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HBO returned to Westworld this Sunday night, kicking off its fourth season with new mysteries, new threats, and the return of a fan-favorite character we haven’t seen since Season 2.
Season 4 opens on a seemingly unscathed William/The Man in Black (played by Ed Harris), who may or may not be the host-copy from the closing minutes of “Crisis Theory”/the Season 3 finale. He arrives at a mysterious canyon facility owned by a cartel-adjacent organization. Built over and around a massive lake, this place and its contents are immensely valuable to William. He claims that its contents were stolen from him and that he wants all of it back. The cartel members refuse his offer… and William has them all killed.
The focus then shifts to new character, Christina (series vet Evan Rachel Wood), a video game writer whose aversion to fun annoys her outgoing roommate, Maya (Schmigadoon!‘s Ariana DeBose). It isn’t unreasonable to assume that Christina is just another Dolores copy; Hector said it best last season: “Death is overrated for ones like us.”
While it seems unlikely that Dolores survived the events of Season 3, there’s a layer to Wood’s performance here suggesting just that. (Series co-creator Jonathan Nolan has insisted that Dolores is dead, but who’s to say he wasn’t referring to one of her copies and not the original?) Predictably, though, the story switches to other POV characters before anything is revealed.
Seven years after destroying data monster Rehoboam, Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul) is finally living his life on his terms. Kind of. The Biblically-named supercomputer and its co-creator, Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel), are no longer in the picture. Rehoboam’s destruction gave way to the New World, where “you can be whoever the f–k you want.” Apparently, Caleb’s version of “whatever you want” is a thankless gig hauling electrical coils across the tops of skyscrapers. He’s got a wife and a daughter now, too.
Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), meanwhile, has locked herself away in a cabin in the woods. She’s cycling through many of the memories we know she struggles to cope with, including the first set of memories from way back at the park in the first season. She’s presumably in hiding after beating Serac, who looked pretty defeated last time we saw him. She heads to a nearby town for supplies and learns that people are looking for her. She hurries back to her hideout, where surly, mustached soldiers are combing every inch of the wintry woods. She kills them and confronts their leader, who reveals himself as an android before Maeve hacks him to pieces with an axe. She pores over his memories and discovers William is looking for her, after which she torches the cabin and leaves.
Circling back to Christina, we find out that she’s being stalked by a man pleading for her to “stop doing this to us.” Not an abundance of clarity there, but that’s not the show’s way. This is shaping up to be one of the biggest mysteries of her arc.
After a night out with Maya, Christina encounters the stalker in person, and he attacks her before disappearing. The next morning, the man kills himself by jumping off the roof of her apartment building.
Maeve eventually makes her way back to Caleb, who’s struggling to be content with his humdrum (but stable) life. She saves his daughter from an assailant and tells him William is after them both. Caleb and Maeve leave to intercept William’s next target: a senator in California. Whatever William is planning, it’s clearly trouble for the surviving characters.
The episode closes on a teary Christina monologuing on her balcony about how empty she feels, how she doesn’t know why she feels so lost, and that she wants a happy ending to her story. As she turns in for the night, Teddy (James Marsden) looks up at her from the street below.
Maybe next week we’ll get some Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright)….
What did you think/make of Westworld‘s return after more than two years? Will you stay tuned?
Tonight’s episode looked & felt like a piolet for a brand-new show. I like this show because it has the guts to reinvent itself every season. This is the key to its longevity. That’s what keeps it interesting & fresh. I hope this shows lasts for several more seasons.
I love the way Westworld is brand new every season….keeps me interested and surprised!
As, I said before, that’s the key to it’s longevity & can only hope that it lasts for several more seasons.
Seems like someone out there dialled up the existential romance this season and for that someone I’m grateful.
My favourite detail is Christina writing dimensional storylines for background characters despite them being “cannon fodder.” On brand given her history.
Does the current season remind you of the plot of the 4th “Matrix” movie? It has certain elements of that plot. Did anyone notice? Especially with Delores, now being a video game, creator & she is telling her story in a video game. Anyone notice the similarities with “The Matrix: Resurrections?
My husband noticed.
Just so you know. I don’t mean that in a bad way. In fact, “Westworld” does a better job of it than the Matrix did. Can’t wait to find out what happens next.
I love how this show has begun to reinvent itself every season. I know that there is a plan for just five seasons, but now that they have gone into the real world, the possibilities seem endless.& I think it could & should go on for several more seasons.
It was hard to understand what Christina’s videogame-writing job actually is. If she’s writing for non-playable background characters (the kind who came to life in “Free Guy”), how detailed could the stories be anyway? (Presumably, she couldn’t have killed off characters without that being part of the main story.) And when she’s asked to pitch new stories, she comes up with something like, “The girl doesn’t know what she’s searching for — she just knows there’s an emptiness in her life.” Of course, that’s not even close to a narrative, as the screenwriters of this show must be well aware. That said, I really want one of those cool cubicles with high privacy glass the next time I have to work in an open office.
I believe Christina/Delores think they are writing for a video game, but she is really writing for avatars, like herself, now living in the real world as background characters. Her plan to escape that existence failed in S3.
How do you think Christina/Delores will remember who she is?
She writes for the background characters. Christinia’s life mimicks Delores, down to a tee. She knows that there is more to this world then meets the eye, but can’t put her finger on what.
The “mysterious canyon facility” is Hoover Dam. I don’t think it was meant to be mysterious. It’s a well-known historic place. The tour is amazing.
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Maeve recognized the “android” from Westworld. She even used his name.
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The jumper was across the street, not on her building. That’s part of how he saw her come outside.
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Overall, I enjoyed the opener. I wish they had kept Teddy a secret. It would have been an incredible reveal. I’m looking forward to see what he’s all about now.
Yee, the Teddy reveal should have been kept under wraps. It would have been more of a shock to see him.
Sorry but this show is getting more and more lame, clearly Delores is trapped in a dream state. The dialog is getting toward CW type cheese fest
I think its obvious that Caleb and Maeve and William are all in the same timeframe and same reality. Their stories are intertwined and all those characters reference the end of Rehoboam and Incite. And Caleb and Maeve also share screen time, while referencing William being back.
What is different is the reality that Dolores aka Christina is in. It never mentions the existence of Incite. And Dolores looks visibly younger. The world she is in is either not real – as in it is a simulation, or more likely it is a story arch to the earliest days of Dr Ford’s vision for Westworld. Her employer is actually a company collecting stories for Ford to use as narratives in his upcoming park, which may at this point be offering limited visitations (remember that as she was walking up to the High Line she walked by a group of young men who were talking about a new entertainment venue. Teddy may be a real life suitor or someone sent by the park to safeguard one of their best writers who then goes on to be the inspiration for the Dolores of Westworld. Peter who accosted Christina can be an escaped host who tracked down the writer behind his narratives.
That’s a good theory that the current season is actually a prequel to the show we know as “Westworld.” Anyone also think this?
This all sounds very plausible to me, too.
But the beauty of this show is that just when we think we know what’s going on, they pull the rug right out from under us.
I have another theory that this is all part of Ford’s narrative & that it’s never ending. What do you do with a story that’s not supposed to end? You reinvent it. Shake things up to keep things fresh & new, while maintaining the familiar aspects of the story that make it so appealing, which is what Westworld has been doing so well.
Did anyone notice that Caleb’s daughter looks like Maeve’s daughter?