Does the 8th and final episode of Westworld’s 4th season set the stage for humanity and artificial intelligence’s final gasp?
Parts of the finale ended in predictable or lackluster ways, but where it left us is a pretty new place for everyone, especially the remnants of humanity.
Christina Was The Endgame
Ooooookay so this was a lot, let’s break down what exactly happened here:
First, we learn that Christina is an AI with no body whose control pearl is inside the tower. Halores put a Dolores copy there to run the stories for the cities and as Christina is going back through her memories and what we remember about Dolores, it really makes sense how good she would be in that role. So good in fact that her subconscious Dolores remnants created friends for herself in (Ariana DeBose) and even this version of Teddy (James Marsden) to help her realize the truth of her imprisonment.
Credit: Warner Bros
At the end, her experiences leave her in a very similar place as our original Dolores at season three’s end: with a deep understanding of humanity and artificial intelligence’s potential and flaws, she nonetheless wants to help free everyone.
But how is Christina going to do that? Remember that in the world of the show, humanity isn’t deeply complex as far as our programming is concerned. The only issue is that we don’t handle new bodies very well, as evidenced by Caleb’s deterioration through the past two episodes and Delos founder in Season Two (more on this in a second). So, when Christina says she remembers everyone’s stories, she’s going to recreate humanity in the Sublime and allow them to be free to explore themselves, write new stories for themselves, and hopefully break free of their own “maze” so to speak.
Now, back to that body issue: there’s a chance that being in the Sublime might provide humanity enough time to evolve past that issue. Remember that we learned that time passes much faster in the sublime so where it took Halores two decades to finally get a working Caleb, they could theoretically get there much faster compared to real world time. However, it’s possible a simple plot device will be the fact that humanity adapts to the Sublime easier than actual bodies, which is my guess of how they will move forward.
This scenario still has a lot of problems (not plot wise) in the ethical quandaries and the split personalities that we experienced with Dolores in Season Three. When Dolores split herself, each of her different selves started to differ from the original ever so slightly, with Halores being the most obvious. It’s not a stretch to say that Christina’s version of humanity could suffer from those same problems. Also, how will humanity react when they realize that they are the collection of Christina’s memories and not their own? Will they act the same or yearn to leave the Sublime or worse? I think this leaves up a lot of interesting possibilities for what will likely be the final season, if renewed for season 5.
T-1000 Halores
You can’t keep Halores down; her worker drones find her downed body and patch her back up, keeping her face and trademark scars to hunt down Host-William and put an end to his nihilistic tendencies. While it seems clear her initial goals were simply revenge and hopefully correcting the damage that was done, the message that Bernard left for her seemed to quell her desire and make her understand the gravity of the situation. Seeing her go toe-to-toe with Host-William in her supped-up body was quite nice and she delivers Christina into the Sublime, hoping she’ll take advantage of the final opportunity herself and others – like Bernard and Maeve – fought to give her in spite of everything that’s happened.
In the end, while Halores was misguided and consumed by revenge and pettiness, she ultimately wanted to give her kind a chance, sacrificing herself to make sure Christina/Dolores made it into the Sublime. It certainly doesn’t absolve her of the atrocities she committed, but it certainly shows another aspect of her character’s complexity.
Tessa Thompson’s performance this season was a bit up and down from Hale’s heyday in season two, but generally I enjoyed seeing a calculating Halores scheming and plotting, not realizing her own folly. It was eerily similar to Cavil in the Battlestar Galactica series, another AI who had loftier goals, but couldn’t see past their own failings or didn’t realize they each hadn’t evolved as much as their own hubris believed.
Caleb and Frankie’s Goodbye
Generally, this storyline only needed to wrap up a final moment for father and daughter. While it was still important thematically, in the grand scheme of things we know now that Caleb’s sacrifice may have only bought his daughter borrowed time since she can’t make it to the Sublime (as far as we know right now). The hosts and remnants of humanity that survived Host-William’s game will have to fight over whatever resources are left and presumably struggle to survive.
Credit: Warner Bros
But the entire season, both characters felt like they owed the other: either Frankie wanting to find her dad or Caleb fighting to keep his promise, and the finale allowing him to deliver his daughter to safety was a nice end to Caleb’s arc. Again, given the bleak outlook on humanity’s future after this season’s events, it’s unlikely we’ll see Frankie again. But is there any chance that Bernard was wrong about humanities’ chances? Could Frankie surviving be a key plot point for next season?
Stubbs and Clementine
Bernard’s prediction about Stubbs was correct which came in the most predictable way, as he was trying to be compassionate to a human under the tower’s control, he gets shot and impaled by Clementine, who is finally able to operate of her own accord, free from anyone’s control, and wants to join the outliers in the desert (though her intentions with them seemed rather murderous than peaceful).
Given how few people stay dead in this series and given the plot device that Christina could use to bring people back, I doubt Maeve, Bernard, Stubbs, or even Clementine will be truly dead, but it’s still sad processing this many losses at the end of the season.
Final Thoughts
Last week’s episode seemed like the actual emotional height of the season so similar to how the season started, this finale was sort of a mix of good moments, but ultimately not as satisfying as other episodes were this season. The Christina / Storyteller game plan to save the world could be really cool, but the execution and delivery of that reveal wasn’t nearly as satisfying as say Dolores and Maeve passing the torch at the end of season three or even the different time reveals of previous seasons.
Also, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we’re back in the park?! I already loathed this decision in the second episode, but we know there’s plenty of worlds to explore in the Sublime. Is it possible that Dolores is simply using what she knows for now and we may get some time skips next season into different park versions to help everyone evolve? Move forward?
I have more thoughts about the conclusion on the season, but I’ll save that for the complete season recap later this week. In the meantime, it’s fair to say this was a middling, but not terrible season finale that does a good job setting up a series finale season than it does being impressive itself.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Last Episode: Metanoia