bobinator said:

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Getting back to what it means to the actual show, I've been saying that, by far, the simplest explanation for who the "red ball" is was Ford, so it definitely makes narrative sense.

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Agreed, the simplest explanation is not always the case with this show, but as it pertains to the narrative I think your right.

TexjbA&M said:

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dave94 said:

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Can we talk about how insanely hot the Japanese mercenary chick is?

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Agreed and Evan Rachel Wood for that matter, she looks good as Deloras, but they almost downplay how hot she really is.

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Yeah, the hot-crazy matrix is right on point. Def heard she's BSC.

So my wife and I re-watched this week's episode again. I focused on the CC text this time and have the following observations...

In the opening scene between Delores and Bernard the CC labeled Bernard's text as Bernard even when he was on screen. I found that interesting since the dialog was to appear like it was Delores and Arnold initially.

So on to Elsie/Hale. I think "Hale" was not a mistake. I think Elsie plugged Bernard into the cradle. Then some string of events happens and Hale finds out. Hale/Delos Inc programs Bernard to see Hale as Elsie and she leads him back to the cradle to try and figure it out.

CC did not label anyone else even if off screen.

Also regarding William/Emily dialog (nothing to do with CC), I think it is a red herring and William legitimately misremembered because A) it was a long time ago and B) he probably wasn't that great of a father.

bobinator said:

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Eh, it just annoys me a little bit, I'd rather them not have said anything at all or said something coy like simply "never say never..." or whatever the typical BS.

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Problem is, if I hear that I DEFINITELY know the character is coming back! I'd much rather be lied to than spoiled (when it comes to TV/movies).

I kind of like the idea that he intentionally mixed them up as a test for her, but his reaction to that was weird either way.

Hey, I got It to post!

The tips that Ford is acting as Deloris were so strong that they must be a false flag. From Deloris testing Bernard for fidelity, to the scenes between Teddy/Deloris and Bernard/Ford

claym711 said:

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The tips that Ford is acting as Deloris were so strong that they must be a false flag. From Deloris testing Bernard for fidelity, to the scenes between Teddy/Deloris and Bernard/Ford

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I'm not sure I see how this would be possible in the "real world." And I don't really see what the point would be in the cradle.

I think there's some question over whether Dolores is actually making her own decisions or not, in fact at this point I'm all but certain she isn't. But I don't think Ford is literally inside Dolores controlling her.

The scene with Deloris and Bernard doing the fidelity test, to me, was most certainly Ford acting as Deloris. That scene, I'm sure, was in the cradle. Remember the scene when Bernard was first created and Ford stopped him as he put on the glasses, and said thats not how he would do it.....very similar to Deloris stopping Bernard in his response

That, along with Deloris asking Teddy how many times he has stepped off that train (1,000 or 10,000), also makes me wonder how much of what we have seen in the last 2 seasons could have actually been occurring within the cradle - I guess any scene from the series shot in that cinematic view we could believe were actually within the cradle

The whole thing has themes related to Simulation Theory, the creation of life, God, definition of God, etc.


Also, Emily/Grace shooting that guy in Raj does not prove she is human.

But why? Why wouldn't Ford just act as himself in the cradle? He had countless conversations with Arnold he could recreate for a "fidelity test" why would he need to act like Dolores? I'm certainly not ruling that out, I'm just not sure I see any reason for it.

I don't think hardly any of what we've seen so far happened in the cradle until this last episode. I don't think they're setting up any sort of "IT WAS A SIMULATION THE WHOLE TIME" stuff.

One thing that hasn't been talked about much (though I do remember some stuff) on this thread but has elsewhere is that when the computer is diagnosing Bernard in episode one of this season it says he could suffer from Prosopagnosia, which apparently means you don't recognize faces. Now, it doesn't mean that you replace people's faces with other faces or anything, but it could be something to watch for. All of that is to say that anything that happens from Bernard's perspective is extremely unreliable.

I'm still trying to come up with some sort of over-arcing theory that links all the pieces together but I've got nothing.

I'd like to think the scenes with Bernard and Elsie are some sort of simulation/false memory. But that's pretty problematic because they saw the room with James Delos, so we know that's real. Also Bernard arrives there after being dragged from the battle at the fort, which we also know happened.

I considered a theory where when Clementine knocks out Bernard after the battle she actually took him to Dolores who has set up a simulation of the rest, but that would require for the Delos room to be a simulation AND for Elsie and Bernard to have entered the cradle inside the cradle, which is getting into dream-within-a-dream territory.

I've always noticed that in the one-on-one sessions with Delores and Ford or Delores and William she is always naked and when she's with Bernard she's always clothed. I've usually chalked it up to symbolism but I'm wondering if there's more to it now.

Deloris wouldn't know about creating a hybrid human, or how to do so, unless that scene between her and BernArnold were well into the future. Deloris wouldnt even know how to create a host mind.

It seems far more likely that Ford, not Deloris, was running simulated realities and fidelity tests (hundreds of thousands within a day) within the cradle.

I suppose perhaps that there could be a version of Deloris in the cradle that had evolved far beyond the version of Deloris that we see in the park. When Ford talks about giving the hosts time, time to experience pain and develop sentience, that time was probably mostly within the cradle.

The existence of the cradle also makes me wonder how many instances of each host could possible exist. Not sure why I never wondered that previously - there could be hundreds of versions of Teddy or Deloris or Bernard.

What if the cradle is like a digital cryogenic storage facility. Super wealthy are paying big money to be stored until they can be brought back as a robot.

That part is fairly straightforward, Arnold saw them as people, William and Ford don't (or at least didn't.)

The cradle angle could really be abused by the writers and show creators, like the holodeck in Star Trek. We need to believe some of what we are seeing at face value.

strange double post...

I think that scene is definitely in the future (or close to the "present.") If it were in the past it makes no sense at all.

But we don't really know what Delores does and doesn't know, we don't know how much William showed her in the past. She very well could know a lot more than Bernard/Arnold does.

bobinator said:

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That part is fairly straightforward, Arnold saw them as people, William and Ford don't (or at least didn't.)

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Yeah, I've thought that as well but now I'm wondering if there's a further reason. Why isn't Bernard naked (as an aside, we've already seen enough peen this season so please no) when he is obviously not a person as Delores is talking to him?

Complete Idiot said:

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The cradle angle could really be abused by the writers and show creators, like the holodeck in Star Trek. We need to believe some of what we are seeing at face value.

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Yeah, I think that's exactly why they're going to destroy it. It's going to be like the supersonic listening device in the Dark Knight, they're going to use it for some plot reason, and then destroy it.

Quote:

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What if the cradle is like a digital cryogenic storage facility. Super wealthy are paying big money to be stored until they can be brought back as a robot.

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So this goes into what I call the "possible, but not likely" stuff on this show. I think, because of how they've described it and shown it, that we can safely assume that the cradle is only for host minds (except for now Ford.) Human minds are stored somewhere else.

Reasons I think that are it's at the Mesa while the rest of the immortality project stuff has been hidden in other areas around the park, everyone seems to have access to it while the immortality project stuff was super secret, etc, etc.

Because Dolores also sees Arnold/Bernard as a person.

Once Arnold steps into the Cradle, he will wake up in the mid 2000s thinking he was a Marine who saw action in the Persian Gulf War. Since he is leaking robot semen out of his ears, he will have conflicting dreams that his commanding officer forced him to kill his fellow solders.

This will send him over the edge and he will kill himself after drawing a bunch of weird stuff.

Hmmm. You know it's possible that the mind Bernard stole was Ford and that he put that mind into Abernathy, and what Charlotte is trying to smuggle out is Ford or something Ford has planned.

That was a good one

Lots of interesting info I can't disagree with

Yeah, that's certainly one of the more convincing theory videos out there.

It also reminded me that the guy who plays Coughlin used to work out at my gym.

It's sort of amazing how many clues they're able to pack into the season, stuff that you don't catch until you look for them.

Somehow it never occurred to me that there was a third party, but after that video, it makes perfect sense.

Also, this is just another example of how much shows benefit from airing weekly as opposed to the Netflix format.

Kinda dull

No plot movement