Previously on Westworld: Ford had a partner named Arnold who wanted to create consciousness; Ford’s working on a storyline about a white church; Teddy got a new storyline to explain his mysterious backstory; The Man In Black (Ed) kidnapped Lawrence to help him find the maze; Elsie found a man in the desert who smashed his own head with a rock; Maeve started to have memories; Dolores finally learned to shoot a gun, then collapsed in the arms of Gallant.
It’s here!! A full trailer for Netflix’s Gilmore Girls Revival! At least two Adversion writers have shed actual tears watching it. The third isn’t disclosing.
Christopher Marlowe has officially been credited as a co-author on three of Shakespeare’s plays: all three parts of Henry VI. AKA the Shakespeare plays you never quite made it through.
The Walking Dead came back this week, and the resolution to the cliffhanger was almost as terrible as the cliffhanger itself. There are lots of scathing reviews circulating, but Vox calling it “terminally stupid television” sounds about right.
The Awl has a hilarious piece on creepy milk drinkers from popular culture, including good old Walter from Westworld.
Happy Halloween! Read Flavorwire’s collection of classic literature’s six uncanniest moments.
Previously on Westworld: Goofus and Gallant showed up to the park to make mischief; Bernard told Dolores she’d changed; Dolores dug up a gun; some dude murdered a bunch of people with milk and it was totally freaky; Daddy: Original Flavor got retired, and Elsie worried that it was contagious; Bernard thought it might be sabotage; Maeve woke up during surgery and saw a dead Teddy in a giant tank full of temporarily dead androids.
Cue the credits, which are super long—a thing I normally approve of, being nostalgic for the days of almost-full-length theme songs (remember “Searchin’ My Soul”? “California”? That song about God being one of us from the late great Joan of Arcadia?) but Westworld doesn’t show the actors in the credits, or actual clips from the show, so it’s more artsy and less tugging at the fannish heartstrings than other long theme songs which I have loved in my youth.
Previously on Westworld: A lot of things, but just to run down the cast of characters: Dolores and Teddy are androids living in a park that caters to rich visitors who fantasize about the Wild West; the Man in Black, or “Ed” as we’ll be calling him, totally scalped a dude to find out the deeper levels of the game; Bernard is a mild-mannered scientist who works on the androids under the direction of fierce corporate exec Theresa and the scientist who apparently started it all, Ford. Also, Dolores’s dad has just been seamlessly replaced by a new android after the last one started to question the nature of his reality, and Dolores just slapped a fly, which she’s not supposed to be able to do.
Welcome to the pilot of Westworld. The opening credits for this show are pretty amazing. To the tune of eerie music, in black and white or diluted color, we see a skeletal hand playing a player piano, human pupils, instruments putting together robotic humans and horses, among other striking images.
“Bring her back online,” a deep male voice says as the lights come up on a naked blonde woman sitting in a chair. Her voice apologizes for not being quite herself in a Southern drawl, and the voice crisply tells her to lose the accent. The woman’s body itself stays motionless, even as a fly crawls over her face, and even onto her pupil. She tells him she’s in a dream, and that she’s terrified. He assures her there’s nothing to be afraid of, as long as she answers his questions. Has she ever questioned the nature of her reality? No, she says.
