Decrypted: Westworld: This series is our current obsession

On our TV podcast <em>Decrypted</em>, we tackle the conspiracies and themes in episode 1 of <em>Westworld</em>.

Read the whole story

 

[Timboman]

Taking bets on when Anthony Hopkins is gonna bite it al-la Sean Bean in Game of Thrones.
I feel like he's not even gonna survive the first half of the season, let alone to the end of it.

Beyond that bit of meta-shenanigans I'm enjoying it so far and can't wait to see where it goes.

 

[siliconaddict]

Timboman[/url]":30ohwxbk]Taking bets on when Anthony Hopkins is gonna bite it al-la Sean Bean in Game of Thrones.
I feel like he's not even gonna survive the first half of the season, let alone to the end of it.

Beyond that bit of meta-shenanigans I'm enjoying it so far and can't wait to see where it goes.

Ditto. I was certain he was gonna bite it in epi one. Any big name actor I can't seeing lasting through season 1.

 

[grahamwilliams]

Absolutely irritating that you can't get HBO Go in Canada without a cable subscription, you can't buy it next day on any digital stores, and pirating it can be done in less than ten minutes.

Fucking hell HBO, I want to give you my money. Why won't you take it?

 

[siliconaddict]

RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRachael[/url]":2u657rxh]Cold storage: not cold. Seriously, that is inventory/assets. Someone would be fired.
Guns: the hosts have to be controlled with...guns?
Acting: I had a difficult time with the Norwegian actress's accent and felt her character's role was not written well (Ingrid is talented so the writing for her I hope will get better).
Also, I felt that Sir Anthony Hopkins, along with Ed Harris, were brought in to attract more viewers. Ed's character is much like The Gunslinger (the late Yul Brynner).

In the future, every business will be dark inside. Come on... I get film noir but this is just not good direction.

Um... I will continue to watch but I think 9 more episodes left...right?

<_<

This is what drives me nuts. You are 60 minutes in on the first episode of the series. Character development doesn't happen overnight and if it does the series is going to suck butt.
Can you PLEASE stop being the typical American viewer who needs everything in a single sitting?
Sorry if that comes off as harsh but its what I'm seeing now a days. Calm down and just enjoy the ride.

As for cold storage. Ugh.... The term doesn't need to be literal anymore http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona ... %20storage

2: a condition of being held or continued without being acted on

Think about it. If they don't need to be refrigerated when they are live why would they when they are inactive or decommissioned?



"In the future, every business will be dark inside. Come on... I get film noir but this is just not good direction."

Smaller sets. When you can't see everything you don't need to build detail. And it also helps keep defintion from occurring outside of Westworld. The stage is Westworld.....backstage is this dark place we don't see much of yet. I could go either way on this. As its over used in too many movies/shows. But it's a valid choice. IMHO.

 

[siliconaddict]

I would KILL to see Nathan Fillion make an appearance. That is all.

 

[Plap]

grahamwilliams[/url]":13vlplin]Absolutely irritating that you can't get HBO Go in Canada without a cable subscription, you can't buy it next day on any digital stores, and pirating it can be done in less than ten minutes.

Fucking hell HBO, I want to give you my money. Why won't you take it?

Not HBO's fault. In Canada, HBO's catalogue has been licensed to Bell in the east and Telus in the west (if I remember well). And yes, it really sucks...

 

[SixDegrees]

Sounds great, but sadly it's not great enough to justify an HBO subscription, at least for me. I look over their offerings from time to time, and there's just not enough there I'd ever watch. A show or two makes that monthly cost seem pretty steep.

I'm sure it'll be out on DVD soon enough, and I'll probably rent it (or stream it, if HBO releases it for such) when that happens.

 

[sep332]

My conspiracy theory: there's only one fly. Well, there was.

 

[caldepen]

Plap[/url]":hvvjkeei]

grahamwilliams[/url]":hvvjkeei]Absolutely irritating that you can't get HBO Go in Canada without a cable subscription, you can't buy it next day on any digital stores, and pirating it can be done in less than ten minutes.

Fucking hell HBO, I want to give you my money. Why won't you take it?

Not HBO's fault. In Canada, HBO's catalogue has been licensed to Bell in the east and Telus in the west (if I remember well). And yes, it really sucks...

In Canada it is legal to stream...

https://www.thestar.com/business/2015/0 ... geist.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/android ... -1.3455524


'Those accessing the streams are unlikely to be infringing copyright'

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Ars has podcasts??

 

[TXBDan]

Podcast? I'd much prefer a written series, fwiw.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

TXBDan[/url]":255spi42]Podcast? I'd much prefer a written series, fwiw.

Podcasts have become very, very popular. Wasnt surprised to see Ars add videos, and not surprised to see them add podcasts.

But maybe they'll provide a transcript one day.

 

[Doubletwist]

TXBDan[/url]":es3vol7y]Podcast? I'd much prefer a written series, fwiw.

I'd settle for a written transcript.

 

[fuxl]

My theory: Ford is actually a "host", Man in black is an android.

 

[Azethoth666]

sep332[/url]":dfd6acfd]My conspiracy theory: there's only one fly. Well, there was.

The fly will be back the very next day after the little fly wranglers repair it.

 

[Maldoror]

skippyvsjifshowdown[/url]":zx2gmilw]I really dislike when TV shows and movies shoehorn poor variations of popular modern songs in rather than add original music. The saloon version of "Black Hole Sun" and the surprisingly long orchestral version of "Paint it Black" took me out of the moment.

When Black Hole Sun played in the saloon I took it as a future anachronism, a subtle joke that the Westworld company (within the show) chose an old-timey song for the pianola and got the century wrong. Paint it Black was part of the score, and I found that grated much more, like you say.

 

[pokrface]

skippyvsjifshowdown[/url]":1wz0zhqz]I really dislike when TV shows and movies shoehorn poor variations of popular modern songs in rather than add original music. The saloon version of "Black Hole Sun" and the surprisingly long orchestral version of "Paint it Black" took me out of the moment.

When Black Hole Sun played in the saloon I took it as a future anachronism, a subtle joke that the Westworld company (within the show) chose an old-timey song for the pianola and got the century wrong. Paint it Black was part of the score, and I found that grated much more, like you say.

The show's clearly playing into the white/black symbolism with everything, including the music (the last song in the show, "Ain't No Grave," is by Johnny Cash...."The Man in Black").

Black symbolizes something—is it "us," the humans? Yes, the bad guys wear black (even Escaton when he rides into town to rob the bank), but recall that the robots themselves, beneath their skins, are pure white. Ed Harris is the MAN in Black. The behind-the-scenes world is mostly black, except for huge swaths of red corridors in the control room. What is red? Hell? The place where the "devils" watch over the world they've created? And if that's the case, and we have a dualistic world, where is God in all of this?

What are we supposed to take away from the use of color? That people are evil and robots are good? The show certainly seems to be pressing us in that direction, though it's a little early to make any calls yet. Still, I'd pay attention to any place that white or black appears—I think those colors are going to be important clues about what really is going on. And I'd keep an eye out for red, too.

(And the significance of the player piano seems pretty straightforward—much in the way that the robots don't appear to be controlled externally but are at least for now following a program, so is the piano. No hands play its keys, but it's still running its script. The script, though, is odd and might be giving narrative clues. So listen to the music choices. Things there might go off the rails.)

 

[siliconaddict]

skippyvsjifshowdown[/url]":2g0emh7k]I really dislike when TV shows and movies shoehorn poor variations of popular modern songs in rather than add original music. The saloon version of "Black Hole Sun" and the surprisingly long orchestral version of "Paint it Black" took me out of the moment.

Didn't for me. Think of what this world represents? This isn't a time traveling show. Where its intended to be 100% accurate in the 1800's. You have modern people going into for all intents and purposes a Disney World a la the wild west. A "modern" tune turned retro is a wink wink nudge nudge to the Newcomers wherein the Hosts would not get it at all.
I did enjoy the rendition of Paint it Black as well even though that was not set "in" the world.

 

[Justin Credible]

grahamwilliams[/url]":3c02g9rq]Absolutely irritating that you can't get HBO Go in Canada without a cable subscription, you can't buy it next day on any digital stores, and pirating it can be done in less than ten minutes.

Fucking hell HBO, I want to give you my money. Why won't you take it?

Just go here, so much easier for us Canadians.

(don't forget your ad blocker though. )

 

[siliconaddict]

BatCrapCrazy[/url]":1w8nh75x]

grahamwilliams[/url]":1w8nh75x]Absolutely irritating that you can't get HBO Go in Canada without a cable subscription, you can't buy it next day on any digital stores, and pirating it can be done in less than ten minutes.

Fucking hell HBO, I want to give you my money. Why won't you take it?

Just go URL so much easier for us Canadians.

(don't forget your ad blocker though. )

I have it 30 minutes before an admin nukes that link. =D

 

[Peevester]

sep332[/url]":2idt5kbs]My conspiracy theory: there's only one fly. Well, there was.

Ha.

Two things immediately came to mind when I saw the flies. First was Aeon Flux (the Peter Chung cartoon, not the movie) - I SO wanted Dolores to close her eyes and trap the fly on her lashes.

The second thing was Catch-22 - Yossarian repeatedly describes one of the characters as having flies in his eyes. It's never entirely clear what he meant by it, but I take it to mean that someone is unaware of something that everyone else can see as clear as day. So the flies (if they're not just Western set dressing) symbolize the hosts starting to see the reality of their lives. I don't know if that's what the writers are doing, but I'd like that to be true because it means they're sweating even the tiny details.

Edit: Another theory is that they're there to show Dolores smashing one at the end, which is a good possibility too.

 

[Justin Credible]

siliconaddict[/url]":x013x5nh]

BatCrapCrazy[/url]":x013x5nh]

grahamwilliams[/url]":x013x5nh]Absolutely irritating that you can't get HBO Go in Canada without a cable subscription, you can't buy it next day on any digital stores, and pirating it can be done in less than ten minutes.

Fucking hell HBO, I want to give you my money. Why won't you take it?

Just go URL so much easier for us Canadians.

(don't forget your ad blocker though. )

I have it 30 minutes before an admin nukes that link. =D

Haven't seen it nuked yet when i've posted it before, and never got an admin warning for it eather, and i've gotten warnings for some pretty stupid shit/posts.

 

[Azethoth666]

Maldoror[/url]"7x1jx9q]

skippyvsjifshowdown[/url]"7x1jx9q]I really dislike when TV shows and movies shoehorn poor variations of popular modern songs in rather than add original music. The saloon version of "Black Hole Sun" and the surprisingly long orchestral version of "Paint it Black" took me out of the moment.

When Black Hole Sun played in the saloon I took it as a future anachronism, a subtle joke that the Westworld company (within the show) chose an old-timey song for the pianola and got the century wrong. Paint it Black was part of the score, and I found that grated much more, like you say.

I really liked the slow Paint it Black. I think deconstructing the music that way matches the themes of the show. The pianola again also references back to clockwork people, only simulating piano playing.

I like the show so far, there is a lot of scope for wider story telling as well. What are the implications of lifelike undetectable robots? As per the podcast, you can get some kind of Ex Machina scenario if the robots rise. If the creators want to they can replace real people with robots and set up a world power grab conspiracy. The military would obviously want custom robot soldiers or ... you know ... infiltrator units with more robust endoskeletons. We can see the breakdown of the simple Laws of Robotics and the creation of more complex rules as per Asimov's Foundation & Robots series.

We should see the wider world at some point too. These are cutting edge robots. Are there robots doing household chores or dangerous labor out there?

Meanwhile each episode can be chock full of musings on the morality of abusing robots and how that changes as they become more sentient.

 

[Ronin007]

The concept of the park is meh to me, when we've had numerous open world video games (Grand Theft Auto) and more on point - Red Dead Redemption. Knowing how intricate the original Witcher was about story lines and NPC interaction, I chuckled at the writer lamenting about story impact. Physicality isn't a notable distinction to me about abuse; Westworld has always been about hedonism without consequences, morality.

Harris/Man in Black (MIB): hasn't been disproven about being a robot. I'm not sold on it, for a couple of reasons. We know that the original hosts could be determined "with a handshake" - MIB is always wearing gloves. The podcast comments about Teddy suggest to me that Teddy's the MIB origin story (like how the main bad guy was for Book in the movie Serenity) - both can come in on the train, appearing as guests. Both are greeted the same by the same prostitute in the saloon (though we haven't seen any other guests be greeted). But Teddy is not sentient, or at least not yet.

Dolores: That was creepy to find out that she's an original. Sailing past the whole Ship of Theseus thing, it makes the clips of the interaction between her & Ford [where she asks if they were old friends, and he replies "no, certainly not"] have a whole new depth about the demons he's got.

The more I think about the impact of the ability to access old memories & trauma, I'm reminded of the original Ghost in the Shell movie, along with other callbacks to the bits about implanted/faked memories. Is there any media, earlier than the movie Gaslight (1944), that utilizes memory manipulation? STTNG's Chain of Command and the movie Memento are other greats, but quite recent...

 

[abridge]

I wish the commentary would stay within a single episode rather than talk about future, un-aired, content. You have the perspective of four episodes to use in discussing the first which just is a deal-breaker for me, a lack of intellectual discipline. Of course you get to make really prescient remarks, I suppose, but we're not well served.

 

[Llampshade]

Peevester[/url]"hp29ydr]

sep332[/url]"hp29ydr]My conspiracy theory: there's only one fly. Well, there was.

Ha.

Two things immediately came to mind when I saw the flies. First was Aeon Flux (the Peter Chung cartoon, not the movie) - I SO wanted Dolores to close her eyes and trap the fly on her lashes.

The second thing was Catch-22 - Yossarian repeatedly describes one of the characters as having flies in his eyes. It's never entirely clear what he meant by it, but I take it to mean that someone is unaware of something that everyone else can see as clear as day. So the flies (if they're not just Western set dressing) symbolize the hosts starting to see the reality of their lives. I don't know if that's what the writers are doing, but I'd like that to be true because it means they're sweating even the tiny details.

Edit: Another theory is that they're there to show Dolores smashing one at the end, which is a good possibility too.

They made the flies obvious. The comment about "they can't even hurt a fly" was only mentioned once, but only after the excruciating scenes of flies crawling across the hosts eyeballs. I figure there's no way it wasn't all leading up to that final scene with the fly swat and the message it implies about the future of the hosts's adhesion to the rules.

 

[VultureTX]

The first episode has its hints, but its the whole the guests can't be hurt that seems a false statement.

There are barrels that blow up during the robbery (Gabe from penny arcade was not the props guy on this game) , so go ahead map out the fragments when a guest shoots an exploding barrel with other guests nearby.

Then there is the sociopath guests that would shoot a host's horse just to have it fall/crash and push a guest's horse over the cliff while playing they posse storyline. And I suspect this is where we will see how hosts themselves learn to kill guests indirectly.

 

[taraba]

VultureTX[/url]":2wvytbwp]The first episode has its hints, but its the whole the guests can't be hurt that seems a false statement.

There are barrels that blow up during the robbery (Gabe from penny arcade was not the props guy on this game) , so go ahead map out the fragments when a guest shoots an exploding barrel with other guests nearby.

Then there is the sociopath guests that would shoot a host's horse just to have it fall/crash and push a guest's horse over the cliff while playing they posse storyline. And I suspect this is where we will see how hosts themselves learn to kill guests indirectly.

Certainly guests can kill other guests in the world through strangling or drowning. But you can do that now at Disney on It's a Small World too if you were motivated. Security and the police would apprehend you and you would be charged with murder in the real world outside the theme park.

 

[Azethoth666]

Ronin007[/url]":1es2omqi]The concept of the park is meh to me, when we've had numerous open world video games (Grand Theft Auto) and more on point - Red Dead Redemption. Knowing how intricate the original Witcher was about story lines and NPC interaction, I chuckled at the writer lamenting about story impact. Physicality isn't a notable distinction to me about abuse; Westworld has always been about hedonism without consequences, morality.

Harris/Man in Black (MIB): hasn't been disproven about being a robot. I'm not sold on it, for a couple of reasons. We know that the original hosts could be determined "with a handshake" - MIB is always wearing gloves. The podcast comments about Teddy suggest to me that Teddy's the MIB origin story (like how the main bad guy was for Book in the movie Serenity) - both can come in on the train, appearing as guests. Both are greeted the same by the same prostitute in the saloon (though we haven't seen any other guests be greeted). But Teddy is not sentient, or at least not yet.

Dolores: That was creepy to find out that she's an original. Sailing past the whole Ship of Theseus thing, it makes the clips of the interaction between her & Ford [where she asks if they were old friends, and he replies "no, certainly not"] have a whole new depth about the demons he's got.

The more I think about the impact of the ability to access old memories & trauma, I'm reminded of the original Ghost in the Shell movie, along with other callbacks to the bits about implanted/faked memories. Is there any media, earlier than the movie Gaslight (1944), that utilizes memory manipulation? STTNG's Chain of Command and the movie Memento are other greats, but quite recent...

Meh, who wants to watch old black and white movies except maybe Casablanca or perhaps Dracula on Halloween.

Blade Runner and Stepford Wives both predate STTNG. Dracula was 1931, the books earlier. Hypnotism is all over the gothic period so that gets your media back a couple of hundred years. Grimms or other fayrie tales featured mind control for a long time. I would be unsurprised if Greek, Roman, Hindu and or Chinese mythology did not have similar stories. Certainly the River Styx manipulates memories. That gets you back thousands of years.

 

[pokrface]

The first episode has its hints, but its the whole the guests can't be hurt that seems a false statement.

There are barrels that blow up during the robbery (Gabe from penny arcade was not the props guy on this game) , so go ahead map out the fragments when a guest shoots an exploding barrel with other guests nearby.

Then there is the sociopath guests that would shoot a host's horse just to have it fall/crash and push a guest's horse over the cliff while playing they posse storyline. And I suspect this is where we will see how hosts themselves learn to kill guests indirectly.

Guests can absolutely be hurt. There's a bit of an ARG going on around the show, and if you go to DiscoverWestworld.com and view source on the page, you can read the in-universe "Terms of Service" for the park.

It includes this paragraph:

Statistically speaking, you are more likely to die from lightning strike than to die while in a Delos park. However, the following causes of accidental death have occurred within the Delos Destinations compound: buffalo stampede, self- cannibalism, accidental hanging, drowning, 3rd-degree burns, autoerotic asphyxiation, blunt force trauma, allergic reaction to non-native plant life, falling from great heights, common manslaughter, tumbleweeds. You absolve Delos, Inc. of any wrongdoing if you or anyone in your party suffers bodily harm while using The Service, and you agree to not sue or prosecute Delos, Inc. or any of the smaller entities falling under the Delos Corporation.

There's a ton more great info in there and on a few other pages that you can get to if you start tracing it down. Neat tidbits include:

1) The maximum length of a guest's allowed stay in the park is 28 days.
2) There is a "Delos Destinations Port of Entry," and the park itself is in a place referred to as a "Territory," not a state or county or city.
3) There is a "mainland" separate from the park
4) There is a resort named "Gold Mesa" that guests first visit before entering into Westworld proper. Gold Mesa is also where guests "decompress" after, though "decompress" here appears to mean "re-acclimate to the real world," not "get the nitrogen out of your blood in a safe way."
5) Employees are at the park for extended durations and then rotate home (because it's on an island?)
6) There is an ongoing problem with employees porking the robots behind the scenes (srsly)

 

[nononsense]

abridge[/url]":8kr1wdwr]I wish the commentary would stay within a single episode rather than talk about future, un-aired, content. You have the perspective of four episodes to use in discussing the first which just is a deal-breaker for me, a lack of intellectual discipline. Of course you get to make really prescient remarks, I suppose, but we're not well served.

Thanks for this. I wanted to read some reviews after watching the initial episode and quickly discovered that the critics had seen the first four episodes and weren't shy about commenting on those shows.

I really liked the first episode, but I won't be listening to the podcast.

Thanks for the warning. I don't want to know what direction they take the show. I can guess, but I do not want anyone who has seen 4 episodes confirming or denying my guess.

Excellent pilot.

 

[VultureTX]

Pokrface[/url]":j4y5c6bk]

The first episode has its hints, but its the whole the guests can't be hurt that seems a false statement.

There are barrels that blow up during the robbery (Gabe from penny arcade was not the props guy on this game) , so go ahead map out the fragments when a guest shoots an exploding barrel with other guests nearby.

Then there is the sociopath guests that would shoot a host's horse just to have it fall/crash and push a guest's horse over the cliff while playing they posse storyline. And I suspect this is where we will see how hosts themselves learn to kill guests indirectly.

Guests can absolutely be hurt. There's a bit of an ARG going on around the show, and if you go to DiscoverWestworld.com and view source on the page, you can read the in-universe "Terms of Service" for the park.

It includes this paragraph:

Statistically speaking, you are more likely to die from lightning strike than to die while in a Delos park. However, the following causes of accidental death have occurred within the Delos Destinations compound: buffalo stampede, self- cannibalism, accidental hanging, drowning, 3rd-degree burns, autoerotic asphyxiation, blunt force trauma, allergic reaction to non-native plant life, falling from great heights, common manslaughter, tumbleweeds. You absolve Delos, Inc. of any wrongdoing if you or anyone in your party suffers bodily harm while using The Service, and you agree to not sue or prosecute Delos, Inc. or any of the smaller entities falling under the Delos Corporation.

There's a ton more great info in there and on a few other pages that you can get to if you start tracing it down. Neat tidbits include:

1) The maximum length of a guest's allowed stay in the park is 28 days.
2) There is a "Delos Destinations Port of Entry," and the park itself is in a place referred to as a "Territory," not a state or county or city.
3) There is a "mainland" separate from the park
4) There is a resort named "Gold Mesa" that guests first visit before entering into Westworld proper. Gold Mesa is also where guests "decompress" after, though "decompress" here appears to mean "re-acclimate to the real world," not "get the nitrogen out of your blood in a safe way."
5) Employees are at the park for extended durations and then rotate home (because it's on an island?)
6) There is an ongoing problem with employees porking the robots behind the scenes (srsly)

Thanks for the info , and including a disclaimer that has Death by Tumbleweeds.

 

[gizmotoy]

Pokrface[/url]":lktk8pjw]

The first episode has its hints, but its the whole the guests can't be hurt that seems a false statement.

There are barrels that blow up during the robbery (Gabe from penny arcade was not the props guy on this game) , so go ahead map out the fragments when a guest shoots an exploding barrel with other guests nearby.

Then there is the sociopath guests that would shoot a host's horse just to have it fall/crash and push a guest's horse over the cliff while playing they posse storyline. And I suspect this is where we will see how hosts themselves learn to kill guests indirectly.

Guests can absolutely be hurt. There's a bit of an ARG going on around the show, and if you go to DiscoverWestworld.com and view source on the page, you can read the in-universe "Terms of Service" for the park.

It includes this paragraph:

Statistically speaking, you are more likely to die from lightning strike than to die while in a Delos park. However, the following causes of accidental death have occurred within the Delos Destinations compound: buffalo stampede, self- cannibalism, accidental hanging, drowning, 3rd-degree burns, autoerotic asphyxiation, blunt force trauma, allergic reaction to non-native plant life, falling from great heights, common manslaughter, tumbleweeds. You absolve Delos, Inc. of any wrongdoing if you or anyone in your party suffers bodily harm while using The Service, and you agree to not sue or prosecute Delos, Inc. or any of the smaller entities falling under the Delos Corporation.

There's a ton more great info in there and on a few other pages that you can get to if you start tracing it down. Neat tidbits include:

1) The maximum length of a guest's allowed stay in the park is 28 days.
2) There is a "Delos Destinations Port of Entry," and the park itself is in a place referred to as a "Territory," not a state or county or city.
3) There is a "mainland" separate from the park
4) There is a resort named "Gold Mesa" that guests first visit before entering into Westworld proper. Gold Mesa is also where guests "decompress" after, though "decompress" here appears to mean "re-acclimate to the real world," not "get the nitrogen out of your blood in a safe way."
5) Employees are at the park for extended durations and then rotate home (because it's on an island?)
6) There is an ongoing problem with employees porking the robots behind the scenes (srsly)

"All livestock within the Delos parks are Hosts, with the notable exception of flies."
Interesting carve-out, there.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

Headline: Colon: Looks Like Analogy?

 

[MCYL]

Oh boy, fun series thus far.

I'd love to see cameo newcomers, all the stars that have ever played an android
Guy who played Data,
Jude Law,
Oh and of course the Governator

 

[althaz]

Timboman[/url]":1z2ione1]Taking bets on when Anthony Hopkins is gonna bite it al-la Sean Bean in Game of Thrones.
I feel like he's not even gonna survive the first half of the season, let alone to the end of it.

Beyond that bit of meta-shenanigans I'm enjoying it so far and can't wait to see where it goes.

I'm just wondering if a robot does him in or a human kills him when they find out he's purposefully trying to have the robots become more like real people.

 

[Korios]

Questions leading to more questions.. (obvious spoilers)

Is The Man in Black (TMIB) really human or a Host who somehow became self-aware and managed to "beat the game"?

What are Dr Strong's real intentions? Is he planning to develop a full blown general AI or not?

What was the exact purpose of the "reveries" update, which was issued by Dr Strong?

Does everyone, Hosts and Guests, use "simunitions" and the Guests are programmed to react when hit as if they were shot by a real bullet or do the Guests have guns with real bullets? We've seen Hosts get violently killed by both Guests and other Hosts, so I cannot wrap my head around this one.

(A very, very wild theory I picked from IMDB) : Is the world actually destroyed and everyone but Dr Strong, including all Delos Corp crew and Guests, are really Hosts?

What did Bernard whisper to Abernathy and what did Abernathy really whisper to Dolores?

Did TMIB rape Dolores in that shed or did he do something else - I don't know, maybe modified her?

Is TMIB one of the '73's film survivors set to get revenge on Delos Corp? We've been given multiple clear hints that the show is really a sequel rather than a reboot of the film - for instance the "cold storage" lower level.

What was that labyrinth sign that was inside one Host's skull that TMIB recovered, and how did he know where to find it? He says he wants to access the "deeper level" of the game. Is that deeper level related to the real purpose of Westworld or is it a means for him to eliminate every Host (and Guest?), once and for all?

I can't wait for Sunday!