Westworld Season Two

We’ve finished both seasons of Westworld. By the end of season one, William’s hat is definitely black. We also learned that we have been following William’s story on two separate timelines and nothing is as it seems especially the ever menacing Robert Ford. Once the AI characters achieved self awareness the discomforting violence became incessant. The series began to feel much less like a video game and more like the sci-fi horror film that spawned it. The message is clear this time though. Corporations are evil.

By the end of season two there were hardly any redeeming characters left and there were only five or six maybe to begin with. The multiple timelines became so incoherent I needed to consult an online wiki. But due to the nature of the technology will any character truly die? We did get treated to some philosophical questions. Are the AI really autonomous? Just when we think they are the puppet master reappears. Hector is the only AI character that ever becomes unbound from his manufactured backstory. I suppose you could argue that Teddy does when he offs himself because he just couldn’t reconcile the fact that his beloved Dolores had become subsumed by the murderous Wyatt. Do humans actually have any more agency than the AI? This question of course is posed by the master AI. Something to think about I guess.

I have no idea where the show is going but it now has elements of Invasion of the Body Snatchers thanks to the immortality plot line. The big irony so far is that the idealistic Arnold who did not desire immortality inadvertently achieved it and the unsympathetic capitalist who did desire it failed. Why did terminating the failed host involve burning him and his enclosure? A metaphor for hell?

More than anything I would like to know what happened to Akecheta and his virtual paradise when the servers got shut down.