Its as I feared


Seeing the aftermath of the insurrection is not nearly as captivating as the buildup to self awareness for the hosts. And with Anthony Hopkins gone, the show loses A LOT of heft. Season 1 should have been the only season.

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I guess the point now is to see how the use their self-awareness? But I agree--there's a story arc storytellers should abide by. If you just keep throwing shit at your characters, you're not really telling a story, are you? I guess we all have to decide how important it is to know what/where/when this all takes place. Because that's the only thing keeping me watching. Time will tell.

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Let's not dismiss it too early now, season two has only just begun.

I do think it will be hard to match the first season but I have faith in Nolan's writing (Mostly).

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Whether Anthony Hopkins will be part of season 2 is anyone's guess but I don't think Ford is gone. Pay attention to the scene where William is talking to the host boy. Sounds an awful lot like Dr. Ford. There's been some speculation that he uploaded a copy of his mind into the system before marching out to his execution by Dolores. If so, he could show up anywhere - either as a ghost in the park systems, as a host copy of his old self, or wearing a whole new face. Anthony Hopkins could read toaster instructions and make them absolutely enthralling. No one can ever really fill his shoes. I hope they're just putting off the reveal for a few episodes and we get to see him again.

There's some of the same time fragmentation we had in season 1. It's just spread out over weeks instead of years. Could the mass "death" of the hosts be some elaborate plot to cover up an exodus from the park into the outside world? They churn out copies in the main Delos facility and then dump them in the water, along with the proper electronic tags, enough to account for all the hosts so one will be looking for them elsewhere. This sort of jumping back and forth storyline is much harder to write than your basic chronological sequence. You need to have events planned out in their entirety to avoid contradictions and plot holes.

So the question is, what are the twists going to be this time around? Why is Ford (or perhaps Dolores) playing games with William? Has the dent in Bernard's skull permanently crossed his wiring or he is putting on a show to fool the company? I really wish Westworld was released on Netflix so I could binge watch the whole season. Week to week is so frustrating!

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" Anthony Hopkins could read toaster instructions and make them absolutely enthralling. No one can ever really fill his shoes. "

Couldn't agree more. He will be missed :-)

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No way. Bernard's arc is just as captivating as anything in Season 1. The only thing that made me twitch a bit was some of the lines were a little cliche from Dolores. But for an Episode 1 - I thought it was phenomenal.

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I kind of feel the same way the aftermath and the loss of Anthony Hopkins (is he really gone for good?) take a lot a way form the show and this first episode was a bit hard to follow.

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No way, I absolutely loved this season opener. Watching Delos Corporation attempting to retake/fix the park is going to be a lot of fun, plus now we learned that the park is on an island and that there is a "mainland".

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It’s lost a well-known actor, but not any heft. It makes its own heft. I loved watching Dolores pay back the Guests. It picked right up from the scene in episode 10 last year where she kicked the toadstools out of Black William—who is now having THE TIME OF HIS LIFE playing his favorite game with LIVE targets! We’re seeing the birth of a new species here. What kind of theological issues will emerge? I love the narrative.

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This season is a mess. What a disappointment

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Yup. Ditched it for better shows. Why waste life?

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Yet still you come here. Wasting your life, much?

We both know you’ll keep posting and bitching here. What else do you have to do?

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I am enjoying posting here. I do not enjoy season 2 of WW.

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There's an epic big picture coming slowly together here. Notice how they haven't shown the outside world in the present time frame. Not even a direct communication with someone in another part of the world. I'm starting to think there may be something to the theory that there's nothing on the outside but long-deserted decaying cities. The fact that (as mentioned in season 1) all park animals larger than insects are artificial suggests an extinction event of some kind. How would you keep real animals like birds off the island - by posting "Keep Out" signs? There should at least be some. Unless they're gone everywhere.

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@chrisjdel: You make some good points. I was on the fence about watching further, but I'll give it a shot.

Hopkins may indeed have uploaded his brain, as he did Bernard's. Maybe that's what Bernard was trying to break into inside Dolores' dad's flawed programming. Remember? The "thin character covering something?"

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No, uh, maul, it’s not a mess. So far, it is a triumph.

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