The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Westworld' Season 4, Episode 6 Recap

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Joanna, David, and Danny break down 'Westworld' Season 4, Episode 6, “Fidelity.” First, they recap everything that happened in the episode (2:37). Then, they discuss Caleb’s journey throughout the episode and what Charlotte’s plans are for him (9:22). Later, they discuss Frankie and what is going on with the human resistance (34:37), before going to Theory Corner (57:40). 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

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Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Hello, welcome back from the prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today are the originals and definitely not duplicates of themselves. Danny Haifis and David Shoemaker. Hi, guys. How are you doing? Thank you for overlooking all the gashes on my face and assuming the best.

I only know what I told me. that's actually like I think extremely true of you Danny I love that um wow geez I don't know how to take that you're you're you're very I don't know I that was a compliment I'll explain later why okay program reminders before we get into Westworld we're here to talk about Westworld and theory but um before we do that I just want to let you know that in this feed Ben Lindberg and I are covering better call saw in which this last week I kicked off such a Cineban scandal that I got an email to this podcast about what I said about Cinebond. So, you know, spreading. They're sending you other, they're sending you hate mail to other addresses now.

It's not hate mail. It's just someone wanted to talk to me about Cinebond, but they emailed this podcast instead of the other one. I was like, I know you told me to text, but I decided to email you anyway because you haven't been responding. I mean, if you're not caught up with Better Call Sol, you should get caught up. It's almost the show's ending. It's incredibly good. Carol Burnett is part of the cast now, I guess. Fantastic stuff. So go check that out. I don't know what else is going on the Prestige TV podcast feed. Not much

as far as I know. It's just these two, but what great shows we have for you here? So, you know, follow us on social if you want to check out what's coming up next. Spoiler warning, we are spoiling up through season four, episode six, Fidelity,

directed by Andrew Seckler and written by Jordan Goldberg. And that's it. We have not, we don't even have screeners for the next two episodes. We haven't seen them. We don't know what's coming. So this is it up through episode six. So before we get into our analysis of the episode, David Schumacher, would you remind us what happened this week on Westworld? A glitching and deteriorating Caleb tries to escape Olympiad Entertainment headquarters with the help of several previous versions of himself, only to find out that it was Hale's plan all along for him to do so. He manages to get one last message out to

his daughter, Frankie. Frankie, meanwhile, is in Temperance World, the burnt-out version with Bernard and a dried out version of Maeve. When her team comes back with a host spy hiding in plain sight, Frankie has to decide who to trust. She finally chooses Maeve, who is fully revived and rehydrated, and who saves the day at the last minute. Pretty simple, just like two plot lines that we're following this week.

Two plot lines, and yet, because of all the flashing around with Caleb, every time I feel like I had to reorient myself to remind myself that he was in the present tense of the story. Did you find that, like, frustratingly confusing, or did you enjoy it? No, I kind of, I think because everything else was so straightforward, it was a nice little reminder that, you know,

nothing's ever as it seems or whatever. But, but yeah, it was, this season has been relatively, I mean, in Westworld terms, incredibly straightforward. And this is sort of maybe the most straightforward of straightforward parts of the whole season. But it really, I don't know, I really, I really enjoyed the flow. It's funny to say by Westworld standards, but you're right. And even though it's an episode where there's like 278 versions of Caleb, this was like conventional television. There was like a straightforward mystery and they solved it by like the end of the episode almost.

I mean, it was just they're solving these mysteries at the end of the episode and I think it's leading to better television. I thought this was pretty good. And again, they're preserving this sense of mystery, this sense of intrigue. They're not forcing you to like do your homework or eat your vegetables just to like get to the end. It's like a fun to get there. And then at the end, there's also kind of like a reward for getting.

I'm enjoying this season. I think that again, they just continue to write the ship. You're right. The mystery being that Caleb's entire escape was Hale's plan, right, to try to get something else out of him, which makes perfect sense. And which, like we've talked about in previous episodes, I'm sure both of you had copious notes about why Caleb was being able to get away with all of the stuff that he was getting away with in the escape, right? And then they just sort of put it, they tie it in the bow for you. It makes the whole thing much more gratifying when you realize you're asking the right questions and then they answer them for you. Because the escape is one thing, but you could imagine in a previous season that the escape being part of Charlotte's plan would have been like a much more central mystery that we took, you know, half the season to figure out. Can you imagine waiting 23 years to figure out why your plan isn't working? And then after 23 years, and they're like, it's because everyone hates you.

It's because you're a bad mom. It's tough. You're a bad mom. Yeah, a friend of mine texted me during the episode. And he's like, why isn't custodial cleaning up all these dead Caleb's? And then because that's the plan. The lack of cameras is the funniest part about Westworld. There are 80 years in the future.

But like, you can just walk down the hallways and leave a dead body there for weeks. And it's like, yeah, it's cool. I mean, if it's part of the boss's plan, you know. The lack of awareness of the host drones, too. I mean, I guess they have pretty limited. I mean, you could explain it by them having pretty limited sort of ambits, you know, like they're not supposed to do that much stuff. But if they're going to be the front line of defense or everything bad that happens in the

in the labs, maybe they should have a little bit more peripheral vision or something. Let me do a... Eyes. Let me do... Yeah, eyes would be helpful. Let me do a brief little lit major corner and explain to Danny what I meant about what I said earlier. So the tagline for this episode is, to thine own self be true. To thine own selves be true.

A little spin on Polonius's advice and Hamlet. I feel like, Danny, you are like, to thine own self be true, the most to thine own self be true person I know. I love that you, like, have your ideas and you stick to your guns. And it's a thing I love learning about you while doing the show. So that's what I meant. But we got a listener email about Hamlet before, I think, this episode drop. And Derek wrote, you know, the main image for this season is a skull with a pearl in it and a robot hand holding the skull. That's like the poster image for this season.

Derek wrote, the way the robot hand is holding the skull reminds me of Hamlet's little. holding Yorick's skull, like almost literally if you Google Hamlet's skull, it'll be a hand theoretically holding a skull like that robot is. People have probably been unable to hold human skulls, well, normal people anyway, without thinking of Hamlet for 400 plus years. Anyway, the Hamlet reference would make the fundamental, quote-unquote, choice that Lisa Joy has reference for the season, a pretty old one, to be or not to be. And one, it seems that the hosts are going to have to fundamentally make. That's excellent. It's an excellent email. Honestly, that's almost as good of an email as Ed Harris bodysuit at Gmail.com gets other than all the Cinnibon stuff.

Until we hear from Cinebun corporate, that's the standard error. We got one email from a guy today who was like, you can just cite me as Aaron Paul's ashy handprint or something like that, which I think is right up there with Ed Harris bodysuit. There's one other Shakespeare reference in this episode when Stubbs calls the unkindest cut, meaning Frankie sort of tying them up. and not trusting them, and that's from Julius Caesar. This Hamlet stuff, to put it eloquently, how do you feel about it, David, Shoemaker? How do I feel about it? It's insertion of, I mean, it's existence in the show.

I mean, I think it's fantastic, frankly. I like that, I think I said it last week. I have no problem with the sort of litany of references literary and otherwise that go into the sort of creative makeup of the show, the robot DNA, if you will. But I do think that sort of inherent in the entire premise of the show is that storytelling is very simple, right? That it's just sort of this, it's this inherent, very old thing. And we tell some of the same stories over and over again.

And I think that referencing something is as brilliant and straightforward as Hamlet is a much more sort of compelling literary reference, especially when you pile everything else on top than a lot of other things would be. I just want you guys on the record. Are you guys team to be or team not to be? I don't know. Have I woken up in a dystopia where there's fly goop in my head or not? It really depends on the circumstance. I'm team to be, guys.

Team to be. I'm team to be unless I'm a flygoop zonby. And then maybe I'm team not to be. I don't know. I like keeping your options open smart show. Thanks. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zep bound terseptide may be able to

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Charlotte's Web as I've decided to call it. First I want to shout out. Thanks. First I want to shout out the hourglass that she has, which is a phenomenal prop, first of all. Secondly, the red sand it made me think of the wicked witch of the West and the Wizard of Oz because that's an hourglass with red sand in it that comes to mine. Also, there was an hourglass in the Delos, like where they had Jim Delos, there was like a big, hourglass in that chamber to that that circular chamber where Delos was undergoing his fidelity test. And one last Witters of Odds thing I want to say is that William said it's another like Hale Ford parallel because in season two when Ford and William meet at the bar at a fundraiser, William says Ford, what's Oz doing without its wizard?

So if like Ford is the wizard of Oz and Hale is the wicked witch of Oz, possibly. or she's her own spin on the wizard, who knows? But how do you guys feel about what Tessa Thompson's doing this season with all the scenery she gets to chew? I think her acting is phenomenal. I think that I kind of attempted to give her dumbest person award for the end of the show, the reveal, where she, I mean, let's be honest.

By the end of the show where it's like she's letting Caleb do all this, I'm not going to give her like master plan status when it took you 23 years just to kind of get, again, it's because you are like you suck and everyone hates you. I think the paranoia of like you must be infecting my people. Like I think that plot, it's probably like a little tough that like this overall overarching all knowing bad person villain ultimately just kind of got like owned by Caleb. However, Tessa Thompson has a wonderful actress and like she's just a cold icy stare

that makes me want to curl up in a ball. Yeah, I mean, she's been doing a lot of scenery chewing but hasn't a lot, hasn't had the opportunity for a lot of breadth this season. especially compared to some of her co-stars. But there were a couple of moments in this one when she told, you know, said, Caleb, you're not the only one that lost somebody.

And then again at the end where there was, I don't know, it was an incredibly, the first one, incredibly profound, just an incredible acting job because she didn't go full Caleb, right? She wasn't like pounding on the glass and crying. It was a little, little thing. But it was somehow more meaningful

than something much broader would have been. Absolutely perfect. I think the funniest moment of this series to date is a week ago when she was like, chair, like that really even a week later is the best moment. But I also still think the fact when she just references, you're not the only one who's lost something. But there's no overt references to like her, you know, Charlotte Hills family dying last season. I still feel like the show is putting a ton of distance between them in season three.

And they're kind of just hoping, you know what? Let's call a Mulligan on that. I think you're right. Honestly, I think that's true. I mean, I think it's useful for people like, because I've heard a lot of people, I've had a lot of people ask me, I drop season three, do I have to finish it? Or do I even have to watch season three to catch up with season four? I hear it's good, stuff like that.

I would recommend people find a recap with some, because I think it's useful to know that that's Dolores inside of Charlotte Hale, which you won't get unless you watch last season. But does that matter in the end? Because she's really just hailing it up more so than ever. Like, does it matter that that's Dolores in there? I don't know. What do you guys think? I think it will matter at the end a lot.

I think it will matter a great deal for why we get the ultimate explanation for why Christina Dolores, whatever, is still roaming around this show. Otherwise, no. You don't really need to know much from season three, honestly. Because, like, the irony is the backstory Caleb has in season four isn't even from season three. I'm a little bit conflicted about it, too, because I'm not entirely sure that technologically or whatever that it's going to matter.

Certainly it could matter. But I think that, I think, like Danny said, says if at the end it is meaningful that it's Christina, Christina's Pearl, or sorry, Dolores's Pearl and Hale's Head. Even if that matters, would you even remember it if you had watched season three before this? I mean, I think it's going to require a little bit of back. You'd probably be watching that season three catch up video again by the end of season

four anyway, so I think you can skip it. I mean, everything that's been told in the season has been really. internally. Yeah, it's made sense, right? It's a lot of explanation, internal logic, just enough to keep you going. And like we said over and over again, the momentum of the season is what matters,

more so than the, you know, backstory. I'm curious what you guys think. I mean, I know that, you know, as Danny has referenced, Caleb says this thing at the end of like, it's not our outlierdom that's, like, infecting you guys. It's you being a bad host mom.

That's the problem. But if we remember, remove that that speech from Caleb. This idea that it all started with Caleb, that this outlierdom starts with Caleb, it didn't last season, but let's say this season it all starts with Caleb. Like, what does he have that Hale doesn't have as you understand it in this episode? Do you have a better, like we asked this last week, but like I'm curious if your ideas about it have changed this week, Danny?

I think it's still got to be like love or empathy because I think that Hale's probably like Hale, you know, she's literally uncomfortable in her own skin, right? And she asked Clementine, like, do you ever, like, so I forget the quote, but something like, do you ever, like, not want to be in your own skin? And Clem's like, no, I don't have that problem. And I felt like, I prefer the sheep. Yeah. Yeah, I prefer the sheep.

I mean, same, right? But I think, I at first interpreted that as Hale having that issue because Hale was put in, like, a real person's body, a real DNA, whatever. And then Clem was kind of made out of Hull-Claught. off. And so Clem is Clem, but Hale is like not really Hale. But Caleb, I don't know, because Caleb's also real person who's been put in Caleb's body and like in theory he might have that same issue. I don't know. But I guess that I think that there's probably some fundamental empathy that Hale is lacking. Maybe because like Charlotte Hale's consciousness was not put in

Charlotte Hill's body. Dolores was. But at the flip side, there's probably something deeper than that about just love. I really think that, you know, the flashbacks you get of Caleb with his daughter and stuff, like, I don't know if Haleck loves anything. And I don't know. It's how sappy, but I don't know how many things they could really be talking about.

Listen, Christopher, like, love being the core answer is a classic Nolan move, honestly. Shemaker, what do you think? Just dead wives and love. Yeah. That's the Nolan. That's what it's all about. Dead wives that you loved and you are dead now.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that, you know, in both instances, this episode and before, when he said, I have something you don't have, my instinct, and this runs contrary to everything about Westfield, my instinct was it kind of given both the most surface reading possible. And this episode, like, obviously it means something deeper, but did Caleb, the character at that moment actually have some kind of great insight, I guess, is my question, or if it's just like he's saying anything that will have a resonance? this episode in particular felt like both incredibly profound and like exactly what you would say if you were just trying to be a dick right like you know like it's not yes so so do you i mean did he really know something when he said that did he have some deeper knowledge or was he just trying to get under her skin no pun intended i feel we should have a no pun intended like horn blaring throughout this entire show um so and then but then that i really had the same thing when he said

it last now i have something you don't have well what would caleb the character meant by that It's sort of like egotistical, like I care about something, right? I have love, you just have hate, right? I mean, that's sort of, that's sort of what the human would say in that moment absent any sort of, you know, discreet knowledge of her plan or of her, you know, anatomical makeup. But could it also be like, could it be entirely true? Yeah.

I mean, he has, he has, he has love, you know, he has a, and he has a, what we saw today is he, when he was C being his daughter. He has like a purpose, you know? And I guess you wouldn't say that Hale doesn't have a purpose, but her purpose is definitionally something very different. Like, you know. I think that it was right. Like when he said that and then she like broke his neck in like two seconds,

she then like stared deep. She clearly seemed to be contemplating jumping off the building. And I think that she felt like it landed. Like when someone you hate tells you something about yourself and they're right, like that sucks. And it seemed like she was realizing that he was right while she was up there. I think this ties into like a great who is Christina theory that that might come out of all of this. But I feel like I agree with, I agree with Schemaker completely that like both things that Caleb said, I is something you don't have.

And also this is all your fault. Everyone just wants to get away from you. Sounds like something you would say to be a dick and get the upper hand on someone who has the clear upper hand on you. But if we want to try to parse it, it could possibly be this idea of mortality and having. a kid, someone to live for, but also someone to die for. I feel like it's all sort of interrelated as far as the Lisa Joy and Jenna Nolan see it. They're obsessed with this idea of parenthood. They always have been in this show. And I think this idea of like, your time is finite and then your child picks up your legacy and goes on forward without you and their time is finite and it goes

on and on and on like that. Not like you have to have a child to have your legacy go on, but like that your time is finite. You are here to shepherd in the next generation. And that goes on and on. And that is obviously not something the hosts have. They are both immortal. And they don't really have parenthood the same way. They make baby hosts, but it's not really the same thing. Do you know what I mean? I thought the way that Aaron Paul delivered, she's alive. My girl is alive and you can't catch her, can you? Was just like perfect use of the Aaron Paul melodrama. I just loved it. I thought it was great. And he's not always over the top in this episode, but when he is, it was just sort of like pitch perfect use.

You know what I mean? As good as he's been this season, I think it was the last episode in particular, just the twitching he did at the end of this episode. I'm not even being sarcastic. In the last conversation with Charlotte, when he was having a little bit of the, a little bit of the hosties or whatever. Jim Delos. Yeah. Yeah.

He was, it was really, I mean, just really compelling stuff. Two things about Aaron Paul. One, you mentioned Better Call Saul. The only, breaking bad, the only thing I was missing from this episode when he was like, because everyone hates you, bitch! Like, I just wanted it so badly. But also, the after the episode for this, Aaron Paul was like interviewed and basically you could, like, he was talking about filming the episode.

But he was clearly being interviewed, like, on set while they were filming stuff because his hands are like bloody and he's got like bandages. on and he's got the makeup on. He looks like a, like a heroin addict. Yeah. He looks like a corpse. He was, and it's so funny to see Aaron Paul, like ostensibly as a normal person,

but then it's, and he just looks like he's been in the pit and breaking bat or something. Like, he just looks dead, but he's talking and excited. And it was unbelievable. Yeah, he was super clammy. The bangs were all sort of like must up.

It was a whole, it was a whole vibe. Maybe it's just Daniel DeLuis. He's like that all the time. Yeah. I mean, I would love that. Maybe the bangs never come off now. Is Caleb actually dead or is he on eyes like William? What do you think?

I don't think we have a shred of evidence to suggest he's alive, right? He's dead until the show gives us even an iota. Like, I think we should just take the word that he's dead. And the question of like, is he human or not if you've been replicated is like more intriguing to me of like whether, well, maybe he's just stashed somewhere and a bank. Well, I think it's important to make a distinction between the robot, the host version of William that we've seen and Kayla, because what becomes really true, like, evident in this episode is they haven't mastered fidelity, right?

Like, because he's still doing the Jim Delos glitching and deteriorating thing. And so whatever is happening with the host character Ed Harris is playing, as he said last week, he's just Charlotte's Code, right? So we've got Ed Harris on ice and a bodysuit there to undergo a fidelity test whenever we decide he's ready to do that. But that's not what's going on with the host version of him that's walking around. That's a different thing versus her trying to replicate Caleb's consciousness in a printed body, right?

That those are two different things. Yeah. I guess my, maybe this is just too sort of practical and answer to the question. I think seeing Caleb being printed at the end sort of points our way forward that like the next Caleb we see will probably be that one and not a human one. Am I reading that correctly? No, I think you're right. And also, I just think that, again, from a practical point of view, is she going to spend

23 years with this failure of a host trial when she has the real dude, like on ice in the back? Great point. Danny. Like, does it matter? Well, here, let me hit you with it. I think Caleb's dead, the original human dude. Okay.

We're just getting the new hosts. Lisa Joy said about this Caleb that we see here, who is maybe a host human hybrid. Maybe this is the future we're talking about. She says there's so much humanity in him. It's illogical. He's fighting for something bigger than himself. He's fighting for his daughter. So I think that lack of logic is something that Lisa Joy has identified as a very human trait, that a host would never fail and fail and fail and fail.

fail and fail and fail again, but a human would. And that makes Caleb different from a number, you know, like a Bernard, who is an Arnold sort of reimagined, but is not the same as putting a human consciousness in a host body. And I think that's interesting. Like, is this the host human, if they master fidelity, is this the host human hybrid future that we've been sort of wondering about, you know? Wait, is it, you mean, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, it's impossibility. Is that it? Is that what you're saying?

Well, like, that this is like that, that Caleb here and Jim Delos and I guess William at the end of season two are all these host human are the only versions of a host human hybrid we've seen so far. And is mastering fidelity, is mastering fidelity, is master. mastering that combination, the key to the future for, you know, the hosts and humans. Well, I think the whole plan is a little bit, you know, is going haywire. I mean, I'm not sure it's a great plan to start off with. But yeah, they got to figure that out.

I mean, it does seem a little bit weird. And I know that it's probably meaningful that Dolores is the basic makeup of Charlotte Hale at this point, right? But also, but, but fidelity testing somebody who, you don't really know, doesn't seem like it really fits the criteria, right? I mean, isn't the sort of point of all the early fidelity tests we saw that you had to have just the most intimate relationship

with somebody to know them to be able to tell if they were tracking in the right direction? I wouldn't get caught up on all that. I feel like they just can recreate his one, two days in the park, and that's close enough if they can get it to exactly what he did. I feel like the overarching point is that Caleb's going to, like he might continue to be in the show,

but like it's as a robot. The human guy's dead. And it's, as Joe said, like that continual human urge. I agree with that. And I think what we saw with Caleb is that he's a little bit, he's different even as a host, right? That he was able to get as far as he got. And, you know, he could probably, he could probably make it out in the world, right? I mean, is his outlier status?

And I think that, I think that William is also an outlier. You know, if previous, if season three matters at all. I think that William is also an outlier. And like, does being an outlier mean it's easier to get to a host human hybrid situation that works or not? I don't know. We have this great email from listener Mallory who ran down like sort of all the sci-fi inspoes for this episode. We got a lot of emails about a particular Doctor Who episode called Heaven Sent, which is very similar to the Caleb plot line in this episode. but she she pointed out the 2009 British film The Triangle, the film Moon, great film.

V for Fendetta, the scene where Natalie Portman escapes her imprisonment only to find out that V sort of like faked her imprisonment the whole time. Terminator 2, that has more to do with like, who do you trust? Do you trust a mave or do you trust, you know, a human and that sort of stuff? And then Oblivion, which is a film that I need to rewatch, but another great sci-fi film about clones. And Mallory was saying that she thought maybe the ending of that film might point us to the ending of this. But something that I thought was really interesting in terms of inspirations is this, Caleb's journey here in that episode, Doctor Who, by the way, remind me a lot of a video game. Like, this feels like a video game got to make it to the tower to send the message and hear all the clues along the way of, how you get through that.

And we got an email from a listener about how Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are gamers. And so they've got like, there's Shakespeare in here and there's classic sci-fi in here, but there's also gamer inspiration in here. And one thing that our listener pointed out in that email was that the tower tones are very similar to the lighthouse tones in the game, Bioshock. I'm not a gamer. So I was completely unaware of this. but I went and watched like a video of the lighthouse in Bioshock.

It is very similar, like tone-wise. So that's like, that's a major chunk of inspiration that I always like miss because I'm not a gamer. Are you, are either of you like gamers? Do you recognize video game fingerprints over across this episode? No. No, Danny. I mean, I play enough video games to recognize all the Red Dead redemption stuff in the first couple seasons.

Uh-huh. I think if anything, the video game stuff is Maybe eats at some of the worst habits of the show Which is video games, open world video games famously have like very Like very cool to explore them But sometimes the actual like base storytelling is very basic And I actually think sometimes that DNA is spilled a little too much into the show if anything But I think the most video gamey stuff that happens is the first

Is like Sweetwater the first season when you walk down Main Street of the town and Westworld, and everyone's like, you want to do this? And they're all just side quests in like Red Dead Redemption, basically. I want to say something to derail us for a second about Oblivion. Yeah.

Great movie. Yeah. I love that movie. Yeah. The ending, and maybe I just, maybe I'm not, wasn't following it correctly. The ending was just so tonally off

because it was like this happen, I don't know, at the risk of spoiling it, I won't go into any great detail. It was set up as this happy ending and just the idea of it was just so inherently sad to me. Do you, have you guys seen it? Yeah. Basically, it's, it's, it's, but it's, it's a problem that Westworld's going to have to grapple with.

So, okay, I guess I will spoil it. So basically just like, there are a lot of. Spoilers for oblivion. I mean, I've seen it obviously, but for the people there's lots of not seen oblivion. There's, the short version is there's many Tom Cruise's in this story, right? We think that there's one. It turns out there's like one in every, you know, postal code or whatever. And then at the end, the hero Tom Cruise dies.

But then one of the innumerable, presumably clones eventually finds his wife, the main one's wife and child. And it's like, hooray, we've reunited. And I understand that the clone is still sort of him and that this is, you know, the family's back together in some weird way. But I feel like that way only really works. when it's like we as the viewer know that know this Tom Cruise person. And like we kind of like it's we can't really disassociate them.

But in fact it's like we're supposed to be happy that someone else who looks like your husband has found you. Like it's just it. That's also the plot for Rick and Morty and their answers don't think about it. How did he also like downloaded though like the other like Tom Cruise

Primes like emotions? It's still very it's still a little bit just There just seems like a weird dissonance there. And again, that's what Westworld's going to have to deal with, right? I mean, it's like if you lost your dad and then 25 years later, a guy that looks exactly like your dad at the age which you last saw him appears, man, that first hug is going to feel good. And then you're going to like look across the room at him a second later and just be like,

this is the most disturbing thing that's ever happened to me. One more thing I'll say in favor of Oblivion, if folks haven't seen it, it's directed by Joseph Kaczynski who did Top Gun Maverick, like Tom Cruise liked Kaczynski's work on Olivia. and so much that he gave him, like, his long-cherished baby, which is Top Gun Maverick, and that movie rules.

So check out Oblivion, Kaczynski and Cruz. Oh, it is a really good movie. I mean, and if you haven't seen it, and sorry about the whole spoiler thing, but it's like, it's really, really well done.

Something that, that Lauren, who's our listening who wrote in about the gaming thing, pointed out is that, like, so Charlotte is doing this whole, like, bored god act. And a lot of that is sort of, like,

on the nose in terms of, like, she's looking down, from the top of Olympiad entertainment and like Lisa Joy is super into the Greek pantheon. She wrote this 2011 graphic novel called Headache about Athena. You know, she says to in the scene that Danny referenced earlier to Clemtime, she says these humas, they're petty defiances, everything they do is so small, it's exhausting. That's classic like bored god talk. But what Lauren points out is that what Charlotte Hill actually is,

is someone who has beat the game and is bored that is just like playing the game. game on a level where nothing is challenging anymore. Lauren wrote, there's one thing I know about playing a video game is that once you level up all your powers and get all the outfits and the weapons and the base upgrades, but especially the outfits and you can one shot kill everything. The game is

boring. It's no fun if you can't be surprised or scared. Sometimes if you have all the power, what do you strive for? And this is William in season one, right? It's kind of just again, the mirror image. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, if you ever talk to somebody who's like, you know,

made it big, you know, say, if you ever had a coworker that promoted to an executive, whatever, a lot of times the complaint would be like, well, I don't have time to do what I love anymore. All I get to, all I have to do is like, like, like, being board meetings and stuff like that. It seems like Charlotte's exactly the opposite. Like, she's reached the highest level what she can possibly reach. And all she has time for is the most menial shit that she could possibly have been doing before. She just is going to, like, constantly be in glass rooms with Caleb and having, like, awkward drinks with, with Christina. You know, it's like there's, I mean, maybe she sets her plan in motion, there's nothing really left to do. But the big, we haven't

really seen a lot of her doing big thing stuff. But maybe this is the big, like maybe this is all part of a bigger plan that we don't fully understand yet because we don't have the full picture yet. Yeah, not a lot of delegating, I guess is what I'm saying. But I guess that would make for a really, that would make for a much less fulfilling story. If it was just like somebody else doing a new character doing all the work with Caleb and we see Dolores like checking in. I mean, sorry, see you hail checking in for 10 seconds at the end of every episode. Well, I think that, like, in terms of delegation, isn't it, like, Clementine and William are sort of, like, running point on the park? And so, like, they're running day-to-day operations in the park.

And so she's here, like, doing her god tier, I don't know, whatever it is that she's doing. She delegates chairs. I don't know what else you need her to delegate. Do you see that shot where she, like, looked at the empty chair? And I couldn't tell if she was just, like, thinking about Caleb in that moment because he was sitting in that chair. or if she was like, I wish this chair were made of humans. Like, I don't know. I don't know what that moment was about.

Something I love that we get at the end of this episode is when she like, when she burns all the Caleb's, now we know why there were all those people burning in cells in the opening credits, right? Like that shot of people burning in their little chambers, I guess, is from this episode. So that's fun. All right. So meanwhile, back at the ranch, we got a couple listeners sort of giving us feedback. on the debate we had last week about

where are all the humans? Are all the humans in this Manhattan? Or are they elsewhere? And a bunch of listeners pointed out that there were at least a few humans in that diner where Stubbs had his tuna melt. So there are at least some humans outside the park. So my idea that they were all in the park

was stupid and bullshit. So exactly how far-flung they are or if they're all controlled by fly goop, we don't know. But there are some humans out there, like not just, you know, see in her rebels, but like people who make tuna melts and diners are also out there. But here's my big question for you.

So like Bernard and Frankie go underground in the temperance world and there's a bunch of dust everywhere. Is there enough dust there that you could see season two post credits William waking up there? Is that enough dust to like, put us in the same time period. Hold on. I don't know if I'm following you enough. Say that again? So at the end of season two and the season two stinger, William wakes up in this like goes down underground and there's a bunch of dust,

everything and everything looks derelict and dusty and old. And then he sees a version of his daughter who's not real. And she says the thing to him about fidelity and she says that he's been down there a long time. And our question ever since that season two stinger is, how long have they been testing fidelity on William? And my question is... Oh, that's easy. I can answer that.

Okay. They have no idea. They just put it in the forge, so it's a simulation, and then they'll figure out how long it's been later when they figure out when they want to write it. Yeah, I think I said it earlier this season. We might be there.

It wouldn't be, like, shocking to find out that we were there. It does feel like a little bit of a different, obviously, like I just said, Hale's been spending, seems to be, you know, taking point in the fidelity testing on Caleb, um, it would be interesting. It would have been interesting if she had taken that host version of,

of Frankie and had, had host Frankie be doing the fidelity testing. I mean, that would at least get a different angle. And maybe she's tried that. Who knows? But this is, you know,

obviously you can, you can definitely see a parallel between what would happen to William in that scene and what happened to Caleb in this episode. Seems like a little bit philosophically distant in time, but it could be as simple as, well, that's what we tried next. That was next year. That was last year. Like, whatever.

Well, hold on. Hold on. Am I missing something here, Joe? So at the end of season two, which is back when basically William was like losing his mind and like, you know, he kills his daughter in the park and then thought she was a host and then thought she was a host. And like, basically we're like, oh, is William a human? Is he a host? He can't even tell. And then the end of season two, we see this thing and we're like, oh, it seems like,

like there's a copy of William in the forge, and they've been fidelity testing him like James Delos, right? That's what you're referring to. Yeah, but James Delis wasn't fidelity tested in the forge. He was fidelity tested in the real world. So I thought he was a simulation of... I don't know if that was a simulation at the end of season two or if it was real.

I think you're right that they could... They could yada yada and make it a simulation if they wanted to easily. You're right. I guess my point is I don't know why it matters because they did this thing in the future. And at the end of season two, that was interesting because, oh, William seems like he's a host. But now we literally have William walking around as a host.

So I don't know how that scene could come back and it would be like... There's a difference between putting William's human consciousness in a host body and fidelity testing him and creating a host that looks like William, which is what Hale has done. But we don't think that he's William? No, he said he's made of Charlotte's Code. Like the host version of him is not the same as the human version of him because he's made of Charlotte's Code versus this is what I was trying to talk about earlier versus Caleb who is Caleb's consciousness inside a human body. But the host version of William is just built from Hale's Code. Yeah, see, this is where the show I think has really struggled to like outline the boundaries because I agree with that.

That's the same thing with Charlotte and Dolores, except because they're trying to erase season three. They basically want you to think, they want you to forget that she's not Charlotte Hale. You know what I mean? Like she's Dolores, but the show has actively gone away from reminding you she's Dolores. They're like, oh, yeah, she's Charlotte Hale. She's evil. And then William gets replicated, put in a William body. And they're like, but he's not William.

I'm like, this is the thing where I have trouble following it. And honestly, there's a certain point where as a viewer, you just have to be like, you know what? There's a certain point of the viewers don't get it. It's like it's bad. It's like they kind of want to have their cake both ways. Yeah. Well, I agree with that. And I think it's just as something as simple as what we saw this episode with the, with the recreation, the rebirth of Mave.

When they took the brain ball out of the, you know, the random host that was on the, yeah, Chicago Hector. Which is kind of meaningful, probably for later. Yeah. And maybe that was a really specific choice. But, you know, just normal. conventional wisdom, you would think that the most inherent part, the most significant part of creating a life form would be the thing that came out of the brain and got stuck in the brain and that's not just like the Dura cell battery that keeps it going. You know what I mean?

Like, I don't know. Exactly. So generally with that stuff, I just, I sort of force, like, force myself to hand-wave it because I don't, I'm sure it'll be explained enough when it matters. Okay. All right. That's fair enough. Then let me ask you this question for something that matters in this episode, which is that Bernard. while he's doing one thing which is transferring Mave's unit, her brain from one unit to another to put a fresher unit in her head. But he's also mapping C's brain at the same time.

He's scanning C and she discovers that. Frankie discovers that. Why do you think he's making a copy of her? He said it's complicated. Mm-hmm. Not a great way to get your life saved. think that if you want to get into like what we think we're big talking theories if you have a if you want a theory corner i have a whole theory and what's going on here can i can i wait can i jump in real

quick i thought this is not an answer your question so who cares if i would feel free to fast forward through this listeners i really thought when c put her girlfriend in that room i thought that the twist was going to be now she knows how to work the mirror and she can use the mirror to find out if her girlfriend is a human or not like that would have been like a better plot point honestly yeah probably That would have been superior to what actually happened. Then Jay being like, you're like a sister to me. And she's like, aha, I know from a flashback that this cannot be you. Because honestly, can you, how funny would it been if she like killed him?

And then he was actually a human. And he was like, it was character growth. Yeah. You are my sister now. You weren't the day that I met you. I changed my mind. Only robots are allowed to grow. in Westworld.

Remember the rules here. Danny, what's your theory about what's going on with Bernard and Frankie? So I think that the show had the single most plot significant sentence

of the last two seasons. And it was Bernard saying, and I want to get it exactly right because it's really freaking important. He said, he told C that Westworld was simulated as a park before they built it.

And the quote is, the people who built the original park and hosts, they started by first, they started first by building them in a simulation. Charlotte Hale did the same thing. I think this does something immediately for this season and also sets up the end game for the entire series. For this season, what this means, and I'll read it again, the people who built the original park and hosts, they started first by building them in a simulation, Charlotte Hale did the same thing. I think what this means for season four is that Dolores or sorry, Christina, God, I will never get that right.

Christina is in a simulation. I think that's why she's in control of so many people. I think that she's writing everything we've seen in Christina is the practice for eventually what we are seeing with like the Caleb stuff, the world where Caleb's wife and daughter are trying to extract people from the world. That's the real world. Christina is in the practice simulation world that they used before they built that. I feel pretty confidently about that.

I mean, that's definitely a very strong reading of that line. I had a similar thought that, like, you know, this, that could be the reading. I'm still, I'm not 100% sure about that. And here's something I will say. And you can hand wave all of this away with it all being a simulation. But when I was asking a question last week, like, are we in different timelines? Or are they trying to make us think that Christine is in the same place as Caleb and she's not? One piece of evidence that some of our, a bunch of our listeners emailed us about was that homeless man who was in Christina's storyline.

Oh, yeah. And then who was shot and killed in the Caleb storyline. So that man who is there in Christina's. So that could be part of the simulation. Like, I'm not saying it's not. But, like, that is something that a lot of people pointed to as, like, connecting the two timelines, that crossover of that man. But it could very well be. Another interpretation of that line reading for Bernard is just like when she made temperance world,

she built everything in a simulation before she made temperance world. Yeah, that's, I think, the surface reading. That's the surface reading. But I think you're reading Danny and David sounds like all three of us have the same idea. Well, I think that I'm leaning that way, but I certainly think that gives a lot more backbone to the theory. I mean, you know, I think part of my hesitance is that it's just such a huge, it would just be such a huge reveal. Like such a, I don't know, it would be a lot to sort of try to pull the curtain back on all at once. But this sort of like gives it a little bit of, it teases it out before it happens.

And you can see how it would just be pretty straightforward. Well, the other revealing that same exact moment is when he's talking about how Hale used the mirror. instead of the hats to gather information. And we've seen all those shots of Christina in front of the mirror, like staring into the mirror. And so I didn't know if maybe like, if it's not a simulation, if Hale is using the mirrors to monitor whatever is developing in Christina's mind. Because I have another theory about Christina that is not a simulation.

But I think, I think, Danny, your read there is a really strong one. What's your theory about Christina in the simulation or not not being a simulation? Okay. We got a couple emails. We had an email from a listener, Ryan, who loves Danny's Bible interpretation. He says, sticking with the Bible themes and speculating on who, what Christina is. If Dolores slash hail equals God, then how about Christina equals Christ? Kind on the nose name then.

God gets sort of bored up in heaven and he's come down to earth in flesh, which might mean we're headed into some complex Trinitarian theology territory. Can't wait to find out who the Holy Ghost is, Bernard possibly. But I like this idea that, like, bored Charlotte has made up flesh-ish version of herself. Her son on earth, Christ, is Christina, out there in the world. To what end? Maybe, like, to fulfill this, like, need to be a parent or something like that or to learn something about herself, but I like this idea of Christina as God made flesh.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I like that too. I think that I mean, listen, none of that would surprise me. It does seem a little bit, I don't know, I guess I don't know really the rules of simulations. I'm not sure why she would need to make a Dolores lookalike who was in charge of everything and then make up a new name for if it's just a simulation. I think that that's where they're playing double-dip with actually HAL is Dolores. And that Christina's there because she loves herself and she wants her.

You know what I mean? It's like, I sent you guys a meme that I saw, which I thought was so funny. But basically the meme was, the meme hit to me because it actually, it's a lot because the Charlotte Christina dynamic is Hale is like Christina's mother. It's like her best friend. Christina is like her ex-girlfriend. It's her worst enemy. It's her twin.

It's the she killed her 30 years ago. It's herself. it's you, it's me. Like, every conceivable kind of relationship is what they have. I feel like that's the core of why Christine is still kicking. They still have a dynamic. In terms of why Bernard is making copy of C, my theory is that he's doing that to save her because he knows she's going to die and he wants to make a copy of her to revive later

in a printed body. That's pretty good. That makes sense. I buy that. I say that again If Bernard knows that Frankie is going to die Like that her human body is going to die He has copied her consciousness

So that he can later put it in a And he says his answer is it's complicated Because he can't be like because I know you're going to die And I'm I'm copy pasting you for later So that we can put you in a host body I don't know Can't make sense Need the external hard drive

Whatever this fidelity issue is This thing that like that Hale hasn't mastered I bet you Bernard can master it I bet you Bernard is the one who could figure out fidelity for human consciousness and a host body, if it's anyone. The question of choice comes up a couple of times as episodes since choice is like our watchword here. Charlotte says that to Caleb, she says, you made your choice, you all did, right? And then later, Frankie's talking about it in terms of Mave and hosts in general. She says you can't love or lose fully when it's just a choice, meaning something that she feels hosts can turn off.

on and off. And we know she's wrong about hosts, right? She's like, hosts can't feel, they can't love, they can't lose, but we've been with Maeve and we've been with Dolores and we've been with Bernard and we know that they can. And that's something that, like, Frankie's going to have to learn. But I thought this idea of, like, and I feel like anytime they say the word choice, I'm going to be writing, writing it down and trying to figure out what the overall message is around that. You know what I mean? And then May's back. Juicyer than ever, rehydrated. How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you feel about that? Narnly.

Yeah, looks great. She must have a great skincare routine. Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love, I love the just general host rehabs. I mean, it's just like, it's like, it's like you get, have like a, like a, like my kid has these like, um, like paint brush markers that you dip in water and you paint on these certain pages and everything just becomes beautiful and full color out of nowhere. It's like we figured I had to master that technology. Um, um, Yeah, she looked great. And I got to tell you, it's, you know, we've all spent a lot of time with this show.

But this season really has, it feels like it's earned it. And just in terms of my like emotional reactions in so many different ways. I was honestly, when I saw corpse Mave was not particularly excited to see Mave come back. Not that I didn't want her to come back for storytelling purposes, but it's like, we've seen a lot of Mave. And then when she popped up at the end, I was just like, oh, thank God she's here. I'm so happy. I got emotional when, when Frankie said,

She was Caleb's daughter and she says, of course you are. They've done such a good job making me buy into the Mae of Caleb relationship with very little material. I think they've done a great job and I just got kind of, yeah, like I got kind of sad and wistful seeing all of that. Anything else do you want to talk about in terms of Frankie and everything that happens there? I mean, I thought the whole like mole thing. I mean, well, first of all, we need to give Shoemaker his, his, his flask. for being insistent that Jay had been replaced in the stairwell. Good call.

I was so annoyed with you and you were like, what if you got, but you were, you were right. And I thought that was like a little clunky, the whole like spy. And I thought that was like a little. And then it's a little, I thought it was a little bit clunky too. But again, I'm willing to give them just about any show or whatever. You get a pass if you're really just sort of like. referencing a trope and not trying to like, you know, you know, reimagined it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just, I

don't know if it was the performance or what, but I, I feel like that whole like, or maybe it was just because David, that Shoemaker called it. And so then I was like, well, obviously it's, it's, no, I don't think, I don't think you're wrong. I think it's, I mean, to me, it was the length of the season. I mean, or whatever. I mean, if this, if the show had been, if we had been dealing with four more episodes, it probably wouldn't have felt so obvious, but I think that, I mean, this is like the, he talked more in this, he talked more in his first line in this episode than he's talking to show up to this point, right? I mean, like, what are we, what are we supposed to be basing this, the, the, his, like,

anomaly off of, except for the expectation that he, I mean, the fact that he was talking as much as he was, was the, was the, all the evidence that the viewer had that something was up, right? Like, like, he's talking enough to give her a signal that something's wrong. there's no intrigue there. It's just a plot point. I'm a little trouble that Shoemaker came up with a way better plot for the second half of this episode

during this podcast. That she should have just brain scanned everyone. That seems like a way better idea than just guessing. You create that for one second. The reason she turned on him was he was like, you're like a sister to me. And she was like, well, the day we met 20 years ago,

you'd said, I'd never be a sister to me. I'd never be a sister to you. Yeah, but, like, I mean, maybe he's just reinforced that over the years. And he's just like, by the way, just to remind you, my brother died and you're not my replacement sibling. It's February 10 years into our friendship. No, I'm sorry, our clinical partnership. And we are not related. Just want to point that out to you.

I like Shoemaker's brain skin. I mean, there's a lot of, right. I mean, also, like, you could have just been like Bernard, if we're going to believe Bernard, right? just like, hey, Bernard, can you give me any way to tell who the fake person is? Like, presumably there's... What if he just didn't think of it? He was like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea.

It's interesting that, like, she's not fully trusting Bernard. She has to, like, make this decision for herself. I mean, she ties up to super strong hosts in a way that, like, they could easily gotten out of. Let's put that aside. But, um... But what do you make of her decision to trust Maeve here? Danny, like, what did that mean to you?

I mean, I think it's a very obvious, Well, she killed the guy who was trying to kill her, which is always a good start. But, like, I think it's just, like, obvious. As she said, she's like, oh, I was throwing out feelings. And then there's the obvious parallel of Caleb has his core memory with his daughter. And then, like, they're going to go on a little buddy cop, and she's going to learn to trust hosts and learn that they're not so bad after all. This is why I'm sort of, like, fixated with this idea of Charlotte creating Christina. because I feel like if you've got like Mave and her daughter and Caleb and his daughter,

then it's going to make sense for Charlotte to have her daughter, which is Christina. I think that's a good idea. You know? That's a good call. We did get one more biblical-themed email, and I know you love a biblical-themed email, Danny from a listener named Lolly, who says, this may be nothing, but I think it's interesting that the origins of the word paradise are Persian, meaning literally a walled garden with a reference on Westworld to the mind.

being a walled garden. I'm reminded of the Milton line. The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of a hell or a hell of a heaven. So I love that. I feel like immature for doing an Alice and Wonderland thing last week when we could have been doing Milton the whole time. Let me go back to this idea of what Christina is doing. I don't have a full grok on it, obviously, but there's this tension of like someone wants her to do violent storylines and she's doing all these nice fluffy storylines in her quote-unquote job at quote-unquote Olympiad entertainment. Do you think that could possibly tie back to this idea that you can't achieve an advanced level of consciousness without suffering and everything is too nice and gentle and that they need

those more violent storylines so that someone, the white-flight humans, I don't. don't know who can achieve higher consciousness. Well, the humans are being told to have awful lives, but the hosts aren't being told. I thought the whole problem is that the host don't have adversity, so they're not chilling. Because the humans, I mean, I don't think Hale gives a shit about the humans. I mean, that's going to bring me into my next time on, but what do you think, Schumacher? Yes, I think that, okay, the words that you said are, like, are resonating with me. I definitely think that there's something that means to achieving consciousness is very central to the, well, the first two seasons of the show and I think we'll definitely come back into play.

I do think that the whole, I don't know, I'm still spinning on the whole, like, what is what is Christina doing right now. I think part of the, I think part of what's dragging me down is the, is, again, like the mechanics of the, the mechanics of the, the show put a really uncertain weight on just the concept of a simulation, right? Because like Bernard has gone through a billion simulations. And theoretically, those have been lives lived, right? I mean, if they're, and yet, we sort of are treating them just like a data dump that takes place separate from the real story of the show. So if, if Christina is in a simulation, or we not to assume that there are a million other simulations going on at the same time, and if so is like Christina meaningful at all?

Yeah, I mean, that's the issue, is that if she's just like code and a simulation, like why are we supposed to care about her, I guess? This leads to my big theory. Can I give you my big theory from Theory Corner? Please, please, hit me. I think the entire show is going to be a simulation. And here's why.

When Bernard says they made a simulation of Westworld before they built the park. That's canon. now. Like, that's on the table. Like, Westworld was simulated. Fact said. And then we combine that with the weird-ass first scene of the first episode of the first season of the show.

And I keep coming back to this idea. Nolan's like to fuck with people. The show is about loops. And I keep coming back to the show in my mind is going to be a loop. like it's gonna come it's gonna come full circle and now that they literally said the first like like West World simulated

I feel like here's like the big picture is again if it's I still do see the show as a Western humans robots this town ain't big enough for the two of us and big picture Dolores and Bernard's job is to figure out okay how do these two humans and hosts humans and robots live together

in peace. How do we live in harmony? Or how do they become one instead of one slaughtering the other? Like, what's the one scenario? And it's kind of like Dr. Strange and the Avengers

when he's like, there's the one in 14 million chance. I think when the end of season five, season is the last season of the show, right? When the fifth season ends and the whole show's over,

the story in a nutshell will be, they simulated a trillion times what's the situation where the humans and the robots in the end live in harmony together? And the answer, the one, is the five seasons we just watched, and that was a simulation. And then the first scene or the last scene of the show will be Dolores waking up. And then they go and they actually do it in real life. I love that. I feel like I've been seeing that growing in popularity on Reddit that a lot of people are like,

there's one more big twist coming. And I think that's because even though there's only two more episodes left of the season, And it feels like we're almost, we have to be reaching some sort of climax of whatever it is that Hale is doing at the end of the season. So the big question is, like, what the fuck is season five about? What is the final season about? And this idea, almost like a Battlestar Galactica ending of like all this has happened before and will happen again, right, looping back on itself. I think that is a really strong theory. Exactly how it happens.

I don't know. I love Danny's version that he just put forward, this idea that we'll go back to the beginning. and hopefully they'll get, I mean, it will be really fun. Well, I don't know if that's season four. I'm saying the end of the show. No, I know. The end of next season. No, I know.

But, like, I think it would be really fun. Like, if that's the final minutes or the final episode or whatever, I think it'd be really fun to bring back all the actors from season one, get Shannon Woodward in there, get, you know, like, all those people in there. And, you know, start over again. That's what Lost did in its final season. It's like, we're going to bring back all these characters who died who you liked. and you're going to spend some time with them.

Like, that's, you know, that's a strong final season or final episode or whatever move. And I think it's really smart, Danny, that there's, like, one big, you know, loop, loop bait and switch still to come. Do you want to do the Maze's Not for you, Dumb Human Award or Dumb Person Award, dumb character award? I think other than Hale waiting 20 years to be told you suck, I just can't believe they doubled down on the, um. I'm not sure she's been doing this for 23 years. Like the Caleb experiment might be kind of recent. Well, then I'll give it to the fact that the entire Westworld data collection, they doubled down that it was all dependent on the hats.

I hate that. And they had no fucking plan. The hat thing is my least favorite thing that has ever happened on West World is the hat thing. Shoemaker. Anyone? I mean, I think we should, we can give it to humans to speak. I think that those people in the episode where everybody who were in the resistance that aren't Frankie, it just seems like, what is the, like,

Like, I get that there's this, like, kind of vague hierarchy that, that, you know, we can tell who's in charge. One of you might be a robot. That's fine. But, like, it just seems like a lot of, like, this is a really significant moment in the history of whatever your resistance is. And when you come back from your mission, if someone's like, okay, let's break. We'll meet back here in three hours. You should be like, no, let's have this conversation now, right? There should be a scan test, right?

Like, for everyone. If you separate when you go among the host. when you come back, you've got to do a test to see if everyone's still a human, right? Yeah, I mean, it's like when the girlfriend walks out, she's like, hey, where are you wandering off to? And we shouldn't the conversation be like, hey, what the fuck is happening right now? Like, we have, there's a mole. We have two hosts that are our friends. We just dug what you dug one up out of the desert.

Like, this is like everything's happening now, right? This isn't just like another day in the life of the anti-host resistance. This feels like a pretty significant moment. Let's stay together and talk. I agree. The human resistance. Blanket, dumb, dumb award. The mace is not meant for you.

Okay, look ahead. This isn't spoilers again. We've only seen the sort of like next time on preview, but it's kind of wild. The title of next week's episode is Metanoia, which is a transformative change of heart to change one's mind. And to me, this feels like that Charlotte Hale face turn that we've been talking about, right? the like similar to the Ford face turn of a change of heart. Who else would have a massive change of heart in the show if not for Charlotte Hale? If not like if if Caleb's words of you're a bad mom or you're a bad God really hit with her,

could that not spark a massive transformation inside of her, maybe? Yeah, I think that that's the way this show, I mean, clearly it was after the last scene. in this episode, that must be where it's heading. I mean, it does seem like she's doing all this work to, like all the work that she's doing is diabolical as her plan may be, seems like it feels like that's sort of necessary for whatever the future holds, right? Not in the way that she's done it,

but like if there's a post, if there is a robot and human living to get, this town is big enough for the both of us future for the world, then it's like Charlotte's doing some of the necessary work, at least in the sense of like trying to figure out this whole fidelity for the human host hybrids thing. like this stuff's going to have to matter. It does seem like there's, I mean, I know how, it doesn't, this isn't necessary for the way that your show is written, right? You could blow up

Charlotte Hale and then have Bernard say, oh, look at all this research she's done. We'll use this for good. And then they'll figure it out. But it does seem like there is a lot of common ground here, right? It's like a Professor X Magneto thing. It's like even if, even if we have, even if we're going to govern our provinces in very different ways, it seems like the distance between now and whenever we split up is important to walk together, you know? And it seems like there is a, that there's, that there's a path there. And I don't know if that's where the show is going to go. Regardless, though, everybody's going to have to have a change of heart if we're working together, right? I mean, everybody's going to have to be a little bit more open to working together. Because

otherwise, why would you take Charlotte, why would you, why would you take Hale into the fold? It's also a meta commentary about the show, because I feel like, you know, the second or last episode of age seasons where, like, a lot of the main stuff goes down. and you want people to change their mind about the show. It better be good. Don't blow it. Don't blow it. Well, I mean, something we get in the preview is Charlotte Hale fighting Maeve, Malay,

which is going to be fantastic. And while they're both very stylishly dressed, sounds great to me. And Charlotte's talking a lot about a new species that they're meant to be. Again, this feels like we're headed towards human host hybrid, but I don't know how exactly that's all going to play out. but it does feel like that has to be the end game mastering fidelity, all of that. One last corrections thing that I forgot to mention earlier is like my big question was like, how did they get from Nevada to Manhattan and back again so quickly?

And a bunch of listeners were like, well, maybe Manhattan is not actually where Manhattan is, but has been terraformed elsewhere. Sure. Could be. Manhattan could be in Texas now, maybe. I don't know. Seems like a lot of work. It does.

It does seem like a lot of work, but it could be. They moved the Hudson River, too. How'd you get that water in Sierra Nevada? It's tough. It's from the Gulf. There's only thing I know about 2090s, there's no water in the West anymore. I mean, and like, listen, temperance world points in that direction. All right, anything else we want to talk about in terms of Westworld this week?

Good episode. Good episode. Yeah. Great stuff for Aaron Paul, a character, Caleb, a character I did not care about. about at all last season. So good job Westworld. All right. Well, we got to run. We've got, you know, a post-apocalyptic world to save. But we'll be back next week with more with more Westworld. You can always email us at Harris, bodysuit at gmail.com. Just incredible emails coming for you guys this season. So good. Really helps me better understand the show and better

think about the show. So I really appreciate it. Until next time, this episode was produced. by Carlos Chiroboga. Please try not to tear your own face off with your fingernails waiting for the podcast next week. We'll be back soon. We'll see you then. Bye. Spring just slid into your DMs.

Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner. Those sandals that can keep up with you. And hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.