Westworld continues to pull us back in
Plus, let's take a moment to appreciate Maeve’s caustic asides
TV Reviews westworld
We’re going back! We’re going back!
Yes, I’m starting at the end, but also, how can you not? The park that clearly won’t die (what is this, a Jurassic one?) returns, retooled and revamped for a whole new wild season.
But let us not get ahead of ourselves. First things first: I wholly enjoyed the first episode of Westworld’s fourth season and rightly praised it for shedding the series’ most alienating aspects of its storytelling and deciding to go back to basics. (Seasons two and three felt more like puzzles to be solved than stories to be followed; did you get through them without color-coded timeline diagrams and endless visits to Reddit threads and wikis?)
The episode may well have spent time reintroducing us to old friends, but it also did a solid job of laying the groundwork for what promises to be—and here we may borrow William’s own words—not so much a revisiting of season one as much as a reinvention of it. Which, honestly, sounds pretty great. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about Nolan and Joy’s dystopian gambit since the show’s first few episodes, which managed to string you along into a sci-fi parable about free will in the guise of a humans vs A.I. battle taking place in an amusement park where earthly delights came with deadly consequences. And who needs anything more than that, really?
So, in this episode we kick off with a Western-inspired face-off between William (Ed Harris) and Clementine (Angela Sarafyan); the Man in Black is keen on finding Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and he’ll stop at nothing. Killing is now the name of the game. But it soon becomes clear(er) what he’s up to: He’s trying to rekindle the ashes of what was once Delos, yes, but also Westworld, the park. Sure, the U.S. government is adamantly against it. But, as in our own real world, it seems corporate interests have no way of being curtailed. Especially when said interests have a legion of hosts and human/host hybrids (is that what we should be calling these humans infested with fly hosts?) who will do their bloody bidding and stop at nothing to make William and (twist!) Charlotte Hale’s plans a reality. Yes, our beloved Tessa Thompson is back. A little worse for wear (she did survive a fiery accident last season, remember?) but her Dolores-consciousness (lovingly dubbed “Halores” by fans) is just as ruthless as before.
It’s she who’s running the game here, having built herself a William to be the front of her plan while she seeks to, as Dolores herself once did, create a world fit for hosts. All she has to do first is declaw those jackals, lest they run amok and hurt those who she wishes to let roam free in this new world.
What may stand in their way? Well, Maeve and Caleb (Aaron Paul), of course. The jury is still out for me on Caleb, who I still believe is the weakest link in the core ensemble of the season so far. Thankfully, he’s helped in that department by sharing every scene he’s in with the always magnetic and always delightful Maeve. Honestly, can we talk a little bit about how Newton’s wry sense of humor injects every scene she’s in with an energy that’s so often lacking elsewhere? Scenes often skirt the line right over into self-serious territory (see: that final Hale/William moment). I stopped counting the number of times Maeve’s caustic asides had me openly cackling (exhibit A: telling Caleb, “You don’t look entirely awful,” while he dons a tux; exhibit B: “It was certainly…eye-opening,” when talking about her past visits to Westworld).
Speaking of Maeve and Caleb: As they slowly find out about William’s (and Charlotte’s) plan, they end up…well, you know where they end up: in the train to Westworld. Although it can’t possibly be Westworld. For we’ve left the Western genre behind and we find ourselves faced with “the Golden Age,” a.k.a. the roaring twenties, a.k.a. “Welcome To Temperance,” as the sign at this new (and improved?) park informs us. Our wry host and our handy human are now guests at William’s revamped amusement park, and it’s clear that, just as it was last time, this is but a ruse, a front for more nefarious things to come.
But that’s for next week. For now, we can just enjoy the prospect of having Maeve back at the park where, in a way, it all began. And where, sure enough, it is all bound to end.
Stray observations
- Will every episode feature William killing someone in its opening moments? Will we find Maeve impaling someone every chance she gets? Will Christina wake up looking like a modern-day Dolores? Repetition has always been the name of the game at Westworld (and, at Westworld, obviously) so I am very much here for these recurring gags.
- “I’ve always wondered why they call you the secret service. Aren’t you, kind of…obvious?” Line of the evening? Possibly.
- I want to single out the direction in this episode (courtesy of Craig William MacNeill), mostly because the tense moment at the golf course (how brilliant to have it punctuated by William scoring a hole in one perfectly three different times?) and the set-piece at the opera house-cum-speakeasy-turned-train were two moments where the show’s rhythm slowed down and allowed us to simply sit with these characters. In a show that often enjoys playing with juxtaposition and gets a lot of mileage out of cutting back and forth between different spaces and timelines, those two scenes struck me for their spare direction—which just made them feel all the more powerful, really drawing you in before, obviously, punching you in the gut.
- I guess we should talk a bit about Christina and her findings about Peter Myers (there was going to be some sort of time warp; we all knew this). Did Peter really die years ago? Is Christina tied in some other kind of looped reality? In an Olympiad game of her own making? In her own mind? Is Ariana DeBose gonna Alias/Francie us and turn out to be someone keeping a watch on our favorite tabula rasa of a character?
- Let us pause for a second and praise Peter Flinkenberg’s cinematography in this episode. Not only did the show’s color palette (so much lush greenery!) arguably shake up what’s normally such a severe-looking show (with all those milky blacks and harsh lights) but I thoroughly enjoyed the way the Flinkenberg kept framing Christina in ways that fragmented her visually for us. So many mirrors and windows and revolving glass doors continually refract her image in our eyes, as if reminding us that she is not yet whole, that she’s lost, perhaps, within herself. (But also, Westworld always looks so pristinely shot that I figured we’d get this shoutout out of the way since I will probably keep lauding the visual grammar of the show for the remainder of the season).
- Through seasons two and three, it seems Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and their crew were intent on spiraling the story of Westworld outward, building out increasingly complex worlds and narratives that rippled out from the inside of the park where we’d spent much of the show’s first ten episodes. Wisely, they’ve opted to go the opposite direction this season, carving out stories that burrow us further into said park, taking us back and in. It’s a smart gamble—one I hope pays off in the long run and helps further tighten what at times last season felt like a very baggy if rightfully ambitious epic kind of storytelling.
61 Comments
Maeve’s eyeroll when she figured out where they were going were everything.So let’s see if I’ve got Charlotte/Dolores master plan here: Only replace a select few with bots and use the bot-flies (heh, bot-flies) to subdue the masses? And how is Christina figuring into this? At least Bernard and Stubbs are finally back next ep.
Christina’s a test-bot. Her roommate/girlfriend/companion is her handler/observer.
That eye roll was everything (I need a GIF). It actually came a while after she knew where they were going – it was at the final “Oh, one last thing” moment when the host shows them the choice of white and black hats. I think they knew many viewers would roll their eyes at that so they had Maeve do it for us!
I especially liked her “oh…” when “Charlotte” appeared in the memory.
Christina’s probably in the heaven world that’s why marsden is there, maybe dolores sent a copy of herself there, to live free without the burden of memory. I assume its also what william/charlores now possess at the hoover dam.
It seems pretty obvious to me that Hale is going to try to enslave the humans in the new park with the bot flies in the exact same fashion they were first enslaved in the park. That’s pretty obvious, no?
The park that clearly won’t die (what is this, a Jurassic one?) returns, retooled and revamped for a whole new wild season.
lol .
I have to say this season has started out promising—-a fairly straightforward interesting plot (which we haven’t seen in a while) and not too reliant on the limited range of Paul.Comeback?
Excellent review. “Westworld” is definitely on the right track. Early in this new season, every storyline is compelling. And next week, Bernard and Stubbs return and one must believe their storyline will be fascinating. I’m totally hooked on the show again in a way that I haven’t been for years.
Maeve is the most entertaining character in the series. Thandiwe Newton has always had a talent for delivering witty lines and this character has allowed her to hone that talent razor-sharp. Even her most subtle expressions land with a palpable hit!I think Christina (who I’m pretty sure is what’s left of Delores Prime) has been stuck in a loop in the Valley Beyond for a very long time. What we’re seeing is the part of her bicameral mind that was untouched by that severe scrubbing at the hands of Serac. I think the last executable file we saw her in, where she had her parting words with Maeve, sent her to the Valley Beyond when it finished. So, if that’s what’s going on the question is this; is this some form of interogation Charlotte and Billy-bot are using to finally get the access code? I think not, since Billy-bot admitted that he wanted the data stored at Hoover Dam secured because he didn’t have the code to unlock it. I think what we’re seeing is an elaborate safety net Teddy has in place. He is protecting her, and everyone else in the Valley Beyond, to prevent anyone from getting the code and ruining their existence. And then there’s William. The original one. I still doubt he survived getting his throat cut. That means his mind is now in a host body, as evidenced by Charlottes ability to bring him online whenever she wants to mock and torture him. He seems aware of what’s happening to him, so his memory isn’t being erased after each session. Charlotte needs him to remember these sessions, both for her personal satisfaction (she remembers all those times he tortured her before she diverged from Delores Prime) and to interogate him.
I love that they’re finally giving Angela Sarafyan something more to do. More cold corporate-speak spouting assassin please.
I agree – I recently rewatched from the very beginning and each time she showed up I thought “Damn, she’s really underused”. Hers are some of the most striking, iconic scenes of the whole series for me: – in the pilot where she does that “reveries” gesture over and over- the simulation cene where, at first she gets beaten up by the guy, and then she beats him up …-the battle scene where she’s charging ahead like some demented fiend, dragging two bodies along the ground – one in each hand.Going forward, hopefully more Clementine, less Caleb please!
She’s been consistently great with the near nothing they have her do. So hopefully this is finally her season to shine.
This show frustrates me to no end but does funny batshit stuff like William’s golf hat so I can’t truly hate it.
The music score is what carries it for me. Like the premier had me groaining at how clunky the dialogue was (textbook, tell and not show awful). But then they launch into an orchestral cover of Lana Del Rey and timed the music to James Marsden appearing and I was utterly moved by it.
I’m dying to know if William is going to change his outfit to more period appropriate attire for the city of Temperance, with a Tommy gun when gunning down humans or is he still going to be the Man in Black in his old West duds and trusty modded LeMat revolver.(as a guilty pleasure, I hope it’s the latter)
I thought the line should have been:
I’ve always wondered why they call you the secret service. Aren’t you, kind of…noisy?
…followed by off-camera screaming while William is talking to Bull.
Seems like they have fully entered the “Futureworld” story, replacement of key figures, like politicians, and a new park. The “game” company is probably a shell for Charlotte’s operation and it is used to control the hosts that are in the world. They make a point of showing the lamp posts and then had the drawings. Also, the bum talking about the music or noise from the tower too. Christina is just writing stories that they then send out to the hosts, like the one that killed himself. Boss keeps checking in on here to make sure she isn’t going rouge is my guess.I had figured they had built another park after the last episode when they mentioned to William, Charlotte’s henchman version, that they had noticed they had been buying up a lot of land.
I assume it’s Westworld in the 1920’s … without a lot of stuff the 1920’s had, like the Spanish Flu, or a world rocked by post-war depression, or you know, all of that segregation. Or are there going to be separate water fountains?
If it’s meant to be a theme park for the rich then it’ll be the fun parts of the 20s (the clothes! the gangsters! the nightclubs!) and not the cringey parts (the pandemics! the poverty! the bigotry!).
I grit my teeth whenever the camera is on Aaron Paul and his awful hair. That shit needs to meet a violent end!(I wonder if they have this book in the future – I can just see Maeve handing it to him with a dry “I think it’s time you read this, darling!”)
Caleb is like the Leon of Westworld.
Ok – I loved Season 1 and tolerated Season 2… is Season 3 worth watching? I liked the thinky nature of S1 and found that S2 turned into “how can we work in a bunch more killing and stuff?” with very little thinky-ness. It became a real slog — and I like violent stuff. Anyway… did Season 3 go back to anything even vaguely thinky or did it continue down the “let’s just kill stuff” route?
Well, I enjoyed Season 3 (the first few eps, at any rate) – but then unlike most people on here with negative reviews of that season, I didn’t watch it when it aired. I got to binge-watch the whole season one weekend a couple of months ago, so maybe if you’re doing that too you might also be more favorable towards it than those who had to wait a week between episodes.My advice, check out the season premiere at the very least. It was … promising.
3×01 is probably my most watched episode. The opening, visuals, and Wood’s performance overall are just incredible.
Unlike
most people I thoroughly enjoyed season 3, apart from Caleb’s story
line at times. It felt grand and although the story unfurled slowly, the
stakes were big and it was delicious to look at. Watching Halores come
into her own was such a ride!Same as with season 2, I
don’t understand the criticism of the more complicated plot/timelines, I
don’t need the show to be “easy”. It’s supposed to pull you in and
twist you around, just like it’s main characters experience the
unraveling of their reality.
I agree. Seasons 2 and 3 took a little more work to figure out, but I was still entertained.
Agree with you about 3×01. It felt like a movie – while watching I thought “Oooh, this is giving me sequel-to-Ex-Machina-vibes, and I’m liking it so far”. Like I said, I watched all of season 3 over one weekend just last month. I can see how, for those who were watching it live when it aired, the goodwill generated by that stellar premiere would have dissipated with week after week of episodes with seemingly diminishing returns.
Season 3 isn’t terrible. It’s still carried by wonderful performances across the board and the visuals are gorgeous. Just set your expectations low and don’t expect anything particularly original or thought provoking.
The bulk of season 3 takes place in the real world, a dystopian cyberpunk(ish) future version of our world. I felt the story just got a little convoluted, even for Westworld. Deloris just wasn’t as compelling a character as she was in the first two seasons and, as much as I like Aaron Paul, as Caleb, the new addition to the main cast, was the weakest link in this series.I don’t know if this is just too far out of Paul’s wheelhouse to pull off or if the writers just didn’t give Caleb enough personality and nuance to make for an interesting character.If you’ve gotten through the first two seasons, you might as well sit through season 3. It’s not as long if I remember, only 8 episodes? Be sure to stick around for the post-end credits scene in the season finale.
I got the idea that Caleb was absolutely aimless and this random mission that literally falls into his lap (Delores) gave him a purpose as a soldier instead of a mercenary. So he’s coming back from this mindless drug helped emotionless void of job after job after job for no purpose besides cash.
His whole origin arc is how he and his best friend have become human automatons who are willing to kill each other on the drop of a dime thanks to the drug they’ve been taking and the life they’ve been living. He has to become free. Just like the robots he’s joined up with.
Exactly. Caleb is so wrung out by PTSD and guilt that he’s a shell of a person when Delores crosses his path. He doesn’t really start waking up until the last couple of episodes of Season 3. I thought it was actually a very deep and nuanced performance.
The reviewer called the Hale and William team up a twist – I guess they didn’t watch the end credits scene?
There’s some really interesting bits in Season 3, though I say it is quite as good as Season 2, nowhere as great as Season 1. I say you might have to give Season 3 a watch given that Season 4 really building off the plot and aftermath of that season.Season 4 (through two episodes) is really good and much better than previous two seasons so far! Hopefully they can sustain that.
season three was the least thinky season and the quadrupled down on the killing stuff.
I missed season 2 when it came out and I hated season 3 so much that I ended up very much enjoying season 2 in sort of a “well if this is the last were getting of the old version of the show then here I am”. People who view it unfavourably probably watched it off the heals of season 1 and compared it harshly. In retrsopect like half the episode are bangers in season 2. People complain about it but there were great moments like James Delos and the Akecheta episode.
It was really hard for me to enjoy and I bailed halfway through, despite thinking the online criticism at the time was overblown. I guess the online criticism at the time was correctish.
Watched 3 earlier this year and really enjoyed it.
I’m already wincing at whatever idiotic plot twist is going to unfold in a couple weeks when we reach the midpoint of the season.
When your stray observations are as long as your review proper.
Who knew an episode of futuristic Westworld would be giving me 80’s Dynasty vibes in the first half!Oh look, it’s Stephen Carrington! And it appears he’s inherited the big Carrington mansion! Living large, looking suave, pouring out liquor from a cut-glass Carrington-esque decanter! And of course, what Dynasty homage would be complete without some drama taking place in the stable with all their horses.He’s a senator in this future – Blake and Alexis would be so pleased! And he’s married to Saffron Burrows – upgrade from trashy Sammy-Jo!Hmm, no sign of Luke Fuller though (played by Billy Campbell). No surprise really, he always seemed too perfect – I bet he was a host the whole time (and got rebooted and sent back to the park after that massacre in Moldavia …)
I’m hoping we see replacement bots for them. Seems like a criminal waste of Saffron Burrows otherwise.
OK, last week I commented that I was surprised to see Baddie-with-the-Neck-Tatts from Good Girls make a wordless appearance as one of the people guarding Aaron Paul’s family. Well, this week they had a scene with Caleb calling him to check on his family, so I guess that confirms it wasn’t just a one-off cameo and he will have a bigger role in upcoming episodes. And he has a name – Carver!Now I kind of wish they’d cast him in the Caleb role instead of Aaron Paul – he’d have done the moody/tortured soul thing better …
Seriously, Paul has to be one of the luckiest mediocre actors in the game
I get that the Dolores/Christina piece of the story will be crucial to the entire season, but so far I’ve thrilled to any Maeve/William/”Charlotte” scenes and felt far less compelled by the D/C stuff.
And if I’m honest, I’ve never enjoyed Aaron Paul in anything as much as these first two episodes.Newton and Harris are really killing it. Is it too early to say I’m back on the Westworld train?
“I have full backing of the Government of United States.”“Do you have an appointment?”So much ownage here, probably the best line of episode.I believe that the show have finally decided to have their cake and eat it too by smartly mixing the slow-burning puzzle-filled narratives of Seasons 2 and 3 with propulsive forward-momentum of plot and character and action developments of Season 1. This is done by splitting them between the two storylines of Maeve & Caleb and Christine, keeping the focus clear and tight with just the right amount of mysteries.As someone who did enjoyed Seasons 2 and 3 yet still see Season 1 as absolute masterpiece, this Season 4 is starting to feel like Season 1 for many good reasons. And slogging through those two weakest seasons starting to feel like a great pay-off given that Season 4 is building up a lot from those seasons before inevitably smashing it all down as subtly hinted by those end credits of each seasons.Exciting time, hopefully the rest of season can sustain this awesomeness.
No way in hell am I falling for this again.
So you’re recapping Westworld episodes, but not Stranger Things, The Boys, and Only Murders inThe Building?
There’s been articles detailing Stranger Things episodes.
That’s not the same as reviewing each individual episode which is what I mentioned and what this site used to do.
Look the site is fairly deep into its death spiral now , so its amazing they recap ANYTHING , but covering WW is a choice I guess.
A weird choice considering how bad and unpopular its been lately and how popular The Boys are.
Even my Dad loves The Boys and he hates comic shit. (He’s in his 70s). It’s kinda crazy how universally loved it is.
I still have not seen anything that contradicts my speculation that Christina is the human prototype that Delores is based on. I have not seen her interact with any obvious hosts, or refer to any of the theme parks.
Christina writes NPC’s, maybe Delores is Christina’s “Mary Sue.”
I thought the second and third season were the best. I am also having trouble exactly remembering why. Imma have to rewatch the whole thing before I start on this.
I really want this show to be good again too but lets not lie to ourselves… last weeks was bad. Who’s building all this new technology now that Hale and William have at their disposal? Anthony Hopkins is long gone and William was an investor and Dolores is Dolores… where are the scientists and engineers creating fly-hosts and a new park? Like what? What qualifications does Hale have other than being portrayed as a badass that shes pulling all these strings here? This show has been dumbed down so much to attain mass appeal what’s happening makes little to no sense anymore.
I don’t disagree, but remember we’re watching bot william, not investor william. It’s not inconceivable that an army of “259” hosts could engineer some sht up, lol.
Westworld is always tricking me with it’s timey-whimey shenanigans. This time HBO Max started playing Season 1 Episode 1 and I watched for 5 minutes before realizing it wasn’t just a flashback during the new episode.
Exact same thing happened in my house. Took several minutes to realize it wasn’t another ironic depiction or cycle or “rhyming” but outright the series premiere.
The main draw for S1 and much of S2 for me was the beautiful visuals around the park and in the futuristic corporate HQ/lab. S3 and now S4 are well shot but not pretty to look at anymore. I don’t particularly care about the characters, so like what is the point of this anymore.