re: Westworld s2 e5: Akane No Mai

Yeah, they need to be really careful in terms of scope at this point. I think five or six seasons is very possible, but letting the story become too deep with an expanding scope is gonna lose a lot of people. It's the opposite of the usual issue of shows painting themselves in a corner. Westworld started in the corner and just needs to make sure they end at the door, as to give an overall story arc a meaningful end.

The Dolores arc is dumb as frick right now, everyone agrees. I really think there has to be an "a-ha.." moment soon to give it some semblance of purpose. Every other arc carries a sense of purpose to the viewer(well, with Maeve straggling in there)

fricking terrible episode.

Every line Lee, Teddy, Hector and even Delores speaks is a fricking mockery. Can they be serious?

And what a disgraceful presentation of THE Twilight Samarai. Serious shame as Hiroyuki Sanada is a fantastic actor.

Just awful writing and complete waste of an hour. I'll keep watching because of the last episode. Shame on you HBO.

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Westworld has thus far failed to engage me on a character level for the most part. I care for the characters on Stranger Things. I don't really think I would be all that devastated if they killed half the cast on Westworld. This is a big issue, and LOST and Game of Thrones are smart about quickly killing off characters people don't emotionally engage with.

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I am not sure this is supposed to be a character driven show. More of a puzzle that we try to put the pieces together to.

It would be hard for it to be character driven, simply because all of the characters are just now becoming aware and developing personality. Not to mention, they are robots.

The show can confuse itself in what it wants to do. Especially with the man in black, who I think they only planned on being in season one, and now his daughter.


Who are we supposed to cheer for? Is it even that kind of show?


With that said I've enjoyed it for the most part. However last nights episode was pretty weak.


And JJ has as much to do with this show, or less, than he had to do with lost. Which isn't much.

Ehh

But Blade Runner is more of a detective/noir movie.


I would also say replicants were more advanced and always self aware which gave them more to work with and build on from a character standpoint. Dont want to get too spoilery talking about the movies in this thread.


I think they are going for something else with westworld. They may fail, but I think the are focusing more on the mystery box aspect than the character aspect.

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That’s the backdrop, but both are about what it means to be human. This should be Westworld’s central question, but it’s sloppy as frick so far.

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They have that theme for sure, I just dont personally categorize them in the same style as far as storytelling. Just my opinion of course.

For the first time in this show, I think they’re losing my attention. The show feels “all over the place” with no coherent and tangible storyline.

This episode was crap IMO. It may be my last.

Dolores and her story are absolutely terrible. Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden have zero chemistry, and everything they do seems forced. It wouldn't surprise me if they hated each other in real life. I can deal with all of Maeve's stuff (even though it there was some shark jumping going on), right now, because there seems to be little bit of world building going on, and her and Sizemore's interactions are pretty funny. And also I'm not sure the end game for Maeve's group. But this was probably the worst episode of the season if not series.

Yeah I normally watch each episode twice once on Sunday and one time at some other point during the week, but I have no desire to re-watch this one.

Maive's story was reasonably interesting last night but could have been cut in half. The part I am curious about is that she is developing the same ability that Ford had to not speak commands to other bots. So my question from it is how did Ford do it? Was Ford a host or have some type of implant that allowed this?

Rest of the episode was pretty blah and boring, the wife even said so.

All in all, I don't think the season is awful but not as good as the first. The first needed the intrigue to connect you to the present but the current season doesn't need all that, it could be a straight MIB versus the park "game".

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I think they've pretty much confirmed at this point that Dolores is "baselining" Arnold/Bernard in the interviews like MIB was doing with James Delos.

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Yeah, the very first scene on "next week on Westworld" pretty much confirmed that unless they're pulling a fast one on us with some creative editing.

Bernard: "I think I have a choice to make."
Delores: "No. He didn't say that."