In Westworld Season 4 Episode 2, No One Has Learned To Leave Well Enough Alone
If fans of the HBO series "Westworld" were expecting answers as they started season 4, they were definitely in for some disappointment. The series, created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, is a mystery box within a mystery box, layering complex narratives over one another without ever revealing the full scope of the story. It can, admittedly, be a little frustrating, but it's also deeply rewarding when some of the answers are revealed and each of the moments leading up to that reveal suddenly make sense. The first episode of season 4 jumped ahead seven years from the season 3 finale, and also seemed to completely ignore the post-apocalyptic super time-jump from the finale as well. It followed up with former mercenary Caleb (Aaron Paul) and super-robot Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), reminded us that the Man in Black (Ed Harris) is a host version but still a total jerk, and introduced us to a new character named Christina, played by Evan Rachel Wood. At the end of the episode, there was a fun little reveal of fan-favorite Teddy (James Marsden), who hasn't really been around for a while, but the episode didn't give any real answers to the big questions left at the end of season 3.
In this week's episode, "Well Enough Alone," the series catches up with another beloved character from past seasons, finally answers a few questions about what's going on with those flies, and starts setting up the grand plan for what's next. Grab a black hat or a white one, strap in, and let's talk about "Well Enough Alone."
Spoilers for season 4, episode 2 of Westworld ahead.
Looking for the boogeyman in black
The episode opens with Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) walking around a market in a beautiful countryside. Everyone's speaking Spanish, and she retires to a lovely little villa on the hillside, so it looks like she's somewhere in Mexico or near the border. The Man in Black shows up and tells her that he's looking for Maeve, and of course, Clementine tells him that even if she knew where Maeve was, she would never tell him. He kills her, because that's what he does, and the scene cuts out.
Thankfully, the audience gets to see where Maeve is, and she's joking around with Caleb like old times as they drive toward a massive manor. They're there looking for William/The Man in Black, though the two people there are reticent to help. Maeve realizes they're both hosts and a fight breaks out, with Maeve killing the senator's wife host and disabling the senator in order to question him. When she asks him who he is, really, his answer is chilling: "I'm an emissary of the new world order," he says, and says that there are 249 of them now that his "wife" is dead. Maeve accesses his memories and watches the Man in Black kill the human senator when he refuses to help him secure a government loophole that would allow him to re-open the Delos theme parks. Hale (Tessa Thompson) shows up and tells her cronies to keep the senator's wife alive for her "new experiment." She then instructs them to "taker her to the barn with the rest of the livestock," which doesn't bode well for humans at all. Maeve is shocked as she comes back to reality, telling Caleb that "it's actually worse than I thought."
Because this is "Westworld," and no one stays dead unless their little marble gets crushed, Clementine appears in the next scene, this time working for William. A man from the Justice Department comes to the Delos offices to speak to him but she deflects. When he tries to use his government status to make her take him to William, she ignores him and asks if he has an appointment. He storms out, but it's doubtful we've seen the last of him.
Back at the senator's estate, Caleb and Maeve find the barn. All of the horses have been slaughtered and are covered in flies, and the human wife is still there, slicing open a horse's stomach. Caleb calls her by her name and she snaps out of it for a moment, asking what happened to her horses, before humming and changing tones, telling them that they're invited to "opening night" and that their "old friend" is anxious for a reunion. She tells Caleb to free her and then lunges at him with the knife, so Maeve puts her down.
"She may have been human, but she wasn't like any human I've ever seen," Maeve says, and the camera pans down to reveal that the blood on the back of her skull was pitch black. Something is very, very wrong. The story finally goes back to Christina, but everything with her feels like an aside in this episode, so let's stick with the Maeve/Caleb/William/Hale nuttiness for now.
A mass conspiracy
Back in Man in Black-land, William is having a lovely time hitting a few balls out on his private golf course. A sci-fi helicopter lands and three bespoke figures step out, but Clementine intercepts them. "It's a private golf course, Mr. Vice President," she tells him, but he walks right by, informing her that it's on "federally owned land." He approaches William and calls him "Bill," who sneers at the friendliness a bit — because while the two are old friends, the Vice President didn't show up for William's daughter's funeral. It turns out that William bankrolled the presidential campaign, helping the Vice President into power. He hits a hole-in-one, though, seeming non-plussed as the Vice President threatens him in every way he knows, including blackmailing him with information about his activities in the Westworld park. William goes on a little spiel about being "neurodivergent," which is pretty rich given that he's a host, and then hits another hole-in-one. The Vice President realizes what's happening but it's too late, as Clem has killed the Secret Service, and William clubs him over the head.
We zip back to Maeve and Caleb, who are dressed to the nines and walking into some kind of event center. They're both certain it's a trap and Caleb calls in both backup and protection for his wife and daughter, then they head in. There's a single gramophone on the stage, and when Maeve picks up the needle, a cut-out in the floor begins to descend, taking them down into a small room with a sign that says "Welcome." It gave me flashbacks to the welcome area in the video game Bioshock, with its gilded letters and lighting, both beautiful and ominous. Inside there's a 1920s-themed prohibition party happening, and the two order each other drinks. They know each other well and tease a bit with their drink orders, injecting the episode with a tiny bit of levity and life. These two have great timing and chemistry, and their friendship is honestly kind of adorable despite the circumstances that thrust them together.
They then begin to broach a conversation about the last time they saw one another, at the lighthouse where Maeve saved Caleb's life. Before they're able to discuss anything too deeply, however, the room begins to shake and they realize that they're on a train car, leaving the city. Maeve realizes that they're headed back to the parks, and repeats a version of her old line from season 1: "I ran away, across the shining sea, and when I finally set foot back on solid ground, all I found was the same old s***."
Cut back to the Fed guy, who's on the phone and furious to hear that the Vice President is "satisfied" with his conversation with William. "Who the f*** is pulling the strings?" he demands to know, immediately before Clementine zip-ties him into his car seat. Hale gets into the backseat and talks about being manipulated by people in the shadows, as a part of her was once Dolores, who became Wyatt, who is now Hale. She looks in the mirror and tells him that she's not going to replace all of the humans with hosts, because it would be impractical and a strange existence, but she has "plans" for his kind. She gets out of the car and a fly begins buzzing around, before crawling into his eyeball. Maybe Hale doesn't need to kill and replace humans if she can control them?
Maeve and Caleb arrive at the park, where they're registered as a husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. They go into one of the rooms where you pick your outfit, similar to what we saw in season 1. Maeve answers every question with pure sass, and practically drools over the assortment of weapons on offer.
Meanwhile, Hale has the real, human William in a contraption that mirrors the host-creation machines in season 1, very "Vitruvian Man." She tells him that he was "as close to a god as a man gets," then puts him in some kind of deep freeze. We then see the host William in the new park, welcoming people to opening night:
"Our world was fighting, decimated by a pandemic, crushed by loss. It was our darkest hour, and yet we came roaring back."
Maeve and Caleb are asked to each pick a hat, white or black, and they both ignore the offer. Maeve simply rolls her eyes, while Caleb says he's "never been much of a hat guy." The hats were hugely important in season 1, so this could be a nod to the fact that neither of them is playing by Delos' rules. They step out into the park and realize they're in 1920s Chicago, what William calls "The Golden Age."
The Christina timeline
Peppered throughout the episode are scenes with Christina, the non-playable character narrative writer who looks like Dolores and seems to have some of Dolores' memories (she wrote a Dolores-esque story in episode 1). She's having a hard time after her stalker commits suicide, blaming her for "writing his life." Her roommate reads his obituary to Christina, who is shocked at how closely it actually mirrors the story she wrote. She tries to shake it off and go to work, and on the way passes a homeless man with drawings of a strange tower, complaining that only he and the birds can hear the "noise" coming from the tower. As she approaches the front doors of her office building, she notices several dead birds and decides to not go into work, but to try and figure out what's happening.
In one of the fancy self-driving future cars we've seen on the show before, she goes over the story she had once written, realizing it 100% mirrors the life and death of her stalker. Her boss calls her to check in and she says that she needed to stay home and rest after what happened with the suicide, but her boss points out that he knows she accessed her files remotely. In fact, he knows that she's in New Jersey, because when she logged onto the system the computer logged her coordinates. It feels like a vague threat, but Christina seems more worried about being in trouble. They get off the phone, and she arrives at her destination: the seemingly abandoned "Hope Center for Mental Health." The obituary had noted that the stalker, Peter, had left all of his money to the facility.
She goes inside and finds blueprints and construction crews, then wanders over to a plaque on the wall that reads "Peter Myers Memorial Wing." Despite the fact that this guy just died yesterday, there's a plaque dedicated to him in a mental hospital that's clearly been out of use for years. What gives? Christina is equally confused and calls her roommate, who reassures her:
"Your world may have gone a little insane, but you haven't. Trust yourself, Chrissie."
She then sees drawings of the tower that mirror the ones the homeless man had drawn, and that's the last we see of her this episode. Whatever's going on with Christina feels separate from the Man in Black story, though they're sure to be connected somehow. This episode gave us some answers, finally, but it also unleashes a bunch more questions. What is the tower? How is Hale planning on using her flies? Where the heck is Bernard? We'll have to tune in next week, same robot time, same robot channel, and see if these mysterious delights have similarly mysterious ends.
New episodes of "Westworld" premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.