I thought it might have been an homage to the Book of Job. . . that eerie opening scene where God and Satan have a friendly chat about what Satan has been up to in the world, and the fate of God's servant Job.

It wouldn't surprise me if that's intentional. A few episodes ago, when they were tracking down Hosts infected with the memory glitch and pulling them offline, they mentioned that Westworld's entire population of Hosts was only about 2,000.

I think it would work better if they just referenced those other worlds (at least for this season) rather than mashing them all together. We've barely been introduced to the characters and world we have right now. . . but for future seasons, I think that could definitely be in the works.

I don't think you're supposed to. The setting, by its nature, makes all three classes of characters inherently unsympathetic.

Darn. I had my heart set on giant ants.

Sadly, I don't have one. . . but until I do, you're more than welcome to follow me on Disqus!

Ah, but did Negan really play Rick perfectly? He's making assumptions about the history of Rick's group that aren't actually correct. He's assuming that they've had an easy time of it in the Zombie Apocalypse, when in fact their lives have sucked as badly as this or worse since the very beginning.

Westworld is certainly evil, but I'm not yet certain that it exists for an evil purpose. It's possible that the goal of this program is to create true moral awareness in A.I., in stages, by exposing them to the greatest extremes of human depravity and altruism, again and again, until an unconscious residue of those…

This detail could also lead to another interesting theme: if the Man in Black really is pure evil in Westworld, but behaves like a saint outside the park. . . which version of him is the performance, and which version is real? Both? Neither? Does the answer to that question even matter, and if so (or if not), why?

I think the park sometimes imposes consequences for this type of behavior. . .but they're appropriately minor. The barkeep throws you out of the restaurant. . . the sheriff comes and locks you in the hoosegow for the night (after Mission Control jams your gun so you can't just kill him too). Certain NPCs won't have…

In chestnut We clearly see Williams's orientation robot wearing white high heels, as I imagine all the welcoming robots do.

There was an interesting hint in this episode that The Man in Black is a philanthropist (or some other kind of major public benefactor) in his real life. Another guest thanked him for saving his daughter.

Am I the only person on the entire frikkin' internet who found this album deeply unimpressive? At its best, it sounds like Lady Gaga impersonating a mediocre country singer who's impersonating Lady Gaga.

In retrospect, it's this entire year.

You shouldn't feel dumb at all! Your question was valid.

That's an extremely good theory. "True" AI would be the next step in human evolution (a theme that the show seems to be obsessed with), so it would only make sense to make sure that whatever humanity is entrusting to exceed and eventually supplant it has something that regular humans would acknowledge as a meaningful…

Otherwise, fights might break out over who gets to pick up the can when Delores drops it. . . .

I'd assume that the risk of other guests coming along and messing up your plans for the hosts is just part of the introductory disclaimers.

It looks like most of the really tricky, intricate work is being done by machines. (We'll learn more about this in Season 3, by which time we'll be reduced to exploring the complex quasi-emotional issues of the robots that build the robots), so maybe they're turning a profit.

That's an intriguing theory. . . although an awful lot of what Ed Harris seems to do most of the time is sadistically torture Dolores for the sake of. . . sadistically torturing Dolores. That seems more like a human quirk than a robotic one, although then again, these robots have the specific (violent) natures that…