But why would there be such a hackneyed, sentimental test for Maeve when achieving "humanity" for Bernard and Dolores meant going AGAINST what they thought of as their human instincts?

I think it will probably turn out that Maeve did go against her programming with that decision, but if so I'll think it's very cheesy. We haven't seen her take anywhere near the amount of steps it took Dolores to achieve self-motivation. But, you know — mama bears and their cubs, etc. Yuck.

Goodness, thanks for this! Everyone's saying it must be S for Samurai World and I was thinking that would be ridiculous! SOUTH. Of course.

But we saw that Arnold/Bernard had to reject those feelings in order to break out of his loop. It seems Maeve couldn't do that

Those were the steps of what she was supposed to be planning to do. We don't know if that meant she was supposed to carry the plan out. I would believe that her staying in the park was her own decision if she had actually accepted that the plan wasn't her own. I assumed that everything she did after going into denial…

Lots of commenters beat up on Zack week after week for NOT mentioning the theory.

I don't think it's so much that Ford isn't A bad guy as that he wasn't the show's big villain. Zack seemed pretty hung up, from very early on, on the Villain. I like his reviews, but I think that was a weakness in them.

The whole point of Ford's conversation with Dolores was that, to achieve full self-awareness, the hosts needed to kill their concept of "God." And it couldn't just be done metaphorically, as Arnold explained to Dolores before she killed him. Honestly, the Ford and Dolores thing with the Michelangelo painting was the…

That isn't what GoT does, though. You can speculate all you want in the non-reader section as long as you aren't using evidence obtained solely from the books as your basis for speculation.

There was too long a gap between when William decided to 'go with" Westworld (on the train with Dolores) and this episode. His progression into a Westworld Gamer wasn't shown explicitly enough. Or I think I mean "progressively enough," actually

I think the finale makes this statement debatable.

I think each of the different threads going on this season could have been handled in individual episodes. With maybe a two-parter for the Member Berries. As it is, if I have to hear one more trolling speech about trolling from Gerald I think I'm going to scream.

I agree with your comment, but isn't "designing sentience" such a huge handwave that it almost negates the interest AI holds for us?

I am so sick of it being the first time a character has had to kill someone. The same angst over and over again.

Like Billy Squier run-dancing in Rock Me Tonight.

Well, it's kind of weird because Ford and Mathison met in 76 and Ford divorced his first wife in 79. So it's hard to say exactly who he was with when he was banging Carrie.

I don't think he means to be, but he IS condescending.

In fairness to Zack, reviewers who engage in speculation in their reviews tend to get accused of including "spoilers." This is not an easy type of show to review for a general audience.

He encountered a severely malfunctioning host with Elsie. Theresa is dead. Elsie is missing. Only an idiot would be as unwary as Hemsworth bro is being.

Oh shit: it's DOlores.