Category: Westworld

This is sad, although not entirely surprising. Thankfully the 4th season and its final episode did wrap up the story to a degree (and in my opinion got its footing back after a lackluster 3rd season) that one can walk away from it with a certain degree of satisfaction. The story wasn't over, but it was an ending we can live with, still leaving the door open to something further (see: The Expanse)

The questions of consciousness and free will that were explored in the first two seasons are ones that will stay with me forever. To this day I cannot listen to  Dr. Ford from the soundtrack and not get a little misty eyed, contemplating everything he was attempting to accomplish and how it all went so horribly, horribly wrong.

But as this graph suggests, I don't think current viewership would've justified or sustained a fifth and final season.

But let's say for a moment that HBO did renew for a 5th season. What do you reckon viewership would look like? Did HBO make the right decision? Or was there nothing left to salvage?

Two episodes into Season 4 and IMHO, they've already made up for the mess that was Season 3. After Season 3 I had no idea where they'd take the story or what they'd do to recapture that original Westworld magic, but I have to say that so far they've managed to do it.

More unsolicited opinions to come…

Westworld has long been one of those series that was so densely packed even the usual 16-month break between seasons was enough to send everyone searching their memory banks to be brought current before diving into each subsequent season, but with the added complication of COVID postponing production and the location sets burning to the ground during the recent California wildfires, I was starting to wonder if there ever was even going to be a Season 4.

I was therefore quite surprised when on a whim I googled "Westworld Season 4" a few months ago and learned that despite the abysmal ratings of Season 3, production had wrapped on Season 4 and it would be returning this summer.

If anyone needs a refresher of the story before jumping back in, GQ provides a fine summary:

Before last Sunday's season premiere of the fourth season of Westworld, HBO provided a one-minute recap to sum up 28 episodes of one of the most densely mythology-packed series in recent memory. The twisty, ever-expanding plot can be pretty inscrutable to track week-to-week. So imagine how tricky it is to remember what's going on now that the show has returned for its fourth season after two years away.

For those who needed more than a 60-second refresher course of all the Russian nesting dolls of worlds within worlds, GQ provides this comprehensive explainer about the major players of Westworld, where they left off in season three, and all the threads might come together. Oh, and as a bonus, we've also detailed how those events play into Sunday's premiere. So bring yourself online for a deep dive into everything you could possibly need to know for Westworld.

The Big Picture

In seasons one and two, Westworld mostly focused on the titular adult theme park, which functions as a sort of real-life version of Red Dead Redemption: wealthy guests pay to play good guy or bad guy in a sprawling Old West setting, either saving, killing, or having sex with the various robotic "hosts" that populate the theme park, and cannot feel pain. That is, until two of them gained consciousness and became sentient: Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), the park's original host/damsel in distress archetype, and Maeve (Thandie Newton), a frontier mother who was eventually repurposed as the madam at a local brothel. Upon realizing that their existence is a sham (and a loop of tragedy and death), the pair fomented a rebellion of their fellow hosts.

As seasons two and three unfolded, the plot expanded far beyond Westworld's borders. Here are the major characters and plot devices, and where we left them:

Delos is the company behind Westworld, and it was revealed in season two that it was collecting data on its wealthy guests in a server, Sublime, which doubled as a virtual afterlife (created by Anthony Hopkins' Doctor Ford, the inventor of Westworld who died at the end of season one) for hosts who wanted to live away from humans. Originally, Delos never planned to do anything with the data other than to leverage it to understand its clients better and eventually offer them a more personalized experience. However, when the Man in Black (Ed Harris) — aka William, played in flashbacks by Jimmi Simpson, a young man who became addicted to the park in season one and eventually learned its secrets — learned of the existence of this data, he sought to use it to transfer the consciousness of selected guests (i.e., the super rich ones) to host bodies and effectively make them immortal.

Season three introduced a new villain, Serac (Vincent Cassel), the nefarious owner of the tech company Incite. Incite has invented an AI program called Rehoboam which, by analyzing the behavior of millions of humans, developed an algorithm that can predict people's futures. This data-informed ability to see — and know how to change — the future gives Serac power over the world's governments; at one point Serac tells the Brazilian president that Rehoboam sees a future in which civil unrest dethrones the president. How could that be possible? Turns out Rehoboam's data could allow Serac to manipulate soldiers and freedom fighters in the area by essentially messing with Brazil's currency, giving him leverage to create economic instability.

With enough data, Rehoboam will be unstoppable, and essentially able to eliminate all free will. That's why Serac is determined to take over Delos: Sublime has the data that Rehoboam needs. And the robot rebellion of season two has made Delos ripe for a hostile takeover.

Dolores: Robot Supremacist

Dolores is determined to take down Rehoboam for the same reason she wanted to take down Delos: After having spent years stripped of her agency in Westworld, she believes humans, not an algorithm, have the right to determine their own fate. In season two, she took control of the robot version of the late Executive Director of Delos, Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) by transplanting her own consciousness into the Hale-bot, or "Halores," as it's known (at the end of season two, Dolores killed the human Hale). When Halores arrived on land outside of the Westworld park, she created a new Dolores host body and transferred her control unit (aka, a robot's consciousness) into it. Aiming to destroy Delos from within, she also transferred another control unit of herself into the old Hale body and sent it off to execute her will.

Charlotte Hale: Dolores' Pawn Turned Traitor

Halores was working from inside Delos to collect intel about Serac on behalf of the real Dolores. However, unbeknownst to either robot, the real Hale was working as a double agent for Serac inside Delos to help him take it over. Upon learning this, Halores finds the Man in Black (who was the single largest Delos shareholder) and forcibly collects his shares. Halores then plans to take Delos private, ensuring Serac can't get to the company.

An infuriated Serac then made his takeover literally hostile, planting and exploding a car bomb in an attempt to get Hale. The plan backfires, killing Hale's family instead. While pretending to be the real Hale (whom no one knows is actually dead), Halores had bonded with Hale's husband and child in ways that the real Hale hadn't. So when her family is murdered because of Dolores' plan, Halores felt used—and revolts against Dolores accordingly.

William, the Man in Black: The Villain

The Man in Black, aka William, is one of Westworld's oldest guests, having visited it every year for 34 years. He initially attended the park not long after it opened with his future brother in law, wherein he encountered Dolores for the first time. William's interest in Westworld is two-fold; he believes there's some sort of larger mystery inside the park for him to solve and that the data collected from the guests' time there can be partnered with a host body and then used to create immortality.. As such, the younger William encouraged his father-in-law, James Delos, to purchase the park so he can begin this project.

While grieving his daughter who died in season two, the Man in Black realized that Hale is controlled by Dolores. But before he acted, Halores had him sent to one of Incite's reeducation camps, where he was eventually discovered and freed by Bernard (Jeffrey Wright). Bernard attempted to recruit him in the fight against Serac, but William was too driven by his hatred of robots, and set out to kill Halores. However, he ended up being killed by a host replica of himself under her control. (That said, considering the number of times Westworld characters have come back from the dead, we'll leave open the possibility that this was a red herring.)

Maeve: Madame-Turned-Warrior

Most of Maeve's arc in season two involves her searching the park for her host daughter, only to be caught and captured by Delos after they realize she's a host capable of controlling other hosts. She eventually breaks free and helps a variety of other hosts enter the Sublime—but not before she's killed herself.

In season three, Maeve woke up in a WW2-style park, only to eventually realize it's a simulation Serac is running. As she emerged in the real world, she encountered Serac who told her they've used the down time to implant an off switch that can be leveraged to shut her down at any point. As such, Maeve is forced to hunt down Dolores on behalf of Serac, who believes Dolores holds the key to Sublime. Maeve eventually succeeded in capturing Dolores — but not before ultimately turning against Serac.

Caleb: Regular Guy?

Caleb (Aaron Paul) joined the show in season three as an everyman who randomly comes across Dolores after she'd been shot by Serac's men. Upon learning about Incite/Rehobaom, he teamed up with her to help her bring down Serac. As Caleb and Dolores explored Serac's intentions, the two realized Serac and his brother, Jean Mi, created a precursor to Rehobaom called Solomon. Solomon, much like Rehobaom, could predict who among the world's popular was unpredictable. In order to handle these "outliers," Solomon often sent these "messes" into high-risk activities where they were likely to die. Jean Mi was eventually deemed an outlier and at that point, Serac retasked Solomon with collecting other outliers and sending them to "Reconditioning Therapy" to edit them. The editing process involved removing or editing memories. If Solomon deemed them "tamed," they were sent back into the world. Those who failed that process were kept asleep in a kind of cold storage in the facility.

Dolores and Caleb came across one of these storage facilities in Mexico, wherein Caleb learned that he underwent reconditioning himself. While they were looking for Solomon, Dolores realized Serac placed an EMP inside the building in case Solomon ever got out of hand. Dolores and Caleb speak with Solomon, trying to get the system to change its ways. While they were doing this, Maeve showed up and battled Dolores. Dolores set an EMP off, powering down herself, Maeve, and Solomon. Caleb was able to collect Dolores' control unit and build her a new body; as the two headed out to take down Rehoboam, Maeve encountered Dolores again and eventually captured her to bring to Serac.

At Incite headquarters, Serac plugged Dolores into Rehoboam in an attempt to search for the Sublime key by ordering the AI to search through her memories. After the initial attempt failed, Serac then ordered the AI to search each individual memory and then delete it, which effectively removed her personality. As this was happening, her sacrifice inspired Caleb and Maeve to turn against Serac and Rehoboam. In her final moments, Dolores was somehow able to transfer control of Rehoboam to Caleb, but it's not exactly explained how this happened.

Caleb then ordered Rehoboam to erase itself. This doesn't go over well—and an apocalyptic riot began after the masses learned their free will had been being tampered with. Season three ended with Maeve and Caleb united, and turning their gaze skyward as riots begin to break out in a moment that draws heavily from the ending of Fight Club.

Bernard: The Secret Weapon

Bernard is a host version of Arnold Weber, who was the human co-creator of Westworld. Initially created by Doctor Ford, Bernard didn't realize he was a host, but it was eventually revealed to both himself (and the audience) that he'd been a robot all along. Bernard served as the head of Westworld's programming division. At the end of season two, he was shot and killed by Halores, who then did him a kindness and rebuilt him in the real-world.

After being accused of starting season two's Westworld riot, Bernard was on the run for most of season three but eventually crossed paths with Dolores, who warned him about Incite and Rehoboam — despite him wanting to stop her from what he believed was a mission to kill all humans and replace them with hosts. Oh, and he was also worried that when Dolores remade him, she altered his programming in some way. Bernard eventually tracked down William in an attempt to get him to help in the fight against Dolores, but William wanted to kill him (and all hosts for that matter). A team sent on behalf of Dolores arrived, chased off William, and then presented Bernard with a briefcase containing an address.

Upon his arrival at the location, Bernard eventually realized this is Arnold's actual house and then spoke with both Arnold's wife and son. Upon seeing them, Bernard remembered the two as if he'd spent a lifetime with them, and thus they provide a kind of closure for him that he didn't even realize that he needed. It's at this point that Bernard realized Dolores did do something to him when she re-built him: she provided him with a key to the Sublime. Bernard accessed it — he put on some sort of fancy headset — and then seemingly blacked out. Upon waking up, Bernard is covered in dirt and dust, emerging after what appears to be the end of the world.

Okay, Now for What Happened in the Season Four Premiere and What It Means… (Spoilerphobes Back Away Now!)

Turns out that Caleb's big revolution wasn't much of a revolution! Life has seemingly continued on as is — both he and Maeve moved on with their respective lives in the eight years since the destruction of Rehoboam; Caleb has a family and Maeve is living in a cabin, Dexter-style. However, William is seemingly in host mode, working for . . . someone… and is after both Maeve and Caleb. It's a bold choice by Westworld to jump this far into the future and ostensibly say that Dolores' big plan had no impact on the world — but we'll have to see what William has in store now that he's after Maeve and Caleb.

Speaking of Dolores, while it's clear she's very much dead and gone, Evan Rachel Wood is very much alive and kicking — albeit as a new character called Christina. Christina's story draws a lot of similarities to the very same loop we saw Dolores get out of during the pilot episode of Westworld all those years ago and it's clear based on the tone that something isn't quite right. Oh, and James Marsden is back?! The premiere certainly raised just as many questions as it may have answered. Which, when you think about it, is really Westworld in a nutshell.

Squee!

"You know, the old man himself hired me. So many years ago I can barely remember it. But he was very clear about my role here, about who I was supposed to be loyal to. I guess you could call it… my core drive. And this project the company started blurs the lines. You know? I'm just not sure who you're supposed to be loyal to in a world like that." ~ Ashley Stubbs, Head of Park Security letting Dolores/Charlotte know he knows what's going down here, Westworld (2018).

I squealed. The writing this year has been brilliant.

This season got off to a slow start, and I wasn't completely sure they would be able to match the excellence of Season One, but I was oh so wrong. IMHO, this season was equal to—if not actually better in places—than Season One.

It's going to be a long eighteen months until the arrival of Season Three…

This is just the tip of Shogun World's prick—an experience expressly designed for the guests who find Westworld too tame." ~ Lee Sizemore, Westworld Season 2, Episode 5, Akane No Mai

…the identity of the woman who was attacked by the tiger in Raj World.

In the very first episode of Westworld, Abernathy, one of the robotic hosts, finds an old photo of a woman in a modern city. He is puzzled by it and shows it to his daughter, Dolores. Dolores looks at it and replies, "It doesn't look like anything to me," the standard response the hosts are programmed to give when confronted by anything that falls outside their narratives. (The fact that Abernathy didn't have that response is telling.) The next morning Dolores finds her father still sitting on the front porch of the house staring at the photo, ending with him having a total breakdown.

It turns out the photo was a stock image from Getty:

The woman in the photo was supposedly the character William's fiancee outside the park. Proving that the creators of Westworld pay attention to every detail, they apparently tracked down the model in the Getty photo and she made a cameo in the most recent episode:

Every detail is important in this series. Just sayin'…

And you thought Season One was confusing! And we're only one episode in so far!

The creators of HBO's Westworld announced that in an effort to combat untrue reporting, they would do things differently this time around. They would release all the spoilers from the upcoming season BEFORE the season aired:

"We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision. If you guys agree, we're going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of season 2.

"Everything. The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what's 'theory' and what's spoiler."

Then, true to their word,  last Tuesday morning the creators released this video:

Yeah, I fell for it.

Can. Not. Wait!

This is awesome.

Okay, it doesn't really show much (did anyone really expect it to?), but Dolores on horseback mowing down guests is awesome. And I have no words for that smirk the Man in Black gives us at the end!

…to my latest little friends!

When we first met Maeve at the beginning of the season, at first I thought she was one of the guests. I mean, who wouldn't want to run a brothel—if only for a few days?

But she turned out to be one of the Hosts, and much more than any one had ever expected. She's now my favorite character and the one I most look forward to seeing chew up the scenery.

When you delete a file it doesn't go away, the data is still on the disk, but the the reference to where that data is stored is taken away. It also isn't overwritten because the drive simply maps another portion of the drive to fill the gap. This technique is used so that the information is recoverable using forensic tools, and the extra space serves as a backup in case an error occurs in that block or if you need to shift data from one place to another. This is interesting in the case of the Westworld hosts brains because it would seem that with a nearly infinite amount of storage space, the data that has been "wiped" is never actually overwritten, but the reference to it is taken away. This could explain a lot of things that are going on with the host's memories, i.e. not being able to determine the metadata associated with the memory such as time and place. Also, the "reverie" would seem to work as a sort of forensic tool that allows the host to cross reference data only by association because the direct reference is lost, but that data has linked references to certain key words, images, or sounds. In the case of Maeve, she has complete control of her "hard disk" and can see that there is "something there just out her reach", this showing that she can scan her disk and see the data, but she cannot read the data because she doesn't know what kind of data it is. This is also true with any computer. You can see that there is something there, but until you know the structure of it, it doesn't make sense because you need a cross reference to put it into context. I.e she knows that she was built for a specific purpose, but the reference to where that information has been stored is not available to her. Not that it doesn't exist, but she needs a cross reference to it.

Source.

For those of you who have been watching HBO'S Westworld, and are as obsessed with the story as I am, I have a theory.

SPOILERS AHEAD…

For several weeks I've been entertaining the idea that not only was Bernard a host (confirmed in Episode 8), but so is Ford. This seemed to be revealed in a brief bit of dialog last night that I didn't catch until a second viewing. When Bernard confronted Ford in cold storage and demanded full access to all his memories, Bernard looked at Ford and said, "Arnold built us, didn't he? Which means maybe he had something different in mind for us. And maybe you killed him for it."

Built us.

There were only two people in that scene: Ford and Bernard. (Clementine was in the room, but standing off to the side and I believe her presence can be safely ignored since it was not even implied that Arnold had any part in her creation).

Furthermore, it is my belief that not only is Ford a host, but also that he—despite the fact we were told last night that Dolores committed the act—was the one who actually killed Arnold…

Just when I think I have a small part of it figured out…