The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Westworld' Season 4, Episode 7 Recap

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Joanna, David, and Danny break down the disappointing penultimate episode of ‘Westworld’ Season 4. First, they recap everything that happened in the episode (3:54). Then, they discuss William’s fate (6:20) before getting into the major character deaths and if they even matter at all (15:34). Later, they look ahead to the finale and if it will be able to change their view of this season (1:02:03). 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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Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me fresh from their Battle in the Ringer rooftop pond. It's Danny Hyphins, David Shoemaker. Hi, guys. You seem kind of wet and soggy for a podcast.

I have no comment at this time. Just the rice smile has my eyes shut and my soul leaves my body. Danny, any rice smiles at the end of it all? You could stick me in rice. Maybe that'll drive me out. I don't know. All right. We're here to talk about season four, episode seven, of Westworld, Meninoa.

A lot of questions, comments, and concerns that hopefully Danny and David will set my mind at ease. But I'm a little wound up and agitated after this episode, so I'm excited to talk about it. Some quick programming reminders here in the feed. We are wrapping up Better Call Saul. We only have two more episodes of that show to go. So Ben Lindberg and I are breaking those remaining episodes down here on the feed. Also, there was a Sopranos Hall of Fame. episode with like van and bill and some other people in the feed last week so you might want to

check that out shameless plug fantasy football show it's august check out ringer fantasy football show david anything you want to plug uh i'm on the press box i'm on the mass man show the ringer wrestling show feed and also the book of wrestling separate feed great content amazing um spoiler warning you know, we're, we're spoiling everything up through this episode, episode seven of Westworld. There's a little bit of next time on discussion that we'll have at the end of the episode for the finale, but we haven't seen the finale, so we don't know what's going to happen. But there's some next time on stuff we might talk about, but I'll give you a warning before we do that. And then just, you know, look for us on social.

We're around. Prestige TV. Check us out. It's a great show. I love doing the show with you guys. Can I start the show with the point of order that I'll hopefully help us slide in? We should always start with a point of order. A little inside baseball, a little pulling back the curtain for our loyal audience out there at the top of the Google Doc that Joanna so hopefully puts together for every episode. There is a series cast section. About three quarters of the names on it are crossed out and the remaining people are uncrossed out and highlighted in yellow.

Are there any names that you should have crossed off of there or that you would cross off of the future? Or are you, are they still uncrossed just so because of, we're still going to discuss them or because you have no confidence in there being gone? Oh, you're asking what death means on Westworld, right? From a very point of orderly point of view. No, what that cast list formatting means is the highlighted people are the people, and uncrossed off are the people who are in this episode. So not all the cross-off people are dead.

They're just, they just don't matter right now. They're just not, don't worry about it. They're not in this episode. Okay. Well, I think that gets to the heart of this episode, which is they killed three of the main four characters and actors on the show. And I felt no emotions about any of it. And I also did not understand really how it affected the plot,

which is a pretty incredible one-two punch to whiff with both of those punches. Yeah. So it's a wild episode of television. So what happened here, David, Shoemaker? Well, let me tell you. Maeve and Bernard visit the Hoover Dam in order to crack open the sublime using the key in Bernard's head. They then join up with Frankie and Stubbs to take Manhattan,

which they do. Frankie and Stubbs connect with a host version of Caleb and seem to escape for now. Bernard makes to the heart of the tower with help from Mave who distracts Hale. Meanwhile, human William talks host William into killing him. Host William is now on a murder mission which has him kill Mave, Hale, and Bernard in quick succession, but not before Bernard records a message. We finally kind of get an answer to who Christina is. She's code, I think. At any rate, she's not real, right?

The episode ends with William blaring a message out of the tower to get everyone to fight And in the chaos, he heads out into the city in full gunslinger mode while an expensive David Bowie song plays on the soundtrack. The end. This is usually when I do, hey, here's what the lit reference was in the caption of the episode at HBO Max. But it's just a line from the episode. You want to have a drink at a time like this is the question. I don't have an answer for it. I do, however, have an aspect ratio question that I would like to start this episode's discussion with, right?

So we start in the letterbox form. which is supposed to alert us to the fact that we are in the sublime. But I thought we had a whole conversation about the fact that it doesn't do letterbox if someone doesn't know they're in the sublime, which this like sublime version of Mave didn't know. So is it, does it not count because she's just like weird sublime code that Bernard made up a version of Mave? Or does it not count because we're in the Bernard P.O.V.

And he knows we're in the sublime. and that's why it's letterbox. I think it's the latter. I think that at some point as uncomfortable, it might be as if you were trying to crack the code, no pun intended, that you have to pick a primacy about how this works, right? There's like an order of operations here.

This is Bernard's, this is Bernard in the sublime, running his algorithm, and so he gets to determine what the aspect ratio is, I guess. Danny, any letterbox comments here? I mean, I feel like it's probably not that hard and fast of a rule as we perhaps thought, which seems to apply to a lot of this show. So I feel like they wanted you. It was widescreen because it's a simulation and they wanted to show that to you because the next one is like not a simulation. I think it's probably it.

Next, we're going to talk about Ed Harrison, a bodysuit. And as the originator of the Ed Harrison bodysuit email David Shoemaker, I would like to give you the honors of kicking off this section. How did it feel for you to see the body suit play such a key role here at the end of all things? I mean, if this is the last we're going to see of the Ed Harris body suit, I have to say it's going to be a heartbreaking loss for the show. Literally, hard stabbing loss. Yeah, heart stabbing loss. I really enjoyed the Ed Harris on Ed Harris acting.

I mean, I cannot. I mean, I'm just so excited that he's going to do what he's getting to do this season. And, you know, I thought that final scene, which we'll do, get to is just that image was just amazing and probably one this is all and all probably the most compelling part of the episode for me um well in some sense this is really sort of become william's story just sort of out of nowhere right i mean it's he's always been a main character but after this episode you kind of feels like he's been the secret protagonist all along which is a very westworlding thing to do we'll see what he would happens you know next episode um but uh i don't know i thought that

I thought that aside from sort of odd way the conversation started, hey, what the hell are you doing here? Whatever it was that he, or what the hell do you want? I mean, there are some very awkward moments. There is some kind of weird, I don't know, just thematically odd moments in the whole show, I mean, the whole episode. But yeah, you know, the body suit's gone. Long live the bodysuit.

Dany Haifitz, we started this season with you saying repeatedly and insistently, there's no way they killed Ed Harris. a post-credit sequence at the end of last season of Westworld. Are you satisfied with this placement of the death of human William in the show? No, because they screwed it up. Like, it looks dumb. It's because two minutes later in the episode, whatever we're calling, Frankie, Caleb's daughter, C, whatever the hell we're going to call her,

comes up to him and says, we have to save him. And Stubbs is like, screw that dude, let him die. Which implies he's not dead. I have to imagine if he was dead. dead dead and two characters happen upon him, they would be like, huh, he's dead. And Stubbs's like, yeah, he was important. Dead now. Hated that guy.

But the fact that they contemplated saving him means he got stabbed in the heart, I assume, and then just sat there and didn't die, which what was the point? I don't know. I thought it was really stupid, honestly. He's a cockroach. Second of all, don't underestimate the power of that body suit that apparently could do a number of things. So please do email us.

Ed Harris bodysuit at gmail.com. If you have any questions about the bodysuit, um, here's what I did like about it, which is that William talking, the host version of himself into killing him, feels like a very William thing to do because he's like, I'm incapacitated.

I'm in a body suit on ice. My, my hands and feet are tied, right? I can't do anything. But I still get to go out on my, if this is actually a death. And again, what the fuck is death in Westworld?

we have to ask ourselves. But if this is indeed the death of human William, he engineered a way in which he got to do it on his own terms. Wait, hold on, hold on. Do you guys think that he got stabbed? He wanted to die? Yes. I did not get that impression at all.

I thought he said, then you know what you have to do, so do it as in destroy the cities. And then the guy was like, cool, I'll do that. Also, I'm going to kill you. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought it was both because he died smiling. What do you think, David? Yeah, I think so.

I think it can be read both ways. I certainly think both things were sort of meant to be part of the implication. What he had to do, the first step in it was kill human William. And I think that the smile is, like you were alluding to, Joe, that he was incapacitated. He'd been stuck in this machine for two decades, you know. He's been in the body suit. You can only stay in the body suit for so long immobile. Get clammy, you know.

Yeah. Gosh. at the B.O after a while alone. Yeah, maybe so. Oh, you're right. But in some way, he's not, I mean, he is not host William, right? These are two separate things that can have a conversation. But host William is out in the world, right?

And at some point, on some philosophical level, human William dying makes host William into William, right? I mean, it's like you live forever in like the other people's memories of you or whatever. And he was able, I guess there are all these questions all along prior to the season about whether or not William was a human or a host. Now it's clear that the last standing William is a host, but he's been able to, I think part of what made him smile is that in killing the human version of him, we see that host William has sort of been forced to bootstrap consciousness, that William has actually cracked the code in some ways that all these people haven't cracked

by giving some level of consciousness to the host version of himself. And the William that's remaining, the maze is finally meant for him. You know, like this is what William's been after all along. It's not really him, but it is kind of what's left of him. All right, Schumacher, I hear what you're saying. I feel like all the poetry of William killing William, though, is just means nothing to me. If 10 minutes later, they're like, he's actually still alive, probably gotcha. And I'm like, okay, sure.

Okay, I don't think he's, I didn't take that for anything. that was a weird. There's a weird sense. What they happened across his dead body and confused him to be alive? But wouldn't they like take him with them if they were going to like help him in any way? No, Stubbs talked her out of it. Yeah. Stubbs and Frankie were had a, we're just sort of weirdly like a couple of tourists walking through

what the rest of the show was doing the whole episode. I wasn't exact. I wouldn't put too much stock in that. And by the way, I told Joanna over DM really this week, I feel really vindicated in my, none of it's going to matter statements that I've made over the course of the season. Well, I guess let me put it this way. Have in your television watching history,

aside for like very strange situations, have you ever seen a television show where two characters come across a dead body and then it turned out that person was alive? Sorry, two characters came across the dead body and they thought it was alive and he was dead. I feel like that's just not a thing.

I know what you're saying. I'll just say one more thing in response to Danny, which is that I think in a weird, in a weird way with this episode really solidified for me anyway, is this long-standing question of like, does death matter, which we talked about at the top of the show? And I think more than ever, I'm convinced that death doesn't matter, but death is final in a weird way, right? Like, I think that the deaths that we're seeing are going to be less ambiguous than in previous years. because I think that the philosophical point that we're getting to is you can live on as a host, right?

Let's talk about this. I don't know. Maybe that's sort of meaningless. I don't know. Let's move. It's not meaningless. It's just I, I'm trying not to be too salty about how I feel about what Westworld did in this episode in terms of bumping off a bunch of people that may or may not be dead because what is doesn't matter. Well, you want to just get into that.

Let's just get to. I don't want to skip. through, let me just say this one thing. The cockroach discussion where William says civilization is just a lie we tell ourselves to justify our true purpose. We're not here to transcend. We're here to destroy. Feels like an important Westworld quote.

Do you think that, like, how does that matter to the end game of what we're talking about here? Or is this just more William bullshit? Well, it's, I mean, if you want me to be dark for a second, it goes back. He said something like that last season. He's like, we're here to speed the entropic death of the planet. which tracks, you know, physically, since in physics you could argue that entropy is like the fundamental thing of the universe, essentially that the universe trends toward chaos, all this.

And basically, you could argue that all of life in the food chain is essentially just a very efficient way to just kind of spread out matter. I don't know you could argue that, which seems to be what he was hinting at when he's just kind of saying, we're here to destroy. He called humanity a thin layer of bacteria. Pretty much a downer, though, not going to lie. And I think that that's one of the things where, I don't know, it just sounds fake deep.

Yeah. Here's what I'll say. What I think is most important about what's going on here is that similar to what happened to a Dolores Pearl when she was inside of Charlotte Hale, whatever this code was that came from Dolores spent too long in the William body and is not, now just might as well be William, I think, is the point of all of this. Yeah, I think that's fair. So let's talk about what William did, which is shoot Mave and Hale in the head and then shoot Bernard in the chest twice and then in the head. Head shots are important because that's where the pearl is, right?

So that is where the possible actual death could happen for a host on Westworld. truly, like, truly wild racial aspects of three black characters being shot in the head by a white character one after another on the show. In what world, would you ever take Maven Hail, who are your two most interesting characters off the board for even a minute in your finale? And also, does death, like, are, who's dead? Is anyone dead? Does death matter?

Who's permanently dead? Yeah, you're right. Death matters less than ever, I think, is probably the smarter reading of what I said before. Like, maybe Bernard is dead because we saw him go through a pearly white door and his son was there. But that's all.

And he's been saying the whole season he was going to die. Probably the women aren't dead, but we just saw Maeve resurrected. So they resurrect Maeve next week's episode. I'm just sort of like, so what am I supposed to take from all of this? That's the thing. Look, here's the problem.

not only have they kind of made death cheap and like not in a cool way I mean there are other shows that do that but like you can work around it to make it more impactful or something I think that the reality is as you just said Maeve was just dead for 23 years and like they just resurrected her like

literally the previous episode so who cares and then not I guess the problem is when you kill again if the four biggest actors in the four biggest characters in the show are Maeve Charlotte Hale Bernard and Dolores Christina whatever we're calling her they kill three of those four people, it meant nothing emotionally because

basically we're like, oh, like, I guess they'll just come back later, but also it didn't mean that much for the plot. And that's kind of amazing to say out loud, but how do you kill three? Think about the show, like take a step back. They killed three of their four biggest characters. You felt nothing, but also didn't change

that much. It's part of Bernard's plan or whatever. And then, Maeve, like, who cares? Mave was going to go to the sub-blot. Who cares? Like, Maeve had no impact. She came back. to shoot hail in the face. Didn't seem that hard to get to hail. She just walked in the door.

So I don't know why they needed, Mave. And then Hale's dead. And I'm like, cool, they're not going to transcend. We didn't know what that meant anyway. And so nothing changed. And I'm like, I have, this whole thing made me lose faith in this season. The beginning of the season, the first half of this season really reeled me in. I was like, cool.

I feel like they know what they're doing. Not going to lie, unless they pull out a rabbit or 10 out of their hats for this finale. This episode really made. made me lose faith that they knew where they were going with this season because it's strange. Well, you also, I mean, I think it's totally feasible that this episode is the outlier, right? Because it's not like the ones that came before. Then the mid-age might have had too much information to get through in this episode. You saw it from the very first seconds of it where, Bernard, where Mae was like, you know,

why did hail, why did Hale put everything here, whatever? He's like, it's not, it wasn't, or why did Hale buy it? It wasn't Hale. It was Dolores, you know? Like, why didn't she put the thing here? And it was just like the amount of, just try to imagine how many episodes it would take to convey that amount of information in season two or season three, right? But they just like blurted it out. And it felt like they just had to cover a whole lot of ground.

But I agree. I mean, I think that the most, that the simplest reading of Bernard's plan, though we don't have any idea what it is, but I think I found a path. The neatest reading of it is, well, we might all die, but we can live on the sublime one way or the other, right? I'll figure out a way for this to happen. I don't think it's what's going to happen, but that's, you know, that could be, I mean, that's sort of the simplest concept of it. But that's not satisfying.

And if that's not the plan, of living on in the sublime is not the plan, then Danny's right. Why are you offing all your characters in a way that just is going to, I mean, the second to last episode, if the point is that their deaths don't matter, I almost would have rather than died

and been reincarnated in the same episode. I also don't think it helps that the way they died was really stupid. And like, you know, again, I think a tough thing that the show, but it's their fault, is that they ask you to read a tremendous amount of everything. You know, Joe is obsessed with all the aspect ratios and like, does this being in widescreen mean that it's a simulation? That's how much the show asks you to dive into it.

But then you're like, well, why did Maeve try to kill Hale with a knife when she had a gun? Like, why doesn't she just shoot her? And then you're like, ah, it's TV, don't worry about it. And then William just shows up, shoots her in the face. I'm not going to lie. Seemed super easy. They had to kill one guard and she just walks right up the hail.

And it's like, it's, again, it's TV. Don't think about it. The problem is every other part of the show, they're like, think about it. And then these basic points. So not only, it's one thing if the way that Charlotte or may have died was cool, I guess, look, you bring in the knife

because you want a knife fight and knife fight's much cooler than a gunfight. However, it did look cool. It looked cool when they were fighting. but when someone just walks up and shoots them and you're like, not only is this mean nothing, not only does it make me feel nothing,

if you actually take a step back and think about it, it was kind of dumb. I think the worst crime for me is that Mave's core drive for so long was to get back to her daughter. And we have this aspect of this episode where Bernard, we know that Bernard knows that he's lying to her

when he says, sure, I'll bring you back here to connect with your daughter. No problem. And an odd moment of like actually not good acting, I think, from Jeffrey Wright is when he's trying to convey Bernard lying. And I'm like, it was like oddly hammy eye shifting around the lie there. But then he comes clean with her later and then she just goes, okay, let's go. I think you're so right.

It's been her core purpose. for so long. And then she's like, no big deal. Let's go kick some ass. It made no sense. Especially since they built the whole episode around it. They literally start with Bernard trying to be like,

how am I going to convince Mave? I really got to convince Mave. And then it was like, the straight, she's just like, yeah, sure, I guess you lied to me about seeing my child. Yeah. I think we did get clarity on the transcendence question because we see that what transcends

appears to be, according to Charlotte Hale. is let's take our pearls out of these fleshy bodies and put them in these weird, armless walking iPod things. Those also look stupid. They look really stupid. Why would you not have arms if you've had arms? The irony is Hales touching it,

like, caressing it with her hand. And I'm like, so you just don't want your hand? That's dumb. How are they going to get up if they fall? I don't know. But anyway, I think the Transcendence Project is canceled after what happened this week. So like, it doesn't matter.

to David's excellent point, it doesn't matter. But here's the thing, again, they've been alluding to this transcendence thing for a long time. I think one of the fundamental problems that a lot, I mean, a lot of sci-fi has is that we have no idea what an artificial intelligence would actually want. Like, it's not really possible for us to figure out what their goal would be beyond, well, we programmed them to do this and they killed us, but they're still programmed to do that. But what they would want beyond that's really hard. But like, it seems like they haven't put a ton of, look, maybe the,

episode, maybe they really do. But the fact that they kind of off the hail before she was going to do that made me feel like the transcendence thing was like never going to happen. Maybe I'm wrong. But the fact that they're just like, yeah, they just want to be these armless robots, but like also just walk around on two legs, you know, but without arms in different like looking bodies. And it's like that sounds stupid. There's so much bigger questions here that they're not bothering to explore. I don't know. even there's a lot of frustrating parts to this, but I've lost faith. Do you think she created her new, her new transcendent life form with like an actual bulletproof plate around the pearl? Or are we just going to continue to let there be like a hole in the death star for every, every being going forward?

It's just sitting there in the open air. And I suppose in an ideal future, nobody has arms. So it doesn't matter. No one could shoot you. But like, I didn't, I didn't know what's going on. David, Chimaker, let me ask you a question. Danny said, no way are they going to destroy a tower in New York City in this post-9-11 world. The tower didn't come down.

As a key part of it did explode. How do you feel about the way in which they threaded that needle? Oh, that was, I'll just say that was not a major complaint that I had coming out of this episode. Pretty low on my list, too, but I wanted to make sure that Danny's excellent point was brought up. Danny, how are you feeling about it? I think they did so many other stupid things in this episode that it made me not care about that. Again, I think it's crazy. Again, I'm not trying out to be too harsh here, but at the same time, like, it's just,

they killed three people and we're kind of sitting here like, what does it mean? We don't know. How did it make you feel? Didn't care. Let's press pause on the rant, which I'm on board for. I'm with you. I felt, I got so stressed out after this episode. I had to call someone who I know had seen the episode so that I could, like, rant about it.

But let's ask this question. What do we think Bernard's plan overall is? We might talk about this a little bit more at the end because there's some next time on clues, but like what do you think, David Shoemaker? What do you think Bernard's up to? Well, I think Bernard's whole plan, and this is not even, I'm not separate from all the next time on stuff.

I think that Bernard's plan, by the end of this episode, just felt a little too, Pocus pocusy to me, right? Like, I think that we're going to find out what the plan is, and it's going to have some sort of, like, neat resolution, relatively clean resolution next episode. And I think that, again, despite this being an episode where so much information was just, like, barfed out at us

from the first line. Also, to the hail explaining how a bullet to the parole can kill any hosts, like just seconds before everybody started getting shot. out in the head all the sudden, which, by the way, like, going back to the swords and knives conversation, like, why did any host ever do anything ever before when getting in a host-on-host fight than just shoot the other person in the head? Like, what would have ever been the point? But anyway, it's like watching the Harlem Globetrotters take three-pointers from the half-court line. It's like, if you can really make 95% of those, then why are you crossing half-court? It doesn't

make sense. Anyway, I think that weirdly being such an expository download, this whole episode, we sort of, they sort of backed us back into a really micro version of season two, where it's just going to be like, we're going to find out all this stuff at the end that changes our perception of the show. And it's just going to sort of be like the rugs pulled out from under us instead of some real gratifying conclusion because they didn't give us enough information. It was just a whole other, like a whole new round of like, I've seen a path. I've seen a path. Well, what's the path? I mean, so we're going to find out what the path is too late for us to really appreciate it. I think that's exactly right. It's,

It's like this show has become all destination and no journey. And I think that earlier this season, I was more confident that actually we're going to have fun on the journey. And in reality, just as Shoemaker said, I feel like I'm watching a magic trick. And they're doing this trick. And I'm like,

the magician's in front of me. And he's a very highly recommended magician. And the first four minutes of the trick, I'm like into it. And then there's another four minutes. And I'm like, this is actually really annoying. I'm kind of like really losing faith in

this magician. I don't know if I'm having a good time. And at the point, I'm not waiting. Look, maybe they're going to like pull like my card from behind my ear. And I'm like, wow, I don't know how they did that. But I haven't enjoyed the second half of the trick. And who cares? It's, it's, you know what I mean? There's a point where it, I actually feel dumb for expecting the card to be somewhere. And there's a, and I feel like the whole thing we praised them for in the first half of, oh, well, they didn't put the reveal at the expense of, plot or story. This one was all plot, but there's no story. Let me ask you a question, Danny. There's

this weird thing that happens where the first two shots that William fires into Bernard happen in broad daylight, and then we cut away to a sequence in the sublime between Bernard and Akitia. And then when we cut back to William shooting Bernard in the head, it is nighttime in the city. Does that, do you think that William was sitting there for hours? Or do you think there is more weird, sublime hocus pocus to use a David Schemacher phrase going on?

If there's a reveal coming at the end of the season, I feel like we've probably just been watching iterations of the various Bernard simulations. And it's all been stitched together. And then some one of the outcomes happened. But we've been seeing various instances of what Bernard was trying over and over and over again. And it was just kind of like a little quilt of, you know, those experiences. I agree. But it does sort of raise this question. that I'm sure won't matter by the end of the season

as to whether or not the different things we're seeing are like simulation A versus simulation B or simulation A versus reality. Does that make, does that distinction makes sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah, the beginning, the opening of this episode is simulation A versus reality, if we're going by the letter box rules

that don't seem to be hard and fast. And I would, I, I would, I just really would like to believe that the letterboxing matters because I really want to know whether or not I'm in the real world because for some reason that matters to me and maybe it shouldn't. I think it matters a lot. As someone who is not fixated on that at any point during any of the seasons of the show, I do think it's incredibly meaningful that your obsessions are rewarded.

Well, it's not just obsessions. It's just me trying to get a foothold. Yeah, that your footholds. I'm not trying to down, not trying to denigrate it at all, that whatever the thing is that you're focusing on, your footholds, that they should be, they should be honored, you know, by the show. I think that's really important.

I don't think you should put your heart on, well, I know these rules about the simulation because they told the widescreen meant something. I'm like, they'll change that whenever. I don't know. I don't think it's literal. You are so right. I know you're right.

I know in my heart of hearts, you're right. But I also know I'll be tracking it next week's episode. But Bernard says, Bernard, when he keeps talking about what they can do, we can save some small part of it is what he keeps saying, right? And I just want to focus on that word save because it reminds me of a very famous episode of Doctor Who where an automated voice keeps saying about this character. Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved. And what they mean by saved is not rescued. They mean saved, uploaded to the cloud.

And so when Bernard says, we can save some small part of it, does he mean rescue or does he mean upload into the sublime? Is that what he means by save? I think you're on the money. Well, that would be really ungratifying as a solution as a viewer. And yet, Bernard, who seems to have more of a foothold, you can see how the sublime, from a totally inside the narrative perspective, you can see how that'd be really seductive, right?

It's a choice that so many hosts have made before. And Bernard, who has more of a dedication to the natural world than any other host, is still sitting there with Mave in the first scene being just like, is that you or is that my idea of you? which implies there's not a big difference, you know, between the real thing and the fake thing. You know why there's absolutely no difference? And it bothers me that there isn't.

But you know why there's absolutely no difference? Because she says this thing in the sublime version. At the beginning of this episode, Maeve says, I thought my jokes were landing flat or whatever, right? And then in the real world, she says everything the same way. The real Maeve says everything that the sublime remembered Maeve said. So what is the difference? And if that's the message of Westworld, what is the difference?

What is the difference between Ed Harris in a body suit and Ed Harris, who used to have a Dolores code in his head, but now has become Ed Harris? Or what is the difference? I need more than that. Well, it's what's the difference. It doesn't matter if you can't tell. That's the question that keep asking. And you're like, yeah, they're both bad and I can tell. Low key, low key, one of the worst decisions the show is made from a creative point.

point of view is having Dolores become Christina or prior to that, having Charlotte Hale become Charloris or whatever, having some question about the names of the characters because it forces you to call them by the real names, by the actor's real names, and then in your own mind, the death doesn't matter. Is Ed Harris back in episode eight? Yes, that's what I care about. I think that's a good point. I think that there's a reason that one refers to Arnold and Bernard, doesn't it? But at least those people have names. Bernard has a name.

Like, does anyone refer to Hale as a name? Does William call her by a name? They call her Hale. Bernard calls her Hale. Yeah, it's Hale's plan or that's what Bernard called. But that's, I think, part of a problem too, because, like, she's Dolores. And I think it's weird that she's like, why are all these humans? Like, why are all these hosts trying to be like humans?

And it's like, well, Hale's going by her human name. Not that that matters. I don't want to get lost in this sauce. I think it's more just big picture. this show for a long time, really you can argue the entire series, has, I would say, the easiest way to track whether it's good or not is what Maeve is doing

and if Maeve's character makes sense. And season one, Maeve makes sense. It's the best parts of season two, probably indirectly or directly involved Maeve in her quest to find her daughter. Season three goes off the rails for among other things. Maeve has no purpose and nothing she doesn't. makes sense. And this episode, I think, the reason we're so upset is exactly what Joe said,

where it's not that that's the reason everything, but Mave being off track is like the soul of the show is off track. And it's kind of like this canary, the quaint fuck, tweet fucking tweet, the canary in the coal mine for everything else being off kilter. Let's just get to some, I think there's a really good point. I love that, Danny. Let's let let's just like establish some basics in terms of, uh, our producer Carlos is just, chimed in to say this is raw disappointment captioned on audio. I'm sorry this is a hot bummer for people listening.

It's just like group therapy for me. And if people felt differently, if you love this episode, please do email us, Ed Harris, Body Suitage, too, a lot come. I think we're so kind of confidently being upset here is what is the option,

what is like the way to like this episode? You're like, yeah, May have died. Oh man, that means, I don't know. Hale died. man, that means, oh no, William turned everyone on each other. I'm like, okay, but there's no human beings we've been following in the city to make us give a shit. It's just a set piece, but like, there's no, who do we, there's no character we've been following that will suffer from

this. It's just a giant thing to escape from, but like, I don't know. It's, again, when three of the top four characters died, we don't even know what that means. And it does, I mean, it does feel like we're looping a bit, like, because, you know, as much as you, Danny hated the L.A. riot last season, we're just in another riot space, which I guess is similar to the Wyatt massacre, which I guess is similar to the massacre of the Delos board. Like, we're just, like, if Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan are saying over and over again, everything tends towards violence, everything tends to chaos, that's kind of interesting. But I agree with you that, like, I mean, Frankie and Caleb and Stubbs are out there, and I do

care the very least about Stubbs. Like, I would love to have more people out there. that I cared about that everyone has, like, got knives out. Because Christina, apparently, is non-corporial, so I don't have to worry about her. David Shoemaker. Non-corporial. Honey, do you care about the New York riots? No.

It's not our first riots. I mean, this is just like, now part of me wonders that they didn't show more at the end of last season for the beginning of this season about what happened post-rahobo because they didn't want to just feel like we did the same thing twice in a row. I mean, isn't that sort of what's going on here? It does feel. It feels repetitive, and if it's repetitive in an intentional looping way, I'm willing to consider that interesting.

But here's the way to enjoy this episode, Danny. They might do something like a finale that makes me excited about the twists and turns they take care. I am totally open to that being. I don't know. We used to rewatch an episode for it to be good. That's not a good episode. No, no, no, no, no. This is a bad episode.

I don't think it is a good episode at all. But I don't think it, I don't think it dooms the finale. We'll see. I think what's upsetting for the finale is, look, especially with HBO, the episode before the finale is supposed to be great. It's usually the best one of the whole season, right?

That's your climax, and the rest is falling action, right? Like, every Game of Thrones season, they're 10 episodes, and the ninth one is always like the best. I was going to say, that's a throne's attitude. That's not necessarily everyone's attitude.

But it's a lot of them. I think it's true for breaking bad. Look, I'm not going to try to go toe to toe with you here on like TV structure, obviously. You're going to kick my ass on that. But generally, If the last, if the second to last episode season is like the worst one of the season, suddenly the whole season seems like it's on the verge of collapse, which is I think where at least my emotions are coming from because I'm like, damn, if this is your climax, this is bad. Just some quick housekeeping as to what Bernard did here.

He left a message that has at least these lines in it. There's time only for one more game. if you choose to give her that choice you can't miss, reach with your left hand. We might talk about that a little bit more at the end. He leaves a gun behind at the dam. He tucks a gun behind a pipe somewhere. And he left the sublime wide open.

My theory is to why he did that, I mean, I'm sure it ties into whatever his end game is that I guess we'll find out next week via iPad message. But no matter what, he knows he's going to die. Because, again, back to the death thing, I do feel like Bernard is actually dead. But he can come back, though. Well, no, but for the purposes of this season,

I think he's the only person who is going to certainly be dead, and that's because he recorded an iPad message of himself. Yeah. He recorded a goodbye message, and he left the door open on the sublime in case he, and he said goodbye to Stubbs. Like, in the case of my death,

which I'm 100% sure is going to happen, I'm going to leave the door open the sublime because I'm the only one who can because I've got the encryption key in my head. So before William shoots a bullet through my brain, I'm going to open up the sublime for whatever needs to happen in the finale. Can you close the sublime without Bernard?

Yeah, you got to lock that. Deadbolt it. Something with that door. Also, do we think Teddy, that's a whole console to do it last time. But that's got to be how Teddy walked out of the sublime, right? I don't know if Teddy's real, if they can't see Christina, maybe Christina,

but. Where is Christine on the check? I don't think Teddy's real. Let's get to, we're going to do one quick thing and then we're going to get a tweet fucking tweet. We're going to talk about Stubbs and Frankie and Caleb really quickly and then we'll get to Christina and Teddy. Was the Frankie and Caleb reunion everything you wanted it or cared for it to be, David Schumacher? Father and daughter reunited.

I really enjoyed that part. I thought that considering one of them was a robot, it was about as well done as could be. Danny? Yeah, it was fine. Sure. Okay. Okay. I thought, you know, it was a chance for Aaron Paul to do what he does best, which is yell and cry.

And we like that from him. There's also like, maybe they skipped over a lot of potential awkwardness, though. Like, first of all, if he had been like, how did you find me? And she's like, well, you sent me that message. He'd be like, that Caleb would have been like, what the hell are you talking about? Right. That was Caleb Mach 273. I'm 274.

And the other question is, how long is Caleb going to, how long before this Caleb starts to degrade? Well, I think the last episode proved that all these Calebs are like, like, as close to consciousness as they are to degrading, right? That there's like that there is a, there is something that I think that they're capable of achieving consciousness, right? Possibly. And what's possible is they're going to pull a lost? And like, because Frankie's there and she's like his constant. Yeah. He won't degrade.

Well, the first one made it as far as he did because of Frankie and she wasn't even. there. So who knows? Maybe that's enough to keep a host going. I mean, I think that that would be, of all of the handwaves the show could pull off next week, that would be the one I'd be least offended by. I agree. Danny?

72 hours on the clock or, okay. Bernard says goodbye to Stubbs and he says the reason why is that Stubbs is going to die, and then Stubbs like makes it at least through this episode. Do we feel like that was a fake out because Bernard knew that Bernard was going to die? and he was sort of saying the opposite so that Stubbs wouldn't come back to us or is Stubbs dead next week and if so, does that matter

because what does death mean on Westworld? I 100% think Bernard told Stubbs specifically to let Stubbs think oh, I'm going to die because if Bernard said, I'm going to die, I won't see you again. Isn't Stubbs like Core Drive

to help Bernard? Protect. I agree. I didn't think about that until you guys just talked about it. But that's definitely true. I think it was a fake out lie. Okay, great. we're all on the same page.

Do we have any sense yet of why Bernard made that Frankie backup? What you said earlier? I think that Bernard's plan is probably to like, oh, save humanity, but like he means upload or download. Yeah. Okay. That's what I think too. All right.

Let's talk about Chris. I don't think. No? No? I think that that feels like it's the answer. But I don't, I'm not going to be shocked if that's wrong. That feels like too. It's a little too obvious.

I don't know. Well, they were like, hey, why did you like record our consciousness? and he could have said, don't worry about it. And instead he said, it's complicated. It's complicated. Not reassuring.

Wait, wait, wait. My favorite Nancy Myers film is it's complicated. Can I have, they certainly don't really, I mean, they probably don't have time to explain this. But wouldn't it make a certain level of sense that he needed to copy her consciousness

so that he could have more data in his simulations that involved her? I thought he was done with his simulations. Yeah. I feel like he's good. I don't, sure. But what is time? All right, let's talk about.

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today. Go to your happy price. Priceline. The best part of waking up, a full cup of Folgers coffee, and music on full blast. Shop Fulgers, K-cup pods and more at your nearest retailer. Let's talk about our favorite stack of ones and zeros. Christina, um, Christina, not real.

Teddy also probably not real because there's a moment when they walk in a door and Stubbs and Frankie you then walk out of that door. And if Teddy were real and Christina were not, Stubbs been like, Hey. Well, did he say they're not real or they're not here? I mean,

what is basically? What is real? What is she? So basically, we got to figure this out. Are we saying they're in the real world and Christina is like a simulation, like, ghost basically walking through? Or they're in a simulation and she's not even, she's like a ghost in a simulation. I interpreted that as they're in the real world and she's like a computer ghost.

Yeah. But, but, and that's fine if she's a computer ghost. My new favorite phrase, honestly, computer ghost. But if she is a computer ghost. ghost, who was her roommate talking to and who was her boss talking to? I was wondering that too. What if the roommate, the boss, and Teddy are all just figments of her imagination? They're like, that's her, that's her conscience.

Those are the better angels or the devil and angels on her shoulder or whatever. Well, how did the guy come and find her? Is it like the tower she's only visible if also, I don't know either. I was confused by that as well, Joe. I don't have any answer. Well, the dude who died 30 years ago? that guy but also just like yeah the boss the roommate like is the her date yeah I don't know

really odd I mean it would be like I guess sort of unfulfilling to find out that every piece of what we've seen with her the season is like a coping mechanism for a thing that doesn't exist in any real way sure but that feels like closer to the truth than me than her than all these things being real and I just don't think we, I have a whole slate of questions here and I don't think we know the answer to any of it.

And at this point, I'm afraid to guess like who or what Teddy is. Was Christina acting on her owner taking orders from Hale? If she's a computer ghost, what does it mean that Hale has like frequent check-ins with her? Is she just part of the pearl inside of Hale, the better angel that exists inside of Hale's pearl? the embodiment of Rahoboam. Right. Is she still plugged into Rahoboam? And this is, you know, all those other theories

from the beginning of the season. Do we feel satisfied by this reveal? No, because it wasn't a reveal. I mean, just from, again, from the creative decision here, who knows what's going to happen next season, but I feel like this is the part to me that was really misbegotten.

Reveal everything about Christina in episode seven. And then let episode eight be about our favorite characters getting shot in the head. You know, it's like the stakes of this, of the Christina thing, are so fucking low. I mean, what on earth could the reveal be that you would feel in episode eight? Like, ah, that's what I've been waiting to see. No, I mean, it's like, it's not going to, it's like almost inherently not going to matter. And to tease, for that to be the thing you're teasing out over three episodes, just feels like

a real regression to the norm. I feel really seen by the two of you, and I'm glad we're all in a similar space. because I was worried I was going to come into this like really frosty and you guys were going to be like it was great. Oh, no, no. I really enjoy, I got to tell you, first watch, I enjoyed the hell out of this. And then I was sort of taking my whole breath, all my breath was taken away by the end. Yeah, I think that's like. And I was like, I don't, like it didn't sit right in a weird way.

You know, like I really liked it. And the second watch, I was just sort of like, okay, this is what we're doing here. I mean, I had like, I think all the things that I ended up having issues with, I wrote down during the first watch. But the speed of it kept me going, you know? That's a good point. It's kind of like the flight, the plane missed the runway. And they're like, how was your flight? And I think, you know, you pretty quickly forget, oh, actually, the plane was kind of good.

Actually, I don't like those cookies that Delta has. It's like, actually, all you think about is missing the runway and it kind of poisons everything else. We get some, like, very on the nose overt Christ baptism imagery with Christina here in the bathtub. What was with that? Because I have two questions. I have a question for you. I want to hear where you guys thought that was. I had no idea what it meant in the moment,

and I tried to think about it, and it's a stretch. But what was that? I have two answers to question. I don't know if these are your two questions, but here are my two answers. Number one, I think Evan Rachel Wood has updated her nudity clause

and her contract. And number two, if your question is why she wearing a bathing food in the bath of. Number two, it's like her test of am I really alive? Am I a human or am I not? I'm going to kill myself to see if I can kill myself.

Okay, that's what I thought. But then it's also baptism imagery. And also Teddy, who may or may not exist, is outside the door that may or may not exist. But you also have to go in with some sort of bias if you're going to strip down to your swimsuit. If you're going to die, you would leave your clothes on, right? Even that, no, even the opposite.

Even that's a weird thing. I understand, look, season one had way too much nudity. It was kind of weird. and like, I understand, but like, it's movies, it's TV. They have what, you do the thing where you shoot from the chest up. And it's like, it's almost weirder to me to show her getting in a bath in her own bathroom in underwear with the full screen. Instead of just like have her get naked, but just only show the shoulders and up. Or have her be fully clothed.

Or have her be fully clothed. Yeah, which would have communicated more clearly like, I'm done with this. Like, it's almost, I don't know. It's just like, it was strange. Also, does Teddy waiting outside? while she tried to commit suicide and then, like, after a while getting worried about her with his much kind of, like, omniscience as Teddy seems to have,

weird that he would just let her slide off into the bathroom for 15 minutes. But then at that point, at the end, to be worried at all, seems like totally, like, if he's real, which I don't believe he is, if he's real, why would he be dumb enough to let her go kill herself? Well, what's he going to do, follow her in the bathroom? And no, no, but, okay, if he's real or if he's fake, why let her go out there and then be worried about her at the end? Why knock on the door?

Christina Christina. You either know. Maybe in a spidey sense. Is Teddy sense? I think the whole scene was set up strangely, but I agree with Schuemaker. I think that this storyline was more intriguing to me in the beginning. I actually liked the reveal of it. I actually didn't see that coming.

They're like, actually, you're just not here, but the place is real. But where it's going, I don't know what Ted. I agree that they're not there. and Teddy's probably like that, which is confusing to me because I thought once they opened the door, I'm like, oh, that's where Teddy came from because we last saw Teddy going in there.

And so like, oh, Teddy must have popped out, even though, I would actually argue. At the end of season two made no sense of Teddy, but we don't have to re-litigate that. I think they're just in the sublime, which was like our episode one theory, but we'll find out. Wait, we don't think that there's still some sort of,

to me, I'm still hanging on to the whole, like, this is a, like, this is a simulation that, Hale is running thing. Very possible, especially like the communication between Hale and Christina that we saw. Yeah. You know, did that actually happen? Because Hale, then, I'm sure they're not going to, they're not going to evoke too much of

season three in the finale here, but it does kind of feel like in so much as we have human representations of AIs or whatever, that maybe that Hale was the sort of Rojoboum. Let's put it this way. Let me flip that. If they don't invoke season. three in the finale, then they are officially like, yeah, that was our bad. That sucked. Because if Rehobam's not involved, if like the entire basis of season three is not even

referenced in season four, when it totally was left on the table, I almost think that that's almost the biggest indictment at all. It's true because it does seem to be, it would seem to be a pretty simple path towards something with Dolores being sucked into the system slash Caleb saying, like burn it all down. You know, Caleb talking to her home home at the end of season three, those things would be pretty easy to write it, I mean, to make part of this plot. To Danny's really your point that, like, if the Maeve stuff isn't working, then the show

isn't working, what I will say, what I discovered as soon as they shot Tessa Thompson in the head is that the emotional or moral journey that I cared about most this season is actually Charlotte Hale. Because in terms of moving the needle, it's not Caleb, though I, I, you know, I, did enjoy Kayla more of the season than I have in the past. Because I'm not sure what he has to learn. He's right and he'll stay right. And that's fine.

Frankie is right. She needs to get over some host bigotry, but she's largely, like, right and fine. Bernard is omniscient, and so he's kind of boring in that way emotionally because he's just wandering around, like, spouting out exposition. Stubbs is entertaining. Christina is...

Christina, I've just been braced the whole time for some rug to be pulled out from under me to, like, make me feel like an idiot for caring. for caring about her journey, so I've never really invested in her. But Hale, as someone who was originally a Dolores and who's been doing all this stuff and is in this vindictive slash board god mode, I am invested in her. And I'm sure she probably will be back in the finale. But like, as soon as they shot her, I was like, what?

I was watching that. Like, what the hell? And not in like a fun, ooh, I'm excited, what a twist sort of way, but just like, sort of like, well, I don't care about Will. Am I supposed to care about William? Like murder bought William headed into New York City? I don't care. This whole episode feels like a draft, but not a finished product. How so? It just feels like this is the result of someone who had like a pitch for a thing. Maybe this is the whole show I'm talking about. But it's like a really cool pitch. But then you flesh it out and you're like, oh, actually, let's like, let's work on like these sections.

and it just didn't happen. I don't think I would go that far. I mean, I think it's really hard. I honestly have so, I think I've been pretty straightforward about my feelings for this episode. But, you know, I do, but I do think it all hangs on the next episode. So we'll, we'll see. And not even that. I mean, we're, this is a deep, this is a deeply philosophical show, right?

I mean, it would, like, I think it's fair to say this show is much more interested in ideas than in show mechanics than like, like narrative mechanics, right? we're not just staring down the finale of season four we're staring down the finale of the show coming in nine episodes right I mean we have to like be cruising towards an end point and this is where every show gets bogged down

and in chess piece moving you know I think that as frustrating as this episode was I'm not I'm not overly concerned about what's going to happen next episode, although you guys, I mean, it could be terrible. Who knows? I'll follow your lead and wander down the path to something I enjoyed and say,

like, the David Bowie singing the man who sold the world to close out the episode was a, like, fun, expensive moment that I enjoyed. If that song sounds familiar to you and you haven't already Googled it, but you weren't familiar with the Bowie version, It was very famously covered by Nirvana and their unplugged concert. And that might be the version that you've heard more commonly. And Lisa Joy and Jonah love Nirvana. Historically love Nirvana.

These are Gen Xers to their core. So, yeah, that's what that's doing here. You think that they got to David Bowie from Nirvana? I know that sounds dumb, but if it's Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan, I do think they did. that's almost as crazy as who is the guy he died not too long ago so rest of peace but the just in town zirle one of my favorite recording artists is steve earl's son and like started off as a punk rock fan and then got into nirvana and then found out about like muddy led better because because nirvana had covered them and then eventually like discovered his dad at the age of 20 you know

like he was like these things can be weird weird circles i guess it's not i mean i know like i love david bowie so i'm not saying that like most people's power to this song is through Nirvana necessarily. I just think because Lisa Joy and Jonah have used Nirvana multiple times on the West World's soundtrack, it might be the path they took. I found out about David Bowie when I was eight,

when I watched Zoolander, and he was the judge when I watched Zoolander on TBS. So, you know, people have come to things in different ways. I found about David Bowie when I was eight and I watched the dark crystal. How younger you did? Elaborance are. Younger than you.

No, actually, I was talking about this, Craig the other day, who I did the fantasy show with. And like, I think that people, underrate sometimes how much younger generations of people can come into art or someone famous because they do the cameo on something much later and you forget, like, oh, this person is famous, but it's like, why would someone young encounter them? And it turns out that them being, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, like, share in like Mamma Mia 2. You know what I mean? Like, let's be real. How many people under 25 are encountering share what share looks like other than,

you know, Mama, like, that's how I found out much, that's what Cher looked like. I watch Mama Mia too. That's just another example. Is that real? Is that sure? Yeah, because I watched Mamma Mia too before I was going to watch a Sunny and Share music video. How would I know what Cher looks like? All right. You guys did this too.

You just don't know it. No, I know. I have memories of, actually, the youngest memory I have of this, this is a nice little segue for me ranting about Westworld. The youngest memory I have of this is like watching old Looney Tunes and there would be like cultural references where I was like, I have no idea what that is. Like how Acme is a real company.

I would find out who Clark Gable or Veronica Lake or whoever were because I was like, this is obviously a reference to something, but I don't know what it is. And so, yeah, when David Bowie shows up in Zoolander and it goes, let's dance, you're like, what's this? What's going on? Theory Corner. Danny, do you have anything for us this week? I mean, usually sometimes we're like, oh, we stepped on Theory Corner.

I think the show stepped on Theory Corner this week. I mean, I, yeah. I mean, we just got to see what happens at this point. I think that I definitely think that we've been seeing interstitials of various of Bernard's 10,000 experiences, and we'll probably get something with that. Transcendence must not mean much, I guess. And then, like, they kind of tolls this up with Dolores. I still wonder if Dolores has plugged into Rojobe, or if they're just like,

ah, don't worry, think about season three too much. But overall, I mean, I really don't know, right? I think that's kind of the weird part is they build up all the suspense. And then they're like, actually, Hale and Mave and Bernard, they're just dead. So I don't know. Okay. I got nothing. Theory Corner's big little shrug emoji this week.

The maze is not meant for you. Dumb whatever award. I'm granting this to myself. No, don't do it. Why? Not seeing Westworld disappointing me coming. No, it's fine. That's an overreaction.

Everything's going to be fine. David, where are you? Dumb, this maze is not meant for you award. Who gets it? Dang. This is easy if you want me to throw it a couple candidates. Yeah, you go. So there's two candidates.

Maeve bringing a knife instead of a gun. I'm sorry. That was like dumb. I understand the TV show, blah, blah, blah. Knife fights are cooler. I've said that before. So if we want to put that one to the side, the dude who gave Caleb his coat for 50 bucks,

Caleb's like, I'll give you, I'll give you 50 bucks for this coat. And I'm like, okay, well, we already established that we're like in the future and a glass of whiskey costs like $300. So what the hell did this guy just give away his coat for? Also, Caleb does not have a thin red dime on his person. Let's say, well, yeah, I was weird where that, I was wondering where that came from two. Maybe he found it, but even that's strange.

But seriously, that was a nice cutter. Because then the riot broke out so that like no money exchanged hands, right? Or did he? He gave the guy the coat and then the guy immediately grabbed him by the coat. I think it was an excuse for them to kind of turn and be like, and then the guy will grab him. But it did seem like, well, first of all, he could have. I don't think he said bucks, right?

Didn't it seem like he said it in such a way that it could have been 50 mega yin or whatever whatever the high bills are at this point. Yes. Good point. But also, it did seem like, it just seemed like a really odd 30 seconds. As crammed as this show, this episode felt at times, it's like, we've seen people yank coats off of clotheslines so many times in TV. Like, no, this doesn't need a conversation.

That's, yeah, the show has, it's very strange about what short. it will and will not take. Okay. So metanoia is the name of the episode. A transformative change of heart, especially a spiritual conversion. And we were predicting that that would have to do with Hale. Perhaps it has to do with William question mark. But that leads me into the next time on.

Is there anything else you guys want to say about the title of Metanoia? Well, yeah, I think Aaron Rogers had some metanoia. I don't know if you have much you're following the NFL. days, Joe. I do know who Aaron Rogers is. So he took I-O-A-Wasca on a trip to Peru, and I believe it has DMT. No judgment, but, you know, I think Aaron Rogers with the metanoia. So that's a nice blend of my two interests.

I don't think that's the first time that Aaron Rogers has done ayahuasca, is it? I thought he and Shalame Woodley were doing ayahuasca like every Friday. Probably, but he's talking about it now. Oh, okay. He's coming out of his ayahuasca closet. Okay. We're getting the dates. I've spent an hour now not making a pun about being met annoyed by this episode.

So I'm just going to leave that there and we can move on. All right. So this next section is the look ahead. No spoilers. Just like the next time on trailer. If you don't want to know any of that, you can jump off now. We love you. We're sorry that I'm not sorry, but this is a very ranty episode.

Next week's episode is called Kay Sarasara. And if you know that song, you don't have to be. to know Spanish to know what it is, which is whatever will be will be the future's not ours to see as the lyrics from that very famous song. Kesarasrasras, you know, ties into this idea of the choice. The choice has to yours. Will you still fight with me as something that Bernard says in this episode? But also to go back to that message that he left, he says, there's time for only one more game.

If you choose to give her that choice, you can't miss reach with your left hand. In the next time on, we see someone watching that message. that person is definitely 100% Charlotte Hale who is not dead or has been rebooted. The nails and the fingerless gloves match up to another shot of her at the Hoover Dam shooting and gun. Maybe the gun he left behind. So the point is, all of this does seem to be Bernard trying to show Charlotte something.

And so I wonder if she had to be shot in the head by William in order to be receptive to whatever it is that Bernard is about to. to tell her via iPad message. And in that way, her death does matter. She has to die in order to have her own metanoia moment. Because here's my, this is a theory corner based on absolutely nothing other than what's in these trailers, knowing that Hale gets a message from Bernard and then winds up at the Hoover Dam and seemingly maybe uses that gun that he left behind for her, which is

that, and then also the next time on Williams at the Hoover Dam. So like, Hale has something to take to the Hoover Dam. Could it be maybe the collection of all the data she has on all the humans that are in the park in all the cities around the world? And could Bernard be like, you got to upload them and that's the only way to save anything of this society that's left over. And she's on a race to do that before William kills her because he's like burn everything down. Is that the end of the season? If so, is that interesting? I barely followed that.

I'm sorry. That's not because of anything you said. I just, as you were talking, I was realizing how little I've processed about what could happen next week. And I'm like, man. Is it possible that Bernard's plan is I'm going to send an email to Charlotte?

And, like, the Charlotte that was killed was a fake Charlotte that, because Charlotte got the email in advance. What? I also would like to say what? Is it possible that the... Carlos just said what? Is it possible that...

I'm just trying to make death matter a little bit. Is it possible... Why are you doing that? Just for fun. I actually think it's worse if death matters because the only thing worse... Is it possible that Bernard warned Hale in time that the man in black was coming to kill her?

And the Hale that Man and Black killed was not. Hail Prime. When did, what? I think it's Hill Prime because she's got the burned arm. And also because Maeve was fighting her. And so the one that Mayve tried to kill was the one that William killed.

So that would have meant that he brought Maeve to the place to kill hail hell. But like, if he didn't want to hail dead, he could just not brought her. I guess if my quay, I guess my hang up with what you just said, Joe, is if the

central tension of the finale is everyone's been Bernard brings everyone around we're all in the same team all we're doing and we're all trying to somehow save the world before the man and black

can destroy it right if that's the central tension then why was there no simulation where he just went and stabbed the Ed Harris body suit like four episodes ago I know I know I was thinking that two of the look I know 10,000 times whatever it's like he's done it and like there's a reason

However, not going to lie, seemed like he could have killed William. Like he just was standing there. Well, I think he, okay, that's another thing. If death is going to matter, does Hale need to die? Does Hale need to be shot in the head by William for her to see something, which is, I don't know,

she's not in control. She's not the God that she thought she was. She's not, this world tends towards violence. Hosts will always behave like humans. There is no pure transcendence, something like that. And does he need to die in order to also prove that point to her? I wish that people gave me this kind of generosity when I screwed up my own writing.

Like when I write his story and I rank like, hey, here are the Super Bowl contenders and I leave out the Buffalo Bills. I wish that the Bills fans instead of being like, that was dumb, you're bad. I wish they'd been like, actually, it's because they're going to win the Super Bowl twice in a row. That's why he left them off. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. You think I'm being too nice. I think we all are.

For an hour, I guess. I think that death doesn't matter, and this was poorly written. Well, death doesn't matter. Death doesn't matter since they brought Teddy back. Because when Teddy died in season two, and they were like, he's really dead and it matters. When did they say it? I thought the end of season two, they closed with him like, I'm in the sublime and he went into the sublime. So why would he be really dead?

I thought, so is everyone in the, is Maeve's daughter dead dead dead? If Teddy's dead dead dead, I thought they were in the same place. I thought it was just like they're not coming back. We're talking about two different things, right? Does death... No, no, it's true. Does death matter in the Westworld sort of religion? And does death matter in, like, the narrative context of the show?

This is going to go really off the rails, but... But no, death doesn't matter for a host. If you can upload yourself to the cloud, like, that's... I think that much is pretty clear. But if you care about the world, then death, I guess, could conceivably matter. But in the context of the show, I think what Joe's saying is right. for the people, like, Akechita is the only person from there that we see,

besides Bernard, who's, you know, a visitor. Because the rest of it is not material to the show, right? It is just sort of this ambiguous afterlife. And the more we get caught up in it, the less we're going to think that the real world matters. We're just going to be seduced by the whole thing, too, I would think. But does death matter in the show? I think the only way that death really matters in the show,

this point is if that is the only means, if human death is the only means to bootstrapping host consciousness. And what we saw with the man in black and robot William, I mean, if with body suit and host William is in fact the only like the like the functional path forward. Does that make sense? Like if seeing, of killing yourself literally is though is the way for consciousness to take place. I feel like I want to think about what you just said for a little while. And I'll tell you my answer next week. Yes, it's a cliffhanger. But it doesn't matter if you fall off the cliff because if you die, it doesn't matter.

All the hosts did fall off the cliff in season two. I'm going to repeat this for the third time. There's time only for one more game. If you choose to give her that choice, you can't miss, reach with your left hand. If he's talking to Hale, who's the her? If you choose to give her that choice. And is it Christina? And if so, what does that mean?

Christina is just a computer ghost. He's the parlance of Danny Hyphids. I'm not sure what the code thing is, too. I mean, obviously, this was hinted at. This was pre-sage. This was whatever in the Caleb episode, right? Where he was, like, leaving all those, like, what you need his time, messages to himself or whatever. And then he went and broke the hourglass.

But I'm not sure what the, what, like, corny. double speak really does for me here. But whatever. I don't know. What does reach with your left hand? It'll make sense at the time. Honestly, I'm not even worried about that. I'm more wondering how they built this plan. Oh, we need somewhere that will last for eternity. I know. Water and Nevada.

That'll be there forever. That's really, we said this before. But there is a wild, wild tension between, well, it doesn't matter because five seconds on Earth is like five billion years out there. And also, like, and the alternative, which is. well, but if you want real eternity, you're going to have to have some humans, like, you know, dusting the floors

and changing the batteries and stuff. But I don't know. Oh, yeah. No, that's a great point. Yes, that's a great point. Arms help. Arms would be helpful. Bigger, like, bigger picture question. They've all said, we're going to do season five.

It's our final season. Ed Harris is like, we're going to start shooting next spring, blah, blah. Given all the upheaval that's happening at HBO and Warner Bros. brothers, and given the less and stellar rating that Westworld has enjoyed this season, is there a possibility that we end the season and we do not get a season five? Well, let me rewind here. I'm out here. I cover the NFL as my primary thing.

And so I'm doing a lot of NFL stuff. What actually happened with HBO? Discovery and Time Warner merged, but basically discover swallowed Time Warner, Warner Brothers, whatever, HBO being a part of it. HBO being most importantly the public face of the streaming platform part of that, right, which is the future. And David Zazlov, the chairman of Discovery, basically tasked too. Who at HBO was cutting like $30 billion from the bottom line?

In part, Casey Blois. Yeah. But Casey Boyce got a five-year contract renewal. But basically they're gutting HBO Max. This is an HBO show, not an HBO Mac show. But basically, they're gutting HBO Max. and they're going to be merging HBO Max and the Disney, sorry, I keep saying that,

the Discovery Plus platform to be one online streaming platform so that HBO content can sit side by side with the Discovery Reality content that they make. So if I want to watch Game of Thrones, not the new one, but go back and rewatch Game of Thrones when they figured this all out. Is that going to be an HBO Max or on Discovery Plus? To be on Discovery Plus.

We think the latest word is that it's all going to be subsumed under Discovery Plus, although right before that, the rumor was it was all going to be HBO Max. I think regardless... I've heard it's HBO is going to be a tab on Discovery Plus, but the point being the threshold for cancellation is a lot lower than it was even a week ago,

as far as what we know about how programming is working at HBO right now. Well, before we get to that, the real important piece of component of this is that Westworld and Property Brothers will only be a short click away. That's an upside for everybody. But...

Wait, could the Property Brothers get into like simulation property. That should be, I mean, there's all these, like, HDTV. Should one of the parks be

the property brother's park? It'd be pretty good. Brands energy, they've been redecorating houses in Canada for like 20 years and pretending, just like letting you believe they're in a random neighbor,

like important cities in the United States. I think they're already there. They're already in a simulation. That's a good. That's a good, that's the best theory of that all year. Property Brothers is a simulation. Great pitch.

Yeah. So to answer your question, Joe, It would be I would hate to be at a place that was looking to cut costs after we just dropped I don't know

I'm guessing a million dollars on a David Bowie song to take up like to take up like 90 seconds of my show right that said who knows

I mean like this this isn't seems to be a very expensive show and less increasingly less expensive because they're cutting episodes

out of the season and they're also like the budget is way lower than it used to be obviously but I think what's true is that Zazlov has proved already that they don't care too much about their relationship with

creative talent. Oh, yeah. Given what they did with the Batgirl movie? Danny, did that reach you? What they did with the Backgirl movie? I just saw they didn't release Backgirl and a bunch of memes. I didn't really understand why Back Girl was not released. They canceled Bat Girl after starting Bat Girl.

No, the movie's pretty much done. Oh, it is. And they're just never going to show it. Why? He uses a tax write off. Didn't they already pay for it? A tax write-off. It's cheaper for them to write off as a tax break than to pay out the streaming rights or whatever of the movie.

So. Well, I as actually, my former life, I was a billionaire streaming rights CEO. So with my extensive knowledge of those financials, great decision. It would be sort of the perfect ending to Westworld if there was a season five that was filmed and never released. No, no, no, no. If you want to cut costs, you just do season five and you're like, it was a simulation. And then you just recut all of what they filmed. And they're like, hey, we got a different show. Or they could just be like, yes, Tess, we will no longer be paying Tessa Thompson or Tendouin Newton or Jeffrey Wright to be in our show. All right. Let's be real. Death does matter because it cuss costs. All right.

Would you let these people spend your money? Who? Whomst? The people making the show. No, come on. I, listen, I would be lying if I said that my that I went into this episode of the prestigious Shivi podcast, slightly anxious about how something we could say might lead to someone in David Zazlov's office changing their opinion of Westworld. I don't think we're that important, though.

So I decided, honest, honesty is the best policy. And hey, you know, what was the kitchen that said? You only live as long as the last person who remembers you. I mean, the show is going to live on in our memory forever. doesn't really matter if we get a fifth season. They can put it on Quibi. I'll just say this. If they have to wrap up, if next week's episode is our last episode ever of Westworld,

I do hope that they end, sort of on the similar end of season three, which is like season three could have been a series finale with like Caleb and Maeve doing the like fight club moment. It could be whoever the hell you want. That could have been the end of the series. It's not. Here we are. Maybe uploading all humans to the Hoover Dam for all eternity.

Maybe. We'll see. that's it for us this week. I think anything else you guys want to talk about before we go. Yeah, I want to end on an uplifting note.

If Westwood gets canceled, it doesn't matter because death doesn't mean anything. It'll just come back. And if you can't tell the difference, does it really matter? Do you know what I mean? Excellent.

Everything is eternal in the Hoover Dam, as I've always said. Thank you all so much for listening to our group therapy chat about this episode of Westworld that really did a number on me. I'm really hopeful that I love the finale, though.

I hope springs eternal. I am like walking through that misty white door along with Bernard following Charlie. My, I don't know. Anyway, I lost control of that. This has been the Presti-TV podcast for Westworld. Thanks as always to the great Carlos Chiroboga for his production work on this episode. And we will see you next week. Bye.

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