I don't think Ford it dead.
The trouble is Sir Anthony is the hardest actor to lure back into anything. Hopkins doesn't like repeated projects. His biggest regret of his entire career is starring in sequels to Silence Of The Lambs. Regret he voiced numerous times, despite success. He also doesn't rate TV. By that I mean he does not watch TV. Does not even own a TV set. During press tour his contract wouldn't quite allow him to voice his active hate of the media, but when repeatedly poked for answer, he allowed himself to unwind slightly David Icke style about how TV is just "poison to brain and psychology". In essence - he liked Bryan Cranston in "Breaking Bad" to the point where he wrote him personal letter, he decided to check in for a high profile limited series, selected project on the value of character, and then, in his own words "I'm done, it's done". When asked repeatedly at some point Sir Anthony said that he reached the stage where he doesn't even recall doing some of the scenes shown in "Westworld" press promos behind him...
I'd love to see him back, I wish Ford was back, but you know, I'm not sure he's the type that you could pitch "we'll clone you as a host" role for any money to.
The Maeve storyline was great come the end
I liked the culmination of her storyline and season finale in general, but in the same time, although I'm happy, I'm kind of disappointed. It did turn out lost-ish in the end. It seems we can't have a story where majority of plot-baites are wrapped up. Not even in $100 million per season without deadine. The writers once knew how to do it, in books, but then the art was forgotten. Meanwhile thousads of people invested time and spent 10 hours studying characters, speculating, theorising, unlooping three time lines, typing drivel all over the internet, making and listening to podcasts and in the end - the writers still couldn't be bothered to gather all the pieces and decided to go with solid, tested "ef me sideways" shock value and some cowboy shootout.
9 episodes of Logan. Just to be sent b-naked to the outskirts of the park. As in what - died, perished, crossed on horseback to Eastworld, returned home with a sore a-hole after meeting some dodgy visitors? What? Irrelevant. Who cares. Not concluded.
8 episodes of Meave. Silliest of storylines, dreadful and cringey in execution thanks to Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumber (characters and actors - that moment when the guy starts watching his hands for the sign of robotics and is interrupted by "FFS" by Meave, that's like solid Xmas panto in Sheerness level with at least two facebook likes). Multiple human casualties in process. Just to be used as a decoy for security, something you could achieve with any cannon fodder from cold storage or a random fire on level 16.
8 episodes of Elsie, just to be written off without any precedence and forgotten. 7 episodes of Ashley. Just to be written off and forgotten.
Stuff we've been pitched for the entire season and then becomes iffy, because someone decided it was no longer relevant. For example - William falls for Dolores, does stuff for her, goes crazy for her, then can't find her, then finds her but realise she doesn't remember him after her loop is reset and starts the same cycle with someone else. He's heartbroken. Then gets angry. So angry he becomes CEO of Delos, buys Westworld, then spends 30 years raping Dolores in a barn in front of Teddy as a revenge, hanging and scalping his old story mates while ironically asking every host "don't you remember me?" Dude, that's just wrong. We can't invest in this storyline. Also, RTFM. They really do not remember you, by design. It will be somewhere between "bullets can't normally hurt you buy try not to look directly into the barrel" and "if you don't find Dolores dropping cans of milk in Sweetwater she'll be painting by the river* (*- unique hand painted "The Riverside" by Dolores available from Park Store at $29,99 in unlimited numbers) in the brochure.
"Arnold didn't know how to save you. I do. You needed time. Time to understand your enemy. To become stronger than them". Therefore I decided to sign you up for a 24/7 loops of rape, murder and bodily harm for profit. Sometimes, in spare time, I would break your nose, cut your face or make you shoot yourself in a head myself. "Cause I'm afraid you need to suffer more. But now it's time for me to go". Hmmkey? Love. Peace. Always yours. Robert. Wait. What? Come back here! WTF?
Stuff we've been fed with the insistence of a "because Walt is special" loop - then never concluded. So, Ford creates Bernard in Arnolds image. Arnold was presumably an orphan and had no friends, therefore nobody noticed there was a guy that looked just like him, spoke like him and never aged next to Ford around the office and in all the promo shots. Why Arnold's copy though? Well. Because Ford loved Arnold and "suffered when he died". And apparently that's why he can't stop himself from enjoying bizarre loop where Bernard discovers again and again that he's de-facto Arnold-but-not-Arnold and then his ex-best friend and maker forces him again and again to commit suicide on the cold storage floor next to Old Bill. "It's not the first time I've awoken" he tells Meave. All of that, because Ford, secretly, loves him and wants to help machines.
Peter Abernathy's "data leak" storyline. Irrelevant. Not executed. Unscripted hosts wandering in the park, minotaurs, masked zombies that can't be shot, crazy Tallulah in the rocks, etc. Irrelevant. Not concluded. Maeve dying with her daughter in her arms in the centre of the maze drawn in the ground. Irrelevant. Not concluded. And so on, so forth.
Now, look, I'm not complaining. I liked episode 10. I was entertained. Best series of the year. But only about 25% of the finale had anything to do with the stuff we followed for 9 hours. The rest was, quite literally, John Locke's hatch moment. We were shown a few new "wow" and "awwww" moments, a few "in your face redditards, you did not expect Spanish Inquisition ha!" twists, a few rushed and super sloppy excuses (the whole "I realised you need more time and will need to suffer some more, now it's time for me to go" universal plot conclusion will stay with me for the rest of my life - I will from now on try and use everywhere, from written work projects to exits at Christmas parties) and the rest was just bears in the jungle and smoke monsters? No?