The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Westworld’ Season 4, Episode 2 Recap

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Joanna, David, and Danny come back together to discuss ‘Westworld’ Season 4, Episode 2 “Well Enough Alone.” They start by recapping everything that happened in the episode (2:14), before analyzing each storyline—starting with Christina’s mysterious world (6:46). Later, they talk about some of their theories about what is going on and look ahead to next episode (1:18:09). If you have any questions or thoughts about 'Westworld,' you can email Joanna, David, and Danny at [e-mail] Hosts: Joanna Robinson, David Shoemaker, and Danny Heifetz Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna, do you ever wish you could definitively prove that you have the right opinions about movies? Uh, yeah, Neil, because I do have the right opinions about movies and television, right, Dave? No, because I'm more right about those things, and I demand trial by content. Oh, boy, what is trial by content? Each week, we'll take on a huge question. Each of us will bring a choice and combine with listener submissions and your votes, we will come to a decision. It's trial by content every Tuesday on Spotify, the ringer.com, wherever you're listening right now. Don't let Neil win.

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may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Welcome back in the Prestige TV podcast feed. We are a little late with our West World Recap this week because it was a holiday weekend. So it is officially tinfoiled Tuesday, if I have the recapable lingo correct here. I'm Joanna Robinson. I am here with Danny Highfitts. Hi, Danny.

I'm what you called neurodivergent. David Schumacher. Hi, David. Hey, I'm just chilling in Mexico. Okay, great. The Clementine version. I'm not actually in Mexico. Sure, sure. You're just like going to farmers markets, wearing a beautiful yellow sundress, living your life.

I don't get vacations. I just like to simulate them. Four sick days a year. I mean, who needs more than that? And also, of course, Ringer is always monitoring where we're doing our remote work from. We are here to talk about season two, episode four of Westworld. If you're just joining us for the first time on this feed, what we do every week is we talk about the latest episode of Westworld. We're going to break it down, beat by beat.

David's going to give you a really helpful recap of what happened on the show this week. Danny at the end of the episode is going to go classic Danny theory corner. And then the meat in the middle is our sort of breakdown of the episode. So that's the basic structure of this show. We're not spoiling anything beyond this episode. This is the only episode we've seen up to. But if there's like sort of a next time on, we might talk about that at the end of the episodes.

So you can stick around for that if that's the kind of thing. You're into. But we're here to talk about season two episode four, well enough alone. David Schemaker, what happened? Westworld this week. Christina, who you might know is Dolores, but it's not as Christina, disturbed by the events of last week, decides to dig deeper into the life of Peter Myers, her stalker who killed himself by jumping off the roof.

She travels outside the city to Hope Mental Health Hospital. Meanwhile, in her Manhattan, birds appear to be dying and there's more tower talk. William, who is definitely a host at this point, kills Clementine while looking for information on Mave. Clem is then reprogrammed to go to work for Delos as an assistant slash bodyman. man. Team Evil body snatches, California senator, and his wife. They also appear over a game of golf to take over a DOJ employee and the vice president. A version of Human William is still alive and Charlotte monologues at him ominously. Meanwhile, Caleb and Maeve, having uncovered what's

going on with the body snatcher senator, go to see Don Giovanni and find themselves swept into a new park set in the roaring 20s. It was a great week for Team Evil. They did a lot of work, I have to say. So before we get into like B-by-B, we just want to check in generally how we're feeling about this episode. We're two episodes into season four. Let's start with Danny.

How are you feeling about this week's episode of Westworld? This is everything I wanted. I have been very critical of season three of Westworld. I was critical last week of the premiere. I thought this second episode is just everything I wanted from the show when it ventured out into the real world.

I love that. I can't wait to hear more about why, David. How are you feeling? I really enjoyed it. I can't help but feel like I have a feeling of impending doom, which is that like, this is the show, I agree with Danny. This is the show that I've always wanted. When Westworld starts feeling methodical,

starts feeling like it's humming at an easy pace, I feel like there's just a tidal wave of like info dump around the corner or of like things to be revealed or something like that. This episode, though, and I like episode one a lot. I it's it's it's got me hooked it's got me thinking this is I agree with Danny I agree with both of you I think this is really good it feels clear what's going on but not in a way where I'm bored so that's that's a great needle to thread and then also something that I talked about in the preview episode that we did is like how much I felt like they left the parks too early so to go back into

the park whatever version of the park we're in now like to go back we're back on the try I got so excited when I was like, it's not a bar, it's a train. We're going back into the park. So, yeah, I agree too. I had a great time with this episode. Let me do a little, like, English major corner with the episode title again. I'll be brief this time. Well enough alone, like obviously comes with a phrase to leave well enough alone, which, according to me poking around a bit, finds its origins on an ESOP fable, a lesser known one I call, I think, the Fox and the Hedgehog. The Esop fabled fox and the hedgehog is about, Hedgehog encounters a fox that's like covered in ticks

and they're swelled up with blood or mosquitoes if you prefer. There's different versions. They're swelled up with blood. And the hedgehog's like, bro, you've got ticks and or mosquitoes all over you. Can I remove those from you? And he goes, the fox says, no, if you remove them, more ticks will just find me and take more blood from me. These ticks are full.

And so I will just take the ticks that are full. Leave well enough alone. I had never heard that, Isop. fable, but that is... That's the origin of the story? I mean, of the phrase? I, according to, like, many, many internet resources, which sounds odd because it's like Esop fable is an ancient fable, like, what is leave well enough alone in Greek?

I don't know. But that's a source I saw for this. So if I get a tick, is that what I should do? No. Just leave it? Absolutely not. I think the fox is wrong in this scenario. Just checking.

We also got an email from a listener, Katie. By the way, you can email us, Ed Harris. There's bodysuit at Gmail.com. We got so many good emails. And also, we got to see the titular body suit in this episode. But we got an email from Katie telling us to check out the sort of log lines that HBO does under the titles on HBO Max, if you or I'm sure on your local cable provider. And this week, the tagline was, I heard a fly buzz when I died, which is from an Emily Dickens in poem. I heard a fly buzz when I died, which is like, of course, about the flies that are taking over.

these humans, but also that poem's about sort of the mundane things you notice as you're leaving the world and how they tie you to this world. So that's just a really brief English major corner on the episode title. Let's start with Christina's world. Let's do all of that stuff first. Just like overall, Danny, how are you feeling about being with Christina and what's going on with her world? First of all, I just can't, I think it's really funny that 80 years from now, they're like, are you not working at the office? We've been very good. clear about this. You can't work remotely. Maybe that's only

maybe that's just her shitty gaming company that has that policy and her shitty boss. David. Overall, I think it was good. I think that a through line that all of these plots had that I like, it was spooky. Dolores in that hospital,

whatever it was, was just spooky. I felt that way about William and the golf course, Mave and Caleb in the bar. And like, I just thought this episode had a lot more spook to it. And Dolores in particular, Christina, I'm sorry, I'm getting used to the Christina thing. I think it was probably the least interesting of the three, I guess, character journey. I guess there's William, there's Maven Caleb, and there's her. But even with that, even if I am so much more into this plot than I was even though an episode ago.

And I'm just, I'm invested. I'm very intrigued. And I think that that is my main feeling coming out of this is I'm intrigued in all the right ways. I agree. I mean, I do think that Dolores was the least interesting. I mean, that was my, when I was revisiting the episode after watching it once, that was my feeling. But then, like, I did really like just her going to the mental institution. I kind of like the places that we got.

I think to some extent, we'll probably look back and think that, like, Dolores is, we learned a lot about Christina in episode one. And I think at this point, she's going to, like, has to hit a couple of beats, has to go through a few, like, Stations of the Cross of not just her character, but of getting us to whatever the revelation about where she is and who she is is going to be. while in the next few episodes, this and the next couple episodes, I assume other characters, you know, reintroducing other characters is going to kind of fill that part of the story. But yeah, I mean, I was, I thought that, you know, the little new stuff that she did was really good. I thought that, you know, everything just felt ominous in a good way, too, you know.

I mean, even the stuff that feels on the nose, you know, I feel like her relationship with a roommate is a little bit more. If this had been episode one, I think we would have had a little bit stronger views about her roommate's role in her life and who that might be. And the bird thing, you know, it kind of is what it is. But I think that that's good. There's progress, right? Where there's, like, active progress.

I also think that when you go to the mental institution and see the dude's name on the wall who just died, but the obituary said that he gave all his money to this mental institution, There's some sort of like time. I know where we are. I know that we're in Westworld. I mean, maybe not physically this moment in time in the show. But I think I would just very naturally assume, oh, the people at the New York Times Googled the wrong guy.

Right? I wouldn't immediately go to like there is a space time disruption. Right? It's just like, there are two guys with a similar name or with the same name. And they put the wrong guy's obituary on the dude that just jumped off the building. But anyway. Well, the Shoemaker who hosts a media podcast is like, well, obviously the issue is that the New York Times need to issue a correction. It happens, man.

We need a correct. That's it. It's a solvable problem. That's all I'm saying. But no, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I think that, I think that, you know, maybe because less, you know, maybe because there were less like surface surprises, I spent a lot more time with what I thought might be going on. you know, I left episode, I mean, we don't need to go into this,

but I feel like, you know, after last week, I was like, well, we're kind of talking about two timelines here. And after this week, it's like, if you told me there were six, I would probably buy it to it, right? Like, my brain is just working and working and working. Joanna, all those scribblings of when she got to that one room, that whole drawings of the tower. That kind of remind you of all the drawings that may have found in season one

of like the guys in the jumpsuits who were the park that she thought were like demons or whatever. Oh, under the floorboards. That's a great. Yeah, yeah. She held in the workers or whatever. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I also really liked this. To Danny's point, like, this wasn't the most action-packed, right?

This is, like, Detective Christina trying to figure stuff out. Very much, like, Dolores season one, Alice in Wonderland stuff. Like, am I going, am I losing my mind what's happening here? But I like that because, to David's point, that means we can sort of, because it's not wild and crazy action. hacked, we can sort of stop and think, like, what do we think is going on here? What feels the most satisfying? I want to shout out. We got an email from a listener, Sam, and then also I read this interview that Lisa Joy gave my palo Kim Renfro over at Insider about Christina's world, which is this Wyeth painting that they have said since season one was sort of an inspiration for Dolores.

It's this, you know, this girl sort of prostrate in a field of grain looking up at a house, if you haven't seen the painting. And so that's why they named this character, Christina, is sort of, it's connected to that. In that interview, do you remember how, like, each season of Westworld has, like, a different theme that was, like, The Door and the game, you know, like, each one had a theme, a concept.

And Lisa Joy said in this insider interview, that the concept this season is the choice. Does that spark anything for you guys here in episode two? choice what that might mean. Hmm. That is really interesting. I mean, I do feel like choice has been a part of the conversation since, well, certainly since season two and I, and, you know, maybe implicitly since season one.

But if the, some of the things that we talked about last week, you know, I mean, there does seem to be this sort of, there is a, there is a line of thinking that if all of this is sort of set in emotion by Dolores in some former fashion spilling out of last season? Are they setting up a world, or even dating back to the very beginning with, you know, Dolores and Mae, original Dolores and Maeve, or is it, is it all, is the future going to be determined by the choice between, you know, at that point, Dolores and Mayve, or now is it like, like Christina and Charlotte Hale, Hallores or whatever, you know, I mean, is it a big choice or is it a small choice about, you know, how we live our lives, how hosts lived their lives, who knows? What do you think?

I want to know what Danny thinks. Well, I mean, let's rewind for a second. The theme of the season is humans are being replaced by hosts and that host brains, host whatever pods are being put in human brains or human bodies, basically, and like people are being replaced. I think within that, I imagine the choice is basically some sort of like free will-esque decision of like the same way Charlotte Hale or Dolores hopped in Charlotte Hale's body, but then kind of became a fusion with Charlotte Hale, right?

Like Charlotte Hale, Dolores isn't just pure Dolores. It's like Dolores and Charlotte Hale together kind of decided to be a lot like Hale. I think that the choice is probably going to be do you want to be the person that you're kind of merged with? And within that, the theme of season two,

the kind of big realization in like the high conceptual level was like, most people aren't driving their car, right? If your mind is a car, you're actually in the passenger seat, your conscious mind. And that actually your base needs, food, hunger, survival,

is actually driving. And you're just kind of there looking out the window. And I think that I imagine a theme of this season. When I hear you say choice, Joanna, I feel like, okay, host brain, human body, do you want to drive or do you want to be in the passenger seat? That's what I think when you hear of your choice. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I feel like it's going to have to come down to some sort of individual choice.

This idea of like, wake it. We're going to talk about this probably more in like theory corner, but this idea of waking up, which we talked about, like, is Christina. as Dolores asleep somehow. And should she decide to leave well enough alone and just exist on her loop here? Or should she decide to wake up and see what's actually going on, whatever that might be, whatever is actually going on? Which, again, is very season one Dolores.

Like, do you just stay on your little loop or do you explore outside of that? Sorry, not little loop. It's little loop. Oh, thank you. Little bit extra Welsh on it. Thank you. Um, I, uh, I think her finding this hospital, first of all, Peter Myers, by the way, is the name of my middle school drama teacher. Um, and every time, were you a drama kid, Joe? Yeah.

And every time. English, me drama kid, English major path podcaster. That's like the archetype. Yeah, that's the classic. Back to ESOP. That's, that was the path. Classic insufferable, uh, art, character arc. But I, um, I was like, I'm probably the only one who, who was noticing this. So then I got a text from a friend of mine from him. And he was like, his name's Peter Myers. So like, you know, shout out to St. Mark's drama teacher, Peter Myers, very much in my. If we have any listeners named Peter Myers.

Can you email us at Harris bodysuit at gmail.com? Tell us what you want in your obituary. I want to talk about Maya for a second, right? We talked about this a little bit last week, but this idea that Maya. Who's Maya? Oh, her roommate. Christina's roommate. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Ariana DeBos's character. So Maya is the, in Sanskrit, the word Maya means illusion. And Maya is another name for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of illusion. And I think what we saw as much this week as we did last week is this idea of Maya sort of there to keep Christina asleep, like to keep her unalarmed and to keep her calm and to maybe maintain an illusion around her. She felt very much like Francis, despite having a body, you know, and a presence on the screen. But like when Francis's role last season, whenever he would be on the phone. Oh, Caleb, Caleb on the phone with Francis. Yeah.

Yeah. He was the role, he was Caleb sort of pacifier that he would just call even though this dude wasn't actually there. It was a simulation or whatever. That's what it reminded me of. Although, to what end, I guess, is the question. Well, I think I agree. The first episode, I was like, this roommate is suss, especially because she's like, what should I wear black shoes with my all white dress?

And then second, the moment for me in this episode where I was like, this is not a normal person, this is not a real person, is when Dolores was like, hey, that guy who jumped off the roof actually died 30 years ago or something. And you know what? And she was like, what do you think it means? And the roommate was like, what do you think? And I'm like, that's not a normal thing to say in that situation. That's therapist lingo.

It is. How do you feel about that? Or a friend who's not paying attention, lingo. But yes, I think therapist lingo is the right way to, is the right framing for it. This is what I meant when I had to be at the beginning of the show. And I said, if this is the, if this had been our introduction to Maya, I think that would have been, I think we all would have been just like, well, she's real fake. Yeah, like she's a, she's either a, you know, a host guardian or, or just a piece of, you know, a cog in a machine. If the idea is that Dolores, and again, this is all conjectural,

I mean, if the idea that Dolores is, like, somehow in some sort of, like, virtual holding cell, you know, she's in a loop just to keep her, or sorry, you know, if the idea is that she's in a loop to keep her preoccupied, Christina, then, yeah, it makes sense that this is sort of a Francis-style character, right? To sort of, like, keep her in line and not evolving or not breaking out or whatever it is. I think there's probably just a strong an argument to be made that like whatever the plan

was, whatever, however Christina came to be, that maybe Maya is more of a Sherpa. Like Maya is like maybe a little bit of like her Bernard character that's sort of just like keeping her

sort of guiding her evolution a little bit. I don't know. I think that there's different, there's different possibilities there. Right. So you think she might be more like trying to wake her like if we if we decide as we did last week that there's like team keep christina dolores asleep and team wake her up you're putting mya possibly on team wake her up because i'm firmly on team she's team keeper's no it's pretty clear that it's team keep her sleep i don't think she's trying to wake her up per se but i do think that it's like it's not

necessarily she's not necessarily a bad actor right she could have she could have her her role could be let's make sure let's make sure that Christina doesn't turn into bad Dolores like from a good point of view, right? So anyway, maybe that's a little bit beside the point. No, I like that. I like that. We also got an email from a listener, Don,

who wanted to point out, like, all the meds, take your meds talk from last week in terms of, like, team keep Dolores asleep, reminded him of the soma medication and brave new world, which again is about pacifying people, right? And keeping them sort of not questioning the nature their reality. Can we talk, though, about, I mean, just to touch on that briefly, because I know it'll come up again,

when Christina was, you know, going to New Jersey represent and, and her boss knew that she was, you know, knew where she was and was talking about the four days of medical, you know, sick days that she got, he referenced mental issues, which is not the normal, not normally the thing that in our day and age, your boss talks to you explicitly about. but it's worth mentioning that it's been established that all diseases have been cured in the current Westworld timeline, right? Yeah, that's literally the first episode. Anthony Hopkins is like, yeah, we've cured all diseases.

Well, that's why they only get four sick days a year probably. Well, they get four sick days, and they're specifically talking about mental things, and they're on all these mental medications. So maybe it's just like classical diseases have been cured. Maybe it's like physical illness. Physical diseases, right? Yeah, not. So maybe the mental side.

is a little bit more of the open conversation, right? Because everything else is sort of done with. He never said anybody was happy. He just said we cured everything. I mean, they're definitely not happy because they have to go to Westworld and like fucking shoot their pain away, right? Now it's time for one of my favorite Westworld moments always, which is tablet talk. If you're not watching Westworld and freeze framing tablets and zooming in on them,

are you really watching Westworld? So we've, as the aforementioned boss, who's, as David points out, breaking all kinds of HR rules, asking, talking to Christine about her mental health, has a, like, profile, her file is pulled up on his screen. And we get a lot of data on there. Like, Danny, do you have anything you want to say about what we see on this tablet here? So it basically just has her name. Sorry, it has like a bunch of specific things. But basically it just seems like very similar to kind of the way they pulled up hosts in season one, right? They would pull up a thing and they kind of had all her stats, like a player card, basically.

And I think overall, I think that looking at it, I don't know if there's any specific information that I point out as more just the overall general similarity to like this looks like a park. And then combined with like the tower thing and all those birds fell. I mean, it just seemed like the birds hit something that they couldn't see. and so I feel like Dolores is in a new park that is themed like Manhattan but it's also a simulation of a park and I know that's like a crazy thing

to go off of this but it just seems like she's in a park I agree with you I'm with you it's impossible to have these conversations right that's what makes the show so wonderful and so tough is that like it is totally feasible that that nonsense is the truth in this season

but also I guess that's sounds complicated, but it's very simple. It's, they built a park that's like Manhattan, but the computer also simulates the park and that she's in the simulation of it, not the real park. And that's it. Oh, that's one level deeper than I think it is. But maybe we can parse that out in Theory Corner. But I think what's most interesting about this is there is like, there's something on this

screen called loop stability. So she's on a loop. Like, whether she's human or AI or a host, she's on some kind of loop, which we know because we've seen her do the whole. Dolores wake up on her pillow thing. And some reddors have also pointed out that, like, as she's walking to work in this episode, there are the same people sitting on the bench outside her office as we're in season one. So, like, other people are on their loops, too.

It's not just her. There's, like, a loop activity going on for a bunch of different figures here. Again, whether their hosts are human or AI, we're looping. And, again. But not, not, like, purely looping, right? She's not, this is not Groundhog Day. This is not an every day is the same day loop. Yeah, yeah.

You're right. And I think her wandering off loop here is a little interesting. Like, her going to New Jersey to the hospital feels like off her loop, right? So her little loop. The last thing that I want to say about Christina is she's got this wound on her arm that's, you know, from the attack from last week's episode. And it just reminded me of like season one Dolores. Remember how in like season one she had these like visions and dreams of like her arm being open and seeing the wires. And so she would like occasionally in her reverie of like, am I real or am I fake,

she would sort of like touch her arm and think about it. And also, Dolores Prime fully lost her arm at the end of last season. That also happened. So like to me, that strikes me as like a callback to that sort of like, what is the nature of my reality connecting to an arm wound? So. All right. Anything else we want to say about Christina?

Danny? I think she's in a simulation of a park. I love it. Firmly. A simulation of the park. I think she's just in a park. I think she's in a future park. It would, yeah.

I mean, I think that if this park exists, it's sort of, that's complicated enough. It's also enough, it's a good enough solution to whatever you think the Christina problem is, right? Can't you just, like, put her in the park and not need a simulation? I think the best argument for simulation, well, two things. One, to support Danny's theory. One is that, again, why does she look so much like Dolores, a host we've known, right, if it's not a simulation? And two, this moment that she has when she goes to the mental hospital and she says, just leave and those guys just leave. Like, what kind of control does she have here?

And could she have that kind of control if it were a physical park? I still think it's a physical park, but there's a lot of evidence for Danny's theory, too. When she said just leave, she's like talking to herself. Yeah, yeah. But those people leave and listen to her. Yeah. Or it could be a coincidence. And the show's trying to make us think.

Perhaps. The show's trying to make us think that she has control over them when really they were just like, oh, time for our coffee break here in this. Abandoned, abandoned derelict mental health hospital. Maybe, yeah, coincidences. Yeah, I think that, well, one thing to go to what Danny said, I don't think it really matters. but the birds, to me, the birds are being knocked out of the sky by some sort of, you know, noise from the, some static from the tower, right? They're not flying into things.

Maybe they're also flying. Maybe they're flying into things as well. That's, I literally thought they had hit a building that Dolores could not see. It was high up in the air. They were kind of all together, but presumably there's more of them. But maybe that's true. Maybe you're right. I think, I think it's auditory somehow.

We got that song without sound sort of reference again. So in the, in the, okay, I'm trying to figure out what the straightest line through this is. Because obviously, Christina is, on some level, there's an insinuation that she is writing scripts that affect these people in real life, right? Or in whatever, not real life, real life, but whatever, that Peter was affected by the thing, why are you doing this to us? And she's, and she was reading back through her old logs today, I mean, today, this week and seeing how there was a direct line between where the other. And then so the fact that she can control or seem to control the people in the mental institution, I mean, I think that that's, that has to be deliberate, right? I mean, those two things have to be connected. But so, but is the straightest line that she is, if she's in a park, did she leave the park in going to the mental institution?

And that's why she went back in time. Oh, God, back in time. I'm sorry, forward in time, not back in time, forward in time. Like is the idea that by getting on that train, she just like leaving future world. And so when she gets outside, she's like, it's like Epcot Center is the future. But the path train just takes you out of future world. 1950 or whatever. So it's not really the future anymore.

She can just take a train and leave? I love it. Well, that's what I'm wondering. I don't know. There's no C4 in her spine. It's actually really easy. You just get on the path and just, yeah. I love it.

No, I love that idea. I mean, like, the vibes that I got off of that Mental Health Institute and like Peter Myers is. dead for 30 years is, like, felt very shining to me, right? Like, you've always been here. Like, that's, what's what's what's going on? I don't know. It's, it's, but to Danny's point, first and foremost, it's spook, spook time. Very spooky. Great stuff. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical

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Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. All right, let's talk about William and Clementine and Caleb and Mave. Clementine, like David Schemeaker, is in vacation in Mexico and living in an ideal.

retirement life. And to recap, like, last time we saw Clementine in season three, what happened is that Maeve is out here doing Sorok's bidding, right? And she's like, well, if I'm going to keep doing your bidding, I'm going to need help. I need friends to help me. And so he, the way that he pulled Maeve's code out and rebuilt Maeve, he pulled Clementine and Sanrio, or the two, like, friends he pulled out to help her. And we see them, you know, behead one of the Dolores, you know, people. And that's the last time we saw Clementine. So, and, like, more importantly,

Clementine is an incredibly important character to Maeve. Like, there's Maeve's connection with her daughter, but, like, Maeve also thinks that Clementine is kind of a daughter to her as well. So the fact that William shows up and kills her and then drafts her is, like, not only am I looking for information on Maeve that only you Clementine could give me, but now I've taken one of Mave's favorite people and derived and made her my, like my toy, my pet.

Danny, what do you think about Clementine? I'm a reintroduction here. On Clementine specifically, or William, in the whole thing? Either, whatever. What strikes your fancy? Well, Clementine, I guess my first question is, did you take that chronologically? Like, is it just that straightforward

that he basically kidnapped her and took her and reprogrammed her? which is probably Occam's razor. I think so. Okay. I mean, in that case, I'm just happy that Clementine's back in the story.

I think she's an interesting character. I mean, overall, do you not like Clementine? No, I love, I love Clementine, but sort of my abiding philosophy

of her in this episode was Clementine's back in the story. Like, I think that, Joina, you may be exactly right in terms of what the story is, but also it's just sort of like,

Clementine just sort of plays this role. She's like a fan favorite. She's a, you know, kind of semi-ironic enforcer. She's, this is, the fact that she's working for the man in black now or for hilarious now or whatever, I think it probably has. I mean, to me, I always just felt like had more to do with, like, oh, yay, Clementine's back. And let's find, like, an appropriate place for her. 100%. Like, it might not come in it back to Maeve.

I'm just saying, like, if you're going to hurt Maeve, this would be a way to do it. But, yeah, Angela, I think it's Seraphian is how you're. pronounce her last name, but, like, the fact that she's, like, a classically trained dancer, and I always love watching her, like, fight and murder people. It's always really fun. And when he showed up in this episode and he slid her throat, I was like, God damn it. Because we got very little of her last season, right? I was like, it better not be it. So then when she shows back up to, like, kill people, I was like, yes, thank you. I love watching her kill people.

This whole storyline, I thought, with William and Clem, and then also Maven Caleb, I think that it made me really by back into the season full-heartedly. The scene with William on the golf course, when he made the hole in one the first time, I was like,

this is, I'm on edge. You know what it reminded? It made me feel that William is the new Ford. William is the new Anthony Hopkins on this show. He's always in control. He's giving the monologues. You don't really know what he wants. He's vaguely like, he's just ominous. He's menacing. He's intimidating.

And there's just, so gravity to now Ed Harris' scenes that I think Anthony Hopkins used to have. It's probably not quite as good as Hopkins was, obviously, but I think that he holds that role in the show now. And he makes the second, the third hole in one. I'm like, this is what I wanted. Like, I feel like Westworld was originally pitched as like,

Lost meets Game of Thrones with like a sci-fi Wild West. And when you go out into the new world, like the real world, how do you translate that? And like, Ed Harris just hitting three whole and ones in a row, just ominously trying to like, you know, intimidate the vice president. Like, I thought that was awesome. I agree. I think the moment of the episode that he feels the most forward to me is when he's giving

the speech about what the park is at the end, right? And he throws on the lights and we're in the park. And that's like something we literally saw Ford do in season one. Like, that's a classic Ford move of like being the showman, right? It reminds me of John Hammond. Ford, it always feels like John Hammond in Jurassic Park, right? And so to like give the flee circus showmen spiel and throw in the lights and we're in the park. I mean, very, very forward moves.

But at the end of the day, in his host form, he's still only a henchman for Hale, right? Like Hale is still calling a shot. Yeah, right? Yeah. And that's sort of what makes the Clementine thing a little bit hard of me to wrap my mind right in terms of storytelling. First of all, they don't need Clementine outside of like what you were saying. is like a broadside against Maeve, right? I mean, they seem to have the build

to manufacture hosts, however they see fit. Although you can talk me out of that. I don't have any grand overarching theories here, but if it turns out that there's more than one William timeline, I'm not going to be shocked. If we're seeing two different things play out as if they're the same thing, that's what I was, that's what,

I don't think Clementine lines up with, it backs that up at all. But that's where I started this episode where I was just like, oh, what if this happened before? What if this was like, and it's during season three or something, you know? And what if when we're seeing the man in black

take over the dam, that's actually William? And he's not a pawn of hilarious yet. I don't think it makes sense. But there's, they're keeping the piece, he's separate enough that, that I feel like I just have a weird, like,

spidey sense going on. There's something happening. Well, now that we're here, do we want to talk big picture what we think is going on with William? Because I think now it's kind of important for like we're talking about Charlotte Hale and William and like this overarching plan they've got. Well, I have a question for you, Danny. Do you feel like they would kill off Ed Harris, the biggest star in Westworld and a post-credit sequence? It seems they did not. They just brought him back for one scene to Han Solo him, which I don't know why, but I think

that that is also... Do you feel vindicated, though? Like, do you feel good about it? did you pump your fist in there? Yeah, I was right about that. If you knew my batting average and getting things right in this show, then no, I don't want to like pimp the home run. But I think that this show, now each of the two episodes,

you kind of see them nod to like, remember season three? Just don't worry about that. Like the first episode, the construction worker being like, oh, the riots, did anything change? And this episode, again, they slid out of Harris's throat after the credits. I still have no idea why they did that. And then they bring him back basically to confirm that he's alive, I feel like. And then they just Han Solo freeze him.

And maybe they have plans from later in the season, the real human William. But it just felt to me like another kind of nod to like almost discounting season three. In some ways, I feel like they could have come right out of season two and just did this season, 80, 90 percent of it. And that season three was kind of a whiff. But this is like a much better, more coherent vision for coming out of that. at the park. I completely agree. I think so first of all, I think you should take your victory lap.

I think we like we scatterbrain Westworld predictors need to take our wins when you find them because we have so many losses. So take your win that like the Ed Harris is alive. Is it just his head? We don't know. Like is it just his head a fix to a body suit or is it the full body? We don't know. But he's a human. William is alive. Ed Harris

confirmed an interview with THR. He called him like the actual human William. And then in the post episode featurette, they said that they do the makeup on host William to make him look more smooth and perfect. And then they let sort of the full Craggs show on William on ice. Is that the words Ed Harris used? They let my crag show.

No, that's a quote. That's pure me. All crag all the time. You do that with Shoemaker, too. We let Shoemaker's crags just show. Love, love. On this show, they keep me looking young for the wrestling podcast. Love to go full, Craig.

But I think, so we've got, so the question then remains, why did Hale keep William alive? So she replaced him as she's replacing tons of people, tons of influential people. She's replaced him with a host and he's out here, hitting holes in one in an incredible, like, black straw hat. I just need to not let that hat go unremarked upon, right? It was great. If you take the simplest version of this, he's also making, deals on the Hoover Dam. David is leaving the door open that there could be multiple Williams running around there. But I think everything we've seen out in the world is host William.

And William on ice, full crag, William is kept around. Lisa Joyce said in the post-episode thing that it speaks to Hale's loneliness, which also gives them this whole one of many Hale monologues about sort of how you need to have a loser in order to feel like you've won. So how much do we buy in fully to what she said here and how much is there something underneath that that is like sort of what Lisa Joyce talking about in terms of like, hail has no one to talk to. So, and reminding us all that Dolores is hail.

So like this old Dolores William circling each other forever sort of vibe. That's actually a good point. Sometimes I honestly forget that Dolores is Hale and Dolores has the history of William. I think it's really important though that quote about you're the loser. I think that what's going on here by Westworld standards is pretty straightforward. Dolores is in Hale and Dolores is controlling. host William and she said that quote back to him, you're the loser. That's what

William says to Teddy in like the first episode of the first season, like in the pilot, you're here to be the loser because the humans come to the park and the hosts are the losers. I think that when they open this park, the point is

all these rich humans, the powerful and the wealthy humans go back to this Westworld and that the hosts are actually going to kill them, but then they'll just replace them and that all the hosts leave, the adult Disneyland in Chicago world or whatever that is, are going to come back as host version of themselves.

They're going to get back from vacation and be like, hey, honey, we're home, but they're hosts. Because I have a few reasons I believe that. But overall, does that make sense? Basically, instead of going one by one, they're going to actually kill the humans at the park and just send back copies of themselves. It could, like, easily it could be,

or it could be, like, continuing to try to refine the data collection because we're still putting hats on people. And by the way, my favorite thing that has ever happened on Westworld is when William's daughter is like the monitoring systems were in the hat. I'm sorry, it's just like my favorite, favorite, favorite reveal. But I feel that way very strongly.

One, because she basically, shout out to my girlfriend Jackie, you pointed this out to me, but Hale, talking to William, said you're the loser. And it was very much like, oh, how the turntables. and that's like there were a number of reasons that would make sense. One, the intratitle sequence, the host kind of in the circle, like being dipped,

it's not a host anymore, it's an actual human skeleton. But also, Hale made the point of like, I don't remember if he was to William or the DOJ agent. Basically, they're like, you're going to replace this one by one. She's like, no, it wouldn't. That would be really inefficient to replace you one by one. And so I think that's a pretty good marker of like, why not replace them by the hundred or the thousand, however many people coming to go, if you're replacing a thousand really powerful people at a time,

that seems like a better business model. And I think that there were just a lot of Easter eggs dropped in this, but fundamentally, by Westworld standards, it's pretty simple. The humans used to come and kill the hosts. Now the hosts are actually going to kill the humans. Right. But didn't Hylorus pretty explicitly say she wasn't trying to replace everybody? Well, she was saying she needed to create a better world first.

before everyone was hosts. Is what she said. I think she said one by one. I could be wrong on that. So here's what we do know. We know that they're, according to the senator, right,

who has been replaced, there are 249. Great casting. Great casting of like the minor players in this episode, by the way. Jack Coleman, by the way, the act he plays the senator,

has played a senator on the office and also castle. Like this, he's got the most senator face that you've ever seen. The state senator on the office. Yeah. That's a Jackalmonized.

And then Saffron Burroughs, like, long-time fame of mine showing up to play his wife, fantastic stuff. And I love the fight scene. Loved all that. But he says, when he says, I'm the emissary of the New World Order, not ominous at all. And then he says, there's 249 others like him, right? So the progression of the plan, as far as I understand it, is that Hale and William working with Hale are replacing these influential government people. so that they can change some law that has been put in effect that would prevent them from reopening the park.

And reopening the park might lead to, as Danny is and or his girlfriend is beautifully theorizing a sort of sausage factory of like humans go in, hosts go out, especially since like only the richest and most influential people can go to Westworld in the first place. So that like, that makes a lot of sense to me. And there's this, there was this line in episode one where Caleb's co-worker said, That all the robots were helping them before were on the scrap pile. So I think what happened is essentially after the riots seven years ago, like hosts robots, everything became illegal.

Like, and so everything that Hale is doing here is off the books. And she needs to change that legislature so that she can reopen the park to do either data collect or, as Danny says, mass batch replace. humans with hosts. Does that sound right to you in terms of the plan? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it feels like a sort of incomplete plan. I mean, just like, I don't, I don't know. I feel like when we figure out what the actual plan is, that the execution is going to seem a little bit incomplete based on what we know so far. But yeah, I do like the very general idea of we're reopening the park as, and this is our mechanism for doing the body swaps. I mean, that seems, that seems plausible.

terms of a storytelling mechanism and also just whatever, it's fun. But yeah, but so the only, this is a minor, minor thing does not go against what you say at all. When he's talking to the vice president, doesn't William, I mean, isn't it, when William and the vice president are talking to golf course, isn't it implied that the government helped William cover up all the everything that happened on Westworld, like the big, like the murder and everything? Don't we believe that to be true?

said that we know about the mess you made, but also, I remember in season three, it was like on the news, like 100 and 100 plus people died. So I don't think it's a secret. And also, in season three of those dudes that like the meat packing plant recognized him, Bernard, for being on the run. That's right. Okay.

For the massacre. So I don't think they covered everything up, but I think they covered some of Williams shit. Why are people going back to Westworld? Why did they rebuild Jurassic Park again and again in that franchise? Like, why does Jurassic World exist after Jurassic Park? Like, when do we ever learn from our mistakes?

You know? Like, I, this feels very, I feel like this would happen, honestly. I think I totally agree with you, but if I wanted to answer the question, one, dinosaurs are frankly cooler than, you know, the 20s. I hate to tell you. But even setting that aside, I have more faith in, I would have more faith in a failed company learning how to build better fences and cages than I would in a failed company

learning how to keep robots who had previously gone haywire under control. But that's kind of beside it. I get you, but isn't it like when someone dies at an amusement park on a roller coaster, or isn't the line for the roller coaster still really long when you go back? Well, that's just because they had to turn it off for a while.

They get the body out. Tough, tough. Oh, Jesus. That was darker than I thought of a bit. Tough. Let's talk about a complication in the Hale plan, which is like we're not simply doing pure replacements because there's the other thing,

which is the fly controlling humans. What's with the fly stuff? I look at the barn scene was really cool. And again, I think it's spooky. What was up with that, by the way? Are we getting to that? I mean, obviously, let's get to, like, okay, well, first I want to shout out really quickly,

the fight scene that happened. This is a pet peeve of mind that oftentimes in film and television, if you have, like, a female good guy, you usually have a female hench person and those two fight. And what I really liked is that it was like Aaron Paul being the shit out of Saffron Burroughs

and Tendu and Newton fighting Jack Coleman. I loved that. And I loved how menacing Saffron Burroughs was like in an evening gown. I'll go a step further. I thought that was the best fight scene in the entire series. It was so good. Yeah.

It was the kind of fight scene that if you're not into Westworld and you kind of just turn on this show, you're like, I'll watch this. The first 10 minutes, that was in the first six, seven minutes of the show. I think if they want people who aren't, you know, into, aren't going to go back and watch, like, and try to track down all the theories and stuff. Like, it gets the casual person into the show. It also is genuinely good. It was like the Nolan Batman style of like the quick cut fighting, but in a good way. think that the show's had some cartoony fights, but that was awesome. Well, just on a very basic level, the way that they were sort of able to give the

senator and his wife, like literal weight, you know, as soon as they sort of acknowledge that they were hosts, right? I mean, like, they just, they seemed, like their punches landed with weight. They seemed like, they seemed like, like real legitimate threats, even though two minutes prior, you were just like, oh, look at these little frou-frews, you know? But yeah, and frankly, I, that seems. that you're right, absolutely great. I was enthralled by the later scene in the barn

when, not just the scene, but in terms of fights, when Saffron Burroughs character eventually gets, you know, when Maeve pops her in the head, that to me was just as thrilling because it was like, it was like this tense buildup to a fight scene, which we didn't really get the previous time. And coming from not just what we saw before,

but, you know, the whole season where like every fight scene was an elaborate, you know, Hong Kong, that it was just like you thought a thing was about to happen and then it literally just gets you know it ends with the pull of a trigger um i really like the the sort of pacing of that whole thing too also i think it's a great reminder that this show is so much better with hand-to-hand combat than gunfights the show does not do gunfights in a way that i'm like oh great but the hand-to-hand combat is movie quality there's so the question of like what's up with the flies right like

why is this happening if you could just if you could just replace why are you doing this this fly thing. And I have a theory about that. So like, Hale says about Anastasia, she says, I need help researching a new experiment and you're the perfect candidate. Let's take her to the barn with the rest of the livestock and like, you know, Tessa Thompson just choose the word livestock perfectly, right? So this is how she thinks, she's thinking of humans, right? So I think what's happening is she's trying to refine this fly controlled human. I'm tempted to call them drones, even though there's something else in Western mythology also called drones, but like... Drone flies would work for me.

Right? Okay, drone flies to like distinguish them from the... Host drones. You know. Yeah. The, to be able to control humans the way that humans try to control hosts. Oh, you know what we could call it? It's Y-fly. Love it.

Wi-fly. Beautiful. Connect them to the Y-fly. So like, connect them to the... So connecting these humans to the Y-fly means that it's not simply enough as she's monologues to William for hosts to do. take over the world, she also wants to subjectate humans while she does it. So keep some humans alive so that she can subjectate and control and torture and torment them. Right? And that's where I think we're going with the Christina stuff. But, you know, because I think that's in the future. Wait,

wait. Wait, wait. I want to come back. I want you to explain. But first, let me say, so the flies are just sort of a means to an end in the way that you're describing it, right? It's, it's a process that she's currently refining. Like right now, fly controlled humans is not going great as we've seen. That's why when they get to the barn, Mave is like, this is the real human, Anastasia. And then when they're done, she's like, well, if that was

a human, it's like no human I've ever seen. So she has been corrupted, driven nuts and somehow overtaken by the flies. Yeah. Just like the guy in the first episode, right? Who is like, yeah. Oh, so I

just feel like they're connecting it back to season one when that guy shoots everyone and that it's pouring milk onto the guy's face and is like, ugh, and it's just like the host are malfunctioning now they people are. Or even further, like, when they first open the park and all the hosts are glitchy, right? When we get that flashback to like pre-park opening and they're building the hosts and then we see them like sort of, you know, speechifying and twitching and like, you know, because they hadn't figured out refined the process yet.

So I feel like this is Hale in the Ford position. I mean, I think you're right to say Williams in the Ford position, but Hale's also in the Ford position, where she's trying to create humans that she can control for a future amusement. So this is just totally, this is one, yes or no, given that what's happening now is nominally in the same timeline as the other William and Hale scenes,

Like William and Hale talking together in the lab, we are led to believe that this is what what Mave is doing is prior to that a year or so before that is that, would you agree with that? No, I think that's happening at the same time. It's happening the exact same time. Because she sees. Because she's just discovered. No, but I'm sorry. But when they replaced the senator and his wife was sometime before, a year before or something like that. Or like a month before or something like that, right?

Okay. That was a flashback, because that was a flashback she got from accessing his pearl. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so you think they refined the fly technology relatively quickly, I guess. That's the point. I don't know. I mean, I think it's still in progress.

Because, like, have we seen a successful fly-controlled human, a non-blitchy one? Sorry, I said this is a yes or no. William used the flies to get the Hoover Dam. Yeah. And he has the Hoover Dam. But was that guy behaving in like a, oh, you seem perfectly fine kind of way? It was part of the plan. He had to execute the plan, no pun intended, correctly.

I don't think that, I don't think that Anastasia carving up the horse would have done that, but maybe. It was kind of a single-use thing. I wonder if the Y-fly is connected to like the Y-fly is just admitting a sound the same way that people in Dolores' world are kind of hearing the song with no sound or whatever, also the wife in the barn said something like, do you hear it, the song? And then immediately snapped back into it and was like, hello, Don Giovanni invites you to whatever, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, who the hell is Don Giovanni?

But I think that the wife heard a song. She was talking about music. And so big picture, I feel like whatever the hell is going on, Dolores, wherever the hell Dolores is, there's something going on really weird involving sound, a song with no sound. And that's probably in some simulation, and that in the real world,

they're testing the same sound on people, with the goal of just basically controlling, probably just using sound to take over people's brains the same way that humans can use technology to kind of like code a host brain to do what they want. I think that's, for my understanding, it's close. What I think is happening is that Hale is beta testing the fly takeover, the Y fly, right? Signal is not strong enough to like for everyone to be acting normal, let's say, right? Because even the guy in the Hoover Dam, yes, he did what he needed to do, but he was walking around like a zombie.

You know what I mean? He wasn't, he was not. So like, let's say they're beta testing the Yfly. And then however far in the future we are with Christina, that I think is the real world. And I think that's when the Yfly has been refined and is working perfectly. And we are now in a world, a park where the humans are hosts and the hosts are humans. So like the entertainment are the humans being controlled by this tower. A stronger Y-fly signal had to build a bigger receiver, whatever, right?

And then the guests are the robots. And so those guys who saw in the first episode were like, you never been here before. Golly, gee, it's great here in the park. Like that those are robots and that the humans are the entertainment. And then we're just- Totally possible. So they're bro hosts? Yeah, bro hosts.

I mean, what a dismal view of the future, right? So, okay, I could buy that. Or host bros, which is better. I think bro hosts. But so, okay, yes, I'll stipulate that everything you just said is true. Then is, could we imagine that, that Christina. So they have to like program, the flies have to be given, like, someone has to decide what the flies are telling the people, right? So is that what Christina is doing?

Or do they realize suddenly they need to figure out, they need to figure out missions and stories for everybody with flies in their heads? And so they have a whole like platoon of people writing them? I don't have a great answer for like how it would be that a human that looks like Evan Rachel would with stronger why fly in her head would be controlling narrative around her. That's why the AI explanation is more plausible. But I like this idea of repeating season one. of the writers doing like, let's just do what we do well, which is season one, Westworld, and just have Christina as a human and someone's trying to wake her up and be like,

you are in a simulation and you have your own free will, bootstrap consciousness into a human being controlled by, you know, and just flip everything. As Danny pointed out in the opening sequence, the way that they've flipped the robots and the hosts and who's being dipped in what in the opening sequence, I think that just, like we're just getting a complete mirror park in the future. That's what I think. I do want to say, I do feel with the fly thing, the part that I feel would connect to the rest of the show

and with the foundation they've laid is that, again, the idea that people have two systems of thinking and that your system one is basically, you know, eat, survive, blah, blah, blah, your lizard brain, and that their consciousness is the passenger. And I think that the fly thing is basically hacking the driver's seat and that the conscious mind is watching what you're doing. And I think that's why these people have a zombie-like appearance, is they're doing

what they're told to do. But they're kind of aware. In zombie movies, they're not totally aware I'm doing the wrong thing. I think that these people are so haunted because they kind of do know they're doing the wrong thing. And that's probably why they want out. But I think, yeah, I think that they're just drawing a comparison that our brains are probably not as different as you think from host brains and coding, etc. Which is the Nolan's favorite subject. We're not so, and that's the, we're not so different, you and I. Yeah, yeah. Is it ironic or not?

Is that a total misuse of the term that in terms of a takeover of the global government that like Sirac had a much better plan than Holoros, who she was replacing Sirak? I mean, is it just having Rehoboam and just like insisting upon the favor of every world leader a lot more effective than just replacing them all one by one and trying to like, like, pass a new bill in the U.S. United States Congress? Yeah, I think that they're kind of distancing themselves in season three. I think my question for you guys is, so they're going to do another season. They're going to do another fifth season after the season four.

I think my question for you guys is, big picture, where does this go? Because at some point, the host got inside, are they going to let the humans live or what? Like, are they going to kill them, or are they going to enslave them, or are they going to live in harmony? Because I think at some point, right, what's the core Western genre, right? It's like, this town ain't big enough for the two of us. And it's, I feel like that, do you guys feel like they will, I feel like the only place to show big picture can go once you kind of get away from the parlor tricks is a faction of hosts, probably Mave, who's like, we can live together.

And a Charlotte Hale who's like, no, we cannot live together. The humans have got to go. I don't actually know where else it could go other than that direction. Ironically, at the start of the season, Maeve has determined she can't live with humans and Hale is living amongst them. But yes, you're right. I think that that's correct.

And I mean, this is really in the weeds. One would, if I'm putting myself in Charlotte Hale's shoes, I mean, you would think that you would want to keep some humans around, right? I mean, the humans did create the host initially and like, just in case you need somebody, you know, you might want to have a little colony of human scientists or something just in case, you know, maybe they'll be like slaves or something. But I guess my question is, because again, I do think that this is like the Bible of AI, right?

Like that's what they're trying to write here. And I guess my question is, do the humans make it? Because like, don't see the first episode of the season when William bought the Hoover Dam, the guy selling it to him said, this will run forever. And William's like, forever's longer than you think. You said, we're in a longer timeline than most. And that is the end game of the show. It was like, could AI last forever?

And it's worth keeping in mind that can the humans keep up? And I guess I'm just wondering if, like, if the show is thinking about that kind of stuff already, I don't know. I guess I'm just curious if people are going to make it or not. Or season five, like, they get rid of all the humans. I don't know. Well, I mean, but that's the, that's the Bernard storyline.

Like, we don't get any Bernard or Stubbs in this episode or this season yet. But, like, Bernard was saying at the end of last season, let's presuppose the apocalypse happens. right? Let's presuppose hail wins somehow. I got to go figure out what we do next, right? How do we survive the apocalypse? And I think Bernard as a champion of humans is also key. And that goes back to the whole for Arnold's binary from season one, right? Which is like if Bernard shows up as the person who believes that the hosts, that the humans deserve free will, that's an echo of season one where Arnold was like the host deserve free will, right?

I think they're just trying to loop it. So I would say, yes, I think we're headed towards some sort of copacetic existence, Danny. I guess the bigger question you're asking is like, what is the tone of the end of this series? Are we ending in a place of somewhat optimism? Or are we ending in a place of total misery? And I feel like if you look at like Jonathan Nolan's works, I mean, Lisa Joy and John and Working Together is a little different, but if you look at what Jonathan Nolan does, there's usually a light at the end of the heartbreak tunnel in those stories. Oh, yeah.

In like the prestige or in Inception or in Memento or Interstellar, right? Yeah. There's some sort of silver lining. Does that, like, Danny, do you feel like an ending where the robots win and all the humans die? Is that like? No, I mean, I kind of wanted that in the Game of Thrones. I kind of wanted something where everyone died. But also there's so many references

every episode of this show to previous works of the, I guess we'd call the Jonathan Nolan movies, but the Christopher Nolan movies. But, I mean, even just, they're in an opera house that's literally like how the beginning of Tenet, like the last Christopher Nolan begins,

the song they're playing like, in Inception, isn't like the song the trigger of like, hey, you're going to get out of this dream soon. It's like very same, like, you know, this fancy opera. Like there's so many references that I think to come back to, which is why I just kind of keep thinking,

Dolores' world just reminds me a lot of like the city and the dream city and inception. It's very much like a dream. You're not wrong. Like I wouldn't be, I wouldn't fall off my seat if you're right that this is AI. Like absolutely. Like we're in a dream or in something, you know? And I do think those Nolan movies are instructional in terms of like how they think

about love and love, love conquering all is actually usually a message in a, in a, in a, in a Jonathan Nolan script at least. Love at distance, great distances. The Don Giovanni was really interesting because. Let's talk about that. Okay, so beautiful like beautiful opera house. That's kind of classic. I mean, it's tenant, absolutely you're right, but it's also kind of classic Westworld. To me, they bring back. What is the Don Giovanni thing? So Don Giovanni is a Mozart opera, right and it's about a young it's very much like if if logan from season one of westworld were the main character in a Mozart opera like he goes around and he like screws people and he kills people he tells those stuff and then he and then he gets his just desserts at the end and that's what

he that's what don jivani is about and it's all over the course of like one day right yeah yeah it's like it's like this guy has gotten away with so many sexual violent crimes until he find someone that he cannot beat and then he dies. And that's what Don Giovanni's about. Don Giovanni's really fun, by the way. My, uh, can I just do like fun, irrelevant fact? My sister's, um, assistant director at the San Francisco Opera. And, uh, they did Don Giovanni this year. And part of their production Don Giovanni is they projected all the names on the wall of Don Giovanni's many conquests. And so my sister just filled it with like Easter eggs of people she knew, including like me. I was like, number one was like me on the list of the Don Giovanni conquest. So if you went to the

there's just go opera. I just wanted to say that I was an Easter egg in that production, which is great. But the aria that's playing when they go in is called Dalla Suapace, and it's just, I mean, like, I don't know the significance of this particular aria, but it's sort of just him talking, the character talking about like a treasured woman, essentially. But like the phonograph, that's a season one Westworld callback, right, to the, the debut C that was playing as the trigger, as a sort of mid-turing candidate trigger

in season one of Westworld. But I just, I loved all of that opera house stuff and then into the, into the train. Did you like it, David? Yeah. No, I thought,

I thought it was really effective, really evocative. I mean, I, there's, there's, it might be reaching my limit in terms of just,

you know, the witty banter that goes on between those two. Mave and Caleb. Yeah, there's only so much, like, like, Mave is built for it, no pun intended. But just to see, their entire relationship seems to be like shtick, which I don't, I don't know, there's something a little bit hollow about it. But so, you know, the opera scene, I thought it was a nice little respite.

But also, I mean, as soon as they, at that point, you know, then went to Westworld or wherever they went. You know, in season one, didn't, there were a lot of the mechanics of it that we didn't get right away because they were obscuring what was going on, right? So it's sort of interesting to see somebody reenter it with such sort of, in such sort of meticulous detail. I really enjoyed this stuff. Danny, do you feel like the Caleb May's stuff is hollow, witty-witty banter? How do you feel about it? No, I love it. I wanted more humor this season, and I think the show's

finally making me laugh. The whole and one thing made me laugh. And then Mave and Caleb, like, I love Mave's one-liners. I love the way she kind of interacted with that other host who had once replaced Clementine back in the day. I think that her drinking the wine while driving was funny. Probably a little shoehorned, but like, I don't know. I enjoy Maeve a lot. I think that it's great that they're back in the park. I just think

I'm really enjoying it. I also just think I think that this show is at its best when Maeve is on a mission. Specifically a mission that makes sense and it's not hard to follow. I think Maeve is kind of

this. I don't know if it's fair to call her this, but it feels like Maeve is kind of in some ways the solo season one and then continues to certainly be the only character with a coherent plot in season two. And that Maeve being lost in season three, I think was pretty representative of the show. And that Maeve just having a much simpler thing in this year of, I think is helping the overall show. And it's just easier to enjoy her. It's, you know, Tanaway Newton's a great actress.

It's fun to just enjoy her and be following a more coherent plot. I completely agree. that Mave's Mave being like led by the nose by Souraq and fighting Dolores when she should have been her ally last season

was like one of the worst parts of last season because like she's like you want Mave to be on top of things and so like even if she's a couple step behind I still want her to like be operating with as much information as we the audience have so when she accesses the senator's pearl

and then she like dead pants like oh it's much worse than I thought like that's fun we get the information at the same time she does and I I agree with you, David, that there's like a lot of witty, witty banter between the two of them. But it's also, I think, a way that they're trying to dump exposition on us in a way that doesn't bore us to death. Yeah, that's right.

You know, so that's happening. And I do feel a little depth to their, you know, their war buddies, right? And she understands them in a way that, like, a lot of other people don't. And I think it's also the, like, the ongoing Caleb Reclamation project of, like, I would much rather watch Caleb Order Mava Sherry in a bar that turns out to be a train than anything I watched him do last season. It's so much better. On that note, we're talking about their dynamic. So he says, we're going to talk about the lighthouse.

And she's like, where I saved your life. And he's like afterward. And I'm like, what is going on there? Right. Did he die? And am I the only one? Yeah. Did they hook up?

Oh, did they hook up? Did they hook up? Oh, that's so funny. I'm like, is he actually dead? And you're like, are they boning? Or both. I don't know. It's a weird show.

That's a great question. What do you think, David? Well, if they hooked up, it certainly would answer some of my questions about the nature of their relationship. I, as to whether or not he's dead, I don't know. I think they'd go back to what we said last week. I think the show gets really empty if there's no humans that we're rooting for. We just started to root for Caleb. Come on.

We got to have a human there that we like. I would really like him to be alive. I just like, it seems like he, like he had a really bad looking gut wound. And again, we have like put a stopper on death in the real world according to four. Yeah, that's not even all four sick days that gut wound. It's just two, one and a half? What do you think? Max.

Okay, great. Half day. Work from home. But, okay, but to that end, even if we've solved the ability to sort of like zip up like his, like, abdomen wound. Let's talk about Caleb's mental health, right? because when they're doing the check-in with Lily Simmons's back playing, her character's name is Sophia on this, but she was Clementine 2.0.

We get both Clementines in this episode. She's asking questions about mental health, and Caleb is looking, like, stressed about it, and Mave's like, he's fine. But, like, if the whole, you know, he's basically back in the, he's in the William in the Jimmy Simpson role in season one, right, in this whole, like, you know, let's put a hat on you and get you into the park vibe. The whole thing with William, young William, as played by Jimmy Simpson in season one,

is like the park is going to bring out your truest nature. And I'm just worried about someone who's a little unstable as Caleb is. He seems worried, so I'm worried, about like, how he's going to do in a park. Did you guys get that five at all? Or how are you feeling about him? He didn't seem excited. No, I mean, there's, listen, there's a lot of trepidation, I think, just in terms of going in because you're just like leaving yourself up to the whims of, well, presumably a world full of robots.

that might be out to get you if they notice that you're there. But yeah, I do think that there's there is the internal internal drama going on too. I just like, I mean, I like his whole like I'm not really a hack guy. Like that's fun, whatever. But like, I don't know. I'm just, I am in two episodes that I've started to care about Caleb again. And I want everything to go okay for him in this park. And I'm worried about him.

Do you want to talk about the park? That's exactly what I want to talk about right now. I just want to say so like, The question of this temperance world, right? We're in like 1920s Chicago is where we're supposed to be. And, you know, William in his big showman speech about it was saying, like, coming out of the First World War, a pandemic, you know, this is, this is the world. And the way that Jonah Nolan described it in the post-episode videos, he said,

a sense of a world that's celebrating itself to death, which I really love. Danny, like, what do you think is the significance of this setting for this new park? I mean, I think they're kind of hitting you over the head with it when they threw the pandemic line in. Sure. Fair. Go on. I mean, I think they're comparing the 20s to the 20s, the 1920s, the 1920s to now, and as subtly as they can do it. But there's also the sense, I agree with that. I mean, I think it's also significant because, and also why they called it, I mean, why they're underscoring the temperance aspect of it is that during that, during the period, during prohibition, you know, the wealthy still drank, right? I mean, it was, there was still access to the luxuries of life if you were a certain, had a certain level of affluence. Now we're sort of acknowledging that Westworld is exclusive to people with,

a certain level of affluence. And I think specifically to the 20s, you can see if you want to attract the wealthiest, the most powerful people in the country or in the world, I don't know. I would guess that for like the ruling class of the United States of America, putting on a flapper dress and some, you know,

like baggy slacks and going back to the 20s is much more alluring than going to the Old West or going to where, whatever time in the, you know, whatever more rough and rowdy time of the past, right? I mean, this is basically just like the Father's Day book display at Barnes and Noble for Westworld, right? This is we're trying to get, we're trying to get, this is the crowd that we're trying to attract so we can replace them. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I do want to, I don't actually know a ton about prohibition, but like drinking booze is not just the privilege of the wealthy, right? because, like, you could make bathtub gin and, like, rum runners and all that sort of stuff. I still make that happening. I want to make bathtub. Will you teach me how to make bathtub gin? It's family secret. Oh, damn it. No, no.

It was certainly not. There was, no, no. I mean, the legends of, you know, yeah, like rum running and everything else is, is legend, all that stuff is widespread. But I think that just like so many other things in life, it's, it's, you know, the law, the law was probably not even, I mean, it didn't do much to affect the lives of those wealthy, people at all. Well, I think the big connection between it calls it the Golden Age and Golden Age for Who. And I think

that the big picture of the doing this thing for the 20s, the Roaring 20s, etc. It's like the defining book from the Roaring 20s is Great Gatsby, written by F Scott Fitzgerald. In this episode they quote, F. Scott Fitzgerald's like most famous line, like there are no second acts in American lives. And William's like, well, he,

well, Fitzgerald was an defeat pussy basically saying, fuck that. There are second lies. I am alive again. I die. I died and here I am again as a robot. I think that's the whole point. It's a second act for the hosts. I mean, love that. Love that.

Also, follow up. Of course William is a Hemingway man. Like, obviously. Of course. Like, obviously. I feel like if I knew William in real life, I would never bring up writers in general, just for fear of the Hemingway monologue,

I would get in response. They died in the mud. All right. I think the only other thing that I want to say, is that we should just note that Mave has some measure of control over the host, but not complete perfect measure, like control over them? She's working it out. There's been upgrades.

There have been upgrades. They were created in a different place. Presumably, there's going to be natural differences. Speaking about differences, I know we get to talk about some crazy theories here. Mave is wearing a completely different outfit and has a completely different hair in the last scene as they're walking into the Golden Age world than she was when she left the dress-up room.

And I can't imagine this is an accident. Dude, look, if we're going to go ahead and be like, well, they're in the train and they're in the changing room of the train, I'm going to go just go with like she got freaking changed. And if that's where they're choosing the slate of hand, then like, I'm just done. I'm going to go ahead and say that she got changed in the changing room. Oh, my God.

I mean, she did, but like, okay, I'm going to have to, I'm going to look at this while we're talking about theirs. Like, look at, look at, uh, 40, if, are you on the, are you on HBO or are you on the, the, um, screener? 47, 20, 45 is the last mini scene of them leaving the dress up room. And then the very last scene, obviously, is her emerging. Well, she got ready. It's a long train ride. She changed clothes already. Okay.

Yeah, so she's got that black flapper in her hair still in a ponytail. And then Ford gives his little model, like I mean, watch them walking into the park. And you're right. She looks completely different. Not Ford. No. Oh, sorry. William.

Oh, no, we see her in it on the train. I think, okay, I think she's wearing the same dress. Oh, is it the same? It's the same dress. But Danny's right. There's hair and makeup after the costume room. Right? So they go into the costume room and then she goes into hair and makeup.

because she's on the train she has the different hair and makeup right before she gets off and walks into the park. I think this is Westworld Brain if I've ever seen it. They literally got changed and they got off the train.

But I think it's the same dress that she puts on it's just her hair and her makeup looks different. All right. I'm seeing a different dress here, guys. I'm seeing a different dress. Okay.

I mean, why would they leave that up? Who cares if it's a different dress? Are we actually going to be like it's a completely different timeline because in the dress room, she came out with a different dress? Sometimes it is. Do you know what I mean? No, like that she came out of the changing room in one dress, he's saying, and then they cut to them on the train, pulling into the station, and he thinks she's in a different dress entirely. They're both black, drop waist.

I think it's more likely that we end up, that we end up in a world controlled by hosts than that we are currently in a world in which Jonathan Nolan was just like, what dress was? was she wearing in the last seat? Oh, it doesn't matter. Let's just put her in whatever. Oh, God. Game of Thrones had a coffee cup in one of the finances. Anything's fucking possible. All right. Please email us at Ed Harris bodysuit at gmail.com if you have thoughts and feelings about the two different dresses on Mave. All right. We've touched on some theories here, but Danny Haifis, do you want to hit us in any wild and crazy theories? Well, I just want to do a quick summation of where we're at with where is Dolores. And I just want to kind of take the temperature.

I'm like, so she could be in a park and Manhattan's just a park, right? Yeah. We could do my flavor, which is it's a simulation or a simulation of a park. Right. Right. What if it's a simulation of a simulation of a park? Yes. True tinfoil Tuesday.

You're saying we're all the way down in the snow fortress level of inception? Like all the way down. What are the other options? Like, I don't know. like, I don't know, what if it's just in the future and that version of Manhattan's actually really old and quaint, like, 150 years in the future or something? And, like, the same way William's, like, opening up a new park. What if that's a new park?

And it's actually, like, real in a way, quote unquote. That's what I'm saying. It's a park in Manhattan. So I guess my question is, do we think Dolores is in the same timeline as Maeve? No. Even if we, like, she's a park simulation, something. We don't exactly. We know what's not quite right.

When is Dolores? I don't know. Like, some time later when the phones are thinner. because the phones and the tablets in that world. Like they're already thin in the timeline that we see like Hale and Maven, but they are thin glass, shards of glass essentially. You don't think that's a new model. You think that that's actually a sign that they're even further in the future?

I think they're further in the future. I think and only because I have, my heart is now wrapped around this idea that she is a fly-controlled human trying to boostsrap consciousness. What does human mean? That's not the question of Westworld, Danny? I'm asking you, but you said fly-controlled human. What does that mean? Does she have a host brain and a human body?

I mean, that's a good question. At this point, I don't even know what the difference to your host body and human body is. No, it's such a good question. And that goes back to the whole question of, like, Jim Delos, like fidelity, right? Like, can we create immortality by uploading human consciousness

into a host body. But if that's Dolores, but like it's a host body, so human, but if Dolores is a quote unquote human, I don't think that by any definition should be human unless it was in the past

because it was like Dolores was based on her. What if they can clone and grow human bodies to look however they want them to look in the future? What if it's the past? What if this is like, what if some, I saw someone say this.

What if the, what if this is the human that Dolores was based? based on or something crazy like that. I said that last week and you dismissed me. No, I know. Well, it's crazy when you say it. I think I will say to join it, your point.

If we actually wanted a plot twist, the best plot twist is Dolores is actually a human being. And not like a robot with like an actual brain. Yeah. I think that's, I don't think they're going to do it. But to me, that's like the plot twist that's sitting there if it were in the past. I don't think they're going to do that.

I do think, I don't know, I just keep coming back to she's probably just in an AI world. Well, I mean, that goes back to this whole idea of, like, could she be in the, the, whatever they call it, the sweet hero after, the Great Beyond, the Valley Beyond, where Bernard has gone and where we know Teddy is. So the fact that Teddy is in where she is,

does that mean she's in the Valley Beyond? That's the most compelling evidence of all. I mean, I don't know exactly what it means, but presumably that will be central to whatever the answer is. However, follow me to like back to my pet theory, which is that she is a human in the future being controlled by flies and someone's trying to wake her up. What if Bernard yonks Teddy out of the valley beyond to say, come help me wake up this chick, Christina, who's essentially Dolores, and we're going to wake her up. And he sends Teddy to wake her up and or

protect her. That is Bernard trying to wake her up to prove something. Oh, man. So they genetically created a clone, a human clone of Dolores, and that is Christina. And I don't know why they would do that. But that's the theory. Do you think they would just print humans to like, in their little murder parks and they would just like

be printing more people? I mean, doesn't that sound like something Hale would do? Yeah, actually. I know that I say it does. Can I talk about this thing that Ed Harris said to the Hollywood reporter? Mm-hmm. He said about William

arc this season, host William. He says, hopefully in the course of the season, as the other hosts have done, he'll start growing within, getting a little more consciousness of his own being and expanding his horizons a little bit. Things start changing a bit later in the season. So this idea that, like, host William, who is currently hails like unquestioning henchman, starts to question the nature of his reality or start to resent the leash that he's on. I feel like every Ed Harris interview is trying to speak into reality.

a version of his character that he would rather play. He's like, get me out of this white. I want him back in the black. Even when I'm golfing, put me in a black hat. And also, I want to, I don't know. What do you think, Danny? I think Ed Harris is right.

He's way better as a bad guy. I just love Ed Harris. Just, you know, I really think, I think William is the new Ford. I think that he's just replaced Anthony Hopkins in that role of the show. Anything else in Theory Corner that we want to talk about? any wild and wild and banana.

I don't think we need to do anything wild. I think that we just got to get on the same page. So we think the flies are controlling people's normal people's brains via sound. We do not have to be on the same page. It's the beauty of a Westroo podcast with three different people. I want to know what your page is. I think the flies are controlling people with sound, controlling real brains with sound in some way, in the same way in Dolores' world.

I think the flies are receivers for a signal. Okay. that makes sense to me and that the idea of seeing the tower in where Dolores Christina is is about like waking up to see the thing that's controlling you that the sound like the Mesa in season one

like the little control room they had yes yeah I like that the tower is like the Mesa okay there we go I think that's good I think it's a good theory corner progress was made let's do a quick look ahead and wrap up so the title of next week's episode is Wow, my French is rusty.

Anna Falaix? Is that how I would pronounce it? Which means The Crazy Years, which is a French name given to the Rory 20s. So we can imagine that we're going to spend more time in the 20s park and hopefully see Bernard and Stubbs at Long Last in episode three. Anything else forward looking you guys want to talk about? Crazy Years kind of gets into the whole signal thing with the sound. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I'm excited to see some more old. friends and I don't know. I mean, I feel like just having this conversation, I've spent the past 20 minutes, like I feel like on the verge of trying to wrap my head around what's going on here. I know I won't get there. But I just feel like we're on the cusp of some major space-time revelation, and I can't wait to get there. I feel so confident in my current theory, but that's how I felt last week. And that's the beauty of Westworld is like I might believe something very different next week. For the record, I kind of

buy into your theory, but I don't think that's, I think even if I bought into it 100%, that's not the real answer that I'm looking for, right? Like, I think that just like the answer, like, the answer of like the timeline question or like, you know, why it's mean, like, that's the, I don't know,

I think it's, I think it's going to land, hopefully they'll stick the landing, but I think it's going to come with a little bit, I don't know, it'll, it'll, I feel like we're almost there. Danny, anything else who Jose? Just town is big enough for the three of us.

We can all peacefully coexist. Who's who in this? Danny? I'm the emissary of the New World Order. Right. Uh-huh. David is. Remember that bartender in the first season?

We just kind of, you know, just... A lady with the white shoes. Kind of broke, we keep them in a body bag when we don't need them. Let's drink to the lady in the white shoes. That guy? Love it. Old Bill? Yeah, old Bill.

Yeah. Good old Bill. And me, Danny? You are Dolores. I think I'm, which one? The murdering tail, Dolores. Well, that depends on the moment, actually. I think you move in and out of all of them.

Great, love it. I am, I contain multitudes of Doloress in my head. Great. I love that for me. We are done. We did it. We got so many good emails that, like, I tried to reference here and there, but like, we got a ton of great emails, really nice stuff about Danny's theories.

Everyone loves the email ads. address that David came up with. So, like, please do email us at Harris.Badysuit at Jammel.com really, really helps us get the conversation going. This episode was produced by the great Carlos Chiroboga. We'll be back next week on Monday. We just were day late because of the holiday, but we'll be back next week on Monday to talk about episode three. And we will see you then. Bye. See you later. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures.

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