21: "Genre" (S3E5)

[00:00:00] This week we're covering Westworld Season 3, Episode 5 Genre. Is Karen still watching? She is. Is she enjoying it or how's she liking it? Yeah, I mean our general procedure is I watch on Sunday nights and I'm one of those difficult

[00:00:54] HD snob I'm unwilling to watch early in a compromised format. So I'll watch Sunday night at 9 and then we watch it together on Monday night so I'll have seen it once. She's enjoying it okay but not as much this season as the past.

[00:01:11] Yeah I think that seems to be the general take on it. Yeah and I would put myself in that category as well. I still think in the broad sweep of TV it's really good and there's some great actors

[00:01:26] and some creative stuff but I don't think it's been as good this year either. It's a lot different obviously we're out in the real world now. A lot of the big actors that we liked are not there or not in it as much like even Maeve

[00:01:41] or Man in Black or of course Anthony Hopkins. Even some of the focus of the themes has changed a bit you know it's much more free will versus what is consciousness and things like that so it's a huge, huge shift.

[00:01:58] It's almost like a completely different show it's like a spin off that has some of the same characters. I mean because there are through lines and think and even some of the same themes being

[00:02:09] kind of expanded and stuff like that so yeah that's a great way to it's like a spin off but yeah it's a big shift and I feel I like it. I'm feeling like podcasting on it really helps because some of the stuff that I might

[00:02:23] just gloss over if I study it pay attention to it then I realize it's deeper than I thought and then I appreciate it more. Yeah agreed and they still put a lot of detail into every show a lot of Easter eggs

[00:02:35] and hidden stuff and backstory and things you got to work for a little bit which has always been part of the fun of this show. Yeah. I know we're going to talk about this more as we go along but I think one of the

[00:02:50] things the show is struggling with right now is there's not a lot of sympathetic characters. It's hard to go along on the journey and sort of have a rooting interest and feel for the characters if none of them is very sympathetic.

[00:03:06] I know I mean if your questioning is Srirac right then that sort of puts you in a place where you're not sure who the good guy is. Yeah. Not that anybody is but that's one thing I wanted to talk about but why don't

[00:03:18] we get into it so here's our top five highlights for Westworld season three episode five genre in general what do you think of this one? I thought pretty good. I'm going to make one of the same criticisms I've been making most of the

[00:03:33] weeks this year which is I think the episode asks us to forgive a lot of implausible things even within the construct and I tend to be a stickler so that bothers me a little bit but outside of that I thought it moved

[00:03:48] along and was entertaining and I actually really liked a lot of it being about Srirac I think the character is interesting and I really like the actor. Yeah me too I like that too and getting to as soon as I saw that we were

[00:04:00] going to go back into his history and see his origins and his motivation I was happy about that. The whole genre sequence I thought was fun but I don't think it landed as well as they might have hoped at least not with me and the second

[00:04:17] time through I liked it more and there were definitely some things I liked about it but it just felt a little awkward shifting in and out of Caleb's point of view when it was so different than everybody else's it was a neat idea though.

[00:04:31] Yeah I agree with that I'm clever idea but didn't quite come off. Okay what's your number five. Okay so my number five is Srirac and what we learned about and Girald Srirac we learned a lot about him some of which had

[00:04:50] been hinted at in the past but pinpointing a few things one and I think this is something we did generally know but that the nuclear destruction of Paris was a formative event for him. We still don't really know exactly what led up to that by the

[00:05:07] way there's a shot in there that was reminiscent of the shot they used from sort of a young naive Maeve in seasons one and two walking through the field sort of a shot from behind her and

[00:05:20] they used that shot with Srirac so I took that to mean his going from naivete from innocence to you know a loss of innocence. Yeah like Rob running his hands over the wheat. Yes. Yeah I think a lot of this season is supposed to be a mirror

[00:05:40] to how humanity is kind of a mirror to Westworld so that's one of those ways it does that. Yeah and he'd become formidable and fearless from what started as a child but we learned that his brother Jean-Mé

[00:05:54] is the real creative genius so Srirac himself I would say is a different kind of visionary the one who figures out how to use Rehoboam but it's really his brother who was able to design it. So Srirac's the Steve Jobs and his brother's the Wozniak.

[00:06:12] Yeah exactly exactly I think we learn explicitly that his real goal as he sees it is to take control of history to prevent human extinction and we had heard before you know to prevent chaos or this and that but here he makes it explicit.

[00:06:30] Yeah and we can see that he really seems sincere in that especially since we learned that he got Liam Dempsey senior in as a partner because Liam had managed to collect all these people's data before the privacy laws and that was

[00:06:47] going to be very useful to Srirac's project but when Liam Dempsey started using it for his own greedy outcomes that's when Srirac cut him off from the system. So it just there's a lot of little things that show that at least he seems to be sincere.

[00:07:06] He really does think that really was a formative moment for him in Paris. He really does think that if nobody does anything he's going to destroy himself and he wants to save it. Yeah it doesn't seem to be simply about money or power for him. Yeah.

[00:07:23] I think Dempsey I found to be a disappointing character. I think they created him as a paper character kind of similar to James Delos just like a caricature of a greedy businessman but I thought they could have given him I thought

[00:07:41] there could have been a little bit more to him considering that he in his own way was a visionary if he sort of cornered the market on data before the privacy laws. But okay but he was there to be a foil so that's that.

[00:07:53] Again I think the extinction of mankind is left a little vague. Nuclear Holocaust environmental devastation pandemic but I think what we read into that is that there are many different paths that would arrive at the same point at least is what the system is telling us.

[00:08:17] So I think we learn that Sirach is willing to go to any lengths whether it be editing quote unquote his brother or killing Dempsey without a second thought to protect humanity as he sees it. Great scene with the president of Brazil.

[00:08:32] I really enjoyed that where he shows who's in charge with no two ways about it. And it's an interesting philosophical question if you had access to a machine and it told you if this guy is allowed to do

[00:08:47] this thing that he said on doing in this case Dempsey exposing Sirach's person editing facility that's going to lead to the extinction of mankind. Then does it become your moral obligation to kill this guy? You know. Yeah that's true I mean I think it's certainly moral as far

[00:09:08] as Sirach sees it. Yeah. I'm not sure that the revelation of that facility would be so devastating in the world they're positing. Seems like there's worse things than that going on. I mean I'm pretty sure when we're seeing all these memories

[00:09:29] it's actually Dolores accessing the files and learning all this stuff. Yes. And when he's with Dempsey in one of those memories taking him out to be killed I think he says I ran through all the projections and every time you reveal this it leads to the

[00:09:48] extinction of humanity. So he got that from Rahobo. Oh he definitely did. Yeah. And Dempsey says I've run all these simulations and you always let me go or let me walk away. And then he says yeah but at least the extent of mankind. In every case.

[00:10:08] We learned, I'm not the one who figured this out I read it in a review that William is in one of those facilities by the way somebody screenshotted the tablet that shows where he is and it's one of the Sirach like re-engineering.

[00:10:26] See I wasn't sure about that I had read something someone speculating that but I kind of dismissed it because it didn't look the same to me. Gotcha. But now that he is so that's. I think it is true I think it is.

[00:10:40] And then one thing I did not like about the Sirach story so far and this goes back a little bit to what I was saying earlier about just some implausible things is I don't like that he seems so helpless in the Dolores situation.

[00:10:56] I mean this is a guy that can overthrow countries at the snap of a finger have a tycoons jet crash and kill them with impunity and always seems to be able to muster against her is like a few hired guns who can't shoot straight.

[00:11:11] Just you know they never increase security around they're fighting to death for the future of humanity but you can still walk right up to Robohoam and plug in and that whole thing bothered me a little bit I thought they could have tried a little harder there.

[00:11:26] Yeah I mean the idea is supposed to be that she's not in the system so he can't use it to predict what she's going to do or something like that but yeah just you could still put some soldiers in there.

[00:11:39] Yeah I'm sure there's weapons that could vaporize her. Yeah it's a that that part was a little far fetched and you know get it moved past it but. Yeah OK well then all for my number five I'll go into order

[00:11:56] versus chaos which sort of is along those same lines you know Sirach his home city gets nuked and that's formative and his new goal is to create order from chaos. And yeah we see images of he's saying humanity is on a path

[00:12:15] of destruction and we see all these scenes of destruction. I think it's Paris with all the buildings just wrecked and then rides in a hurricane. And yeah as you mentioned we know that Liam got I think Liam got an award for solving climate change but it was

[00:12:30] actually a Rehoboam so that's part of Sirach's mission I think and to Sirach chaos and unpredictability are the enemy and that reminds me of when I think it was in the Clone Wars or one of the Star Wars offshoot things where

[00:12:50] they got a little more into the ideology behind the empire and one of the governors was talking about the importance of order. And that's just what happens when you go too far in that direction you get to authoritarian dictatorships. So you have to find some middle ground.

[00:13:13] And I mean if he's right that humanity will destroy itself if left unchecked then that means that something needs to be done. But there's also this possibility that a lot of the things Rehoboam does are self-fulfilling like it knows

[00:13:30] it needs to do something but then it's almost like institutionalized racism. It labels people based on the data that it has and then it prescribes their future based on that but it could be because of an unjust situation that they've got these labels

[00:13:49] you know or some superficial thing that could be handled a whole different way like just improving the system rather than trying to shunt these people off like it's revealed that they get put in high risk situations. So I don't know I guess I'm just trying to question

[00:14:06] because to me if it is true that you need to institute this kind of order in order to save humanity then that means that you do need to do it but I don't want to accept that. So I'm thinking there must be another better solution.

[00:14:22] But it's interesting because you know Sarac is saying you got to institute this order or else humanity will destroy itself and we know that Dolores wants to destroy humanity and she loves Kayla because he's unpredictable and unpredictability is the exact thing

[00:14:40] that Sarac thinks is going to lead to the destruction of humanity. He wants everything to be perfectly predictable. And so Dolores is kind of like Sarac's super villain. I mean she wants to tell everyone what's going on so that they'll get out of these loops.

[00:14:58] And if Rahoba was right that is going to lead to the destruction of humanity. I feel like I'm going to go around in circles here a little bit. But well this is the what every dictator has to offer. And a lot of people find that appealing.

[00:15:15] And I mean we're going through that struggle in a lot of countries in our own world right now. Yeah. Yeah. You know only I can fix this. I'm the law and order leader and that's appealing to a lot of people free will to whatever extent people have it.

[00:15:34] Democracy those things are chaotic by their nature. I think that is representing a sort of a wider conflict inherent to any large society. Yeah. I mean the way that Westworld isn't mapping over onto reality for me is that I don't think that a lot

[00:15:54] of these leaders do what they're doing because they actually think it's what's best for humanity. I think it's because they want power and control. You know that's that's their motivation. And I also don't believe that freedom leads to the destruction of humanity.

[00:16:10] And so that's actually you know when we find out that Sirach from the very beginning he his goal was to institute this control over humanity. That's where it's less interesting of an allegory to me because before you know we were talking

[00:16:27] about how Rahub women insight are similar to where some of the tech companies are today like Netflix. We were talking about how it predicts what you want to see based on what you've seen but then it might be kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy leading you down

[00:16:42] a path and that's where it's sort of interesting. But I think that's more a an effect of a system. It's an unintentional effect that springs up. And I think a lot of these things that people develop conspiracy theories about in our society

[00:16:58] are actually not something that some nefarious person cooked up and then it played out exactly the way they wanted. It's just when you have these really complex systems these kind of things spring up from it. So Sirach being this kind of mastermind to me

[00:17:14] puts it more in the realm of science fiction villainy versus some kind of an interesting allegory that relates to our society. Yeah. Hard to know which one of the two protagonists right now is a hero or a villain. You could make an argument for either in either direction.

[00:17:34] And I certainly wasn't supporting the argument that democracy leads to the destruction of humanity or that a dictator in control is better. I'm saying that's the argument dictators make. Yeah. That's what they make. That's what they make. But I just would say that that's not their actual motivation.

[00:17:55] I don't think. Yeah, I disagree. Even though they say that. But in this case it is Sirach's motivation, I believe. Yeah. And one other difference between say Rahoboam and say Netflix is that for Netflix, the unintentional effects of its algorithm are incidental. So, right.

[00:18:20] What Netflix wants is you to consume more Netflix. It doesn't care how you do it. That's it's a limited outcome for Rahoboam. Maybe that's the you could say the same thing. It wants order and predictability and doesn't care how you do it.

[00:18:38] But I think the actual outcome Rahoboam is going for is behavior. Yeah. And the interesting thing about that is it wants. What did you say? It wants what order and predictability and ultimately the survival of the human race. And it doesn't matter how you do it.

[00:18:59] And Caleb's sort of retort to that is when he tells this rat story about the rats that are drowning, but the ones where they raise the water closest to the edge think that they can get out so they struggle more.

[00:19:11] And basically he's saying in this controlled world, everybody is suffering, but they falsely think that relief is just around the corner. And so they keep trying and trying. And he would rather just drop all that control, let the chips fall where they may

[00:19:29] and have you know, have the truth come out. And I guess that's where, you know, if you say that Sir Rock wants order and survival and doesn't matter the cost, Caleb's point is, well, the cost is that we're all eternally suffering. Yeah, that's my number five.

[00:19:50] Yeah, I think. I think the interesting point there, and we're going to learn more about this is because there are different types of societal order. You can have strict government control in a calm society or you can imagine like pretty middle class.

[00:20:10] Social democracy kind of thing ordered society because people are happy and people might be very unhappy in one and pretty happy in another. But the outcome might be the same in terms of order. I mean, where this whole thing does feel like it's reflective of our society

[00:20:29] is sometimes it feels like we have more of the illusion of freedom than we actually have freedom. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. And getting less all the time is what those things getting at. Right. So what's your number four?

[00:20:43] So I'll go on into Rahoboam itself and what we learned there. So this episode, we really get to know the system. We've sort of heard a lot about it around the edges. We find out that there were previous builds called Sol, David and Solomon. All Israelite kings.

[00:21:03] Rahoboam was one of Solomon's sons. It has proven its accuracy or so. Jean-Mil says by correctly predicting past events, right? Further past data was fed into it and then analysis was made and it correctly predicted the direction of the past.

[00:21:24] And then that's how you test like stock trading formulas or whatever. You go back and you can have all the data of how the market went up and down. And so you plug in a certain day and see if it matches up with what happened

[00:21:39] over the next week, some months. Gotcha. And then in this case, they started forecasting the stock market 15 minutes into the future. Except they were actually controlling it. He says, true. They were able to go beyond predicting to pushing it in certain directions.

[00:22:00] So back to what you were talking about last week, we find it is capable of running simulations of the entire world and based on various factors and outcomes. So I think that goes back to what you were positing,

[00:22:15] that maybe we're going to find out that part or all of the season was in a simulation. Because why? Because we've had it confirmed that the system can run multiple simulations to find out an outcome. Oh, I see.

[00:22:31] So you can change one factor and then run it again. See how it goes? Yeah, see how it goes. We find that most of the simulations end in human extinction. That's what Seroch seems to bring up the most. And then on the name.

[00:22:47] So this came from insider.com and Jonathan Nolan did an interview in which he says the name actually had nothing to do with the biblical reference. It's an homage to a book called Stand on Zanzibar, which is a seminal piece of science fiction,

[00:23:06] an absolutely terrific and frightening book. This is a 1968 sci-fi novel written by John Brunner with its own AI system named after a king that won a coveted Hugo Award for best novel I'm quoting insider here. The novel follows an executive at a company called General Techniques

[00:23:27] and it describes the sci-fi world as a place where society is squeezed into hive living madness by God like mega computers, mass marketed psychedelic drugs and mundane uses of genetic engineering. So that all sounds pretty familiar. Sounds like a Nolan influence.

[00:23:45] And then he also brought up there was a line in Michael Creighton's original Westworld movie that we come back to again and again as a source of information. It's when the chief scientist in the film is trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

[00:24:00] And he turns to one of his colleagues and says, in some cases, these computers have been designed by other computers and we don't even understand how they work. And that's like a perfect description of Rahoboam. I mean, who knows what's going on in there?

[00:24:14] And there's only a few people in the world that even understand it. Yeah, that's actually a great description, too, of machine learning, which is a new sort of, well, I don't know how new it is, but a software paradigm where

[00:24:29] you feed an application tons and tons of data and it kind of writes itself, which is how Tesla is attempting to create self-driving cars by, you know, every Tesla has cameras and you can opt in to feed the data back to Tesla headquarters,

[00:24:50] letting them know when you're pushing on the brakes, when you're interrupting the self-driving and all that. And then it automatically updates itself with the new data to improve the driving. So it's I mean, there's all kinds of applications for machine learning that are going on right now.

[00:25:08] But basically, yeah, the software is kind of writing itself and the engineers are like, we don't know exactly how it works now. Right. Which is fascinating and a little frightening. Right. So I have a theory with regards to Rahoboam. How do we feel about giving theories?

[00:25:25] I don't want to do it. Yeah, yeah, no, no. I wonder if we're going to go down a plot line about Rahoboam becoming self-aware because this is a very complicated AI and you got to think it's got more computing power than a Dolores.

[00:25:44] So if a Dolores could become self-aware and self-determined, why couldn't Rahoboam? And that makes me wonder whether it is driving outcomes or giving information for what it perceives as its own survival or benefit. Right. Rather than, you know, serving humanity or Iraq. Yeah.

[00:26:12] Yeah, it would make sense for it to do that. That sort of Darwinism in play. I mean, then that brings up the question for me. If if people know about it, which they know about at least part of it now

[00:26:25] because of what Dolores did at the end of the episode, how much does that lessen the impact of what Rahoboam can do? And my guess would be surprisingly little. I mean, you never know. But I think the first instinct might be to say, well, yeah,

[00:26:40] if you know what it's doing, then it doesn't have any impact. But just from what I've seen in the world lately, it seems like even when people understand something like that, they still can fall prey to it. Yeah, I think that's true.

[00:26:54] It's really hard to break out of these things once we're in them as a group. And I question what the reaction would really be if we all got our Rahoboam files. I mean, would we really all freak out and overturn society?

[00:27:10] Or would we be like, this is bullshit or this kind of sucks? Or maybe, hey, I kind of like my file. Right. Well, I paused and looked at some of the screenshots of these. So it was a great sequence, I thought, when Dolores decides to email everybody

[00:27:29] and let them know their Rahoboam profiles, which includes what it's decided about you and also. And this is probably the key is what it has sort of prescribed for your life. So this is what it's going to allow you to do.

[00:27:43] And I think that part is maybe why people might rebel. I mean, these technologies work because they make things easier or more attractive for us. But if we find out that they're doing things that cause pain or suffering

[00:27:56] or cause us not to do what we want to do, then maybe that might upset people, you know? And plus no one wants to hear about their death. Right. That's just something you really don't want to know. So we see all these people get their profiles.

[00:28:13] And because it's cynical, Jonathan Nolan behind this, they're all really bad, the ones that we see. So Ash, the woman that comes along with giggles to help Caleb. It shows her brothers, I think, and it says not fit for reproduction,

[00:28:29] evaluation, recommended if divergence identified projects of violent death in five day years. There's this random guy on the train that he's looking at his. It says seen as unreliable and unstable, friends, most common descriptors, asshole, unreliable, crazy, coworkers, most common descriptors, unprofessional, flaky, loud. I like that one.

[00:28:53] Guys is looking at it. Crap. There's a woman named Karen Miller. It says early onset Alzheimer's 12 years, recessive traits detected, eliminate genetic profile from gene pool, no reproduction allowed. And Jenny mentioned actually, I don't know if you got, do you guys do 23 in me? Karen did it.

[00:29:16] I refuse. You don't want to know. I don't want my genetic information and some consumer database. And yeah, I did it, but I it does freak me out. I mean, it's especially watching a show like this.

[00:29:30] But one thing about that is you can choose to know whether or not you may be predisposed to some of these, some diseases or conditions. And so this kind of reminded her of that, except none of these people are getting the choice. They're just learning it.

[00:29:45] Right. And I should say Karen had a good experience with 23. Me. She really enjoyed it and found it interesting. I have two, although I did learn that I have a higher chance than most people of developing Alzheimer's. And that does not surprise me at all. But we'll see.

[00:30:02] It wasn't a lot higher, but it was a little. There's a woman looking at her daughter's profile and it mentioned anxiety in the family. Early warning signs detected in online behavior. And it said projection, suicide by risk, injury in five day years.

[00:30:18] So that's why she grabbed her daughter's wrist there. No good ones that we saw. No. And then, of course, we saw the chaos outside. Some of it looked fun, like people joyriding on one of those ride sharing

[00:30:32] vehicles hanging out the outside, but mostly it was violence and looting and stuff like that. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, what it would cause that exact reaction. Yeah. Everybody. I mean, I really do think if we all got something in it said

[00:30:50] what this machine had decided about us, that would be one thing. But if it also said what it had decided for us and we saw. Yes. Thought back, oh, yeah, I've actually experienced now I know why I got turned

[00:31:04] down for that job offer or whatever that would piss people off. It would. I think. Yeah. I'll make this my number four, releasing the profiles. I like that Bernard when Dolores did that, Bernard said she's sending them off their loops because I think this season, as I mentioned

[00:31:21] earlier is about showing how much the humans are like the host. The humans world is like the host world. I agree. We got a hint of that last season with the, hey, they're even simpler than us. They only have 10,000 lines of code.

[00:31:35] But yes, I think that's the main theme of this season. Yeah. And when Dolores starts saying the same thing as Liam as he's saying it this episode, it reminded me when I think it was Lee did that

[00:31:48] with Maeve in season two to show her that her actions were being scripted. Yeah. Her dialogue was on the tablet. And then maybe that was her impetus to break free from her script because she did pretty soon after that.

[00:32:02] And now in this episode, pretty much everyone on the planet gets their mave moment. Maybe they're impetus to break out of their loops. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. Yep. But now, so I was questioning my like Dolores decides to do this potentially

[00:32:18] free humanity from their loops. What is her intention? We know that she has said she wants to destroy humanity. I mean, some people might look at this action and see her as a hero like, oh, you're freeing us from this, you know, nobody wants to be under

[00:32:33] some evil AI's control. So it's a question. She's talking to this holographic projection of Sarac at the end and Sarac says people are flawed, but I can change them. And Dolores says like you changed your brother, it's time everyone woke up.

[00:32:50] So I think that means her next gambit because, you know, we got three more episodes left. This wasn't the end of her plan. I think she's going to tell everyone about that people editing experiments that he's been doing. You know, she knows.

[00:33:06] I think she knows that Sarac ran those projections and said if Dempsey informed the public about these trials, it would lead to human extinction. So I think that's her next plan is to tell everyone about that. Yeah. I mean, she's trying to touch off a revolution for sure.

[00:33:24] One thing I was thinking is when Sarac's talking about these outliers that get mentioned a lot in this episode, the people who are unpredictable and chaotic, he says in every projection, the world came unglued because of outliers who you couldn't predict or control.

[00:33:39] And I assume came unglued means human extinction. This chart while he's saying that shows the sharp drop. But I looked at it and it's in something just after 200 years is when it drops. So I'm thinking maybe all Dolores has to do is tell everyone

[00:33:57] about these people editing editing experiments, but then she just has to wait 200 years for her story to go. Yeah, I guess she could. I would say one of the mysteries still out there in this show is is she the outlier?

[00:34:15] We've certainly been given to understand that she is and Sarac's angry reactions in this episode lead us to believe that he feels he's losing control and that's who was in some interactions with her. And he started to get surprised by things happening.

[00:34:32] But I don't think we know it for 100 percent sure, you know, because Caleb could be an outlier too. There's some mystery around him. Yeah, yeah, I thought about that. And I think. Sirac has referred directly to Dolores as something we didn't predict.

[00:34:50] But I think that Caleb is also an outlier. Yeah, I agree with you. OK, what's your next one? My number three is Bernard. And I would say. Going back to what we were talking about at the beginning, I think he's the only sympathetic character at this point.

[00:35:12] Besides Ashley Stubbs, who's just kind of comic relief. But I think Bernard is a genuinely sympathetic character. He's always been to the extent, I guess, a host originally in a loop could have been, but he has always seemed actually thoughtful and caring.

[00:35:31] He seems like the only one who cares about both sides. Sirac only cares about his side. Dolores only cares about her side. Sirac has even said he doesn't see a future where hosts and humans can live together or something like that. Right.

[00:35:47] So it's human extinction versus being ruled by the system. Our two futures that seem equally bleak. So to me, Bernard is the only team to root for at this point. And and I have a theory on him.

[00:36:03] Which is that I think his value will turn out to revolve around free will and choice. So interesting little episode with Sirac when he's having the back and forth with Dempsey right before he kills him. And he says every once in a while, there's a little gray space

[00:36:26] where you have room to actually make a choice. A bubble of agency is the phrase he used, which I loved. I wonder if Bernard because of the way he was created and his lineage from Arnold and the way Ford worked so hard to help him develop free will

[00:36:47] may be the only one actually capable of making a free choice. And I kind of feel like Dolores at some point is going to ask him to make a choice. Then that's why he's there. That's my theory. Uh-huh, because he did say something about she's starting her plan

[00:37:06] and I think I'm part of it. Just Stubbs. Yeah, I mean, there's other plausible reasons for his existence. Maybe there's something only he technically can do or some other role he can play. But I was just trying to think about what is unique about him.

[00:37:23] Like it doesn't seem like Dolores lacks technical knowledge where she certainly doesn't. She's doing fine for muscle. She's doing fine for taking over companies. What might be the one thing Bernard could offer that no one else can also? It was Martin who said to Bernard,

[00:37:46] you're the only one that can't be replaced. Martin was basically saying I'm about to blow myself up. And I didn't quite understand the significance of that. One thing I really liked about it was that Stubbs was standing right there and looked offended.

[00:38:02] But it seemed like there was something to that, you know? There's definitely from what the Dolores have said, there is something special about Bernard that is unique about him. Mm-hmm. And you mentioned that thing about little spaces bubble up that Sirach said when he was sort of justifying,

[00:38:23] because that was right when Dempsey said, well, I've ran the projections and every time you let me go from here, you don't kill me basically. Right. And then he said that thing about, well, little bubbles come up and allow for choice.

[00:38:35] I thought that's just him being a hypocrite. That's him being impulsive and chaotic. And that's the very reason why he took his brother and put him in that editing facility. It was the same exact thing. He did it because he saw that his brother was running projections

[00:38:53] on killing Dempsey, and then he puts him in that facility. And then he goes off and kills Dempsey. So I wondered if that was a flaw. I mean, there's many flaws in Sirach's character, but it's the same thing that all people who consider themselves God like,

[00:39:11] they're kind of like do as I say, not as I do. Yeah. And I don't think the only reason he was trying to alter his brother was because of that. That seemed a little like an excuse to me. Like he was making an excuse to Dempsey.

[00:39:27] He's like, hey, dude, you should be happy. I took him off the board. He was thinking about killing you. But I don't think that's the reason he took him off the board. I think it's because he he felt he was unstable, incurable, maybe an outlier himself.

[00:39:43] I mean, he's a really important figure. Yeah. He said he went mad, but that was the only concrete reason. I'm not disagreeing with you. There could be other specific reasons. But other than that, he just said things like he's impulsive

[00:39:57] and he's chaotic and he he drove him mad. And you could argue that madness is in the eye of the beholder, so I'm not so sure how much of Serox's word we can take on that. I don't know. Yeah. And the reeducation facility.

[00:40:14] And I think we're going to get to know more about that too. You know, in what's left of this season. But is it that different from what we do in society now to, you know, with folks who we deem are insane by our standards? And questionable.

[00:40:35] Right. Yeah, there's definitely a similarity there. And it's hard questions. I mean, maybe in this West World world, if somebody is unpredictable, you put them in there and that's way too harsh. But if somebody is a harm to society,

[00:40:50] then you got to figure out what to do about it. Right. That's a hard question. But it also reminded me of the West World lapse because there's a lot of glass. And in this case, it's white. And we've seen that white is for people who think of themselves

[00:41:04] as good guys on the show. But it did seem kind of similar just when Dempsey was walking through there, peering it at the glass. It really reminded me of the. Yeah, it reminded me of the James Delos experiment.

[00:41:19] But like they're doing it on humans and at large scale. Yeah. And Serox rationale for it, he says, you know, usually Rahoboam sends these outliers to high risk sectors like war, a wood chipper to eat them up and spit them out, dead or useless.

[00:41:39] But then he says isn't helping them better than killing them off. So I guess this is an alternative to that. Yeah, what a guy. Hey, we're not killing them. So this is actually my next point, the the outliers, the whole editing thing, what what they are.

[00:41:58] You know, I mean, we've already been talking about it, but he sees them as if you allow them to exist as they are, then that's going to lead to the extinction of humanity. He said, as long as outliers are a part of us,

[00:42:09] there is no future for us. So he's made it pretty clear about what he thinks about that. And it's a pretty serious problem for him. And I think now just after watching this episode that we've talked about this divergence label that keeps coming up in that Rahoboam graphic.

[00:42:28] And now I feel like that just comes up when there's an outlier, someone that needs to be taken care of. I mean, it still might be kind of what we talked about before, where there's someone who didn't align with what Rahoboam predicted

[00:42:41] because that's kind of the same thing they're unpredictable. About this graphic, I think it's interesting. Liam says for a time, the sun and moon aligned. And then we see this graphic and it looks like an eclipse suddenly. You know, like, oh, yeah, it looks like an eclipse.

[00:42:57] And then I'm thinking, oh, it's interesting that order also looks like blocking out all white, which could be a metaphor. And then later when Sriracha is talking about the outliers quote who you couldn't predict your control, we see the graphic shift and it looks like the sun

[00:43:12] is moving out from behind the moon and it's really bright. And it just reminded me of the forbidden fruit of knowledge kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And there's so much metaphor in this show.

[00:43:25] I was going to say also this whole thing with the outliers. It's reminiscent of some other sci-fi, but even one that comes to mind is just the matrix. So yeah, we learn that Zion, which is sort of the rebellion group,

[00:43:43] is that there are some people who won't accept the programming and they're sort of being diverted into this group. And then the one is the remainder of an equation that won't be solved and he's diverted. And the whole thing is just a system of control.

[00:43:59] And that seemed kind of similar to this. So outliers aren't few and far between. It seems like they're a regular product of society. And Sriracha has made this effort to segregate them in a systematic way. And if we find out that the whole world is a simulation,

[00:44:18] then it will be exactly the matrix. That's true. I say again, let's hope that's not the case. OK, that was my next one. So what's your next one? OK, my number two is genre. So the title of the episode and we touched on it earlier.

[00:44:34] So I love the concept of this, that it's a party drug in the year 2058 and get the feeling maybe it works with your implant, but takes the user through several movie like moods or experiences all in one pill or one little shot.

[00:44:57] I wonder if everyone gets the same genres. Yeah, and I was betting not. I was betting it kind of like any drug interacts with your own psyche to produce a unique effect. So I love the concept of this. And just to go quickly through what they were.

[00:45:15] Yeah, film noir, right? Black and white with a sort of melodramatic score. Then there was one sort of battle scene inspired by apocalypse now, it seemed like, with ride of the Valkyries, which will ever be associated with the scene on the beach and the helicopters coming in.

[00:45:36] Helicopters. Yeah, with Robert Duvall. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory. Then it went into the love story theme. That was my favorite. And that was great, where Dolores Prime's firing the machine gun and he goes all gooboo-eyed.

[00:45:52] He's in love with her. So soft focus. Yeah. 1970 movie, by the way, with Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neill. She dies at the end. Maybe that's foreshadowing. And the famous line as love means never having to say you're sorry is the famous line from that movie,

[00:46:11] which was clearly written by someone who was never actually in a relationship. The next one was an Iggy Pop song, Night Clubbing, which was co-written by David Bowie, but made famous, probably most famous by the movie, Trainspotting. And it was kind of that vibe.

[00:46:30] Then it was that one. Yeah, felt like the least. They were just kind of walking along and they got onto a train. So I felt like that's the main reason why they had it. Yeah. No, they didn't do much with that one.

[00:46:43] And then it was a cover of Space Oddity, Major Tom and his ship disconnected from Earth going out of control. So probably a metaphor there. That was while people were becoming untethered from the system. Although I think that that was a fake out that especially since

[00:47:05] he's like Caleb's like, which genre is this? And giggles like it's reality, man. Yeah. And and they're supposed to be, I think somebody said they're supposed to be five. I could be wrong, but that would make it six. So I feel like that was just reality.

[00:47:18] Well, and then there was the shining. Yeah. Yeah, the music from the shining. So which, you know, symbolizes all kinds of violence and evil and fate and all sorts of blood. Yeah, and there's lots of blood in that scene.

[00:47:38] I love the line about, hey, this is reality, man, because he had said earlier, watch out for that last one. Ultimately, I would say I did find the treatment of all this kind of disappointing because they didn't do much other than the music really.

[00:47:53] But it didn't really amount to much. It just kind of was a distraction or attack on. So I wish they would have found a better way to weave it into the story. But it was still a cool idea. Mm hmm.

[00:48:08] Well, I have some ideas of what the point was, aside from it was kind of fun and it was funny at times. And for me, it reminded me of being out on the town and having taken something and suddenly your whole reality changes.

[00:48:27] So it would be interesting to have it be all of a sudden you're in genre movies and I feel like I think I read that Jonathan Nolan said, this is like if you can't afford to go to Westworld, then this is a cheaper way

[00:48:40] to sort of insert yourself into a different reality for a little while. Yeah. And you kind of get the idea that this is something Caleb would do like he didn't do it voluntarily in this case, but you could see him doing that.

[00:48:52] Yeah. Or maybe some of his more fun living friends. Yeah. But it does fit in with the theme of exploring free will because and this this might be a little out there for some people, but the genre drug sort of exploits our shared cultural experience.

[00:49:13] And because we all are familiar with these movies, it's in our culture. And so we can just see a little cue and suddenly know what something is and then react to respond to it or label it and don't even think about it

[00:49:28] because we know like when you see the black and white and you hear that's the special music, then you know this is a noir. So you have a categorized. There's probably a femme fatale. Of course, it's Dolores. You don't really need to think about it too much anymore.

[00:49:40] But when we have those types of experiences, then it moves us away sometimes from living in the moment and experiencing things as they are because we kind of file them away and it helps shape our reality.

[00:49:55] And I think there's a lot of good in that because it's a way to connect with each other and it's a shared experience. But it's also when we have all these the same things over and over again,

[00:50:09] it can be feel like we're being programmed to receive something in a certain way and give up some of our free will. Like I said, it's a little bit out there. But Jonathan Nolan says one of the things I love about movie music

[00:50:21] and music in general is how it's like a secret trapdoor into people's minds. That's one of the reasons we use popular music in the show, which we recognize from the very first episode when they had, I forget what song it was, but on the piano,

[00:50:36] maybe it was some Radiohead or something. They've used Radiohead. I remember, yeah, I remember Paint It Black had a big moment. That's great. But he goes, you get to sneak in there and start pressing buttons because all these pieces of music have associations for people.

[00:50:52] With the movie music, it connects you to a shared experience, something that everyone understands. Lots of people may not have seen Love Story, but the feeling is there. I haven't seen it, but yeah, I like that part. Yeah, and I think he was the idea wasn't like

[00:51:07] Caleb's hearing the music. It's like he's feeling that emotion. And this is the music that lets us understand what he's feeling. Exactly. And then he goes on. This is really interesting to me. He says one of the things I'm fascinated with about music

[00:51:22] is how there's also something beyond that shared experience in the language of music. The minor key, the major key, the way that it makes everyone feel the same way, largely speaking. That's something we exploit all the time when we're working with

[00:51:35] Ramanjwadi on a piece of music for a moment. We'll literally describe for Raman. I want this piece of music to make you feel slightly surprised but also slightly optimistic. That's a set of notes. There's a chord that does that. I'm fascinated by that.

[00:51:50] So that's kind of what I mean. Like you can almost program people to feel certain things just by putting these element musical and visual elements together. And so that's kind of how it relates to this whole concept of free will that's going on in Westworld right now

[00:52:06] and how Rahoboam can kind of slightly direct people to do and feel certain things without them knowing it or realizing it. Well, and there is sort of an alternate point also to that, which is that Jonathan Nolan,

[00:52:22] who may be an artist of a different kind, but not a musician so much. There is actually no formula for music that makes you feel that way. That's part of Jawadis genius or what makes him so talented is that he can do that.

[00:52:39] So I think it's a little more complicated than he's describing. There's artistry to it. I mean, do you feel like there's any truth to it? I do in the sense that I think music is a very deeply shared language for most of us who grew up in it.

[00:52:59] Anyone who grew up in a fairly similar cultural environment to the people that are around. Yes, there's all associations to particular pieces of music. And then there are also the cultural cues around particular chords, notes, sounds. And so, yes, I think there is something to it.

[00:53:20] Like, for example, if you have dissonant music, typically that's going to have somewhat of an uncomfortable feeling. Yes. But it is also true that there is a world of difference between those few brilliant talents that can really exploit those things and everybody else.

[00:53:44] You know, it's most people are solitary. There's only a few Mozart's. Yeah, and Roman Jawati is up there. Yeah, and they all have the same palette to deal with. It's the same 88 keys on the piano.

[00:53:56] And just so I can put it out there for you people who don't know, David is an amazing pianist. So there you go. But no Mozart. Two more points on this story wise, maybe this whole genre sequence was also get to get Caleb into this

[00:54:15] disheveled state so that he would have these flashbacks and start waking up to his true nature. So for people who need it to have a story reason, maybe that was part of that. Makes sense. And also kind of to reiterate that human brains can be edited.

[00:54:32] I mean, this drug was sort of editing Caleb's brain. And that was part of the episode too. And then the last thing is Nolan, Jonathan Nolan also said that this whole genre sequence was in part inspired by Willie Wonka

[00:54:46] and the Chocolate Factory and that three course dinner chewing gum. Love that. Yeah. That's all I got for that one. All right, my number one is a Delori update. So this can be a little hard to keep track of. So you can help keep me honest.

[00:55:09] But I would say Dolores Prime is rolling along, taking bullets without flinching, killing assassins, releasing everyone's Rehoboam files and taunting Saurak along the way. So she's in badass mode. Charlotte Hale Dolores or Shaloris. We didn't see her this week, but she is presumably primed

[00:55:33] to execute a hostile takeover of Delos after committing William to the asylum or the reeducation center last week. And she had mentioned a deep pocketed investor last time. And I think maybe we already knew this, but this episode, it becomes pretty clear that that's Liam Dempsey, Jr.

[00:55:51] Right, it's his money. Right. So it'll be interesting to see how they make the timeline here and how the new chaos affects this effort to take over that. Right. Um, Martin Connell is a security guy fulfilled his function by connecting to the system portal with Liam's key

[00:56:13] to release the world's world populations files. Then for good measure, he takes out Saurak's top assistance with a bomb and goes out with a bang himself included himself included. He was saying something to Bernard like not all of us will live on.

[00:56:31] And I wonder if Dolores Prime would be willing to give up her own self if she knew that there were other Dolora to carry on with the cause. Could be. And also, I think it was revealed. Now, keep me honest, maybe this was revealed earlier,

[00:56:47] but I didn't remember it that although Martin was Liam's bodyguard, he actually was a loyal soldier for Saurak because Saurak says you've always been one of our most loyal contributors. Yeah, I'm not so clear on that.

[00:57:05] I kind of thought he was Liam's guy and it turns out maybe he was Liam's guy but really on Saurak's payroll. Yeah, I mean, it's always been a little confusing to me that they've sort of put Liam and Saurak at odds,

[00:57:18] but aren't they part of the same company? So yeah, right now, you did kill his dad. Although he presumably that's unknown. So Musashi is one of the Dolorae last seen fleeing with the Yakuza after quote unquote killing Maeve, but failing to acquire her pearl.

[00:57:40] So I think there's probably more to come there. And then there's an unknown pearl. Yeah. So we do get a clue here. Saurak's employee calls him up and says they found a connect between encrypted devices in Jakarta, Berlin, San Francisco and Los Angeles. So is this the Dolorae?

[00:58:04] So we know Dolores is an L.A. Charlotte Hale is in San Francisco. Musashi was in Singapore, but he certainly could be in Jakarta. He's in that part of the world. And he was fleeing from Singapore. And. Is the last Dolores in Berlin?

[00:58:26] And if so, what body is she in and what is she doing? Yeah. Yeah. I wondered why they rattle off all those locations, but I'm glad you suss that out. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it means. And we know two of the four are correct

[00:58:45] and the third one is plausible. So so it seems like it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. OK, my number one is Caleb and maybe that he's not what we thought or he thought. Couple episodes ago, I was trying to make a case

[00:59:02] for why Dolores was so interested in tracking him down and recruiting him. And I had a few reasons that he's a textbook case of a guy who's been, you know, under this system's thumb and might want to break free of it.

[00:59:18] And also he's been a soldier and he's brave. And so maybe he was just, you know, a likely recruit. But now I feel like maybe there's more because we're getting these flashbacks that suggest that Caleb has had some of his memories scrambled. Probably.

[00:59:36] I mean, I think one of the flashbacks shows him strapped to a white chair with goggles and it looked like it was probably one of those editing facilities. Right? Yes. I took that to mean he'd been edited, didn't have memories of who he was before.

[00:59:52] And it put a new spin on his mom in a facility saying, you're not my son. We all thought that was her psychological problem, but maybe she was just correct. I know when I first thought about that, I'm like, maybe she doesn't have Alzheimer's.

[01:00:08] She's just saying, no, you're really not my son. Yeah. He's like, oh, mom. But I think more likely if this is if we're on the right track here that Caleb has, you know, we're on the right track that Caleb has been inserted into some other Caleb's life

[01:00:23] and given his memories and they paired him with the real Caleb's mother, who does have Alzheimer's. So it would be credible to him that she wouldn't know who he was. But really somewhere deep down, she knows that that's not really him. If that makes any sense.

[01:00:39] Yeah. And we get the idea that the real Caleb, whoever he is, has done something terrible or multiple terrible some things. Yeah. Liam is saying you're the worst of them, things like that. Or he's saying you did it, you did it, which makes me think that

[01:00:58] along with the flashback of him hovering over his friend, Francis, is that his name? Kid Cudi. Yeah. And I really was wondering what he meant by you did it because it seemed like he was saying, talking about something specific

[01:01:14] like not just Caleb murdering his friend, but like something that means meant something to Liam. At one point when Liam first puts on those magic glasses that let you see all the data that Rahuboam has on someone, he says, do you think I killed your friend?

[01:01:31] So then later when he said you did it, you did it. That's what I thought he was referring to, but we don't really know. Gotcha, that he killed his own friend. Yeah. Yeah. What else does he say?

[01:01:40] At one point he said something that caused Caleb to look at Dolores and say, who does he think I am? So it just makes us think that maybe Caleb was. Well, another flashback that I didn't mention is he sees

[01:01:55] himself in this suit with his hair kind of slicked back and he's leading this kind of stout guy with a bag of cloth bag over his head, sits him down, pulls it off, and he's got duck tape over his mouth.

[01:02:10] So it looks like he's a torturer or an interrogator or something. So maybe he's gotten in some bad things. He was a bad dude. And then I wonder if Dolores already knew about this. One thing that I thought was really cool in this episode

[01:02:23] is when more of, I think, Sirach's people arrive and start shooting at Dolores with their puny little guns instead of a big vaporizer that they should have been carrying. It doesn't hurt her at all. And and Caleb seems stunned by that.

[01:02:39] And the obvious thing is, hey, why don't bullets hurt you? You know, he didn't even know she's a host. But it also made me think of when he first met her and she was supposedly hurt by bullets. And we thought at the time that that was inconsistent

[01:02:54] with what we've seen before from Dolores in season two when Man and Black shot her a bunch of times and it didn't seem to affect her that much. So that made me sort of wonder if that whole thing with her meeting up with Kayla was just staged

[01:03:07] that she was pretending to be hurt because she knows something about his past here and needed him for that. So she was kind of luring him in. Yeah, she definitely did seem injured there and she took a beating. She got poisoned and shot and maybe even stabbed.

[01:03:23] I don't remember. So I might be misreading that. Well, but I do agree with you that there is no way that was random. I mean, she I think she targeted him because of what she knows or who she is. OK, I mean, it makes me wonder.

[01:03:39] And when Liam is dying on the beach and saying you did it, you did it and Caleb says to Dolores, who does he think I am? She's quiet. The look on her face doesn't look like I don't know what he's talking about.

[01:03:48] It looks like I am not going to tell you right now. So I'll offer two more theories because I'm full of theories tonight. Great. One is maybe I've been watching too much Star Wars. But a lot of shows, including this one, in some cases,

[01:04:06] like to deal with sort of progeny and bloodlines. So I was thinking, who could Caleb be that relates to the other characters? Could he be Arnold's son? Could he be Sirach's son? Could he have something closer to do with these people than we know?

[01:04:27] A clone. No, just kidding. I mean, hey, anything goes. But so that was one idea. And then my other idea was that Rahoboam, the system deals with the future and future simulations and possibilities. So when Liam is saying his dying words, you did it, you did it.

[01:04:51] Is he talking about something he's going to do to cause the destruction of humanity or the overthrow of the system or some such? Yeah, it could be. I think you guys should watch the Mandalorian as soon as possible, by the way. We definitely should.

[01:05:09] That's where we're behind on that. It's really good. A couple more things about Dolores. Earlier, Liam said to Caleb, hey, she used me. Have you asked what she's using you for yet? And so that's another thing that got me thinking about this because that's a good question,

[01:05:28] especially since if Dolores is trying to destroy humanity, where does that leave Caleb? He's a human as far as we know. So I just question their whole relationship and how she's presented herself. All right, any notes? Just one that came across a good interview with Vincent Casal,

[01:05:49] Sirach, with the Hollywood Reporter. And it was just fun to hear from him. I really enjoyed his performance this year as much as we miss Sir Anthony Hopkins and others. I've enjoyed him. And he was talking here about Sirach versus Dolores

[01:06:09] and he said, well, I don't think he really sees her as somebody. He sees her as something. He sees her as a disease really that he has to cure his world from. I think there's definitely something a little stronger with Maeve.

[01:06:23] It's a match, you know, she's a match for him. With Dolores, I think it's more something he has to get rid of. But personally, he also needs to get something from her. That's a big problem. So that's interesting.

[01:06:36] I mean, he knows a little bit more about the future arc of the character than we do. And it led me to believe that Maeve still has a significant role to play. Yeah. Yeah, I don't really understand that. What does he need to get from Dolores

[01:06:53] and why does he think of himself as more of a match for Maeve? It's interesting. It'd be interesting to see. Think about that as the story goes on. Yeah, to see how that plays out. I think it will be interesting.

[01:07:06] OK, I thought it was maybe a little bit on the nose to have Saurak flying around the whole episode like he's above everyone, like a god looking down on them. But it was a cool effect and. I like how he holograms into meetings. I do too.

[01:07:24] I mean, don't you wish you could do that? Yeah, it was pretty cool when he hologrammed in and then Martin set off the bomb and his assistant blew up by hologram. Yeah, I must have been looking at my notes on First Watch

[01:07:41] because I thought he was really there. And then when he disappeared like that, I was like, what the fuck just happened? Last week, we weren't sure for sure why they needed Liam alive. But now we know for sure they needed him just to access the system.

[01:07:58] Right. Then when they were done with him, didn't matter what happened to him. Right. Bernard says to Martin at one point, living another person's life changes you. And I think, of course, that's about him having lived the life of this Westworld software programmer.

[01:08:16] But also I think it's relevant about the DeLore I, especially Charlotte DeLores living Charlotte's life and changing because of it. And I think that that might play out in the plot in the next few episodes. I think so too. Yeah.

[01:08:34] And then last, I thought it was kind of fun that Sirach has like a divergence detecting watch. And when he looked down at it and saw that there were like some squiggly blackness on one side, he got super pissed off. I love the watch.

[01:08:51] We think our Apple watches are cool. He's got a system watch monitoring the control of the entire world. Yeah. All right. I think that was good. Let's take a little break. There's more to come. It's David's. OK, we're back and it's time for some listener feedback.

[01:09:40] James Aducci says, so two people come up with a big technological breakthrough. One of them goes crazy and the other has a master plan. Sounds vaguely familiar. Random thoughts. The genre drug didn't seem to serve a real purpose. Two, I'm siding with the Terminator.

[01:09:58] OK, we have a vote for DeLore I. Three, what's left for DeLores to do now? I think she's going to tell everybody about the editing facility for one. But other than that, I don't know.

[01:10:12] Yeah, I agree with you on that and I agree with you on the don't know. Why didn't anyone have a favorable outcome to their future? I think you answered that because Jonathan Nolan is a cynical bastard. There were a few, but there's no point in showing those.

[01:10:30] Yeah, five was the random person coming down the escalator, wearing a mask inserted into the episode in response to the pandemic. I didn't touch that. Yeah, Karen mentioned that too. I don't I didn't think so. I thought that was just a nod to it's the future.

[01:10:49] The world has become even more geographically intermixed. And some people wear masks in public. And that is what I think. I think this was all shot before this became a thing for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you travel a lot, you will see people wearing masks.

[01:11:08] I mean, in my experience, particularly in Asian countries and at first it was kind of like I'd see schoolgirls walking down the street with masks and it was like a little post-apocalyptic, but it's normal. Yeah, and I've seen that a lot on Caltrain.

[01:11:25] Not all people of Asian descent, but probably more than any other before this all happened. So I think I think that is a fairly normal thing now in the modern world. Yeah, from what I understand, I don't even know if this is right,

[01:11:40] but I think it's when people are sick, they do that so they won't give it to other people. Yeah, the idea is to protect the rest of us, which is nice. Yeah. Steve Barr says, did the genre drug trip serve any purpose?

[01:11:52] I mean, I think mostly they were just trying to have some fun. Yeah, agreed. I think so. Um, Brian White said, I'm not feeling this season. Hope it goes somewhere kind of like watching Jurassic Park, but without the dinosaurs. I've read some reviews that

[01:12:12] that sort of give that feeling and Karen expressed something similar to just that, hey, it's the show still interesting, but it's not the same show at all. I mean, we've gone so far from where it started.

[01:12:26] Yeah, I feel like they need to throw in another just left turn here. You know, I would like that. Yeah, I would too. Ryan Skolar says, Serac separating all the problem humans just like Delos was removing hosts like Dolores father from the park felt like a direct callback.

[01:12:46] Westworld has been recreated in the world. Yep. Yep. Michael Darwin says, I thought the use of the drug was an interesting way to have fun with the format, but it was unusual to see it done in what turned out to be such a pivotal episode.

[01:13:01] Dolores unleashing the files feels more like something that would drop closer to the finale. So she's got some more stuff up her sleeve, I think. Yeah. I saw some people complain that the episode felt like a cliched action film, but that was the point, no?

[01:13:15] Certainly in the ride of the Valkyrie segment. E.R.W. was channeling her inner Schwarzenegger. Yeah, I like that sequence. It's pretty cool. The rocket launcher that turned out to be a guided missile. I thought that was pretty cool. It was strictly actiony, but it was good action.

[01:13:35] Yeah, yeah. Derek O'Neill said, I like the concept of the episode, but the reveal of the master plan was cold. I was expecting mass riots or fires. They give us a couple having a fight and a woman throwing a small stone.

[01:13:53] There was other great stuff in the episode, though, so I'm looking forward to the podcast. Ran out of budget. We got an email about I think this might be about last week's episode. Oh, gotcha. From Christina. Hi, this comment is in regard to there being a perspective timeline.

[01:14:10] We observe actually being simulation as Jason proposed. Since Sirach is able to predict behavior based on simulations within Rahoboam and it occurs at a rate faster than the actual world, he may have placed Maeve into the simulation to prepare her for an eventual encounter with Dolores.

[01:14:29] This increases the likelihood that Maeve will defeat her. It also helps Sirach find out more about Dolores's plot. Maeve is predictable when compared to Dolores. Dolores, Dolores's actions in response to Maeve help Sirach and Rahoboam better predict what Dolores will do.

[01:14:47] They can then surprise Dolores from an angle she wouldn't have anticipated. Thank you for taking time to make this great podcast and for reading my long email. Thank you, Christina. I think that is a really interesting point.

[01:15:01] And we did talk about that some and I would hope so too that Sirach with this tool at his disposal, you know, is able to run an unlimited number of scenarios and come up with some counters. But I think what we're also finding out is that

[01:15:17] if Dolores is an outlier like the system kind of doesn't work for that purpose. Yeah, they need to take those people and either kill them off in a war or edit them. Right. We know that Sirach has said he predicted the hosts uprising at Westworld,

[01:15:38] but he seems not to have predicted Dolores coming in and doing the things that she's doing. Right. I don't think. And we have one call from Steve Brown. Hey, guys, Steve, this is for genre. I really enjoyed this episode. I liked the shifting in the shifting the way

[01:15:58] they did the shifting with the cameras when Caleb was on the drug from black and white to just very subtle kind of camera changes but didn't really show us what he was seeing, necessarily, just from his perspective.

[01:16:15] Maybe I wasn't sure what we're supposed to get out of that because it really wasn't. It didn't seem like anything was different from what he was seeing. It was just a different kind of camera shading and like said, different color kind of color palette on those those scenes.

[01:16:29] But it was it was really cool, especially the black and white. The the soundtrack on this one was was just haunting. I love that major Tom with the strings, the acoustic strings was really, really great. I was singing along in my head as it was playing you.

[01:16:43] And it was really, really kind of cool to hear. How did how did B-Smo know what he was on just by looking at him? That seemed a little a little weird to me that he was just

[01:16:54] just able to look at him and go, oh, I know what you're on. You're on genre. And the last act is going to be bad. And but then we didn't really see anything that much different when he was apparently coming out of it there at the end.

[01:17:10] So like the flashback with the Sirach seeing his the development of Roboam and I love them using the Kings of Israel names, the Saul, David, Solomon and then Ray Boam. Those were all Kings of Israel from the Bible.

[01:17:26] So I thought that was that was kind of cool as well. And yeah, just a really good episode. I can't wait to hear what you guys thought and to hear what you picked up on.

[01:17:38] I didn't really see all that many Easter eggs, but from other science fiction stuff. But maybe you guys picked up on on something that I didn't. I love to know what the the Caleb backstory is that Liam was seeing in him.

[01:17:55] And now that he's starting to question the nature of his existence. All right, talk to you later. You've requested the nature of reality. I did not really catch any Easter eggs this week, except for the similarity to the matrix in the story.

[01:18:14] And then the obvious genre drug callouts. Right. Yeah. I took what Beast Mode said as sort of a ironic comment. I thought what he was saying was watch out for that last one, meaning reality. Reality. Yeah. I thought that I think you're right, Steve,

[01:18:37] that it's pretty farfetched for him to know what drug he's on, where he's at in the sequence, etc. But I thought it was fun, so I liked it. Yeah. And I actually thought when he said the last act was bad

[01:18:53] and then the shining music came in, that's what it was. And that something bad was going to happen. Yeah, and it did. Yeah. All right, that's our show. Thanks for listening, everybody, as usual. If you want to write in or record a message and send it in.

[01:19:17] I dare somebody to record a message. We love Steve's messages. I want to hear somebody else record a message. Yeah, come on. Emails at Westworld at podcastica.com. We also put up a post for each week's episode on our Facebook page, facebook.com slash housepodcastica.

[01:19:36] Be sure to check out the other great podcasts at podcastica.com. Next episode, Westworld Season 3, Episode 6, Decoherence. I like that title. I think that's going to be a good episode. Yeah, it sounds like it's going to just make us whatever we thought

[01:19:55] we understood, make sure we don't understand it. Yeah, the show is good at doing this. There were due for some good misdirection here. All right, all you outliers out there, that's our show. Thanks for listening.