Westworld Season 4 Episode 2 Recap: Well Enough Alone

Is Westworld even Westworld if it’s not making an attempt to interrupt your mind? It’s a legitimate query, and I feel “no” could be a legitimate reply. But because the present left the park on the finish of season two to discover the dystopia of the actual world, the third season felt like all the things was a thriller till the ultimate pair of episodes, which left the solutions feeling both unsatisfying or unearned. Now that season 4 has arrived, it appears clear the present is aware of it may’t be utterly baffling and should parcel out some solutions to be satisfying. Which, whereas nice, just isn’t almost as satisfying as the place the present goes.

Actually, it’s sort of spectacular that “Well Enough Alone” is as nice as it’s when it primarily focuses on solely three characters and two storylines, being William (Ed Harris) the Host (minion of the human-hating, Dolores-corrupted management unit contained in the physique of Charlotte Hale) after which the additional adventures of Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and Caleb (Aaron Paul). There are a number of transient check-ins with Dolores lookalike Christina (Evan Rachel Wood) the place she hears an unhoused particular person on the road ranting a couple of tower, very similar to final week’s stalker-turned-suicide Peter did within the premiere. Then Christina checks in her work’s archives and discovers she very a lot did write a narrative a couple of man named Peter who misplaced all the things, grew to become obsessive about a girl, and killed himself. Finally, she visits the hospital Peter left his cash to, solely to seek out out that the hospital has lengthy been deserted, and the annex’s wing funded by Peter and devoted to him was constructed even sooner than that.

It’s a thriller to make certain—together with no matter the hell Christina’s relationship to Dolores is—however the different two storylines are stuffed with solutions, starting with William visiting Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) the Host, who’s been dwelling quietly in a Spanish-speaking nation… till the Host in Black tracks her down, calls for to know the place Maeve is, after which shoots Clementine within the head when she doesn’t reply.

Soon, Maeve and Caleb go to a senator and his spouse solely to find they’re each secretly Hosts working for William and Hale (Tessa Thompson), however who’ve been upgraded so Maeve can’t use her tech magic to mentally shut them down, at the least not simply. The Host spouse is killed, and Maeve searches via the Host senator’s reminiscence banks to find William had the unique senator killed; the spouse was about to be murdered too, besides Hale arrives and ominously stated to convey her to the barn out again, as “livestock” for an experiment the Host chief needed to strive.

Maeve and Caleb head to the barn, the place they solely see the outcomes of this experiment, and they’re bleak. The senator’s spouse has been butchering all of her horses; when Maeve and Caleb snap her out of it, she doesn’t keep in mind doing it. But then she offers the duo a message: they’re invited to a gathering as their “old friend” Don Giovanni needs to fulfill them. When Caleb declines the spouse’s request to place her out of her distress, she assaults Caleb with a knife till Maeve shoots her within the head.

If I needed to guess, Hale was making an attempt to determine a solution to program and management people simply as people had programmed and managed the Hosts. It wasn’t a full success in that the senator’s spouse’s thoughts was damaged by the experiment, however clearly Hale has no issues about collateral injury, particularly to people.

After a clearly reprogrammed Clementine turns away an offended Deputy Assistant for Counterterrorism from assembly with William, none apart from the Vice-President of the United States personally comes to go to the Delos head honcho on his golf course with a well mannered request to knock off his actions, equivalent to shopping for the Hoover Dam and surrounding properties. (The Veep implies that William is constructing a brand new park, however this time in America as a substitute of safely offshore the place its depravity and mayhem will be extra simply ignored.) When William unsurprisingly tells him to blow it out his ass (I’m paraphrasing), the Veep threatens to leak info that will spoil the Man in Black… however then he turns round and sees Clementine has killed his Secret Service bodyguards, and William smashes his head with a golf membership. As for the Deputy Assistant, Hale later reveals up in his automobile, holds him down, and lets a fly crawl within the man’s eyeball. When the Veep and Assistant present up later, they—or, clearly, their Host replacements—have authorized of all the things William has been doing, and Hale’s plan proceeds forthwith.

Although the position of the flies remains to be baffling—and very horrifying—and we don’t know precisely what Hale’s particularly planning, she does tell us what she’s hoping to realize: to make a world the place her “children” are protected from people. She doesn’t need to kill all people or change all people with Hosts, as that will be pointless—however she’ll kill as many people in energy and change them with Hosts below her management as mandatory. And she tells all this to the actual William (or in all probability actual William, however positively the identical William who determined his mission was to kill all Hosts and bought his throat slit within the season three finale). He’s alive and completely trapped in some sort of sci-fi swimsuit held by one of many Host-making rings. And then Hale medication him and places him again Westworld’s equal of carbon freezing.

It’s great things, however it may’t match the fun of what occurs when Maeve and Caleb attend the mysterious celebration in Los Angeles. It’s a elaborate, ritzy cocktail bar stuffed with equally fancy, ritzy people, however no Hosts. The two of them are baffled till the bar all of a sudden lurches, and Maeve rapidly understands precisely what’s taking place—they’re on a practice to a park. And not simply any park, however a brand-new park constructed by William primarily based on the Twenties and the mobsters that dominated it.

There’s a lot to love about this! It was a shock to find Maeve and Caleb had unknowingly entered a practice to a park, it was unnerving to comprehend this very secret practice was in downtown Los Angeles, and seeing the Twenties skyline was a thrill, even when we knew a go to to this explicit park was on the way in which. But what I particularly appreciated was bringing again Lili Simmons (who performed “New Clem” after the unique Clementine was faraway from the park in season one) within the position of the Host who greets park newcomers—like the character performed by Talulah Riley who initially welcomed younger William and Logan again in season one. She leads Maeve and Caleb in a reproduction of the identical registration room we noticed within the sequence’ second episode, besides this time it has extra Twenties-appropriate garments and weapons. However, it nonetheless has the identical selection: White hat, or black hat? Caleb’s selection: “I’m not really a hat person.”

I don’t assume Westworld will be really judged till the top of the season, because the episodes normally find yourself totaling greater than the sum of their elements. That stated, I’ve actually loved these first two episodes of season 4, and since they make up 25 p.c of the eight-episode season, that’s not insignificant. I’m grateful we’re getting sufficient solutions to really feel the story is actually progressing, whereas nonetheless being tantalized with sufficient mysteries to maintain viewers invested find out what’s happening. The present has struck a wonderful steadiness between the 2, leaving viewers glad but in addition tantalized. I don’t know if the season’s huge mysteries—primarily, in fact, what the hell is up with Christina—can be price it on the finish, however I’ve hope. See you subsequent week… in Mobland.

Assorted Musings:

• Mobworld? Mafiaworld? Gangsterworld? The Roaring’20sworld? I’m guessing Mobworld.
• The Senator tells Maeve and Caleb that there are at the moment 249 Hosts like him on the planet. Do you assume he simply means Hosts in whole, or Hosts commanded by Hale to result in her “New World”? I assume the latter, which is extraordinarily unhealthy information.
• Ed Harris is the MVP of the episode, simply massively entertaining from begin to end. When the (actual) senator tells his the outdated “Happy wife, happy life!” noticed, the way in which he utters “My wife’s dead” is perfection.
• I’ll credit score this to the writers, however the golf scene can also be good. The Vice-President is chiding William when the latter hits a hole-in-one. The Veep’s jaw drops, utterly impressed with the shot. As the dialog escalates, William hits a second hole-in-one, and the Veep stares at it in disbelief. And when the Veep begins making outright threats, William hits a 3rd hole-in-one—and the Vice-President slowly realizes no human may make three holes-in-one in a row. So good!
• It was cool to see the hat selection again, however I don’t assume many individuals wore white hats again within the Twenties. Certainly not almost as a lot as black.
• Just a reminder that I completely referred to as William being alive after his throat was slit within the season three finale and I’m not above gloating about it.

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