Warning: The following contains full spoiler for the Westworld Season 4 episode “Metanoia,” which aired August 7 on HBO.
To read our For a recap of last week’s Westworld episode “Fidelity,” click here.
Wow. OK. It’s hard to imagine there’s much more to tell after Metanoia, let alone a fifth season –– a turbulent, shockingly eventful penultimate episode that all but wiped the game board clean in an exhilarating and draining way. After last week’s very emotional “Fidelity,” which centered heavily on Caleb delivering a message to Frankie, it felt odd to just rip the whole world, horrible as it was, away from underneath the two of them.
Then again, this uber-dystopian story was certainly building on something, and “Metanoia” was fittingly a grand gesture filled with big action, big deaths, and basically the end of all civilization. In a season of wild swings, this was the biggest fight for the series yet, although it also felt like some kind of brickwork. Bernard played through an endgame scenario – this one with a tens of millions chance to fix things – but little did we know it was basically all for naught. There was no winning. His plan included, uh, some survive – something that can build a new future.
Basically it’s a future that’s hard to invest in because we as viewers are preoccupied with the here and now of the show. For example, do we want “humanity” to live on somewhere, somehow? Or do we want these specific characters to find some form of victory and peace? “Metanoia” drops that dilemma straight into our laps. Perhaps it was naïve to think that the world wasn’t over yet, that there was a “coming back” from this nightmare. What hope was there really but for the remnants of mankind (which in cities — plural — we learned this week) to be unleashed to rebuild? There wasn’t much to hold on to.
Still, Westworld blew itself up here in a big way, plunging this future dystopia into a battle royale Purge Planet when host William took his human form’s advice and turned everything into a murderous Free for All. Maeve fell, Hale fell, Bernard fell (though not before sending someone video instructions) and Caleb, (an injured) Frankie and Stubbs were caught in the carnal chaos outside.
Bernard’s plan ties into the Sublime he opened up at the beginning of the episode (after a fake opener), but how will that help set up a new Take Two for humanity? And what was Hale actually “transcending” into when she was interrupted by Maeve? There are lingering threads to snip, yes, but it sure feels like next week’s season finale is going to be a series finale at the moment.
Two weeks ago, it seemed like Teddy was a part of Christina’s mind (especially since he was still “Teddy”), but this week we learned that somehow Christina isn’t really… there? So you and Teddy both kind of exist in a middle zone that probably stems from the Sublime (which is where Teddy most certainly went). Hale set up Dolores as Christina as a form of punishment we assume, but she’s also tapped into the Tower frequency in a way, and she doesn’t quite live among everyone else either. “You’re not in this world,” Teddy says, though people were able to interact with her. It will be interesting to see where this all leads to in the finals.
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“Metanoia” had time for side moments — like Frankie finding Caleb, Maeve’s showdown with Hale, and Christina entering her final existential crisis — but ultimately it all feels overshadowed by the episode’s final act and the collapse of everything. Hopefully next week there will be more time for the characters to complete this version of the world in a worthwhile way.
That’s not to say there won’t be calamity, as “Man Who Sold the World” William is out there making sure nothing survives in this world but him (and roaches), but the story suggests there will be yet more victims will come. After all the season that’s done with Caleb and Frankie – with the time jumps and the resurrections and whatnot – you want that legacy to be somehow carried on and not tied down. Metanoia was a game-changer for Westworld, but was it a game-over (Ed Harris suggests there’s another season)? It was exciting and impactful, but since we don’t know the state of the series as a whole, there was a bit of a ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel Strange)” element in the game.
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