Encouraged and challenging, Westworld returns with an amplified fourth season.
Westworld is one of those shows that came out the door so loud, so lively and so compelling that it had the Icarus effect.
Once the literal puzzle at the center of the story was solved, fans fell, satiated and unwilling to commit to more of their ambitious, involved, and cerebral narratives. It was useless for him to fall into a small hole in the third season.
But if you’ve given up and aren’t willing to go back, you may miss some of the best the series has to offer, such as Homelandwhich had very hot seasons in the back half but which the disillusioned fans could not court and it was their loss.
Westworld is back this week for its fourth season on Binge * and is in top form. The production values are extraordinary, as are their performances, but this has never been in doubt, the series always meets these points.
Easier to do when you have such talented actors as Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Thandiwe Newton, Tessa Thompson, Ed Harris and Aaron Paul. It is an absolute combination of theatrical delights. Even at its most opaque, Westworld it has always been worth seeing them just for these performances.
WestworldBroader success depends more on how you execute the central ideas of your DNA: that of free will, control, and power. When the show was in the park, these ideas fueled its compulsive action, but as it expanded into the so-called real world, the series lost some of that momentum.
The fourth season is a rebalancing. It goes back to some of the elements that established it as an obligatory series, although it fully recognizes the cyclical nature of its narrative, while at the same time mocking enough of the non-park world of glass, steel, and threat.
After a leap in time, Dolores (Wood) is now a woman named Christina, seemingly with no memory of her past self, insurrectionary inclinations, or that thirst for revenge blood.
All of these characteristics now reside in Charlotte (Thompson), who is a version of Dolores: she is determined to dominate humanity by what they did to the robots, releasing a plague that gives her control over people.
Maeve (Newton), after seven years in hiding, is fleeing after she is found by William’s (Harris) minions. Like Caleb (Paul), who has moved on to a “normal” life with a wife and son.
And, as he mocked at the end of the previous season, Bernard has woken up after years in the digital world.
They are the starting points for another deadly calculation, an intricately woven story that at first seems cloudy but, as it is, Westworldit tends to surprise with its playful revelations. It stirs up the same intellectual calisthenics as the first season, a tango with audience expectations.
Westworld, created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, delights in not speaking ill of its viewers. He presents challenging ideas through his demanding narratives, but the reward is worth it.
And this season, that question of free will that focused on its robot characters is now returning to humanity.
It has a creepy resonance in the context of current events (the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia) because it argues that no one can ever take for granted the sometimes illusory nature of free will. .
Just when you think you are at the forefront of your own life or destiny, something, or someone, comes and snatches it from you. But as Maeve tells Caleb, it’s not about fighting, it’s about having something worth fighting for.
And that’s something worth thinking about.
The fourth season of Westworld begins airing on Binge on Monday, June 27th
* Binge is majority owned by News Corp, the publisher of this website