TV: Westworld S3

[Ainec]

I want to like this show so bad, because S1 was really good. It certainly has style and a beautiful aesthetic to it, but I've lost all emotional attachment to any character and I can't understand why I should care about which side "wins". The show is just burning through plot right now and trying it's hardest to keep everyone confused. Mystery box story-telling disintegrates if you don't slow things down from time to time and do some deep character work. Westworld is doing this type of story the exact opposite to how Lost did it. There's no outcome or character to root for - everyone is just a killing machine or keeping secrets in order to work towards their very opaque goals.

I was hooked on S1 - the relationship between William and Dolores, William's transformation from white hat to black hat, the logistical parts of the park's day-to-day operations, and on a deeper level, exploring the implications of AI consciousness. They played with the idea of whether or not it was moral for humans to be cruel and/or murderous towards AI beings that could feel things just as they could. It was interesting seeing the level of depravity inside the park when people could act on their most animalistic impulses with no consequences. Even in S2, they had a couple fantastic episodes like "The Riddle of the Sphinx", when James Delos was trying to make himself immortal through AI, and "Kiksuya", about Akecheta and the rest of ghost nation's journey towards consciousness. The rest of S2 I could live without though. The smaller, more intimate story-telling has been lost in favour of something more akin to a Transformers movie unfortunately.

Yup perfectly said

 

[Guardian17]

I want to like this show so bad, because S1 was really good. It certainly has style and a beautiful aesthetic to it, but I've lost all emotional attachment to any character and I can't understand why I should care about which side "wins". The show is just burning through plot right now and trying it's hardest to keep everyone confused. Mystery box story-telling disintegrates if you don't slow things down from time to time and do some deep character work. Westworld is doing this type of story the exact opposite to how Lost did it. There's no outcome or character to root for - everyone is just a killing machine or keeping secrets in order to work towards their very opaque goals.

I was hooked on S1 - the relationship between William and Dolores, William's transformation from white hat to black hat, the logistical parts of the park's day-to-day operations, and on a deeper level, exploring the implications of AI consciousness. They played with the idea of whether or not it was moral for humans to be cruel and/or murderous towards AI beings that could feel things just as they could. It was interesting seeing the level of depravity inside the park when people could act on their most animalistic impulses with no consequences. Even in S2, they had a couple fantastic episodes like "The Riddle of the Sphinx", when James Delos was trying to make himself immortal through AI, and "Kiksuya", about Akecheta and the rest of ghost nation's journey towards consciousness. The rest of S2 I could live without though. The smaller, more intimate story-telling has been lost in favour of something more akin to a Transformers movie unfortunately.

Exactly, the scene in the last episode with Maeve destroying hosts dressed as Nazis was a perfect example of this.

Maeve orders the hosts dressed as Nazis to attack her.

These aren't real Nazis, they're hosts, just like Maeve and her daughter.

Yet Maeve, cruelly orders them to attack her while she destroys them one-by-one for no reason.

What was the point of this?

Maeve comes out looking like a creepy, sadist.

 

[kmart]

Exactly, the scene in the last episode with Maeve destroying hosts dressed as Nazis was a perfect example of this.

Maeve orders the hosts dressed as Nazis to attack her.

These aren't real Nazis, they're hosts, just like Maeve and her daughter.

Yet Maeve, cruelly orders them to attack her while she destroys them one-by-one for no reason.

What was the point of this?

Maeve comes out looking like a creepy, sadist.

the action scenes as a hole are crap in this show... there are to many cannon fodder scenes.
s3 is a big letdown... basically a good vs evil ai morphing in hosts or creating them. destroying everything in their path terminator style... and of course human mankind is at stake... which does not make the plot more interesting to me. a.paul relationship with doloris is the only interesting part now. godlike abilities made the hosts boring.

also i dont understand why and who created that sidekick to meave ? the guy was a real human in s2 which which was a designer at dalos, he got killed and some1 created him as a host with an affection to meave. i mean dalos is creating its murdered employees as hosts ! wtf is going on.

 

[Desdichado93]

Some speculation about Hale that I read on an another forum or possible Reddit

Spoiler: Hale

Speculation is that Charlotte Hale is actually papa Abernathy rather then another Dolores.
Supposedly this would be based on Hale's change into a more caring/tender person.

 

[Ainec]

That drone's ability to miss puts stormtroopers to shame

I also like how they're on horseback

 

[ProstheticConscience]

So Jesse Pinkman's going to destroy the world. In the back of my mind, I always suspected that.

 

[Blender]

So Jesse Pinkman's going to destroy the world. In the back of my mind, I always suspected that.

Dolores has essentially done the same thing with Caleb that Ford did with her in season 1. Made him aware of the loop he was on and the re-programming he had been subjected to, and opened the door to other possibilities.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Dolores has essentially done the same thing with Caleb that Ford did with her in season 1. Made him aware of the loop he was on and the re-programming he had been subjected to, and opened the door to other possibilities.

Yeah, I got that. It's just he's now the last one left aside from the scorched version of Dolores that apparently escaped the car bomb, and the beheaded one who presumably isn't going to be doing much.

 

[Blender]

Yeah, I got that. It's just he's now the last one left aside from the scorched version of Dolores that apparently escaped the car bomb, and the beheaded one who presumably isn't going to be doing much.

Which based on Bernard's line about "poetic sensibilities" with Dolores seems to have been the plan. Dolores doesn't need to collapse society, she just need to pull on the right threads so it would unravel on its own through the actions of others.

 

[Guardian17]

 

[Carlzner]

Loved the finale.... up until the post credits scene

 

[tealhockey]

Loved the finale.... up until the post credits scene

I thought that made it more interesting, gives us a taste of what season 4 will be about. Overall the season came around well enough. It is so convoluted in a way with what they were trying to do, it wasn't going to be perfect but it was watchable. Decent transition from always being in the park to introducing us to a whole new storyline and cast. dolores being inside hale and then transitioning into a darker dolores through what happened was prob my favorite aspect

 

[Blender]

Solid finale. I hope everyone caught the 2 post-credit scenes.

 

[Hivemind]

This show is so god damn terrible now. What a shame. Season 1 was incredible, but 2 and 3 are absolute dumpster fires.

 

[Hivemind]

Renewed for Season 4!!!

Booooo

 

[McOilers97]

Loved the finale.... up until the post credits scene

I had the same problems with the finale that I’ve had with the rest of the season, BUT, I liked where they left the story when Maeve and Caleb were watching the world go up in flames.

Then they added a f***ing 5 minute post-credit sequence that took an ultimately uninteresting turn and un-did my feelings that they had actually put together a nice season ending. They need to learn to quit when they’re ahead. More content =/= better content.

Nolan and Joy and the rest of the writing staff think they are so f***ing smart and it pisses me off. They frequently have cool ideas and come close to nailing them, but they always take it too far - adding layers of confusion on top of everything, playing with time, playing with reality, this character is actually this character in another character’s body...and it just dulls any emotional impact of their story-telling because I literally can’t take anything at face value in this show. Writing this way, they often un-do things that I think would have made for interesting and impactful story choices.

Such a frustrating show.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Ehhh...yeah I think they've kind of lost the plot with this show tbh. The first season raised some interesting questions about the nature of life and sentience and since then it's just become a shooty punchy action show with a layer of pretentious community college level philosophy awkwardly grafted on top.

And I had no idea that was Marshawn Lynch as the guy with the mood t-shirt.

 

[Hivemind]

This season felt like it was written by an anime writer

 

[Ainec]

Feel like someone else wrote season 1 and then let Nolan and Joy take the wheel

Y i k e s

 

[Satan'sIsland81]

Disagree. Thought the finale was great. It has its flaws, as most shows do, but I love the show. It actually makes you think and question and analyze, which is refreshing compared to most of the garbage out there.

 

[McOilers97]

Disagree. Thought the finale was great. It has its flaws, as most shows do, but I love the show. It actually makes you think and question and analyze, which is refreshing compared to most of the garbage out there.

If you compare it to network tv crap, then sure it seems like a deep show. HBO has several better shows that evoke strong emotions and make you think though, and they can achieve it without doing the old Westworld "withhold information and ass-pull twists to wow the audience".

 

[Hivemind]

Disagree. Thought the finale was great. It has its flaws, as most shows do, but I love the show. It actually makes you think and question and analyze, which is refreshing compared to most of the garbage out there.

Season 1 made you contemplate questions in a meaningful way. Season 3 wants to do the same, but fails miserably. It lacks any subtlety or nuance, opting to shove its point in your face as hard as it can. It's a whole season of "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" crammed into an action movie. It stretches fewer thoughts than a single episode of Black Mirror into 8 hour long episodes (and I'm one who often think Black Mirror episodes are already stretching their thesis thin).

 

[McOilers97]

Season 1 made you contemplate questions in a meaningful way. Season 3 wants to do the same, but fails miserably. It lacks any subtlety or nuance, opting to shove its point in your face as hard as it can. It's a whole season of "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" crammed into an action movie. It stretches fewer thoughts than a single episode of Black Mirror into 8 hour long episodes (and I'm one who often think Black Mirror episodes are already stretching their thesis thin).

I can't say anything about Black Mirror since I haven't watched it, but your Westworld points are bang-on. Post season 1, they now write a lot of (poor) dialogue and have a lot of "things" happen, only for it to really not add up to anything substantial at the end of a season.

I thought this would be another HBO all-time classic after loving S1 so much, and now I feel like I'm banging my head against a table while watching it.

If the S2 and S3 version of this show had been the original pitch for S1, HBO never would have green-lit it.

 

[Blender]

If you compare it to network tv crap, then sure it seems like a deep show. HBO has several better shows that evoke strong emotions and make you think though, and they can achieve it without doing the old Westworld "withhold information and ass-pull twists to wow the audience".

Twists? This season really didn't withhold much information or have many twists. People just kept expecting a big twist like in season 1 and season 2, but the "twist" was that Dolores had been straightforward with Caleb the entire time, and that isn't a twist in any normal sense. Caleb's memories are unreliable because so many of them have been altered or wiped by Incite as part of his re-programing, so the audience experiences his confusion and uncertainty during the season, and obviously his back story is revealed slowly over the season ("withholding" if you want to call it that). Rehoboam, and therefore Serac, can't predict outliers and they think Caleb is just a violent psychopath, which of course he's not and we'd never been shown that he was, but his memories have been so f***ed with he's not sure himself and Serac is telling him that's all he is and that is what Dolores wants from him.

 

[Hivemind]

Twists? This season really didn't withhold much information or have many twists. People just kept expecting a big twist like in season 1 and season 2, but the "twist" was that Dolores had been straightforward with Caleb the entire time, and that isn't a twist in any normal sense. Caleb's memories are unreliable because so many of them have been altered or wiped by Incite as part of his re-programing, so the audience experiences his confusion and uncertainty during the season, and obviously his back story is revealed slowly over the season ("withholding" if you want to call it that). Rehoboam, and therefore Serac, can't predict outliers and they think Caleb is just a violent psychopath, which of course he's not and we'd never been shown that he was, but his memories have been so f***ed with he's not sure himself and Serac is telling him that's all he is and that is what Dolores wants from him.

What show are you watching?

Dolores was not straightforward with Caleb. She concealed her identity from him for a while, and even after he became aware of her nature, she concealed that she has specifically selected him. Both Caleb and the viewers were led to believe that Dolores encountered Caleb through a chance encounter, and that he was a proxy for an every man. But in reality, he had already been deeply connected to the plot of the show AND, in fact, had met Dolores before. It was a crummy twist that eroded the attempted themes of the season.

Not to mention the dozen other needless twists and turns along the way. Hale is really Dolores, surprise! Don't look now, Stubbs is a host too! (And how lazy of a writing device was that?) Oh my lord, Rehoboam is controlling Serac! Caleb is the one who shot his dead friend, woah! Etc etc etc

There was a thousand shallow attempts to keep the show exciting and mysterious, but they felt more like they were written by an 8th grader than anything meaningful.