Westworld (HBO)

PhantomForge said:
Man, I really did love the first half of this season, didn't even mind the last few episodes leading up to this one, but I just couldn't get into the finale. The pacing was odd, the story was disjointed, it felt sort of... full of itself might be the right words? At times? I was on the edge of my seat most of the season, but not at all here.

I couldn't help but ask myself "What was the point of that?" at the end, because it really felt hollow and meaningless.
Like what was the point of ending the world? What is the relevance, commentary, the meaning of it in the story besides that they just sort of flipped the table? It just felt hopeless and pointless. There was a sort of tacked on "humans and hosts were both gifted with greater intelligence and used it to wipe themselves out" sort of message that they literally had to spell out and I don't even really think the humans can be totally held responsible for this one.
The hosts got some of that hubris that caused the "extinction" of both (not sure if these machines told EVERYONE in the world to start killing each other or if it was just in New York. Found Dolores' line on the "end of sentient life" silly too. Something would survive) Hale didn't just stop at co-existing, but decided they needed the humans to be taken down a peg— not to be wiped out, but to be controlled out of some sort of payback. She did the same thing with making robo- William. It was honestly her own vanity and sense of "justice"/irony that ultimately lead to the end of both species. So this line on humans and hosts both waisting their potential destroying themselves just doesn't hold up for me.

And maybe I need to rewatch the episode, but is the implication that the world hasn't ended yet and Dolores is now looping through to find a solution? Or just that the world survives on in the sublime? I'm just left confused and not really interested in were this is going next, if it's going anywhere.

I also really didn't like the effect of wire-frame Hale at the end. This show overall has pretty spectacular effects, and I thought it just looked terrible— like something I'd see in a video game cutscene.

The ending with Dolores recreating the original park, quoting Ford, walking around in the western getup, out of context, is a nice way to wrap up a series if that is what it was intended— on its own, its a good scene, but it really doesn't feel deserved.

It's just so disappointing. Season 1 really made you think, it made you ask questions, when it came out I rewatched it multiple times and could get something new out of each rewatch. There were philosophical questions that only science fiction could ask. And the finale of the season just falls so short of that.
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I was tired and grumpy last night so I decided to rewatch to see if I felt any better about it. Rewatching it I guess the point is Dolores can now to try to pick up where Delos left off in terms of fidelity tests to bring back mankind and the hosts all in robo-bodies— which explains why Bernard wanted Frankie and company to be scanned by the mirrors (a plot thread I thought was going somewhere in Bernards grand plan but did not). The elite who went to the original park and the second one were all scanned by hats/mirrors, the rest of the population was scanned by Dolores being in control of and observing humanity for several decades, the only ones not scanned by either the hats, mirrors, or Dolores would be the outliers.

On the one hand, I'd be fine if this was the end— pains me to say it, but the show has overstayed its welcome, and dreary or not the world ending is an ending. On the other, if they do decide to make another season... the idea of Dolores recreating the original park with the memories and brain patterns of the original hosts and guests to try and perfect fidelity in human-host hybrids by having them go through plots and loops... I wish I could say I wouldn't watch that, but it's a fascinating idea.

I might torture myself a bit and rewatch the whole season in a binge to try and get a better feel for it. Sigh, stuck in a loop....

On a completely unrelated note, something else about this episode I didn't like thats entirely nit-picky: I wish they didn't flash to Bernard hiding the gun when Hale picked up the gun. Would have been way cooler if she just grabbed it, and we had to remember that Bernard put it there—my mind was already flashing there, give your audience some credit. Granted, I know not everyone would remember that. I'm pretty sure my dad would have called me about that, confused, if they didn't have the flashback. Shrug.
 
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I’m now fully on board with the “This Should Have Been One Season” camp.

The first season was incredible. One of the best single seasons of TV I can remember.

Everything since then has been a downward trajectory to whatever nonsense these last few episodes were.

They didn’t even give me the satisfaction of seeing Caleb die once and for all.
 
Gimpdiggity said:
I’m now fully on board with the “This Should Have Been One Season” camp.

The first season was incredible. One of the best single seasons of TV I can remember.

Everything since then has been a downward trajectory to whatever nonsense these last few episodes were.

They didn’t even give me the satisfaction of seeing Caleb die once and for all.
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It doesn't make me happy that this season did not go well, but I am very glad that I skipped it.
 
jkno said:
1st season = Westworld
2nd season = Outerworld
3rd season = Weirdworld
4th season = WTFworld
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5th Season = It was All a Dream world.

It's a Turing test to see if they can trust the AI they have created..

I did feel they kept repeating and overstating plot points..
Maybe that was the point, Its All cyclical.

And...

If Stubbs had turned right instead of left he would not have lost his eye or his life.. Well a copy of as he's already died like most of them multiple times.


Bernard kept repeating about the countless simulations and caleb being reborn countless times over 27 years.. you can reboot a simulation but a whole human civilisation. I did think the human elements were now mirror/reverse of hosts but Caleb proved they couldn't sustain a human clone without it breaking down.

So unless I missed something it's all just a Game which even Dolores says at the end or is it the beginning?
 
Yup. That was painful. I don't think anybody was sitting back after the first season saying "I can't wait to watch a host copy of William, and a host copy of Hale, who is actually a copy of a copy of Delores, have an argument at the hoover dam, and then I really hope they have an incredibly weak fight scene in a random tunnel. Can't even WAIT! I hope William gets stabbed in some weird round window thing but only after having a pointless conversation with his host copy. Man would THAT be satisfying."

Delores in the floor is going to be the new jump the shark.

What an incredibly strange choice.

Yeah lets seal her brain ball into the floor map of the city, and even though it has nothing to do with what is happening in the outside world, we will continually refer to it as if it's a map of the real world. Then Hale can riverdance her out of the floor. Nice.

And didn't William blow that entire structure up in the previous episode???

It looks like this was probably the series finale. Ed Harris made some remarks to that in an interview recently. But it could just be that He will not be back.

I hope so. I hate feeling that way about a show I really enjoyed, but it is what it is.
 
Noeland said:
Yup. That was painful. I don't think anybody was sitting back after the first season saying "I can't wait to watch a host copy of William, and a host copy of Hale, who is actually a copy of a copy of Delores, have an argument at the hoover dam, and then I really hope they have an incredibly weak fight scene in a random tunnel. Can't even WAIT! I hope William gets stabbed in some weird round window thing but only after having a pointless conversation with his host copy. Man would THAT be satisfying."

Delores in the floor is going to be the new jump the shark.

What an incredibly strange choice.

Yeah lets seal her brain ball into the floor map of the city, and even though it has nothing to do with what is happening in the outside world, we will continually refer to it as if it's a map of the real world. Then Hale can riverdance her out of the floor. Nice.

And didn't William blow that entire structure up in the previous episode???

It looks like this was probably the series finale. Ed Harris made some remarks to that in an interview recently. But it could just be that He will not be back.

I hope so. I hate feeling that way about a show I really enjoyed, but it is what it is.
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Sums up my feelings pretty well.

What’s very odd is I still see people online talking about how entertaining it is. I don’t get it. Nothing about these last few episodes was entertaining. If I hadn’t watched three seasons and like four episodes of a fourth season, I don’t know that I’d have even watched these last few, because they were a chore.

It’s too bad, because the first season was masterful…and for us to end up where we are at right now…I just don’t really even get how we got here.
 
I loved season 1. Liked a lot of season 2. Did a WTF for season 3. I was pleasantly surprised for the first 4 or 5 episodes of season 4 until they completely lost the plot over the last 3 or 4 episodes. Now to find out they still have more to tell and that no one really dies, except for those they don't want to keep paying.
 
AJK001 said:
Now to find out they still have more to tell and that no one really dies, except for those they don't want to keep paying.
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I think that ultimately this is kind of where the show really falters…death is just a minor inconvenience.

Host gets killed? Build another one.
Human gets killed? Build a host of that human.

They’ve even hinted towards the idea that they’re very close to putting a dead human’s conscience into another actual human, so I’d we get another season I fully suspect we will have dead humans just replaced with living humans.

Like Dolores’s death at the end of season three had no emotional impact because:
A. We knew there were copies of her, and if there are already copies then clearly MORE copies can be made.
B. We knew that this one we just saw die would ultimately just be back.

Now, I’d have never guessed she’d be in the floor, but that’s not some kind of “OMG” moment, which is what I’m guessing they were hoping for, it’s a “WTF” moment.

I’m still not even sure what ended up happening in that finale. Are we supposed to believe that all the humans are going to die? I don’t know…it was an awful mess of a final few episodes.
 
Gimpdiggity said:
www.hollywoodreporter.com

HBO Cancels ‘Westworld’ in Shock Decision

The acclaimed sci-fi drama is considered finished after its recent fourth season, despite creators hoping for a fifth season to wrap things up.
www.hollywoodreporter.com

Finally out of its misery.
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Cue the exciting new reboot Futureworld featuring Deepcake’s latest property, Yul Brynner. After giving up his Gunslinging ways, Yul escapes to Siamworld to become the King of Hosts.
 

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