In the movie the alternative worlds were both Euro-flavored. Ancient Rome and Medieval pastiche. Swapping out the latter for Edo-era Japan seems like a good move to me.

She didn't override her objective. She cut Bernard off before he could tell us what she does when she gets to the train station. It's not clear that Maeve is having a genuine awakening—though, to be fair, it's not clear to me that Dolores is either.

I suspect anyone who works in an industry where workload is measured in "deals" has a similar reaction to the man. He's the counterparty who just lies to your face, and you find out the next day because of routine diligence. He's the client who goes around your back to meet with the other side without keeping you in…

It's the (semi) unique facet of why Hollywood hates him, though. Many people hate him because he's either a racist, or totally okay with racists, or because he's a misogynist sexual predator, or because he's a liar. People in Hollywood apparently share what I thought was our (speaking as a denizen of Wall Street*)…

Didn't catch that—good ear.

Is alt-righting where you swipe up and to the right and then you just keep the movement going and extend your arm all the way up and out at the end with your fingers flat?

Cabinets generally don't check a President. The Senate and House are going to have to check the President. Of course, even the Congress can't do much to constrain a President in foreign policy, particularly in the post-WWII era.

I think you also have a less federalist government, too. My understanding is that Scotland has its own Parliament, with a degree of local control, but that by and large, Parliament sets policy.

Also remember the difference in fundamental structure of the UK and US. The executive function is elected independently of the legislative, and is unitary. There's no possibility of "proportional representation" in Presidential elections, because the President is definitionally singular.

Dolor is also an English word, received into the language from the Old French. But I'm not sure what we're arguing about—you've very eloquently explained the linguistic reason behind my earlier point that Dolores is a hard to spell name.

The self-flagellation over being in a "bubble" is mostly unhelpful, but there is something to the idea that you should know what others believe, even if it is untrue. It's dangerous to shut your ears to the other side, particularly you're trying to get at least some of their votes.

Ironically, the most successful third party run in the last 100 years was not Nader or any Green or Libertarian party candidate, but Ross Perot. Perot's "Independent Party" took 19,742,267 votes in 1992, or about 19% of the vote cast.

I'm not sure about that. The root word—dolor—is pronounced very differently than Dolores is in the show. Agreed that Delores and Dalores are going to be read phonetically identically to each other, and that both are identical to the pronunciation of Dolores in the show, but I'm sure that I could and probably would…

I hear the complaint from a logistical, economic, realism perspective, but the show's touchstone is video games, and having the bandits clean themselves up that way is straight out of a video game. The off-screen stuff is mostly event-driven in things like Fallout or Fable, but I can remember back in days of yore…

They say earlier in the season that guest favorites are so rebuilt that they don't have any of their old parts anymore (ship of Theseus paradox holla!). Maybe Maeve is one of their "popular" hosts, or maybe she'll just be treated that way because someone arranged for it. That someone could be Ford, it could be…

I think Maeve is having a similar moment of emergent behavior to Dolores. The difference is that no one is watching. Arnold clearly noticed and participated in Dolores's first awakening—no one is paying attention to the hosts the same way, now. Ford views them as "just things," though, to be fair, he views people…

I don't know if he was dead "long before" William set foot in the park. Seems more than likely to me that the moment that caused Dolores to break was either the same thing that caused her to kill Arnold, or Arnold's death itself (perhaps Arnold asked her to do it?).

My bet is that Logan dies in the past. William uses his influence with the family/company to prevent Delos from disinvesting or demanding an outside investigation or something of the sort. Over the next 30 years, William—perhaps due to the confidence and insight gained in the park—becomes very successful, including…

To be fair, it's spelled very differently than it is pronounced in the show.

Okay, so still aliens (or something), just no dumb set piece at the end with cartoony-side-of-action-movie physics. I buy that as a better ending. Still thought the movie was pretty good.