The slow burn continues as Season Four decides to take its time building two stories with Christina learning more about her assailant, while Maeve and Caleb try to figure out why Host-William and Halores want them dead.
Hello my fellow guests/hosts, since I’ve been traveling and got behind, I’ve had the benefit of watching the first 5 episodes, so I’ll contain my thoughts to what happened in each episode in case you want to read these as you catch up. Per usual, this review will contain spoilers, proceed with caution.
This episode does a great job fleshing out the threads from the previous episode, we get more insight into what Caleb (Aaron Paul) and Maeve (Thandie Newton) will be working on this season and a peek into Host-William/Halores’ plan. However, we’re still in the dark about Christina/Dolores and what they are doing in the real world or Sublime.
Body Snatchers
Credit: Warner Bros
Caleb and Maeve track down a senator and his wife who have been replaced by host bodies, which are both dispatched by the duo. However, they also have to kill the senator’s real wife, who seems to be under the same fly control as the cartel member last episode. Maeve hacks the senator host’s brain and finds out that Halores and Host-William have been replacing key members of society to gain control.
Yep, if you want world domination, this is exactly how you get it. Halores clearly sees humanity as inferior, in a complete 180 to the conclusion that Dolores eventually came to, and has an effective means to make the populace do what she wants.
The Park Is Back…Okay
I mean you all wanted it, here it is! I say this partly in jest, but I don’t think this was needed honestly. The park is the initial idea of the series, but constantly going back is unnecessary and makes me think the creators feel trapped or beholden to revisit it every season when the story has so clearly moved past it.
Here, Caleb and Maeve get roped into a trip back to the park (as they investigate an invitation given to them by Host-William and an elaborate sequence back onto the Westworld train) which has changed eras to the roaring 20s. Now as much as I am loathe to return to the park, this fits thematically with a lot of the decadence that last season explored and is a natural direction for a society that still hasn’t learned it’s lesson, even when freed from the shackles of a predictive AI.
Christina Investigates Her Surroundings
While we don’t get a clear reveal of what/who Christina is, we learn more about her assailant Peter Myer, and that the story Christina had apparently concocted of his life was accurate right up to the details of his wife leaving and suicide. Except Christina finds an even more confusing piece of information at Peter’s old clinic, where she finds a memorial set up in his honor from years ago. So is the Peter that Christina saw die the same Peter or did the story she write, lift the details off of the real Peter and put them onto this other Peter? And how would that even work?
Halores’s Pet
Turns out you can’t really kill the Man in Black, no matter how much you may tease towards the contrary. We see our William from the past 3 seasons has been cryogenically frozen and used as an unwilling audience for Halores’ musings and pontifications about the future of her kind. It’s not clear exactly what role this William will play as his host version wrecks havoc carrying out her plan.
Host-William and Clementine
Beginning and interspersed throughout the episode are Host-William hunting down Clementine, turning her into his deadly assistant as he secures the backing of the US government against their will to put his park on their soil, rather than restarting on foreign soil where the park had original been built. It’s great to see Angela Sarafyan back although I’d much rather see her helping Maeve and Caleb with their investigation than assisting Host-William. Also, it’s interesting to see how Host-William and the original are portrayed by Ed Harris. They are both still ruthless and cold bastards, but the Host-William has some slight misgivings or is less as authoritative as the original William.
Final Thoughts
While we don’t have a ton of info yet, this episode did a better job giving us the beads of Halores’ plan and how far she’s willing to go to execute it and infiltrate the whole of humanity’s structures. Also, knowing how much Westworld plays with time and scene layout, it’s a wonder if the Christina scenes have even happened or are still occurring in the real world (I’m still betting on the sublime). Mostly, the direction of this episode is more compelling than the slightly underwhelming season premiere.