William Didn’t Kill Emily

Published March 15, 2020 · Updated July 6, 2022

Dear Bureaushats,

I missed the telegraph edition but wanted to offer a couple of thoughts before the new season drops tonight.

(I also fell off the map toward the end of Watchmen due to work and life. Most of my ideas seem to have been pretty well covered by the rest of the Shatosphere, but I did want to offer this alternate ending: Angela slowly stretches her foot out in attempt to walk across the swimming pool and… promptly falls in. When she emerges, she grins, shaking her head, musing about how Dr. Manhattan finally developed a sense of humor. Roll credits. Yes, I think that would have been the best of all possible endings. And that’s also why I think that it clearly was not the ending intended by the showrunners.)

Anyway, Westworld: as I tweeted once, I really started watching just to have the context to enjoy the podcast. The show always had a tendency to display a reach that exceeded the writers’ grasp. They had to stop filming mid season in order for the NolanJoys to rein in the narrative. There was an interview with Anthony Hopkins in which I got the impression that Sir Anthony sensed that the showrunners were just making it up as they went along and had to insist that they produce actual motherfuckin scripts.. https://ew.com/article/2016/12/07/westworld-anthony-hopkins-finale/

Which is a shame, because I basically evangelized for this damn show and as of a couple weeks ago I strongly felt that the only justification for its continued existence was to finally cover “Paranoid Android” on an old-timey player piano.

And now, having binged it Roger-style, it kills me to say is but it holds up way better than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough to immerse oneself in such an ambitious television experience when the showrunners seem to be constructing the story to service particular horror tropes; when Maeve differentiates herself as The Good Woke Host by rejecting violence… when she’s not making an entire Samurai army Epstein their selves; when the in-world version of a CACI contractor allows himself to be seduced and murdered mid-objective; and when the show’s thesis seems to support the notion that Skynet would be the real victim if someone accidentally uploaded it into you municipal wastewater treatment facility.

Anyway, I thought I would throw out some early tinfoil: I’m not convinced William really killed Emily. In fact, he might have died in the park. MIB got lit the fuck up by Maeve and Co. Nobody should have survived that, Magic Future Medicine notwithstanding. When he comes to, we get a first person POV shot of him looking up at Emily – ala the host’s view. And then she continues to question him about things that Ford would want to know. This is before William kills her. William is portrayed as paranoid but keep in mind that William was actually right about Dolores during his first trip to the park. (That’s another thing: William is constantly cast as a Bad Guy for killing robot Maeve’s robot daughter. Setting aside the implication that it’s a serious moral failing to source spending cash from the ladies of the night in Grand Theft Auto, William is the Hosts biggest champion after Ford and Arnold: he falls for Dolores because he rightly sees that she is special and he’s happiest when being shot by them.)

So yeah… sorry for the ramble, but I’m looking forward to Westworld and, more importantly, the pod. Also, welcome Ashley!

YOur pal,
Don Sauce

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