WW – Westworld S3 E6 Decoherence

Jason and Cristina break down the Westworld Season 3 Episode 6 Decoherence! Gatekeeper, Intellectual Property, I’m The Good Guy.

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Podcast Notes –

WRITTEN BY:	Suzanne Wrubel & Lisa Joy
DIRECTED BY:	Jennifer Getzinger
RECEPTION:	Imdb – 9.0 / RT – 73%

“Do a lot of people tell you that you need therapy?”

 

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

CRITICS:  “Decoherence” is mostly a transitional episode into the final act of Season Three, leaving us with two clear sides going into the last two episodes.

TITLE: In physics, Decoherence is the process in which a system’s behavior changes from that which can be explained by quantum mechanics to that which can be explained by classical mechanics. In order to study interference effects, a quantum system is isolated from the environment as much as possible.

THOUGHTS: 3 major storylines followed – Maeve (continue to enjoy her character arc, but again felt like stalling a little – bringing Hector back just to kill him, having her fight in Warworld), Hale (good – finally coming to connect with her character and maybe put her add odds with Dolores), William (most exciting – great in-depth look at his psychology, continue to add complexity to the character, connect to him as a human but also worry over his mind-set, which side will he fall on?).  Wish there was more Bernard in the season overall.   

PLOT

MAEVE

Maeve has a flashback of walking through the field with daughter and then wakes in an empty field.  Serac appears and says it’s not real but it can be.  The human memory is imperfect; not for her kind; every image she sees is recorded and stored.  She has no past because it’s always present.  He also says that Dolores is making Maeve’s sacrifice of dying for that world meaningless.  But Maeve thinks she doesn’t need incentive, she needs help.   He agrees but warns her not to fail again.

When Maeve wakes again, this time she’s in Warworld.  She wasn’t planning on returning, but her body is being reprinted, so she’s ‘prepping’ for the next battle.  She has all the soldiers attack her and then controls them with her mind, bringing them forward one at a time to fight.  Then, Lee arrives and takes her to the Warworld version of the Mariposa – Taverna delle Farfalle (Butterfly Tavern – same meaning for Mariposa).  Maeve suddenly realizes they’ve been moved (they’re back at Delos) – and she sees they’re uploading a messed up Control Unit (‘an extra gift’). 

           Why did Serac move Maeve to Delos when he has his own simulation?

Hector is brought into the simulation, where Maeve restores him to himself (External Code Alterations).  She also realizes they’ve brought in a copy of Dolores so that Maeve can get one step closer to killing her.  Waking her, Maeve says she’s made herself gatekeeper of 2 species and holds a civilization’s worth of data in her head – it’s not right for one person to have all that power.  D – “Says the woman who can control us with her mind”.  Dolores thinks they’re still in danger and Serac is destroying as many hosts as he can.  Neither of them are saint nor villain – they’re survivors.  Maeve wonders how to trust her; how can she know those in the Sublime are safe when Dolores holds the key.  They both realize she can’t and Maeve has no choice but to fight her.  Dolores thinks she probably planned on that – her and Main Dolores were the same but their paths have changed them.  But Dolores would probably try to stop Maeve from getting allies. 

Then, Maeve sees Hale approaching the simulation in the real world (Zone 3 – Research & Development) – she takes out Hector’s pearl and smashes it in her hand.   Maeve screams. 

Does her scream echo out into the real world and set off alarms?  Combined with her powers of controlling tech outside, is something more going on with Maeve?

As men chase Hale, she grabs Martin/D Control Unit and runs.  The men surround her but she clicks a button on her phone, “Execute Protection Subroutine”, activating the Mech to come help her.  It breaks through walls and starts throwing men around.  Hale is able to shoot the rest and limp away. 

Later, Maeve’s body finishes printing and she watches as another comes out. 

DIVERGENCE – San Francisco (9 arc degrees)

HALE

As Hale walks home with Nathan, we see there is global unrest following Incite’s data leak.  There is rioting, businesses are closed; people are encouraged to stay inside and lock their doors. 

            Pass people in an alley spray-painting a version of the Maze.

Hale tells Jake that she needs to get to work but she thinks she’s scared (unlike her).   He admits that he started to pull up his profile because he wanted to know what happened to them, but then he decided not to read it – it’s not up to a machine to decide their future. 

            Jake’s profile – white letter “G”.  William – red letter “U”

As Hale arrives at Delos, Brompton tells her the Board is meeting in an hour and Serac’s takeover bid becomes final at noon.  As they’re strategizing fending him off, Brompton is grabbed and shot.  Hale is handed the phone and Serac tells her the privatization risk should no longer be a problem.  He’s on his way there now.  Nervous, Hale calls Dolores to tell her she failed.  She doesn’t want to be there and is worried about her family. Dolores says she still needs her to get the host-making data from Delos – and it’s not really her family.  Hale wonders why they couldn’t have just burned the emotion out of their code but Dolores says if they changed themselves to survive, what would it matter if they did? 

Serac arrives at Delos (while waiting, Hale traces the circle/line on her chest).  He orders them to lock down the facility.  As the Delos signs change to Incite and Serac puts his plans in motion, the divergence on his Rehoboam watch grows smaller.  He shares that once he finishes copying over his 3 additional assets, they can destroy the rest ($1 million in intellectual property) – he only wants the Encryption Key.  He also divulges their problem – Dolores made multiple copies of herself, one of which he is sure is there with them – all employees will be tested for deviations from Rehoboam’s predictions. 

Hale agrees and then rushes down to the Simulation Room.  She downloads the Package to External Device (her phone); as a man catches her making the back, she kills him.  She checks on the MIB (protein tracker she put on him), and then goes to the Print Lab.  She sees 4 hosts currently being printed – one shows data corruption and she is unable to identify the host:

1. HC3208173692 – 29%            Hector Escaton
2. CP0124831983  – 33%            Clementine Pennyfeather
3. SH205817402 – 64%            ??? (Armistice, Hanaryo)
4. HC1983012522 – 73%            Maeve Millay

Hale then calls Jake to tell him she’s coming for him in a half an hour.  But on the way out, she’s informed Serac called another Board Meeting.  There, he confesses he knows she is the host; she is Dolores.  He thinks the real Hale wouldn’t have taken the time to check on her son with everything happening (she turned out to be kinder than the real Hale).  Hale thinks it doesn’t matter because she’s already gotten everything they need to beat him, she just sent the files, and then she releases the canister filled with poisonous gas.  Everyone in the room is killed but when she tries to shoot Serac, she sees he was a holograph. 

After escaping with Martin/D’s pearl, she rushes back home.  Getting Nathan and Jake into the car, she asks him to trust her, she will keep them safe.  That’s when the car explodes.  Burnt Hale crawls out of the wreckage. 

Months before we started production, I was sent in to get a full body cast made, which is this crazy process; they put all these goos on you, and you have to breathe through straws. They were very smart timing-wise. We did it at the end of the day, so I didn’t have to sit in it for a lot of hours.

WILLIAM

At the Inner Journeys Recovery Center, William sits in a group therapy session where a man talks about putting his faith in God.   He replies, “Humanity is a thin layer of bacteria on a ball of mud hurtling through the void.  If there were a God, he would have given up on us long ago.  He gave us a paradise and we used everything up – dug up every ounce of energy and burned it.  Consume, excrete, and destroy.  And we ask ourselves, “Why are we here?”  Your purpose is to speed the entropic death of this planet, to service the chaos, we’re maggots eating a corpse.”   

In a one-one with his therapist, Natasha Lang, William says he doesn’t belong there; he doesn’t need therapy to confront the truth because he knows what he did.  “I spent so long playing the game, I couldn’t see outside of it. But I see know.  It was Emily and I killed her”.  The doctor wants him to participate in therapy used with veterans suffering from PTSD. 

FILE: patient shows signs of depression, delusions and hallucinations.  PTSD – Survivor Syndrome, Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Therapy 3-5x week, 45-60 min sessions.  Estimated duration: 3 months. Patient assigned to AR therapy.  

DELOS PROFILE: “Rare Occurrence” (.0072%) – persecutory, paranoid

Unfortunately, the doctor isn’t really paying attention, as she keeps getting alerts on her phone.  Finally checking it, she starts crying as she sees her file and a message from Alex (husband), saying “I’ve taken the kids, don’t try to contact us.” 

FILE –  Life Projection – loss of medical license 1-2 years.  Divorce/Loss of Custody 2.5 years.  Risk Factors: multiple affairs with patients, opioid addiction.  Overall assessment: Borderline Personality Disorder.

William is taken to the lab where they retrieve a blood sample.  The nurse thinks they better be getting overtime because half the staff has disappeared and it’s ‘not safe’ there.

LAB SCREEN – “Unknown Protein Detected” Synthetic Markers found.  (also – trace barbiturates and alcohol). 

“Tracing Data Transmission”.  Recipient Server Detected – Sonora Mexico. 

They then install the drip inside his palate, and order 1 hour in the Desert Oasis to calm him down.  While being taken back to room, he sees the doctor hang herself. 

Sometime later, he is taken to a white room and strapped down.  Dr. Alpert introduces himself, saying he will oversee the AR treatment, monitoring from the next room.  The experience can be visceral but it is safe. As the glasses are put on, William sees the child version of himself and follows him to a sunny bedroom, where the boy is reading “Sir Rowan and the Lady of Sulon”.  Outside, his parents are arguing about him.  In the present, William yells to be let out and he’s given a sedative orally (real or AI?)

An orderly (who looks like Major Craddock) takes him to a room where people are sitting around a table – all the versions of himself:

Corporate William (in tux), Adult William (Jimmi Simpson), MIB (hat), Child William

And James Delos is moderating.  All the personalities wonder how this happened and deny responsibility for the place they wound up.  Delos challenges them, thinking they’re feeling sorry for themselves and William has told this story so many times, he might even believe it.  Child William sees the father come into his room, yelling that the teacher called to inform them of an incident at school.  Another kid was making fun of him (called his father a drunk), so he fought him (broke his arm and knocked out 3 teeth).  The father wonders what the hell is wrong with him.  Present William wonders if he ever had a choice or if this was always the inevitable end.  Delos – “Did your life just happen to you or did you choose it?”  W – “If you can’t tell, does it matter?” 

He then thinks he knows what he needs to do.  Cut to the other versions of himself lying dead and bloody on the floor as he beats Adult William with a chair.  Jimmi Simpson wonders why he’s doing this, “I was the best of you”.  Present William thinks it doesn’t matter, he’s been trapped but he’s free now.  “It doesn’t matter what I’ve been, good or bad, everything we’ve done has led to this.  And I finally understand my purpose – I’m the good guy.”

Then, Bernard and Stubbs arrive, pulling him out of the AR.  Bernard thinks the doctors must have forgotten about him in all the chaos.

CLOSER LOOK

Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is a type of Exposure Therapy that has increasingly been used to treat a variety of anxiety disorders, including specific phobias, and PTSD.  Exposure Therapy targets behaviors that people engage in (usually avoidance) in response to situations or thoughts and memories that are viewed as frightening or anxiety-provoking.  If not addressed, avoidance behavior can become more extreme and interfere with a person’s quality of life.  This is done by actively confronting the things that a person fears most. By confronting feared situations, thoughts, and emotions, the intensity lessens until the event or trauma becomes another memory, not a constant overwhelming and active condition.  Now, for exposure therapy to be effective, it is very important that people confront a situation that closely maps onto what they fear most. However, this may not always be possible for a person with PTSD.2 For example, a veteran who developed PTSD as a result of combat exposure would not be able to confront a combat situation again. It would unsafe to do so. This is where virtual reality technology comes in.

In VRET, an individual is immersed in a computer-generated virtual environment, either through the use of a head-mounted display device or entry into a computer-automated room where images are present all around.  VRET for PTSD has primarily been examined in Vietnam War combat veterans. ICT researchers added the BRAVEMIND VR Exposure Therapy software by leveraging virtual art assets that were originally built for the commercially successful X-Box game and combat tactical simulation scenario, Full Spectrum Warrior. The current applications consist of a series of virtual scenarios specifically designed to represent relevant contexts for VR exposure therapy, including Middle-Eastern themed city and desert road environments. In addition to the visual stimuli presented in the VR head mounted display, directional 3D audio, vibrations and smells can be delivered into the simulation.