The Globe and Mail - 11.03.2020

A14 O THE GLOBE AND MAIL| WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2020

LIFE&ARTS TRAVEL | OPINION| PUZZLES | WEATHER

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miling is such an important
way to make a human con-
nection, especially in a for-
eign country. It’s the equivalent of
saying “I know we may look dif-
ferent, and I’m obviously not lo-
cal, but I come in peace.”
Smiling is so fundamental that
I’ve never really given it much
thought, but now that I’m wear-
ing a mask, I find myself having to
work harder to convey my frien-
dliness and compassion. My
mouth underneath the mask has
to be in a very big smile for my
eyes to really convey that smile
and make that connection.
I’ve also become a bit of a head
nodder – an extension of what my
eyes are trying to communicate.
This is the new normal – life be-
hind the mask.
I’m caught in the coronavirus
net in an airport in Asia while re-
turning home to Canada. Al-
though Myanmar has no known
cases at this point, everyone’s
wearing a mask – even me. Lucki-
ly, I was able to source one before I
got to the airport. Everything
looks familiar and yet strangely
different in this surreal world. It’s
surprising how a small piece of
paper can de-humanize a face,
and effectively cut us off from
each other. It goes against all the
tenets of social interaction we em-
brace. I’m conflicted between try-
ing to be friendly behind the mask
and act as if nothing is wrong,
while at the same time quelling a
rising panic that is pushing reason
from my brain. Every masked per-
son reinforces irrational images of
a rasping cough, high fever, hospi-
talization, intubation and eventu-
al death.
I dare not cough myself, not
even the sleeve cough, concerned
about accusing eyes turning to
me, singling me out, sizing me up

as a candidate for a 14-day

quarantine.

Behind this mask, the air I’m

breathing is stale and hot, recy-

cled over and over in the few

square inches of paper that cover

my nose and mouth. The stuffy air

blows directly into my eyes, mak-

ing them dry and scratchy. I dare

not rub them or lower the mask of

breaking this fragile cone of pro-

tection. But then I realize my eyes

are exposed. Surely, I’m thinking,

a pair of goggles would be essen-

tial if we’re really going to go the

full nine yards of protection

against this scourge. It would re-

lieve my eyes to just close them

and go to sleep. Curling up and co-

cooning into myself seems like a

good option. But this would only

further cut me off from the rest of

the world.

My hands are raw from fre-

quent washing. Hand sanitizer,

which I used to reject as environ-

mentally unfriendly and unnec-

essary, I now use with alarming

frequency. I know logically that

it’s not possible to completely

avoid handling things in between

each cleansing, so I try to be dili-

gent about not touching my eyes

or mouth, or eating anything with

my hands. I admit that all this

mask-wearing and hand-sanitiz-

ing has taken some of the joy out

of travel, and I’m debating wheth-

er I should cancel the coming trips

I have planned. I love experienc-

ing different countries and cultur-

es, but here in the airport, I am un-

settled enough to consider prom-

ising myself to never travel again.

I carefully make my way

through the airport, and as soon

as I get on the plane, I swab the

deck – handrests, tray, screen –

with a disinfectant towel, and

watch while other people do the

same. This plane has never been

so clean. My daughter, who is 29,

and has the advantage of youth,

invincibility and a strong im-

mune system, even lets me clean

her space.

On the flight home, I don’t

speak to my neighbour who, like

most other people on the plane, is

also wearing a mask. In this

cramped space, I usually encour-

age a conversation, or at least a

greeting, and enjoy meeting new

people. The close quarters are

normally conducive to conversa-

tion, but now the entire plane

feels more like a Petri dish of

germs, all eager to start a relation-

ship with me, so I refrain. Besides,

it’s more difficult to talk with a

mask. Words come out sounding

muffled and I find myself shout-

ing and working hard to enun-

ciate. It’s just too much effort.

Most people, I notice, close their

eyes and go to sleep. It’s probably

the safest thing to do.

When I arrive home, I thankful-

ly rip off the mask. Even though I

don’t think anyone coughed or

sneezed on me, I’m careful to hold

it by the ear straps, just in case, as I

toss it into the garbage. I wash my

hands thoroughly for 20 seconds,

including under the nails, and

breathe a sigh of relief. Now that

I’m safely home, I’m rethinking

that promise to never travel again.

SpecialtoTheGlobeandMail

Lifebehindthemask

Asmileneedsnotranslating–butwhatifitcan’tbeseen?Debra Scoffield

chroniclesprotectivefacewear’seffecton socialinteractionabroad

Passengers wear protective masks while waiting for a flight in Baghdad last week.ASSOCIATEDPRESS

F

or a show fascinated with the
concept of memory – what is
real, what is imagined, what
has been manipulated by evil ge-
niuses to feel both real and imag-
ined, etc. – it is damn hard to re-
member what exactly went down
on the previous season ofWest-
world. Ahead of the HBO series’
Season 3 premiere this Sunday
night, I’ve tried so very hard to re-
call where things stood in the fan-
tastical theme park populated by
robot hosts, and their sometimes
benevolent minders and slimy
corporate overlords, and come up
empty. Even HBO’s official Season
2 finale recap reads like absolute
gibberish.
Thanks toWestworld’s fetishi-
zation of abundant and often
needless questions with no an-
swers, sometimes achingly slow
pace, characters specifically engi-
neered with the capacity to be
narratively and mechanically re-
booted over and over, and the in-
sertion of multiple, deliberately
confusing timelines – I’m fairly
certain Season 2 featured one
chronology that was only 45 min-
utes ahead of another –Westworld
lost the plot last season in spec-
tacular, seemingly self-destruc-
tive fashion. Yet, I still watched as
if it was appointment viewing,
and as soon as the first four epi-
sodes of Season 3 were made
available to media, I devoured
those, too. Why?
Probably because I cannot re-
sist a good mystery box show – the

kind of series in which its pro-

ducers lean into ambiguity with

an obsessive glee, dropping plot

hints such as Easter eggs and de-

riving immense, arguably per-

verse pleasure in toying with au-

diences’ ability to guess where the

storytelling might be heading.

J.J. Abrams pioneered the mod-

ern-day version of the serial mys-

tery box with his early-aughts se-

riesAliasandLost, although the

genre can be traced back to the

heyday of 1960s head-scratcher

The Prisoner through David

Lynch’sTwin Peaksand, a person-

al favourite, the underseen and

half-forgotten mid-1990s UPN

puzzlerNowhere Man. Which is

why the only thing that makes

sense aboutWestworldis seeing

Abrams’s name atop the credits as

an executive producer. Series co-

creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa

Joy undoubtedly bring their own

sensibilities to the series, but it is

obvious that the pair worship at

the altar of Abrams’s mystery box

more than any other idol.

So even though Season 2 devel-

oped and then teased so many

plot points that ended up either

maddening or looping around to

becoming completely insubstan-

tial, I stuck with the series. I was

captivated by all its many ques-

tions – who is really running the

park and what is their end game?

What is “the Door” that everyone

keeps talking about? Or “the

Forge”? Is Ed Harris’s the Man in

Black character a human, a robot

or some sort of sexy human-

robot-Harris mash-up? Am I a

robot? What time is this scene tak-

ing place in? What time am I tak-

ing place in? Agh? Agh! – even

though every episode made it

increasingly clear that there were

no real answers, or satisfactory

ones, on the horizon. I was bing-

ing against my better judgment,

not terribly minding that any-

thing was adding up. And who

among us cannot cop to the same

mistake? (Looking at you,Love is

Blindviewership.)

But I also kept coming back ev-

ery Sunday night for the sheer

HBO sheen of the thing. The show

simply looks impressive: as pris-

tine and perfect as possible, with

every one of the many millions of

dollars the network threw at it

evident onscreen.

Despite the series’ frustrating

nature last go-round, it still felt

like an event that could not be

missed.

The same is mostly true for the

series’ new season, which is still

confounding, but in a more user-

friendly manner. Sensing that

Season 2’s half-dozen timelines

threw everyone off except the

most hardened of Redditor zeal-

ots, Nolan and Joy have stream-

lined Season 3 into a single

straight-ahead narrative (al-

though who knows what will hap-

pen or be revealed in the latter

half of the season, which I’ve yet

to view). The timeline decision

helps reorient anyone (re: every-

one) puzzled by all that Forge/

Door business in Season 2 or even

those who stopped watching after

Season 1. We’re now outside of the

deadly South China Sea island

housing Delos’s various “world”

attractions (sayonara, Shogun

World) and into the “real world”

of a near-future Los Angeles,

which looks like a cross between

Blade Runner 2049and what

might happen if iPhone designers

were given architecture licences

and little bureaucratic oversight.

It is in this shiny hellscape that

vengeful robot Delores (Evan Ra-

chel Wood) is executing her plan

to burn humanity to the ground

as punishment for the various

traumas inflicted on her by the

Man in Black and his Delos lack-

eys. Meanwhile, the more com-

passionate android Bernard (Jef-

frey Wright) is hatching his own

scheme to stop Delores, and cor-

porate shark Charlotte (Tessa

Thompson), responsible for so

much of the misery inside the tit-

ular theme park in Seasons 1 and

2, is, well, dead yet still walking

around the boardroom of tech be-

hemoth Delos as if she owns the

place – although it is something of

a question mark as to which ro-

bot’s consciousness is operating

underneath her skin.

HBO has been characteristical-

ly mindful about reminding crit-

ics not to spoil any plot develop-

ments, although the first four epi-

sodes only contain a handful of

minor twists. And all of them,

mercifully, make some kind of

narrative sense. The writers still

raise myriad mysteries – who is

the new villain seeking control of

Delos? Which robot allies are as-

sisting Delores? How much does

the outside world know about the

deadly robot uprising inside the

parks? Is there, um, aGame of

Thrones-like park, too? – but a

good portion are asked at the be-

ginning of an episode and answer-

ed almost immediately thereaf-

ter. Best of all, by escaping the

physical confines and tropes of

Westworld the theme park,West-

worldthe show can now focus on

what has clearly been Nolan and

Joy’s ultimate fascination: life in

the age of zero privacy and how

humanity will always sell itself

out to the highest bidder.

Not every Season 3 addition, or

subtraction, works.Breaking Bad’s

Aaron Paul joins the cast, but his

character – an army veteran who

can’t get ahead in life – so far

seems superfluous. Some plot

lines – notably what Bernard and

fellow host Maeve (Thandi New-

ton) are up to – feel like they could

run their course in half the screen

time allotted. Harris seems just as

unsure as to where his character’s

arc is heading as anyone else, es-

pecially after that final, still-unex-

plained moment at the end of last

season. And I’ll put a wait-and-see

reservation on what Nolan and

Joy have planned for Vincent Cas-

sel, who shows up as a smooth

man-behind-the-curtain type,

even though the series has al-

ready presented enough string-

pullers to fill Delos’s board of di-

rectors three times over.

Still, the series is as slick and ex-

cessive as you might remember

and sometimes that’s enough to

help forget about everything else.

Season3ofWestworldpremiereson

March15at9p.m.onHBOand

Crave.

HBO’sWestworldisbacktodriveyoucrazy,andthankgoodnessforthat

BARRY
HERTZ

OPINION

Theshowsimplylooks

impressive:aspristine

andperfectaspossible,

witheveryoneofthe

manymillionsofdollars

thenetworkthrewatit

evidentonscreen.

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