DC Catchup: The Flash - 'The Present', Arrow - 'What We Leave Behind' and Legends of Tomorrow - 'The Chicago Way'

Hey kids! It's Mark Hamill!(1)

It's mid-season finale time in the Arrowverse (apart from Supergirl, as Earth-38 apparently breaks a week early,) which obviously means DRAHMAH!

In 'The Present', Barry seeks advice from Jay Garrick on Earth-3 vis a vis Savitar, which gives a chance to drop in a Mark Hamill cameo as the Earth-3 Trickster. Jay explains that Savitar is a Speedster legend, not actually a god, but the first man ever to tap into the Speed Force. His appearance in Earth-2 suggests that he fear's that Barry is about to become powerful enough to challenge his dominance of Speed (which implies that Zoom was just a wannbe, but read on.)

Alchemy makes a big push to restore all of the Flashpoint metahumans at once, but is stopped and captured, revealing his identity to the team. They soon learn, however, that Julian is little more than a vessel for Savitar. He was drawn to seek out a relic, the Philosopher's Stone, by visions of his dead sister. Opening a box he released Savitar; closing it banishes him. Of course, Cisco is lured into opening the box again by visions of Dante, but Caitlin talks him down and they use Julian's connection to question Savitar and learn that he is seeking vengeance for Barry trapping him in the box in the future. He predicts that one will die, one will betray the team and one will suffer 'a fate worse than death' before being cut off and lobbed into the Speed Force. Unfortunately, this slingshots Barry into the future, where he sees Savitar murder Iris before his future self can react, although Jay tells him that future visits are unreliable; the past should be fixed, the future is in flux.

And then Christmas happens! Wally is given his suit, having done good this week. Julian joins the team plus Joe's girlfriend for nog. Barry presents his gift to Iris: He's signed the lease on a sweet apartment for them both, which is... I want to say presumptuous and probably fraudulent, but I think they're going for sweet. A lot of people wander how he can afford it, perhaps forgetting that he is Harrison Wells' sole heir, and that clearly 'Wells' (actually Thawne) had enough capital knocking about to keep the STAR Labs building and his own sweet pad post-accelerator accident.

It's all about the legacy.

'What We Leave Behind' is far less merry than 'The Present', and that featured our leading lady getting future-shanked by a self-proclaimed god. Prometheus attacks Curtis in his civilian identity, and this catalyses a growing rift between Curtis and his husband. Evelyn's betrayal is revealed, and turns out to have been prompted by learning that Oliver was also the murderous Hood. In a similar vein, a series of revenge acts lead the team to conclude first that Prometheus is a businessman whom Oliver killed in Season 1(2), then that he might be the man's son. Either way, it's clear - not least from the fact that his fighting style shows he trained with the same people as Oliver - that he is seeking to punish Oliver's high-handed actions, as Diggle basically predicted at the time.

Seeking a swift and final confrontation, Oliver charges into a building after Prometheus, who has staged a scene identical to Oliver's earlier assault on the same building. He shoots a masked man dead, only to discover that it is Felicity's cop boyfriend, with his mouth duct taped under the mask. This is Prometheus' message: Everything Oliver touches, he destroys. Felicity refuses to be turned against Oliver, but as we close for mid-season Curtis has been chucked, Diggle is surrounded by police after an apparent SOS from Lila, Oliver has hooked up with vodka-drinking reporter lady (which is bound to end badly, not least because...) and Laurel Lance turns up. Alive. Apparently.

"I feel like one of us is not pulling his weight when it comes to the roaring 20s
theme."

And in Legends of Tomorrow, our heroes set out to take down their enemies 'The Chicago Way'. Chasing an anomaly in 1920s Chicago, they barely save Elliot Ness from assassination, leaving Nate and Ray to attempt to live out their Untouchables fantasies. Unfortunately, the two are having a bit of a spat over which of them is the redundant second nice guy on the team and they stuff it up. Okay, in part they stuff it because they are facing not just Al Capone, but also the unholy trinity of Damien Darhk, Eobard Thawne and new recruit Malcolm Merlyn.

In fairness, the team do okay, but it turns out that their foes are working way, way ahead of them. Stein is kidnapped and a disguised Thawne infiltrates the Waverider in his place, ultimately forcing Sara to make a deal for Stein's life. This also resolves Sara's anger at learning that Stein, the man who taught he not to kill Darhk and so save Laurel (redundant as that would apparently have been,) is hiding the existence of his daughter the time aberration. Sara trades the amulet they have for Stein, allowing Thawne to combine the two amulets into a single compass which points the way to the Spear of Longinus, which can rewrite reality.

So, Arrow takes the prize for biggest mid-season jaw drop by a country mile. I mean... the Spear of Destiny is cool and all, but Laurel Lance trumps the Holy Lance for reveal shocks. I'm not sure what to make of it, although I don't think it's time travel. That would be something of a betrayal of all the vowing not to shenanigan with history that our peeps have been doing of late, and also would not explain why Olly is as shocked to see her as he is. If she never died, he wouldn't be surprised. Further to this, Evelyn wouldn't have tried to be the Black Canary, been recruited into nuTA and been in a position to betray them to Prometheus. Most pressingly, it's too much of a crossover to form a foundational part of Arrow. All in all, it's a punchy close to a decent half-season and we're definitely wanting to know what gives.

The Flash has had a rocky half season, following from a rocky second half to its sophomore year. 'The Present' is pretty good, but Doctor Alchemy was honestly more interesting than Savitar (because honestly, we've already had one faster speedster from the future who considered himself done wrong by Barry. The potential death of Iris and the threatening predictions of Savitar are moderated by the promise of a mutable future, although Iris' death would be the ultimate test of Barry's resolution against temporal shenaniganning.

Legends is possibly still the weakest of the bunch, but it's hard to be sure when it's come on by leaps and bounds since last season. It's big shock ending is actually not the Spear, however, but the revelation that Rip Hunter appears to be alive and well, and directing low budget SF films about himself in 1960s Hollywood. What's that all about?

(1) Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was not a good movie, but it had some good bits.
(2) Flashbacks to Season 1; I fucking called it!

The OA - 'Homecoming' and 'New Colossus'

For identification purposes, I am not a Scottish nature reserve(1).

The OA is another in a long string of critically lauded, Netflix produced science fiction series, and I admit, I feel bad that this review of the first two episodes has taken so long to get written that I'm going to have to gloss on details.

A young woman, played by the series' sickeningly multitalented co-creator Brit Marlin(2), appears in New York and jumps off a bridge, leading to her reunion with her parents after a seven year disappearance, during which she appears to have regained her sight. She struggles to settle back into her home, not least because she prefers to be called 'the OA' rather than Prairie Johnson(3). In search of an internet connection to let her go beyond her parents' controlling influence, she forms an unlikely alliance with bully and drug dealer Steve (played by Patrick Gibson, who is a sort of Irish Jesse Eisenberg,) pretending to be his stepmother in a school meeting in order to keep him out of a behaviour modification unit, in exchange for him finding four other people to come to the abandoned house where he deals and hear her story. He brings three other kids from school and the teacher from the school meeting also turns up, having been powerfully impressed by the OA.

For identification purposes, I am not a California-set teen drama(5).

In the second half of 'Homecoming' and all of 'New Colossus'(4), the OA tells her story, beginning as the child of a powerful oligarch in Russia, where she had nightmares of drowning which came true when the Bratva tried to murder a bus load of rich men's children as an object lesson. The other children died, but she survived after a near-death experience which left her blind. She was sent to the US for her protection, and after her father's death cut off the money, was adopted by the Johnsons. Believing that she would reunite with her father at the Statue of Liberty, she ran away to New York, but instead met a scientist named Hap who offered to help her understand her near-death experience, then locked her in a perspex box where she was able to speak to a young man named Homer.

In the present, the OA displays uncanny abilities, asserting dominance over Steve's attack dog as well as evoking a powerful fascination in her listeners, although none of them can be sure she is telling the truth. Steve is still faced with being sent away after his parents discover his deception and cast allegations of improper influence at Prairie, while one of the other kids, French, is keen not to lose his scholarship on behavioural grounds, leading another, Buck, to lay down terms that Steve can't deal from the house anymore.

So far, The OA is definitely intriguing, although I'm not certain how it will hold up when we move from flashback to things actually happening. Still, with Westworld wrapped up, it's on the list along with The Expanse.

(1) The Oa.

(2) The other half of the team is the wonderfully named Zal Batmanglij.

(3) You might do the same if you had a name that made you sound like a porn star from Dakota.

(4) While many non-American viewers might not, I knew what 'New Colossus' refers to because it's used at the end of Wolfenstein: The New Order. Who says video games don't teach you anything.

(5) The O.C.

Watch with Father at Christmas - 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt', 'The Snowman' and 'The Snowman and the Snow Dog'

It was at this point that we, as a family, collectively lost our shit.

Christmas is traditionally a time for family, for good cheer, and for animated adaptations of beloved children's books. No Donaldson and Scheffler this year (although we did break out the Stick Man DVD at last after nine months of Arya refusing to watch it,) but we did watch all-time classic The Snowman, surprisingly effective reboot The Snowman and the Snow Dog, and Channel 4's new offering: We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

For those who don't know, We're Going on a Bear Hunt is one of the modern classics of children's literature. Penned by Michael Rosen - like Julia Donaldson a former Children's Laureate - and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, it's a simple, repetitive poem about a family going on a bear hunt through various unfavourable terrain, then fleeing the object of their hunt back through the same obstacles. Back in the day, it was one of Arya's absolute favourites, and we saw the stage version when it came to Cambridge last. Like the stage version, the Channel 4 adaptation adds considerable material; unlike the stage version, the original text is almost absent, referenced in parts only, and the expanded story is fucking heartbreaking.

Four children, a baby and a dog go for their bear hunt while one in particular is keenly mourning the pre-Christmas loss of their grandfather; thanks for that, 2016! They find a bear who might be a reincarnation of sorts of grandpa and the girl befriends him, before being dragged away by her siblings, and we end with the lonely bear slinking sadly away from the house. This is not what I was expecting from We're Going on a Bear Hunt, but I'm not going to say that it's a bad thing. The stage show had participation and songs, but there's only so long a TV adaptation can be sustained by a repeating pattern of eight lines or so. The resulting short film is by turns amusing and deeply poignant.

"Is there room on the Snowman for a dog like me?"

The Snowman is an absolute classic, of course, and thanks to the DVD extras I was able to introduce my family to the David Bowie intro (as well as the Mel Smith as Father Christmas intro and the original Raymond Briggs intro that I'd never seen before.) The Snowman and the Snow Dog came out a couple of years ago (2012, for the 30th - bloody hell - anniversary of the original,) and is a bit of a weird beast.

Its purpose, as much as it has one beyond 'let's make another Snowman, that movie was ledge,' is to bring the story into a realm that a modern audience will recognise, with the isolated house of the original now in the middle of an estate. Like We're Going on a Bear Hunt it throws in some loss, with the protagonist, Billy, losing his elderly dog in the opening scenes. He writes to Santa for a new dog before stumbling on the Snowman's hat, scarf and facial accessories, inspiring him to recreate the titular mayfly of a hero. After a baffling gathering of the Snowmen of Many Nations, Father Christmas presents Billy with a collar which magically transforms the Snow Dog into a real beast. The Snowman still melts of course.

For me, the most notable thing about this film is that, when the Snowman takes off for the North Pole (before stopping to steal a propeller plane, because he's getting on I guess,) I find it jarring that it goes into soft rock number 'Light the Night' instead of 'Walking in the Air'. It's almost exactly the same sense of wrongness I get every single time I watch an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise(1) and the music under the cold open goes into 'Faith of the Heart' instead of a proper, orchestral bit. There is also a cross-country race against various Snowpersons and a penguin on skis, who presumably traveled all the way up the globe to participate, only to lose to a snotty kid and his imaginary dog.

(1) So, not that often.

The Last Dragonslayer

Dragon and Dragonslayer

Sky's big Christmas special this year was an adaptation of Jasper fforde's The Last Dragonslayer. Jennifer Strange (relative newbie Ellise Chappell) is a foundling taken in by the Great Zambini to work at Kazam Magical Arts Management, an employment agency for sorcerers in a Britain which has reached the twenty-first century while retaining the presence of magic. The Kingdom of Hereford borders on the Dragonlands, a protected territory shrouded in mystical forcefields where the last dragon, Malcassian, lives in splendid isolation; until a surge in the failing power of magic is accompanied by a prophecy that Malcassian will die, at Sunday lunchtime, to the blade of a Dragonslayer. In seeking to protect the dragon, a fascination of her now-missing mentor, Jennifer learns that she is the Dragonslayer, the last such in a long line established by the greatest wizard in history, and that it might be her role to slay the dragon and thus bring about the end of all magic.

There is something oddly post-apocalyptic about The Last Dragonslayer's
Hereford.

In adapting the novel, much is changed, with the film's version of Hereford more retro-mediaeval than the book's, Kazam a much smaller concern with far less employee tension, and the plot both condensed and much more driven by active designs, both benevolent and malign. The satire of media and consumerism is still there, however, and the whole is carried by an excellent supporting cast and Chappell, who brings a superb depth of emotion to what could easily have been the rather bland role of a 'one sane girl' protagonist.

In visual terms the dragon, voiced by Richard E Grant, is superb, although one suspects that there was some skimping on the sets to afford the effects. King Snodd's palace looks like a small theatre set and much of Hereford looks like signs tacked on to an appropriately retro location. The quarkbeast - described in the book as a mix of roughly 10% labrador with equal parts velociraptor and kitchen blender - is here a dog that shapeshifts occasionally into a cloud of magic and teeth, but is utterly adorable.

Overall, the adaptation is loose, but the production highly watchable. Chappell is definitely a name to watch for, and it does make one wonder if the ill-advised step of trying to adapt the Thursday Next novels(1) may be on the cards again. I hope not, but would be well up for an adaptation of The Song of the Quarkbeast next year.

(1) There are serious problems with even reading the Next novels aloud, let alone trying to convey their world visually.

Sense8 - 'A Christmas Special'

I missed you guys.

Christmas brings many gifts, and one of the most welcome this year was Sense8's Christmas special, disingenuously entitled 'A Christmas Special'. It's apparently been over a year since we wrapped up Season 1, and in the intervening time Jonas' conviction that the segregation of humanity has heightened the species' effectiveness as engines of hate and death has only become more convincing. Let's hope that our beloved cluster can restore a little faith in connectivity.

Capheus is still pretty awesome. I miss the original actor, but apparently he's
not the easiest to work with.

We begin fairly bleak, with Lito outed and rejected by his fans and industry, Kala married to a man she doesn't love, Nomi pursued by government agents and hidden by Nita and a kind of LGBT*Q underground railroad, Sun in solitary confinement, Wolfgang on the edge of an impending gang war and Will and Riley in hiding with Will's mind shrouded from Whispers by the magical shield of heroin(1). And Capheus has turned into a different person! This, I have to say, is shit.

Fortunately, it gets better. The outing prompts Lito to embrace who he is and resolve his circle from a legion of fawning agents to the core of Hernando, Dani and the cluster. Nomi and Nita are surrounded by love, even as they are pursued from place to place. Sun continues to be supported both by the cluster and by her fellow prisoners, who club together to bribe the guards to let her have company. Felix wakes up and pretends he's going straight for a laugh. Okay, Will and Riley are still in hiding and locked in a perpetual stupor, and Kala's marriage seems to be relegated to comic relief, but the rest are doing okay.

The creepiest creeper who ever crept.

The special essentially follows our heroes through a turbulent year, including their first shared birthday celebration and another psychic orgy, which Kala - despite honeymooning in the right time zone - completely misses out on, because heaven forbid that any situation conspire to help her maintain her marriage. Kala's story is weird, because she's committed herself to marrying Rajesh, which is obviously a mistake, and keeps doubling down on it while everyone else is being awesome. Even Will, all smacked up on joints of heroin as he is, is able to sneak a Visit to Whispers and see that he has a family that he mostly tries to hide with 'blockers' (which in Sensate terms are sort of like heroin but without the debilitating side effect of being heroin, and are completely unrelated to the 'sleepers' prescribed to non-conforming telepaths in co-creator Michael J Strazynski's Babylon 5.)

We also have the obligatory fight scene, as a group of 'lawyers' try to assassinate Sun, and the birthday party montage is joined by a musical communion to the tune of 'Hallelujah', which is hella cliche by now, but honestly I can't think of a more apt song for It's a Very Sense8 Christmas than one that has come to be associated with Christmas but is really about sex. Nomi and Nita seek shelter with slightly creepy nerd Bug and help him to find a new family, which is adorable. Lito goes home to his mother with his boyfriend and... whatever Dani is(2), who takes him in without hesitation. Riley takes Will skating, but the happy moment is spoiled by Whispers - apparently he doesn't have much to do on Christmas Day - and then at New Year Wolfgang is almost jobbed by a rival mob faction.

'A Christmas Special' is about 50% recapitulation/reminder of our setup, and 50% awesome Sensate action. Some of the former is okay, although the first half drags a bit. We ended up watching it in two goes because it got late, and I suspect that if we'd left it another ten minutes we'd have got through the second hour going 'just at the end of this bit' every ten minutes. It remains a beautiful, heart-wrenching story of randomly and sincerely connected people and the hard, cruel world that wants them to be less awesome, and I dig that, especially with the current rise of nationalist fuckwittage(3). The special loses Kala, Riley and Capheus a bit, and that's a shame, but I have hope that the new series will bring it back together.

And then it's going to kill someone, of course, and I will be all of the sad, but we'll cross that Bridge of Sighs when we come to it.

(1) I think. Hard drugs identification is hardly my Mastermind specialist subject.
(2) I feel that there ought to be a term, but am not down with the kids.
(3) I try not to bring politics into these reviews, but honestly it's hard not to.

Doctor Who - 'The Return of Doctor Mysterio'

Image (c) Stuart Manning

“I like that. Doctor Mysterio! I'll have that!”

This review will contain some spoilers.

In New York to fix an Angel-related problem with time, the Doctor bumps into a kid named Grant who swallows an all-powerful gem. Years later, they meet again, but Grant has used that power to become masked superhero the Ghost. Along with the doctor's re-embodied companion Nardole (from 'The Husbands of River Song') and investigative reporter and single mom Lucy Fletcher (for whom Grant a) works as a nanny and b) pines,) the Doctor is in town to prevent a conspiracy of body-hijacking alien brains taking control of Earth, because it's Christmas and what says Christmas like an invasion.

The Good

• The Return of Doctor Mysterio has all the strengths of the Moffat era: Snappy writing, fast pacing and humour. Little moments like the Doctor's realisation that Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same were excellent.
• Grant and Lucy are a decent expy for Clark and Lois.
• Nardole's gentle needling of the Doctor's post-River blues is far preferable to another Christmas of the Doctor emoing for Prydon.

The Bad

• Unfortunately, there are a few of the less appealing Moffat traits on show. The romance is superficial and slightly pat, and the plot is stronger on style than on substance all through, despite a multiplicity of ideas in play. I'm increasingly of the opinion that Moffat has good ideas and writes good lines, but needs someone to support the middle section of his process.

The Ugly

• Nothing to report here, with even a worrying veer towards upholding the Nice Guy principle largely averted. It does hold a little too close to the classic tropes for comfort, but it's not too squicky.

Theorising

It's been a year since the last stand-alone, so there's not much to theorise on with this one. We do now have confirmation that we're getting a new companion who is a twenty-something cisgendered contemporary Earth woman, so that's new. Wait. No. The other thing. I guess we do seem to be keeping Nardole around, so there's that.

Top Quotes

• "Well, in terms that you would understand... Sorry, there aren't any. It's a...it's a...it's a...it's a time-distortion equaliser thingy."
• "Who are you?"
  "Lucy Fletcher, reporter, from the Daily Chronicle. Hang on, why am I telling you the truth?"
  "Spooky, isn't it?"
• "Look, I'm me, the Doctor, and even I think this is insane."
• "Mrs Lombard, there are some situations which are just too stupid to be allowed to continue."

The Verdict

The Return of Doctor Mysterio is a perfectly enjoyable Christmas special. It benefits from the lack of a preceding season in that fans are eager to get their fix, but suffers from a lack of immediate context. It's fun, and it's... pretty good, but not more than that.

Score - 6/10

Westworld - 'Trace Decay', 'The Well-Tempered Clavier' and 'The Bicameral Mind'

Whitewashing again.

Okay, so I got a little behind on Westworld and had to binge watch the last three episodes after Christmas. Having done this, I can say that I think this is a series that does not benefit from binge viewing. It's still amazing, but it's true episodic television, and there's so much to take in that it's easy to get lost when you chain episodes together instead of taking a week to digest what you've seen. HBO may be the last hurrah of this kind of television, but oh my, what a marvellous hurrah it is. As a result of the binge watch, I won't be doing my usual in depth synopsis for 'Trace Decay', 'The Well-Tempered Clavier' and 'The Bicameral Mind', instead working through the main character threads as best I can recall.

Thread one is Maeve and her supporting cast - Hector and Armistice in the park and Felix and Sylvester in 'hell'. In order to effect her escape, Maeve has to allow Felix and Sylvester to shut her down in order to remove the failsafe explosive from her spine and alter her core programming, which Felix does despite Sylvester's suggestion that they just job her while she's on the slab. Felix, like William, has fallen under the spell of his counterpart, although more from compassion than obsession. Maeve is angered and upset to find that Clementine has been recast as a blonde white woman, to the point that she almost misses her appointment to recruit Hector as the muscle for her plan because she flips out and kills her during a flashback to the murder of her daughter by the Man in Black, just to see what it would feel like to do something truly evil.

These guys do feel weirdly out of place.

That's actually interleaved with the Man in Black telling the story to Teddy, who remembers the Man in Black's abuse of Dolores while they're fighting a giant in a horned mask to protect a hapless blonde. Kudos to everyone who picked up on the time lapse thing, because the blonde is the host who welcomed William to the park, whom the Man in Black recognises but expected to have been retired long ago. Anyway, Teddy cold cocks the Man and ties him up for questioning, only to be betrayed by the blonde, who is another Wyattite. She says that Wyatt has a use for Teddy, but he isn't ready yet. Escaping from a Wyattite trap, the Man in Black is met by Charlotte, who wants him to use his majority holding in the park to swing the vote against Ford.

"This is a very complicated script."

Bernard confronts Ford after Maeve is brought in and use voice commands to control him. He insists on having all of his memories back, and remembers that he murdered not only Theresa, but also Elsie, the programmer who hasn't been seen in a while. He also recalls attempting, with Ford, to recover Maeve after the murder of her daughter broke the cornerstone of her programming (a scene which plays out more like an exorcism than engineering) and discovers that he was modelled on Arnold - so I called that one at least - when Ford missed his partner, before Ford compels him to shoot himself. It's not all up with him though, as Maeve restores him to find out who first started meddling with her programme. By this point she's revived Hector and Armistice in hell and started her breakout, and isn't happy when he tells her that her escape has been completely planned out by someone else. Maeve, Hector and Armistice, accompanied by Felix, make their escape attempt, with the two bandits discovering a passionate love of modern firearms as they chew through the security forces with their overclocked aggression and massively hiked pain threshold.

Our hero?

William and Dolores reach her 'home', where she is plagued by memories of Wyatt's massacre and begins to loose track of what is now and what is then. Logan manages to recapture them both, but she escapes after cutting him, and when he releases William, our ostensible hero turns into a complete monster in his obsessive hunt for Dolores. Eventually, Dolores comes to the heart of the Maze, where she confronts the Man in Black and learns that, as speculated, he is William, having found his inner bastard in Westworld and displaced (and possibly murdered) Logan to take control of Delos, the company that now owns most of the park. We also learn that he married Logan's sister, as planned, and that after thirty years she took her own life rather than continue living with a monster.

Cultist is probably a step up from intro sexbot.

As the Board assembles to remove Ford and steal his IP with a Trojan host, Ford prepares his final narrative. The Man in Black kills Dolores and explains that his dissatisfaction with the park comes from the fact that he can not lose; the hosts can't really fight back, even ones like Dolores. Ford assures him he will like the new narrative, a dark journey of the soul which ends with the death of Dolores. It's a hugely disappointing reveal, because it feels like such a stock storyline, but stick with it because we're not done yet.

Back in hell, Dolores confronts Arnold, but realises that she can't be talking to him, because she killed him, but doesn't yet realises who she is really talking to. Ford reveals that Arnold had her kill him when her character was merged into the planned character of Wyatt, in an attempt to force Ford to close the park. Ford got through that, but later came to believe that the hosts did deserve freedom, and that they could only get it by suffering their way to true consciousness. His true narrative, he finally reveals, is the arrival of the new people that Wyatt predicted and to whom the world belongs; not the natives (hosts), not the settlers (guests), but the emergent race of sentient hosts, ushered in as Dolores and an army of reactivated hosts massacre the board at the launch gala.

Right so.

On the way to this, Dolores realises that the person she is talking to is herself; the voices that guide her not external, but the inner god of her bicameral mind, created when Arnold switched his thinking from a steady evolution of consciousness to an inward maze. The maze was not for William because it was created for the hosts, not the guests.

What else? Douchebag narrative director creates a crude character to smuggle data out of the park to Delos. He might thereby escape the massacre. The Man in Black seems very happy to be properly shot at last (by Clementine, no less,) while Teddy and Bernard are both shocked by the turn of events.

William's happy ending involves more being shot than most.

I'm probably still missing a tonne of stuff.

On the way out, Maeve's party come across a group of samurai hosts in training, implying that Westworld is just one of a number of themed parks (as in the original film, where the denouement actually took place in Medieval World.) Armistice is trapped when a door closes on her arm, and Hector finds he can't leave the park as Maeve didn't give him that much clearance. Maeve makes it to the train out, but suddenly changes her mind and comes back, possibly for her daughter, despite her reduced loyalty setting, which many people - myself included - take as a sign that she has broken the pattern set for her by... whoever set her pattern.

For having not many lines, Armistice has been quite the ensemble dark horse.

Post-credits, we see that Armistice managed to cut off her own arm to escape the door, before being confronted by three guards. In theory she ought still to be pretty stuffed, but she doesn't seem a lass to be underestimated.

And that's Westworld season 1, and honestly my main concern is I'm not sure where season 2 is going to go. It seems unlikely that the massacre of the Board will be allowed to stand or that the hosts will just be left alone now, and there are the non-Western parks hinted at, but it's going to be a very different beast. Still, that's a worry I only have because season 1 has been so good.  Compelling and disturbing in equal measure, complex in the good way and dense with ideas, Westworld is a strong contender for best show of 2016 (an in a strong field.) It's good, old-fashioned smart programming, made with modern tools but never slave to an effects shot, and one of the most successful efforts to date to comment on the use of violence and sex in the media without getting lost in sex and violence itself.