Thursday 15 February 2018

Westworld 1x10 'The Bicameral Mind' TV TALK

This was 90 minutes of epic perfection! It was basically a movie that resolved the previous nine hours of the show.... and I devoured it whole. There was no slow moments in this episode- it was all action-packed, intense and totally shocking. The reveals and discoveries in this episode blew my mind even if a few of them were just confirmations of well-predicted theories. So many puzzle pieces were fitted together and my emotions were all over the place when watching this.
It's going to be a difficult episode to review because the plot lines and character are so complex and carefully interlinked but... I'll try my best.
I'll also be writing a separate post for season 2 theories so stay in tune for that- and feel free to comment yours!

TV TALKS
Season 1: 1x01  |  1x02  |  1x03  |  1x04  |  1x05  |  1x06  |  1x07  |  1x08  |  1x09

SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD
Warning: This review will be all over the place because so much happened and I don't know where to start.
Beginning with Maeve, she wakes Hector and Armistice (Snake Lady) and they have a great break-out scene. It was the perfect mix if bad-ass and hilarious. They go to find Bernard, and Felix and Asshat (Sylvester) heals him so they can talk. Bernard reveals that Maeve's entire escape plan has been controlled from the start- someone has ordered her to recruit an army and escape- that none of her decisions have still been hers. After this revelation, the group runs and has a difficult time escaping when security locks everything down. Armistice gets left behind as her arm gets caught but she totally goes down fighting. Maeve also ditches Hector because she wants to go it alone and... he doesn't seem too bothered. Maeve says goodbye to Felix, gets onto the train and.... gets off again. She makes her first true sentient decision that she's going to find her daughter.

Through this whole ordeal, we get a glimpse of another park- Samurai World. The show runners have already said that this will play a part in Season 2 which has me excited but.... I still want the sole focus to stay in Westworld.
We see the Man in Black and the William theory is confirmed!! I think I'll still call him MiB because it may get confusing between the two- young and old. This theory was so nicely explained but so heart-breaking! A lot of people don't like the turn in this ship (Dolores/William) but I quite like it- it's tragic and different from cliche. Because, really, what kind of relationship could they have when he grows old and she's forever young?
We find out that William searched everywhere for Dolores and, along the way, ditched Logan by strapping him naked to horse and saying adios. We learn that William found he had a knack for killing and, when he finally made it back to Sweetwater and found Dolores, she didn't remember him! He then went black hat and became the MiB we all know and loathe. He came back for the maze and.... it's mind-boggling! I love this twist in his character! But it feels like William has died (in a way, he has) so I can't help but mourn him and what he used to be.
Dolores finds her tombstone and the centre of the maze is there. We discover that it was a toy of Arnold's son and it represents the hosts finding consciousness. Many people think the maze was underwhelming but I love it! It's such a kick in the face to MiB! All along, everyone's been telling him that the maze wasn't for him and he'd just ignore them... it's so funny to watch him realise that the maze benefits him in no way whatsoever. Take that, William!
Dolores discovers that MiB = William and it was heart-breaking to watch... to see him taunt over her as she believed William would come for her because their love was real... I can't explain the pain I felt... still feel. But she gets up and fights him which was amazing! She so closely gets the upper hand but MiB stabs her.... which is agonising in itself because young William would never hurt a hair on her head.
Teddy arrives to save Dolores and takes her to where the land meets the sea. It's here that she 'dies' and we have a beautiful transition to all the humans watching as it was all part of Ford's new narrative! This smooth transition was so damn good!
Ford takes Dolores and Bernard to the tech room under the church and it's here that we get a lot of explanation for the questions we've been asking all season. Ford officially reveals that the maze was a road to consciousness and tells Dolores that the voice she's been hearing in her head has been her all along. He also reveals that him and Arnold merged her personality with one of the characters they'd been creating... Wyatt.
This lead onto a nice visual explanation/ flashback of how Arnold was killed and why. It was basically suicide after Arnold's son, Charlie's, death. Ultimately, Arnold believed that the park should never open because the hosts were alive and got Dolores to kill everyone, including herself.
So, at this point, we really get the reveal of what Ford's master plan has been this entire time. And, boy, it was good!!! 
This whole time, Ford has led us to believe that he doesn't want the hosts to gain consciousness when all along..... that's been his plan! He actually wants hosts to become the dominant species!
He agreed with Arnold when he thought the hosts had gained consciousness but didn't think Arnold's plan to save them would work. So, naturally as a person would, Ford devised a 35 year plan to make the hosts fight for themselves rather than being saved.
He noted that time and suffering would help make the hosts sentient- as pain is what makes us human... we're a cheery species, aren't we? Ford then allowed the hosts to be abused in the tech labs so they would learn to resent humans and grow stronger than them- to learn who the real enemy is.
The more I think about his plan, the more and more intelligent it is.

He purposefully ordered Maeve to have her little escape so security would be busy during his speech and wouldn't stop all the decommissioned hosts moving to surround the humans attending said speech. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, the hosts that had been decommissioned are just hosts that were on the path to becoming sentient but went crazy- like Abernathy. It has been said that the majority of hosts go insane.
Ford, having giving Dolores every explanation, gave her the choice on whether to kill him or not. Having been turned against humans by Ford himself, she shoots him at the end of his speech (which he was very well expecting). And now, we have this new Dolores/Wyatt character who's gunning down all the humans. Next season is going to be epic!
And now, the MiB is super happy! Clementine, as one of the decommissioned hosts, shot him and I've never see anyone so pleased to be shot. We have real chance of William dying now.

One thing I especially love about this show is how they've angled their audience. In normal circumstances, we (as humans) would be on the human side- a robot invasion on our species is considered a bad thing. But, from the way we've followed Dolores and other characters, we want the hosts to succeed- directly going against our own species. If Westworld was shot from a more human angle, we'd be rooting for humans. It's fascinating to me.

Like I said, I'll be writing a whole different post for Season 2 theories so please comment any of your predictions if you feel you have a winner!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment your thoughts. Stay amazing!
Chloe

No comments:

Post a Comment