Westworld Recap: “Zhuangzi” Season 4 Episode 5

After final week’s beautiful, mind-bending episode, Westworld might have taken it simple this week. But after its lackluster third season, the present has returned to its roots of heady, considerate science fiction, and clearly has no intention of pulling up and retreating. While tonight’s episode isn’t as thrilling as final week’s installment, it’s sufficient as a result of it focuses on the season’s greatest thriller: what the hell is occurring with Christina?

An instant caveat for anybody who reads these recaps with out watching the episode: “Zhuangzi” doesn’t totally clarify What the Hell Is Going on With Christina™, nevertheless it does reveal that the character of her actuality—as many have guessed—isn’t strictly actual. We’ll get to that momentarily, because she’s not the one one to have the disconcerting revelation that what they perceived was their actuality isn’t strictly actual both.

Basically, everybody in “Zhuangzi” is having an existential disaster, and I adore it. That begins with Hale (aka the Core of Dolores at her most twisted and human-hating), who discovers the world she made, the world she controls, the place she’s extra or much less omniscient and all-powerful, can also be boring. She could make the 99 % or so of people she’s contaminated do her bidding and dance till they drop, type a chair for her to sit down on, or play the piano till their fingers actually begin falling aside. But you possibly can solely do this for some time earlier than it loses its luster, and Hale has been controlling issues for 23 years (barring any further time shenanigans Westworld pulls later).

Additionally, Hale’s new world hasn’t labored out precisely like she’d hoped. Her plan was to create extra Hosts and ship them out into the world to dwell with the purpose that they’d later select to depart their our bodies behind and “ascend” into… one thing. But it seems that a lot of the Hosts choose to remain within the, for lack of a greater time period, actual world. They’re content material to dwell their lives. It most likely doesn’t damage that Hale, in a really spectacular act of revenge, turned a complete metropolis right into a Westworld-style park for Hosts to play in. The people are even programmed into predetermined loops, set paths that they repeat day-after-day, simply because the Hosts had been. Now, they’re those who can do something they wish to their former oppressors… inside a specific amount of cause.

But Hale’s utopia/dystopia has a much bigger, and extra harmful, drawback. Outliers, people who immediately grow to be proof against Hale’s fly-goo-based thoughts management, crop up on occasion, see the Tower, notice they’ve been residing in a false actuality that nobody else perceives, and have a kind of existential crises I discussed earlier. Hale has historically despatched assorted Hosts to shoot them for sport, however now the Hosts that discuss to those Outliers find yourself killing themselves days later. So when a brand new one pops up, Hale sends her minion William, aka the Host-in-Black to take them out.

Unfortunately, William has been having an existential disaster of his personal. The episode begins with him at dinner with two people who don’t know what they’re coping with—particularly as a result of William has ordered them to consider they’re all previous pals. When one of many visitors begins speaking about how he had a bit assist from his wealthy household however climbed to the highest primarily based on his personal laborious work, William calls him out for believing in a false actuality. And then William explains the “reality” of their dinner is faux, as a result of these “old friends” don’t even know his title. And on prime of that, their lives are faux, as they don’t have any free will because of Hale.

It appears to be occurring to William that nothing is actual and he may not have any free will himself. He (and a lot of the different Hosts working about) have been made by Hale primarily based on her code; they’re appearing and feeling as Hale has basically instructed them to. William’s discomfort grows as a result of through the years, she’s grow to be more and more dissatisfied together with her essential minion. She asks him to discover a new Outlier that has popped up and never fuck up by listening to the lady.

William fucks up and listens to the lady discuss in regards to the unusual peace that comes after lastly determining the world is a lie. Before he can shoot her, J and Stubbs—who’ve led a small band of rebels into town to search out and rescue the Outlier—shoot him, and so they and the opposite rebels safely abscond together with her. The bullets don’t hassle William, however the lady’s phrases do, to the purpose the place he goes to have an unsatisfying chat with the opposite William, aka the Trapped Version Who May or May Not Be a Host.

Comparatively, Christina’s existential disaster is extra of a constructive expertise. After a terrific date evening with Teddy—who’s certainly named Teddy—she scoots out of labor to fulfill him on a pier, the place he reveals “this world is a lie, a story.” But it’s a narrative that Christina can management, as she discovers when Teddy tells her to “rewrite” individuals she sees, altering their feelings, creating encounters, and extra: “In this world, you’re a god.” Unfortunately, the lunch date she goes to fulfill after she speaks with Teddy can also be a lie—it’s Hale, masquerading as Christina’s BFF.

Hale lays on loads of sinister discuss that signifies she is aware of what Christina’s been as much as, however Christina makes use of her new energy to trigger a distraction and depart. When she returns to work, her boss calls her apart and likewise begins issuing decreasingly delicate threats, however Christina rewrites his story, sends him on his manner, and discovers a door that hadn’t been there earlier than. Inside, is a computerized map of town, one extremely paying homage to the map Delos operators had of Westworld. When Christina asks it to point out her the sport, it merely reveals the map once more. And when she asks to see which inhabitants she’d written the narratives for, it seems it’s all of them. Christina believed her job was to put in writing the tales for non-player characters in a online game. It seems most of that’s true. She’s creating the origins and personalities and loops for the Hale-controlled people of town, who’re nugatory, meaningless NPCs in comparison with the Hosts. Christina’s at all times been engaged on a recreation. It’s simply not a online game.

Earlier, when Christina met with Teddy, she lastly noticed the human-controlling Tower for the primary time. “Who did this to me?” she asks. “You did,” he replies, which might be a really cool reply if I wasn’t 99 % sure he means the model of Dolores inside Hale. I can’t think about a situation wherein the unique Dolores—the Host who supposedly had her reminiscence erased completely and thus “died” in season three—hadvert some sort of modified model of herself set as much as create NPCs in Hale’s world. But I can very a lot think about Hale, who hated Dolores, making a model of her that might unknowingly assist Hale enslave humanity.

I feel the larger query is that this: is Christina in the true world, or is she in a simulation of the true world that Hale is utilizing to run the true world? As in, is Christina basically a program that offers real-world people their marching orders? Maybe I’m overthinking it, however her means to regulate individuals together with her thoughts—in contrast to Hale and William, who give verbal instructions—feels a bit extra incredible to me than even fly-goo thoughts management parasite know-how can hand-wave away. Plus, if she’s the god of a sim, she might have unconsciously created Teddy as one among her tales—somebody must make a brand new Teddy Host in the true world, and there’s no apparent offender for that (but).

Better query: does it matter if Christina is in the true world or a simulation? What’s the distinction between the 2 if Christina’s roughly accountable for them each? What’s actually altering when these people are being introduced with a faux actuality if their very own misguided perceptions already skewed their view of actuality? Is the tip outcome actually completely different whether or not a sentient robotic is dictating what you say, what you do, and the way you’re feeling—or in case your genes, your biology, and your previous experiences are doing the dictating? Who’s in management? Does a real actuality even exist, or it only a notion?

Westworld doesn’t have the solutions, clearly. But I’m very excited it’s asking the questions.

Assorted Musings:

• Hosts can “use, not waste” the people within the “game.” I don’t assume that’s as a result of the Hosts have a superior morality to the monstrous people who have been visitors as Westworld, however as a result of as soon as a human will get killed they’ll’t be rebuit.
• So I suppose the machine Hale has been protecting Maybe-William in has stored him alive and from getting old for the previous 23 years? Or is that this only a actual apparent signal he’s a Host as properly? I don’t assume Westworld does apparent like that. It’s notable that Maybe-William says “jury’s still out on that” when questioned about his standing.
• When Christina goes to work, she begins writing the identical rattling narrative about Dolores’ life in Westworld with out seeming to comprehend she’s repeating herself. I feel she could be in a loop of her personal—but when she is, when she did write the tales for all of the individuals within the metropolis?
• She does seek for two particular individuals within the metropolis/recreation—Charlotte Hale and Dolores Abernathy, neither of whom are discovered. I’m racking my mind to try to keep in mind if Christina has been instructed that title earlier than, and I don’t assume she has. Presumably, she’s given the title to the lady within the rural narrative situation she retains writing?

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