Sending “Two Timelines” to Cold Storage For Good

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Ok, I know many have tried, but I’m 100% convinced that this show cannot have two timelines and I’m going to attempt to prove it. Fair warning, this is gonna be a long one.

Let’s take a look at the order of events. And bear with me, a lot of this has been spelled out before, but it’s important to create a firm chain of logic here.

In the Pilot:

1. The first time Dolores and Teddy return to her farm, we see Abernathy killed. In this scene we see two very important things. a) Walter gets shot in the gut in Abernathy’s house. b) The Man in Black is present in this scene. He shoots Teddy.
2. We later see Walter, still with his gut shot, massacre a bunch of people. This triggers the park Staff to panic over the new “reverie” update.
3. As a direct reaction they trigger the Paint it Black gunfight a week prematurely. Elsie (who helps with cleanup, putting D to sleep at the end), Botnard (calling him that until we know he wasn’t a clone/plant), Cullen (ordered the gunfight) and Sizemore (arranged for it to happen) are all obviously involved in this cover-up.

All of these the must happen in the order presented. So we have established that the people listed so far are all key players in the “Man in Black” timeline.

Ep2:

1. Dolores flashes back to what seems to be either the Sweetwater massacre from Ep 1, or the original Uprising, 30ish years ago. Occam’s point goes to the Stillwater massacre because we’ve seen that and nothing to confirm the original uprising happened in town. Making it more likely that she is recalling post MiB events. But, I’ll allow the possibility that it could be either.
2. Dolores finds her buried pistol, presumably puts it in her dresser drawer. Timeline context is unclear for now…
3. Dolores meets William. A quick scene, three easy ways to interpret. a) Dolores is relating William’s act to her loop with Teddy. She recognizes that this is what is supposed to happen, but the face is wrong. She needs a moment to adjust/adapt to the change of faces. b) She’s relating William’s act with the Man in Black, who recently raped her (this obviously supposes only one timeline) and is trying to determine whether it is necessary to defend herself. c) It is an intentional motif meant to hint that William and MiB are the same person. Of the three, Occam’s point gets split between the two that can be explained in story, in events we know happened. The two timeline theory requires we assume there are two timelines, and so loses credibility. But again, I will also cede the possibility that it could be.

Ep3:

(skipping a few points, some of which I’ll get to later)

1. Dolores and Teddy go take shooting lessons after Rebus and friends try to have their way with her. Their fun is interrupted by Teddy’s partners coming in with a bounty they believe to be Wyatt.
2. Teddy and Co. come across a tree full of helpless people who appear to have had their throats slit. Supposedly they are hunting Wyatt. But this doesn’t really fit (the admittedly little) we’ve seen of the character. Could be him, but we do already have another character who has a fascination with somehow non-lethal excessive tracheotomies: The Man in Black. Who just slaughtered a town. Which is what made Teddy’s friends suspect it was Wyatt in the first place. Not saying they’re really chasing the Man in Black, but it’s worth mentioning because if they are it means this bit ALSO happened in his time.

   In any case, they are attacked by a bunch of unknown people. The sheriff who returns to Sweetwater says it was Wyatt’s men, but he knows as much as we do. Might not be.

3. Dolores returns home to find her father dead. Abernathy 2.0, to Dolores’ “vision” glitches to become Abby 1.0. It could be a flashback. It could be an actual programming or visual processing glitch. Either way, it MUST happen in the “MiB timeline”. She wouldn’t imagine that host as her father out of bloody nowhere.
4. Rebus tries to rape Dolores. She shoots him. Still MiB timeline.
5. Finally, where I start making my point…

That DAMN weird cut proponents of the two timelines theory keep using as an escape hatch. It could be that the cut symbolizes a separation of time, that we are now back in time to another “timeline” with William and Logan. Or… It could be that she’s processing the danger she’s in (I’m gonna get shot!), consciously acknowledging it against her programming, and taking actions to prevent it. Which is supported by last night’s demonstration with Clementine and Asian Stock Host #326184.

Who’s to say she’s not just remembering being shot in this situation in the past, which has already happened twice in this scene, and reacting accordingly? This sequence is the ONLY definitive “proof” of two timelines. But it’s not even proof, considering there are alternative explanations that work better when applied in the context of what we’ve already seen on screen.

The two logos are easily explained away by the production designers knowing the park has been open for over 30 years and logos tend to change. Many shows are doing this with logos now. Look at Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D.. They’re using not just logo’s from the movies and comics, but have developed several unique ones just to give the illusion of an expansive history and multiple divisions.

But don’t worry, that’s not the nail in the coffin. I know even that is too circumstantial to put this theory to bed…

Ep4:

1. Stubbs gets a report that Dolores is wildly deviating from her path and sends a tech to collect her.
2. The fountain scene with Dolores. You guys already covered this specifically in detail, so I’m just gonna point out for the record: Flashbacks to things that MUST have happened in the past. Meaning one of the Abernathy deaths we’ve seen. Meaning post MiB. While she’s hanging out with Logan and William. Which should in and of itself prove the point. (Again, she cannot be remembering events she hasn’t yet witnessed.) But, because even that wasn’t enough due to the only non-hosts directly involved being William and Logan…
3. The nail in the coffin. That nameless tech Stubbs sent to recall Dolores shows up. In the supposed “William/Logan” timeline. To deny this is to accept that by sheer coincidence, 30 years before the MiB/Stubbs/Elsie/Ford/Cullen timeline, Dolores went wandering alone in the park, far off loop, but under close enough observation that a tech was sent to retrieve her. And that said unnamed tech is literally the only actual proof of a corporation other than Delos ever having run the park.

And to top that off, even though the deviation was eventually explained by William’s presence, the deviation went unrecorded for future reference (which would have been brought up in the event of a repeat anomaly) even though we know the park keeps very meticulous records of the hosts movements over their entire “lives”.

Tell me which seems more plausible:

A random tech guy sent by a corporation we’ve never seen before, responding to what should be a once in a lifetime event, with a host that by all rights should be deactivated, incinerated and purged if it turns out she caused an uprising. (Which is what the two timeline theory insists is what’s going on)

Or that what we saw was literally what happened. Dolores went off loop. Tracking caught her. A tech was ordered out to fetch her. The tech was stopped by a guest.

Some other brief things to consider while mulling that over:

I) We know “The Incident” happened 30 years ago in the MiB timeline. Has been stated several times, and omission in the W/L timeline doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

II) Ford states while with Wild Bill in cold storage (his drinking buddy down there) that all the hosts used to be like that at first. Stiff moving, prepared phrases, glitches. You could tell they weren’t real just by touching them. Friend of mine tried to call me on it and say that Wild Bill was clearly malfunctioning or broken. At first I bought that, but I was rewatching the entire series while typing the e-mail just to make sure I get details right. Bill isn’t the only first generation model we see. There’s also Ford’s Pianist in Episode 3. And because those two match what Ford described, I’m inclined to give credit to Fords flashback where we see an entire mob of dancers acting in the same robotic ways.

III) Per point II: “In the park’s early days you could tell the hosts apart with a touch”. Rewatch the scene where William first arrives at WW. The girl who acts as his ‘arrival hostess’ is so human he can’t tell for sure that she’s a host until she literally tells him she is. He touches her. He talks to her. She even seems to delight in the line “does it really matter if you can’t tell?” (Sorry, exact wording may be wrong, but you get the idea). This is not the early hosts Ford describes, which we see. Not even remotely close. If the Logan/William plot takes place 30 years before the MiB plot, how do you account for the lack of any intermediary step between “Wild Bill: Chuck E. Cheese Edition” and the flawless recreation of humanity that walks William into the park?

Sorry about the book, but I hope you enjoyed it.

You can stop reading now if you want, but for the sake of completely discrediting my ability to reason, I’ll share (very briefly) my guesses about what’s really going on:

The obvious:
First, this is all one timeline. (duh.) The “Futureworld” theory is true, Ford is replacing real world people with androids, which he controls.

The unlikely:
William is himself one of Ford’s hosts. Ford is aware of Logan’s families attempts at a hostile takeover. William marries Logan’s sister, Logan mysteriously dies, William takes over Logan’s family corp. Ford buys his own company using his puppet and is still allowed to rule from the shadows.

The stuff that will make you disregard this entire email:
Ford is also a host. He’s pulling an Ultron, recreating new bodies for himself with new tech. There are possibly multiple copies of him running around the park already, carefully coordinated via a neural link. He is trying to run the world (system? do we have any confirmation if this is even actually on earth?), trying to force it to evolve for the better in a way that he sees as the greater good. The Paragon of efficiency.

Meanwhile, Arnold, Wyatt and MiB are all the same person (yes, I know this seems to contradict points in my manuscript above, but you’re already begging me to stop typing). He’s fighting for the general concept of freedom. He wants to stop Ford’s attempts to rule the world(s), and is using freedom itself as a weapon against Ford. I suspect Ford would have no control over Hosts that are made fully self aware.

Again, hope you at least enjoyed my thoughts and sorry about the length.

Either way, keep up the good work with the cast! – Jason “Sparrow”

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