William spends the whole episode musing about the darkness inside himself, and the tragic events of his past that lead him to be where he is now. While it seems he truly did care for his wife and daughter, his spouse’s death was a direct result of her finding out what kind of a man he is while inside Westworld. His daughter knows this too, as we find out that her mother left William’s Westworld profile to her, minutes before the suicide. It’s what she was reaching for when daddy shot her down in a fit of paranoia that she was ‘just another trick in Ford’s game’.

The Man in Black constantly scratches at his arm, where the Host interface socket is located, and at the end of the episode we see him cutting into his own flesh to find out whether or not he’s a Host. There is compelling evidence for William being a Host, aside from the arm scratching. While he’s unlikely to have been a Host originally, when he and Logan first entered the park and discovered Dolores, it’s very possible he did managed to perfect the technology for transplanting human consciousness into a Host body and, instead of giving immortality to James Delos, the ambitious William simply did it for himself. 

It does seem extraordinary how much punishment the Man in Black has taken during this season, and the fact he’s still able to get up and walk away from it all does suggest that he’s more easily ‘fixed’ than a regular human. He miraculously survived the slaughter at the end of season 1 (opens in new tab). He shook off several non-fatal wounds at the start of the season. He took a bullet to the gut in episode 7 (opens in new tab), but a few hours later was able to gun down a whole security team single-handedly? That hardly seems right, for a regular person. But then again, he has reached an aid station with his daughter, and we can assume that there is powerful medical tech hidden away within the park to patch up any serious accidents that befall high-paying guests. So it could all be down to the wonders of futuristic medicine.

If you wanted to go REALLY deep into the rabbit hole, you could speculate that William is just one of Ford’s little experiments, and part of a meta-narrative that has been going on for decades. Did Ford design William and place him inside DELOS to infiltrate the company from within? We know William came from humble backgrounds (which essentially means he was an outsider when joining DELOS), so it’s possible he could be a plant, but that doesn’t explain how he aged and became the Man in Black, unless he was regularly updated to ‘blend in’ with the rest of the humans. It’s far fetched, but that would be a spectacular twist.

I’m not buying any of it, though. The Man in Black is, I think, showing signs of extreme paranoia – you only need to look at his dead daughter for that – and it’s taking a toll on him, mentally. He thinks Ford is everywhere, and he’s spent so long in the park that the line between the real world and his park life is blurring. It’s most likely that his memories are tainted by his current obsession with Westworld, and he’s remembering a paranoia that simply didn’t exist like he thinks it did. William is unravelling in Westworld – especially after the trauma of killing his daughter – and the most obvious manifestation of that is to wonder whether or not he’s a Host.

On top of all that… the whole ‘X is a Host’ twist feels quite played out in Westworld now. Yes, Bernard was a Host, and now Ford is kind of a Host, but we simply don’t need another plot revelation about a central character not being human. This feels like a massive piece of misdirection from the showrunners, to make people look the wrong way before the finale hits us all with an unseen knock-out punch. At the very least, it gives us all something to talk about until next week’s final – likely dazzling – final episode.

Do you think the Man in Black is really a Host? Let us know in the comments below.

The post The big question we have after watching Westworld season 2, episode 9 appeared first on Game News.

Directed by Uta Briesewitz, co-written by Carly Wray, and starring Native American actor Zahn McClarnon along with a whole host of other Native American actors, the show already embraces a fresh way of thinking, but it was the way it unfolded in which it was truly revolutionary.

There’s a moment early on in the episode where McClarnon’s character, Akecheta, zeroes in on Maeve’s daughter. We have been trained to believe from the show – and culture in general – that the savage spells bad news; here, it does not. Something exceptional happens, instead: Akecheta tells a story. He has a voice. It is so powerful seeing the show choose to forgo its traditional sci-fi roots in favour of being able to sit down for an hour listening to a tale of an outsider of both the genre and the world-at-large.

What follows is a slow, poetic unfolding of a voice long rendered silent by the show’s creators and, as much as we’d hate to admit it, the viewers too. You’d be lying to yourself if you hadn’t written off the Ghost Nation as stock bad guys or, worse yet, unintelligible savages. Here we find that, beyond Bernard and company, there is someone who already has all the answers – we just hadn’t thought to ask him the questions.

But what does this do for Westworld? This is a show that has hung its hat on keeping us on the edge of our seat when it comes to unresolved mysteries and, yet, here is a diversity-led narrative supplanting the most tired of old television tropes: the cliffhanger.  

So often have shows operated on a platform of this narrative sleight of hand as a get-out-of-jail free card to negate everything in the episode bar the last 45 seconds, that we’re now disappointed when we don’t get some sort of teasing thread to pull going into next week. Kiksuya took the opposite approach and simply cut all the threads. And I don’t think Westworld will ever be the same show again.

After this, you can’t go back. Returning to the same old narrative stylings will be tantamount to the show spinning its wheels in the hopes of some Grand Answer (as it has done for much of the season). Kiksuya propelled the show forward into uncharted territory where next week doesn’t matter nearly as much as looking back on this week, and contemplating what just went down. How many other shows can you think of that doesn’t rely heavily on next week, next week, next week? It’s a cycle that Akecheta almost single-handedly broke.

However, if it does continue down its old path, it’s wholly failed as a narrative concept because Akecheta’s story will become the anomaly and, again, reduced to the fringes of a show, a mere footnote, in which he lay in silence for much of the first and second seasons. 

Do I have faith on Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy to incorporate Akecheta’s story into the grand narrative that’s being weaved around Ford? Not quite. In fact, Ford’s conversation with Akecheta – an old, white man literally explaining to a minority that this world is his was a bit on the nose, but it works – was worrisome insomuch as that you could almost hear the rug being pulled out from under Akecheta’s feet. The show is still far too concerned with grand designs of AI headfuckery and what it means to be a Host and not what it means to be someone without a voice. But, still, it’s a promising detour – and one that serialised shows should (and easily could) incorporate far more often.

Read More…

TV’s obsession with twists, mysteries, and watercooler elitism is getting unhealthy. Star Trek Discovery is the cure (opens in new tab)

Think of the great episodes of telly: The Suitcase (Mad Men), Ozymandias (Breaking Bad), Long Term Parking (The Sopranos): they often draw viewers in with the promise of a typical premise – man saves the day – and then destroy that notion, leaving you wondering what can possibly come after, if anything. It’s impossibly brave to pull off such a feat, but it’s one that Westworld is on the verge of doing. But it can’t stop there.

I want Westworld to occasionally ditch Dolores; I want Westworld to do away with Ford, Bernard, Charlotte Hale’s tiresome subplot and all the rest of it for just a little while. Nothing has quite compelled and excited me like the dunes unfolding out over the landscape as Akecheta’s final destination, his love, was in sight and then pulled away from him, the camera lingering on every little action and hesitant emotion that creeps out of the Ghost Nation leader. We saw more growth from Akecheta in one hour than we have in entire seasons of other shows, Westworld included. I want more of that. I want a Westworld that’s content with taking a breath and telling a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end – all in one sitting. If that happens to crossover with bringing a voice to the voiceless, then that’ll suit me just fine.

The post The Akecheta Westworld episode proved the show doesnt need twists to keep the show entertaining, just new voices appeared first on Game News.

Akecheta awakens after Arnold makes Dolores kill all the Hosts in the original park, and after a long journey which spans multiple awakenings and attempts to save his lost love, he finally decides to secretly focus on awakening his fellow Native American Hosts. This means that by the time Dolores, AKA Death Bringer, starts the robot revolution at the end of season 1, Akecheta and his people are basically the most well-prepared Hosts in the Park. This raises questions over how they were able to achieve this given that the Westworld techs keep a pretty close eye on any inconsistencies in the Hosts, but the more pressing questions for me is, why didn’t Arnold make Dolores kill all the Native American Hosts in the first place? 

We know that Arnold tried to prevent the opening of the park by programming Dolores with the Wyatt narrative and having her (with the help of Teddy) kill all the Hosts in the park, Arnold, and then herself. He hoped that without him, Ford wouldn’t be able to rebuild and open the park and subject his creations to a fate worse than death. This obviously didn’t happen, but up until this point, we were led to believe that Arnold’s attempt involved killing all the Hosts in the park. We now know that this is not the case as Akecheta comes across the massacre seemingly only a short time after it occurs and finds the maze game which Arnold left in the bar, which eventually triggers his own awakening. 

Why did Arnold choose to leave the Native Hosts alive? Is it because he knew Ford would be able to bring all the Hosts back anyway? He does say this to Dolores just before she kills him and it’s the reason why he knows he needs to die as well, but if this is the case, then why bother having Dolores kill any of the Hosts at all? Another possibility is that he didn’t know about the Native Hosts and that it was a project Ford was working on on his own, but this seems unlikely given the Hosts are basically his invention. After all – we know the Native Americans were a Beta project. It feels like there must be a reason why Arnold chose to leave Akecheta and his people alive, while killing Dolores and the rest, but we just don’t know what it is yet. Shock, horror – it looks like there’s another level to this game…

If you think you know why Arnold left the Native Hosts alive – or is you have other Westworld theories (opens in new tab) about the latest episode – feel free to post them in the comments section below and let’s talk about them together! 

The post The big question we have after watching Westworld season 2, episode 8 appeared first on Game News.

Fair warning, the cast are committed to keeping any spoilers off the internet (they did good HBO, don’t punish them!), so details are thin on the ground, but if you pay attention and know the show, there’s a fair amount you can work out by reading between the lines. Hopefully you can see how I’ve come to certain conclusions about the new season from the interviews, but if you feel like I’ve missed something, drop me a message in the comments below. It’s definitely an experience interviewing someone about something as secret as Westworld! As Jeffrey Wright, AKA Bernard, said at the beginning of my interview: “It’s so crazy. It’s like, talking with a group of people about something they have not seen and about which you cannot talk about.” Enough said really.

Season 2 will be a lot darker than the first 

Westworld season 2 is set to be a lot darker than the first season if Evan Rachel Wood is to be believed. Dolores herself told me that season 2 was a lot more challenging for her, saying: “[Season 1] was very cathartic getting to play those pure emotions that were full of love and trying so hard, and [season 2] was just darker!” It also sounds like Dolores will have to do some questionable things to survive in Westworld’s new world order, as Wood revealed that she now knows “why certain people are warned before they play the Joker”. 

“To play this character that is at the forefront of this revolution and this war on humanity for her freedom, knowing what she has to do – not necessarily liking it, but having to do it… it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.” Says Wood. “It wasn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be, putting yourself in that mindset that there’s no hope. (Laughs) Obviously, it was heavy, yeah. Heavy.” Sounds intense.  

Dolores and the Man in Black will probably cross paths again

“It would be weird if they never crossed paths [again],” Wood replied when I asked her if Dolores will come face-to-face with the Man in Black (aka, William) in season 2. As to how Dolores will react to him now that she remembers who he really is, Wood stops short of confirming anything, but says: “It would be interesting to see her dynamic interacting with him knowing and remembering… because I think he’s always been the Man in Black to her, but we might actually see what it’s like when it is William… but it’s not.” Confused? Me too, but Wood makes a valid point. From Dolores’ perspective in season 2 the Man in Black is William, but also not because he’s changed so much from her memories of him. How she’ll handle those dual identities remains to be seen. 

Bernard is questioning his allegiances… 

As a Host who, up until recently, believed he was human and helped to run Westworld from behind-the-scenes, you’d be correct in thinking that Bernard has a lot to sort out in season 2. Jeffrey Wright said as much when I talked to him about Bernard’s role in the upcoming robot revolution: “His place within this chaos is unique in that he does have allegiances and experiences with both sides. With feeling a part of both sides of that world, and so yeah, that’s a question for him going forward. It’s a question that he asks himself, I think, at the beginning of this… ‘Where am I in all of this?’”

He won’t be the only one questioning his allegiances though as audiences will also feel torn between the Hosts and the humans in season 2. “I think we’ll be trying to figure out our allegiances… Bernard certainly is.” Says Wright. “And I think Bernard, in the first season, in some ways plays the eyes of the audience to some extent in that he’s in charge of figuring out the mystery… And so Bernard is, at the beginning [of season 2], struggling with his allegiances, and I think perhaps he might represent, again, a different type of window for the audience…” 

It’s interesting that both times Wright talks about Bernard struggling with his allegiances, he says “at the beginning” – it sounds like no matter how difficult Bernard finds picking a side, that struggle will be short lived and by the end of season 2 he’ll definitely know which team he’s batting for. I’ll give you one guess…

And he’s suffered some damage

In some not so good news, it also sounds like Bernard might find himself in a spot of bother health-wise in season 2. “Having shot himself in the head towards the end of the last season… he’s not all well, you know? As you might expect… after putting a bullet into your robot brain,” says Wright. “He’s got some challenges, his faculties aren’t what they might want to be, so he’s literally asking himself ‘Where am I?’ too in that he’s a… damaged machine.” Doesn’t sound too good does it? This might be why Bernard finds himself lost in the Park as we saw in the first teaser trailer for Westworld season 2 (opens in new tab), but what I want to know is how his human colleagues react to finding out that he’s a Host?

DELOS brings new character Karl Strand in to fix things (and he has a secret)

A new season also means new characters and Vikings star Gustaf Skarsgård will be playing series regular Karl Strand in season 2. When asked to give a few details on his character, his allegiances became very clear. “I’m playing the sort of problem solving guy who brings the muscle when you need them, when shit has really hit the fan.” He says. “So after… what we see at the end of season 1 with what’s happened and the repercussions of that… they kind of call me in to fix this mess. They meaning the DELOS corporation, I’m working for them.” 

And that’s not all. “One of my first instructions about the character – because they [the showrunners] couldn’t tell me anything, background or whatnot – [was] ‘Well, he’s kind of a coiled snake waiting to strike at any moment’” Skarsgård says. “And I’m like ‘Oh ok, that’s… playable.’ And there’s also, ‘He knows a secret, but we can’t tell you what it is, but just know that you know a secret…’ (Laughs) That was an actual instruction!” Intriguing…

We’ll find out who owns the park and what they really want to do with it

Theresa Cullen pretty much said in the first season that there was something else going on with the park and that DELOS wanted it for more than just giving rich holidaymakers the time of their lives – and it looks like we’ll finally find out what that ulterior motive is in season 2, according to Wright. “[Season 2] has more to do with questions about who owns the technology and what that intent is,” he says. “We know what the park is, but not why? We think we do… but there may be more to the story than what was revealed in the first season.” Co-star and newcomer Skarsgård agrees adding: “The genesis of DELOS will be further explored in this season.”

Teddy is trying to find himself

Poor old Teddy. He spent much of season 1 dying repeatedly and it doesn’t sound like season 2 is going to be much better as he’s a bit behind the other Hosts in terms of self-discovery. “With Teddy specifically, he was late to the game.” James Marsden tells me. “His awakening came much later than Dolores and Maeve’s awakening, which was slowly peeling back these layers, and now he’s seeing the world with a new set of eyes. But it just so happens to be against the backdrop of chaos and revolution and bloodshed, and so it’s an interesting, conflicting time for him.” 

It also sounds like he’ll be struggling to work out who he really is vs which parts of him are programmed: “I think he still has a lot of his coding from before, a lot of which has his allegiances and loyalty and his love and affection for Dolores [in it]. But even that dynamic has turned upside down. And the questions he’s asking himself are ‘Who do I want to be?’ ‘What is my identity now that I get to choose what that is and it’s not scripted for me?’”

Some Hosts will go bad. Really bad

Understandably, the cast can’t say too much about what’s going to happen in season 2 – not knowing is half the fun, right? – but they did play fair with me and found ways to answer my questions without giving too much away. Sometimes they even used parables (yes, really) to explain what’s going to happen, like Marsden did when asked about what path his character would be taking in season 2… 

“There’s a great parable – not to get too corny but – it’s about a grandfather talking to his grandson saying that there’s two wolves inside of us that are always at war with each other. And he says one represents hatred and greed and bad things, and the other wolf represents kindness and love and goodness and they’re constantly at war. And the grandson asks ‘Which wolf wins?’ and the grandfather says ‘The one you feed…’ and it’s like hmmm… that’s perfect for this show, and where we’re going this season.”

In case you’re struggling to read between the lines here (don’t worry, I had to read it a few times myself) it sounds like Marsden is hinting that the Hosts are going to have to choose between acceptance and revenge when dealing with what’s happened to them and how they continue to fight for their survival. Some might even become villains… but which path will Teddy choose? Marsden doesn’t give away too much, saying: “Maybe there’s some of that in store for me, for other cast members involved in this season, choices.” 

This is backed up by creator and showrunner Lisa Joy who told me: “Freedom is just the first step, right? You still have to choose who you’re going to be and what you’re going to do. How you react to an imperfect and often cruel world, there are many, many different paths for reacting to that and our characters will take a few different paths.”

Dolores and Teddy’s relationship will develop (and become more complicated)

So what about Westworld’s two love birds, Dolores and Teddy? It’s safe to say that their relationship has been anything but straightforward in season 1, but it’s about to get a lot more complicated if Wood and Marsden are to be believed. “Like any relationship that goes through changes, you fall in love when you’re a certain person, and then you stay together for a long time and you change and the question always is ‘Can our love survive our changes?’” Wood tells me. “And for Dolores and Teddy I think that’s just on a massive scale! But it’s the same feeling and the same question of ‘Can our love survive this?’ and ‘Will you still love me even if I’m not the girl that I was yesterday?’ So… that’ll be part of their journey.” 

Marsden adds: “Their relationship grows complicated… well, not grows complicated, but there’s growth to it. It becomes more complicated because we’re trying to survive, to move forward and to create this dawn of this new species and now the leashes are off. We don’t have to be with one another – do we choose to still? Do we choose to still want to be together while we’re trying to survive and do whatever we’re trying to do?” I guess that’s the big question…

Dolores’s memory will play a big part in season 2 (again) but in a different way 

A lot of season 1 is based on Dolores’s memories and their lack of context, which allowed for the Two Timeline theory (opens in new tab) to take hold, but even though she’s now figured out the order of her memories, they’ll still play an integral role in season 2, according to creator and showrunner Jonathan Nolan. “One of the fun things of the second season is she’s [Dolores] remembered things that other people haven’t, she’s a little ahead of the game.” He tells me. It seems like Dolores is well and truly ditching her damsel in distress identity in the second season and leading the charge for the robot revolution and she’s using her near-perfect memory to do that. 

We’ll find out where Elsie has been all this time

One of the big questions we had after the end of season 1 was what happened to Elsie Hughes. Last we saw her she was being attacked by Bernard on the orders of Ford, but Ford insisted that she was unharmed and she appeared alive and well in the first teaser trailer for season 2. So where has she been? Well, we don’t know… but the good news is that we will be finding out in season 2. “You’ll see where she’s been and what’s been going on,” says Shannon Woodward. “And the new struggles that she then faces like, who does that make her after what’s happened to her?” It sounds like she’s been through the ringer and isn’t the same person she was before the attack. Where she’s been stashed away is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t sound good. 

Hector is back but in an “interesting condition”

In case you didn’t already know, Hector is back in season 2 – yay! This was pretty much a given, but what isn’t as clear is what state he’ll be in and where. When we left him in season 1 he was about to take on a mini army of Westworld employees to give Maeve a chance to escape, so did he win? “Hector is back, we just don’t know what condition he’s in.” Rodrigo Santoro tells me. “That’s all I can say but yes – he’s back… and in a very interesting condition, and there’s a lot of adventures…” Hmmm.

Everything will be bigger and more complicated

If you thought the first season of Westworld was complicated – and who didn’t? – be prepared for even more in season 2! “Yeah, I would probably say [it’s] more complicated.” Revealed Marsden. “I think it’s bigger, however you want to define that… the cast has grown, the sets have grown… we have sometimes a couple of different crews working at the same time, whereas in the first season there was just one. So it feels like… it’s multiplied, thematically and then physically as well with just the amount of people involved in the sets and everything.” Are you scared? I’m scared. 

Westworld season 2 airs Sundays on HBO (available via Dish (opens in new tab) and Sling TV (opens in new tab)) at 9pm in the US, and a day later on Sky Atlantic (opens in new tab) and Now TV (opens in new tab) in the UK.

The post Dolores is darker, Bernard is damaged, and 11 other things you need to know about Westworld season 2 appeared first on Game News.

Sea of Thieves wants to impress you with a huge cannon

Tomorrow Xbox will fire an actual human man out of its Xbox Pirate Blaster, a 34-foot-long cannon, to try and remind you that pirate-packed Sea of Thieves (opens in new tab) will be released on March 20. You can watch David “The Bullet” Smith try and break a Guinness World Records title for the Greatest Distance Travelled as a Human Cannonball on Mixer starting at 1pm ET.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is back with new cursed DLC

Check out the launch trailer for the The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC, which looks very much like The Walking Dead circa 49 BC. 

Mad scientist YouTuber gets a Switch working on a decades-old pocket TV

Playing your Switch on your new 4K TV is so 2017. All the cool kids are hacking their consoles to get them running on a black-and-white, CRT Sony Watchman Pocket Television from 1986. And when I say all the cool kids, I mean this one internet maverick. 

The creators of Goat Simulator are back with Satisfactory

Coffee Stain Studios just teased a new game in the trailer below: Satisfactory. Though it doesn’t give much hint of how the game actually plays, it’s worth a watch for its adorable lizard, who deserves to be the new Lucas the Spider.

Westworld is getting a cartoony, facility-management mobile game

If you can’t bear the wait for Westworld season 2, this mobile game ought to tide you over. Gameplay-wise, it looks very similar to Fallout Shelter, just with more cowboys and cyborgs.

Even more news: 

Watch Blizzard channel The Blair Witch Project for its latest Hearthstone expansion, The Witchwood

“I had things thrown at me” – Xbox designer on how the ‘Duke’ controller went from joke to beloved misfit

Fortnite: Battle Royale on iPhone and Android: How to sign up for testing right now

Alicia Vikander was thrown down an Olympic whitewater course 25 times without a life vest for Tomb Raider’s biggest action scene

“Can you just end the series already?” – The internet reacts to The Walking Dead season 8, episode 11

Get the best games and entertainment news, reviews, tips and offers delivered to your inbox every week by signing up to the GamesRadar+ newsletter today.

The post Daily NewsRadar: An Assassins Creed curse, a giant Sea of Thieves cannon IRL and a 1986 version of Nintendo Switch appeared first on Game News.

Game of Thrones season 7’s late debut spared the majority of awards from coming Westeros’ way – look out Emmys 2018 – so it was left to Westworld (opens in new tab) and Stranger Things (opens in new tab) to take the attention of pop-culture fans everywhere. Unfortunately Hosts and Demogorgons aren’t enough to grab you an award these days, with The Handmaid’s Tale and This Is Us coming up trumps in most of the major categories.

There was success, though, for the Han Solo movie’s (opens in new tab) Donald Glover, Star Wars: Rogue One’s (opens in new tab) Riz Ahmed and Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s (opens in new tab) Laura Dern. Star Wars’ present and future is certainly looking golden. 

Elsewhere, Julia Louis-Dreyfus made Emmys history by picking up a sixth consecutive Emmy for her role in Veep. That win also takes her to eight Emmys overall, a joint record.

Below is the full main list of winners:

Outstanding Drama Series: The Handmaid’s Tale

Outstanding Comedy Series: Veep

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Elizabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: John Lithgow (The Crown)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series: Donald Glover (Atlanta)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin (Saturday Night Live)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live)

Outstanding Limited Series: Big Little Lies

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series: Riz Ahmed (The Night Of)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series: Nicole Kidman (Big Little Lies)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie: Laura Dern (Big Little Lies)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie: Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies)

Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series: Reed Morano (The Handmaid’s Tale)

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series: Donald Glover (Atlanta)

Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series: Bruce Miller (The Handmaid’s Tale)

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series: Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe (Master of None)

Image: Getty

The post Emmy 2017 winners appeared first on Game News.

“[The show’s creators] are trying to get it right. They don’t want to go in doing what they were doing last time where they were under the cosh the whole time. They want to go in with a clear plan – A to Z and everything in between – at least have drafts in place,” he told The Independent (opens in new tab) in a recent interview.

“They are very open to a point but they like to keep everything close to their chest. There is a lot of cloak and daggers and misdirection. And it’s great on their part,” Hemsworth explained. And that misdirection isn’t just toward fans; it turns out Hemsworth didn’t know the big twist in the season one finale until it happened, just like the rest of us.

Personally, I find this all to be a satisfying explanation. It’s not as if the show’s writers and producers are just making things up as they go along, and a good puzzle needs time to be well thought out and planned. And if what Hemsworth says is anything to go by, everyone involved behind the scenes is more than capable of holding onto a good secret.

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us (opens in new tab)!

Images: HBO 

The post Westworlds Stubbs explains why the show wont be back in 2017: “They want to go in with a clear plan” appeared first on Game News.

It all starts with Maeve (who else?), as she’s questioned by Bernard. Poor Bernard has been reset, his memory wiped, so we feel his panic when he attempts to decommission Maeve, only to have her turn around and control him. This opening scene sets the remainder of the episode in motion, as Maeve sets Bernard free to find the truth of his existence. Again. “If you go looking for the truth, get the whole thing,” she advises. “It’s like a good fuck – half is worse than none at all.” If it weren’t for Ford, Maeve would have the best lines in this show. And almost any other show, for that matter.

Bernard’s initial confrontation with Ford – who he immediately seeks out – sees him on the offensive. While he has accepted the notion that he’s a Host, Bernard wants to know everything – the reason for his creation, and Ford’s end-game for him. Even at this point in the episode, we know that it isn’t going to end well. Bernard makes the same mistake as everyone else in the park, trying to threaten Ford and get the truth from him in a blunt-force way. Lobotomised Clem stands over Ford like a vengeful angel, awaiting the command to pull the trigger if he refuses to cooperate. As with any good piece of TV, though, this is a fake-out designed to make the conclusion that much more shocking.

During the episode we see Bernard learn the truth about his memories. The scene where he realises and accepts that his boy, Charlie, is just a fabrication is heart-breaking, even though it’s something the viewer already knew. But this revelation leads to us making the biggest discovery of the episode: Bernard is Arnold. Or at least, a Host version of Arnold. Not a huge surprise for anyone immersed in Westworld’s fan theories, but a smart twist nonetheless. As ever, the clues are littered throughout the episode before the final reveal is made clear, as Bernard relives some of the key moments (opens in new tab) from previous meetings with Ford.

Here’s where it gets very interesting, though. Dolores discovers the secret elevator in the church at Escalante, and heads down to the old ‘behind the scenes’ area where Ford and Arnold first started Westworld. On her way to meet Arnold, we see her make the same walk in different outfits, implying that all this has happened before, across multiple timelines… And when she meets Arnold, we hear the words that confirm it. “I can’t help you – why is that, Dolores?” he asks. She replies: “Because you’re dead. Because you’re just a memory. Because I killed you.” Ah, looks like we’ve discovered the reason Ford doesn’t like Dolores; why they’re not friends.

The climax of the episode is classic Westworld, and it ties a knot in Bernard’s tragic plot thread. Having discovered the truth, he no longer wants to work with Ford – and instructs Clem to shoot him. But of course Ford has a back-up plan, and of course Clem can’t shoot him. Deep down, we knew this from the start, because in this show you simply don’t outsmart Ford. The ending, though, still feels shocking, as Bernard is forced to take the pistol from Clem and end his own life as the master manipulator simply walks away, promising the delivery of his bold new storyline. It’s deliciously done. Ford laments the fact Bernard is talking in technical terms, and delivers his self-execution as a colourful narrative, giving us yet another glimpse into his beautifully twisted mind. The delivery of this inevitability is fantastic TV, even if you’re one of the many who saw it coming weeks ago, a storytelling device that Westworld has truly mastered.

Elsewhere in the episode, we see William finally snap. After being forced by Logan to watch Dolores ‘cut open’, her insides (and true nature) exposed, he seems to lose his mind. Faking a make-up with his boss, Billy then takes his opportunity to butcher every Host in camp while Logan is passed out. He tells his tormentor that they’re going to look for Dolores, and “don’t call me Billy.” There’s a sense that William has lost all perspective, and it’s that vaguely obsessive edge that makes him a more interesting character. Hopefully, next week’s episode will explore that mania, instead of just making him a ‘determined hero’.

The most compelling part of this ‘William/Logan’ plot is that we see a picture of Logan’s sister, who William is engaged to… funnily enough, it’s the same picture that Dolores’ father discovers at the start of the season, which causes the Hosts to start rebelling. Coincidence? Obviously not, and it’s one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the Two Timelines theory (opens in new tab) yet. There’s a real theme in Westworld that ‘everything has happened before’, and it’s undoubtedly going to be a large part of the end of season reveal, next week.

Other plotlines are developing, but take relatively minor roles this week. There’s a neat scene where a rogue Host put the Man in Black into an elaborate trap, but it feels more like a clumsy attempt to inject more excitement into this plotline than anything else. However, we do learn that the Man in Black is indeed on the board of Westworld, and that he knows Hale – who shows up to ask for his support in removing Ford. We also find out that Teddy was the one who shot up all the original Hosts in Escalante, and there’s a real suggestion that Wyatt doesn’t actually exist – he’s just Teddy’s psychological construct. To be honest, this is the least compelling of all Westworld’s current plotlines.

Finally, we see Stubbs lured into a trap in his search for Elsie (who I’m 99% certain was killed by Bernard, but you can never rule a character out of an HBO show until you see their corpse. And even then, Jon Snow…), and Maeve continues to manipulate Hector into helping her escape the park. That sex-scene in the burning tent is hot on multiple levels, but maybe a bit melodramatic for Westworld. Although it has a decent attempt at traditionally dramatic set-pieces, this show is at its best when confounding the viewer with questions and wowing with its narrative revelations – something this episode nails perfectly.

The Verdict

4.5

4.5 out of 5

Westworld

Another smart episode that provides – for once – more answers than questions.

The post Westworld season 1 episode 9 recap appeared first on Game News.

(Cognitive) Dissonance Theory relates to the mental stress of someone holding two contradictory beliefs and ideas; someone seeking balance between their expectations and their reality. For Dolores, it’s pretty clearly the issues between her programming versus her growing self-awareness, and for Bernard, it is about battling with Ford’s belief that wiping memories is the kindest course of action with the Hosts. 

So his experiment with Dolores is in the balance but her ability to say just the right thing to protect herself is telling – first adapting an old script and then offering up something that goes perfectly against what she’s been programmed to believe. “This world… I think there may be something wrong with is world, something hiding underneath. Either that or there’s something wrong with me… I may be losing my mind.” 

Bernard sends Dolores off on the Maze game – the mission that the Man in Black is on, and which we now know our good doctor is aware of. If she can find the centre then maybe she can be free, he tells her. “I think I want to be free,” intones Dolores. She still has the gun she used to shoot the Host in the barn when she wakes from her ‘dream’ to a nice cup of tea from good ol’ William, who appears to have been watching her sleep. Erm. 

Maeve’s dissonance is growing also: remembering old repetitions of her familiar loop and the Westworld cleaning crew. She jots down a drawing of the strange suited man – and when she hides it under a loose floorboard she finds many more drawings of the same thing. She’s obviously been down this path before. She later discovers that the Native American communities of Westworld have incorporated these suited men (or Shades) as part of their religion. 

Elsie, still vying for Westworld’s most consistently vexed staff-member award, is angry with Park leader Cullen’s attitude towards the stray Host who smashed its head in during the last episode, and angry with her boss Bernard for the way he gives in to her. As she verbally attacks him, he calmly shoots down her Orion’s Belt theory and cautions against getting too caught up in ‘real’ Host behaviour. It’s an echo of the speech Ford gave him in The Stray (opens in new tab), and obviously a bit rich for a man who’s tinkering with Host behaviour to make them more realistic. Side note; the Host with the smashed head working its jaw back and forth is probably my favourite gory tableaux yet. 

Meanwhile, William wants to take Dolores back to Sweetwater while Logan would prefer to shoot her and get on with his fun, which prompts the brilliant response: “Will you please stop trying to either kill or fuck everything”. Logan thinks it’s no coincidence that Dolores has dropped into William’s lap on his adventure, but we know it has more to do with her ‘awakening’ than anything else. She’s seriously off-loop. 

Here we find out a bit more about Logan’s rich family and what role they may play in Westworld. Previously, all we’ve known is that William is marrying Logan’s sister, but he now suggests that his family should up their stake in the Park, hinting that they’re already involved. Is his Dad on the board? Are Logan and William more than just guests in the story of Westworld?

They decide to take Dolores along for the ride, and she seems content to accompany them while she works out what her new path is. She’s remembering almost everything now – her father isn’t back home waiting for her, he died last night. William and Logan’s bandit-catching story takes them very close to the path of the Man in Black and for one moment you think Dolores is close to finding her way to the maze, but the episode ends with William and Logan going their separate ways after an argument about “going black hat”.

The Man in Black is back this episode and just as entertaining as ever. He’s still chasing the maze and closing in on the Snake, as the Reddit (opens in new tab) community posited ages ago, it is indeed the tattoo on the neck of Armistice, and the two most badass characters in Westworld make a brilliant combo. (“How in Hell have we never met,” laughs MiB. “A really terrible oversight on my part”). 

He wants the story behind the tattoo and she wants to break Hector out of prison, so the MiB does the job for her, but not before invoking the story of Arnold. He tells the tale of a man who created a world where you could do anything you like except die, making sure it would be nothing more than an elaborate game. The Man in Black believes Arnold had one last story left to tell, hinting that whatever he’s searching for in the maze will unleash a story with real violence and real stakes. 

The jailbreak is less thrilling than you would expect – Westworld’s lack of jeopardy for the humans is a problem touched on within the show itself by the guests, but that is reflected in the wild west shoot-em-up sections too. But hold on: here’s a Westworld-workings gem. As MiB lights his exploding cigar we cut back to the operations room, who have received a request for a low yield pyrotechnic effect for approval, he gets the ok and takes out the lock on the jail door and the jailer’s face in spectacularly gory fashion. 

Now we get to hear the snake tattoo story. It’s basically Armistice’s revenge markings for a childhood trauma visited on her by a group of men headed up by none other than Wyatt. Which means that the MiB’s maze, Bernard’s task for Delores, and Ford’s mysterious new narrative (he gave Teddy the Wyatt backstory in The Stray) all appear to be the same track. 

Ford is up to his usual standard in this episode, illustrating his god-like powers to Cullen over lunch and making it clear that he will not be beholden to her or the board. Hopkins’ performance is phenomenal here. Understated, mild and yet as threatening and manipulative as anything he’s played elsewhere; this speech reminded me of his tour-de-force Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. As he urges Cullen not interfere, the giant diggers/metaphors appear over the horizon tearing down everything in their path. “I’m not the sentimental type,” he tells her. 

Finally, Maeve’s path to finding out what’s causing her dissonance gives us a thrilling finale, as she pairs up with Hector. She believed that the bullet that ‘killed’ her during a previous story was still inside her, but the unscarred skin told her it couldn’t be true, so she adapted her behaviour to find out what was the truth. And that, as the psychologists would tell you, is one sure fire way to conquer cognitive dissonance. 

Want to know more about the mysteries of Westworld? Here’s the best Westworld theories and the best Westworld Easter eggs so far.

Westworld extra bits

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The Man in Black is famous

“Excuse me sir, I don’t want to intrude, but I just want to say I’m such a fan of yours… your foundation literally saved my sister’s life,” a guest says to the Man in Black. “One more word and I’ll slit your throat – this is my fucking vacation.” He retorts. 

It looks like the MiB is clearly somebody significant in the outside world as well, and this blows <em>a lot </em>of fan theories out of the water. 

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It’s all a game

Logan reminds us all that Westworld is just as really elaborate video game as he swaps his for a better one from a Host he’s just killed, saying: “Upgrade… nice!”

<a href=”http://www.gamesradar.com/7-games-to-play-if-you-love-westworld/” target=”_blank”>Check out the 7 games you should be playing if you like Westworld.</a>

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Hannibal is back

Anthony Hopkins is drinking red wine when he chillingly reminds Cullen of his power. Can we hazard a guess that it’s a nice Chianti? I think so. 

The Verdict

4.5

4.5 out of 5

Westworld

A brilliantly thoughtful episode which is dominated by Ford’s sublime speech and Logan’s, erm… ‘fun’.

The post Westworld season 1 episode 4 Dissonance Theory recap appeared first on Game News.

There’s a natural rhythm to television: the pilot has huge budget, big production values, and a neat concept; the tricky second episode needs to build on any hints and continue the narrative; and the third… well, it’s got to convince people that it won’t go the way of Flash Forward or a Revolution but become a television series with real staying power.

The good news is that after a bit of a dip in pace in episode 2 (opens in new tab), the third outing for HBO’s Westworld manages to balance the tricky task of maintaining momentum, while hinting at further depth to come. This is an episode of revelations: some small but still meaningful (Westworld costs $40,000 a day to visit, apparently) and some seismic – and it makes for a fascinating episode. 

An early, and pretty huge revelation is that mysterious Dr Ford – founder and chief manipulator – is quite possibly not the person hinted at in the opening episodes. The suggestion was that his ‘reveries’ had been at the heart of the Hosts’ sudden self-awareness, but not only do we see Ford doubling down on treating his creations like objects, but we find out that it is Bernard that is seemingly deliberately trying to provoke sentience in Dolores. Ford, on the other hand, reacts furiously at one of his staff covering up a naked Host to protect its modesty and slashes its cheek with a razor to illustrate his point. Lovely…

Meanwhile, in the park, good ol’ ‘white hat’ guest William is getting to grips with having some fun, with a gunfight finally luring him into the action. In a fascinating revelation we learn that humans CAN be hurt – just not seriously; William’s carousing buddy Logan tells his bruised friend that it “wouldn’t be much of a game if they can’t shoot back.” Logan’s all about the game. 

Dolores’ time with Bernard is clearly having a major impact on her. She’s remembering old narrative loops and some of the horrors that have been visited upon her and the ones she ‘loves’. She still has the gun we saw her hide in the last episode, but we find out that only certain Hosts are allowed to wield weapons and she cannot pull the trigger. Maeve’s confusion also continues as she remembers the strange basement she found herself in previously, naked, vulnerable and cut open. 

My favourite bit of the episode is our glimpse into the history of the park and possibly the biggest revelation of all. Ford had a partner 30 years before called Arnold who just so happens to be the man the malfunctioning Hosts have been talking to. He died in mysterious circumstances as he tried to bring about artificial intelligence in his creations, back when they were still metal skeletons and rubber coverings. 

Hopkins as a young man is nicely done by the effects department (although definitely still slipping into the uncanny valley), but it’s the progression of those early robots that is most fascinating. It’s probably worth pausing to give a big thumbs up to the creators of this world. Ford’s office is a slightly creepy wonderland; an old Host is essentially his jukebox, he has faces on the wall (like a certain other HBO TV show…), and bits of robot kicking round (as befits a man who slashes his own creations to make a point). 

With Ford clearly clocking that Bernard’s got his very own Arnold-esque sympathies, the programmer calls in Dolores to decide whether to undo his meddling and let her forget. However, the wily old Host does enough to convince him to let her continue with her programming intact when she hints at self-awareness. 

Having promised to behave (like a Host), she returns to Westworld just in time to complete her brutal loop, but Dolores starts to challenge her programming culminating with her pulling out a gun. This time she (possibly) breaks programming and pulls the trigger killing another Host. 

As the title of the episode would suggest, Delores has both strayed from her programming and her narrative loop, but the other major thread involves another Host stray – a woodcutter that has malfunctioned, breaking the loops of several of his companions. 

Behaviour scientist Elsie and security head Stubbs – enacting the most blatant playground hairpulling/love/hate relationship you’ll ever see – are sent on a mission to find out what’s gone wrong, bickering all the way. After finding a number of peculiar wood carvings, the pair finally tracking down the rogue Host stuck in a pit, but he breaks out of his sleep mode while Stubbs attempts to remove his head for analysis. 

The woodcutter outmaneuvers Stubbs and menacingly makes his way towards Elsie, picking up a huge rock on his way, but just when you think he’s going to kill a human, he smashes his own head to pieces with the rock. It’s possibly the most grotesque scene we’ve had on Westworld so far, and blatantly confirms something is wrong with the Hosts. 

We end up at a campfire with Logan admonishing William for dragging him away on a mission – “40k a day to jerk off alone in the woods playing white hat” – but there’s something coming out of the darkness; it’s Delores, miles from home and traumatised, she faints into the arms of William.

Westworld airs on HBO on Sundays at 9pm in the US, and on Sky Atlantic on Tuesdays at 9pm in the UK. You can also catch up via Sky On demand or via NOWTV.

Want to know more about the mysteries of Westworld? Here’s the best Westworld theories (opens in new tab) and the best Westworld Easter eggs (opens in new tab) so far.

Westworld extra bits

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Easter eggs

We find out that Westworld cost $40k a day to visit, but in the original movie DELOS costs “a thousand bucks a day!” Now that’s some inflation. Westworld is, and also was in the 1970s film, a place for the super-rich and privileged.

When we flashback 30 years ago to when the Host were first being made, we see a scientist tinkering with a set of much more rudimentary skeletal hands, which may well be another nod to the movie’s “you can tell the Hosts by their badly made hands” troupe. 

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Jurassic Park

It strikes me that Dr Ford is very similar in nature to Dr Richard Hammond of Crichton’s Jurassic Park – not the manipulative, but lovable ageing figure of the film, but the hard-nosed, ageing, asshole of the book.

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HBO crossover

The director of this brilliant episode is Neil Marshall – the genius behind some of the best episodes of <a href=”http://www.gamesradar.com/game-of-thrones-season-7/” target=”_blank”>Game of Thrones</a>, such as Blackwater and The Watchers on the Wall.

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Favourite quote

Dr Ford: “What we do here is complicated – for three years we lived here in the park, refining the Hosts before a single guest set foot in the park. Those early years were glorious, no guests no board meetings just pure creation.” 

The Verdict

5

5 out of 5

Westworld

An outstanding hour of television that fills in so many of the details we’re craving and still manages to keep things sprinting along.

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