Westworld, HBO’s expensive TV series remake of Michael Crichton’s 1973 sci-fi western feature film first blasted onto the scene in 2016 like a shot from a Winchester, blowing a hole in our minds before ricocheting loudly through the canyons of pop culture.
Creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy took the original’s cool central idea – a near-future western theme park where humans interact with “hosts,” aka sophisticated androids programmed to play the various gunslingers, bandits, saloon girls, and more; and who inevitably turn violent on the guests – and combined it with deep philosophical ruminations, an obsessive mystery, engaging characters, big-budget action set-pieces, and a killer chronological plot twist for the ages. It was peak peak TV.
A victim of their own success though, Nolan and Joy couldn’t recapture the magic of that first season in subsequent efforts. That’s not to say Seasons 2 and 3 were disasters; not at all. However, there has definitely been diminishing returns with each new season as the showrunners nailed the macro, but sometimes stumbled on the micro elements, such as pacing, internal logic, dialogue, etc.
And that brings us to Season 4 of Westworld, which debuts on Showmax on Monday, 27 June 2022 with episodes airing weekly. I got early access to the first four episodes (of a total eight), and I can report that while things have not quite returned to that bullseye perfection of its maiden outing, Westworld is shooting more straight and true than it has in years. Boasting the very meta tagline of “Adapt or die”, the show – just like the hosts – has learned from its previous encounters with humans (i.e. us, the critical fans) and upgraded itself accordingly, investing in what worked and abandoning/reworking what didn’t.
Case in point: those momentum-sucking dead spots in Season 3 are gone, as things move at a brisk canter here. A sense of mystery is also present from the get-go but not because of needlessly confusing storytelling mechanics, as was the case in Season 2. While we’re mostly back in the real world again, we do get a 1930s mobster-styled remake of the original Wild West park. This works far better than I thought it would, giving back some of that vitality that was lost by the show going all sparse hi-tech metropolitan with its world-building. There’s even some new body-horror chills.
Exactly how all of this plays out in the narrative is a bit harder to explain without delving into spoiler territory, so I will keep the details light. Set a number of years since the events of Season 3 saw the AI overlord Rehoboam destroyed, we pick up with host technomancer Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and human ally Caleb (Aaron Paul), whose respective peace had been won by the terminal sacrifice of farmer’s-daughter-turned-robot-revolutionary Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood). That peace is shattered, though, when they get caught up in the plans of powerful host Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) and her pet host version of the Man in Black (Ed Harris).
Also back is Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), last seen stuck in the Sublime (a digital heaven for hosts) for a very, very long time. Along with erstwhile man Friday, Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), Bernard is on a vision quest of sorts that brings him into the orbit of franchise newcomers played by Aurora Perrineau and Daniel Wu. The cast, new and old, are all putting in the work, but it’s Harris that truly shines, turning up the gravelly intimidation to show us once again why he was so perfectly cast in this role to begin with.
And no, your eyes do not deceive you: Evan Rachel Wood is indeed back despite her very clear death… but she’s not playing Dolores. This new persona, Christina, is “much more human” than Dolores, to use Wood’s own words, and gives the actress a very different role to play. The details of her existence – which somehow also involves the return of another character that I won’t give away here in case you missed the announcement earlier this year – appears to be the central mystery of this season. While this scenario feels a bit disjointed from everything else so far, I can already see how fans will be slavishly pulling apart every relevant scene for clues, knowing exactly how deliberate Nolan and Joy are about these things.
Westworld is still a show that rewards keen observation and puzzling, as well as a taste for philosophizing. Four episodes in and there has already been a substantial amount of all of the above. Admittedly some bits are not quite as engaging as others, and there are moments that try a little too hard to nudge and wink at 2022 audiences (a “super-spreader event” mention being the most obvious), but it’s clear that we’re starting to take aim at the endgame of this saga now.
The clues point to an ambitious meta-convergence of action and ideas both futuristic and contemporary, but I can’t tell you with absolute certainty where Nolan and Joy are taking us. I am enjoying thinking about it, though. And that’s really what good sci-fi is all about: that balancing act of prediction and mystery that evokes wonder and self-reflection about ourselves and our world. With Season 4, Westworld is back to being really good sci-fi again.
South Africans can watch Westworld Season 4 on streaming service Showmax from Monday, 27 June, with new episodes express from the US every week.
NOTE: With only half the season available to us, we’re not including a review score for now.