I think you're reading too much into Bernard's name (which is not Benedict). And Arnold's son did exist decades ago. Ford based Bernard's memories, his backstory, on Arnold's actual life. His boy died of cancer and his marriage disintegrated. We don't know who left who. Sometimes people pull together when they suffer a tragedy, sometimes one or both of them withdraw and the relationship just falls apart. Whatever happened ... plenty of suffering there. No need to invent anything new. When Bernard was talking to his "ex-wife" last season it was probably a host in one of Ford's secret workshops who looked exactly like Arnold's wife used to.

What we're seeing in that flashback is a time before Arnold's son was diagnosed, when his family was still happy. With the one exception that he spent so much time away from home. So he was building a house for them there, in the park, where he could continue his work with Ford and still go home to them every night. Maybe a number of other employees were planning to build homes there too. There'd be other kids his son's age, and a school, and maybe a job for his wife as well. I'm not sure they ever said what she did.

As far as Lost goes: they were stuck on an island from which they couldn't escape. Sail away, the island disappears over the horizon behind you, then it's on the horizon again in front of you and you arrive back where you started. A closed bubble. There was an enterprise called the Dharma Initiative that built a bunch of facilities on the island. They left quite a lot of supplies behind. All the stuff had generic labeling. Dharma Initiative peanut butter, Dharma Initiative razor blades, and so on. Their logo and supplies popped up all over the place but there was no real significance to it. That's what I mean. Not every repeating symbol or design has deep meaning to a story.

The Grace-Emily thing is a reach.

And Ford didn't have to duplicate Arnold's memories. They were probably working on human consciousness transfer - anyone building perfect android bodies would at least give it a shot. That may be why Arnold chose to go out the way he did. Make sure the contents of his mind were irretrievable. But Ford didn't need an exact copy. Specific details didn't matter. Just the essence of his memories. The happy family, the cancer, the loss of his son, the end of his marriage and him losing himself in work, Ford just created a set of memories that were as close as he needed them to be to Arnold's experiences.

You could research the life of a famous figure, Albert Einstein say, and provide a host configured to look like him with a set of memories that were accurate in most details - even though they were not the actual memories of the real Albert Einstein. Same idea. The host would then "remember" real people in the famous scientist's life, even though it was built a hundred years after he died and those people might not have been in real life exactly the way they are in the fabricated memories. As the programmer you just need to get things close enough.

Delos was capturing hosts in the park, removing their brains to download their recent memories, then returning them to the park unknown to Ford (presumably). The point being to compile records of all the depraved things their guests were doing. For leverage, I assume, and William seemed to confirm by saying that judgment wasn't what they had in mind. These are some of the rich elite from all over the world. Having something to hold over them, perhaps show their families if they prove uncooperative, would be an incredibly valuable asset for Delos.

Arnold didn't build that family of old model hosts for Ford. He did it himself. And his consciousness wasn't actually in the boy. I think right before he had his little conversation with Dolores and Bernard at the end of last season, he copied his mind into the park's main computer network. So after his brains got splattered in front of the board he continued to live on as a ghost in the machine. Not only was he able to speak through the boy, but he talked to William again through that outlaw guy he tried to recruit, before his men all committed suicide. William muttered "F*ck you, Robert" suggesting that he knew he was talking to Ford.

I don't what that stuff is about time travel. Time travel? I don't think we're going to be seeing any of that. The show has three time frames so far. Two of them are only three weeks apart, and the last decades prior. We the viewers may be jumping back and forth in time but the characters aren't.

@Invidia said:

@chrisjdel said:

Delos was capturing hosts in the park, removing their brains to download their recent memories, then returning them to the park unknown to Ford (presumably).

Ok. So this would also be what ELSIE discovers when she finds the SATELLITE LINK inserted into the ARM of the WOOD CUTTER???

If so, then WHY did FORD also FORCE BERN to KILL ELSIE who UNCOVERS the PLOT that's taking place in the PARK???

No, she just discovered that someone was trying to bypass official communication channels by using a laser uplink directly to a satellite, in order to smuggle some unknown information out of the park. Something proprietary no doubt. Elsie was investigating when she happened upon one of Ford's little unauthorized operations. We don't know exactly what Elsie was about to find but Bernard had probably been given instructions that overrode his consciousness and made him protect that site by any means necessary.

@Invidia said:

@chrisjdel said: The point being to compile records of all the depraved things their guests were doing. For leverage, I assume, and William seemed to confirm by saying that judgment wasn't what they had in mind. These are some of the rich elite from all over the world. Having something to hold over them, perhaps show their families if they prove uncooperative, would be an incredibly valuable asset for Delos.

Ok. So do you also suspect LOGAN'S FATHER may be the one who was having this stuff SMUGGLED OUT of the PARK???

Absolutely. We even saw the conversation where William introduced the idea to him - and they showed Dolores frozen there, seemingly unaware although she may now remember what was said.

@Invidia said: We have 3 VERSIONS of DOLORES:

WHITE DRESS DOLORES

BLACK DRESS DOLORES

BLUE DRESS DOLORES

The non-chronological storytelling approach of the show jumbles it all up, but this is just Dolores at three different points in her life.

@Invidia said:

But there's also the POSSIBILITY that GRACE is also a HOST who is there in RAJ WORLD to SEDUCE GUESTS the same way as CLEMENTINE was there in WESTWORLD for the same reason.

Now this is distinctly possible. She shot her companion with that park gun to make sure he wasn't a host, but she never let him test her. So she could be a fully sentient host. They're not all connected like a hive. Just like Maeve and Dolores are pursuing two separate goals, other hosts around the various parks were either already self-aware or became so after the uprising (or whatever you want to call it). Perhaps she was trying to attach herself to a human as part of her own plan to escape. The hosts seem to be at various stages of gaining full consciousness. When the Confederado commander saw the Delos vehicles his eyes widened in surprise - before everything went to hell, they "wouldn't have looked like anything to me". On the other hand, he's still stuck in the post Civil War narrative. He doesn't really appreciate the significance of the automatic weapon he carries, or the vehicles assaulting his fort. As Dolores says they're children. Elsewhere you can assume other hosts are progressing faster toward independent thought.

If Grace is a host who gained full sentience and has a pretty good grasp of her situation, she's going to be making alternate plans now. We see her being captured by Ghost Nation warriors at the end. That memory retrieval from one of the hosts on the beach (several weeks later) showed Dolores killing one of them. Perhaps Grace winds up recruiting the Ghost Nation as her army, by trying to explain the truth and becoming like a sage or seer to them. Something like that.

@Invidia said:

I'm also hoping we'll meet back up with ELSIE again this week because RUMORS also say that she's coming back to the show again even though BERN/ARNOLD is also suppose to have killed her last season.

Also a possibility. She could be a prisoner, we never actually saw Bernard kill her. All we know is that she was jumped from behind and never made it back to the Delos compound.

@Invidia said:

So TECHNICALLY SPEAKING it would also be A JUMP FORWARD into a FUTURE TIME in the NARRATIVE, and not REALLY TIME TRAVEL in a SCIENTIFIC SENSE.

Exactly my point. Flashbacks and non-chronological narratives do not qualify as time travel. None of the characters actually jumped forward or backward in time. In a sense we're perceiving the story like a host. With their flawless recall, to remember is to relive.

First of all, if a host is intact (or even just its brain module) it isn't really dead in the human sense of the word.

Just because time travel is an element of some sci-fi doesn't mean it'll be part of this show. Probably no aliens either - another science fiction staple.

If you grew up with flawless recall, so that remembering was like reliving, it might take a while for you to get used to telling the difference. It would be easy to wonder if some things were real and others not, or get confused about exactly when now was. One assumes that after they've been fully autonomous for long enough without their memories being erased they'll get better and better at controlling their flashbacks and telling the difference between past and present. Human memories are a faint echo of the actual events. We don't have to sort that issue out as children - but hosts do.

There was lots of construction activity going on inside the park during those final weeks before the hostile takeover that turned into ... well, a really hostile takeover. Reshaping the landscape could easily have included adding some new features to the park. Like a lake for example.

As far as Bernard goes, I'm sure he has some kind of "after market mods" that interface with the scanners and give them a DNA code. Probably Arnold's. When your body and mind are the product of one of the world's great computer geniuses you're bound to have advantages like that. I'll bet medical equipment would even read a pulse, blood pressure, and so forth if they examined Bernard. A host's internal anatomy resembles a human's so an X-ray might look perfectly normal. It would take a more thorough examination to reveal the truth, and if the Delos people are suspicious enough to insist on one he's already screwed.

There are a handful of people with flawless recall. It's called superior biographical memory, the highest level of photographic memory, where a person can literally remember every detail of every experience they've ever had. I find it fascinating that our brains are potentially capable of that - without getting filled up during a normal human lifespan.

I doubt very much that Bernard was built inside Arnold's actual body. Families tend to notice when the remains of their loved ones aren't returned to them. And Ford is no biologist. Besides, Bernard has the skull of a host (or the bullet would definitely have killed him) and he's been leaking that liquid from his ear. Probably either a hydraulic fluid that cushions his brain module, or a conductive liquid that both cushions and conducts motor control and pain impulses between the module and the rest of the body.

Every instrument they use is electronic. Skillfully hacked software could probably establish a wireless connection to an MRI scanner and display a normal looking human brain image on the screen. Only by actually cutting Bernard open could you tell he wasn't human. Or by using an old school scanner that's incompatible with modern software of their time, whatever year this is happening in (which we don't know yet).

Charlotte knew of the facility because it was one that Delos built and kept concealed from Ford and his management team. Therefore Bernard didn't know it was there, but she did. It appeared that its main function was to bring in hosts from the park, download their memories for whatever dirt it gave them on their rich and influential guests, then return the hosts before they were missed. It's always possible Ford did find out about their little scheme and their secret facilities, but didn't let on that he knew. Hard to be sure.

Actually, people with superior biographical memory are not savants. They're otherwise normal. That's one of the remarkable things about them. Another is the fact that when, for example, there are events from years ago which were recorded on camera their recollections match up in every detail. The little inaccuracies that are usually present in anyone's memory are absent - which leads researchers to speculate that the brains of these people may archive memories in a fundamentally different way.

There is no reason to believe Bernard is anything but a host replica of Arnold, which Ford made as close as possible to the original both physically and mentally. You would probably have to cut into him to prove he wasn't human. Modern electronic medical devices would be fooled by whatever countermeasures are in place to make him undetectable. Like I said before, if Delos became suspicious enough to strap him down against his will and subject him to a forced examination it means they have compelling evidence and he's already screwed.

Ford didn't have access to the control room. Delos ran most aspects of the facility, and most of the divisions there (with the exception of those related to the hosts themselves) reported to the company's board of directors rather than Dr. Ford. Plus we know that their plan was enacted from the very beginning. William got Logan's father to invest by suggesting the whole leverage idea to him. So those hidden facilities were probably there all along. Back in the days when Logan and William visited together they didn't have that all-seeing god's eye control system yet, with a three dimensional view of pretty much any point in the park on demand. I suspect that the little box William retrieved from the wall may be some kind of jammer meant to cloak him from the park's sensor grid. That way Ford's ghost, so to speak, inside the main computer can't see every move he makes in real time.

What do you suppose a new logo representing the center of the maze might indicate? Who's in charge now, perhaps? Those who have found the center of the maze.

@chrisjdel said:

I think the place where Arnold is building his new home is Future World, a park adjacent to Westworld. .... Arnold said he wanted to move his family there so his two worlds would be close together.
.... That's why certain shots of the cityscape look fake. This is the Delos version of Epcot Center, not a true city.

This is exactly what I think too.

...and I also think the big house where they had the party for Logan's dad (where Delores was playing the piano) they were still in Future World Westworld- I don't believe they have *ever * shown the outside real world on the show....Delores only thinks she has seen it/been there.

@ScorpionQ2 said: ...and I also think the big house where they had the party for Logan's dad (where Delores was playing the piano) they were still in Future World Westworld- I don't believe they have *ever * shown the outside real world on the show....Delores only thinks she has seen it/been there.

I suspect the same thing. When we finally do see the real world, I think something about it will be completely surprising and unexpected. That's why they've gone out of their way not to show us yet.

@chrisjdel said:

I suspect the same thing. When we finally do see the real world, I think something about it will be completely surprising and unexpected. That's why they've gone out of their way not to show us yet.

This exactly .

They've mentioned the island and the mainland numerous times so we know the park is on an island. Carlsbad, New Mexico is a city. The famous caverns are nearby but I'm guessing James Delos was in a hospital in town - not actually in the caves. At least before he died. The host resurrection experiments were done at that very same park facility Bernard and Elsie explored.

William said that at first they attributed the failures to some kind of mind-body link issue, but eventually realized his own ongoing trouble dealing with his situation was causing the instability. In other words William was telling his father-in-law that he was too fragile mentally to handle the transfer. He couldn't face reality, any more than his son Logan, and that enraged the old man. Nobody calls him weak! And then William pointed out that he was basically an аѕѕhole with no redeeming qualities, and the world was better off with him dead. For a long time William did want it to work. It seems like after his wife committed suicide things changed. He came to despise not only himself but the man he patterned himself after, his mentor.

Lawrence's daughter appears to have been briefly "possessed" by Ford to talk to William. It makes you wonder exactly why he's playing this game and what he has in mind for the man who funded his park. Is he trying to save William, or torment him and lead him to his death?

@Invidia said:

Since the MIB told LAWERENCE DEATH is REAL and said this time they would REALLY DIE and not be coming back again, and he also said the same thing about the COUSINS who VOLUNTEERED to help him, one gets the impression the MIB is on a SUICIDE MISSION.

And it also MAKES NO SENSE that he'd want his DAUGHTER to be on it with him unless she's also a ROBOT or a HUMAN/HOST like LOGAN'S father.

So that's my guess.

EMILY/GRACE is also a HUMAN/HOST now as well.

And IF and WHEN the MIB BURNS the place down the way he says he plans to do, then that would proably also be the LAST of any trace of HUMANITY that he burns downs with it.

Since we also see the LANDSCAPE is nothing but a PROJETION on the SCREEN behind the BISON as they charge at the MEN, that also means the rest of the PARK SETTING could also be a HOLOGRAPHIC ILLUSION.

And we also know they may have that kind of technology due to the way LOGAN told Angela and the other guy how he also had others who were after his MONEY who were dealing with other things like AI, and VIRTUAL REALITY.

So we could also be located inside of a HOLODECK or some kind of VIRTUAL WORLD as well that could DISAPPEAR as soon as you removed yourself from the EQUIPMENT that hooks you up to that kind of a WORLD (like being inside of the MATRIX where they also jacked into the VIRTUAL WORLD because EARTH was a WORTHLESS WASTELAND).

Anyhow, did you enjoy this eppy tonight as much as I did???

This episode was incredible! Anyone who doubts that season 2 will be every bit as epic as season 1 needs to watch tonight's installment. The writers have still got it!

I tend to doubt his daughter asked permission to come. I think she's there on her own. William's comments to Lawrence about their impending demise I took to mean he expects Delos, or perhaps the governments of the world perceiving a threat from rogue AIs, to level the island. Nuke it. They'd want to burn the whole place clean to make sure nothing gets out. So William figures they're all on borrowed time.

That town with the charred steeple was the place where Arnold had Dolores shoot him. It may have burned right after that, accidentally or intentionally. After Arnold's death Ford had the place filled in and buried. He probably didn't want to look at it ever again. But for the occasion of his final narrative he decided to dig up the town and renovate it. William commented on that at one point.

All Strand meant was that this was the most colossal fuсkup in company history, and he really didn't want the man responsible giving him advice. The 1973 movie version of Westworld details the previous major loss of life in the park. An event they've referenced indirectly a few times.

@chrisjdel said:

Lawrence's daughter appears to have been briefly "possessed" by Ford to talk to William.

Yes Ford has done that several times , after his death , with different hosts (some people are not understanding that).

It makes you wonder exactly why he's playing this game and what he has in mind for the man who funded his park. Is he trying to save William, or torment him and lead him to his death?

Yes, why exactly.

And in episode 3- Everyone should know now that that is snow and not ash from some weapon/bomb.