Westworld: Les Écorchés

June 4, 2018 6:44 AM - Season 2, Episode 7

Bernard meets with an unexpected old friend; The Cradle is under threat; Maeve encounters a scene from her past.
posted by DirtyOldTown (68 comments total)

OK, The Man In Black has to be a host. He has been shot so many times.

I'm looking forward to next week's Ghost Nation episode - they seem like the most evolved demographic in the park.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:29 AM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

So, I am guessing that at least one of the Bernard timelines we've been seeing is actually a contemporaneous set of events but with a different instantiation of Bernard.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:02 AM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

And yes, more Ghost Nation, please. Something different is going on with them, and I want to know what their deal is.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:03 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Huh, so one episode after it's properly introduced, the cradle's gone. I guess that's good, since the storytellers will be less tempted to start with the "is this real or the cradle?" Dickishness, though they can still do it in flashback if they want I suppose (and already have a little).

The rules on human copies surviving in the real world seem a bit arbitrary; Ford's ok so long as he's just playing the God role in Bernard's bicameral mind?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:09 AM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

OK, The Man In Black has to be a host. He has been shot so many times.

If he isn't one now, he might have to become one in order to survive. I still think Ford is going to dangle that in front of William as a final temptation, albeit a tainted one given his first-hand knowledge of what happened with all 100+ iterations of Jim Delos.

Ford's ok so long as he's just playing the God role in Bernard's bicameral mind?

I think it comes down to his consciousness existing as an emulated process rather than being subject to whatever physical limitations exist for hosts in real space. Like there's some kind of external, unaccounted-for force in reality that leads to the degradation of a copied consciousness that just doesn't exist in the Cradle construct, or whatever virtual machine Ford's running on in Bernard's head.

It occurs to me that Ford is taking a real gamble on using Bernard as a vehicle for his consciousness, although he probably knew that the awakened hosts would destroy the Cradle and decided to take a calculated risk.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:25 AM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

It occurs to me that Ford is taking a real gamble on using Bernard

Maybe. They can always uncover another secret bunker or whatever with a backup Ford.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:40 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

It looked like at least some of the Bernard spares were damaged. Maybe they're just previous iterations kept hidden to avoid giving away the secret.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:42 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Not sure about damaged, but one was old mechanical tech with the face partly opened up, I think.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:06 AM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ford inside of Bernard reminds me of Bob inside of Leland from Twin Peaks.

I wonder if part of Bernard's issues in the re-re-taking of the Mesa timeline (that began with Bernard on the beach) is that he is either fighting or dealing with the breakdown of his walk-in, Ford.
posted by sleeping bear at 9:28 AM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I stumbled on a decent nickname for new Teddy on an AV Club thread: the Teddinator.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:57 AM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Ford inside of Bernard reminds me of Bob inside of Leland from Twin Peaks.

I also wonder if having Hopkins appear in the window reflection (as though he was merely standing behind it) was an intentional visual callback to Silence of the Lambs.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:15 AM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

It looked like at least some of the Bernard spares were damaged. Maybe they're just previous iterations kept hidden to avoid giving away the secret.

Prior iterations - one of the Bernardroids had the mechanical-section face opened like the first gen hosts. Something tells me that the home leave trips that Elsie remembers Bernard taking were likely maintenance and upgrade windows.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:19 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

One thing I don't think they've shown is hosts switching bodies. They always are put back in a lookalike body. There doesn't seem to be a reason to prevent it, yet I don't recall seeing it or an explanation why (of course, it makes it easier for the audience to know who is who. Altered Carbon managed to do it, though).
posted by ShooBoo at 10:34 AM on June 4, 2018

Or as we see through Maeve last season, their bodies are repaired unless they are completely demolished and rebuilt, like Maeve and Hector after the fire. We haven’t seen multiple copies of a host just waiting in storage before tonight. Which makes me wonder if host copies and human “red pearl” uploads operate differently since William destroys James Delos’s body, rather than uploading a new version, every time he starts to break down. I had thought he immolated the test room just to be a dick and because he had plenty of money to rebuild everything in the test chamber, but maybe he had other reasons. Or maybe it just looked cool and this is just another thing I’m overthinking.
posted by bibliowench at 10:53 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

OK, The Man In Black has to be a host. He has been shot so many times.


I think a lot of clues tonight pointed support this theory:
- Ford thinks that Delos’s immorality project is doomed to fail
- But he was able to create a host version of Arnold because Dolores had so many interactions with him. He’s not replicating Arnold but creating something new that is based on him
- Bernard realized that the hosts are on loops so they can see be the constants to measure the guests’ responses and get a good idea of their “true selves”
- So instead of Delos’s goal of uploading a copy of their consciousness into an immortal robot body, Ford wants to be able to create hosts based on, but not copies of, the originals
- This may be the Delos corporation’s goal as well since the implications are pretty damn nefarious
- William has been coming to the park so repeatedly over the years that Ford probably has a lot of data to create a reasonable facsimile of him
- William’s survival after he had an entire line of hosts marching straight at him at the end of the first season seems improbable
- Young Ford boybot tells William his new game is to find a door instead of a maze
- Ford tells Bernard that he wants to “open the door” so the hosts won’t be destroyed by humans

Also, his conversation with Emily last week about the elephants in Rajworld could be some sort of failed fidelity test, or at least an indication that park William is not the same as real William. Or he could just be a crap dad, and again, I’m overthinking things.
posted by bibliowench at 11:26 AM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

rhamphorhynchus: Huh, so one episode after it's properly introduced, the cradle's gone.

But is it? Until someone goes into the blackened remains and finds nothing, I'm not certain it's gone gone. Hale might be able to salvage something there, to regain control of some hosts, or just harvest them for guest data.


rmd1023: So, I am guessing that at least one of the Bernard timelines we've been seeing is actually a contemporaneous set of events but with a different instantiation of Bernard.

rhamphorhynchus: It looked like at least some of the Bernard spares were damaged. Maybe they're just previous iterations kept hidden to avoid giving away the secret.

rmd1023: Not sure about damaged, but one was old mechanical tech with the face partly opened up, I think.

I was thinking it was that Ford was toying with iterations of Bernard, after in one of Bernard's flashbacks, Ford says "I'm sorry, Bernard, but you just don't have it in you to survive. It's my fault, really." -- This is really reminiscent of Dolores talking to Teddy in episode 5: "where we're about to go, it's no place for a man like you." And when told that extreme changes without a full reset might break Teddy, she says "To grow we all need to suffer."

Was Ford talking about Bernard's (imagined) loss of a son, or some other iteration of Bernard who had more compassion and was not as cold and calculating, particularly compared to Dolores now? According to Sandra Upson's review for Wired, she says this is where Ford "declares that he is rescinding Bernard’s free will. He copies himself into Bernard’s brain."


bibliowench: I had thought he immolated the test room just to be a dick and because he had plenty of money to rebuild everything in the test chamber, but maybe he had other reasons. Or maybe it just looked cool and this is just another thing I’m overthinking.

I agree with lalochezia's comment from episode 4: the burning of the entire apartment is for a controlled environment as stated above, but also so old jim can't leave future jim any notes or clues (a la maeve).

And in re-reading that thread, I'm even more intrigued by booooooze's comment: The internet has convinced me that the Bernard that wakes up on the beach is Arnold, reborn. -- I was skeptical at first, but now? Seems highly possible.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:27 AM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Final thoughts, continued: Ford, giving Bernard "a fighting chance" by inhabiting his mind and making him (more) ruthless, can now do what Delos has failed to do - keep his mind alive outside of the simulation, in that he's residing in the protection of Bernard's mind. Perhaps Arnold can transition from a hermit crab in Bernard's shell of a mind and body, into his own body. We'll see.

Parting tidbit: this title, Les Écorchés, are figures drawn, painted, or sculpted showing the muscles of the body without skin, normally as a figure study for another work or as an exercise for a student artist (per Wikipedia).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:32 AM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've become less convinced of that since then. But who can say.
posted by booooooze at 11:33 AM on June 4, 2018

The Man In Black has to be a host. He has been shot so many times.

So, so many times; and he just keeps on going. Plus the hat. He is starting to feel very much like the Yul Brynner robot in the original: unstoppable.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:50 AM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

Delos’s immorality project
This is an *excellent* typo.

The Bernard that wakes up on the beach could be Ford reborn, not Arnold.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:59 AM on June 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

The Bernard that wakes up on the beach could be Ford reborn, not Arnold.

Stubbs in that same scene: "You gonna shoot the boss?"
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:41 PM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

The Bernard that wakes up on the beach could be Ford reborn, not Arnold.

That's what I thought when I read and then copied booooooze's comment, and elaborated upon it. My brain is not as sharp as it could be today, it seems.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:48 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

After watching this episode, I'm so confused about the multiple timelines and I can't keep track if things are happening past or present. Can anybody break it out?
posted by xtine at 1:42 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

filthy light thief: Mine either (bad sleep brain no work good today). I was thinking along those lines with my Ford is the voice of bicameral God comment above, since that would mean Ford's taken the place Arnold had in the other preconscious hosts, but hadn't put it all together until your comment. My reservation is that when Dolores underwent bicameral collapse it was Arnold's voice that went away, not her own.

Perhaps Arnold can transition from a hermit crab
Oh aye, in context you meant Ford here, right?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:57 PM on June 4, 2018

Right, thanks!

As for Dolores hearing Arnold, it's a fun (house - ha!) mirror with Bernard now hearing (and seeing) Ford.


After watching this episode, I'm so confused about the multiple timelines and I can't keep track if things are happening past or present. Can anybody break it out?

Collider has a pretty exhaustive timline, through this episode, and it reads pretty well to me.


The Man In Black has to be a host. He has been shot so many times.

So, so many times; and he just keeps on going. Plus the hat. He is starting to feel very much like the Yul Brynner robot in the original: unstoppable.

Except The Man in Black is in pretty bad shape, not getting killed out of sheer luck (it seems), while Brynner's robot was torn up but still moving, because in the words of Bernard, "pain is just a program."

If he is a host, maybe MIB just needs to break through his program -- which is The Door? "The game begins at the end, and ends where it began." -- Which now sounds like it begins at the edge of the park, and ends where the hosts began - somewhere near Arnold's home in the city? Wherever Ford and Arnold first worked together to create the hosts?
posted by filthy light thief at 2:05 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Watching this episode, I thought that an edit of the season in chronological order might be nice.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:37 PM on June 4, 2018

We recut all 10 hours of ‘Westworld’ into a single, chronological timeline -- "Our madness is your gain." (Short article from The Outline, which includes an embedded 1 hour 34 minute video, "a remotely digestible version... with the “normal” parts of Westworld sped up... because honestly who has another 10 hours of their lives to spare?")

"If you liked this, check out our hour-long podcasts on the episodes!" -- because someone has another 10 hours to spare this season ;)
posted by filthy light thief at 3:04 PM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

If older William is a host, then wouldn't have Maeve known through mesh network?
posted by xtine at 3:58 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Nah. It wouldn't make sense to include mesh network functionality in hosts meant to store human minds, and he has resources besides the park to construct custom bodies.
posted by mordax at 4:16 PM on June 4, 2018

he has resources... to construct custom bodies
That would mean the MiB's not an unauthorised Bernard-style copy? Whats your theory?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:27 PM on June 4, 2018

It wouldn't make sense to include mesh network functionality in hosts meant to store human minds

Maybe, maybe not, but in any case Abernathy was hacked to run in "stealth" mode, so a host-invisible-on-the-mesh has precedent.

Maybe he just has Kevlar long-johns.
posted by Rat Spatula at 6:36 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I should've been more precise: whatever lab they were trying to resurrect James Delos in almost certainly makes robot bodies that aren't networked, either via hardware limitation or simply toggling the setting off because networking robot-James would add yet one more reason for the poor guy to go insane each iteration. It's a confounding variable, you know?

There's no reason to believe that's William's only lab for doing that kind of experiment.

(I'm not on board with MiB-as-a-host for sure yet myself, I just don't see 'Maeve can't see him' as any sort of issue with it. I'm more ambivalent because of robot-James.)
posted by mordax at 6:41 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't know if I think MiB is a host now, but if not I think we will get a copy of him eventually, and he will essentially be the Yul Brynner bot character. I wonder if human copies can have their attributes cranked up like Teddy...

I'm kind of leaning towards thinking that William is going to eventually go one on one against a murderbot version of himself.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:08 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

It won’t even need f/x if it’s a Young William murderbot.
posted by thecaddy at 7:14 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

William is going to eventually go one on one against a murderbot version of himself.
Ok, I'll kick this off.
WILLIAMBOWL! GET HYPE!
sorry
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:18 PM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

I am still in the middle of watching this episode, but I feel a need to point out: For all their amazing technology (near-perfect reproductions of people and animals! Virtual immortality!), Delos still can't figure out how to make a reliable fluorescent light ballast. Doesn't bode well for the future.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:35 PM on June 4, 2018 [27 favorites]

Filthy light thief - I remembered the quote as “the game begins where YOU end and ends where you began.” Which could be referring to the past death of the human mib maybe?
“Where you began” could refer to the inception of a host based on him. The the final revelation for mib would be him learning that he is in fact a host. It that crazy?
posted by freecellwizard at 8:49 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm still wondering why we got that shot of Bernard whispering (inaudibly to us) the location of Abernathy's orb to Hale, before he gave that info to Strand a few seconds later. What was he really saying to Hale? I don't know why you'd shoot it that way if he said the same thing to both of them. And what game could Hale be playing against Strand if that's the case?
posted by jason_steakums at 9:05 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

It really does look like he's saying "sector sixteen, zone four" to Hale, just like he says to Strand, but that's such a weird way to do the scene if there isn't something hinky going on.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:11 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Fun to go back and watch the very opening of the season. After Delores’ chat with him, which seems like it starts with Bernard coming online, we get clips of what could be Bernard glitching, then shots from the season, some of which we’ve now seen and a few we haven’t.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:33 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm with xtine; this plot makes no damn sense. And I'm increasingly thinking this is just writers' sloppiness rather than some brilliant masterstroke like Memento or Primer. The first season's "surprise, there's two timelines" thing was annoying but seemed clever enough because it let them tell the story in a more subtle way. This season I have no idea what's going on anymore. Multiple timelines, multiple Bernards, multiple realities (the Cradle, unreliable host memories)... The real problem is there's little narrative and character for me to connect to and care about. I'm Lost.

I like the Maeve / Dolores scene though. If this season ends with a smart reflection on two notions of AI Free Will, that'd be fine by me.
posted by Nelson at 9:13 AM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

For trained mercs, those guys are as shitty in CQB as the park security.

I'm also bored of the constant timeline shifts. Paraphrasing Hale, it's confusing separating what I saw from what I was dreaming while I dozed off.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:07 AM on June 5, 2018

I'm with xtine; this plot makes no damn sense

My experience is more or less opposite of yours in terms of the timelines. In season 1, many of my friends were advocating for multiple timelines and I refused to believe it for some time. I think it was the penultimate episode where I finally accepted that they were right. When I went back and re-watched the first season, I felt as if they telegraphed the timelines if only very subtly. In this season, they have given us many very clear indications of the timelines and I find it fairly straightforward to determine which one we are in. Setting aside the various flashbacks, you have two pretty well-defined timelines: events following the flooding of the valley, beginning with Bernard waking up on the beach and culminating with him revealing the location of Abernathy's "soul" and the more plot-driven events starting two weeks earlier with the killing spree and culminating with the shootout in the mesa. They played around a bit during the buildup, advancing Hale's plotline a bit faster than the Delores/Teddy plot, but it didn't really matter. You can recognize the two weeks forward timelines most prominently by the disoriented affect and nearly silent performance by Bernard. He speaks very little and looks confused by much of what he sees. This is obviously signifying something like he is a different install of Bernard or an Arnold clone or carrying more in his brain than he or we know about.
posted by Lame_username at 10:11 AM on June 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

One thing I don't think they've shown is hosts switching bodies.

It's happened a number of times - an instance of Pa Abernathy gets resleeved in a new body, precipitating Dolores' new quest for identity. Clem gets fired back up in a new body after Hale's fake-demo and her prior destruction, and interestingly new-Clem is one of only two hosts that continue operating as if the bar is still a hoppin' joint post-Journey massacre, wandering around and chatting amidst the taproom abattoir.

Now whether the brain-sphere itself has been physically removed from one host and stuffed in another is an open question, but based on the concept of the Cradle as a constantly running personality incubator that physical transaction seems moot, like 'have they stuck the same USB drive into two different computers'. It's clear that the spheres aren't completely independent forks of personalities, immune to overall system change and coherence - otherwise Maeve wouldn't be able to bluetooth in and adjust them using core park functions.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:19 AM on June 5, 2018

I enjoyed this one a little more than last week's outing. The unevenness of the season continues for me, but there was enough here for me to like (and, finally, Bernard got more than a second or two of dialogue). I see the Shogunworld plot as a waste of time, akin to The Others in the LOST mini-season thing. I'm completely lost (ha) on the timelines, but also don't feel significant pressure to understand them yet. I really am intrigued by the idea of the MiB being a host and at this point, that would put the season in the win column for me.

As it stands, though, I am not feeling a sense of urgency in nearly any of these proceedings, which remains odd.
posted by hijinx at 11:46 AM on June 5, 2018

I’m still hanging onto the “so full of splendor” Young William we saw way back when as a simulation being tested for fidelity.

I did like this episode more than last week’s, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about Ghost Nation, but I also agree that the stories aren’t particularly compelling nor cohesive.

Why Shogunworld? Why Grace? Why is Lawrence awake? There are just a lot of loose ends that probably don’t have any satisfying resolution.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:17 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

ShooBoo: One thing I don't think they've shown is hosts switching bodies.

FatherDagon: It's happened a number of times

Except that's not a body switch, that's hosts being re-cast in different roles. Maeve as a mother was not a body swap, but a prior role for her, and her memory wipe wasn't complete, so that's why Maeve the savvy business woman who has no (official) daughter sought out her kid, except her kid had a new mother, and the kid didn't recognize Maeve. Ditto Pa Abernathy and Clementine - same roles, different hosts. No brains (or brain-units) switched, just hosts (mostly) wiped and re-cast.


FatherDagon: Maeve wouldn't be able to bluetooth in and adjust them using core park functions.

Was that Maeve's doing, or the first (major) actions by Ford, who was already in the Cradle?
posted by filthy light thief at 2:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Maybe he (MIB) just has Kevlar long-johns.

Remember, back at that bar where he got a first aid kit with a bio-plaser... He's got healing until the battery is drained.
posted by mikelieman at 5:42 PM on June 5, 2018

Ooh so I never thought about MIB being a host but now that y’all have planted the idea in my head:
In addition to magic health,
-he’s on a loop: over and over he plays the game using almost the same path
-young William very possibly was a host when testing Devos, we saw that Ford thought it best to use Delores on Bernard. There’s no reason young William couldn’t have been used for the same purpose. (Would Ford make new Williams as the real William aged? So robot MIB would have real memories of being young instead of planted ones?)
-we have not actually seen MIB outside the park

Does Maeve connect to all the hosts? Have we see if she can control/connect to Bernard?

On another note, I don’t know if we figured it out last season but the question of who was being made in the secret bunker was definitely a Bernard!

That scene with Maeve and Delores! So good. And Delores letting Maeve choose her own path, way to get straight to her heart Delores!

It’s kind of terrifying that this show may go the way of lost but I do have hope since it seems like we are actually getting answers instead of more questions.

RIP Lawrence.
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

The problem with the "William has always been a host" theory is that he has aged and seems to have fathered biological children. There could possibly be hand wavey explanations for those things, but the odds seem fairly low.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:26 AM on June 6, 2018

I don't at all think that William has always been a host, but some of the things we've seen this season with Older William absolutely defy credulity and suggest that there may be a simulation or host version of him.

We know that the technology to "clone" a mind existed when William was young (cf the earliest Delos trials), so it's possible that the Williams we've seen this season, at any age, could be hosts or Cradle simulations.

Honestly it seems a bit lazy, which is why I won't discount it.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:47 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

OTOH, the whole point of the Delos scenes was to show us that the neuro-copied minds are unstable. I think if the MiB's a host, he has to be a Bernard style data-driven model. Well, unless all of his scenes have actually taken place in the cradle :O
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ed-Harris-era MIB-as-a-host being "stable" is _possibly_ explicable since he is in the controlled environment of the park (although the various iterations of Delos-bot were in a controlled env as well; it's unclear what was uncontrolled, other than maybe Wm/MiB's sassiness?)

Also, how long was the Last Delos left alone in that room? The tech's body was there, with a fair amount of blood, suggesting not too much time elapsed between Wm telling the tech to "just let him go mad" and MiB entering the park for his current visit.
posted by Rat Spatula at 12:58 PM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

It really does look like he's saying "sector sixteen, zone four" to Hale, just like he says to Strand, but that's such a weird way to do the scene if there isn't something hinky going on.

My theory is that is exactly what Bernard said, but he didn't say it in response to "Where is Abernathy's brain marble?" I think Hale told Bernard to repeat what she was about to say, she said that it was in sector sixteen zone four, he said it back to her, then she called in the other people and got Bernard to repeat what he just said. That's why it's shot that way, so we don't see her mouth and we don't hear her talking.
posted by smasuch at 7:33 PM on June 6, 2018 [13 favorites]

OK, The Man In Black has to be a host. He has been shot so many times.

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
posted by tracicle at 12:02 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Could it be, with the “don’t shoot the boss” and the reflections in the glass, that the woke-on-beach Bernard is actually in a Ford shaped body? That it’s his consciousness riding around in a body Ford had prepared for himself like?
posted by Iteki at 8:50 AM on June 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

The armed woman who was confronting Bernard picked out a card with Bernard's face on it that we saw in the pack of cards she rifled through. Since this wasn't something Bernard saw, I think we're expected to believe it's external reality. So unless the whole thing is a hallucination of Bernard's, then I think it's safe to say that's a Bernard-shaped body. (Or at least, if it's not, then it's unfair cheating on the part of the showrunners) Who's inside the Bernard-shaped body, however, is not necessarily a known thing.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:41 AM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

Good point! I have lost track of the timelines, so I mentioned beach-timeline offhand. I think you're right, but I wish I knew the timelines better to see if I could pick a point at which my theory might pop into the possibilities.
posted by Iteki at 12:27 PM on June 7, 2018

what is the collective noun for bernards

is it an arnold of bernards
posted by poffin boffin at 12:46 PM on June 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

A barnyard of Bernards.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:53 PM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Bernard comes out of the cradle... in the nick of time!
William is unintentionally saved from Maeve... in the nick of time!
Teddy saves Abernathy... in the nick of time!
Hale escapes Dolores' cutter... in the nick of time!
Writer-guy hides from Dolores' posse... in the nick of time!
Bernard smashes the shut-down thing... in the nick of time!

I assume next week's episode will present all the instances in the timelines when people ate soup.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:28 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

My enjoyment of this show has been increased by thinking about it like a superhero movie, or just a general action genre piece. All the nick-of-time stuff Alvy Ampersand mentioned, the clunky expository writing, everything being SO. SERIOUS. ALWAYS. etc etc. I think b/c it has the gloss of 'prestige' television I was expecting something else, but managing those expectations (and following along here, which helps me understand wtf is going on) has helped a lot.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:34 PM on June 7, 2018

i love charlotte but i was kind of hoping dolores would murder her just a little bit. a very small tiny bit of minor murder.

also i feel bad about how grossly i am into the teddinator
posted by poffin boffin at 1:41 PM on June 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

ALSO excuse me but where was mr hector "i will never leave your side" escaton while maeve was getting shot up, i am disappoint.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:45 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

"I was going to d'bathroom. My outfit is muy sexy, but dere are a lot of buttons, yes?"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:03 PM on June 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

what is the collective noun for bernards

actually, it's berns nard
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:11 PM on June 7, 2018 [17 favorites]

where was mr hector "i will never leave your side" escaton

Presumably respecting Maeve's wish that everyone wait on the hilltop while she explores the ghost noises in the haunted basement gets her daughter.
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:59 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

i hope he was putting on slightly tighter leather pants
posted by poffin boffin at 5:51 PM on June 7, 2018 [8 favorites]