The Watch - Ep. 93: 'Westworld' Theories and the 'Black Mirror' Episode "Playtest" With Jason Concepcion

Episode Date: October 31, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Jason Concepcion discuss the possibility of two timelines in 'Westworld' (7:00), the full scope of where the show takes place (18:00), and the connection to video games (23:00). Then, Chris and Jason give their thoughts on the second episode of 'Black Mirror' (27:00) and the moral questions surrounding the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by American Express. Hey American Express card members, you do not want to miss this. Now, through December 31st, there's a big reason for you to shop small at local stores in your neighborhood. Learn more and enroll your eligible card today at Americanexpress.com slash shop small offer. That's Americanexpress.com slash shop small offer. Terms apply. Hey, guys, the watch is also brought to you by Black Mirror. We are talking about Black Mirror today.

We're talking about the second episode of the third season called PlayTest. Black Mirror is a show created by Charlie Brooker. It's an anthology series with six self-contained dark stories. The series explores the darker outcome of human interaction and our relationship with technology. The New Yorker has called it the Twilight Zone for the Digital Age. And this six episode run features appearances from Bryce Dallas Howard. Halt and Catch Fires, Mackenzie Davis. House of Cards is Michael Kelly.

Roots is Malachi Kirby. Boardwalk Empire is Kelly MacDonald. And Game of Thrones is Jerome Flint. and that's just to name a few. Seasons one, two, and three are all streaming on Netflix, plus that Christmas episode. You can follow Black Mirror on Facebook at Black Mirror Netflix. Six new stories of the critically acclaimed Black Mirror, now streaming only on Netflix. I need supports to have to clear the room.

And walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com. And joining me on the other line, he just got off cleanup crew at Pariah. It's Jason Concepcion! Hand over the nitroglycerin, motherfucker. I'm so excited to have Jason with me today.

Andy was unfortunately not able to make recording today, but we got Jason, obviously, to talk about Westworld. We're going to go really dork heavy on Westworld theories. And then Jason, it's kind enough to join me, to talk about the second episode of Black Mirror Playtest, so that's the second half of the show. Yeah. Jason, my first question for you,

based off of last night's relatively dense episode of Westworld, is who is the target demographic for a Sunday night HBO or? Because this is now the second time in a calendar year, I think, since True Detective season two where they've just been like, orgy episode. And I just can't imagine like what who's like seven, you know, West Coast it's like seven o'clock, whatever. In the East Coast it's like 10 o'clock, you're settling in. You got the World Series on one channel. You got the football on the other channel. The election's going to hell.

And you're like, but what I really need is group sex on a premium cable. I need to see like, I need to see robots. just absolutely sprinkled in gold dust, striding naked through the streets of a border town. I hate to be the nip-pick. Rising. Was that the most inessential group sex you've ever seen? Well, I think that was kind of the point. I mean, it's hard to say, you know, but I feel like kind of the point was to make this unappealing while also kind of like to check the boxes of necessary nudity on a Sunday night.

at HBO. Yeah. And I felt like they just wanted to make it seem like, you know, you don't really want this even though you think you want this. Yeah. And I think that also, I mean, they had to differentiate pariah from the usual sex and drugs and rock and roll that happens in Westworld. Yeah, which is like, is it that different?

Yeah. That it's like, you know, like is it really that different from what? Yeah. Like, I feel like this is the stuff you can get into at maze, like at any time. You know, like you can absolutely get down with like three or more robots at maze and then like kill them all and like get into it with some Confederates. Like is it really that much crazier? You just don't get to have a eyes wide shud mask on while you're doing it, I guess. Right.

Yeah. Okay. So one of the things we wanted to talk about today is like the treasure trove of theories that are out there. There's a very, you know, robust Reddit pop community that's tracking Westworld and pretty much every day now. every Monday. The internet just spits out, like, all the theories. We're going to try and be a little bit of a clearinghouse. I would like to just, like, sweepingly credit Westworld Reddit with a lot of, like,

this stuff. I am not coming up with this stuff by myself, obviously. I recommend that you check out those Reddit threads if you're interested in this stuff because they are really spinning some gold out there. But, you know, just to kind of, like, run through them. I think that the first one that we wanted to talk about because of last night's episode, it made it pretty, if it's not two timelines, they are really like going pretty close to the edge

with it being two timelines. So where are you at? Do you think that we're watching two separate timelines and then second question, do you think the man in black is William in a later part of his life? Yes. I was on the fence before,

but I think they made it, they just dropped so many hints last night. At one point, Logan, when he's talking about, you know, a business meeting, they had taken part in the real world. He said, you know, you walked in in your cheap black suit, and I was like, oh, okay. I think it's pretty clear that that's what is going on. This raises a whole bunch of other questions for me, such as, you know, like when the man in black talks about dissecting the robots and them being, you know, made up of a million little circuits and parts. Like when, how different are the robots in the early timeline and in the current quote-unquote timeline? Right.

I don't feel a differentiation from, say, the robot that Ford is talking to in the freezer downstairs and early Dolores and current Dolores. It's hard to know how they've really changed. I'd like to know more about that. But I think it's pretty clear that they've hinted pretty heavily that it is a two-timeline affair. Yeah, and so there's, what Jason's referring to is I think he, the man in black when he finds Teddy on the tree is like, well, I once tore, like, cut you open and, like, looked at it and then, I'm not so sure I understand the medical science undergirding the blood transfusion between robots. But, you know, I'm going with it. It's interesting, like, the idea of this sort of vampiric, life-giving juice that goes into, like, these pieces of metal. I guess that's kind of fascinating.

So if you take that to be given, certain things start to kind of materialize. And this is really a lot of it is speculation. So if you don't want, I mean, this is also the kind of thing that we ran into With Thrones, right? Where it's like if you don't want it to be spoiled by two people who don't know anything, this is kind of a tough listen right now. But you can make an argument, obviously, that William and Logan are part of like whatever this. I'm not actually sure if it's the Delos Corporation. because Delos is that Hopkins is that Ford's company

or if they are like, quote unquote, the shareholders who come in. But they are arriving in their timeline and saying, this place is hemorrhaging money, this guy Arnold killed himself, and ever since then, it's place has been in free fall. We're thinking about investing. And William is marrying into this family.

He's marrying Logan's sister. Right, some kind of corporate. And Logan is like this bad boy. Williams, like this kind of benign dude who's just like trying to do good in the world. And you can kind of see the blueprint of this idea that these two and this family are going to be the shareholders that Borgon lady later on is going to be reporting to. Yes, that seems pretty clear. And that possibly if we go along with that William is man in black, that the man in black has kind of gone rogue from the entire thing and that his vision for this, his personal journey is not necessarily.

one of investment in return. Right. He's just been looking for the maze, basically, for 30 years. Right. And that sort of takes us nicely to Dolores, who I think is going to be the other person who plays the major role in whatever these two timelines, either overlap, which I think, kind of think that they could overlap in the maze or at the end of the maze, right? I think, well, the thing I've been thinking about is when, when Dolores is walking the

streets of Pariah and sees herself in the parade. I think, and then she faints and the next thing, you know, she's being debriefed by Ford. I think there's some kind of, that's where the memories cross over. Right. In other words, that's where current Dolores is having some kind of fragment of a memory of being in Pariah 34 something years ago and causes some kind of break. And that's the moment where Ford is trying to kind of. of like still trying to explore whether Dolores is reaching consciousness, is she conscious?

Which I think like also, why are they still trying to figure out if the robots are conscious after 30 years of them obviously being conscious? Right. And that's a real suspension of disbelief thing. It's like the level of these flashpoint. I mean, it would take a real corporate sort of negligence to not see the volatility going on here. I think that obviously you could make the argument that what happens? happens in the park is so, you know, visceral or whatever that, like, there's going to be

obvious moments of violence and sex and, like, craziness. But the amount of different hosts who are now experiencing issues, as the Shannon Wood, as Elise says, it's just like, this is a virus, basically. Yeah. And that was that, that, that, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is something I've wondered about when she, she discovers the reason for the, the, woodcutter hosts, the reason he kind of wandered off was someone had implanted some kind of hardware into him and was using him to upload data out of the park. Right. Which kind of seems like,

you know, rich people have been coming to Westworld for three decades, doing all kinds of things in there ostensibly in secret, but really being recorded by hosts and watched by people. And it just seems kind of obvious that hackers would be trying to get into this place, like, round the clock for years, like, all the time, because it's just like a treasure trove of blackmail material. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what you would said, that you had a really great piece that was about, like,

Westworld's misunderstanding of shame and this idea that the arc of our sort of sexual desires has, like, gone from the public to the private, that we're moving away from going to, like, you know, you know, not as strip clubs, but also like porn theaters and like the idea of this public adult entertainment to it's increasingly private, it's increasingly online, it's going to probably move into virtual reality altogether. That's where this thing is going. The idea that people would be like, I want to be on camera committing genocide and sexual assault is and paying that much money, it must be a radically different world that this world is set in. And that has come up a lot online. Like a lot of people were talking about last night about,

I think Emily Nussbaum was pointing this out, among others, about just like the racial politics of this is like pretty bizarre, or at least the lack of discussion about racial politics within the world of the show is pretty bizarre, given what they're talking about. So we'll see how that plays out. I kind of just don't feel like this show is really going to unpack that, but maybe I'm wrong. If you went to Westworld,

like, would you be fine with just, like, getting down knowing that, like, various people are watching on their iPads? No, see, this is the thing with this whole show, is that, like, I also, frankly, and this is nothing about my character, like, I would be much more comfortable with the city slickers version of this. Like, let's just have a cattle drive. Dude, we don't have to fucking assault someone. Like, you could just, like, move the cows from that place to that place and, like, have someone be like, yeah. Woo! You did it! Here's a steak!

Have a whiskey! It's like, I... The idea that like to make it really feel real, it has to be this Bacchanal and and like, Hieronymus Bosch scene, it's kind of nuts. I think, like, I'm still enjoying it. Oh, me too, for sure. Just from this... I do think though it is, it has come time to like flesh out the world a little bit.

Like, for instance, when, uh, that one 10, tech gets outed, taking liberties with decommissioned hosts. For necrophilia, yeah. Off-hour, yeah. Just like the fact that that wouldn't be stated at, you know, whenever you're brought on as an employee. Like, hey, this is all on, like, they record everything. Well, it's like, given the level of intelligence.

Yeah, the nitwits that they have cleaning these things, it's really that much of a surprise that all these robots are going rogue. So the thing that I wanted to talk about, and you mentioned it briefly, but it was this conversation between Ford and Dolores, which had echoes of the conversation between the architect and Neo, which kind of still worth mentioning,

one of the coolest things, like I think I've seen in like a mainstream blockbuster movie as the nine-minute speech the architect gives, which I, did you, like, when you saw that the first time, were you like, I get it? I needed to see that multiple times. And that was also early internet really did a good job breaking that down.

I remember finding some explanation of what that was. Relatively soon after it came out and just having my noodle completely cooked by that. I remember being semi-shocked that that seemed like the first time that, you know, like a creative, like a movie. or TV kind of nodded towards internet speculation in a real way. Because there was a lot of, you know, I remember between those sequels, there was a lot of online talk about, oh, you know, it could be a matrix within a matrix within a matrix and et cetera. And then they, you know, the architect really kind of laid that whole thing out.

Yeah. That this has been going on for a while, that Neo is part of, is it like an established glitch. There's like 32 of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was, I remember being shocked that they did that and also a little bit disappointed that they kind of, that they felt the need to explain it to that level.

Yeah. I think the thing, like, in vis-a-vis Westworld, it kind of feels like it's a mystery in the same way that a crossword is a mystery and that figuring out what's going on is really the meat of what is true. driving me back to this show, but at the same time, if you just kind of read the words of a crossword, there's not a lot of there there yet. And I think that was, for me, that was kind of like the Ford Dolores. Yeah. And I, that when he says, when she asks, are we friends? And he says, we're quite the opposite. And that basically brings to the forefront, like the idea that Dolores is Neo, right? Like, Dolores is going to be the one. Dolores is going to be the one that get sentience, whether it's something that Arnold has programmed himself into her, deep, deep

into her, like, you know, her code. And Arnold is giving her messages if Arnold is, in fact, dead, you know, this sort of mysterious suicide seems to get, like, a little bit less plausible every week. And that she is the one who is going to basically free her compatriots. And that in that first timeline, if that's what we're operating from, Dolores is basically going to lead some sort of bloody revolution that they will then stamp out, they go through 30 years, and then the man in black comes back. And I kind of feel like given like the way that they're connecting, like a lot of it is going to be related to Dolores.

Do you agree with that? I do. I think, you know, this is kind of cheating. This is something that you showed me actually. It was Jonathan Nolan has a comment on a Reddit thread. Yeah. I think the shower thoughts Reddit threat where the shower thought was basically the scary thing isn't an AI that passes the Turing test. It's an AI that consciously fails the Turing test.

And I think that's what we're seeing with Dolores. Like she on some level, she understands that Ford and the Park are watching her very closely. and so she's kind of repressing this kind of awakening that she has and trying to hide it to some extent. Yeah. That is interesting to me. There's a great, I mean, the best thing I saw on Reddit this week about the show is just in reference to Cliff and Collins sort of assuming the Lawrence El L.Aloaso,

the sort of bandit role in one of the timelines in the Jimmy Simpson timeline. Is that right? Yeah. So in the Jimmy Simpson timeline, Clifton Collins, who later will play the fugitive who Ed Harris is dragging through the desert to find the maze. And this line from Shakespeare from Romeo and Juliet, those violent delights have violent ends, has come up a lot. And, you know, you could make very, it's very obvious what the violent delights are. But in Romeo and Juliet, that is spoken by Friar Lawrence, who gives Romeo and Juliet the poison. So we can kind of see where things are going based on just like, look, this is just, this is bad robot, man. Like, this is how these guys do it.

They build these stories like you're saying. It's more of a crossword than it is a narrative, right? That's exactly what I'm saying. I think, like, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. And I still maintain that there's a level that there's a gear that this show could get to. by kind of laying the groundwork a little more granular that could be really, like, super interesting. Yeah.

It's not there yet, but I think it could get there. I think that when the show first started, I was like, we need, the show needs a Han Solo, it needs a Luke Skywalker, it needs a John Snow, it needs a Rob Snow, it needs Rob Stark, it needs a, like, some identifiable avatar characters who are going through a quest. And I think that it just took a while,

but like Jimmy Simpson's probably, probably going to break bad. It's going to have like a tragedy. Yeah. And that'll be a very interesting transformation to watch. And I think the big thing that you're talking about and the one that I guess we could speculate on is what is going to be the zoom out shot? And is this is this on our world? Is this 300 years in the future? Is this underground? Is it, you know, on an island? Like what is the setting? that when we do the God's view of what's happening here, everybody's going to be like, oh, now I get it.

And it's going to be crazy, because it's like when that happens, how much of the outside world are they going to show us? Right. I feel like I've changed my mind so many times about this. I kind of feel like it is on Earth, but something bad has happened in the meantime, where there's just like a huge swath of land that you can build a gigantic robot sex park on

and nobody will say anything. Because at some point, Ford, when they're looking over that gigantic Earthmovers, does say something about the neighbors. Like, are they complaining, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so I think that you're going, like, I think it's on Earth. And I think that it's just kind of like corporations have carved up large sections. Who are the neighbors?

Like, the University of Phoenix? Like, what? Who's next door to Westworld? It's just like, you know, we moved in next to Pariah. We thought it was going to be an episode. They wrote on the ascendancy. It kind of seems like an early West, in the Jimmy Simpson timeline, the early, the Logan William timeline, it kind of seems like the hosts can definitely, like, mess you up at that time.

Yeah. Well, I wonder whether or not that's like also, because they say like the farther you go out, the crazier it gets. Right. I wonder if there's some sort of, uh, uh, there's like a checks and balances thing that's like not happening because of that Dolores is sort of propagating when she arrived somewhere like crazy shit happens yeah but I don't I don't know what the explanation is for that are we supposed to assume

I didn't see scenes from next week cut scenes or anything like is uh is Logan dead or is he just captured I didn't show him at all although he has that he has that little bit of a smile as William walks away that you could interpret as, okay, this guy is finally like getting into his own story. Right, he's playing the game. And so that's kind of like a lack of fear that these hosts are actually going to kill him. Although, I mean, they're definitely like slugging him

and strangling him against a stagecoach wheel at one point. So obviously they've turned down like the danger sliders in the intervening years. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing that's weird though is, has the security guy who's always bantering with Elise the Hemsworth.

He says they do have a scene of him saying oh there's a request for explosives at the jail and he approves it. Right. So that's, he's in the man in black timeline. The crazy, the guy who caves his head in, that's also in the man in black timeline? The woodcutter.

Yeah. That's not in general. Jimmy Simpson's timeline. Right. That is in the quote-unquote current timeline where we see Elsie slash Shannon Woodward, who's the tech. Sorry. Yeah. Okay.

Right. So Elsie, Hemsworth, Bernard, Borgon lady, all in quote-unquote current timeline. Right. And then Jimmy Simpson, Logan, Dolores, One, one would assume some version of Ford somehow. All of that is in 30 years ago. And then Clifton Collins is playing two characters in each. And we haven't seen Mave in the, we have seen Mave in the first one and in the second one, right?

We did not see her. Yeah, we haven't seen her in the early timeline, I believe. Oh, no. Doesn't she try to get Jimmy Simpson? And he's like, I'm, I'm spoken for her. Is that the early timeline though? Well, Jimmy Simpson can't be in both. Right?

That's right. I think you're right. Okay. So my, my over... No, go ahead. No, no, no. So I think that, yeah, those are the separations. The ones that we don't have, that Wyatt,

um, Hector and Armistice, who is the kind of like the female outlaw, those are the, those are not in the early, those are the characters that aren't in the early Jimmy Simpson. Okay, because I thought, but Wyatt, has Wyatt been mentioned in both? Wyatt, I do not believe, has been mentioned in both. Okay.

Okay. So I basically want to end this segment by like just sort of stating, like, do you have a heat check thing that you want to like say like a theory about the show in general or like a prediction for what's coming forward? I think Arnold, I've said this before. I think Arnold is either not dead or he somehow uploaded his, his consciousness. into like the software code of Westworld, and that's how he's able to continuously affect these robots. And I think like if Dolores is truly like a neo figure, you'd have to ask yourself why Ford has it thrown her in the incinerator.

And I think the reason is for some reason he can't. Like there's some part of Arnold's code that is integral to operating this part, Well, then you get into the sort of... That is hardwired into Dolores. Yeah, and you get into the Neo-Battle Star, kind of everything that's happened will happen again. The revolution is needed to kind of regrow everything. I don't really...

This isn't like a specific theory, but I definitely think that the harvester thing that happens in the episode before this one, where he pauses time and the giant machinery comes through and destroys his tequila vineyard. And just the kind of apocalyptic... ideas about this new narrative is that we're going to basically like symbolically look at this as Old Testament, New Testament, and that Ford is writing the book of Revelations.

Yeah, I think that. That he's trying to basically bring about the end of the world in a way that is harmonious with his vision and that, that, you know, he is God and there's not going to be a world without him. Yes. I think he's trying to, he's trying to create a religion with himself at the head. that can somehow seize control of Westworld from the board and place it back with him. Okay. All right, fun stuff.

All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about Black Mirror. Hey guys, just want to take a quick moment to talk to you about one of our sponsors. Black Tux, do you have a wedding or a special event coming up and you need a tux like now? Don't panic. The Black Tux designs modern fit and suit tuxedo rentals that deliver straight to your door. And now the Black Tux will give you a free home travel. on so you can see the fit and feel the quality of their suits before your event. The best part, you can do it all online.

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demand and the fact that it's just such a cool episode. We're going to talk about San Juniper next. So we're going to skip shut up and dance. I think shut up and dance will come later, you know, but we just wanted to bump up San Antonio to Paris. So Jason and I are talking about playtest today. If Andy has thoughts on that, he'll share him Thursday. We'll be talking about the finale of Atlanta on Thursday. But for now, Jason and I will just knock out playtest. And this was actually, like in terms of watching, watching experience, like my favorite watching experience of the third season. And among my favorite of the series, I thought it was just the

one that felt very different than all the others to me, even though it obviously dealt with a lot of the same themes that Black Mirror always does, like the corrupting nature of technology. You're somebody who plays a lot of video games, though. So that's why I'm really glad we're talking about this. I've read that there are a lot of, like, that a lot of the episode itself is shaped by the logic and kind of emotional connection you might have while you're playing a game? Yeah, it's very survival horror.

There's a game that came out for PlayStation like a year and a half ago. I want to call it PI. And it's very similar in that you kind of wander around this very scary house. You look at the pictures and you look at this kind of trash that's like strewing around and listen to the radio a little bit, and then scary things, like, happen. It's very much like that. I like this episode a lot in terms of, like,

I think a lot about what would happen if the technology to project video games directly into your brain ever happens. Right. Is that, like, that's, like, in play, right? I don't think it's in play anytime soon. I think there are a lot of like really like interesting moral questions like about that technology. Like can you override it?

Can the person who's in it override it consciously? Is there a safe word? Because I, you know, it's like obviously extremely dangerous. Yeah, if you start, and that's what they get at in playtest. Is that so, I mean, you shouldn't listen to this if you haven't seen it. But in the episode, obviously, Wyatt Russell plays a American backpacker going through on like a sort of global country hopping trip. running away from some stuff that's happened to him in America, and he shows up in London, he's kind of running out of money and running out of time,

meets this girl. He needs to make some extra cash because something's up with his bank account, and he signs up to be a tester for this new game being produced by a kind of very cutting-edge gaming company called Cytogames. And it's basically a virtual reality, but almost a reality reality horror game that is more or less feeding all. your own fears and your own nightmares and that that part really I thought was rendered incredibly well and I also really like it means for as much as we talk about video games there was a lot of dream logic to this without actually harping on the most boring

thing in the world which is people talking about their dreams the the way that he was like I'm like the logic of the of the episode was like the way you would try to wake yourself up or tell yourself you're not really falling or you're not really doing this in a dream. Yeah, I think my own, my criticism of it would be that, like a lot of, like Westworld also, like a lot of fiction that references games, it kind of doesn't get at the reason and the way that people play games in a way. Like there's a lot more of a shared experience when you, an interest in creating a shared

experience when you play a game. And I think with something like the technology from playtest, you almost wonder like why you would create, why you, the first thing you would do with that is create a horror game. Right. Like why, if you're projecting like stuff into a person's brain is the first thing you think of going to be, oh, like, how can we access their fears and then create something like incredibly scary? And you know, there are a lot of tech mavens out there who are like, I think probably think that what our concept of technology, it's pretty disappointing that we're just like out here disrupting food delivery rather than going to Mars for real. People with Black Mirror with this show and with Westworld, they are looking at technology and like, well, let's just make the scariest or most sexually charged or violent thing inside of us come to life. Yeah, it's something I've like thought about with the development of VR and with playtest.

in particular, just in the way that that technology, if it existed, would work, is it's like the thing you would use it for is like interrogations. Like just to go like super dark, you'd put that on somebody and like at a CIA black site somewhere and be like, where is the bombs at? Yeah. Like and project, you know, like project their family being tortured into their brain and being like, okay, like tell me where the stuff is. is or we kill your kids right here.

And it's not real, but it's real. And that's what really chilled me about playtest. Right. And I think that that is actually something that's discussed briefly in the first episode or two of Westworld is someone says to Ford or I think it's the Borgon woman says, I'm basically dis, I'm not even interested in your theme park. I'm interested in the technology underneath of it, right? and what it's its purposes and what it's like other uses could be.

Yeah. And obviously, military industrial complex would be the biggest buyer of that stuff. That's the kind of thing that's weird to me about both playtests and Westworld is that, to me, what the driving force behind like the expansion of a lot of the technological advances of the last 20 years, the internet, social media, etc. is this people like want to express themselves with other people.

They want to share things. They want to do it in private and anonymously, but they actually, they want to connect with other people. And that's the thing that's weird to me about Westworld is that there doesn't seem to be any, like you go there and then you don't talk about it apparently. Like there's a maze,

but there's, that people aren't theorizing in the real world of Westworld, how to solve the maze, you know, like, and it's kind of the same. thing with playtest like you would create this you create this shared simulation that projects something into someone's brain but you would just do it like super scary you wouldn't do it in any kind of way that that I feel like people would want like what I don't I'm not sure what the first experience you'd want in a simulation that's

projected directly into your brain but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be like a haunted house yeah I'd like to maybe hit a grand slam down three and the bottom bottom of the ninth for the Phillies in the World Series and game seven of the World Series. Like that sounds like a good one. I'd like to dunk. I'd much rather dunk than shoot somebody. A hundred percent. I want to take off from the free throw line and just body LeBron James.

Let me get like an average Gerald Green dunk. I don't, I'm not even greedy. I want a crazy in-game dunk. Can we Westworld that? Can we make dunk world? Oh, man. Yeah. That was, so, you know, you were mentioning, it's one of the things that's tough for shows, for science fiction to do.

And this is actually something to the Matrix for all is as insane as it got over the last two movies of that trilogy. There was an internal logic to the Matrix based on very basic ideas. It was like the machines, we thought they were solar powered, but then they found out another power source and put the babies in the tubes and put the, you know, plugged them in. and I keep watching some of these sci-fi shows like Westworld and Playtest and I'll be like, yo, but like you're in a top secret tester laboratory you just made this dude sign an NDA

you just moved his phone six inches away and didn't notice him standing up there's no cameras in there to watch him be like taking pictures of your test kit? Like that's insane to me. That would not happen. And the same thing with Westworld was like while all of this revolt is happening and like, what?

We can't figure out why this guy keeps murdering people and pouring milk all over them. Don't you guys have a kill switch? Like, can't you just be like, go to sleep? And it's just like, it's just Shannon Woodward with an iPad, be like, stop, what are you doing? It seems like there should be like an extra-electromagnetic pulse that they should just send out and be like, good night.

Let me ask you about playtest, like how much of that, because at the end there, there's that they talk about how the whole experiment lasted like less than a second like it was just they put the thing on his head and then that started so how much of that was like actually the program and how much of it was

just like some kind of thing that was flashing through his brain and like less than a second but he he definitely so unless it started they he took the pictures before he even played whack and wool right so unless there was some other moment of them putting a button on him, he definitely, like, he was fine until they put the

actual, like, sort of halo on him. And then he started, and his mom called and killed him. I thought that, well, I just thought I was just said, like, on a television level, that Wyatt Russell performance is sneaky, awesome. That's a dude who's just, like, in, in that Richard Linklater movie from earlier, uh, that's what I'm talking about everybody wants some oh everybody wants some it had been called that's what I'm talking about and now it's everybody wants them

he's good in that and he's just on for a couple minutes and he's been in some other stuff he just like Harrison forwarded the button there like he is like funny and like charming and you kind of are like yes you are the perfect backpacker you're the totally backpacker dude with like all the little bracelets you've picked up across your journey

I just thought that was like really good casting and that he did as a great great job. He probably, like, he's in rooms by himself that entire show, and you're just like, oh, what an engaging performance. Yeah, he was great. I like, I love the way he kind of modulates his fear when he goes into the simulation. Like, he gets progressively more freaked out, but also is kind of like holding it back, like, oh, it's a spider. Yeah. This is really terrifying, but I'm going to just, it's not real, and I'm going to kind of push through this. Right. Now the spider has the face of my bully. Yeah, that stuff's great.

I also love any moment where someone sees a painting of something that they are in, you know, and like, because that happens in a horror movie sometimes where it's like, why is, like, it's like, it's like,

look at the picture of the woman with the horses. And it's just, I always love that, that trope of, like, the light is on in the painting now or whatever. And I also really thought the, the stuff with,

um, just like the way that they used all the technology that it would that they would be benevolent that the people working for that company would be like we're here to help you we're to guide you through it just say stop and we'll stop it and then it's like oh no we've lost the signal and it was just just great do you have any before before we go I just curious on a personal level do you have any like as like a road travel dude any like wild um road trip and or backpacking stories that like fall into like I almost got pulled into a fight club kind of thing Um, yeah.

The first time, the first time I arrived in, uh, in Santa Cruz, California, like, after college, I ended up like at this, uh, I ended up at like this party where it, they, all the food was just, like, laced with weed. Okay. And, and. Classic Santa Cruz. And it was just like, I, we ended up, like, hitchhiking down to a concert. and it was just like the strangest six hours of my life where like we get into this car with

this guy and he would just kind of like turn around and you're already feeling like totally weird and he'd turn around and just say stuff that's like very weird serial killery like do you guys do you guys see the the constellations today mm-hmm okay and then he'd turn back around and you got a ride from the yellow king yo he was and then he would it was just like crazy You know, like, you guys like reggae? You ever listen to reggae? Did he just drop you off of the concert? Like, no problem?

He dropped us, that was it. He dropped us off, and it was, but it was like definitely. What was the concert? It was a reggae concert. Oh, okay. So he said reggae is a totally normal question. Yeah, but it was the way, like, he was like, do you ever, it was like deep, weird reggae questions, like, did you listen to Roots reggae from pre-1972?

And then he just kind of like, fixed. you with this glare and then turn back and drive and then come back at you with something like totally bizarre. Okay. That's creepy. That's the closest I felt to where I was going to be killed. Be in play test? I had an interesting experience in high school that I'm not really sure what drug I did still, you know, but I did wind up in like my friends and I were all like, okay, now it's time to leave. I think we were, like, it was one of those classic, like, you're at somebody's house in high school, and, uh, you're watching faces of death, you know, like, whatever. And then you just like, are like, okay, let's go out. Like, I don't even

know what we were doing. And something happened. And I wound up, uh, I wound up in someone's car that, like, was none of our cars. Like, I don't even really even remember what happened, but that was, like, the weirdest thing that's ever happened in that regard. I probably just incriminated myself for, uh, theft. So, um, All my European trips are really, like, just benign kind of like, you know, they're way more Romanian new wave than they are horror. Like, they're just like, do you want to trade me? No hostile, like, hostile, like, hostile part three.

I'll trade you like a full, like a whole chicken for that pack of cigarettes kind of thing. So yeah. Anyway, Jason, thank you so much for joining us. We'll have you back on next week to kind of continue to unpack Westworld. Andy and I will be back on Thursday talking Atlanta until then. great job, Branskys. Thanks again to our sponsor, American Express. Hey, American Express card members, you do not want to miss this.

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