Gotta say, I don’t think all that mechanical stuff about how the park functions matters. It’s a fantasy, if the internal logic serves the story, then that’s fine.

I’m not sure the story’s interesting enough to make all this suspension of disbelief worthwhile, mind you.

Basically Dolores was built to become self-aware by Arnold. This leads to her somehow going mental and killing her creator. Her memory is wiped, but somewhere deep inside her programming the memories remain.
Several years later Billy and his mate Logan visit the park.
On their journey with Dolores, Billy witnesses her staring to become sentient again.
Billy is the MiB. He spends years trying to discover how the robots can become sentient. He wants this information because he's on the board of Delos. Delos have been trying to steal the code for years, but ford keeps it protected on-site. Only the M.i.B. realises the true importance of the code.
In the present day, Dolores is actually travelling alone, but along the path from her memories.
The shit will hit the fan in episode 10.

poprock wrote:

And anyway, my bugbear is how does she get back there? She fainted in one episode, miles from her usual place and just snapped awake in the lab. And then was immediately back where she had been

We’ve also seen the tech crews clearing up after a gunfight, dragging host’s bodies back to the labs for repair. They have hidden lifts, leading to underground corridors and labs. It’s not rocket science. The awkward part, logistically, isn’t the hosts. It’s the human guests. Do they make the guests leave the park between days? And clear up overnight? Or what? Surely that’s gotta break the suspension of disbelief. You’re missing the point that we’re not watching everything unfolding in chronological order. When you see Dolores immediately back where she had been, that’s Dolores on a different day. Or in a different year. Or 30 years later. Hosts memories are 100% perfect (unlike fuzzy human memories), so when they start to remember previous ‘lives’ they get confused between what’s happening now and what’s a memory. We, the viewers, have been experiencing that too.

The only way this could work in reality is the Centre Parcs method. For those unfamiliar, all the guests show up on a Monday afternoon and they all leave on the Friday morning, then there's a Friday afternoon batch of guests that stay until Monday morning. Friday morning the clean up crew come in and sort out the chalets ready for the next lot. Then they repeat Monday morning.  

The implication in this is that it happens every night. Or right in the middle of stories or whatever. You might kill a guy at night, go to bed, and then he's back on his loop the next day. The guys that rob the safe come into town regularly, but this is at least a few days apart as the leader is in prison for a few days, waiting for his gang to break him out. But some loops seem to last only a day. They either haven't really thought that through or haven't explained it well.

poprock wrote:

What’s surprising me is that it’s actually making enough sense for predictions to pan out. Maybe it’s better put together than we thought.

The obvious predictos (like mine above), sure. I mean so far, no surprises at all, all very telegraphed. Timelines are clearly confirmed now, and if william is the MiB that is another very obvious foreshadowing confirmed.

I don't think it is well planned at all, it's a trick. What is the substance of this tv show? Where is the HBO? The Wire was about how we are stuck in wide sociology economic whirlwinds, the Sopranos was about the futility of the American dream. I think this is about the superficiality of consciousness, at least it tries to be about that... But it is quite staccato at that. For all the show don't tell chat, this part of the show really is all told. What's it showing us?

legaldinho wrote:

What's it showing us?

Nothing much. It’s a pretty, but empty, puzzle.

I’m fine with that though. It’s entertaining me, just not as well as some other shows manage to.

The Nolan Bros. are very good at making hollow puzzle narratives. 

Might put a shout out to this thread at the end of my video essay for Uni.

legaldinho wrote:

g.man wrote:

I remember when Gonz thought it was all a VR simulation...

Yeah me too, same post I mentioned multiple timelines

legaldinho wrote:

Got some carnivale vibes from episode 5. Overall the show is good but I'm not sure just how intriguing the payoff will be.

Spoiler:

First of all, my immediate reading of the show is that it is simulated VR - the weird rail travel thing gave me inception vibes. the way bullets kill robots but not humans makes no sense. They penetrate the robots, clearly, they have that penetrative force. But anyway, all that stuff is probably just suspend your disbelief stuff. The more likely, and a little disappointing, payoff is in fact that the show is showing two timelines, one past (with the McPoyle brother) and one in the present. And the scenes with just Delores and Bernard or Anthony Hopkins are some sort of remote conversation. Here's a video on timelines for those who want to see it theory's been on reddit for weeks. http://youtu.be/RLli7Gc1ZBU

I know. I'm just yanking your chain mate

So old guy is young guy in different timeline? I'm not sure I care enough to be bothered. It's all going a bit Sense8.

Kow wrote:

It's all going a bit Sense8.

I actually enjoyed Sense8, despite myself. More pretty nonsense. Quite looking forward to season two.

And guys, you’re using the wrong terminology here. There is only one timeline. We’re viewing different points along that timeline.

poprock wrote:

And guys, you’re using the wrong terminology here. There is only one timeline. We’re viewing different points along that timeline.

That's actually fair enough. The story is one 34 year non-linear timeline, it's just easier to break it down into chunks.

legaldinho wrote:

cockbeard wrote:

In which case you gotta wonder just what she did to Billy that he seems quite happy to constantly rape and kill her further down the line

He never raped or killed her.

This and

g.man wrote:

legaldinho wrote:

cockbeard wrote:

In which case you gotta wonder just what she did to Billy that he seems quite happy to constantly rape and kill her further down the line

He never raped or killed her.

The MiB is not a villain. He treats the hosts the way he does because he's trying to work out how they become sentient. He does this because when he first slaughtered Maeve and her child she suddenly became sentient in the face of this massive trauma.

this explain why Dolores is off her loop in the present, although he might have had to something to her in the barn. Maybe he's just worked out some keyword that can bring her back to sentience.

legaldinho wrote:

g.man wrote:

legaldinho wrote:

cockbeard wrote:

In which case you gotta wonder just what she did to Billy that he seems quite happy to constantly rape and kill her further down the line

He never raped or killed her.

The MiB is not a villain. He treats the hosts the way he does because he's trying to work out how they become sentient. He does this because when he first slaughtered Maeve and her child she suddenly became sentient in the face of this massive trauma.

Also we are tricked into thinking he is a villain and we assume he raprs / kills Dolores but we don't see it ever.

Yeah, I sussed that right away too.

*brofist*

g.man

poprock wrote:

In which case you gotta wonder just what she did to Billy that he seems quite happy to constantly rape and kill her further down the line

Or what broke in Billy’s brain to make him such a fucker. You’ve already seen him wipe out a whole military squad single-handed while she was sleeping. And you don’t know that he raped her in that first episode. He dragged her into the barn, but maybe he was doing something else to her in there. Reprogramming, mayber? Or even just questioning, with admin access?

Not sure MiB is such a fucker, at least not broken brain style, we do know that outside the park he is quite the philanthropist

But I hadn't thought on the questioning/reprogramming side of things, that could be an alternative

g.man wrote:

...oh, and there are more than three timelines.

Three main ones ffs

legaldinho wrote:

g.man wrote:

...oh, and there are more than three timelines.

Three main ones ffs