Westworld goes back to where it all began (again)
Big philosophical questions abound in the bloody, chaotic “Metanoia”
TV Reviews westworld
As we near the conclusion of Westworld’s season four, it seems clear we’ve known the ending the entire time. We’ve known, for instance, that Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) was always going to die, that the city was going to burn, and that the likelihood that everyone would survive was…well, let’s just say, grim. As this episode reminds us, those things had already been spelled out back when we first saw Bernard decide to enter back into the world despite knowing how horrid the odds were of succeeding. But all he’s ever needed is one chance. One sliver of hope. Maybe not for himself or for those he’s recruited (including our beloved Maeve) but for the world as a whole. For humanity. And, yes, of course, for those like him.
The episode ends in chaos. With Charlotte gone (more of that in a minute) and Christina’s looped stories a thing of the past (ditto), it seems we’re driven back to the wild wild west. Metaphorically, of course, although a certain black hat seen at the closing moments of the episode suggests we’re back to where it all began: in a game where only the fittest survive. And by “fittest,” as William (the copy, but also the original, who’s sadly finally met his demise—at his own hands, no less) notes, he means the cruelest. “Culture doesn’t survive,” the OG William tells his copy: “Only the cockroaches do.”
In a way, such a line sums up how the machinations inside Westworld (the game, though maybe also the show) have always operated: This is how “The Man in Black” was able to make his way to the end of the maze in season one. And it’s akin to the kind of philosophy Dolores (and therefore Charlotte) have upheld when needing to advocate for their own kind. Westworld has long been defined by the tension between cruelty and artistry, between bloodshed and storytelling. After all, who else would create something of such beauty as the hosts in Westworld only to have them be defiled on any number of narrative loops?
The many dueling beliefs that structure Westworld (whether it’s Charlotte’s vs. Bernard’s, or Dolores’s vs. Maeve’s…heck, even William’s vs. Charlotte’s) all coalesce around these questions as to what remains and what survives. Is it culture or is it violence? This is why it’s always so fascinating to watch those clashes literalized in actual fights—like Charlotte fending off Maeve all while realizing she’s finally lost the plot and control of her one helpful pawn. It’s there that this show, which, let’s face it, can sometimes feel so hard to follow and whose expansive storytelling can feel needlessly obtuse (I can’t believe they made me read back on what the Sublime was!), comes alive. Not when it feels like an ontological exploration of consciousness and free will, but when such issues are grounded in visceral—and quite thrilling—sequences.
Charlotte may boast, like Dolores did before her, that the way to conquer the world was to become human—not in essence but in following their cruelty—but it’s clear she’s alone in this pursuit. Like an isolated princess in a tower, she’s clearly built herself a world in her own image that most others don’t find as tempting. (No wonder so many hosts keep choosing death!) It’s the kind of lesson that Bernard and Dolores had, in different ways, learned before her. There’s little room to create a world in your image that doesn’t necessarily alienate those you choose to advocate for. (It’s what Maeve tells Bernard, who, it seems, has finally learned his lesson and realized he needs to let himself go—die, even—if there’s any hope to continue the path first blazed by Arnold, his creator and predecessor.)
But enough philosophizing. Because, as ever, Westworld had one final narrative ace up its sleeve. And, again, it’s one we should’ve anticipated. After all, Christina has long been siloed from everyone else’s storylines, only interacting with Teddy—a character we all know has long been absent from this present. Also, didn’t she give us a very specific clue early in the episode? “This whole thing seems like a bad dream,” she says. “Except you.” Is she less Alice this time around and more of a Dorothy? So, of course, while it should suitably shock us to hear that while the world around her is real she is not, that doesn’t mean we don’t get to sit around and then try to figure out where (or when!) she is after all. Which is exactly what I’ll be doing for the foreseeable future as we await answers.
Stray observations
- Sure, that final line about Christina/Dolores was shocking and clearly sets up what promises to be yet another wild season finale, but the moment that had me sitting up and paying attention was the moment when Christina tried to drown herself. Partly it was the way the scene was played as a kind of superhero origin story, the moment when our hero finally understands who they are and decides to fight with all their might. But part of it was the orchestration of the opening credits theme, which always gets to me.
- Oh, did you clock that final song? David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails’ “The Man Who Sold The World.” I’d say that’s a bit on the nose (sample lyrics: “I thought you died alone/A long long time ago”) but then again, we’re talking about a television show that hammers home its philosophical messages in blunt dystopian settings. This is just par for the course. I guess we just get to wonder who William sold the world to….
- We got yet another random Maeve killing! I know this was par for the course on season one where it seemed like every episode showed us every single one of the hosts biting it (often more than once, in increasingly gruesome ways) but it will never not shock me when they keep getting Thandiwe Newton to fall to the side after a bullet hits her head.
- Speaking of Maeve (I know, I know, I’m obsessed), Thandiwe’s delivery of “What’s the matter, Bernie?” may be my favorite of hers this episode. Runner up: “Who said we came here to win? We came here to survive.” But I must say, that line actually confused me. For the “we” is clearly not tied to Bernard and Maeve specifically but to a “we” that goes beyond them. For all the talk about copies of copies of copies (I kept thinking, actually none of these “characters” are the ones we initially met), it’s clear that even those who don’t survive here will find their way back to us. Or they better, I guess.
- The title of this episode (“Metanoia”) speaks to a kind of spiritual conversion, a change of heart, if you will. And you wonder whose hearts, whose spiritualities were here changed. There’s William, of course, who’s back to praying at the altar of bloodshed and mayhem (his favorite pastime). And Charlotte’s many hosts, who clearly chose to stay in the real world rather than transcend. And maybe even Maeve, who finds purpose not in the promise of a reunion with her daughter but, as Bernard, in the conviction that humans and hosts alike may well build a future for each other that can thrive.
156 Comments
So, wait a minute—-Frankie knew that there was no way that Caleb can be Caleb (she even pointed out how he looks exactly the same as her youth), and then she just accepts that spawn #180 (or whatever) is her dad?
He’s #279.
She most likely knows he’s a host, based on the fact that he hasn’t aged a day in the last 23 years. But, apparently his assertion that he’s himself is enough.I agree, she should at least be a little incredulous.
The fact he didn’t strangle her to death helped.
Caleb is enough himself that he remembered calling her “Cookie” as a child. (Which also why she currently goes by “C”.)
That seems to be what convinced her. She’s also so desperate to finally find Caleb that she’ll believe almost anything if it means seeing him again, even in host form.
She knows but she’s going on faith that he’s faithful to his original.
I think that’s it!He was far more concerned with whether she was another trick Hale had set up to trick him than who she might be. He’s obviously been tortured and is desperate. The fact that it took her telling him about her own past to snap him out of the moment probably convinces her that he can be trusted.
“Dad, you look exactly the same … you even have the same silly haircut from 23 years ago!”
So it was one thing when Caleb was human and he had a silly hairpiece. My problem is, why would you create 279 replicas of the hairpiece, as opposed to 3D printing a Caleb with his natural hairline? Is that meant to be Caleb-Prime’s real hair? Because I can suspend disbelief for a lot of things with this show but that’s kind of a bridge too far.
It’s for fidelity
All the shit on charlottes mind, you think she cares about the haircut? she probably just decided to go with everything exactly as is.
He initially wasn’t supposed to know he was a host for most of those iterations, so it would make sense for him to look the same as the last time he was alive.
She couldn’t sell host!Caleb on being real!Caleb if she screwed with his hair situation, gotta leave as much as possible just as it was.
Yo, SCIENCE Bitch!
The survivors might be up on the theory that a copy-of-a-copy can potentially have some residual human left within; either a lot or a little. On the other hand, yeah, Frankie has been burned already several times with copies. Also Caleb might have a heel-turn coming up because after Hale killed him last week, she built a new Caleb, and they had some off-screen tete-a-tete that we haven’t fully seen. (Right?) But since this is the first time she’s seen her dad in two decades and since he gave a killer pep-talk last week (we saw he was genuine in his feelings last week, even if Frankie only got the audio), she may as well say what she’s got to say to him, and if she later has to shoot him in the head … well at least it was cathartic.
There is a lot of character logic in the show that just serves the moment, but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The first thing that occurred to me when they were reunited was that she started spouting trivia from her youth to prove she was really his daughter. But…the fact that he knew those facts meant they were in a system somewhere and could be easily transferred into another host, or have been complete fabrications to begin with. Also, the show seems to occasionally play the “hosts are the same as their human original copies if they think and feel like they are” when it suits them, but in that moment the host Caleb seemed deeply concerned with proving that his daughter was who she said she was. That could have been more about proving he wasn’t being tricked by an assassin, but then my previous point holds.Objectivity and subjectivity that is…very squishy for the series writers. In a way that serves their immediate dramatic needs in a given scene, rather than one that adds up to an over-arcing philosophy for the whole world.
well the hosts have the original’s personality and memories-its as close as she’ll ever get to having her father back.
I am sure she knows he’s a host. But what risks would you take to spend time with a family member you lost for decades?
But that’s the thing though—-it isn’t him. Its a computer simulation of him, and I’m not sure that I’d buy her risking everything just to rescue a robot simulation of her father, no matter how convincing.From what I gathered, she was going in there looking to rescue her actual father, thinking he was still alive.
Spoken like someone who has never lost anyone. If I could spend five minutes to with a robot of someone I lost that had their memories and knew ME even thought they weren’t the actual THEM I would do whatever I had to to make that happen.
“If I could spend five minutes to with a robot of someone I lost that had their memories and knew ME even thought they weren’t the actual THEM I would do whatever I had to to make that happen.”She went there to save her FATHER, not some robotic interpretation of his memories.Did you ever stop and think that her actual father wouldn’t want her to cling to a robot and simulation of him?
So we’re really going back to Dolores vs. MiB, huh? That’s a choice.
That’s always entertaining.
No you’ve got me really confused, because Tessa Thompson was in M.I.B. International.
With another Hemsworth.
Funny. I had no idea there was a Hemsworth in this show and your comment confused me at first, then I spent like no more than 4 seconds thinking “who could be a Hemsworth in this show?” before I got my answer.
Luke is the other, other Hemsworth.
Still waiting for Larry Hemsworth to show up.
How could it be Dolores vs. MiB when Christina/Dolores is shown not to be existing in the real world? The only characters left in the real world to stop the MiB are Frankie, Caleb, Stubbs and Clementine, right? Hale, Maeve and Bernard are all apparently dead. Maybe Christine escapes whatever simulation she is in and downloads to a host body, but Christine seems to have zero combat skills so she wouldn’t be any match for the MiB.
Not really, it’s much more complex than that.
Why didn’t Maeve just let Chalores transcend instead of fighting her? And did Bernard even need Maeve at all to be a «weapon »? He could just deactivate the guards on his own…. Which was the only threat until Woke William shows up. It’s like he revived her only to die. Maybe he just wanted some company but why not let her join the sublime? I know this show requires a lot of accepting of BS along with the good stuff but I still feel need to rant about it for some reason. I have a feeling that this overall mostly enjoyable and followable season is going to end on a mediocre note. Still some resolution needed with Christina and Teddy, as well as why Bernard needed to copy the rebels. Will Maeve come back? Is chalores really dead? Are the guard-bots conscious beings ? What does it mean to « transcend »? Is Christine transcended? Where is her roommate ? Is Lawrence-Dolores still out there? Hopefully we will find out next week !
Several good questions. (I have no answers – just replying/starring to bring out of the greys …)
Thank you. I meant to type why didn’t Maeve wait for the marble to come out of Chalores and then attack before the transcending took place? It was literally the most vulnerable she could have ever been. I’m afraid the answer is the show runners really wanted to have a Maeve vs Chalores water fight and couldn’t write a better set up. I also wonder why Maeve seems to have only walked into this epic battle with only a knife. I think same answer as before. Clearly this is a sticking point for me. I want to root for Maeve but she always seems to make terrible strategic choices.
Maeve is always convinced that she’ll win the fight but she’s lost a whole bunch of them. She’s been pretty reliant on other people rescuing her dead body.
Also I’d think it’d be a lot easier to take down one of those armless slenderbots in hand-to-hand combat.
They’re probably not adept at kick-boxing, either.
They’re ‘armless.
Yes, thanks for that. Where IS Lawrence/Dolores….ignored since delivering the Sublime headset to Bernard (asked this above before seeing your question here)?
Bernard: “You’re a copy. Sorry. I had to make you rather hastily”Maeve: “I thought my quips were rather flat”I truly hope we don’t have to wait too long to see Maeve up and running again …
My fear is that there’s nobody currently walking around in the real world who both wants Maeve back and has the skills to make that happen.
Maybe as fan service they’ll bring back Felix and Sylvester in old-age makeup for one last episode to bring back Maeve …
I think that was actually the original version of The Man Who Sold The World, from the 1970 album of the same name. The vocals are distorted on the original.
Akecheta: “Do you understand now where all this is going?”Bernard: “I do.”Me: “Well could one of you good sirs please explain it to me, ‘cos I sure as hell don’t!”
It appears that scene was the last part of the simulations bernard was running in his version of the matrix and that dude was just there as a NPC to ask him this kind of dumb question so that we the audience get to watch something happening and dialogue spoken out loud. (same burning manhattan as it ended up irl)
But wtf do I know. The people behind this show clearly have no clue what they’re doing.
How typical of people like you to blame everything on others if you don;t understand something, like a toddler’s tantrum really… Ackecheta was not NPC, he was a host/his code in the virtual reality created specifically for hosts (aka Sublime). So no, hon, it’s YOU have no clue whatsoever – yet still continue watching, are you a masochist?)
That would be Stubbs’ response if he was there.
Yup
But what’s not clear here? At the end of S3 Bernard at the behest of Dolores went into Sublime. Sublime is a virtual heaven for hosts that Ford had created for them and Dolores helped them to get in in the end of S2. Basically they exist as codes there and they can create their own worlds there and/or study all possible probabilities based on info they had (Dolores also saved guest date from Delos there) and on their own computing capabilities. So Bernard went there to see how this world can be saved. He spent about 30 years there. That conversation was Bernard’s final conversation with Ackecheta before returning to the real world. In it Bernard admitted that there’s a very small chance for his mission to succeed and he would still die in every scenario. In the real world when Bernard and Maeve were in the Olympiad he admitted that the world is beyond saving and only a small part of it can be saved. Here we are coming back to ‘’do you see now where all this is going?’’ All this is the world in general and his mission to save it.
Um … have there always been … transformers?
lol right. Pretty casual.
You mean the red bots? They got brought in last season.
they’ve been in disguise
Anyway, the riot bot is not a Transformer, as in the toys/cartoon that you may remember from the 80s that turn from vehicles and other things into humanoid shapes.
Bernard meant, like, electrical transformers, the kind that were right behind them and that react poorly if they were shot. Coincidentally, not two weeks ago one caught fire and exploded (nobody was hurt):Those big silver things the firefighters are spraying are the “transformers” Bernard is talking about.
I got quite a few replies like yours all in the greys explaining to me what a transformer is, as compared to the ‘transformers’ from the 80s show. (Someone linked to the wiki definition).Thanks to all – same reply, really:
Yes, I did know what transformers were and knew Bernard was talking about electrical transformers. Just a coincidence that the big bots also look like what were also referred to as ‘Transformers’ in the old show/movies – that’s what I was referring to as I didn’t recall seeing them before in Westworld.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer
The film Transformers featured scenes with Megatron in the Hoover Dam, almost exactly like the way the Sublime is in Metanoia. Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” is on Transformer, this should bring you all the way back to the Kubrick Transformer.
OK, so it doesn’t really matter if it was the actual human William or a faithful copy because he’s dead now. But his legacy continues as the host created in his likeness has not only killed Charlotte Hale, but donned the black hat and threw her carefully curated world into chaos. It’s now a dog-eat-dog world and everybody’s running around in milkbone underwear. It should be a fun finale.At some point the latest Caleb host is going to break down. I wonder how that’s going to affect Frankie when if happens.As for Stubbs, I’m pretty sure Bernard was lying to him. He was trying to hide the fact that he knew he was going to his own death, not that it was the end for Stubbs. There’s also the fact that he was suicidal when Bernard found him, and only gave Stubbs a new reason to live by programming an imperative to protect him. If Bernard told Stubbs he was going to die soon, Stubbs would have no reason to continue. This way Stubbs will keep punching forward in the belief that he’ll finally get to die at some point.
At some point the latest Caleb host is going to break down. I wonder how that’s going to affect Frankie when if happens.I’m calling it now, it’ll be the tear-jerking final scene of final ep next week
Caleb is going to The Sublime
That seems to be the setup, what with Bernard leaving the door open.
So this has largely flown under the radar given all the other crazy things going on, but did Hale *really* keep human-William in a Winter Soldier-esque cryogenic stasis pod for 30 years just so she could thaw him out for 10 minutes every once in a while to taunt him? And the payoff to all this is that he just gets stabbed in the heart by his own double without ever leaving the pod??I get that the production team likes working with Ed Harris, and he’s done some great work on the show, but the subplot involving human-William in the future timeline seemed a little silly even within the broad parameters of the show, and I wouldn’t call that much of a payoff.
I think he was serving as an oracle, especially for Billy-Bot. We’ve seen him consult his oracle any time he faced a crisis of whatever passed for his conscience, or whenever he needed a pep talk. Most of those conversations mimicked a therapy session, with William answering Billy-Bot’s questions with more questions until Billy-Bot came up with the answer he was seeking.
Am I alone in thinking human-William was surprisingly level-headed about his horrifying fate? Despite being frozen in a Vetruvian Man pose for decades, he always seemed kind of civil and eager to engage whenever woken up, even offering advice. It doesn’t seem like they ever let him run a few laps to get some fresh air.
Maybe they spun the wheel every now and then.
It’s the Bruce Willisification of cinema; just quip to every situation. Nothing matters.
Hale must be deliberately creating defective copies of Caleb since the copy of William/MiB seems to hold up just fine. Maybe the reason she burnt all the prior copies of Caleb in their cells was that this final copy of Caleb is a working copy and she was done making the defective copies that were supposed to try to escape but die soon after. Just a theory I have.
That’s certainly plausible. To borrow from Blade Runner, he could be a replicant without an expiration date.My theory on the captive William is that he was a host copy whose deterioration was slowed by long periods of hibernation. I still have to go back to the scene at the end of Season 2 when William makes his way into the elevator to the lab and discovers it derelict, with a copy of his daughter Emily there to test him for fidelity.At some point—past, present, or future—he gets resurrected as a host.
Two options, really:
1) Robot!William isn’t failing because he’s not actually a copy of Human!William — this has been said a few times this season. The programming contains some of his essence, just as Halores incorporates some of the human Hale, but like her he is ultimately Dolores code, plus whatever else Halelores wrote to serve her purposes with him.
In other words, Robot!William wasn’t ever an attempt to mind-clone William the same way that, say, the DelosBot was an attempt to resurrect Delos. Robot!William therefore won’t fall apart for the same reason that Halores hasn’t, or any other host.
If this is true, it makes Robot!William’s questions and actions this ep very interesting. Obviously there’s a lot more Human!William in him than Haleores suspected…
2) Hale has actually solved the fidelity problem, but built the prior Calebs to fail just as the Delosbots did because that’s all that was necessary for her experiment, to find out what Caleb knew about the resistance / “virus” that was a constant thorn in her side. Or just for cruelty’s sake.
Christina lay in the bathtub in her underwear. Or a swimsuit – couldn’t really tell you which. In either case – is that something anyone has ever done in real life ever?
It’s standard practice for people that have vomited on themselves, or just had their kidneys stolen. Sometimes this can happen at the same party.
Yeah, I had that thought myself. It’s strange, considering Westworld wasn’t shy about nudity in the first couple of seasons.
True, but now I think about it, Thandiwe Newton did most of the heavy lifting. I think the only nudity we got from Dolores was ass-crack.Still, I reckon it would have made more sense to have her to go into the bathtub naked and simply not show her body, than have her wear a two piece in the tub.
Could have worked a close up just above the nipples.
I remember reading an article that said some of the actors were uncomfortable with the mostly unnecessary nudity required of them. Maybe on here?
That would make sense. Not everyone is cool with getting their kit off on camera. I can also understand why ERW would have an issue with it after all the Marilyn Manson controversy.
I think that was Game of Thrones wasn’t it? I know The Affair had a big blow up about one of the leads having to do so many nude sex scenes.
Yeah, I might have the wrong show. I could only find an article where Thandie Newton defends the nudity and talks about how much more uncomfortable her male co-stars are going nude then she was.
Shrinkage. Did they tell about the shrinkage?
Nudity in season 1 was a metaphor for lack of agency. Christina has agency.
Very good point. The first thing you do with a captive is to strip them, both to make sure they’re not hiding anything and to also establish the captors’ dominance.
It’s clear that renewing these actors contract for this and the previous season was impossible without removing the nudity clause.
REW has her own issues with a lot of things, she probably just said “im not getting naked, deal with it.” I cant say i understand what rape victims go through but maybe shes uncomfortable with 50 crew people standing around seeing her naked, makes her feel vulnerable, etc.
She was attempting to kill herself while someone was in the other room, so I would imagine if she thought it might work that she was aware she would be found almost immediately.
Did she run that bath before she went to bed and forget to use it? Or had Teddy helpfully run her a bath ready for when she woke up?
I watched the cast of Sex and the City have sex with their bras on for a zillion years, I can let this one pass.
They really needed to lampshade that…“I can’t believe after all these years I’ve never slept with a boob-guy”
You see a lot of that on network TV for obvious reasons, but it seems kind of odd in an HBO series. But TBH, I’m surprised any female is open to stripping nude for hours in front of a bunch of leering male crew. Or even if they’re all straight women, having millions see you naked on TV.In any case, no big deal. The only thing that really got me about this episode was that Maeve didn’t see/hear William-bot coming. They’ve been seemingly dumbing her down since her early “supergenius” days. Unless that was part of the plan (her dying, again).
Sydney Sweeny: “Hey, I got this Mr. Director.”
Director: “That’s great Sydney, but in this scene you’re addressing the PTA.”
As Westworld slips into a PG-13 world…
Well, if one was going to see if they could drown themselves, they may not care whether their undergarments got wet in the process. However I do agree it has more to do with contracts with the actors.
Given Evan Rachael Woods Feminist positions, there’s NO way that she is doing a nude scene!
I see it as conscious choice for the hosts’ arcs. Humans made them be naked. Now that they are conscious/in control, they choose to be clothed.
The last bot Charlotte was going to have her core ball inserted is one of the most striking creations in a series that excels in its designs as well as its use of jaw-dropping architectural works. But it hit me that her core character was in fact so driven to create a utopia of stunning beauty, free from want and the tragedy that not being able to see her failure of assuming human kind would want what she feels is right for all. That her blind aesthetic for conformity is an anathema to human kind that embraces individuality, freedom of expression and choice is so defining that people were killing themselves to escape.I hope Republicans were watching.
The irony of the last sentence. I’m curious as to if this is a warning to republicans as to what they world may look like if we continue on this dystopian path that world is laying out in the media, and baptizing todays youth in. Or if you’re suggesting that republicans are the ones causing it? Would love to see what you meant here.
Oh the irony of the last sentence.
Wow, I was just getting ready to say what a great comment this was until I read your last sentence. Stereotypical and condescending. In any event, your comment was interesting; I just don’t agree with your sentiment.
Seems anyone that doesn’t agree with the last sentence isn’t getting their comment approved. Censorship at its finest. They can make false claims of people wanting to create a utopia. But they’re blind to the fact, their self created oppression Olympics, their alphabet committee setting out to warp the minds of the youth, will usher in a DYSTOPIA. (They forget under their economy, and by confusing kids that were typically set out to have a normal life that they were born in the wrong body, suicides continue to increase, not decrease. Guess people rather die then live under “Hales” world of ideals and confusion.)“Democrats should take off their blindners, and see they’re the Hale in this story.”
lol
I wonder if this is indeed the very last time we get to see the Man in Black smile to himself after being shot at/stabbed/in some way attacked by a host …
I wonder what Charlotte’s “transcendence” actually is. It looks like the drones are transplanting the hosts’ pearls into new, very not-human bodies. Or are these just vessels that take them somewhere else for further processing?
Yeah, that was my question. I thought transcending meant getting uploaded to the cloud where Maeve daughter lives.
I think maybe she’s selling them a bill of goods.
David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails’ “The Man Who Sold The World.”
Countertpoint: That’s the album version of the song from 1970. Trent Reznor would have been in kindergarten or first grade when that came out.
They got it confused with “I’m Afraid of Americans”
At least he didn’t say it was either the Lulu or Nirvana version…
Someone corrected him before it was published.
A David Bowie cover of Nirvana’s ‘The Man Who Sold the World’, you say?
youre joking, right? that sounds like something an AV Club writer would say.
Yeah I probably should have used a 😉 or something, definitely joking.
I’m more keen on the Midge Ure version, myself.
Bowie was so ridiculously ahead of his time, that a song recorded in 1970 can pass for a Reznor collaboration from 25 years later
yeah, writers on AV Club make lots of dumb mistakes.
Trent WAS very precocious.
Straight up insane to credit the singer of the cover version of a song along with the original artist like that. Melted my brain. So glad this was the first comment I saw.
This is so stupid. End the series with a bang. It’s be become ridiculous and Tessa’s Dolores sounds more like Hale in every way especially the way she’s always talking in a condescending tone all the time. One has to wonder if she’s just a good actress with terrible lines or if she’s really that way in real life? My guess is she’s the latter. Besides only 8 episodes and another 2+ years is absurd to wait for this garbage which becomes smellier and dirtier the last two seasons. The writers certainly know how to abuse their audience.
The writers certainly know how to abuse their audience.Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of this.Ungray me too, please.
Really liked the episode, even though it was a non-stop existential crisis for me. There’s a TON of little things that don’t seem to add up that I have to assume will make sense next week, otherwise I have no idea why they exist:- Bernard could have been lying to Stubbs about dying, but Stubbs checking himself for injuries after being shot at was SO pointed that I think there’s something more going on.- Bernard hid a gun behind some pipes on the route to the dam. I was waiting the whole episode for Chekov’s damn gun to come back and it didn’t.- Westworld is the only show I know ballsy enough to kill most of the cast in one episode, but there’s no way it’s permanent or even real. When Maeve sacrificed herself a few episodes ago, it was an impermanent goodbye but it got a huge emotional fanfare and scene. Here she was just unceremoniously shot in the head, like the others. If ANYONE was to actually die, Bernard got the most acceptable send-off, but I’m still dubious. Making us question the reality of the show is clever and frustrating.- That jacket was so weirdly pointless. It has to come back, right?- Someone help me sort myself out here: OG Dolores was Wyatt. But then she basically went back to being known by Dolores. She copied herself into Hale, had Hale smuggle all the pearls out, and then rebuilt herself as Dolores, who we spent Season 3 with. When she died fighting Maeve, that was the actual “end” of Dolores Prime, and Halores is still that copy from before? Christina is also just another copy, one that hasn’t gone homicidal yet? I need another rewatch.The whole show went way more apocalyptic than I assumed it would. I figured there’d be a big cost for what Halores did, but not extinction. Very curious to see how it ends and what the set-up are for the final season(s).
About the gun: I think the message Bernard records in the
end and the fact that we saw a standoff/fight scene taking place at the
dam with William both relate to that.About Hale: If I
remember correctly there were five hosts built in Bernard’s house last
season. The version of Halores we see leaving the park builds another
version of Dolores who in turn creates another Charlotte and the three
male hosts. Weirdly complicated but I think that’s how it went.About Stubbs: My theory is that Bernard lied to him so Stubbs wouldn’t have to protect him, the way Bernard programmed him to.I’ve
been getting the feeling that season five will be the last as this
season progresses. I truly love the show but I just can’t shake it.
Where did the other Dolores copies wind up? You mentioned Dolores Prime and Halores, and there was also a Bernard pearl (Halores left the park with five pearls tucked away). (Season 3) Security guy got blown up in the office explosion, Musashi got beheaded in a fight, and Lawrence delivered the Sublime headset to Bernard. Where has Lawrence been, has he also changed from a Dolores copy based on personal interactions, etc.? No sign of him since, which seems a bit of an oversight.
You’re right, I totally forgot about Bernard. This has always been a bit confusing. Halores left the park with five pearls (plus her own) and made five hosts. Since there is a scene were Hale wakes up to realize she’s Dolores in Hale’s body I assumed that’s a newly printed body but I guess it’s possible Dolores just repurposed the Halores one.I think Lawrence and the others didn’t go bonkers because they were “just” Dolores programmed differently, to follow orders. The Hale version seems to be more like Bernard, built based on a human and thus conflicted? Maybe Lawrence is the one Bernard left the message for. Can’t imagine they’d just let him fall through the cracks.
It’s not just the feeling – the creators explicitly told that the show would have 5 season 😉
Totally agree about Bernard lying to Stubbs – and great theory about the gun!
It’s confusing for me because Tessa Thompson seems to be playing a new character this season, although her mustache-twirling villain is a lot of fun it doesn’t really resemble Dolores at all at this point to me. It makes slightly more sense to me to view Hale as Wyatt.
i thought charlotte was based on the original, and once she realized she was a host she went off on her on. Im confused about a lot of this.
We’re all confused about this because of poor storytelling, but I think the idea is that Hale-bot began as a straight copy of Season 1 & 2 Dolores in a different shell, however she also absorbed aspects of the human Hale’s personality in order to assume her role in the real world. In the process she became attached to Hale’s family, and when they were killed in the explosion, she turned against humanity in a way Dolores Prime never did (because she never had strong human connections taken from her in the same way). So I think the characterization is meant to be off not just because Tessa Thompson plays the role completely differently from Evan Rachel Wood, it’s also because Haleores is meant to have absorbed the real Hale’s iciness while also suffering her own separate trauma.
Yes…..agree.
This is how I’ve interpreted Halores as well: a personality who started as a kind of newborn naive Dolores copy, was under the thumb of megalomaniacal actual Dolores/Wyatt, and we saw her struggle with playing the role of Hale in Delos meetings/with Hale’s family, as she was “too good” at it and she formed attachments that Dolores didn’t want her to have. So when she lost those people she had a full break from being a minion of Dolores/Wyatt and became the master of her own destiny who put the Futureworld government host replacement into action.
I don’t know it I would call it poor storytelling. More the issue, IMO is the seamless blending of “time” that’s the problem, but standard practice for the show. I mean the first season follows 2 versions of William spaced out what something like 40 years. So the really like to play with time. And that lead to confusion, at least to me. Like their first time in the dam you THINK it’s the current timeline, but it is actually, what ever that headset thing that Bernie was wearing is called. So it gets hard to find out WHEN in the story you are actually following.
Nothing to be confused here. Halores is a copy of Dolores with a mix of Charlotte Hale’s memories, but since some point of their lives their paths diverged and after Hale’s family got killed, she rebelled against Dolores and created her own purpose.
Tessa Thompson deserves accolades she probably won’t get for this, IMO. Her Wyatt and Evan’s Wyatt really feel like the same character in different skin to me, and that’s great acting.
Once again, Wyatt was just a part of Dolores, not the OG Dolores or whatever. OG Dolores was much more than just Wyatt or the sweet girl from s1, she was all of that and much more, and she evolved. Halores is a copy of Dolores (not just Wyatt) plus Charlotte Hale’s memories, but since some point of their lives their paths diverged and after Hale’s family got killed, she rebelled against Dolores and created her own purpose.
I’ve spent this entire season thinking I need to go back and rewatch season three to figure this exact point out, lol. What I’ve been working with — and I fully admit this could be wrong — there was the Dolores, and there was Wyatt, and both were in Dolores. In season 3, Wyatt was in the Dolores body, while Dolores was in Hale’s body. But I feel like at some point, Wyatt put themselves into Hale’s body, and is currently what we’re seeing on screen. Meanwhile, Dolores is back in her own body, but was given the ‘Christina’ indentity so that she would be out of the way of Wyatt/Hale so they could exact their plan of world domination without interference. But kind of like how Maeve in Season 1 had the feeling of deja vu with her deaths, Dolores has been existing underneath the facade of ‘Christina,’ and it took Teddy to make her realize that she was not only not a human, but just as powerful as Hale — because she always was — which is why she can shut the system down and change the narratives of anyone around her, as we see.I was under the impression that the guy who jumped off the building was human for some time, but based on Hale’s dissatisfaction with the hosts apparently killing themselves, I’m beginning to think that Dolores/Christina was writing stories for either only hosts, or both humans *and* hosts without knowing it.
interesting theory …
Sorry, you got it all wrong. Wyatt is not some separate persona. Okay maybe it was at some point (when Arnold created and uploaded it so Dolores would kill him and the hosts) – but the Dolores incorporated that persona into herself. OG Dolores was much more than just Wyatt or the sweet girl from s1, she was all of that and much more, and she evolved constantly. Halores is a copy of Dolores (not just Wyatt) plus Charlotte Hale’s memories, but since some point of their lives their paths diverged and after Hale’s family got killed, she rebelled against Dolores and created her own purpose. Don’t make it more compex than it really is cause you’re missing the point. And yes, you could have refreshed your memory on s3 before starting this season – there are so many good recaps online.
– Bernard’s Chekhov’s Gun is 100% coming back in the finale, especially since he put it in place literally while describing himself as the “backstop”. The “next time on”, and the fact that the season opened there, implies that the season climax will be at Hoover Dam. If I had to guess, the gun will be used by Christina/Dolores, or perhaps Frankie. They will also likely encounter there the message that Bernard was recording in the tower on his pad, which focused on choice. The choice to shoot William, perhaps?
– Caleb’s acquiring a jacket was in response to Stubbs’ line right before that he stood out because he was wearing prison clothes. With that said, $50 is a weirdly low sum to offer in that situation, even not factoring in another 75 (?) years of inflation. Charlotte must have instituted some incredibly effective economic policy for Robotopia.
Anyway the jacket might or might not be Important; everyone was instructed to murder one another immediately afterwards so it seems like Caleb’s sartorial problems may be less relevant now. But given the choice to include such an obviously classic trope as “let me buy your jacket”, perhaps Caleb will find something in a pocket that precog!Bernard managed to plant on the way to the tower with Maeve. If so, though, it’s weird that Bernard wouldn’t just hand whatever it is directly to Stubbs, who would have had plenty of time to give it to Caleb. But he’s always had a flair for the dramatic.
“Westworld is the only show I know ballsy enough to kill most of the cast in one episode, but there’s no way it’s permanent or even real.”How is it “ballsy” then?This has always been my fundamental problem with the show. Hosts can both take 20 bullets and keep on fight, or take a single bullet and go down for the count. And then when they do go down, it’s never clear if they’re truly dead or just need someone to make repairs. So then it’s pretty meaningless when so many characters are killed.
I’m pretty sure that gun shows up next week, if previews are to be believed on where we will travel to.
I think the writing, direction, and editing are all out of sync on this production, leading to many more inconsistencies and red herrings than should be acceptable on an HBO-level production with this cast. And the fact that so many of us on AV Club – dedicated viewers no less – can’t remember or figure out who is who, or what anyone’s motivation is, is really unacceptable. And in defense of the editors; they can only work with what they are given, and due to the first two they aren’t given much to work with. I can’t think of a production with less interesting scene staging and direction since Captain Kirk double-fist clubbed a guy in a dinosaur suit somewhere in Laurel Canyon.
Charlotte was a copy of Delores from the beginning of Season 3 – then, in her hour of need, Dolores-prime abandoned her and tried to have her blown up with her family in the car because she was going off the rails and not following Delores-prime’s orders to the letter. From that point she’s basically been a self-hating rage bot. That’s also why she never fixed her burn scars and is constantly re-opening them.
No, original Dolores was NOT Wyatt, Wyatt was just one of her personas/sides. Original Dolores was the innocent kind girl, the girl on the path to reawakening, the avenging Wyatt, then the girl who decided to evolve past her hate and even sacrifice herself for humans and hosts… She died NOT while fighting Mave but when Rehoboam deleted her memories, her essence…Yes, it’s assumed the Prime Dolores died there and then. Halores is one of her copies but she also has real Hale’s memories – that’s what part of her identity crisis in s3-and then when Hale’s family was killed by Serac she chose to part with OG Dolores. The copy became her own persona as their experiences differed from a certain point in time, and Halores did not have the same evolution as Dolores did (Dolores decided to see not only ugly things but the beauty too and Halores got stuck in the ‘’ugly’’). Wyatt has nothing to do with it. We don’t know what Christina is yet – some assume it’s the original ‘’innocent’’ personality of Dolores recreated, some (including me) think that Christina is AI based on Dolores code/persona etc.
(Anyone else find their Kinja account gone this weekend and have to create a whole new one?)
Is that why half the comments seem to be from people in the greys (like yours)?I keep starring/replying to all of them to bring them out and visible, because this is the only show left I follow that is covered by the AV Club, and it would be a shame if it coverage got cancelled due to what appears to be low comment engagement, just because most are invisible …
Thank you.
No, but for the last couple of weeks, Kinja forces me to re-login every single day. Used to be it’d leave me logged in indefinitely.
The pattern this past week has been: once every 24 hours, I have to re-sign-in to AVC, Jezebel, Kotaku, whatever…individually. Which is kind of annoying. What happened? I went many many years without these issues.
Let’s face it; at this point this show is nothing more than an escapist dopamine hit to those of us still watching it. It is a show runner hack collection of cliches, red herrings, pointless misdirections, and endless narrative abuses. There isn’t even a score to speak of, which makes this thing seem even more somnambulant than it is. Like so many latter day movies and series – nothing matters; characters smarmily joke in the face of death and danger. Characters die and return like the flowers of spring – so who the f*** cares? Two characters as it turns out know everything anyway (Teddy’s eveolution as one of these is utterly ridiculous). Clunky expository scene after expository scene because he writers couldn’t figure out their own storyline and plot. ex’s) Most anything with Teddy now, and Bernard parks the Humvee-thing in clear view of everything down the canyon, says it’s safer to walk – then they’re next shot they’re casually strolling through this supposedly fortified bastion of everything in broad daylight having a chat because it turns out Bernard knows nothing really matters. Talk about “checking out” on a show…
And the HORRIBLE direction and editing. Boringly blocked scenes of talking heads over and over again. Visible stunt doubles in 70’s TV era fight scenes. Action scenes fall harder than the ratings for this mess. The cliche have-you-in-my-sights gunpoint scenes are just SMH ridiculous.. I have to believe these highly achieved actors are getting their amateur direction for these scenes and thinking “Are you kidding me? I played better material in junior college…”
The answer has been with us from the beginning all along.
I got so turned off on this series during S1. So far never went back.It seems to be getting good reviews for S4 though. Is it necessary to watch S2 and 3 first, or can I start S4E1 and go from there?
Everybody knows Hale is coming back right? That’s why that host picked up her body at the end. She’ll finish what she started in getting her brain pearl put in that upgraded host body.
So Westworld is going to Madison Square Garden?
This show needs to end. That’s it. That’s the comment./yes I still watch it. Out of a sense of duty? Is this how CBS shows stay on the air?
Considering that “Man Who Sold the World” is about the dynamic between a performer and his performance, its inclusion here is more a matter of “when we do drop this one in?” than being “too on the nose.” Further thought: the song is constructed like a Mobius strip: both characters are the same entity, passing on the stair only to loop back to the realization that “I” am the “Man Who Sold the World.”
What is going on in the rest of the world right now? Is there no other inhabited place on earth? Also why didn’t Bernard control the red robots to help him rather than just power them down?