This week’s episode ofWestworldmarked a rather big change in the way that the show has told its story. Rather than playing games and trying to keep people guessing on what’s just around the corner, the show has turned into more of a science-fiction action series. That’s thanks in large part to the events ofWestworldEpisode 4where the curtain was pulled on just what was and what has been going on.
The plans that thefirst few episodes ofWestworldtipped off by Charlotte and The Man in Black have been realized. As he tells Charlotte in this episode, they’ve won. They’ve had the kind of success that can only be described as total. The early episodes showed how and rather than walk the audience through the rolling out of the virus or programming or whatever it should be called, the show also had a time jump of 23 years where humans have basically become the Hosts. They are under complete control on a level that might even be more impressive than what the people were able to do with the originalWestworldpark. However, it turns out that there appear to be some ghosts in the machine. There’s something wrong with the system. There are quite literally outliers.
RELATED:Westworld: Everything You Need To Know About Arnold Weber
For now,Westworldisn’t about trying to hide things up its sleeve and for at least one week, that made the show quite a bit better than it’s been over the last couple of weeks. The show likes to talk about “the game” quite a bit and it certainly seems as if the pieces have been set up on the board. There’s Hale and The Man in Black and their loyal minions on one side. On the other is the very few people who have formed the rebellion and are trying to take down the Hosts.
Somewhere in the middle is Teddyand Delores (Christina) who are “gods” in this new world but are apparently not particularly happy about the way things have gone down. Of course, Christina didn’t realize that things were the way they are until very recently, as she’s finally woken up to the fact that the world is not what she thought. Christina is a reluctant god, and it’s quite possible this is going to play a very big part in the show moving forward.
Then of course, there’s The Man in Black, or the Host version of William. Whatever he should be called, he continues to be played expertly byEd Harris. The man simply knows how to portray something that is pure evil but also might have a few qualms about the level of evil he’s attained. Of course, it might be, as he says in this episode that it’s less about caring that what he’s doing is wrong. It might not even be that he feels it’s wrong. He’s the kind of god that isn’t reluctant at all, in fact, he likes the fact that he’s a god and wants to look over humans as though they are a commodity.
Whether or notthose inWestworldhave the free will they think they do has been a question since Season 1. For at least the human beings in this world, that question has been answered with a resounding no, and the show gives some very interesting looks into what it would be like if that answer was something that could be demonstrated in the blink of an eye.
The opening scenes ofthis episode ofWestworldmight be some of the best the series has had yet and of course some of that is due to Ed Harris and the way he simply dismantles the man he’s sitting with in the restaurant. That man is talking like someone who has worked hard to get to the top of the heap. He’s got a beautiful and seemingly dutiful wife on his arm that only lightly chides him as he boasts to William about how much he has and how low on the totem pole so many other people in this new world are.
When Harris starts to explain that the people he’s talking to are really nothing more than puppets that are playing a part, it should be noted that the actors do a very good job of showing both confusion and sheer terror at both what they are hearing and the realizations they are waking up to. This isn’t really something that theHosts inWestworldhad to deal with. Those who woke tended to rebel. They very rarely had to sit there and be told their “gods” could do anything they wanted to do to them. There is also the bookend of the scene after he tells them not to leave while he goes out to handle business and they in fact do not leave. The dawning realization that they cannot leave as they sit in the restaurant as it closes is downright chilling.
WestworldSeason 4Episode 5 appears to be the culmination of what the series has been building to from the very beginning. And to the writer’s credits, the show does a very nice job of chiding Hale, and the rest of the Hosts with “be careful what you wish for” type storylines. While William is content to operate in the world as though he’s a human and wants to see how they play things out, Hale is much more of a puppeteer and is also quite unhappy that it’s become so easy to lead people by their strings.
Thisepisode ofWestworldwas great for two reasons. The first reason is that it’s definitely interesting to see the shoe so solidly on the other foot. It’s a different kind of post-apocalyptic world that viewers are used to seeing on television. It’s a new vision for science fiction that really does seem to stand out from the other “end of the world scenarios.” It’s also a very good episode because it very effectively makes the watcher where the series is going to go next.
New Episodes ofWestworldSeason 4 arrive every Sunday night on HBO Max.
