bobinator said:

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I think "it was just unnecessary" is the summary of the complaints I had about this season. There was A LOT of good and great, but I think it was hard to appreciate because there was just simply too much.

To me you can either tell a simple story in a complicated way (which is what season 1 was) or you can tell a complicated story in a simple way, but when you try to tell a complicated story in a complicated way it just becomes too much at times.

I keep coming back to this example, but the battle at Fort Forlorn Hope is a good case study on my issue with this season. Weak plot contrivances to even make it happen, and when it's over I'm not sure what it was even for.

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Agreed. And ultimately it wasn't that big a deal just another one of those things that I think wasn't done all that well.

Thankfully it was a small scene, but the Sizemore scene just stood out to me as the most unnecessary.


* Character that we maybe kinda like now but still certainly don't feel a super strong connection to that we'd really mourn his loss/sacrifice.

* It's a show that has already told us death really isn't permanent so is it really a sacrifice?

* It seemed out of character for him. Yes he had finally gained sympathy/empathy for the hosts, but in "show-time" that is a really quick amount of time to go from treating hosts (and humans) like objects to sacrificing one's life so that they can *maybe* escape.

* And even ignoring all of that... The security force was so insurmountable (unlike all the other ones that are from the Stormtrooper Military Academy), but one guy stepping into the clearing was enough to completely allow for the rest of the group to make a clean escape?


That won the "most contrived" award for me for the finale.

The security force knew who he was. I assume if he had just turned himself in as a distraction that would have meant one of two of the security guys looking after him while the rest went after the host. Once the security guys gunned down a high level park staff member they probably paused for a while to go "oh, **** this is going to be a lot of paperwork "

Yeah that part was dumb also. I think they could have written that much better. For one, they could have made it so that Sizemore didn't want to be captured by the humans because he knew they'd use what he knows to hurt more hosts. So his move would be equal parts buying time/suicide for the new cause he believes in.

Like make it so he didn't just want to hold them up, he wanted to make sure that he died in the process.

He built it after he shot Delores or did it sometime in the past in preparation?

Guess I need to go rewatch...

After he shot Dolores, more specifically after Hale shot Elsie.

free_mhayden said:

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bobinator said:

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I thought the gun thing was pretty silly also, but he shot her with like five other shots first, so she left plenty of room for error there.

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Yeah... That was your cliche "I'll continually shoot this enemy in the body rather than the face".

It was juts unnecessary. Would have been better had it been on the very next round. Yeah, it still may not have been for Delores but the way they did it just came off as insane luck.

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To me it didn't come off as shear luck but more as predictable from the viewpoint of Dolores. I think Dolores was well aware that the MiB was going to eventually turn his pistol on her, it was only a matter of time. She also knew she was immune to his gunfire, evidenced by her confidence as he unloaded three rounds into her prior to it exploding in his hand. So I think it was a calculated move by Dolores to load that spent/dummy round in the last cyclinder of his revolver, because she knew that most likely William would use, at the very least, his last round to try to kill her, as he probably did so many times in the past. Also, worst case scenario for Dolores, William blows up his hand either helping her or not helping her, I think she's fine with it either way.

Mantis Toboggan MD said:

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Another initial thought after one viewing, Sizemore and Elsie's deaths were cheap and unfulfilling, I thought both of them had potential for larger and more impactful roles.

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I'm going to guess that this isn't the last we've seen of Elsie or Sizemore. Given Bernard's reaction to her death, I almost expect him to build a host out of guilt. I know that sounds dumb though.

bobinator said:

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I actually thought Elsie's death was handled really well.

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I agree, might have been the best one in the finale. Maybe the season.

I think they're toast. From what Lisa Joy said in one of those interviews I think the death of all of the human characters will be a trend in this show.

One thing I'm still a bit fuzzy on. How did Bernard end up on the beach? This was after he had already shot Dolores and put her into Charlotte, correct?

Furthermore, where exactly was Cholores created? In the forge? If I recall, Cholores is already on the beach when Bernard is found. So I'm confused as to how he shot Dolores in the Forge, but Cholores showed up and killed Charlotte in what looked to be the Mesa. Were there two Dolores minds?

Edit: I guess the Charlotte we see on the beach is real Charlotte, and then Cholores kills her once they make it back to the Mesa.

I think getting shot in the head is a threat. Maybe she knew that at distance William would shoot her in the torso?

Hm.

So, he is at the Forge where he kills Dolores and swaps out her ball for Abernathy's.

Then they go back to the Mesa, where Charlotte kills Elsie and Bernard decides to build Cholores? (And he just happends to have Dolores' ball handy?)

teddy's head made it clear the cpu/brain is well protected. So not sure why Bernard's shot killed her since nothing else seemed to affect her

Clearly there's something in the head beyond the marble since the lobotomy thing works, so head shots are pretty disabling

We see him put one in his pocket when leaving the forge, right?

Shrapnel

Yes, we definitely see it. I'm saying, he took her ball before having the plan to create Cholores, since Elsie hadn't been killed yet.

Seems that way, yes.

free_mhayden said:

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I thought Elsie's death was done well... Took you from the "ahhh man Hale isn't stupid enough to just let Elsie leverage her" to "oh... I guess not."


As for Dolores... Maybe I missed something obvious... But William's bullets aren't a threat, but Bernard shooting her in the head was?

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Shooting her in the head is a threat. You see Dolores messing with the final round in the gun she gave to William causing his hand to be blown up.

I actually assumed while watching it that he took both and that Charlotte/Delores had the Abernathy one the whole time and pretended to pull it out of the dead Delores body. I also assumed they hacked it somehow and that's why the transmission wasn't what the Delos guys expected, leading to the Charlotte reveal when she guns them down.

Yeah because he needed to hide Abernathy's somewhere so the humans couldn't use it, so he hid it inside Dolores. So when he came up with the plan to replace Charlotte, he already had Dolores' control unit.

I guess that's also possible, but that's not how I interpreted it.

Hiding it in Delores actually works better since it's Delores who figures it out (since Bernard can't tell anyone with his brain scrambled) . I just didn't think that when I was watching it.

I'd really like to see more about Mr. Delos first visit to the park after he bought it.

I guess he had the whole park to himself? So what do you do? Start off by having sex with all the hosts, but eventually that gets boring.

Then you start being deranged and ordering everyone to worship you.

Finally, you are left playing death games with all the hosts lined up in the streets.

Could be interesting to watch him descend into madness.

To be fair, he does get some medical attention at a couple of different points. Maybe that stuff he drinks out of the red bottle with the cross on it at the "rally point" has nano-bots in it that are repairing him from the inside. That's not wildly far fetched, we're fairly close to that kind of technology now.

But yeah, it would have been nice if they addressed that narratively.

I really didn't care for the Sizemore character that much, and I don't think it was a necessary character for the overall story. He seemed like comic relief initially, and somewhat retained that throughout the character arc, but the sudden turn to weeping while Maeve was being dissected seemed really out of the blue. He then commits suicide to gain hosts, what, an extra two minutes head start? Plenty of complaints about that scene already but another is why did they have to scan the CEO of Delos, when found with his daughter, but with Sizemore they are calling out to him "we're not here for you sir" to indicate he is recognized and validated as a human from 50 yards away? Just nitpicking, but wanted to pile on to that scene.

Can anyone explain to me why Logan was chosen as the face of the Forge "caretaker"? I missed it.

Any what game was Ford so intent on Wiliam playing out? Was it to set up a lifetime of torture in fidelity tests after his real death, was it a fidelity test in and of itself? Not answered and left for season 3 perhaps, not important, or I'm too much of a complete idiot to have caught the explanation?

Since there are quite a few complaints/questions about the season and it's ending, I did want to share my absolute highlight from the past ten episodes: For me it was learning about the attempt to recreate Delos, his repeated fidelity tests, and his ultimate breakdown and insanity. The scene where Bernard and Elsie find him and he attacks them was the best of the season to me, and it was a simple season of Sci Fi horror really - no huge philosophical twists or timelines needed to create the scene. It was also most reminiscent of what really stuck with me as a young kid watching a Westworld movie replay on cable TV - soulless killer robots out of control and intent on killing humans.

I also liked some of the scenes from Shogun world, great images. I also enjoyed the Kiksuya episode. I guess I enjoyed both Shogun world and Kiksuya since they did a great job of creating wholly realized environments/cultures in which there was character development, and the actors chosen were superb I thought.

I like Teddy's journey through the season as well.