I See Goodness in The Dumb Decisions

Published June 6, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi Shatters,

I heard y’all criticizing the decisions regarding Angela seducing the grenades off the security guy as well as showing the backroom full of Bernards in the previews.

Let me counterpoint both:

The hosts are bred to do one thing extremely well: read people and persuade them. We see Angela read young William in the hat room, and say all the right things to Logan at the sales pitch party. We see Maeve get reassigned after failing to convince guests in the Mariposa to ride her pony. We later see her persuade the shit out of Felix and Sylvester, Lee, and even fellow hosts Hector and Lawrence. Furthermore, the ability to persuade fits with Delos’ objective of sampling a rich set of their guests’ behaviors; ie, get them to do anything and everything. So – if Angela can’t get enough of a rise out of a security guy for him to lower his guard, then she isn’t performing up to specifications.

During the Bernard reveal scene, the suspense hung on two questions: Whose bodies are those?, and How will they react to the news? If I had to spend time processing both answers in that short scene, it would lose much of the effect for me. Instead, since I already knew they were Bernards, I could focus on everyone’s reactions, which I think is far more interesting and exciting.

Keep on shatting,
James from Deloware

Subscribe Now