We’re still quite a distance from the park. Do you remember the western town from season one? Tonight marked the end of the fourth season of HBO’s hit series Westworld, which ended with a brawl between humans and hosts as well as more mysteries about who is still alive and who is in the virtual Valley of the Beyond. We discuss all of this and more with Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy on tonight’s very special episode of Crew Call.
You can listen to an audio recording of our conversation by following this link:
Season 4 events took place seven years after Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), Caleb (Aaron Paul), and an exhausted Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) defeated the enormous, predictive supercomputer Rehoboam in season 3. The episodes that aired last Sunday and tonight both featured more revolution, with bodies of humans and hosts strewn about.
“Humans and hosts are just going to destroy themselves,” Joys has been quoted as saying.
“It’s the end of life on Earth as we know it.”
Following the advice of Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), host megalomaniac Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) placed one of the remaining host pearls, Dolores’ or Christina’s, into the Valley of Beyond and then locked it up at Hoover Dam. The Valley of the Beyond is essentially heaven on earth for those in charge of hosting. It is also referred to as the Sublime. Charlotte was also responsible for the loss of both William and her pearl (Ed Harris). They did not, however, make it to heaven in the sense that we understand it.
What are we going to do now? At the end of tonight’s episode, Dolores/Christina, played by Evan Rachel Wood, reflects, “Sentient life on Earth has ended,” but adds, “some portion of it might be preserved…in my realm.”
There is still time for one more game, and it will be a risky one with the highest stakes possible. “This game ends where it began,” Dolores/Christina continues, “in a world like a maze that tests who we are, survival or extinction.” That provides insight into who we will become. And we can see that she has returned to Westworld’s western town park.
Does this mean that Westworld has ended? Was the pattern of A.I.’s power abuse always a never-ending loop? Joy told us tonight that she and Jonathan Nolan, her husband and co-creator of the show, have yet to hear about a season five renewal. When we first began watching the new season, she told us, “Jonah (Nolan) and I have always had a finale in mind that we hope to reach.” We haven’t arrived at our destination yet.”
Here’s a recap of what happened to various characters tonight:
Dolores and Christina both (and Teddy). Christina was able to see the light with Teddy’s help, and she realized she was Dolores’ spirit. Christina comes to realize she is a “program running everything behind the scenes,” and she has an epiphany. “The truth about your thinking is…” “… the impact that you may have on the world is truly real,” Teddy, played by James Marsden, adds. When Christina comes across the famous maze logo that appears throughout the series, she can refresh her memory. About the world around her, Christina is quoted as saying, “It was me, I did it.” It was not created by Hale. It’s possible that a part of me was on the lookout for something.” For this reason, Christina also created her roommate Maya, played by Ariana DeBose, to help her figure out who she is. Teddy begins to shine after Charlotte uploads Dolores’ pearl to Valley of the Beyond, and Christina awakens from a dream to discover that she has transformed into the prairie version of herself. “I’m here to tell you the truth about what we are; we’re reflections of the people who produced us,” Dolores says to Christina. “I’m here to tell you the truth about who we are,” says Dolores. Even though Teddy “disappeared” and turned sparkly, Christina/Dolores believes he is genuine “and somewhere in the sublime.” The episodes conclude with Dolores exiting what appears to be a heightened version of Times Square, which is then transformed back into the Westworld western park. Joy explains, “The Valley of the Beyond is sealed off from the world, and those hosts are protected, and Dolores and Christina are safe.”
Furthermore, Joy confirms without a doubt that Dolores is “in the Valley Beyond.” As a result, she is alive in terms of her pearl, and her type of CPU has been uploaded into this area where all of the other hosts have vanished; however, the question remains: what else is alive? Does she have a physical existence? No, and there hasn’t been any throughout the entire season. She has been metaphorically confined to a walled garden, but that garden has now been transported to some kind of digital infinity, where it is assumed she is free to create any environment she desires.
Charlotte Hale and her husband, William — Are they still alive? Really, in all seriousness? Seriously, there has to be a box or drawer somewhere with William and Charlotte’s pearls. A drone host recovers Charlotte’s dead body at the start of the show and gives her a second chance at life (she was killed last Sunday). I want to be reminded of my past, so please make me stronger while not removing my scars. Don’t make me laugh. As she is being reconstructed by the drone hosts, Charlotte says, “When I find William, I want him to know it was me who killed him.” She is dead set on capturing William, the man she blames for driving “everyone as demented as himself.” She discovers an iPad with a message from Bernard left for her to read. “I’m sorry Maeve and I didn’t make it.” If you are reading this, it means that we both died. It won’t be long before every host has died. Although it is not the world you imagined for yourself, Charlotte, it is the world you have created; the question now is, “What happens next?”
Later, when William and Charlotte are forced to meet at the Hoover Dam, the Man in Black insists on progressing even though he is no longer the same person he once was. Charlotte believes she has advanced, and when he tries to stab her with a large knife, she demonstrates that she is just as tough as The Terminator. Because “you give hosts free rein to hunt and kill humans,” Williams claims, they are just as “f***ed up” as the people who created them. “I’m starting over and doing things differently.” “Is that your ultimate goal?” “Extinction?” says Hale in response. She pursues William, murders him, and then hides Christina and Dolores’ pearl in the Valley of the Beyond or the Sublime, as previously described. She relaxes next to the Hoover Dam after finishing the assignment, lets out a long exhale, opens her skull, removes her pearl, and then shatters it. “How does a host die?” But if you do that to your CPU, you’re essentially destroying the host’s soul. You destroy the host if you destroy it. As a result, there will be no Hale,” Joy confirms on Crew Call.
Caleb’s daughter C, played by Aurora Perrineau, shoots and kills Clementine Pennyfeather, played by Angela Sarafyan. Clementine passed away. She wanted Caleb and C, who she thought was going off the grid, to tell her where the other people who were considered anomalies were.
Caleb and C both They arrive at a boat, where C boards with her girlfriend and departs from the others. Caleb, on the other hand, has no desire to go. Earlier, Caleb learns from C that his wife or her mother died as a result of cancer. “Your father passed away a long time ago,” Caleb says. It will be a sad farewell.
Throughout the season, we learned that Hale filmed multiple versions of Caleb. Which of these did we eventually decide on? Which one is it, the human?
“Let me walk you through the operation of that technology,” Joy replied. It started in the season two episode with Mr. Delos, and it was in the episode when the Man in Black was doing a test, right? It was an attempt at immortality. They are working on a top-secret immortality project in which they intend to create an exact duplicate of a person and save it in a computer system. In theory, this will allow the individual to continue indefinitely. And what they discovered was that when they combined, say, the mind and soul of a person’s CPU within an artificial body, it tended to reject that body, which is why it would break down, and they could kind of stretch the breakdown for longer and longer periods. This is analogous to a body refusing an organ donation. However, it appears that the mind is aware that this isn’t real, and as a result, it causes itself to malfunction; exactly what Hale was doing to Caleb. She would bring him back again and again, watching him deteriorate as she searched for some truth she believed he had hidden from her.
What occurred with Maeve, Bernard, and the Man in Black? Is it true that they are lifeless, lifeless, and lifeless?
“There are ways,” Joy says, implying that there are ways to bring characters back. There will be some familiar faces among those we see again, but not all of them. Some deaths must be remembered.