Shit thread

There are three timelines

One is present with Ed Harris et al.

One is the past, with young Ed (aka the McPoyle brother) leading to the incident mentioned "30 years ago".

Finally the voices whispering to Dolores and the "interview" with Dolores are her talking to Arnold.

That's right Arnold is Bernard.

So Bernard is Anthony Hopkins' attempt to recreate his partner.

Evidence is Abernathy threatened them both. Meet my maker, I will visit my vengeance on you both, that king Lear line.

I need to check one thing, when Bernard has a phone call with his wife, they mention his kid. That was in the present and Dolores mentioned the kid also. Maybe that blows the third time line out, but then we are told by Hopkins that Arnold also suffered a personal tragedy. So either I'm right and Bernard is a copy of Arnold, or that's crackpot and when we see Bernard speak to Dolores alone (opening the series with it) then one of two things must be true:

Bernard is getting obsessed with Dolores like Arnold was. Or:

We and Dolores see Bernard but it is in fact a conversation with Arnold.

Anyway, the show only makes sense with two timelines, otherwise it's a clusterfuck

Anyway, I'm taking the appearance of Lawrence straight after the MiB cuts his throat to be confirmation of at least two time lines in the show. Logan and William are I'm guessing from the company that invests in the park, although that sort of vagueness is a bit of a warning flag here. Maybe they aren't at all! Delores appearing to see herself in the crowd muddies the water, it at least suggests that there could be multiple copies of the same robot or they could be quickly reusing him, but both options seem very immersion breaking for guests. 

Bernard being Arnold seems probable, was something hinted at early where he talks about his son and something similar is said about the robots. I've only as vague recollection. My biggest doubt about people being robots is that it's been done a lot before.

I was thinking about this show earlier when people started crying spoilers in the tv thread.
Thing is, we're now half way through the season, and what could you actually post that is a legitimate spoiler?
The plot itself runs a poor second to all the mystery box bobbins, none of which has been resolved in any way, shape or form.
Basically people are fannying about in Westworld and some robots appear to be developing higher consciousness...and that's it. Five hours so far.

Now I'm enjoying it as an hour of slick telly every week and I like a good mystery as much as the next guy, but this is starting to take the piss imo. Every week reveals nothing, but instead just piles mystery on top of mystery to keep you tuning in next week.

It's an incredibly lazy way of writing a show that's purely designed for the internet generation to sank themselves silly theorising about online.

There's probably a far more elegant, involving and interesting way of telling the story they're trying to tell, but that would involve actually crafting an engaging narrative that people could empathise with rather than just all this fucking Scooby Doo nonsense.

I think it's a bit early doors to be expecting stuff to be resolved, we're only at the half way stage.

Agree with your other two points though g, I think he scalped her for the maze malarkey (wot is that all about?) and she's getting robo-déjà vu.

I actually struggle each week when I start a new episode of this to remember what the fuck happened the week before. That's a sign of bad narrative to me.

Yeah, there's a fantastic amount of misdirection going on, and they've done some incredibly clever stuff with the editing that means certain scenes could actually be playing out over different timelines.

I mentioned it last week, the security guy in the control room (in the present) noticing Delores has gone off her loop and an investigation is launched, something about her possibly accompanying guests, but they weren't sure who. Cut to her with William and Logan (in the past). Of course she could go off with guests all the time, the only reason for the scene seemed to be to misdirect.

I_R wrote:

I mentioned it last week, the security guy in the control room (in the present) noticing Delores has gone off her loop and an investigation is launched, something about her possibly accompanying guests, but they weren't sure who. Cut to her with William and Logan (in the past). Of course she could go off with guests all the time, the only reason for the scene seemed to be to misdirect.

Yeah, there's a hell of a lot of that sort of stuff.
Final shot in Ep5 of Delores talking to herself/Arnold in the train, the carriage is empty where the other characters should be, which again implies the same shit happening over and over in different timelines.

g.man wrote:

I was thinking about this show earlier when people started crying spoilers in the tv thread.
Thing is, we're now half way through the season, and what could you actually post that is a legitimate spoiler?
The plot itself runs a poor second to all the mystery box bobbins, none of which has been resolved in any way, shape or form.
Basically people are fannying about in Westworld and some robots appear to be developing higher consciousness...and that's it. Five hours so far.

Now I'm enjoying it as an hour of slick telly every week and I like a good mystery as much as the next guy, but this is starting to take the piss imo. Every week reveals nothing, but instead just piles mystery on top of mystery to keep you tuning in next week.

It's an incredibly lazy way of writing a show that's purely designed for the internet generation to sank themselves silly theorising about online.

There's probably a far more elegant, involving and interesting way of telling the story they're trying to tell, but that would involve actually crafting an engaging narrative that people could empathise with rather than just all this fucking Scooby Doo nonsense.

The timelines point is a spoiler. That's why I "cried" spoiler, I'm glad no one told me about it before I started watching.

I don't think they're imaginative or destructive enough to bring new timelines into it, that's a series 3 thing surely, could easily be mistaken

Enjoyed the Harris/Hopkins interaction though, Hopkins flexing his muscle by simply pressing start on the player 1 pad

Bernard being Arnold has been niggling away at me since we first heard about Arnold’s existence. It feels likely.

I’m not sold on the multiple timelines idea, it just doesn’t feel very elegantly done. Nolan has form in that area, of course, and the notion of loops and repetition is central to the show … but I’m not convinced yet.

You could well be right.

So towards the end of last show when the civil war type dudes where discovering they'd been had over it certainly seemed implied that the guys where in peril. Now that seems to be something of an over sight. Where they not hosts? And if they where other guests surely they can't hurt each other? Also you'd of thought Hosts couldn't physically assault guests? Or where they supposed to be off the reservation?

Oh, I thought he looked genuinely scared.

And while I would imagine the Rachel Wood character is fully invested your man looked rather worried too. Given that he always looks slightly worried.