so what fresh take is left?

I'm just here for the Chicago nativism in the comments.

It seems like that's what may have opened her eyes, so to speak.

I can't believe this isn't an act.

Not changing themselves so much as developing beyond their initial parameters. The part that tipped me off is that one of Maeve's increased characteristics is "paranoia."

He talks to her, explains the world to her and takes her on a tour of the facilities at reasonable personal risk to his own career: we can argue about the level to which he empathizes, but I certainly don't think he simply views her as a malfunctioning machine.

Felix the Cat was also made irrelevant by new and superior technology.

Well I think the show has done enough to establish that Felix wouldn't set her back to zero. He clearly empathizes with her and such a move would be tantamount to murder.

I like this show but I'm constantly distracted by how much it would cost to run something like this.

This was a decent episode because it focused on the strongest and most interesting theme of the show: the fine line between AI and humanity. Maeve's storyline remains by leaps and bounds the most compelling, although I wish the Sylvester character were a little more subtle.

They’re not particularly skilled at evaluating talent (other than KP and it still shocks me that they picked him), they sign aging stars to questionable contracts and ownership historically has no patience (e.g. trades away first round picks). Basically we do everything possible to be a joke franchise.

Haggis is legitimately delicious. People who don't try it are really missing out.

Consider that "El Lazo" means the lasso, or the "loop."

Say what you will about Lost's mystery box format: there were enough real and urgent things going on in each episode that they could tease and build the mysteries slowly. We criticize Lost for not being able to answer all the questions they raised and to close every loop, but at least that world and those mysteries…

The most interesting aspect of last week's episode was Maeve realizing her world was an illusion, that she'd been here before, that none of it mattered, etc. So how do they follow that up? With her lying down on a table for a whole episode beside minor characters doing things we don't care about. I get that they…

The technology itself would attract customers, but nobody would design a massive Wild West theme park around the concept. It doesn't make any sense.

The silliness of the Westworld park concept is still a critical problem for me. I like Westerns as much as anybody else who likes Westerns, but I'm only marginally interested in an immersive Wild West experience. The only difference between Westworld and a Ren Faire or Colonial Williamsburg seems to be that in…

Thandie Newton's story arc is the only interesting one on the show, really. You actually get a sense for the horror her character is feeling and the reveal of the series of drawings was the first big moment the show earned. The "native" hosts having developed (or been given) a whole mythology around Westworld is…

You'd have a really, really hard time topping all the Boston transplants in New York c. Fall 2004.

Which sort of makes you wonder why they bothered taking this incredible technology they've developed and applied it to create, of all things, a Wild West theme park. I know that they've hinted to "other purpose" and maybe using godlike technology for such a kitschy purpose is supposed to be part of the joke (as it…