Warning: This Post-Mortem Podcast Contains Spoilers About Tonight’s Westworld Season 4 Finale “Que Será, Será”
We’re far, far from the park. Do you remember the western town from the first season? The season 4 finale of HBO’s Westworld ended tonight after a scuffle between humans and hosts and more questions about who is alive and who is in the virtual valley of the afterlife. At a special crew call tonight, we’re speaking to Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy to clear things up.
You can listen to our conversation here:
Season 4 takes place seven years after the Season 3 revolution, in which we saw Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), Caleb (Aaron Paul) and a drained Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) take down the giant, predictive supercomputer Rehoboam. Well, there was more revolution in last Sunday’s episode and tonight when there were dead bodies of men and hosts lying around.
Joys says: “Humans and hosts, they will only destroy themselves. Life on earth as we know it is over.”
Megalomaniac hostess Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) dumped one of the last host pearls we know of, Dolores/Christina, in the Valley of Beyond and sealed it at the Hoover Dam, just as Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) advised. The Valley of the Beyond is, well, like a host’s paradise. It is also called the sublime. Charlotte also destroyed her pearl and that of William/Man In Black (Ed Harris). However, they did not make it to heaven as we know it.
What now? “Sentient life on Earth has ended,” says Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores/Christina at the end of tonight’s episode, “but some of it may survive…in my world.”
“There’s still time for one last game – a dangerous, high-stakes game. Survive or die out,” continues Dolores/Christina, “this game ends where it began, in a world like a maze that tests who we are. That shows who we’re supposed to be.” And we see that she’s back at Westworld Western Town Park.
Is this the end of Westworld? Was AI’s Abuse of Power Always a Vicious Cycle? Joy tells us tonight that she and her husband/co-creator Jonathan Nolan have not yet received any news of a Season 5 renewal. However, earlier in the season she told us that “Jonah (Nolan) and I always had an ending in mind that we hope to achieve. We haven’t quite got there yet.”
Here’s a recap of the fates of various characters tonight:
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Dolores/Christina (and Teddy). Teddy helped Christina see the light and realize that she was the soul of Dolores. Christina has an epiphany when she realizes she’s a “program that runs behind the scenes.” “Your thoughts are real… and the impact you can have on the world is real,” says Teddy of James Marsden. Christina finds the iconic maze logo from the series that sticks in her mind. Regarding the world around her, Christina says, “It was me, I did it. Hale didn’t design it. Part of me must have been searching.” That’s why Christina created her roommate, Maya (Ariana DeBose); to help her understand herself. After Charlotte uploads the Pearl of Dolores to the Valley of the Afterlife, Teddy becomes all glittery and Christina then wakes up from a dream to see the prairie version of herself. “I’m here to tell you the truth about who we are ; we reflect the people who made us,” Dolores tells Christina. Although Teddy “disappears” and becomes all glittery, Christina/Dolores believes he is real “and somewhere in the sublime.” The episodes end with Dolores walking out onto what appears to be a souped-up version of Times Square, which then melts away and turns back into Westworld’s western park. “The Valley of the Beyond is sealed off from the world, and these hosts are safe, and Dolores is safe, well, Christina,” says Joy.
Joy also duly confirms that Dolores is “in the Valley Beyond.” So she lives in terms of her bead, her type of CPU was uploaded to that place where all the other hosts were, and so what lives? Does your physical being exist? No, and it didn’t exist all season. She was literally in a walled garden, but now that walled garden has been sent to some kind of digital infinity where she can presumably create any world she wants.”
Charlotte Hale (and William) — are they dead Really serious? Seriously, there must be a drawer with William and Charlotte pearls somewhere. A drone host rescues and revives Charlotte’s slain body at the beginning of the episode (she was killed last Sunday). “Make me stronger, leave my scars, I want to remember my past. keep my face If I find William, I want him to know that it was me who killed him,” says Charlotte, who is rebuilt by the drone hosts. She’s hell-bent on catching the guy William, whom she blames for “making everyone as crazy as he is.” She finds an iPad with a message Bernard left for her. “If you see this, it means Maeve and I are dead. It won’t be long before all the hosts are dead. This isn’t the world you wanted Charlotte, but the world you created, the question is what happens next?”
Later at Hoover Dam, where William and Charlotte confront each other, the Man in Black believes he has evolved, although he is no longer the type he was. Charlotte believes the same thing, that she evolved, and indeed, when he tries to stab her with a large knife, she’s literally as durable as the Terminator. “They gave the hosts free rein to hunt and kill people,” says Williams. “They’re just as crazy as our creators. I’ll wipe the slate clean.” “That’s your ultimate goal? Extinction?” replies Hale. As we mentioned above, she tracks down William, kills him, and deposits Christina/Dolores’ pearl in the lofty valley of the afterlife. After the mission, she sits next to the Hoover Dam, exhaling, opening her skull , pulls out her pearl and crushes it.”How do you die as a host? But when you crush your CPU like that; that’s where the host’s soul resides, so to speak. So, yeah, no more Hale,” Joy tells us at Crew Call.
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Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan) is dead, shot in the head by Caleb’s daughter C (Aurora Perrineau). She wanted the location of Caleb’s and C’s other runaways, who she believed would disappear from the scene.
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Caleb and C: They make their way to a boat where C is leaving with her friend. However, Caleb doesn’t want to leave. Before that, Caleb learns from C that his wife/mother has died of cancer. “Your father died a long time ago,” Caleb tells her. It’s a tearful farewell.
We’ve learned that Hale has done multiple versions of Caleb this season. So, which one did we end up with here? The human?
Joy replies, “This is how this technology works. It actually started in the season two episode with Mr. Delos and where the man in black takes a test, a test for immortality, right? They’re trying to do this secret immortality project where if you replicate a person perfectly and put them in that CPU, you can basically allow that person to live forever. And what they found was if they combined the mind and soul of, say, a person’s CPU in an artificial body, like a body that refused organ donation, it tended to reject that body and therefore it would collapse , and they can sort of stretch the collapse over longer and longer periods of time. But ultimately it’s like the mind knows that’s not real and it’s causing a malfunction and that’s what Hale did to Caleb. She would bring him back again and again and watch him be humiliated as she searches for a truth she believes he has withheld from her.”
So what about Maeve, Bernard and Man in Black? Are they dead, dead, dead?
Joy teases, “There are ways to resummon characters. There are some faces we will see again, but not all. Some deaths need to be respected.”