Soldato
A few things I didn't quite grasp in this episode -
With regard to the scene with Maeve on the train, was that not Lawrences daughter sat opposite her? Edit - The cast credits indicate that his daughter was in the episode.
It was not Lawrence's daughter on the train.
If so, can we assume the escape sequence was all part of an elaborate storyline? (as implied by Arnold/Bernard).
You can (regardless of the daughter). Because "mainland infiltration" literally was part of her scenario (bottom of the screen):
That and "it's not the first time you've awoken either" quote from Bernard made her exit the train and thus go off the script loop...
Also, the scene in which the audience were revealed to be watching Dolores dying on the beach; How much of her sequence leading to this point were they exposed to?
This was perhaps one of the most bizarre conveniences/liberties the finale developed. On the afternoon of the big scenario reveal, the main character of the new script (Wyatt) is still otherwise engaged in a punch-up with Old William (MiB) and she's continuing her journey to self discovery off the loop of the previous script. She gets stabbed by MiB and is about to get decapitated, when Teddy runs to her rescue. Dying Dolores utters her final wish to Teddy, which happens to perfectly line up with the new scenario and its premiere (and seemingly couldn't possibly have anything to do with the Wyatt story which was being rolled out). It was nice in execution and nice to watch, but absolute stretch of scripting WTF-ism by a nautical mile, from the Utah ocean side, to the logistics of putting said ocean next to the Escalante (where the party and massacre takes place later on) all the way to the stab wound being in the right place and right time.
Lastly, wouldn't the act of freeing the hosts so that they could slaughter the guests be counterproductive?
Completely. Following the shootout of all the guests in park 1, sector 20, zone 1 (for the benefit of one or two hosts going sentient), the story pretty much ends with them walking around house in the forest with creepy Ford family and asking each other to find the door/"what door" until they run out of batteries, or fresh food, or whatever it is their biology runs on. If their escape scenario relied on team Hector/Armistice to wipe out staff on all levels of control within park 1, then they would be removing the only people that can fix, revive and remove parameter triggered "spine explosives" from them (you remember - Meave had to burn herself in fire and be rebuilt with that part of the spine re-planted into the weaving machine by Felix to be able to escape. Essentially - the best/worst case of Ford's plan is the other parks maintenance shut down Westworld, let all the hosts run out of juice before promptly reprogramming the lot with the "last known best configuration". Presumably Shogun World and other parks have their own Bernards/Elsies in charge of maintaining hosts that could perform the task.
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