Whoops, sorry. Lili Simmons. True Detective. Banshee. Westworld. She's always The Pretty Girl With A Dark Past.
So, not sure how much everyone is into theories for this show, but the possibilities that I think are most likely are as follows: Spoiler 2 (maybe 3) timelines theory: We are seeing at least two, if not three different periods of time, cleverly edited to seem congruent. Ed Harris as the Man in Black and Teddy are roughly in the show's "present day", same as Maeve waking up, same as old man Ford and Bernard and Elsie and dead Theresa, etc. In this time period, Dolores is retracing her steps of the journey that she made with William, 30 years ago. Because host's experience memories in full waking detail, she is living that journey almost entirely in memory, only occasionally seeing that she's traveling alone, and being very confused by that. The third possible time period is even farther in the past, roughly five years before the Dolores/William journey, which is Dolores talking to "Bernard" as he runs diagnostics and tests on her. William/MiB: William IS the Man in Black. At the conclusion of this journey with Dolores, something traumatic happens, the park is saved by him in some way, and Dolores, for whom he fell during the journey, gets reset to the start of her loop, hurting him emotionally, and leaving him chasing the dragon in WW, so to speak. He goes home, marries Logan's sister, becomes a bigwig in Delos Corp, likely because of his recommendation that they take over WW, not just invest. Delos becomes even more heavily successful, he becomes mega rich, becomes a philanthropist, but comes back to the park over and over again, until what he describes in E08, after his wife kills herself because she knows he's a monster on the inside (likely because of the changes that happened to him on that first journey with Dolores). Arnold/Bernard: That third time period being shown, it's not actually Bernard running diagnostics and stuff, it's Arnold. The voice that Dolores has been hearing in her head was the same as Bernard's voice. Bernard was unable to see the third person in the picture Ford showed him (supposedly of Ford and Arnold, but eh second person we see in the picture is clearly either Ford's real father, or the host version of Ford's father). The Maze: I think the maze s actually the control center where they build/maintain the hosts. We keep seeing a bunch of funky wall patterns in the body shop areas, but we haven't seen a top-down floorplan. Alternatively, it could be something Arnold set up in order to grant hosts who discover it their freedom. Regardless, I don't think it's going to be anything like what the MiB wants it to be. It's, as has been said repeatedly, "not for him". Thoughts?
I think McPoyle might be MiB. I have thought there were seperate timelines for a while. Some things seem less complex. MiB's backstory --and especially his intentions-- finally confessed to Teddy weren't some giant twist or anything. He's a psychopath who fell in love. After killing Thandie & The kid, he saw more humanity in the hosts than I n real people blah blah yadda blah it gives him humanity. Having Thandie Newton being the robot that goes berzerk first was such a cool surprise. The trailers made it seem like it would be either Ed Harris or Sexy Xerxes-dude, but she's awesome, and REALLY not shy in this role. Who ALSO gets naked a lot. Important stuff.
Well, two time periods pretty much confirmed. The picture of Logan's sister is the same one that Dolores' dad found that set him loopy, so my guess is that at the end of the finale, William is back at the Abernathy ranch, sees Dolores reset and unremembering, looks at the picture of his fiance, drops it in the dirt... end credits. Also totally called Bernard as Arnold, and I saw some people that called that his name (Bernard Lowe) was an anagram of Arnold Weber, confirmed by the nameplate on the door in Dolores' memory.
I need to watch this one again. Too many oddly interconnected scenes and confusing ties to reality. Big reveals being Bernard was created as an extension of Arnold and the Man in Black was an original investor. That's about all I caught.
I think the only thing left to confirm is that William is the MiB. Its definitely heading that way. I think the knife William picks up is the same one we see MiB carrying previously. What I bet it is, is that William never really got over his first experience in the park, and he continually returns to chase the dragon of that first experience.
I'm pretty sure hosts get rebuilt from headshots all the time. However, the way Hannibal was talking, it was a final exit sort f suicide. And since he's in charge... who knows? I would hate to lose that actor from the storyline, but we'll see.
Im guessing this isnt the first time an Arnold/Bernard host has gone off the rails. I bet he will be rebuilt.
Is there any place to watch online, if I don't happen to have HBO? EDIT: Friend hooked me up with access to HBO Go. Awesome.
So Ford was just giving a big fuck you Im destroying the business to the board? He wanted the host to gain sentience and really just take over the world he had created? I guess the second season will deal a lot with taking control of the park back from the host. I enjoyed the last episode. Revealing that Thandie Newtown's character wasn't actually as free as she believed was pretty riveting.
I took away from it that Ford made the hosts so they would ultimately only be loyal to him. Even if park employees had some control of their behavior during normal business. It seemed like a totally separate narrative he created behind the scenes and by having Delores blow his head off, it sealed the deal as far as being able to put a stop to it. I think the next season will start off with a game of thrones style massacre that we saw building at the end just before the credits.
Im not so sure Ford is actually dead. There was a sequence in the episode where we saw a brand new host being created, but we didnt know who it was. I think that it might be Ford's host that was actually shot be Delores in front of the board, or it was the real Ford and his Host takes over.
So, are the bullets sentient, or is every host programmed to aim for the center of mass, and all the outfits are bulletproof? So that's why Teddy can't shoot the Man in Black in the head, and that's why sending Logan off buck naked was a bigger deal than you think?
I figured the bullet technology was built to only defeat the host bodies, the only real gun being the one Ford had Dolores attracted to. Or like Juice mentioned, that was a host Ford getting shot in the back of the head. Also, now thinking about it, the host they saw being made at Fords secret layer before Benard killed Charlotte, could also have been the Ford host?
A follow-up question, as I watch through a second time: So if the hosts can be killed, then what's up with the weird buffalo people in the desert? We spend all season assuming they're "Wyatt's people," then at the end we learn the truth about Dolores. There's a scene where Teddy shoots five of them, and they very specifically do not fall over and die. So....what's that all about?