WESTWORLD - Ep 2, Chestnut - A TV Review

'Westworld' slows down a good deal in its second episode, but still finds a way to stay just as compelling. And that player piano is quickly becoming my favorite character. Don't help that beggar up out of the muck, and let's just get started, ok?

SPOILER WARNING - We'll be dealing with explicit plot points, for sure, so read at your own risk.

If the first episode of 'Westworld' focused on the 'what?' of this particular place, then the second definitely geared more toward the 'why?'.

Oh yes, all of the drama surrounding the prostitute Maeve (Thandie Newton) furthered the mystery of what exactly is going on inside the minds of the hosts. Newton giving the same speech three times over with nearly the same (if not exactly) inflection provides another instance where I have to remind myself "this is an actor...not a robot". She becomes linked to Dolores, after the original passes on the phrase "these violent delights have violent ends", which seems to be some sort of contagion that links them both to Bernard, who may or may not be the creator of this problematic glitch. But aside from this furthering of the main plot, we have three distinct storylines that delve further into why the Westworld theme park exists in the first place.

Take William and Logan (Jimmi Simpson and Ben Barnes, respectively) two newcomers to the series. Logan has been to Westworld before and insists it's a place for William to find out who he truly is. While William is still getting used to everything and treating everyone with relative respect, Logan dispatches violence with the same swiftness and ease as ordering a drink. Sure he's talking about showing us who William is, but at the same time, we're already seeing who he is, and he's the same sort of sadist as the Man in Black. Logan is the target audience for someone like Lee, who creates narratives for the newcomers based on the idea that they're after some tawdry combination of titillation, violence, adventure, and little else.

But William might be more the target audience for Ford, for whom the park signifies something much more cathartic, if not outright therapeutic. Immediately dismissive of Lee's proposed new narrative, Ford hints at an idea far more grandiose and meaningful. During one sequence, Ford walks along in the outskirts of the park and encounters a young boy. It's not too long before it becomes clear that the boy is a host, and that he may actually be a young facsimile of Ford himself*. There are moments of revelation about the boy's domineering father, and a glimpse of a dark black church steeple, but whatever they mean, it's somehow incredibly important to Ford's own personal mission. And seeing Ford interact, for all intents and purposes, with his younger self gives us a stronger idea of Ford's overall mission.

*in that way, it made me think of the scene in Captain America: Civil War where Tony has virtually recreated the past as a way for him to work through his grief. So it begs the question, what is in Ford's past that he feels so strongly compelled to correct that he created this entire world.

And then there is the Man in Black who, we know for sure now, is an actual guest with carte blanche (I at first wondered if he wasn't an intruder of sorts, but no...he's allowed to do anything by the park's staff). He's after information about a still unknown "deeper game" within the park, but if Ford is seeking enlightenment through creation, MiB is seeking it through sheer destruction. During his violent spree to find "the maze" we see him dispatch dozens of hosts with such nonchalance it's as though he's only amusing himself by coming up with newer, more creative ways to kill - one scene has him choosing to use a knife instead of his gun. And while we know his violence is only against androids, when it's revealed that his murder of Maeve and her daughter is the memory that haunts her, it brings up a terrifying existential question. If these androids are indeed developing their own genuine consciousness, does the violence become more real? Do we start to feel sorry for Teddy each time we see him gunned down? Is the Man in Black more evil for causing pain among the entire community of hosts, even though he's never killed a real person? And what, in the end, makes a person real?

These are all important issues and questions to get into, and I've no doubt the series will address them in the future. But the most important thing I've yet to mention about this episode is that that player piano rocked again, this time with an old-timey rendition of Radiohead's "No Surprises". Not since Lyanna Mormont first stink-eyed her way into the hearts of viewers the world 'round has HBO had such a breakout star as that kickass piano. Can inanimate objects win emmys? Because Player Piano needs a supporting actor nod.

I kid, but this was a good episode and it shows that in addition to a mind-bending premise about the nature of consciousness within the hosts, this show can be just as much about the minds of the newcomers and architects as well. At this point, I'm really curious which direction the show will head in the future.

FINAL SCORE - 8/10

'Westworld' airs on HBO Sunday nights at 9/8c.

WESTWORLD - Ep. 1, The Orginal - A TV Review

HBO's new sci-fi opus premiered on Sunday, and we here at PRC can't wait to talk about this freaky-ass marriage of Michael Crichton, JJ Abrams, Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and Bryan Burk. Let's swat some flies and dig in!

Spoiler Warning - Not that there's much to spoil so far, but I'm not exactly going to avoid dealing with explicit plot points, so...read at your own risk. 

I was really tempted to sit here and say "wow! what an original premise! what a unique concept!" but I can't. Not because it's a bad idea or anything like that. But because it's not an original idea. 'Westworld' the series, developed by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, is based in a 43 year old movie that was written and directed by Michael Crichton. Crichton's fingerprints are all over the backbone of this series and you can even see some elements that would eventually evolve into 'Jurassic Park'. So as great, wondrous, and weird as the premiere of this series is, it's even weirder to think that the idea behind it is nearly half a century old. This first episode, titled "The Original", sets up a pretty interesting, if more than a bit complex, idea. 

Hosts "Teddy" and "Dolores"

Sometime in the future, the very wealthy can amuse themselves by entering what amounts to a theme park cum video game. Pay for your stay, and you can visit the Old West, wear a cowboy hat and gunbelt, and interact with the old timey residents. The visitors, called "newcomers" by the residents, interact with pre-programmed androids, called "hosts", in any way they desire. The androids operate off a very sophisticated AI that prompts them to follow a script but also leaves room for improvisation and realistic reactions to the newcomers. Want to spend all your time getting drunk with whores in the saloon? Go ahead. Want to ride up into the hills to chase a bandit? Right this way, sir. Want to go the "straight evil" route, as one newcomer mentions? Well, you can do that, too. In fact, one visitor, an unnamed man dressed all in black and played with a business-like cruelty by Ed Harris, seems to be doing just that. He murders, rapes and scalps, but also seems to be after something real in this unreal world.

As I mentioned, the hosts have scripts they are programmed to follow, until a programming update starts to trigger some mild malfunctions. But for the most part, things run smoothly. Evan Rachel Wood plays "Dolores", a gentle young android lady who divides her time between painting landscapes and doting on her father and boyfriend, "Teddy" (James Marsden). Watching these performances, the thing that popped into my head was the film 'Starman' wherein Jeff Bridges plays an alien inhabiting a human body. The stiff, awkward movements and stilted cadence effectively gave the impression of someone who is entirely unused to the idea of simply existing. Wood, Marsden, and Louis Herthum (who plays "Peter", Dolores' father) all shift from believable yet archetypal western characters to convincingly glitchy androids with such deftness that you forget, for a moment, that they are real people acting. Wood and Herthum have scenes where they deliver dialogue while completely nude and it comes off as unsettling as watching a mannequin suddenly speak. 

Westworld's creator, Ford

Meanwhile, the outside world (think a less aggressive version of the controllers and control room from 'The Hunger Games') is less defined than the Western World. Jeffrey Wright, Sidese Babett Knudsen, and Anthony Hopkins all do a good enough job at establishing the concept and rules of Westworld, but they're also not given much room to shine in the same way the hosts are. Still, it's clear what is going on in their world is going to trickle down and affect both newcomers and hosts adversely.

Visually, this shit is the dopest dope. As gorgeous as anything Chris Nolan and Wally Pfister shot, Jonah Nolan and his cinematographer Paul Cameron make the "west" seem as perfect as it could possibly be, which makes sense. Immersed in the gorgeous orange and pink vistas of southern Utah. the Newcomers are there for fun, not for realism. They'd expect the land to look like a postcard, so give them what they want, right? Everything has to be an archetype, not just the people/hosts living there.

I also want to give a quick shout out to Ramin Djawadi, the busy composer we all know and love from 'Game of Thrones'. Overall, he does a pretty good job, but one piece in particular, an orchestral version of "Paint It Black" done in a sort of Ennio Morricone-y way, elevates an already exciting action sequence to something that is nothing short of masterful. It gave me the same sort of chills Djawadi's work did during Cersei's coup d'etat/coup de grace in the season finale of GoT. Oh, and there's also an old-timey player piano doing a western version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" that tickled me immensely. It was a sort of anachronism that was so sly it nearly got past me, but still gave you the sense that something about this "real" world isn't quite right.

"The Original" is a very well conceived and well executed pilot episode. It does what a good pilot should do - introduces the world (or in this case, the two worlds), establishes the rules, introduces the characters and gives them enough characterization to let us know who they are, and it sets up the conflicts of the season and series to come. Are they reverie glitches just glitches or is something more sinister afoot? What is Ed Harris up to? What is that map underneath the one host's scalp? Are we going to keep getting awesome renditions of popular rock songs?

All I can say is that Nolan and co. did such a great job in this first episode I'm damn sure going to turn in for the rest. And if it's all right with you guys, I'll keep writing about it.

FINAL SCORE - 9/10

Ed Harris is up to some wrong shit

Westworld airs on HBO Sunday nights at 9/8c