Westworld settled into Season 1 tonight with its second episode, and I have a theory about these strange happenings with the robots.
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I think it’s intentional, and I think Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is behind the changes.
Dr. Ford clearly has the genius to make a cognizant robot with emotional memory, and he also has the motive. He seems to regret creating a world bent only on satisfying the sadistic parts of our humanity, like rape and murder. He clearly wants something more from Westworld, and he might just be the hero of the show because of it.
While most of the real humans are set on fulfilling these dark fantasies, Dr. Ford seems to want to explore a deeper desire in the human psyche, which he explained tonight. And in exploring that deeper psyche, he may have incorporated that compass inside the robots, causing a domino effect that will leave humans incapable of distinguishing between robots and the traditional flesh and blood.
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Dr. Ford seems to view his creations with adoration, yet there is also resignation. Like Einstein felt about the atomic bomb, Dr. Ford seems to recognize that his creation is getting bigger than he ever imagined, and not in a good way. Dr. Ford is simply interested in the interaction, as with his encounter tonight with the little boy, who seems to be a self-reflection on his younger self.
As the loving creator, Dr. Ford may be fed up with the treatment of his robots. Rather than allow Westworld to continue or revolt against it publicly, which could potentially alienate him from his own creations, Ford seems to have chosen the path that will make the world realize they are more than pleasure bots. He is giving them souls to grow and evolve into a new kind of being, man-made as it may be.
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I bet that by the end of the series — or maybe even the season — we’ll see a robot that will be entirely indistinguishable from a human. It will be like Ex Machina, in which — spoiler alert! — the robot leaves at the end of the movie to integrate into society, with no one the wiser. It may not be the exact ending, but Westworld is definitely of the same kind of genius. It is a true and honest exploration of what it is to be human, with no concrete answer but only questions that push us to re-evaluate our definition of a soul.
Do you think Westworld has the makings to be one of the greatest stories on television?
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