Episode 4 – A Little Perspective?

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Shat on TV Westworld holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first Shat podcast I discovered. It’s the only Westworld podcast I follow. I recommend it to anyone who watches the show. My wife and I adore it, often going so far as to wait until the insta-cast comes out before turning in for bed, all so we can fall asleep to the soothing voice of Bid D. I’m telling you this, so that you know what I’m about to say comes from a true fan and not a neckbeard hater who is mad that you’ve added a brilliant woman to your cast this season.

So, with all the love in my heart, let me say this: freeze all motor functions, limit your emotional affect, slow your goddamn roll.

One episode does not a series make. Whether or not you liked this past episode – whether or not you found it to be too “lowbrow” or action-focused for your normal Westworld standards – does not retroactively undo the work that the show did for the past two seasons. Nor does this single mid-season episode of the show’s middle season somehow definitively signal a wholesale change in the tone and tenor of everything that has yet to come out of this series.

Westworld is not a sci-fi action thriller merely “wrapped in a cerebral bow.” In past episodes of the podcast, you guys praised the show for elevating television discussion to include topics like free will, religion and its impact on humanity, the role of technology in society, etc. Moreover, you guys praised the detailed detective work some viewers undertook to discover (or even wrongly guess) the show’s twists and turns – the show was an opportunity for viewers to get creative, to pay attention, to use their brains. We weren’t overthinking past seasons – in some cases because the level of analysis was helpful in understanding or predicting the show, and in some cases because the discussions and thought exercises we underwent were a worthwhile endeavor in themselves even if they never (yet) came into play in the show itself. As you have previously put quite well – viewers of the Walking Dead or the Big Bang Theory aren’t having these discussions. Assuming for the sake of argument that – somehow – this episode was meant to herald the dawn of a new era for Westworld, that can’t undo, undermine, or devalue the intellectual exercises that we’ve all partaken of thus far. Not unlike how Game of Thrones (or, dare I say it, Lost) is still a good show even if you weren’t thrilled at the ending.

But, of course, we don’t have to make comparisons to Lost or Game of Thrones because, unlike those shows, Westworld is far from over. We still have half a season left and a lot can change in even a mere episode – hell, Rog said last week’s episode was one of the two definitive episodes to show to new viewers. That’s to say nothing of the two remaining seasons of the show. We have a lot of Westworld in our futures and nothing suggests, at least to me, that this is our new normal. You have to acknowledge that sometimes shows have off episodes or episodes with a different focus, and then get right back on track – we’ve seen that in Westworld with Akane No Mai and, Ash, I don’t think I need to list the multiple deviations from the norm Lost took over its six year run. Nothing about this episode felt (or was stated to be, as far as I know) a definitive re-shift of tone.

And still, even looking at the episode on its own terms, I’m having trouble finding the places in this episode where the tone so dramatically changed from some of what we’ve seen before. It was an action heavy episode, but we still have a lot to unpack – for example, what are the implications of copying consciousness like Dolores did?; what is the real meaning of choice and can one still have free will and be blameless for ones failures?; does humanity’s propensity to harm itself mean that someone like Serac is morally in the right to try to strip away free will? You’re right to observe that this season marks a departure from past seasons in its focus (micro to macro, with some micro left in there) and its setting (the parks to the real world), but the show hasn’t lost its way – it still asks big questions, even if occasionally interspersed between big action.

Anyway, friends, that’s just one guy’s opinion – glad to be on this ride with you all, keep up the great work.

Cheers,

Ken L.

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