Westworld Season 2 [R]

Was it so good because it was chronological?

 

I think because it told a fully realized little story with a beginning, middle and end and because it was very well-acted?

 

So you don't have to look it up...Ed Harris and Sela Ward do make a reasonable stand in for young William and his wife; they were only born 6 years apart. Hard to believe, I know.

Or maybe they cast a woman who looks 15-20 years younger to subliminally show William's moral decay in his weatherbeaten face.

Or a crushing disappointment.

I haven't looked, but no way it's a 1 hour episode. They have far too many loose ends. They can be douches and leave Elsie in the middle of nowhere, sure, but they have to resolve Teddy/Delores, and Lee and Charlotte, and Maeve, and Bernard, and William.

 

Well, resolve wasn’t the right word. But there needs to be some kind of conclusion, an end to the chapter,

 

I am very disappointed by what they ultimately did with the Grace/Emily character. I thought she was the most interesting character of the new bunch in season two (not counting the main character of the bottle episode last week) and to find out that she was only used so we could get this shocking scene is a bit cheap. We already knew that William is a soulless, cruel asshole, we didn't really learn anything new about him but getting rid of a human character who was actually interesting in her own right.

 

I'm not sure if I buy this climax to the season. There is one obvious hole.
Hale wasn't the only person to have witnessed the flood event. So when the Delos team arrives, there should be people other than Hale who know what happened at the Forge. Unless we are supposed to believe that Bernard killed all of the Delos security personnel who were also at the Forge.

Also, the post-credits scene seems to be a long time in the future? But what happened to the real William as he descended in that elevator?

 

As we watch Westworld, are we watching a show, or playing a game?

The scenes presented ou of time, this year, feel like they were done that way for one reason and one reason only. To hide the Dolores/Charlotte switch.

Not sure it was worth it if we’re watching a show. I don’t know how to judge it if we’re playing a game.

 

That was the game in season one too, the structure of the narrative taking precedence on the narrative itself. Told in sequence, was the story they told this season really worthwhile? I think the Shogun World episode and the Ghost Nation bottle episode were very good TV, but the episodes which were more devoted to the main plot were far less memorable in my humble opinion.

 

Bernard does keep saying "I killed them all," so probably.

I don't think real William ever descended the elevator. I think that scene may have been the precursor to the future scene and that's where he wakes up each iteration? Maybe.

I really liked the James Delos episode too as well as the Shogun World and Akecheta episodes. But I don't think the more self-contained episodes work without the other multi-narrative episodes doing the plot driving throughout the season. I think maybe a bit of Bernard's narrative gets underserved by having to interplay with the others. The choices he's forced to make are the most difficult of any of the hosts, and he gets to witness the consequences. The final scene on the beach with Ford and the realization that Ford wasn't really there was pretty heart-breaking when I watched a replay of the episode. I think that could have been played for more, mirroring Delores's realization that she's conversing with herself in last season's finale.