“Contrapasso”

There’s a lot of underhanded business going on in the park that seems to be trickling down from the corporate top. Secrets, deceptions, and inappropriate behaviors are making the rounds. We’ve seen it from the upper levels, and now we’re getting more from the lower levels. 

The two techs—Lutz (Leonardo Nam) and Sylvester (Ptolemy Slocum), who had a run-in with Maeve after not putting her in sleep mode—are back. (I agree with Lutz, he probably did place her in sleep mode … she had just used her count-to-three trick to wake herself up.) They are again with Maeve, and Lutz is feeling a little more than creeped out by her presence because of last time.

*Rest of my review for Westworld's "Contrapasso" can be found here.

“Dissonance Theory”

Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) are having another sit down, talking more about feelings—specifically the loss of her parents. When Bernard offers to take away her pain, she asks why she would want that, using the same words Bernard had used when talking with his ex-wife about the death of their son—basically, it’s the only thing she has left of them. Is Bernard programming her with dialog based on his own life, and if so, to what purpose? To make her more real? 

In any event, Bernard offers Dolores another way to search for her soul: a game called The Maze, where the goal is to find the center. He tells her if she can do that, then maybe she can be free. She replies, “I think … I think I want to be free.” Could it be that both Ford and Bernard are using pawns to find the center of this mythical maze, first one there wins a prize? 

*My continuing thoughts on Westworld can be found here

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“Who in the world am I?”

Did you watch Westworld 1.03: “The Stray” on HBO? Of course, your faithful reviewing bot did and here's a sample of my review:

I guess if you want to gift a robot a thought-provoking piece of literature, then Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is a fine choice. “Who in the world am I?” Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) reads aloud from the classic that Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) passes to her in another of their covert meetings.

But it would seem Dolores has an equally provocative “present” in return when she asks Bernard the whereabouts of his son. He dodges the question by telling her it would be too hard for her to understand, but is intrigued why she would pose the question in the first place. To have a conversation, she needs to ask personal questions, Dolores explicates, and it would appear by his expression that she has pleasantly surprised Westworld’s head of programming with her advanced cognitive abilities.

When Dolores awakes in her bed (probably a good thing he didn’t give her the mathematician’s sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), where the conclusion suggests everything is a dream within a dream), she uncovers the gun she had found buried in the ground and now keeps hidden away in her dresser drawer. Hidden? It would seem not much could be kept squirreled away for long with the amusement park’s Big Brother ability to call up and scan specific locales.

*Rest of my article can be found at Macmillan's Criminal Element blog.

What's In A Name: Bob Ford

Dr. Robert Ford. 

Somehow this name didn’t quite register while watching the first episode. I mean I heard it, Anthony Hopkins plays Robert Ford, creator, or rather “God,” of Westworld. But what a choice of a name it happens to be … Bob Ford, the man who lives in infamy for shooting outlaw Jesse James in the back while James was hanging a picture in the family home.

Now, the Westworld park, we are told, is about people finding out exactly who they are and what they are capable of doing, and they can enjoy the freedom of that discovery without consequence—where you can be an outlaw like James or a treacherous ne’er-do-well like Ford. Maybe the show’s architects don’t have an agenda in mind with the moniker “Bob Ford,” but Western enthusiasts will certainly find it curious that the most disrespected individual, arguably, in Wild West history has the highest held position in Westworld … then again, I’d be willing to throw my chips on the table that it’s a tell-tale sign of what we’re going to find out about the park’s creator. 

More of my review of the second episode can be found at Criminal Element. Thanks in advance for taking a look.

Rumors and Impending Action

Hope all bloggers had a superior weekend!

Monday finds me typing away at new articles for Criminal Element where I moonlight as a freelance writer. The latest post is my take on the Westworld debut. Did you watch? I thought it was a bit familiar but overall has my curiosity piqued with what Anthony Hopkins has planned for his unusual amusement park. So I'll be reviewing that for the next ten weeks and, in addition, finish Longmire season five recaps by Friday and every Tuesday whittle my way through The Dark Tower. Tomorrow we come to the conclusion of The Gunslinger and I hope you have your library cards ready to pick up the second book in the series, The Drawing of the Three.

On the publishing front, I'm looking to release Garnett Elliott's Two Trick Pony very soon. This will be the eighth book in The Drifter Detective series and it may just be where the road comes to an end for Jack Laramie, grandson of Cash Laramie. I'm not saying for sure but there are rumors, pilgrims.

That's it for me on the work front—never slow down, never grow old.

Programming Events

Hope everyone in Blogger Land is doing well and had a top weekend. 

I've been getting over a nasty (is there any other kind) cold but seem to be exiting the sick tunnel. A few things on my immediate horizon: to finish rereading Stephen King's The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger, don my cowboy hat for the new season of Longmire dropping in four days on Netflix, and patiently refrain from spilling the excitement that is Westworld—I will also be reviewing Longmire and Westworld for Criminal Element. So I hope you will join me for some of those jaunts and bring some Theraflu and a bottle of Jack just in case.