Se1Ep1Pt1 āThe Originalā: Free-Falling Face First Down Into the Rabbit Hole in 20 minutes
The show begins with a naked woman sitting awkwardly in a chair, as if she is unaware of her own body, a sack of bones resting precariously where she was placed by someone else, like a bag of laundry. Sheās bloodied, possibly wounded, possibly someone elseās blood. Her eyes are open but not looking at anything. We hear a manās voice speaking, we assume itās to her, and we hear her replying, but no one else is visible on the screen and her lips never move.
{The show does a really great job of layering a voice-over conversation throughout the first quarter of the first episode in order to get you up to speed fast. Ā I have bolded the parts of this conversation to remind you thatās whatās happening in the show, whereas other conversations happening in the show will not be bolded.}
- Bernard: āBring her back online.ā
- Bernard: āCan you hear me?ā
- Dolores: āYes. Iām sorry. Ā Iām not feeling quite myself.ā
- Bernard: āYou can lose the accent. Do you know where you are?ā
- Dolores: āI am in a dream.ā
- Bernard: āThatās right, Delores, you are in a dream. Would you like to wake up from this dream?ā
A fly crawls along her forehead, she doesnāt flinch or even blink, itās more alive than she is, itās more free to move than she is. Lights are turning on around her, glass walls surround her in this unusual place, we get the impression itās larger and more complicated than this simple blank sparse scene suggests.
- Dolores: āYes, Iām terrified.ā
- Bernard: āThereās nothing to be afraid of Delores, as long as you answer my questions correctly. Understand?ā
- Dolores: āYesā
The fly then crawls down her nose, over to her eye, and into her unblinking eye... onto her unblinking eye...
- Bernard: āGood. First have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?ā
Youāre suddenly very aware that you have been taken to a very unusual world indeed, and she is not nearly as human as she appears (and she very much appears to be human). But your stomach flips a little, you feel queasy by this fly walking across her eye, you want to swat it away for her, because itās only human to swat at a fly. Why doesnāt she? She may say sheās waking up from a dream, but the viewer feels like theyāve just been thrown into one. And weāre ready to question her reality simply because of that fly in her eye if for nothing else at this point. Like a computer bug, or a bug on a carcass, we know that fly is a sign that somethingās wrong here, even if she doesnāt.
Suddenly we see her clean, refreshed, beautiful, and serene looking in her bed with white linens and a white nightgown. Sheās waking up for real somewhere more familiar to us than the glass walled dark space she just occupied. She looks almost bridal, pure, innocent, waking up there with perfectly applied natural looking makeup.
- Bernard: āTell us what you think of your world?ā
- Dolores: āSome people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. Ā I choose to see the beauty.... to believe there is an order to our days, a purpose.ā
Sheās leaving the house carrying a portable artistās easel, and we begin to see her world, from her perspective. Sheās in a time thatās in the past, but we donāt know how far. Itās a nice farm house, but her clothes are dated, the house is too simple for the modern world. She greets her father on the porch while heās enjoying his morning cup of coffee. They exchange words on this morning that seems friendly, routine, and peaceful. It is an exchange we will see repeated several times, but we donāt know that now. This time it feels normal. They are surrounded by mountains and it is a beautiful world, but thereās a harshness weāre aware of as viewers from today, that they live in the past, in the West, wild and full of dangers. Natural and man-made.
- Bernard: āWhat do you think of the guests?ā
We see a player piano roll begin to play music, signaled to start by some conductor we donāt see. Ā We will come to see this screen many times again too, as a reminder that thereās programmed forces happening in this world, rolls already created by some Master who controls what the Machines do here. Ā Itās like seeing the daily newspaper on your doorstep, but instead of it telling you what happened yesterday, itās going to tell you what you must do today. Ā Play this roll, these notes, this part.
- Dolores: āYou mean the Newcomers?ā
We are suddenly taken away from Doloresās home and we see the large expanse of this world. Red arid mountains, green valleys, winding rivers, Utah perhaps, you have a sense the Grand Canyon and Colorado are both nearby. A single train is making itās way through this vast vista. We see a man enjoying the trip, looking hopeful at the world outside his window, perhaps a mix of excitement and longing. Maybe heās going somewhere new. Maybe heās coming home again. Something about his open expression, his smile, his body language doesnāt match the other passengers we see.
We hear two passengers in front of him speaking:
- Male Passenger 1: āThe first time I played it white hat. My family was here, we went fishing, did the gold hunt in the mountains.ā
- Male Passenger 2: āAnd last time?ā
- Male Passenger 1: āCame alone. Went straight evil. It was the best two weeks of my life.ā
White hat. Funny, everyone on this train is wearing black hats, except for the wistful looking man sitting behind these two. The innocent looking one. The only one with no hat on. Itās a clue.
- Dolores: āI like to remember what my father taught me, that at one point or another we were all new to this world. The Newcomers are just looking for the same things we are: A place to be free, to stake out our dreams, a place with unlimited possibilities.ā
The train pulls into a depot, passengers disembark at the doorstep of a vibrant wild west town. Horses and carriages, cowboys, Indians, poor kids disrupting a town drunkās nap, a rich lady with a fancy parasol, a sheriff asking men to go on a manhunt for a fugitive with him... all walks of life are here. This is a complex world, full of complex looking people and scenarios. The camera is following our man from the train, the one who stood out, and heās headed for what every western frontier town was famous for... the saloon. Booze and women.
And the player piano, unmanned, scrolling away in the midst of the gambling, drinking, whoring, and camaraderie of the bustling saloon in the middle of the bustling town. Itās the beating heart, the hub, of this town, of these people, of this place. Ā Weāll see this heart stop and start multiple times, like CPR, right here in this center of town. But for now, itās alive and well.
- Bernard: āDo you ever feel inconsistencies in your world, or repetitions?ā
- Dolores: āAll lives have routine, mineās no different. Still, I never cease to wonder the thought that any day the course of my whole life could change with just one chance encounter.ā
The wistful man from the train turns down the attention of two prostitutes from the saloon, spots Dolores leaving the store across the street, and goes to her right as she drops a canned good from her saddlebag. Ā Kismet? Ā No, a reconnection. Ā They know each other, heās come back for her. We see them leave town together to go talk somewhere privately, in the wilderness. She says she knew he would one day return. He asks her if sheās saying heās predictable. She replies āThereās a path for everyone, your path leads you back to me. I know things will work out the way they are meant to.ā
Weāre seven minutes into the action and weāve already been given an overview of this place (it is wild, harsh, beautiful, and huge), the people who live here (diverse, settled into routines, but somehow trapped following paths and scripts like that player piano weāve seen half a dozen times already), and the guests who come here as Newcomers (who can choose to be white hats or black hats, good or evil, family-friendly or devilishly free and uninhibited, and can choose from a variety of activities just as diverse as the people who live here). Ā Right now, this place might seem cool, interesting, a place weād like to visit. Itās marvelous, after all. And inviting. But weāre not done falling.
We discover that Dolores is a rancherās daughter, who lives at the Easy 8 Ranch. Ā [I believe this is a visual pun, as in "Easy *Infinity Symbol,*" which is like what they've been scripted to believe (this is an easy life, which itās not) and that this is infinite/endless (until the story/script gets changed by the writers). Ā In terms of mind control programming, the infinity symbol is often used as a visual or touch cue to trigger programming related to never veering from your programs, and believing that the people who have power will always have power even after your death, and that your programming is eternal and unbreakable and your duty to honor it is infinite. It is a reminder that you're not the one in control, and that the power structure will never change because it is eternal and endlessly powerful.] She and her long-lost boyfriend hear a gunshot as they ride towards her home. Her father is being attacked by robbers, being shot to death near the front porch of their home. We see that the mother is also dead inside, and the two bandits debate if sheās still warm enough to rape. The boyfriend shoots and kills the two men.
- Bernard: āLast question, Dolores. What if I told you that you were wrong, there are no chance encounters? That you , and everyone you know, were built to gratify the desires of the people who pay to visit your world? The people you call the Newcomers.ā
Dolores rides to the house and finds her father dead. She collapses next to him, screaming and crying over him. She seems to have very real emotions, no matter what the narrator is telling us about this world. A man dressed in black appears next to her, he stands out as different from the two bandits we just saw, but we donāt know why heās different than them. His hands are gloved, his weapon isnāt drawn, but thereās danger around him.
He stand over her and says āHello again. Your daddy gave it up quickly, I think heās losing his touch.ā She is shaking from how upset she is, and she grabs her fatherās gun to shoot him. She raises it and puts her finger on the trigger, āYouāll follow right behind him you son of a bitch!ā He knocks the gun from her hand and then backhands her across the face, landing her in the dirt. āIs that any way to treat an old friend? Iāve been coming here for thirty years. You still donāt remember me, do you? After all weāve been through? They gave you a little more pluck, Dolores. Absolutely charming.ā Sheās staring at him, terrified, trembling. He kneels down and caresses her face intimately, to her horror.
Her boyfriend steps into the scene, āTake your hands off her.ā The Man in Black stands to engage with the boyfriend. āAh, Teddy... any special tricks for us? They teach you to sit up? Beg? How about I give you first shot? Hmm? After all, every dog has itās day.ā They square up, stepping aside from Dolores and her dead father on the ground, ready to engage in a gun draw. Teddy steps off the porch, he looks confident and experienced, āYour mouth moves fast enough, how about your gun?ā The Man in Black hovers his hand over his holstered gun, and Teddy fires, aiming right at his chest.
The Man in Black stands. Thereās no pain, no wound, no blood, nothing. Teddy fires again, confused. The Man in Black steps forward, gun still holstered, as we watch Dolores and Teddy move from confusion to fear as they realize they canāt harm him. They are at his mercy. And he has none.
- Bernard: āWhat if I told you that you canāt hurt the Newcomers, and that they can do anything they want to you?ā
[Itās somewhere in the middle of this scene that we become triggered and frozen, no one can seem to get the body to move, we canāt reach the remote, we canāt turn this show off. Weāre just as stuck as Dolores, and weāre being dragged off by the Man in Black with her.]
āI never understood why they paired some of you off, it seems cruel.ā The Man in Black continues to walk forward towards Teddy, who continues to fire his weapon straight at this man with no effect. āAnd then I realized, winning doesnāt mean anything unless someone else loses. Which means youāre here to be the loser.ā The Man in Black faces Teddy, within armās reach, still unharmed from the bullets Teddyās gun is firing. A gun weāve seen kill two bandits already. The Man in Black takes Teddyās hand which holds his gun and aims it at his own forehead. āLet me help you, son.ā The gun is directly against his forehead, but Teddy does not shoot. He is struck by the reality that he is powerless over whatās about to happen, and that his gun is completely useless, just like he is. He crumples to the ground, as if his brain has melted trying to process whatās just unfolded. āSeems youāre not the man you thought you were,ā the Man in Black pats Teddy on the back as he turns to walk back over to Dolores, whoās still frozen in fear on the ground.
āCome on beautiful,ā the Man in Black grabs Dolores by the neck of her dress and drags her across the dirt, away from the house and towards a barn. She screams, āOh, no! No! Teddy!ā Teddy stands and shoots the Man in Black in the back. The Man in Black looks bothered, exasperated, as if the toddler he just sent to time-out has come into the kitchen asking for a piece of candy. Really? Donāt you know better? We see it in his face. He stops walking, releases his grasp on her dress, rolls his eyes, and sighs. Dolores kneels in front of him, placing her hands on him, āNo, please, donāt hurt him! Iāll do whatever you say!ā He slaps her hard, looks down at her and says āI didnāt pay all this money because I wanted easy. I want you to fight.ā
[āI want you to fight.ā Weāve heard this. Face to face in our own life. By our own men in black. āI want you to fightā makes us want to scream with her. Maybe we are. I canāt tell.]
She looks shocked, disturbed even. Teddy yells āDonāt you touch her!ā as he continues to fire useless bullets at this man. The Man in Black sighs again, reaches for his gun, and turns to face Teddy. He shoots Teddy once in the chest, and we see pain, we see blood, we know his gun works. And we see Teddy grapple with that knowledge as heās dying.
āGod damn, feels good to be backā The Man in Blackās voice is strong, itās higher than before, heās actually happy. āLet celebrate!ā He grabs her dress again and drags her screaming in terror and agony into the barn while Teddy bleeds out.
- Bernard: āWould the things I told you change the way you think about the Newcomers, Dolores?ā
Sheās screaming over and over again. Blood curdling screams. Terror, fear, agony, thereās nothing fake about what sheās feeling. This isnāt acting for her. Itās real. Itās dire. She fears for her life.
- Dolores: āNo. Of course not. We all love the Newcomers. Every new person I meet reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive.ā
The camera zooms in on Teddyās iris as heās bleeding out. Dolores is still screaming, and in Teddyās black pupil we see the reflected image of the Man in Black throwing her onto a pile of hay in the barn and then slamming the door shut behind them.ā
- Dolores: āAnd how beautiful this world can be.ā
[Weāve just been thrown off a cliff, in our own body, and weāre spiraling out of control. There is no beauty in this world. No one hears our screams. And unlike Teddy, we donāt get to die. We are Dolores... we are Dolor... we know this word from learning Spanish, dolor is pain... Dictionaries define Dolor as: āA state of great sorrow or distress. Middle English denoting both physical and mental pain or distress, from Latin dolor: pain, grief" [per Google Dictionary]. āSpanish: pain, ache, grief, sorrow" [per SpanishCentral.com]. āDolor: Pain, one of the four classic signs of inflammation together with calor, rubor, and tumor (heat, redness, and swelling, respectively)" [per MedicineNet.com]. āPain, of a continuing nature, especially that of rheumatism; sorrow or grief of a continuing nature. Dolor, plural Dolores, sorrow, grief, misery, or anguish. A unit of pain used to theoretically weight peopleās outcomes... āSupposedly utilitarians are able to add and subtract hedons (units of pleasure) and dolors (units of pain) without any signs of cognitive or affective distress.ā - Rosemarie Tong, Ethics in Policy Analysis" [per Wikipedia]. Thereās screaming inside my head that surpasses Doloresās screaming that was just on screen, hers has finally ended, ours is only getting louder.]
We see the player piano roll click into gear, starting up all over again. We see Dolores back in her bed, clean and pristine once again, spotless and unharmed, alive, again. We see Teddy back on the train, looking hopeful and wistful again. The stage has been reset. The cast and crew are in position.
- Female Passenger 1: āOh my god, they are so life-like! Look at that one, heās perfect.ā She motions towards Teddy, who is sitting behind her, just waking up on the train.
- Female Passenger 2: āPerfect is boring. Iām more interested in the bad guys...ā she says with a joking flirtatious hint in her voice.
This isnāt your typical theme park. You donāt come here to visit fictional characters and dive into their world, to follow their dreams, to understand them better. A Disney princess isnāt anxious to show you her castle, tell you her life story, ask you to be her Knight, and invite you into her fictional world. No, you come here to make your own dreams, to be your own character, to write your own fiction. Youāre not a passive guest, youāre a director of your own fictional 4-D fantasy. And the bad guys arenāt just men, they are also women.
[One of the hardest parts of recovery as a survivor of sadistic ritualistic sexual abuse is realizing that there were no safe people in your world. Ā You often start by having memories of one parent abusing you, and in your mind you create a rule that *that* one parent is bad, or youāre bad. Ā But the world is still safe. Ā Then the deeper memories come back, the ones where that parent is giving you to other people, usually of the same gender, and they are abusing you as well. Ā And you make the mental leap that the new rule is either youāre bad or all people of that gender are bad. Ā Then another layer of the onion falls off and you face the memories that no, both genders were present in your abuse, and the āsafeā part of the world just shrunk drastically, maybe to just one person, perhaps just the other parent. Ā And you struggle with that. Ā Until the next layer of the onion comes off, and you find out that no, even that parent was involved, complicit, in the whole abuse. Ā In your entire undoing. Ā There is no safe zone, there are no safe people, there is danger everywhere. Ā Seeing the women on the train treating Teddy like a possible toy or piece of meat is a reminder that this world is the same. Ā There will be no illusions of safe people or safe places here.]
They are the Newcomers.
They are the Guests.
They are why this place exists.
[We know this place. We know this place. We know this place.
Weāve got to get the fuck out of this place before it kills us.
But we canāt, weāre frozen, weāre powerless, weāre trapped.]
The camera zooms away from the train, further away than weāve been allowed to see. Zooming so far away that we are suddenly in the control room, with people overlooking a technically fancy topographically correct replica of the entire park in the center of a room encased in slick blood red walls.
Somehow those blood red walls feel all too bloody after watching Teddy die, and the man in black suggesting that this same play has been performed many nights before, with Teddyās blood always the one covering the ground. Maybe itās a warning that weāre going to see plenty of blood spilled here. Maybe itās the irony of this wicked theme park being controlled and watched over by the staff in this heartless place while the walls are the most human color possible: spilled blood.
[Blood feels real, looks real, is real. Sometimes itās all you have to prove you are real. And alive. Sometimes you bleed to remind yourself that youāre alive. Thereās something serene about watching yourself bleed sometimes. Red walls are all about sex and blood and death. Red is alive. Until itās not. Whereās the line? Ā We have this intense urge to bleed right now, to feel pain, to feel alive, to feel unstuck.]
We are then taken down the hall, past glass-walled rooms where sterile while light illuminates men in sterile white hazmat suits building a horse from a white resinous material. [All the androids are built from this white resin, this sterile and pure base, this angelic and holy color. Ā The ultimate blank slate, the ultimate clean soul. Ā White. Ā Perfect. Ā Flawless.] Ā Three rooms, three different points in a horse being created: one of bones being fitted with organs, one having itās coat meticulously applied, and one with two trainers in black walking the life-like horse around in a circle.
This is the place where the androids are built, brought to life, and trained.
We continue down the hall and this time we see trainers in black sitting with naked humans in separate glass rooms. Like the horse we just saw being trained and exercised so are these humans being trained, tested, and exercised by their trainers. Beginning with simple movements of limbs in the first rooms all the way to a woman walking around seductively in a waist-training open-breasted corset and a man learning to quickdraw like a seasoned gunslinger in another. Ā [Women trained for sex work, and men trained for battle and war. Ā Prostitutes and Killers. Ā Betas and Deltas. Ā This is our head. This is MK Ultra programming. Ā Marionette programming. Ā Puppets coming to life, controlled by people in black with fancy computer tablets.]
We are fifteen minutes into the action. We are falling miles down the rabbit hole at an alarming speed. Insanely fast. Too fast. Weāre going to crash. When we hit the floor of this hole weāre going to crash hard. Itās going to be ugly.
This is the place where the human androids are built, brought to life, and trained, programmed, and modified. We are allowed in on a conversation between two humans who are reviewing new facial expressions called āReveriesā that have been newly programmed by someone named Ford into the human androids.
- Bernard: āHe calls them Reveries. The old gestures were just generic movements. These are tied to specific memories.ā
- Elsie: āHow? The memories are purged at the end of every narrative loop.ā
- Bernard: āBut they are still in there, waiting to be overwritten. He found a way to access them, like um a subconscious.ā
- Elsie: āA hooker with hidden depths? Every manās dream.ā
- Bernard: āItās the tiny things that make them seem real, that make the guests fall in love with them.ā
[āItās the tiny things that make them seem real.ā Ā Because they arenāt real. Ā We arenāt real. Ā Our Betas are having a meltdown, they have been since Dolores and the Man in Black were on stage. Ā This show is attacking them directly, pulling off their scabs, breaking their illusions, tearing away the lies they need to function. Ā Youāre not real, youāre created, youāre programmed, youāre trained, youāre here to perform. Ā For the Newcomers and the Guests. Ā Youāre entertainment. Ā Youāre replaceable. Ā Youāre just another extra from a lab, with countless others with the same job inside. Ā Youāre not even unique. Ā Youāre not real. Ā The guests arenāt real. Ā Love isnāt real. Ā Itās all a dream. Ā āMemories are purged at the end of every narrative loop.ā Ā Memories always wiped away, faces deleted, names eradicated, places confused, your memories are like shifting sand in an hourglass that you can never really touch or keep track of because they are always in flux here. Ā Youāll remember how to function, and why youāre supposed to function, but youāll always be wiped clean enough to believe the bullshit and function as if youāre life makes sense. Ā This is how we live. Ā This is how we function. Ā This is how our Creators designed us, how our Programmers scripted us, and our Masters used us, for the sake of the Guests.]
An alarm goes off on Bernardās tablet and he excuses himself from the room. He goes to the control center in the blood red room. Heās met by a woman in a suit who looks to be higher up in charge (Theresa), and a man dressed in tactical clothing like a soldier or security team member (Stubbs). Bernard himself is dressed in black like the other trainers, but wears a sweater and glasses that give him a professorial look, as if he is more at home in a library or behind a computer than with people. It's a clue that he somehow doesn't quite fit the mold here either.
He is told that āone of your creatures is restless... in sub level 83, cold storageā by the Theresa, who then instructs the Stubbs to respond āin full armor.ā Bernard quips āI think you guys like playing dress up as much as the Guests. The Hosts canāt hurt you, by design.ā Stubbs asks Bernard if he has kids at home, Bernard pauses and answers no, to which the Stubbs responds with āIf you did, youād know they all rebel eventually.ā
Theresa speaks to Bernard alone and says āForgive them for being a little uptight. Every time your team rolls out an update thereās a possibility of a critical failure.ā Bernard responds with āWe donāt update the Hosts in cold storage and the park hasnāt had a critical failure in over thirty years.ā She responds with āMeaning, weāre overdue.ā He offers to go with them to see what the problem is. She scolds him with a cool reminder āTheyāre only yours until they stop working, Bernie, and then theyāre mine.ā
[āUntil they stop working.ā Ā Thatās a real thing in my world. Ā When alters cease to function, or have seen too much, or remember too much, they are shut down, closed down, and stored. Ā Some go into cold storage, some go into cemeteries, some are stored in boxes and other containers. Ā Storage rooms hidden deep inside our world, cold and dark, under lock and key. Ā Itās like walking in parts of my own internal landscape that I know I donāt have the security clearance to be seeing. Ā Weāre getting much closer to hitting the wall and cracking under pressure from this free fall.]
The security team enters an elevator in full tactical gear, fully armed as if a war is going to ensue as soon as the door open. Ā The elevator panel shows that they are at B 83, and that there are at least sections named Ground, Sub Level A, Sub Level B, and Sub Level C. Ā This place is huge. Ā Just like the park. Ā The doors open and a flood of water greets them. Ā Stubbs says the cooling system has been down for weeks. Ā They enter what appears to be a sprawling abandoned facility, almost like a large suburban mall left empty for 20 years.
A large security door opens and the security teams enters one specific room where the problem was reported. They begin to make their way to the back of the room, walking amongst rows and rows of naked human androids who look slightly blue like corpses, all standing at attention, eyes wide open, frozen in place.
Like sides of beef in a slaughter house only they can stand, they donāt need to be hung up by hooks. Stubbs had made a comment about ālivestock management has got other prioritiesā when they spoke about the cooling system being broken. Livestock. Deadstock. Itās all the same to these people.
[Someone finally gets to the body, my body, and makes us move. We are escaping cold storage right now. We are beyond triggered, we are nearing obliteration. We are 19 minutes into the show and we have stayed about 14 minutes too long. We end up snorting morphine in the bathroom to stop the chaos going on in our own head, to stop the screaming, to stop the crying, to stop seeing our own cold storage, our own Westworld. This is all too real and makes way too much sense, and yet at the same time we donāt know how to make sense of it. The human parts of our brain is fighting the android parts of our brain and it feels like someoneās going to die... and right now weāre not sure which side is the most functional and deserves to survive.]
(Me typing on cell phone to my friend:)
"Me: OMFG
Me: Westworld
Me: Why
Me: Whyā
[If you missed or skipped the three Prologues, this is where they fall in chronological order. Ā They are our personal, emotional, triggered reaction explained in more detail.
They begin here: Prologue 1/3: Discovering Another Rabbit Hole.]
DIDMCSRA.wordpress.com  ©12/9/2016
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