I thought the same thing happened with Teddy when he shot at the outlaws, nothing happened when it should have done. Unless it turns out they were guests.

I need to watch this ep again but I find Dolores fascinating. The AI that beat himself to death was quite brutal!
Love the series.

Thats to be revealed I guess.

I really wish they would make it easier to know who is a guest and who is a host.

I know they are probably doing it on purpose, but it doesn't make it easy to know what is going on half the time. Because you don't know if it is a host doing the thing or not.

You're right, on rewatching I see that she's recalling the same sequence at the porch and anticipating the outcome if she doesn't flee. She's breaking out of her loop, kickstarted by being able to pull the trigger on 'Trevor' - prompted by 'the voice'.

Just binged the current 3 episodes available of this after hearing so many good things about it. LOVE it so far, especially loved the first episode having the special renditions of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" and The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" to that awesome shoot out.

Really intrigued by it so far, there's so many different directions it could go, the acting does a lot to carry some already great writing.

Looking forward to seeing what comes next, but I feel like Anthony Hopkins' character has more to him than is being let on.

Yes I wasn't sure if he was pretending that he thought of the hosts as just mindless automaton to throw the other guy of his scent and that he is really trying to create consciousness himself.

Did Dolores really break her programming? Or was she just accessing something that was already there? Plus, the voice she heard, Arnold?

The host who bashed in his brains in with a rock, I believe he did that to prevent the company from finding out what he knew. Which is the location of the maze, and the "final level". I wonder how significant it is that he attacked a human? Granted he didn't cause any real harm so maybe not.

Loved the early version of Westworld in this episode, all shiny metal, motors and wires. Anyone know the movie the footage of Anthony Hopkins was taken from?

Feel like overall, the show is shaping up very well.

I thought the scene of young Hopkins was new but they had CGI'd his face onto a younger body double?

If it is a real scene from an earlier Hopkins film then I'm not sure.

What I think is the Man in Black is perhaps some sort of "host liberator".

When the Man in Black dragged Dolores into the barn and locked the door in the first episode it was made to look like he then proceeded to rape her, but perhaps what actually happened was he told her a phrase which triggered her ability to remember past events which then got her out of her loop. It's definitely the Man in Black's voice which tells Dolores to shoot, at the very least.

And as it stands right now, I'm inclined to believe that the Man in Black is Arnold. Or perhaps a digital creation that Arnold left behind before he died which was deliberately programmed to be un-killlable and was given the sole function of giving the hosts true sentience, which would be following on from Arnold's vision.

As for the host who bashed his brains in with a rock, I believe it was mentioned that in the event of a true emergency, where a host wishes to actually kill a visitor/real human, a fail-safe mechanism kicks in and the host destroys itself before it can harm or kill it's target, so I think the host just wanted to kill the woman but the fail safe mechanism kicked in and caused him to kill himself.

With regards to the Anthony Hopkins footage, that was actually specially created for this show through the magic of CGI. Been done before with Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy, Robert Downey Jr in Captain America Civil War and Michael Douglas in Ant-Man. It's pretty impressive techology

This is what I'm thinking as well but I need to watch the third episode again and pay more attention. One question I have is the two guys that are visiting the park, are these flashbacks?

They can't be, after they stumbled across Dolores who'd shot her attacker and got away

I would agree with the notion that the Man in Black is Arnold (or at least, his consciousness), but at the same time, I wonder whether that's too obvious this early. Instead, I'm wondering whether the Man in Black is a creation that Arnold worked on in secrecy from Hopkins; the first truly sentient AI, although it hasn't quite been established (either way) why he's allowed free reign in the park, and that everyone is aware of him.

If he is Arnold, or if he is an AI that was created by Arnold, surely he'd no be allowed free reign within the park? Surely Hopkins would be aware of him? Speaking of, I find it ... odd that Hopkins has no love for these AI's (as individuals) yet he's created this park and keeps fiddling with their programming to make them appear more human.


I think you'll find it was actually Dolores that stumbled across them.

The showrunners were asked if we would ever see Arnold and said No.

Of course they could be fibbing but if true then the MiB isn't Arnold (still could be connected to him in some way of course).

So how come William was affected more than other guests when he was shot? He was visibably jolted back when 'hit', unlike other guests in earlier episodes.

It's my guess that he just wasn't prepared for it, whereas other guests are? Think of it as you doing something for the first time, and not knowing what to expect.

I'm gonna stick with the theory that MIB is just essentially a digital recreation of Arnold with special privileges that the other hosts don't have until something comes along and truly debunks that.

I know that we had the scene of the Westworld staff watching playback of MIB going on a killing spree and saying that the customer can do as he pleases, but perhaps they just mistakingly identify him as a customer because of his ability to not be killed, when in reality he's a host with visitor perks.

Plus if Bernard wasn't previously aware of Arnold, it's unlikely anyone else in the company would be either, so until Ford comes face-to-face to him it could well be that MIB is just an AI clone of Arnold.

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An interesting (belated) observation here from a colleague, but when Cyclops was firing his weapon at those Indian fellas, the bullets bounced off, right? This implies that those Indian folk (who hacked and slashed at him) are visitors?

Yes. They must have been. Some speculate that like the MiB they could be some higher level of robot but I doubt it.

It's intriguing enough to stick with it and see where it goes, however I'm not entirely sold on the degree to which the hosts are meant to be sentient. In the show, society has obviously reached the point where we can make a 'mecha' that's indistinguishable from a human, but at the same time, they're treated as little more than computers, and every bit as disposable. It's like the creators (of the show) have taken the bits of AI research regarding its potential in terms of the ability to make a mecha that looks, thinks, feels and generally behaves exactly like humans, but have chosen to disregard - thus far - all the arguments surrounding the ethics and morality of putting such 'intelligence' in a human looking frame simply for humans to abuse as they see fit. For e.g. they know Delores is exhibiting signs of developing beyond her programming, yet her narrative still seems to be to see her parents killed and to be violently raped by someone each loop. I'd have thought that Bernard, at least, might have the intelligence and, importantly, the empathy to appreciate that it may be this that's causing her CD episodes. Ford might understand that too, but we now know he has no such empathy towards the hosts.

Most AI sci-fi touches on the moral and ethical dilemas at some point, as it's one of, if not the, main tenets of AI, so it'll be interesting to see if this show gets round to it at some point. If they ever cover the very early origins of the park, I don't see how it can be avoided.

We don't KNOW she is being raped in the barn. It is merely implied but there has been no confirmation.

Fair point, but we know that whatever it is, it ain't pretty. She's not being dragged into the barn by her hair for a line-dancing lesson.

(Ep4)
So, we still don't know the Man in Black's name, but thanks to an awe-struck guest encounter we know he started a 'Foundation' that had a role in saving that guest's family member. My guess is his foundation has some relation to Neuroscience (he stopped the guest in his tracks before he could say what she was cured of)..

'The Maze' vague description sounds like it might indeed be a test for the hosts.
MB's words are open to interpretation - when he said the flaw in the park was 'you can't die', was he referring to hosts or guests? Hosts come back, guests can't be killed, so it's still hard to pin him down!

The carving on the Rock pointed out as not Orion (another character had said it was previously).

Dolores' Flashbacks of the Church and a graveyard - is that the same Church spire we saw in episode 2, protruding from the desert floor? What happened to it? Was Dolores recalling a very early memory - from before or around the 'incident' of 30 years ago?

Ford practically 'stops time' for his servant hosts - without an apparent gesture or command, and gives further indications of his 'information awareness' - setting himself up as God-like.

And all that excavation work... "Have the neighbours complained?" - First reference to another theme-world?

I loved this episode.

That scene with Anthony Hopkins revealing he knows EVERYTHING about the inner workings of the park, its employees and its hosts and guests was chilling, fantastic performance by that good man.

Makes me wonder then if Ford is fully aware of both MIB and also of Bernard's alone time with Dolores.