I had big expectations about this episode, but instead it was a rather weak one. Plot is a bit meandering and there wasn’t much depth to the ideas and themes, this time.
Most of my theory seems already gone. This episode added a number of brand new elements to the puzzle, so previous theories cannot fit with the new picture.
That said, I was reading EW recap, including absurd theories like Arnold being Ford or Dolores being Arnold. Not only I find this incredibly silly, but it’s incoherent with what I saw on screen.
What I got from the episode is this: Ford gets emotional at the end of that dialogue with Dolores. Dolores asks if they were old friends, and Ford replies nope, not friends at all. That seems so clear to me. Dolores was Ford’s wife or girlfriend or something like that. She probably died as well, back then, and either Ford or Arnold made a copy. It’s even possible that Dolores was the love interest of both Ford and Arnold, and that brought conflict. Or Arnold built a copy of Dolores after the original’s death in order to convince Ford that these androids should be more than machines.
In general there’s this obvious dichotomy with Ford on one side coldly treating the park as a toy, and Arnold instead seeing it as something more. But then why is Ford the one currently programming the new update that is giving the host awareness? It seems to contradict his motivations.
Complicating things is the fact Dolores isn’t simply gaining a sort of introspection, but also hearing voices. So this creates a contradiction. Initially it seemed Dolores was an instrument of Arnold or Ford, sent on a path of self-awareness. But now it’s shown she instead follows a voice and that voice has been identified with Arnold. These two aspects do not make a whole lot of sense.
Same for the encounter between Ford and Man in Black. They talk without achieving anything. MiB says he’s the one who saved the park. It’s possible he’s the one who killed Arnold (or maybe he saved the park by just putting more money into it), but now he’s after Arnold’s plan. Ford is interested, but he won’t stop MiB.
I’m not too sure what to do with these pieces.
