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lonesomedreamer · 7 months

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SNW Liveblog: “The Elysian Kingdom”

This episode? Messy af. Spock in a wig? Sexy af.

The scene with M’Benga and Rukiya is precious, as always—though the subtext of it (her desire to change endings and rewrite stories more to her liking) is a little on-the-nose, considering that the writers of SNW are basically rewriting a classic television show to suit their own whims.

If Rukiya is running out of time, in theory all M’Benga has to do is stop materializing her so frequently…assuming that, while her pattern is in the transporter, she’s not conscious/aware. If she IS, that’s an entirely different (and horrifying) can of worms.

The exchange about superstitions between Pike and Spock is nice.

“Drinks are on me.” This is why Pike’s crew seems so undisciplined, imo. We know that Kirk would, and did, drink with his crew. But he wasn’t casually offering to buy them drinks from the captain’s chair.

“You gonna say the thing?” “Hit it.” Thanks, I still hate it.

I miss TOS’s buttons and tactile controls so much. They’re just more visually appealing (and frankly, more practical) than touch screens.

“Perhaps you did, indeed, jinx it.” I love Spock, lmao. (Also, as someone who calls out sports announcers and coworkers for jinxing things regularly…Pike totally jinxed it.)

People falling out of their chairs during turbulence is a real Trek classic!

Great, M’Benga is what, hallucinating?

These kinds of zany episodes on TOS/TNG took place either on a strange planet—like in “Squire of Gothos” or “Shore Leave”—or on the holodeck. Setting this on the Enterprise instead was…well, a choice.

La’an’s princess costume is delightfully ridiculous and sparkly.

It’s kind of a bummer to see that Christina Chong has real acting chops (even if “Princess Thalia” is intentionally way over-the-top), but is denied the chance to do much acting thanks to how flatly her character is written.

Ethan is hot. No notes.

“Maybe I can get us out of here with the help of some powerful magic called science.”

I vastly prefer hammy/possessed Kirk to hammy/possessed Pike. Sorry ’bout it. (Maybe it’s just the actors, or maybe it’s because regular Kirk comes off as so much more sincere than Pike to me?)

Why is Hemmer, an alien with inherent telepathic abilities, immune to whatever’s happening on the Enterprise, whereas Spock, an alien (well, half-alien) with inherent telepathic abilities, succumbed to it? I can hand-wave most plot holes…this one’s just lazy writing, though.

Worth it? Worth it.

I would watch THIS show.

“Truthfully, I should have known it as well…since that’s what he does in the book.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“There’s no such place, my queen, he’s bluffing.”

All those lines were funny and delivered well!

Even though classic tricorders look pretty out-of-place on this redesigned Enterprise, I still love seeing them.

The resolution of the Rukiya subplot reminds me a lot of the end of The Motion Picture.

The moral quandry of it is enormous, way bigger than “storing your daughter’s biological pattern in the transporter to keep her alive,” which raises plenty of ethical questions of its own. M’Benga tells Rukiya that “it’s up to you”—but how can such a young child make such a huge decision: to exist in space as a disembodied consciousness for an infinite amount of time or to wait in stasis for a cure for her human body?! It’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the “willing” sacrifice made by the little boy in Episode 6…not really the comparison you want viewers to be drawing, given how that one ended. Children that age can’t give meaningful consent.

Besides, what does M’Benga know about this entity? How do either of them know that they can trust it? It’s been using the Enterprise as a dollhouse for hours out of boredom/loneliness! What might it do to Rukiya’s energy? And how will becoming said disembodied consciousness impact a nine- or ten-year-old human girl? There are actually a number of great science fiction (horror) stories about this, the premise being that human minds are ill-equipped for that kind of existence. For all M’Benga knows, he could find the cure next week. It was teased in Episode 6. All he needs to do is keep Rukiya safely the transporter—which really shouldn’t be a problem unless she is, in fact, conscious in there. But the writers obviously just wanted to wrap this problematic subplot up and move on.

A grown-up version of Rukiya appears to comfort M’Benga and tell him about her many “adventures,” because it turns out time exists differently for her now even though it’s been ~30 seconds of real time…? It cheapens the scene before and makes me feel belittled as a viewer. I’m okay with feeling uneasy about M’Benga’s choice! I’m not okay with being cajoled into thinking that it was the correct choice. When Kirk let Edith Keeler die, her ghost didn’t reappear to assure him that she understood why he had to! He—and by extension, the audience—just had to live with it.

“She’s safe.” He doesn’t and can’t know that for certain. He let an alien consciousness he neither studied/analyzed nor communicated directly with spirit his daughter away after two minutes of deliberation! Anything could be happening to her out there. Though, to be totally fair, she’s not going to die, so…there’s that?

So yes: this episode is messy. I rewatched it after seeing the ending and reading a lot of reviews/commentary and actually revised this liveblog. It’s not as bad as I initially thought! However, I’ve come to think that the Rukiya subplot itself was a poor choice, one full of troubling implications, dubious decision-making, and questionable ethics. I understand why the writers scrambled to get rid of it. And conveptually, this episode wasn’t even a bad send-off for Rukiya! The execution was just lacking. It could’ve been so much more.

But hey…at least we got La’an’s princess dress, Uhura’s evil queen ensemble, and Spock in that wig.

The Good: Gorgeous costumes—the actress playing Rukiya was a delight; I’ll miss her—Spock in general—some very funny lines/delivery—Christina Chong gets to act!

The Bad: The writing, pacing, set design, and some of the acting was all pretty clumsy—for an episode that turned so heavy, the campy fairy tale stuff was too light and took up too much time. Too much of Ortegas and Pike; not enough of La’an and Spock. (I think there’s too much Ortegas on the show, period. She just doesn’t work for me. No judgment towards other people who may feel differently.) Some truly WTF parenting choices made by M’Benga—huge unresolved questions/plot holes by the end.

But the beauty of SNW returning to Trek’s episodic roots is that it’s a standalone episode. Hoping for better (and more Spockstine!) in the next installment.

#luth liveblogs snw #this one is LONG and rambly so on the off chance anyone even reads these: you’ve been warned

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cagedchoice · 2 years

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alright, i decided that what I'm gonna do is instead of liveblogging and making like a hundred posts that are at risk of getting reblogged totally out of context by other people, i'm gonna make two main posts that cover my thoughts on westworld season 4. one that covers the first 4 episodes, and one sometime after the season finale airs for the remaining 4. bearing in mind that these were written on reaction after seeing each episode for the first time unless otherwise noted, so likely not everything is going to be completely accurate

THE AUGURIES

I’m gonna guess the William we’re seeing with these guys at Hoover Dam is Host William whom we last saw at the end of Season 3 slitting human William’s throat, but even though that was the case I don’t think the real William is dead yet. I know I did the first time I ever saw the s3 finale but I changed my mind later. I really don’t believe Charlotte would let him die that easily. She would want him to suffer.

Upon seeing Christina my immediate thoughts are: WHO ARE YOU BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY WOMAN??? She’s not Dolores but she’s not not Dolores if you know what I’m saying. The parallels are too numerous for her to not be some version of Dolores.

My first thought from the trailers was maybe she was an original human who existed before the park was created, one whom Dolores’s likeness was based on, but I quickly discarded that idea. After seeing the New York City setting, a lot of the things in her world look far more technologically advanced than a lot of the things and designs we saw in season 3 so I’m pretty sure this takes place quite some time in the future.

My best guess is Christina is either reborn from Prime!Dolores’s erased pearl or from one of her other copies last season.

I’m… gonna assume that there is Something up with Maya because the fact that she is currently serving as little more than “perpetually tired roommate whose main purpose in life is to find someone to get Christina laid” just feels…off. Like yeah I know sometimes Westworld’s minor characters DO kinda wind up being no more than props rather than believable characters but that usually has a kind of vibe around it where you can intuit that the writer doesn’t consciously know they’re writing the character that way. Maya feels more like she was intentionally written like this and I’d bet there’s an explanation waiting to be revealed. If not then I’m gonna be giving the Westworld writers some very disapproving looks.

Most of the phones and tablets and display screens looking like nothing more than small glass rectangles makes me irrationally angry. It would be so hard to read anything off that.

I have always felt Maeve wants nothing more than to live a simple, peaceful life where she gets to be truly free, but the thing is, I imagined that as an endgame thing where she has her daughter with her (and maybe Hector but...probably not) and there would be no one threatening to take that away from her ever again. Surprised to learn she’s apparently spent quite a while living alone in her memories.

From the looks of things, she and Caleb destroyed another Rehoboam (An older version? Or just another node of the same one Caleb erased?) but it didn’t end well. Incidentally this is giving me major flashbacks to last season with Caleb’s memory of Francis dying. buuut i’m sure he’s fine.

OOH OKAY I DON’T COMPLETELY TRUST THIS TRANSITION BETWEEN CHARACTERS THEN?? IF YOU JUST GO MMKAY SO CALEB WAS BLEEDING OUT IN MAEVE’S MEMORIES... BUT HE’S FINE NOW LOOK HERE HE IS SEE?? THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE SOMETHING IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE. I’M NOT FALLING FOR THAT AGAIN.

He is…still a construction worker? It seems like Caleb is right back where he started last season… and the world doesn’t look like the post-apocalyptic nightmare everybody thought it would become. It has apparently been 7 years since the fall of Rehoboam.

His coworker Jo thinks they’re actually worse off for having a revolution in the first place. Humans, being humans, means that many probably didn’t see the bigger picture, so they flat out banned robots and artificial intelligence. I feel like that wasn’t Caleb’s idea so he might’ve lost his leadership role or something?? He seems a bit annoyed by this hot take on the war and honestly I don’t blame him.

CALEB HAS A FAMILY NOW OH MY GOD I LOVE AND WOULD GLADLY LAY DOWN MY LIFE TO PROTECT THE NICHOLS FAMILY FORGET WHATEVER I SAID ABOUT NOTHING CHANGING

The only problem is...this doesn’t quite feel…real...

UWADE: “She’s seven, Caleb. Thanks to you, her hobbies are sugar and violence.” Shoutout to my dad’s quality reaction here: “Okay so what you’re saying is, she *has* hobbies.”

Uwade doesn’t really seem to care why Caleb is so stuck in the past which is a little disappointing. Well, I think she cares as in, she clearly wants him to be happy and at peace and it hurts to see that he’s not, but she really gets on him about the war being over and saying he needs to move on and act like a real father and it just feels like she is a touch hasty to brush off Caleb’s PTSD as little more than an annoying habit.

Obviously it’s NOT good that his fears are rubbing off on Frankie’s world of innocence but... he already knows he needs to move on. I think what he doesn’t know is *how* to move on. Because half Caleb’s entire life has been trauma on top of trauma and people telling him “you need to move on” and then never actually helping him move on because he wasn’t meant to be able to.

I'm sure Caleb would’ve absolutely chosen to go with Maeve no matter what the real reason was, but I’d like to think that in addition to this being the only way he feels he can protect Uwade and Frankie, he also wants to protect Maeve. While he knows injury and death aren’t as big a threat to the hosts as they are to him, he knows that they aren’t completely invulnerable or immortal. And Maeve is a friend. Caleb historically hasn't had a lot of friends, but the ones he has made are people he values very highly.

I relate to Christina on a personal level because I too am a writer who spends most of my time writing background characters in genres where very few people really put a lot of stock in them.

Ramin Djwadi’s arrangement of Video Games is one of the prettiest, most mesmerizing and heartbreaking pieces of music I’ve heard. Everything about the cinematography and editing in this scene just cinches it too. Christina’s pitch, Frankie practicing her aim and remembering her dad isn’t there to see her hit the target, Teddy stepping out in the dark and looking up at Christina and the camera panning around him as the music swells. “I want a story with a happy ending.” ;-; ;-;

WELL ENOUGH ALONE

Clementine was really just out there living her best life in a sunny yellow dress at a quaint lil marketplace in mexico and I loved that for her. She looked so happy! So free! I’m sorry Host William had to go and ruin that for her :(

Caleb and Maeve are giving off such a buddy comedy vibe during this car scene. I love that as of this we have no real idea how they became such good friends since we didn’t really get to see any of the war but we just get to roll with it. They’re besties

I love the aesthetic of this horse barn but all I really remember is seeing the behind the scenes footage where the creative team said it was an interesting conversation because they were like “okay, we’re gonna have some dead horses here” to the rangers and I can only imagine that if you say something like this on the set of Westworld it will be perceived not as a threat, but a promise.

I love the way Clementine turns away the justice department guy when she gets brought back as Hale and William’s minion. He might be one of the more powerful guys in the country, but he still can’t get through Delos security to speak to their CEO without an appointment.

I need this vice president guy to cool it with all the idioms. Humanity has evolved past the need for idioms.

“I don’t think that language would play very well with your base. I’m what you’d call ‘neurodivergent’.” I…well…I guess that’s one way you could put it.

I swear to god, this scene in the speakeasy sounded like Caleb was implying he and Maeve had sex at the lighthouse.

But the thing is, shortly after watching this episode, I stumbled on a couple of reviews that claim there is no romantic or sexual aspect to this partnership in the slightest. They say Maeve and Caleb work well together because they share similar traits and their dedication to their respective daughters is the same and they respect each other as equals.

So unfortunately those same reviews also claim that in s3 Dolores’s only interest in Caleb was to manipulate him into joining her cause and pretending to be someone she wasn’t around him. And that is a popular take I strongly disagree with so like. I don’t really want to believe it because that’s not how I saw that at all.

It is weird though because I am generally someone who doesn't pick up subtle romantic or sexual hints as in, I will not see it at all unless I'm told, very obviously, that it exists. Like. not to get all personal but one time, a guy I knew in high school randomly started messaging me out of the blue. I think any normal person would've gone "he wants something" whereas I was like "oh, a friend!" and I only figured it out like 2 weeks later he was trying to sext and then manipulate me into becoming his girlfriend.

Anyway, moving on. My other theory is that after Caleb got shot, Maeve felt partly responsible for his near-death experience and sent herself into exile because she thought it would be safer that way. Caleb maybe felt like Maeve had abandoned him solely because the war was over and he wasn’t useful anymore and maybe that’s why he looks so hurt when she kind of shrugs off his question as “we got on with our lives.”

It actually feels pretty on-brand for Caleb that talking about almost dying and trying to put the past behind him but never really being able to do so might actually be a much more awkward conversation to have than a conversation about having sex would be. Or so one would think.

I wish I had more to say about Christina honestly but I simply do not have a clue what is going on in her world. Everyone seems awfully nonchalant and dismissive about the fact that she witnessed a suicide. Almost like it was expected, in a way?

Remember what I said previously, about believing Hale wouldn't just let William die so easily? I feel pretty satisfied because that's exactly how that worked out. She put him in cryosleep and it looks like she just wakes him up periodically to gloat.

ANNÉES FOLLES

For the Sublime being presented as a kind of host heaven I have to say Bernard’s journey into the worlds of his choosing didn't look like a particularly pleasant experience if he got stuck looping through his memories. Poor Bernard.

Then again, maybe it never would be pleasant for any sort of human consciousness and since Bernard is partially a red pearl maybe that’s why his interpretations are weird. Maybe host consciousness is fundamentally different because their minds don’t feel bound to death of the physical body as a permanent end the way human minds do.

What I really want to know is exactly how Stubbs managed to fix himself up. Last time we saw him he was bleeding out in a bathtub full of ice and didn’t look like he was in any sort of condition to move. I know he wasn’t gonna stay there for like 30 years or however long it has been since we last saw the boys but still. It would be nice to know what happened.

I am living for all of the Caleb & Maeve in The Golden Age parallels to William & Logan in Westworld. All of the subversions as well.

Caleb: about to pick up the can Maeve, who was thoroughly done with this park’s shit before they even got off the train: “Do *not* pick that up.”

GSKALJLHD okay yeah I felt like it was unlikely we would see ERW playing Dolores in this 1920s world considering it is all an elaborate trap. But knockoff Dolores and Teddy look fun.

The way Maeve refers to the guests and human Delos employees as “They” while talking to Caleb... (“Oh, they spare no expense on their prisons.” / “They’ve made a few changes, but the story’s the same.”) … I thought it was suggesting that he might not be human after all. But in this context it seems to be because Maeve respects Caleb and she wants to give him the dignity of not being associated with these rich folks.

I am absolutely dying at this woman who talks about finding a deeper level of the game. I think her name is Deborah?? I love Deborah

Also dying at Bernard knowing everything that has to happen in a very specific sequence of events and Stubbs just being like What. the fuck. are you talking about buddy. Triple dying at Stubbs casually enjoying a tuna melt and listening to Blondie while Bernard is kicking ass outside bc that’s a mood.

I’m betting Frankie’s HAM radio setup belongs to Caleb and what I find interesting is that none of it looks very modern in the context of Westworld’s universe. I may once again be reading too much into nothing but this could be a result of Caleb’s “paranoia” in that he did not want to be subject to police-state level surveillance again and maybe using older radios would have been the only way to make sure there were no wiretaps built in while still providing a reliable way of staying in contact during an emergency?? Or something like that

We saw Maeve attempting to use her powers to tune a radio to what appeared to be a specific frequency in 4.01 right before she accidentally caused a region-wide power outage. Going off the context that she was remembering an unseen mission with Caleb at a lighthouse, I wonder if she was trying to make contact with him.

Aurora Perrineau’s character also appears to have a HAM radio mounted on the dashboard of her vehicle. This may be a serious reach on my behalf but, might she be a grown-up version of Frankie? The way her scenes are sandwiched between Maeve & Caleb’s adventure and Frankie’s struggle seems like it could be suggesting she’s Frankie in the future and the condemned lands her organizations hides out in could be where the 20s park used to be.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard more distinct “something bad is about to happen to this guy” words than when Carver told Frankie he was gonna teach Bear Bear some self defense and then walked off alone toward the house. Admittedly I completely missed it on my first watch because I had to turn my back to the TV for like 15 seconds to grab something from the kitchen. When I got back, my dad, who was only half paying attention because he also got distracted by something, told me “there’s something wrong with Bear Bear, the guy got him dirty or something and the kid was looking at him like something’s not right.” He didn’t tell me the dirt looked like blood, so I was like “oh...maybe they put a tracking device or nanny cam in Bear Bear in case Frankie tries to run away?” It would’ve been much easier to figure out if I had actually heard Carver say his dead man words and then seen the obvious BLOOD smeared on the bear 2 minutes later

LMAO THE WAY THEY TURNED THE FIRST UNDERGROUND LEVEL INTO PART OF THE GAME. I would love to know why Hale signed off on this

CALEB: Dolores? MAEVE: I believe she was going by “Wyatt” in this phase. I saw somebody ask how Caleb would know this at all. I have no idea but I’m choosing to believe that he simply has not forgotten what Dolores’s murder strut looks like.

Actually wait, it doesn’t surprise me that Hale would include a level where the massacre is part of the game. This park itself is a trap, so why not lure the humans further into it by letting them think the hosts are rebelling against them? Even though in reality it’s all part of the plan and they’re not actually saving anyone.

Wait, wait wait wait but…if Frankie and Uwade didn’t get captured by Hale, how was she able to make a host that looks like Frankie? Where did she get that data from?

Okay so, I have always believed that Caleb is human, even in the face of certain other fans belittling me and telling me season 3 “obviously” takes place in Futureworld or in the Sublime or it’s all on a different simulation in Rehoboam’s mind or whatever other unreality could be conjured up. And…idk like. They’re allowed to believe what they want to believe, and I’m allowed to believe what I want to believe. I just personally never really liked the idea that Caleb was secretly a host for all of last season when it felt like the whole purpose of Incite controlling everything was trying to show that our world had been subjected to a lot of the same practices as Delos’s hosts were. Anyway, I know they can’t see me here but who’s laughing now bitch?

Actually, it’s not me, I’m very distraught… but… at least now we know he’s human.

GENERATION LOSS

Like I said about episode 2, when Maeve said she wanted to show Caleb what freedom looks like while he was bleeding out on the beach with a gunshot wound to the torso… I thought that was going in a totally different direction than the one it took.

Speaking of the direction it took, though, Maeve’s freedom is being with her daughter and living a simple, peaceful existence together and I think that is just beautiful.

This isn’t a Westworld-specific gripe, more so a TV/movie magic trend in general but. If you are in a situation where a ton of glass shatters into a million pieces and then you can see hundreds of little crystallized chunks of tempered glass on the ground and you have not been impaled by any of it, you are probably not going to find a long, clear shard of razor sharp plate glass in the mix. I know, blah blah blah, I’m watching a dark science-fiction TV show about androids and I don’t expect it to be 100% realistic. I’m just saying.

I have complicated feelings about Teddy and let me just say that they are not being helped by me still having almost zero clue what is going on in Christina's world. Is this the Sublime? Is this a world of Teddy's choosing?? We just don't know.

I’m not sure I understand what Maeve was saying about facing human mortality. Hasn’t she already seen how delicate human lives are? Or is this different because Caleb was in a coma and Maeve has specifically never seen that before?

I find myself a little confused as to how the lethality of wounds works for hosts who are no longer bound to the parks or have built up a certain tolerance level. Maeve was shot multiple times in the season 3 finale and shrugged it off like it was nothing. But she got shot once in the shoulder last episode and it temporarily took her down although she recovered pretty quickly. Fighting the Host in Black, she gets thrown to the ground and it clearly hurts her considerably, as she limps away afterward to try and rescue Caleb. In this episode, she takes a shotgun blast to the heart and it almost completely incapacitates her. Right after that she gets stabbed with a knife which HiB seems pretty confident is something that will kill her. So now… I have questions.

Ah, so C is Frankie all grown up! I got at least 2 predictions right for this episode. I'm calling that a hot streak!

Alright, remember how I said last episode I was relieved to find out Caleb was still a human? I’m actually perfectly okay with him dying and being brought back as a host at this point, if that is indeed what is happening. My first idea was that he’s still alive and Hale is just fucking with his mind by making him believe he died and she turned him into a host, but…After Caleb realizes where he really is and what Hale is doing, he develops a slight stutter in some of his dialogue and movement tics that are really similar to what we saw in the James Delos fidelity trials, albeit less severe. And I feel like he wouldn’t have that if he was still a human.

So for now I think I’m gonna work off the assumption that Hale isn’t lying. Might be a mistake to do so, I guess we’ll find out!

If this really IS the case, I still wonder what exactly she wants with Caleb? She started out her plan by trying to kill him. Then she appeared to switch to trying to capture him alive instead, turning him into her pet. But then she ordered other infected guests to attack and he got stabbed by one of them, and then later on her men gunned him down without a second thought. And then after all that she brought him back so… What does she want with him? Does she still need him for something? Is she just tormenting him for sport?

#* i'm an underachiever / ooc.#\W/ spoilers #westworld spoilers #long post #i guess meta tag too??#* big data compiles information on everybody / meta.#okay to reblog #why you would want to is beyond me but. this post? is fair game #even if i forgot to put the okay tag on it oops

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