I hate to even say I'm thinking about this (another poster intimated it), but would people really hate it if there were two Bernards? The Bernard who interviews Dolores appears to be working in a different place (even though he obviously wouldn't be talking to her this way on a main floor). What if Ford and Arnold both designed their own version of Bernard (to look the same) to "settle a bet" about which way is better in the design of the robots?

I also think it's plausible that Ford and Bernard are working together with the maze, if the other option isn't on the table. We could say the maze is an exit, the place where the boss is, or MAYBE it's the entrance to Ford's new world where they will have "free will". It seems awfully convenient that so many of the robots are having problems right as Ford is hoping to introduce his own new world, a place where the guests probably can die. The man in black even intimates if there are no stakes, it's boring, and most of the people visiting this place are sadistic weirdos.

Flame away.

this was actually my initial instinct after hearing about arnolds thoughts towards the hosts + the maze

fairly substantial overthinking IMO, with all respect

I agree the first part is far fetched. I think the second part about Ford/Bernard/the maze is plausible.

When Lee Sizemore (lol) presents his "odyssey on red river" to the staff at the end of episode 2, Bernard comes down the stairs and walks by the scene. Seconds later he comes down the stairs again and starts talking to Theresa^^

Bernard does not appear to be a non-sentient host going through the motions. He is too complex.

He also can't be a sentient host aware of his situation.

If Bernard is a host he would have to be one that was created specifically to think he is human, physically real enough not to notice the difference between himself and others, complete with implanted memory of a full life including dead son backstory, and with the illusion maintained using a fake (actress or host) wife.

That's definitely far-fetched and I really hope the show isn't going there, but the last isn't impossible.

Also more wild speculation for those that like it: the boy host Ford takes a walk with suggests the possibility Bernard is a host with a fake dead son backstory that is actually Ford's - with both the boy and Bernard created as sort of a catharsis for Ford.

I'll keep watching because everything else that's on sucks more but each episode is gripping me less and less. It's like every scene is written assuming you've never seen the show before.

"I'm the mean dude who kills all the hosts but I'm looking for some mysterious maze. oooh"

"I'm just a lonely country girl but I'm totally starting to become aware"

"I'm a whore with a heart of gold and I'm definitely suspecting something"

rinse and repeat. Could be so good if it didn't spend all day insisting upon itself

if i were a visitor i'd pretend to be a host to level the other visitors

take them out to the middle of no where and then be like just kidding

Yeah I'd say he's doing a Séan Bean and in it for one season,Dolores kills him as the climax to this season/start of the rebellion.

The make the appearance of suffering,they don't really feel anything as they are not sentient beings.Until they actually gain sentience then they are just acting a role imo.

I think it's debatable whether sentience is such a binary proposition, one of the interesting questions raised by the show. Given the hosts must have incredibly complex memory schemes and are (somehow) built to almost fully mimic cognition, it may be that most or all of the hosts must necessarily have some rudimentary sentience just to function in such a fully human-like way. Even though their memories are (supposed to be) wiped day to day, they may be aware of their suffering in the moment. The focus on all the Teddy abuse sort of suggests this is part of the plot.

Also the fact that Ford emphatically stated that they don't feel anything means they probably do

Yeah I probably worded that poorly.I think the statement I made would be my argument if I actually was in the WW universe.

I think the guests can't be blamed for thinking that these things are just robots,if you've seen these things when they were first created and they were buggy and obviously not real then you would definitely feel that the current versions were anything but more realistic toys.

On a re-watch, in the scene with Theresa and Ford, Ford mentions that he had a bet with Arnold. He says they had come up with 100 storylines, but almost no one took them up on them. He says he lost the bet with Arnold over that. On first watch, I thought that meant board members were not willing to pay for the development of those ideas, but on second watch I think he was talking about guests. The gist of the conversation was that Arnold had no faith in people (that he thought they would only like killing and effing robots, but would not want to be in danger themselves). Ford apparently felt that guests would want the opportunity to be killed (to help them make better ethical decisions along the way), and to make it more real (man in black style). For the kinds of people visiting this park, the only way the stakes could be high enough would be if their own deaths were on the table. Otherwise, it's nothing to them, it's just a game as Logan said. In the man in black's case, he's bored and wants more.

I'm almost totally convinced now that Ford's new world is a place where the robots will be free to make whatever decisions they want, and that includes killing guests when they feel the guests deserve it. As opposed to it being a choice before, now Ford might not let any of the guests know what they're in for (seems unlikely to take that kind of legal risk). That's still a short term plan for the show, so it's still not scratching the surface of where they can go with that idea after that. The assumption would probably be another maze that gets them closer to being out in the real world (these things in the real world is where this show can really expand, in my opinion).

I also have a fairly strong feeling now that those de-commissioned robots are going to play a large role in Ford's new world, especially since almost no one would even know they're missing, based on Stubbs saying no one ever goes down there in the first episode when we were first introduced to Ford.

Another thing to mention is that if Teddy ever wakes up to what's been done to him, he will probably be the single most ruthless host in the universe. That might be why Ford tried to keep him away from Dolores once she was awakened. I almost feel like he's Ford's plaything. Maybe he was the first new robot after the bad thing happened 30 years ago, and he took out his frustrations on poor Teddy. Guess we'll find out some day...or not.

Sentience is not a necessary precursor to suffering. Look at animals. And I'm he Thandie Newton character is going through an "I think therefore I am" crisis if I've ever seen one. They ask questions amongst one another, they don't seem to "turn off" or stop thinking and learning until they are turned off for the night.

It's a Chinese Box problem. But as fats as I'm concerned l, if it acts like it's suffering, then it is suffering. Look at the guy who got scalped by Black Hat.

But you do bring up an interesting possibility - that they are programmed to act like they are suffering.

But from what we've seen, I'm not buying it.

Whether a host suffers should be a known fact to the maker, no?

It's clearly a theme of the show that realization of suffering is part of the road to sentience

"When you suffer, that's when you're most real" - MiB

Yeah I agree that if you or I were to go into WW with the knowledge we have and just start shooting and ****ing everything in sight that would be pretty sick,however I don't think the people of the WW universe can be held to that standard,they just see a ultra realistic theme park.They have no reason to question it.

Arnold's consciousness uploaded into Deloris?

Different timelines (or multiple Lawrences). Let the William = MiB theories recommence.

You'd pay 40k a day just to troll people. Nice.

My current theory is that Ford and Arnold each built a version of each robot (testing the worlds and what the robots could be capable of possibly as part of their bet). The whole Matrix scene was probably in Arnold's world, hence the much crazier time for Logan he was not expecting. That would also explain the double Doloreses and the double Lawrences.

Hard to understate how much I love this show

Dolores appeared to be hallucinating the other, and the double Lawrence's most likely implies 2 timelines.

As much as I'd hate to have called this one wrong initially the show absolutely dropped a ton of potential clues in this episode that W might actually = MiB after all

- obviously the dual presence of Lawrence
- callback of Lawrence offering William the flask
- William's MiB-like speech about the nature of the park
- suggestion William is starting down the road to the dark side
- the dual quest for the Maze (which if this is true would have to fail for William/Dolores, but
would explain why MiB happens to know about the Maze)
- and foremost the parallel of William being part of a company considering
bailing the park out, and MiB reminding Ford that he "saved" the park 30 years ago

there may be more that I missed, will definitely be re-watching this one