/the-set-...r-fire-2400886
Holy shit! Did anyone else see the Westworld trailer? Aaron Paul! I had no clue it was for Westworld until the end. Season 3 is gonna be different. 2020.
Loving the cyberpunk vibe. I need Westworld back in mah life, and completely forgot Paul was on for this season!
MARCH 15th
Just in time for me to be on 24 hour baby watch... maybe I'll catch up with it in the fall.