2 comments on “Episode 07: Trompe L’Oeil”

1. Jeff Meehan Nov 18, 2016

   I would say that Stubbs is a host but Elsie is not. I have no hard evidence for this but it’s a gut feeling.

   I want to say they are still on Earth because they have satellites, the same moon and star constellations. However the only way you are going to find enough land for this is you have to tear up some national parks. I don’t see that happening.

   I wish you guys would have made more of a comment about Dolores and William’s evolving relationship. I have seen a bunch of memes online in the days since where they use that scene from The Simpsons: “Look Lise, you can see the exact second where his heart rips in half.” Rewatching it I could almost hear it too.

   The “key” line isn’t actually about some sort of secret piece to the puzzle it is actually about how men have a tendency to build up women so much that they can’t really accept them as fully fleshed out human beings. William has fallen for a young woman not some “divine creature put on this earth to complete his life and who must be worshipped and adored for the end of time” that thinking is just not healthy. Strange how this is the first time Dolores has ever remotely been in love or had sex and she is making the smallest deal of it. I think there is also in him a kind of Madonna/Whore complex. He has now fully set up in his mind that his fiance Juliet as the whore and Dolores as the Madonna. Which is ironic given that of the two Dolores is likely the “more sullied” given that her entire narrative is based around sexual desires of the men who enter the park.

   I like the idea that Arnold is an Emmanuel Goldstein like character but the big argument against that is that Dolores is still in some kind of contact with him and someone must’ve manipulated the young Robert host. Also remember the end of episode six, Ford looks scared and at a loss for the only time so far in the series. Arnold’s abilities were always greater than his own. I think Arnold put in a plan for there to be a robot revolution but it

   I am starting to think more and more that Ford and Arnold had a kind of Walt Disney/Ub Iwerks relationship. Iwerks should by all rights get the credit for creating Mickey Mouse and was likely the greatest animator of all time. He did every frame of Steamboat Willie. However, he couldn’t handle people at all, had no business sense, and couldn’t write comedy worth a damn. So Iwerks was never as successful. But without Iwerks, Disney would have died a nobody and doing newspaper ads in Kansas City.

   I rewatched the series after this episode with not two but rather three or four timelines involved. They are actually time *periods* but it just seems easier to say. If you presuppose that William is the MiB and Bernard is a host copy of Arnold then things do match up very very well.

   A: While the park is hammering out the kinks Arnold takes Dolores aside from time to time and explores her consciousness and concept of free will.
   B: Arnold is dead or stored his mind into the Westworld mainframe or some other kind of hard drive. William and Logan come to the park and have their adventures.
   C: Present day. Ford is old. Maeve rebels. Peter Abernathey malfunctions. MiB looks for the Maze. Most of the drama involving the crew of the park is here.

   By the way it is very likely that Bernard is a copy of Arnold. The biggest clue is that Bernard always wears a version of the same rumpled blue suit and tie. But in the scenes of Jeffrey Wright and Evan Rachel Wood in the glass box discussing consciousness, he wears a black jacket with a lot of pockets. He’s the #2 man at the park why does he need to change? It’s not impossible that this is a different man. Arnold specifically.

   I imagine that Arnold, Dolores, and William will meet or come to a head at the end of their adventure at the end of the season. I imagine something like the last fifteen minutes of Metropolis (I’ve only seen the anime).
   Arnold will try to destroy the park and free the robots, but this will kill hundreds of humans. William will want to save the people and keep the park he has fallen for, alive. But this will mean the subjugation of an entire race. Dolores will be conflicted about helping her “father” and the man she loves. I guess that everyone made the wrong decision years ago and now they are trying to correct it. Except William who wants to be a part of the world forever. Perhaps Ford is thinking that if the MiB can get to this maze he can pinch out the last seed of possible resistance. He probably went after every scrap of data Arnold worked on but there was still stuff that was beyond his grasp. And he couldn’t send a host under direct instructions to go through the maze because that would either free themselves or they couldn’t access it. It’s a bit like the Sword in the Stone. Only the true king could pull it out. Only a host of their own free will could free them all.

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   • Roberto Suarez Nov 24, 2016

     Thanks for your great comments, Jeff! For some reason I didn’t get a notice showing that you had posted this feedback, so we neglected to mention it in this week’s episode. We’ll make sure to go over your points and discuss them next week. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

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