Wow, I'm surprised they committed that to canon considering it goes directly against the way Ford wants his staff to consider the hosts. It's been one of the larger incongruences of the show for me, the non-randomized host to tech/staff arrangement.

In agreement that this episode was lackluster, but not in it feeling slapped together from odds and ends. It was without question an info dump episode in a season that could have better benefitted from spreading out its plot instead of obsessively withholding.

It would still be weird, but at least less problematic.

The intentional distancing this show does is at once intriguing and aggravating. There are no meaningful character connections here (Maeve and Felix being the one exception), and outside of their job functions or blunt idealism, these aren't really characters to begin with.

Yeah, there's established tv/movie logic at play that if you don't see a dead body then that character is going to come back one way or another. Them's the rules.

That's a good idea for a different show. Westworld hasn't established enough of a world outside of the park for something that deep to matter. Because as of this moment, we only have Charlotte as the sole representation of both the board and the entire outside world. There's no inherent threat here, and totally…

I don't understand why Bernard exists either if he isn't going to be a replica of Arnold through and through. Why would you resurrect just the visuals of a dear companion to haunt you without getting any of the benefits possible from the situation? Sure, technically he exists as an example of Ford being weak and…

Teddy's machine gun freedom attack when he and MIB were captured was some of the worst action direction I've even seen from a show with this budget.

And the longer they intentionally have a character only identified as "Man in Black" and said character is commented upon but not named by other characters, the only outcome is a reveal like MIB=William. It's not a mystery at all. It's just a weirdly unimportant confirmation.

I mean…this actually happened.

Yeah, the implication is directly about both being hosts. Bernard is already revealed to be a host, so there's no other shock to be had in that specific conversation and scene except for Theresa to be a stealth host.

The difference is that Bernard gives the host verbal commands in the hospital scene with the son. He does not do that with Theresa, who is frozen during Ford's narration.

How exactly did they show that Bernard was scripted? His arc when from Ford directly controlling him, to allowing for a few frank conversation of "aware" Bernard before wiping him, and then for Maeve to set him loose one more time.

That's not what I mean. On screen, as delivered, William is poorly executed. Revealing that he's MIB is narratively important business, but it's also coming across as totally unearned with how they wrote it.

What supports this idea further is that Ford has largely been absent from anything Maeve related. Bernard only comes into play after Maeve is off and running. Dolores is where things become tricky, since she was either an accidental catalyst to Maeve's awakening or a completely intentional trigger.

I know, they could have at least explained something along the lines of each technician is assigned X amount of the same hosts to repair, but even that doesn't work with the show's internal logic. Ford wants the hosts to be seen as blank slates and less than human. You wouldn't accomplish that without randomizing…

William's obsession with Dolores is the weakest element of this show and it's even more of a potent disappointment when you consider that it's being presented as important business in a larger context to the narrative.

To say nothing of the fact that a self aware Bernard would want no business working with Ford, only for the narrative to then provide a method to prevent that from ever happening.

At the very least she has time periods and a level of serious maturity as strong points of differentiation. These books should absolutely not be updated to be taking place in modern time in a series.

This could be a very good 10 episode a season show if it's kept reined in and not allowed to be overindulgent and pure camp. I'm not sure where Anne Rice holds her work anymore though. Interview with the Vampire is still an amazing movie and adaptation. Queen of the Damned however made terrible tonal changes to the…