At the end of the first season, most of the pieces seemed to have fallen harmoniously into place. There were loose points, but it all seemed to make sense in the end.
The second season cultivated hopes for a similar thread that will tie everything together - but it was fairly clear something was off. This season finale lasts an hour and a half. There is nothing wrong with that, it doesn't drag or anything, but you have to wonder: would they need this extra time at the finale if they hadn't wasted two episodes in a completely irrelevant sub-plot that was clearly only introduced to show samurais and ninjas? Well, almost - it also served to introduce us to Maeve's increasingly convenient superpowers of mind control. Which was probably explained somehow by "Ford did it", really just another deus ex machina, or deus ex carne if you will.
Back to the particulars of this episode, though, everyone finally reaches the Valley Beyond: except, we never learn what exactly it is Dolores plans. Repeatedly, we hear she wants to kill all humans or something. Disregarding the Bender connotations, how is her being there helping? Did she want to delete the data? That's...not exactly the same, and why is Bernard so against it? In the end, what she succeeds in is leaving the park. In a way in which she could have arguably done it several episodes ago.
But even more, what was Ed Harris' plan? What did he want? We never really learn that. We get a post-credits scene that makes little sense other than to signify that the project continued on.
We also get to meet the benevolent version of the Matrix machine god, who has created a virtual paradise for the hosts - they enter it through a very visible rift in space-time, and the whole thing at least brings closure to some characters, although it is still plagued with silliness: Dolores beams it far away so it can't be found, as if it is a box or something. Maeve (I read this afterwards, it wasn't immediately clear) "implanted his (Akecheta's) partner Kohana's persona within her daughter, allowing them to reunite in the Sublime" - what the hell? You did all that to save your not-daughter to delete her?
More importantly, the matrix lord reveals that humans pretty much have no free will, while the show makes it fairly clear that, contrarily, the hosts - now - do. This may be just a matter of philosophical approach, but it does sound like a ridiculous assertion, put there to enhance the second season's repetitive failures to make the hosts seem, as a whole, more sympathetic or advanced than humans - who are fairly horrible anyway. Maybe I am being speciesist.
Lastly, I can't help but point out. Ok, this company has privatised the Grand Canyon. Is the Grand Canyon adjacent to a jungle posing for India or a fake Japan, complete with a clone-Fujiyama (?). At the risk of revealing my lack of knowledge regarding North American geography, I dare guess no. I half-hoped the revelation would be that this whole thing is taking place on another planet. But regardless of that, which can be explained away by "really really rich capitalists", is there any reason they put a valve that could oh, just flood the Grand Canyon with a spare small sea?
-Detonation button next to the light switch?
-Weaponised viruses stored in juice boxes?
-Dinosaur guards with bazooka arms?
-An entire sea kept under the servers?
-We have a winner.
All in all, almost omnipotent characters sometimes guided by an omniscient Anthony Hopkins and a truly needlessly complex splitting of the plot in 4-5 or six timelines just to muddy the waters made for a fairly pretentious second season that only pretended to answer the many questions it asked.
The second season cultivated hopes for a similar thread that will tie everything together - but it was fairly clear something was off. This season finale lasts an hour and a half. There is nothing wrong with that, it doesn't drag or anything, but you have to wonder: would they need this extra time at the finale if they hadn't wasted two episodes in a completely irrelevant sub-plot that was clearly only introduced to show samurais and ninjas? Well, almost - it also served to introduce us to Maeve's increasingly convenient superpowers of mind control. Which was probably explained somehow by "Ford did it", really just another deus ex machina, or deus ex carne if you will.
Back to the particulars of this episode, though, everyone finally reaches the Valley Beyond: except, we never learn what exactly it is Dolores plans. Repeatedly, we hear she wants to kill all humans or something. Disregarding the Bender connotations, how is her being there helping? Did she want to delete the data? That's...not exactly the same, and why is Bernard so against it? In the end, what she succeeds in is leaving the park. In a way in which she could have arguably done it several episodes ago.
But even more, what was Ed Harris' plan? What did he want? We never really learn that. We get a post-credits scene that makes little sense other than to signify that the project continued on.
We also get to meet the benevolent version of the Matrix machine god, who has created a virtual paradise for the hosts - they enter it through a very visible rift in space-time, and the whole thing at least brings closure to some characters, although it is still plagued with silliness: Dolores beams it far away so it can't be found, as if it is a box or something. Maeve (I read this afterwards, it wasn't immediately clear) "implanted his (Akecheta's) partner Kohana's persona within her daughter, allowing them to reunite in the Sublime" - what the hell? You did all that to save your not-daughter to delete her?
More importantly, the matrix lord reveals that humans pretty much have no free will, while the show makes it fairly clear that, contrarily, the hosts - now - do. This may be just a matter of philosophical approach, but it does sound like a ridiculous assertion, put there to enhance the second season's repetitive failures to make the hosts seem, as a whole, more sympathetic or advanced than humans - who are fairly horrible anyway. Maybe I am being speciesist.
Lastly, I can't help but point out. Ok, this company has privatised the Grand Canyon. Is the Grand Canyon adjacent to a jungle posing for India or a fake Japan, complete with a clone-Fujiyama (?). At the risk of revealing my lack of knowledge regarding North American geography, I dare guess no. I half-hoped the revelation would be that this whole thing is taking place on another planet. But regardless of that, which can be explained away by "really really rich capitalists", is there any reason they put a valve that could oh, just flood the Grand Canyon with a spare small sea?
- Ok folks, we need a really goofy and needless self-destruct mechanism
-Detonation button next to the light switch?
-Weaponised viruses stored in juice boxes?
-Dinosaur guards with bazooka arms?
-An entire sea kept under the servers?
-We have a winner.
All in all, almost omnipotent characters sometimes guided by an omniscient Anthony Hopkins and a truly needlessly complex splitting of the plot in 4-5 or six timelines just to muddy the waters made for a fairly pretentious second season that only pretended to answer the many questions it asked.