The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Westworld' Season 4, Episode 8 Recap

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Joanna, David, and Danny break down the Season 4 finale of 'Westworld' by recapping the episode, asking 10 big questions about Season 4, pondering the likelihood of a fifth and final season, and more. Hosts: Joanna Robinson, David Shoemaker, and Danny Heifetz Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Are you tuning in to the Challenge USA on CBS? Well, tune in to me, Tyson Apostle, as I break down each and every episode with my co-host, Amelia Weddemeier. I'm also a contestant on the show, which gives you all the insider scoop. Amelia, how stoked are you to do this? Tyson, I'm freaking excited. I cannot wait to sit my butt down every single week to watch the show, then come here and recap it with you on The Ringer Reality TV podcast. Back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and join me now straight from the sublime here to play one last game with me.

It's Danny Haifis and David Shoemaker. Hi guys. How are you doing? Good. Great. I hope everybody out there's a bunch of happy fucking campers. Danny, how you doing? I'm just chilling here in my graveyard of stories.

As always. as per usual with Danny Hyphids. We are here to talk about the season four finale of Westworld K. Sara Sera, Sera, written by Alison Schapker and Jonathan Nolan, ever heard of him, and directed by Richard Lewis, not that Richard Lewis, but the director of Richard Lewis. Before we get into the episode, just a quick programming reminders, et cetera. The Better Calls-Selt series finale airs tonight, Monday. We're dropping that episode early, so Ben Lindberg and I will be breaking down that episode tomorrow Tuesday.

That'll be up in your feed. I also know there was a breakdown of the HBO series industry in this feed last week. So you might want to check that out. And then what happens once Westworld and Better Call Sala over? I don't know. Stay tuned to find out. It's a mystery. So that is what is going on in the Preciseach TV podcast feed.

You can follow us on social, all that good stuff. You're not covering Monarch? Not weekly. No. in my heart always always um you can still email us at ed harris bodysuit at gmail.com but uh you know the show if you just want to like talk at us you can but the podcast will no longer be running your emails but listen if you got if you got some takes you need to get off please do send us those emails i i love reading them uh and spoiler warning nothing left to spoil what have we seen

beyond this nothing it doesn't exist yet as far as i know So that is where we are with Westworld. Before we get into our takes and sort of some big picture questions we want to ask about this show and this episode, David Schemaker, what? Literally what happened on Westworld's. All right. Let's just do it. After a message from Bernard, Hale has a change of heart and tries to race to the sublime to upload Christina while the man in black tries to destroy everything, including the sublime. Hale wins, but she and the man in black both die.

Mave and Bernard stay dead. Frankie Stubbs and Caleb try to flee the city. Clementine tries to stop them so she can figure out their hiding spot. Stubbs and Clementine die. Presumably Caleb will too. The lesbians somehow survive. Christina processes the fact that she's actually a pro-gram, not a person. Maya and Peter and her creepy boss, Teddy were all people she created to feel less lonely.

They evaporate, only she remains in the sublime, back in Sweetwater, and ready to run one final game. In short, everyone but Frankie and Christina are dead. But what is death anyway? Let's discuss. All right. Big picture. Okay, so like I said, we're going to do 10 big questions. That's what we decided to do instead of sort of breaking this down beat by beat of this episode because we've got some forward looking stuff. There's some like big ideas here that I think are maybe more interesting than some of the literal turns of a fairly simple plot, I would say, in terms of good guy, bad guy racing towards a goal. Danny, though, I'm just curious. Do you want to get off like sort of an overall take of either the season or the episode before we're going? we start? Yeah, you know that scene when Williams pointing got at hail and it's like, you lost? And she's

like, well, we all lost. And that's how I feel. I feel like we all lost. Okay, David? Huh. Um, yeah. The mechanics of this episode

were very frustrating. Um, from just the the structure of, of the plot that we've been building to for six great episodes and one kind of confusing one. And also just kind of more broadly, a lot of the decisions that were made.

I don't even know what to say. However, I do kind of like the bigger idea that we sort of sidestepped into at the end. And I mean, you know, the old Sweetwater theme music playing for two seconds was enough to sort of shake me into excitement. I think weirdly the thing, the thing that I'm left with is wondering whether or not there's going to be a fifth season and then simultaneously wondering whether it's going to matter or whether, well, I guess we can get into that discussion later on.

All right. We'll get into that. I will say from my part, I think I was so frustrated last week as people listened to the podcast heard that I went into this episode with just like, basement down in the basement expectations. And so I actually ended up kind of liking it only because I think I just decided to expect very little from it. And so then I was like, well, at least this is simple and easy to understand what's going on.

And there are some interesting questions to ask out of it. But again, I think that's because I set my expectations where I did. We got a lot of salty emails from people this morning who are really salty about the show. salty about the finale. They really dislike the finale. Yeah, a lot, a lot of emails. We got a few people who liked it, but mostly people who disliked it. And I also, we've got some emails from people who were frustrated at how negative we were last week. But listen, man, we're just always going to be honest about how we feel about the show. That's what we're going to do. So we're getting into these questions. Usually I do a little like lit major corner, but once again, instead of putting some sort of like abstract quote or whatever below the title on the HBO Max. websites. They just used a line from the show, which is like what I've done with the place, I just cranked it to expert level, which is something William says. This is some gamer shit from William that he says to Hale. We did a great, get a great email about how the ending of this reminded a listener of the dark tower, which involves a main character reaching essentially the center of a maze and discovering that he's on a repeating loop. And each time and this last time bringing something with him that could maybe change things. So let's start with this first question. This is a question that I saw a lot of people ask in our email and on Twitter.

And I'm going to put this to Danny. Danny Haifitz has everything we've seen up until now been a simulation. I don't think so. I think it was just Dolores, right? Just Dolores was in the simulation. Well, I think the bigger question is if this season, I mean, if we're, if season five or whatever happens after this episode ends, is just going to be the, the simulation version of season one, then what has, then what's to prevent, why not just assume that everything that we've seen is simulation 90 and next see, and season five is simulation 91? Well, there's, yeah, well, I've been saying from a long time that I think that the end of the show will be. be all that was a simulation. But in terms of like where we just ended? No, no, no. Did she talk about

from season one, episode one to now? Has this all been just another iteration of Dolores running a simulation? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. I guess that's on the table. I think it was pretty incredible the amount of logical leaps they needed you to take at the end of the show. Like, you're going to the end of a season like this, you think that's something like that big would be kind of wrapped up. But I think a pretty incredible amount of this was done via like Dolores narrating stuff at the end of the show. I think that to, oh, this is going to get into future questions. But I think that to me, the entire show in a nutshell was Doloreson voiceover saying human civilization has ended or sentient, sentient life, sentient life on Earth has ended. And you're sitting there thinking, oh, Dolores, because she's in, you know, she's all.

algorithm doesn't know that the outliers exist and isn't counting on the resistance and all that kind of stuff. So human lives can go on. Hold on. No, no, no, no. So that's the first. I'm like, oh, this is the loophole to make this an interesting plot point.

But then I'm like, no, if that were the case, that wouldn't just be like literally a voiceover. That's not just like a go. Like she's just this ghost in the machine stuff. And I don't know listening to Dolores say that Sintient Life is over, whether or not I'm supposed to take that to be literal or take that or not.

I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if there's another season if humans are going to be alive on Earth. And I, and to me, that's the sort of unreliability that, that makes the show really hard to digest something. Why wouldn't we take it literally? It's the end of a show that might, of a season four when there might get canceled and might not do it, renew it for season five. It's like the final narration of the main character. We have to take what she said. So they just ended sentient life on earth via voico.

Right. Because she didn't have to say it. Right? Because, yeah. So let me, okay, that does get to our, another question. So we will get to that in a second. But like, let me just zoom back to this. Has everything up until now been a simulation?

I vote no. Do you think this is the first run through the loop or whatever? First time around the loop. Christina in the sublime running one final test. I'm just going to, if you're going to take her out of word that sentient life on Earth has ended, I'm going to take her utter word that this is, we're starting a new final game in the sublime, and this is the first time she's done it.

And they could easily at the end of next season, if we get another season, say, actually, well, actually, this is all a simulation. They could. But for right now, I'm choosing to believe that it matters that we watched life on Earth end, and it matters, you know? Yeah. Well, I think that that was sort of like the greatest trick

that the show pulled was sort of for all the time. times for all the time that we spent saying does death matter to robot lives mattered or whatever if if everything's a simulation then the answer is sort of implicitly no and yes at the same time right i mean it's none of it mattered to any degree more than anything else and yet it does matter because it's towards the end of like a successful simulation i don't know i think see i think that it's totally feasible that this was all a simulation and we're and dolores and the entire reality of Westworld is just one giant loop in which, you know, a new version of the first four seasons has played out over and over again. A new sublime is opened up and a deeper pocket into the

sublime is created. I think that that's, that feels to me like the sort of, the sort of end result that Nolan and Joy would have imagined. Danny, you kind of said what? When David mentioned that Christina wouldn't maybe be able to track the outliers. And the only reason I think that I might agree with David on that is because so much is made of like Clementine's story in this episode is about her finding where the outliers are because that's off the grid and no one can find them. So Frankie and her girlfriend survive. And according to Rahoboam, the big AI predictor AI last season, total population collapse in 23 years. this is the total population collapse, except perhaps for some Mad Max outliers in the desert. Danny, where are you on that?

Since you said, what to David? Where are you now? Do you believe that the outliers could be still out there in the dust and the dirt? No, I don't care about the outliers. They said that the human, all life on earth is extinct. I don't care because the show ran away screaming from season three. They could have said that Dolores had been part of her hope. one. Dolores has literally last we

we start's end of season three plugged into Rehoboam. Now at the end of season four, turns out she's running simulations. If they wanted to connect her in any way to season three with Rehoboom, they could have. If they wanted to connect to the outliers, they could have. I actually think it's the exact opposite. They're ending the show and they think that if they're not renewed for season five,

some of this needs to be lightly resolved and like nodded at in the direction of. I think that the outlier thing at the end, honestly, was horseshit. It was literally, we are going to just we have to button up this story in case we're not for season five, something with Clem. Clementine just wants to go kill them and then dies before.

Like, I just don't at all. I don't think it was relevant. And no, when the show gets to narrate through the main character and they know that maybe this is the writer's last chance to communicate how the show ended, I feel like I have to take them at their word. If we're at the point where we're parsing whether the narration at the end of season four was like reliable or not, I don't even know. I don't even know what to say. It's not it's not about reliable.

It's just about like what. that character knows, like, and, like, what, what data such you see have? I think I, I, I will disagree largely with this idea that they, I mean, but they said, with Frankie, the daughter, in the boat, and the word said, but some of them will survive a few months, maybe even years, but they will all die with Frankie. They said that while Frankie was on screen. And then they said later that they're all dead. Here's, here's what I will say, and you might be right, but here's what I'll say. I disagree. that they are writing without,

with zero expectations of a fifth and final season. Only because the information that we have about a fifth and final season is Ed Harris like saying a filming start date. Now, I don't mean that they're backstopping

in case they don't get it. Sure. Things at HBO are way shakier than they were when Ed Harris said that. But I don't know that they wrote this script wholly in fear of not getting a, and final season. I think they've been,

they've been told they were getting five seasons sort of from the start that changes all the time. We've all seen the ratings. We know it's not necessarily guaranteed that they're going to get a fifth and final season, but I think they're like, I don't think they're only writing towards, but I would agree with like a hedging of the bets.

Like if they don't come back. I think the bet hedging is right. But I do think, but also to the point, I mean, to the bigger question, I think that, I think the outlier thing is a little bit of a hedge.

If there's not a season five, then it sort of is neat. it's neater. It's more of a neat ending if humans are all extinct, right? But if there is, then maybe that's an interesting plot line for season five. I mean, who knows? I think that in terms of whether or not this is a simulation,

going back to the last question, it sure makes it easier. It makes it an easier pill to swallow that everybody's suddenly dead kind of off camera if it is a simulation, right? That seems a little bit more digestible. But I don't know. that whole

the Clementine, you're right about the Clementine thing. I could also see the motivation being we need to tie up the Clementine storyline. Although, I mean,

this is such a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but like, she was so blest out at the beginning of the season. Did it really not occur to her just to be like, hey,

you already have a host friend. Can I be your other host friend? Then we can go wherever you're going to go at the end of the season instead of just trying to murder everybody to get her way. I mean,

it was very strange. Anyway. It was very odd to me. that that felt part of like the deck clearing of this episode because this episode meant so clear why did you why why are they clearing out the deck for charlores i mean yes that's fine but like that was there were there were a lot of a lot of clearing out for well by deck clearing you mean how every i mean kind of skimmed over here every character died everyone's dead yeah well we i mean we we said that we said that we said that we said that like everyone's dead

except for christina and frankie and if we if we agree with danny which maybe we should then Frankie and her girlfriend are not going to last that much longer. And so it's just Dolores slash Christina in the sublime with the data that's stored there. And that's it. Every character, William Hale, Maeve, Bernard, down to Stubbs and Clementine are dead and not just like, are they coming back? No, their pearls are dust. Like they're gone. Right.

And so that's what this episode, a complete clear of the deck for the final season. But even that, I just think, was so cheap. All these characters died. I didn't really feel anything. I didn't really think it advanced the plot. And honestly, it felt to me like they don't know if they could get any of these actors to resign a contract for season five. So they're going to, like, write them off and they'll see if they can bring them back. Because that makes more sense to me than the idea that, well, the entirety of season four boiled down to Williams.

Like, I want to burn it down. And Hale's like, no, I don't burn it down. And like, that was the entire plot. So I don't know. The killing off every plot, way, Stubbs died. it just all felt so meaningless. Okay. So that brings us to another question.

Does death matter in Westworld? And if not, how are we meant to understand it as a narrative device? What does it mean if someone dies if it doesn't mean what it usually means in a story? David, do you have any ideas on this? Right. Okay. So arguing from the point of view that this has all been a simulation, which I think just makes the conversation. Okay.

The language of the conversation a little bit easier. No, it doesn't. Well, it matters in the sense that it's part of a, it's part of, it's, it's not just the simulation without purpose. It's a simulation seeking a specific ending, right? So death matters in so much as it is a piece of the, whatever, of the, of the puzzle that leads to ending X. And, you know, we're hoping that it's the ending that,

the one ending out of a trillion that everybody's looking for. But does it matter? I mean, does it matter? I don't think that in terms, I mean, continents of people were killed off in this episode without ever appearing on screen. So does death matter? Not a lot. I mean, but does the death of the people, the characters or the iterations of the characters that we hold beloved, does it matter? well, it's hard to say, it's hard to argue that Westworld, the enterprise thinks that their deaths matter because they were not treated with much respect in passive.

Yeah, if Christina slash Dolores can just remember them alive again in the sublime, you know, then. So we had an email from listener Dennis who wrote everyone is dead, but also nobody is dead because everyone is in digital. heaven, I guess we're circling back to if you can't tell the difference, does it matter? But even if I can't tell the difference, other than looking at the black cinemascope bars, when I know there is a difference, it bothers me, I think. Danny, you seem pretty bothered.

Is that what you would? Yeah, I think that's a great one. The show's been asking forever, like, oh, if you can't tell the difference, what if you can? And you know, they never explored that in any meaningful way. Again, shows need stakes, right? And from the beginning, it was people's criticism of Westworld and season one was, well, if nobody can really die,

How is this going to be a good show? And there are interesting ways you could explore what life means in a world where, well, what if no one can really die? They just didn't do any of that. And so you could, I mean, there's so many ways. If a character is getting resurrected every time, it would have been interesting if, you know, every time Maeve woke up,

she felt like something had been lost. But when every time Maeve wakes up, she's exactly the same. And she's never looking back, nostalgically to like earlier versions of herself of his set was better. Like she's never, there's never a cost to dying. There's never a cost.

to coming back. And so when it's just your little plot device, it never matters. Well, and you're right. And from a plot point of view, there's never any cost. There's never any value in it, right?

Because like, yeah. Because if, I mean, Mave and Hale were shocked dead at the end of the last episode. Hale was brought back to life at the beginning of episode,

at the beginning of this episode, at the beginning of the finale. With no explanation, by the way. With no explanation at all. And, the story progressed in such a way that if Mave had been brought back along with her, the story wouldn't have been any different, right?

No. And that's the thing. They just wrote off Maves because they clearly didn't know what to do with Mave. That is obvious. And also it's insane. Every part of this is insane. The fact that William would shoot hail in the head and then I crush her pearl. And then also, they never even established the problem. They never established what death was or how a character could go in the beginning in season one and it caught up to them. and they never figured it out.

And the entire show, it's plagued them all the way to the end of the season. Now they're crushing pearls. Does that mean anything? Not really. Because if they want to write around it, they still can. Yeah. They want to write it around it they can. So they wrote, they had an interesting idea.

And I think that the show had very interesting concepts. But they never fleshed out these specifics. And we're not talking about details here. The nature of death is something you should get right in your world. So let's talk about this idea. This brings me to another question I have. which you guys have been circling, which is what's the fundamental difference

between hosts and humans and between a host that was created as an original Pearl host and one that's remembered. Because that is a key thing because actually I don't know how to get to this question without asking the previous question, but I think that idea of

do these copies differ in any way? Like when we see, I tried to talk about this last week, it's a tough thing to talk about, but when we see a character play by Tessa Thompson. And we know that it is Dolores' pearl inside of Charlotte's Hale's body that has

been warped into a Charlotte Hale persona just by occupying her body and that's something that can happen to a host consciousness. Or the same thing happened to William. He was Dolores Code in a William body and as

host William he just became the man in black because he was in that body too long, dealing with the memories of that body too long. is there a difference between a remembered version of a character and a real version of a character? And if not, does that, like, is that a fundamental weakness of the show or does it just not, should I just let this go and not care about that anymore ever? What do you think, David? Well, I mean, listen, it certainly helps, you know, band-aid over any problem that you have with the show, right?

It's like, yeah, the dialogue was kind of sketchy through the whole season. It's like, well, you know what? It's because it was, it wasn't the real characters. This was all a simulation. You know, like, what, like, it's, it's all a little bit degraded from the way that the brilliance of season one because everything is sort of another iteration. Shemaker has, like, glommed onto the, it's all a simulation and you're just like, I'm not letting go of this.

This is it for me. Yeah. No, I don't. I think that the big thing is that it doesn't matter if it's simulation. It's a simulation. And so that's why it's sort of a little bit disheartening. But, yeah, I think. It's a tough, it's, it's a difficult conversation to have.

It's, I think it goes hand in, I think it goes hand in hand with the death question, right? Maeve is dead, but Christina remembers her next season because they managed to pay to do enough to show up for season five. Is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, is that, you know, so does the fact that she died and sacrificed herself for whatever Bernard's plan was a matter? Or does it not? And like, honestly, at this point, I've let go of the does death matter. And I'm not saying because I don't think the show cares. And so I'm kind of done trying to care. Does that make sense?

And I don't mean that in a shitty way. I mean that in like, if I'm going to squeeze any kind of enjoyment out of the show, I think I have to let go of those narrative conventions. The basic building blocks of story, which is that mortality matters when it comes of telling stories about characters that we care about, right? But I can understand why it feels impossible to let that go, you know? Because that's the building blockers, this building block of life. Spoiler, the meaning of life is that it ends.

You die. So make the most of your time. And so when you remove the fundamental essence of why we're here, guess what? You're right. All season we were talking about, it's very interesting. The humans can die. So what does it mean when robots can't? And like, they never explored that in any meaningful way.

They posed this question and never came back to it. And here's the problem. And I come back to it over and over again. The fundamental mistake this show made from the beginning was they wanted to ask that question a hundred times a season. If you can't tell the difference between humans and robots, what's the difference? The problem and the mistake they made was instead of making the robots flawed and interesting like people, they just made the humans robotic and not lifelike like they were

nobots. And so that has plagued them forever. And now we're sitting here and we're like, oh, what's the difference between Hale, who's a pearl in a former human? And like, who cares? These weren't interesting characters. And like, they never explored. Hale had children. Her, Hale's child and husband died in a car crash last year. She referenced that like passingly one time. We can't answer this question. Well, what's the difference between Hale? Because we don't know what she's going through. They never even explorers. this loss. And they're just running from these questions.

I would, I agree. Like, you brought this up at the beginning of the season, and I agree with you mostly. I would disagree as it pertains to Caleb this season, even though a lot of what we saw of Caleb this season was his human consciousness in a synthetic body. But, like, that was a very human, emotional character. Yeah, he was.

And the most emotionality we got in this finale was from, Caleb, look at me, I'm sharing a drink with my daughter, like hugging his daughter goodbye, all that sort of stuff. Like that was the most... That was the best part of the episode.

Yeah, exactly. So they got it a little bit right. But, you know, I like, I largely agree with you. I mean, put it this way. Hale, if they wanted to explore the question of like, oh, well, what's a robot, what's a former person's consciousness?

Well, not even that. We're really saying what was Dolores. It goes back to what Shoemaker said last week. That was such a good point that, They're so convoluted with who the characters are. We have to refer to them by their actors' names because Hale is Dolores in Charlotte's body, but Williams are recreation of William.

And so William's not like Hale. William is a recreation of human William in a host version of William's body. I can't believe I'll have to say this out loud. And then Dolores got brain copied, got put into the DNA recreation of Hale's body, but she's not Hale, but I guess it became like, and it's so convoluted. They never had clear answers because they never got clear questions. But the thing I just keep coming back to is

even the basic stuff like Caleb wants to get back to his daughter. Hale, her kid died. Never talked about it. Never came up. You know what I mean? It's like such obvious things.

It's like they didn't even want to explore the questions that they set up themselves. And just to take it because, of course, I'm going to insist on the simulation thing. If it is a simulation, if this has all been a simulation, and even if it hasn't been,

next season, when Dolores runs your simulation, we will she will be having these same conversations right it's like like about about whether or not death matters and whether or not what is a human life compared to a robot life and sentience and everything else except it will all be fake right i mean it will all be a simulation so humans and robots or humans whatever just sort of humans and hosts just sort of especially with it when you have the hybrids and it's like they're just like tag teaming in and out of these philosophical questions without it's like the sneaches or something it's just like all the

sudden, just like the hosts all have stars on dars and we're supposed to just change. Anyway, let's move on in the next question. I'm going to start calling them Starbelly Snitches. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

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I mean, I think that on its most basic level, it's Christina, a.k.a. Dolores is Dolores Prime. I don't think she is Dolores Prime. I think Dolores Prime is dead. You don't think that this was, you don't think that the Holy Pearl that they pulled out of the floor was the same one and the Dolores Prime. Dolores that beat Rehobo? I mean, I don't know that. I don't know that we know that. Why would it not be Dolores, Brian? That's the original Dolores.

Like, it was factory reset, and now she's trying to learn again. That's what the whole, I mean, that's what the simulation argument really springs from, is that like, because she was, it was a factory reset, she has the ability to start over from scratch, knowing that she has all this power or whatever, regardless. But honestly, this is still kind of a stupid conversation because trying to, like, season five, not like us, but I'm saying like, season five, it's just, let me get this straight.

They just like, this is my factual understanding of what we're talking about. As I understand it. Human life is like, and host life basically, all, whatever, the sentient life on earth is extinct via narration in the final 90 seconds of the. episode. And now in the next season is Dolores has to, for whatever reason, go back to Westworld to run a simulation to

remember and therefore recreate sentient life. Do I have that correct? Oh, here's my interpretation of it. Whether or not that's Dolores Prime, it's A Dolores, so we can all agree on that. You guys are probably right that it's Dolores Prime. I am clinging to the fact

that they told us she was gone, but that's fine. They were probably bending Bending words. Dolores, whoever she is, Christina, Christina's world, et cetera, is going to run a simulation or a final game that will determine whether or not the humans are allowed into the sublime. And by allowing humans into the sublime, because simulated Teddy says, don't let them in here. They're dirty and they're evil and they're awful. and it always ends in violence with them with those people.

Don't let them in here. All the hosts get to live in heaven. Do the humans get to go there too? This is the choice that Hale is giving this Dolores, this Christina. That's such a more interesting question and phrasing than the way the actual show did it, though. I think you're probably right. The problem is we haven't seen robot heaven since the end of 20. That was in 2018.

No, we saw it. We saw it this season that Akechito was like, it can look however you wanted to look. Yeah, but everyone is there a little, it's like the good place. You have the little pockets and you can just make it look however you want it to look. Yeah, there's nothing you really see because it could be anything. But you have to show us what that means.

It's just a white horse in a weird room with your weird white, like spider webs? No, I think that, I think showing the literal first scene, or, you know, opening train scene from Westworld from season one, episode one, gives us a pretty good idea of what it's going to look like. It's going to look exactly like season one. Christine is going to make it look like sweetwater. And so it's going to look,

it's an interesting idea. You're saying, Joe, I'm like, oh, well, basically humanity can create heaven digitally. And then if you recreate your consciousness perfectly, we can put ourselves in digital heaven and we can live forever. Yeah. Did at any point this episode, this season,

anyone actually ever say that about humans? Like they vaguely alluded to transcendence. You're right. But it's like they set this up very poorly. Well, I think that's the idea. Do are humans allowed in here? But my question about that is like, where is the human? I keep coming back to this idea of Bernard's saving Frankie's data.

And why would he do that if not for the idea that he's trying to get her a place in heaven? if indeed humans are going to be allowed in heaven. So where is all that human data? It used to be in this place called The Forge, all the guests from the park, but Dolores flooded it. Presumably Hale has captured some of it from her temperance world.

Yeah. Which humans are this? Are they just the humans that could afford to go to Westworld and their data has been saved? Or is she just going to remember all of them, all of the people that we saw in the cities and recreate them? If this was Dolores Prime, then again,

huge leap, but she could have downloaded everything that was in Rojobeum. Right? I mean, she could know everything that Rojobeum previously knew and so that's most of humanity

except for the outliers, which are a pretty important part of the, you know, equation, but, um, but yeah, it's, it's an interesting,

it's an interesting mission here. Teddy, Teddy, who is also Dolores, let's be clear. Um, said, is an amazing,

is an amazing, is imagined by Dolores. He's not like another robot with a Dolores Pearl. But you're right. This is another hyphen distinction. It's her talking to herself in the mirror,

essentially, right? And she says, I've watched people in their world for years and seen the best and the worst of them and I remember it all. And he says, they're not like us. Their codes are written in their cells.

They'll never change. And she says, we could still see. Right. So it's this, here's the theory. Can humans change? Will Dolores be? able to see the beauty in this world and allow humans entry to heaven. Dolores is this

god figure or is it heavenly hosts only robots only in heaven. They're the only ones who deserve it. So that I feel like is going to be the final game in the final season is a simulation. Do humans deserve to be in heaven? So that's what I think it is. Yes. And I and you're right. That's sort of an interesting like like a inverse of where the show started right to like robots deserve to be considered alive yeah exactly exactly and and and and that puts dolores in the four like we've been watching hail sort of in this Ford role but to put Dolores prime if you prefer Evan richel would let's just say in the Ford role teddy teddy who's not teddy says let the humans go don't bring the flaws of their kind into our world and she's like let's see let's see if they get

to come. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, but I think, I mean, the way that I imagine it playing out, whether or not so everything so far has been a simulation is that it will be exactly like what we've seen before with minor changes, like when Bernard would, you know, say conversations went a little bit differently in a different simulations or whatever and things played out in different ways. But this is a minor quibble, but just as a point of explanation, Dolores isn't in the Ford role. Ford will be in the Ford role. Delores will create Ford to be in the Ford role and will sort of like shunner.

that part of her consciousness off to him. Anthony Hopkins is not going back to this show. I was going to say, if Sir Anthony Hopkins wants to come back for a whole season, maybe. No, in a perfect world, like the Sublime, that's what would happen. Yes. Yes. In a perfect world, Sir Anthony Hopkins is back for the final season. To go back to this idea of, like, human consciousness and how it can live on, do we think

they're going to, so we hit again this. idea that Fidelity, the old Delos experiment, as Stubbs calls it in this episode, that they've never perfected it. Caleb is degrading. He's going to not make it

much longer past Frankie pulling out of the harbor, right? Do we feel like that is any kind of end game that they're working towards this idea of perfecting fidelity somehow in next season? Or would you prefer that they just let that go, that this is the end of the old Dulls experiment.

I feel like they don't know the answers to any of these questions. And so there's a limit on what I am willing to kind of play out the threat on. Like, what about this and what about that? The reality is in this episode, they literally had a moment where Frankie was pointing a gun at Clementine and then put her gun down because she said, I'm out of bullets. And then comes back later and says, actually, I still have a bullet and shoots and that's how Clementine dies. And so I kind of just really lose faith in the editor.

Oh, where's fidelity going? It's like none of this really makes sense anymore if you break it down. I agree that, I mean, I think it's feasible that they don't know the answer. But I do think that's one of the interesting things about this episode. If there is another season and if it does have a storyline on Earth, on Earth One or whatever, I think it's totally feasible that Caleb continues on as the first host to achieve fidelity. the first host human hybrid to achieve fidelity. I think that they didn't really go in,

they didn't go in on it, although they don't go in on a lot of the things that maybe they should. They didn't explain why. Like, you know what would have been cool at the end to like hear, how did he make it so far? Even you want to tell us it's love or something.

Like, they're not exploring these questions. We on this podcast are delving deeper into these questions than they did. And maybe that's the value of the show. You're right. The answer is love. I mean, or whatever, human commitment, human connection, and they don't say it outright.

And frankly, how he lasted this long, I could have, I could have had, I would have rather him last much longer, right? Or to experience the degradation, whatever. Like, I kept thinking time and time again watching this most recent episode, that the season just should have started here, right? Or should have started like much closer to here.

Like let the end of the world that was being, fainted at at the end of last season, just be this end of the world. And then like have everything that happened in the past two episodes actually be an interesting eight-ish eight-episode arc, right? But if Caleb had been, especially for a show that likes to play with president past so much, if Caleb had been revealed to have been a host the whole time in episode four, and then we're watching him degrade before our eyes, like that makes his marathon of so much more interesting. As it stands now, he was on the screen for about 14 minutes after, you know, he

escaped. And that doesn't really, doesn't seem like some great accomplishment, even though we're supposed to believe that it is. Um, I want to talk about, here's what I'll say about fidelity. Danny, to take your point that the, the Frankie gun, Clementine thing was deeply annoying and stupid. I agree with you. Um, the fidelity thing, I'm just going to say that I'm still holding on to that post-credits thing we got in season two with William at some point in the future and the actress Katia Herbers, who plays his daughter, showing up and saying, we're testing you for fidelity. Been here a long time.

I feel like that's the end of the show. I honestly feel like that's like where this is all going. I don't think that's already happened. I think perfecting fidelity and bringing back that season two post-credits, and getting Katya Herbers to come away from the show Evil for a second to come back and, like, play William's daughter for a little bit. I feel like they have to loop back to that or else it will forever torture me. So I'm just going to hope that it comes back, you know. But here's the thing.

I think that with a show, it's really important to establish in the beginning that you have a clear idea of like, you know what you're doing, you know where you're going, you know what you want to say. And I guess, like, you know what show is really good at that? Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. And Joe, you're doing Better Call Saul and the show at the same time. A show like that, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, the details, the attention to detail, knowing where you're going.

That's a show that deserves the benefit of the doubt. I'm curious in a scale of 1 to 10 where you would put your trust in like Better Call Saul to know where they're going versus this show because I can't, I can no longer divorce. Oh, well, what about this?

Where are they going? I don't think they know. And I'm curious how you would compare those to. no, I would definitely give Saul. Saul is a 10, like 10 out of 10. I trust those writers with my life. They're very thoughtful. I don't think that the Westworld writers are unthoughtful.

I just think that they are, they're far messier, and I would give them a six, right? And I think I've been... I would 100% believe, if you told me that this is exactly where they wanted to be at the end of episode four. that this was all this was written in ink when the show started that really and and listen if you want to equivocate about well this season could have could have used a couple more episodes and maybe that would have solved a lot of the problems maybe that's true you know but i think that the larger question is legitimate which is the same thing i've been saying since we started podcasting about it this unreliability of the showrunner it's sort of like i don't know i don't know what the question

to ask is i don't i don't know what you like the show i don't know i don't know i don't no no no no But do I trust the show? I don't trust that. The fidelity test is just is a big failure here. There's not, there's not, I don't, I don't try. I wouldn't, listen, if Dolores came out and she said the moral of the story is true love abides, I wouldn't believe that. I wouldn't know that was the point they were saying at all.

The voiceover doesn't mean anything to me. Just like, I struggle to understand, to grasp what to, what I should be finding meaningful, meaningful at all. They didn't ask the question. There was no ambition. That's what I'm saying. There was no ambition. Season one, they copied season one.

No, the ambition was, the ambition was so over the top on some level that we're taking it for granted now in season four. I think, I think, yeah, if you told me that the Westworld creatives, Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, the other writers on the staff, they had sketched out a five-season plan, which is what James Morrison said in an interview way back in season one. They've got a five-season plan. And I believe that the loose sketch of that is expand out, contract back in all the way back to Sweetwater. Let's go out to the real world. Let's do this. Let's end the world. And then head on back somehow to the parks of Sweetwater.

I absolutely see that as the arc of the series for them. All the other ideas that they have put into the stew here, I don't think they have those all sketched out. That's okay because, you know, to cite breaking bad, better calls all, they don't sketch all of those ideas out in advance. they're just better at writing themselves out of logic corners than the Westroar writers are. So let me get us back on the question track, if you guys don't mind. The if my understanding this episode is right. And if the final game is Dolores or Christina determining whether or not humans deserve either being in heaven or some sort of immortality or another chance of whatever it is, we got this really interesting email from listener

Catherine about how who are the hosts to judge what humans are when they see the worst of humanity when they see only the rich largely the rich assholes

who are there to live out their purge fantasies in a park we've seen like a family and like a child in season one like get excited about a horse like some families come to Westworld guess, but mostly it's extremely rich assholes who can afford to be there who live out

their sex and violence fantasies. So is that a fair metric to the inherent contradiction of the fact that like these hosts are diabolical too when they're, but so, but I mean

when they're in Westworld, a lot of them were but so what, stripped of their programming, they're able to be, you know, model citizens into sublime. Okay, but like that's giving a lot of credit to hosts and none to humans, right? So yeah, I agree. I mean, listen, I think that the answer

lies somewhere in the fact that that Dolores has been out in the world and she's seen humans more than just in sweetwater. But it's a valid question. I don't think that it necessarily needs to be fair, though. I mean, that would not be one of my most central like hang-ups about the show. I don't think, I don't,

I don't think, I mean, we just have a different species playing God now. Like, it's okay. It's, it's, it's, it's okay. And God, and God isn't fair, but I just think that it's interesting that Dolores, this listener pointed out that like the four main humans that Dolores is interacted with are Ford, Arnold, William, and Caleb, right? And that three of those guys are like, you know, either rich creatives or, you know, rich attendee of the park. And then there's Caleb who she met because he was like a soldier and then thus able to go into the park on like, you know, a recon mission or whatever. What I think, what I do think is interesting off the back of that is that Mave has had much more interactions with, you know, like her relationship with Felix and Sylvester or Elise Seismore who are wildly imperfect humans, but not just like park attendees. I don't know.

I think that's kind of interesting. Danny, do you have any thoughts or feelings about this? I think that's another example where the actual people coming up watching the show are asking more interesting questions than the show. I don't think the show really gets into that. Well, why not ask those interesting questions? The show is not exploring this.

I think that to the question itself, I think that's how the world works. Like, if you're like a barista at Starbucks, do you really give a shit about the 80% of customers who come in and like pay and get their coffee and leave? No, you only remember the 5% or the 10% of people who are assholes to you. It's the same reason you go and, like,

you look at reviews for things. It's either people loved it or hated it. Like, the 80% of people in the middle don't leave any lasting impression. So, like, yeah, it totally makes sense. And the larger question, I guess, is does it matter to the end result? I mean, listen, if Dolores,

given an incredibly narrow scope of humanity that she's digested or whatever, setting aside the Rahoboam idea or whatever else, if she goes into the sublime and recreates planet earth would it look that much different than the one we just saw this is what I'm wondering for season five it's like it doesn't make any sense if anything it's like how they're capturing all this debt like how are they capturing

humanity and from what because if they wanted to do it through ahoboam well they probably should have mentioned rehoboam more than one time in season four and if they're just pulling it somehow from the depths. It's like, okay, cool. Well, she also has access. She was also writing the storylines for all of, well, her breadth was a little bit uncertain.

But she was writing, I mean, she was writing for every human for the past, however many years in this season. Yeah. Notably none of those people were happy. She says in her voice, in her voiceover, she says, they're kind of going extinct, as Danny pointed out. They will only live as long as the last creature who remembers them. And that creature is me.

So I think it's going to come down to she remembers everything to quote Pacey Weather from Dossus Creek. But I think that's a crazy endgame for them when they haven't really explored what you lose when you're just brought back via memory. Right. Okay. Let me ask you a twist question because Westworld is nothing if not twist obsessed, right? So what's the definition of a good slash satisfying twist or reveal to you? I'll bring this up because what I will say. is that like as soon as we find out that like

Maya and Peter and Christina's boss or whatever just like people she created fine and then they weirdly dragged out the reveal that Teddy is also someone she created when it's like very obvious okay all right she made up Oscar winner Ariana had a boast then she definitely made up James Marsden as well

that's fine um well especially especially when the alternative is much more interesting right like if you left when you leave Teddy then you're like oh so we're still on this someone has sent Teddy to to break through to her tip And it turns out no, it was the same thing as whatever happened last episode. You know what I thought was a really good twist?

What was a really good twist was when Frankie was like, I don't have any bullets left. And she was like, ah, I do have a bullet left. Like, I didn't see that. She learned that from her dad. Anyway, so to the question. Well, here's what I'll say. When thinking about Westworld's twist addiction, right, because like, the reason I get into the theory game is because it's really fun to hear what Danny has cooked up every week, first of all. But secondly, it's how I.

try to understand a show. If I'm theorizing, it's because I'm trying to understand how showrunners think, how the world works, all that sort of stuff, and like coming up with theories that align with what the show is. Westworld is very unpredictable in that way. And I'm often wrong. If it were just about me being right, I wouldn't do it because I'm so often wrong. But I feel like a twist should, at its best, have like some sort of emotional reveal or heft to it. And I feel like season one's, reveal, the two timeline reveal and what Dolores, that Dolores was setting herself on this path. And also our discovery that William had gone from Jimmy Simpson to Ed Harris in a way that is actually very upsetting and traumatic. Like, all of that is interesting and meaty and rich and why we like season one so much.

And I think some of the twists in the Nolan films, like, I won't necessarily outline them all. But like the end of Interstellar makes me very emotional or the end of the prestige. like really gets to me like a twist should not just be ah you were you were looking at this hand it was actually in this hand the whole time it shouldn't just be about outsmarting or confusing or bamboozling the audience there should be something emotionally satisfying or narratively rich to it I'm not I do not think I got that from this season and I'm wondering how you guys feel about it yeah it's like a good twist is exactly like it's I maybe to boil it down, it's like, it's actually the story you've been watching is not the story

you thought it was. It's actually a different kind of story. And in a way that emotionally resonates. When you talk about season one, you might watch that thinking, oh, William and the man in black are going to have a showdown. And then the twist is like, oh, they're the same person, but that hits it an emotional level because, oh, there has been a showdown. And the man in black killed William a long time ago, like the man in black one. It's really a story of one man aging, not two people fighting. Again, like the Western, right? Like, it's actually not this town ain't big enough for the two of us between William and Man and Black.

It's actually going to be actually the story of a guy getting older and jaded over. Like, that's, there's an emotional resonance. There was, I didn't really get any of that in this season. Like these twists were just kind of exactly what you said, Joe, like, oh, thought it was left, but hey, it's in the right. That's why I thought that having Caleb's, having the twist be Caleb has been a robot the whole time

would have actually been a meaningful twist because it would have been, it would have affected the way that he's actually interacting with his long lost daughter, right? I mean, if that, if that, if they were able to pull that off, I mean, who knows if that would have been feasible. But, I mean, yeah, so what was the, I mean, there were a lot of surprises in this episode. I don't think like, you know, use your left hand counts as a twist that Bernard, you know, had the foresight to put a gun in a killing machine's hands. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, but, I mean, the biggest twist in this episode was that Hale had a change of heart, which is just sort of like a twist that sort of like completely without. out stakes. It was dumb. It didn't make any sense. Like, she literally was like, I won't let you burn it down. Like, why? Why did she change her mind other than to appease the plot and what they already had to do? You know what it would have been really awesome? I hate that I'm fantasy booking this whole thing. But you know what it would have been really awesome if Hale throughout the season,

instead of just having the man at the host in black at her side, actually like had some of the other, had some of the cast that we love hanging around with her. Like maybe she, She had appropriated stubs or she had appropriated Mave or something. And that led to her change of heart over some span of time. You know, but at the end of the day, all the characters that we really have a soft spot for were hanging out together. And then they all died meaninglessly in episode seven. That would have much,

that would have much better use of Clementine, by the way. Yeah, or have Clementine instead of which. Clementine is like, is like, like, like, fan service, fan service. It's like, it's like second degree. It's like, it's fan service that's like so self. aware that it's not even fulfilling. I mean, I will say I do

always enjoy watching her fight. She's very graceful. Oh, it's beautiful. And I love it. I just wish, and I did actually get upset when Stubbs died, even though I shouldn't have, because he'll just be back next season if he wants to be. Okay. That was also ridiculous. Like, to me, that's just more evidence that

they don't know what they're doing, because the fact that you bring Stubbs through all of this. And again, let's be real. I believe Jonathan Nolan made the decision that Stubbs would be a host the night before they shot. Like, see the end of season two. No, he did. I know he did. Perfect. So like, we don't have to pretend this is some Anthony Hopkins Ford grand plan all the time.

They killed Stubbs and like, why? So he could try, he was trying to convince a brain, a brainwashed assassin not to be brainwashed. That was kind of stupid. And like when you do that and then the same scene, Clementine, again, gets shot because Frankie had a bullet, in fact. It's like, like, again, I don't, I have no faith that they have a coherent vision of how they wanted to tell this story. Let me read two quick emails from our listeners. Maya wrote in and said, we spent so much time. So these are two examples.

This is Maya, for Maya is the Danny Hafe's school of thought, which is like, did any of this matter what the fuck, right? And then Sky is maybe like more my school of thought, which is digging for a meeting where maybe there is none, right? So Maya says, we sent so much time trying to figure out the Peter mystery. And I still don't understand the whole thing with the hospital. But regardless, doesn't even matter. No. Say, probably in the end it doesn't matter. The answer is Christina made everything up, right?

But Sky wrote in about the transcendence thing, which also feels like a dropped plot, a plot that doesn't really matter. Hill has this abstract idea for transcendence, which is that the hosts need to leave behind all human tendencies and become walking armless, whatever, or something like that. And Sky's... Is there more to the question? I'm sorry. No, no, Sky wrote the generous message of the season is that Hale's fundamental requirement of subjugated humans

was anathema to her other goal of consciousness. And I love that idea. And I don't know that the show sold it to me. But I love that thought that like... From just a point of order, I love that too. It's from a practical point of view. So she was, she had developed this idea for transcendence. And Bernard's master plan in order to save a tiny bit of existence by allowing Dolores to recreate it.

That was the end game, right? So that was Bernard's plan. But so, so the plan necessitated Mave, the weapon, distracting Hale so that she couldn't put her transcendence plan into effect because they needed Hale for the final act to beat the man in black. Is that correct? No, no, no, she tried to kill Hale so that she could immediately be resurrected. Like, that's also part of this, which is insane. Wait, what? Oh, no, sorry.

She tried to kill Hale and failed. Hale got shot and then immediately was resurrected. So you could zoom out and say Maeve needed to kill Hale who actually was really important and needed to be alive. No, but he knew she was going to come back. Oh, here's here, okay, here's me digging for meeting where maybe there isn't any.

Please, please. This is my favorite stuff is the digging for me. But like, I feel like maybe her being killed by William, her own creation, was key somehow to her face turn, right? That that death did matter. That Bernard knew she was coming back. Obviously, he left a message for her.

So I think he knew that she was going to die and knew she was going to come back. And he knew so much that he left a gun behind a pipe in the exact place that she needed. That's how much Bernard knows. He knows exactly where a bug is going to be in the desert. He knows everything. Do you think that turning, what did she say?

She told the drone host to like, you know, turn all her attributes to a left. or whatever. So make me stronger. I don't know if this was the idea. If it was, they should have said it. But maybe that,

maybe there's some potential there. We're like, maybe turning the knob on everything all the way up allows her to also be more like receptive to compassion or to like have the brain that's big enough to understand that there's something bigger at stake.

Oh my God. Come on. What world do we live in? David, have you been WIFLied? It may. Make me stronger. And David's like,

she had more empathy. I, Again, it's like, I just wish when I wrote a bad story about football that people would read, well, obviously he meant to include the good teams in the Super Bowl champion contenders and he just forgot. I just wish people were this generous. Like, you judge your team, like in football, you are what your record says you were eventually. It's like you have all these plans and you all this stuff. What happened? In this show, William took a horse from New York to Nevada.

What the fuck are we talking about here? He took a jeep. He was in a Jeep. He was in a car. That was a deciduous, no. And then he got a horse. That was in the northeast. And one, those hosts that caught up to him were all hosts from the park who were presumably having fun in Manhattan. That was out. That was in the, I am from suburban New York.

That was New York. He drove from Manhattan to Nevada and a horse. And he got there before hail. Who was in a plane? Then we established, for the purposes of the show that that was actually the Hoover Dam and not just some random other dam that they are, that they put up in like, it's,

like, Mississippi. This is like when we were like, maybe they built Manhattan and Nevada. This is what I keep coming back to. It's like, I can't like, like, I agree with you,

Joe. I love the theorizing. It's just, this is crazy. Danny, what if I told you that you actually have been writing terrible pieces for your entire time at the ringer

and people are giving you the benefit of the doubt? Does that change your perception of the show? See, that's a good plot twist. here's here's here's here's my philosophy Danny I hear you and you're checked outedness like it's not like the like it's unurned it's not like the show hasn't earned this reaction from you

but my my thought is that if we're going to have a podcast discussion about it like to to just say it's ridiculous which it is in many different ways is for me not as interesting as like it's ridiculous but now now let's talk about Danny's biblical theory which is exactly what I'm want to do next. Danny, do you want to talk about your biblical theory? Will you indulge me? I think so again, well, this is where we have kind of talked about it going all season, right, is that the fifth season would kind of be, you know, it's like the first five books of the Bible and that this is all just kind of like them wandering the desert and basically who's going to get

into the kingdom of heaven essentially, or the promise land, so to speak, Israel. And that's what you're saying, right, the host of the humans, you know, what tribe gets? gets to do this, right? And I think that, again, I do think that the show is going to loop. I think at this point it seems obvious that the show is going to loop and that the first scene of the first season is going to, you know, probably in my mind be like the last scene of the last season or something. But yeah, I mean, overall, I still think we're totally on track for that.

I think that, you know, they got really tripped up at a couple of the more boring books in the Bible. My favorite part is at the end of Deuteronomy where Moses just decides to start the whole fuck her over again. He's like, fuck it. They love season one. Let's just do it again. Or God. God would probably make more sense. But was Dolores God? I guess Dolores was God the whole time.

I think she is. I mean, she has to be God. Here's an email we got from listener, Manny, that I really loved. Okay. So Mani wrote, among other things, really long, brilliant email. Going with the biblical theme that Danny has been running with, which I love. I wonder if Christina's final game is something of a judgment day.

Being brought up in a Christian household, I know a bit about the Bible. And I wonder if Delores slash Christina in a sense is something of a godhead figure. Dying as Dolores, Jesus, moving in the white space of Hale's world as Christina, the Holy Spirit, and then with her final game coming back as Christ, however she decides to come back. Hale or Bernard, most likely being God and giving Christina this chance to change things once and for all. Even maybe taking things a step further, the Holy Spirit and Jesus, which are God and other

forms, are not able to do anything without God's power. This idea that the many Dolori are like, you know, the Holy Trinity, essentially. If we've been in a simulation this whole time, this is our experience. But if not, what we will have next season is yes, it's not it's the, it's, it's the, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, uh, things, uh, it's, that delorice is simultaneously. God, in the sense that she create everything. and Christ in the sense that she's subjugated herself to the horrors of Westworld for this mission, and then the Holy Ghost in the sense that she's presumably playing the same role in this new world that she played on Earth in season five. It feels like this season, to describe whoever Rachel Wood is playing in this season,

you could say she's the ghost in the machine, right? And I think in the final season, she's the god, the literal deus ex machina, the god machine, right? Like that's that's who she is or she's St. Peter at the gates deciding who gets to come in. Our listener Tyler wrote in, Dolores is the god and recreates humanity culminating with her recreating Arnold and Arnold recreating Westworld, looping back to season one, episode one and starting everything over. Chicken or the egg. Time eternally slowing down as you're going into sublimes at Infinite Hoover Dam.

So no worries about who's keeping this thing going question. It's all a loop. Yeah. I don't know. I think Danny's idea of the, of the, first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, as they call it. I think that horse that Ed Harris's writing

is really important for that, for the pale horse, pale rider, sort of biblical shit, or when he says, were fruit from a rotten tree, might as well burn it all down, that all, like, fruit of knowledge stuff. I think it's here. I love that Danny floated this. It was, like, one of my favorite things that came out on this podcast this season.

Yeah, I mean, I guess if Dolores creates all this from scratch, is the mission that Is the hope that, like, William will just never turn bad? Like, in a successful run, this is obviously very hypothetical. Oh, is there a version of this where Jimmy Simpson doesn't break bad? And if he doesn't break bad, if that is the goal or if the goal is something along those lines. Like, it didn't, it shouldn't have necessitated waiting until the last minute for humanity to prove itself, right? I mean, humanity could have theoretically proved itself 50 years ago or 100, whatever, in this.

in this simulation and it would have they they'd be accepted into the sublime I guess I'm just wondering if like if that's possible then literally everything we've seen doesn't matter right it's all it's been it's all been downhill from there but anyway that's interesting

ironically you needed him to break bad to to take all the data to make all this possible interesting you're right that's a little bit like the ending of this show it's a very convoluted path but it's I don't know.

I think there's a really deeper philosophical thing where it's like if this is one pocket of the sublime, right? Then there's a version of this simulation where there's just one tiny pocket within the pocket that is just another simulation. I mean, that's the idea of the show if it's an endless loop.

Well, you love the simulation thing, but we talked earlier about the problem of the simulation that I don't see how they fix is we talked earlier about what's the point of a twist. Who cares if it's all simulation? They need something more substantive than it's a similar. Like, it has to be a simulation and it means what?

Like a simulation, I think the only way that I think the simulation would bear any fruit to me is if, like, they do the simulation at the end. All right, we simulated the one outcome where host and humans can get along and now we got to go do it in real life. I'm sure there's many options other than that that would make sense, but I can't think of them right now. But overall, what shows like, hey, it was a simulation and like, that's not quite enough, is it? no no they're asking something else and if it's if it's William breaking good then well ed harris won't be happy because he likes being bad but that's that my view where we go um last question this came from a great email from our listener katherine how much of all this is connected to lisa joy and jonah's a preoccupation with climate change uh if you look at interstellar

which is about humans trying to get off a planet find a new place for the humans to live If you watched Reminiscence, which I did, which was Lisa Joy's film that she made with Hugh Jackman, not great. However, the depiction of climate change was really interesting. Like, the world's half flooded and civilization is just plodding along with just, like, water in the streets and stuff like that. The vision of, like, post-climate change apocalypse Miami. What's with her vision of climate change and there's too much water? She's got water in Nevada in 90 years. She's got, like, water.

There's not going to be enough water. That's the problem. I Catherine wrote Humanity is not equal to the Our listener Catherine wrote Humanity is not equal to the task of surviving Because of our evil

Nature Is that the thesis of this show? I'd say it one more time Just the last part Humanity is not equal to the task of surviving Because of our evil nature Okay so that's totally plausible And I think that puts a really weird spin on the show.

I mean, I don't know specifically about the, about climate change philosophies or whatever. But if like whoever, if like our, you know, if we, if we elected somebody president because they were like determined, then their, their top of their platform was was correcting climate change. And it turns out that like their deepest darkets thoughts were all this like nihilist post-apocalyptic world. Like they spent a lot of time modeling out how the world would explode in the future. instead of just actually trying to fix things. I don't know. Maybe that's like a nice metaphor for the show. It just seems to have like be a really,

it's like a really smart show that is just, that is just totally weighted down by its own nihilism. Can you read that thing again, Joe, you just said, the last part? Humanity is not equal to the task of surviving because of our evil nature. I think that's, I think that, you know that kind of trope in a TV show or movies, where a good guy and a bad guy are trying to like escape from something

and then like the bad guy falls and he's like hanging off the cliff and the good guy is like oh I should leave and the good guy is like all right helps him up off the cliff and saves him from falling. I think you know what I mean? I'm not crazy right?

Yeah, Scorpion and the Frog. Yeah, I think that that's probably the general thesis of the show of the humans are bad and would die slash fall off the cliff but the hosts are going to be like Oh, I hate them. Oh, go back from.

And then they'll help us from falling. I think that's kind of basically, you're going to create this thing that will hate you and could destroy you. But maybe they're better angels. They will kind of like, you're hopefully your kids are better than you. Your creation hopefully will be not only better than you, but good enough to save your ass from being such an asshole all the time. The host,

so like we go with the arc of the series as we go from our creations, our hosts, our children that we've created, wanting to destroy us to them them being the only chance of our survival or salvation. All right. We're almost done here.

We're going to do a little tiny look ahead because I have some season five hopes and feelings. The Maze are not meant for you dumb human award. I guess we should shout out the fact that when Charlotte Hale stomps on the ground and cracks it open to get the Christina or Dolores Prime

Pearl out of the floor and makes the maze design in the cracks of the floor. It is just after basically Bernard tells her the maze is not meant. The game's not your game. It's not your game. You don't get to run it. Does that make Hale

the clear front runner for the maze is not meant for you? Or who wins this category? Sure. The season long this maze is not meant for you prize does obviously go to Hale for having this incredibly elaborate plan that that was a terrible idea

but she also kind of got to be the hero in the end so I don't know if that's a really that's a really just prize right if we're sticking with like the spirit which is the dumbest person award I have a lot I'm gonna go with Frankie for having a bullet and I don't know what's crazy if she

like had the bullet and forgot or if she had to reload and they just chose not to show that I don't know what Bernard I actually think Bernard's a real frontrunner here because he's like it's impossible. How about just instead of telling Hale what he told her, stand like eight inches back and

shoot him in the face. That seems like a better solution than what he gave her. But I'm going to give the dumbest human award to me. No. The show sucked me in. I'm the dumbest person. It really did. I think the dumbest person on the show,

oh God, I'm tempted to say Clementine for what I said before. Why be a monster when these people have already accepted hosts into their click? It just seems very bizarre. But I don't know. Bernard said he was running off in Algar. I mean,

running off all these, like he didn't have a choice. Probabilities. No, I know. Yeah. So he's running off probability. So it's, you know,

you feel like he doesn't, he can't get the award, right? It wasn't his fault. But it still is his fault, man. I mean, so like he is still the dumbest character.

Not he's a dumb, like that's this figure is, has a low IQ. But as far as the story goes, like how was the only simulation one that one that was like this rickety it just seems it still doesn't make any sense

also he could have just told her bring an extra clip of ammo ammo with you seems easy don't bring just one no reach reach with your left hand which someone emailed us and said she reached with her right hand I didn't I didn't rewatch that scene close enough to let you know if she did in fact meet through the right hand

anyway Oh, shit. I think it must have been her left. I'm sure it must have been. It must have been. Okay, I'm going to give my dumbest person award here and lead us into sort of my final prompt, which is I actually got really excited when Stephen Og, who plays the host Rebus with the fantastic mustache showed up right at the beginning of this episode.

And then my absolute favorite Jonathan Tucker who played Craddock showed up midway. way through. And Jonathan Tucker shows up and he says, you know what happened to Icarus? He flew too close to the sun. Well, you got too close to her, meaning Hale, now it's your time to fall. Look alive. This pugnacious son of a bitch never liked to go down without a fight.

And then immediately gets just annihilated by William. Like, says, look alive. This pugnacious son of bitch never went down. And then just like walks right into William's gun essentially. And I was like, what are you talking about? Cratic. Anyway. So my question for you is, if we're going to

Reboot Season 1 in Sweetwater and Sublime shot in glorious letterbox format perhaps for the final season. Who are the top three actors that you would love to see brought back that would most

boost your enjoyment? I don't talk about people who died in the last couple episodes. I'm talking about like old characters on Westworld because the sky's the limit, right? I'd rather I'm Anthony Hopkins than everyone else combined. Okay, so

one Anthony Hopkins just talking into there. Well, this is, Danny's got an unfair advantage here. I mean, let me just, I'm sorry. Let me just sidebar to say like, that's actually one of my like deeper disappointments about this season is that it really was just like a murderer's row in the cast. And everybody had the potential to sort of be rewritten

into the best version of themselves or the most exciting character for them to play. And, I don't I don't know I mean I thought Tesla Thompson was like was was gonna be like

winning awards halfway through the season and by the end I was just sort of like like so nonplussed the Mayv arc this season is the most confusing waste of that's right like Mayve plus anybody should be like a net positive right

I mean and just a whole Maeve Caleb buddy comedy throughout the season would have been great and I just don't remember anything. I mean, I thought her scenes with Aaron Paul were really good Tandah Newton, but like this is the second season in a row where it feels like Maeve has been a bit aimless because they weren't sure what to do with her

when like if you think about the highs of like season two Maeve going into like Shogun world because she had a clear purpose which was to find her daughter. We already talked last week about how they blew that. Anyway, that being said, David Schemaker. Danny has picked one Anthony Hopkins. you have up to three, who are you picking to come back for season five? I'd probably take Jeffrey Wright

because I just still think he's my rock. He's my linchpin. And of everybody, I would probably take, what's his name, who played Young William? Jimmy Simpson. I would probably pick Jimmy Simpson

because as much as I prefer Old William to Young William in terms of everything, everywhere the show's been so far, that's at least some fresh territory to explore or re-explore than where we've been. If they want to kick us in the teeth with season one nostalgia, which is what I feel.

Here's what I think. I feel like season five is the potential to just be like a steaming dish of memberberry cobbler. Like that's what they're going to hit us with. It's just sort of like, remember that you like season one. We're going to do this to you. And so I'm going to take a page out of Danny's book

and ask for the men. messy humans to come back. And so I, my top three messy humans are number one, Logan Delos, Ben Barnes, my beautiful boy, come back. Number two, Lee Seismore, bring him back. I love him so much. And number three, it's hard to separate them, but bring back Felix and or Sylvester. One of them probably. You can put them together.

But, you know, yeah. Logan, I know, I know that Logan and Dolores shared the screen. but like by the show's own internal logic Logan is like the only character that we have that is actually not copied anywhere right like he was there I believe according to show's internal logic his his profile like pre-existed

West Road copying data but I could be wrong about that anyway he exists on as the forge or whatever the hell he was doing at this point in time to be clear just so we don't get point of order emails we know that the forge has been flooded I'm just gonna say yada yada yada

they'll figure out a way that Dolores remembers everybody. So whatever. So yeah, messy humans, bring them back. Shada Woodward, bring her back. Like, you know? I think that the best possible iteration of season five would be to go really small, have it all exist in Westworld. And go with, and this is not just because it was my idea,

but really, if the answer is, like, Jimmy Simpson cannot turn, it doesn't break bad. like imagine how like concise and satisfying the show could be if you spent eight episodes just sort of going through six months in Westworld. Save the cheerleader, save the world. The other possibility for that is if they're not trying to like trot around the globe and capture all these stunning futuristic architecture in order to give us a sense of a future society, if they're just out on good old Melody Ranch filming the Sweetwater Town. front and some like monument valley B roll or whatever that seems like they could spend that money back on the cast you know what I mean possibly um Danny where's your where's your optimism level for the fifth and final season of Westworld either a if we're going to get one or be if you will be tuning in to watch it I'm not some prognosticator I'd like whether TV shows get renewed that that's my question for you honestly first is like when a show like a show like like this ends the season four with literally every character could be dead except for dolores silly question but does that not my first thought when i kind of realized how many people

died was do you think that they're a little nervous with some of these actors not wanting to come back 100% yeah absolutely they've hedged their the only person they have to bring back is evan rachel wood and they could leave anyone else out if they wanted to So if the actor contracts are up for renewal and someone asks for too much money, then they might be like, well, maybe dead is dead. We finally decided it's permanent. This is where we draw the line. So absolutely, that's a reason to clear the decks for sure. And usually there is a salary bump after the fourth season of something.

That's a usual place for it. So I would guess it was budgetary. And I mean, again, it's really hard for me to predict what's happening in HBO right now because David Zazlov of Discovery is coming in and clearing house left and right. So if you had asked me like a month ago, I would have said, yeah, they'll let they'll let Westworld wrap up. It was a big marquee thing for them. They'll let them do their final season. Now I'm not sure.

The stakes are different than they were a month ago. Yeah, things are changing very quickly. And I think if it turns out that we don't get a fifth season, we can all just watch season one again and pretend it's season five. But also I think we can all acknowledge that we have Danny Hafeitz's bad attitude to blame for the lack of renewal. I actually, I am David Zazloff. I'm just in the Danny Hyford's first. Oh.

I thought you were, I thought you were Danny Zazloff, the like Logan Delos, like, A. Yeah, exactly. Uncle David is going to have some real, going to hear, got to get a real talking to about this show. Let's not tell David Zazlov that I just looked up the thing And she did indeed shoot him with her right hand Oh my God She grabbed the gun with her left and then But she shoots with her rights. Oh, well that's different.

Didn't he say reach with your left? Didn't he say reach with your left? But rewatching the scene, she reaches, it's like a quarter of a second, but she's shooting with her right, which does make it tough. I don't know why she's changing hands. It's a little odd. But she reached with her left and that's the point.

And so on that point alone, let's renew Westworld. Let's do this. Let's just wrap it all up. Let's do it one more time. David Schenmaker, anything you want to say before we go? Here's my final question for you. Let's say that they had just left everybody alive. I like left the host alive, but Dolores still was like,

everybody's dead or they're all going to die, including the hosts. Because there's got to be some host left standing out there, right? So Dolores is just like naive. says this is a done deal. I'm going to, I'm going to recreate the world in the sublime. So, so,

so storyline A is Dolores starting over at season one, episode one in the sublime to try to, to try to, to try to let humanity prove itself. Uh-huh. And storyline B is like, Bernard and Caleb and Stubbs,

uh, trying to help humans recreate the actual world on the ground. Which show do you want to watch? Um, that's a great question I think show I'm excited for like

something close to a clean slate yeah and then like as obvious and sort of clunky the clearing of the decks of all these characters were by killing them

bumping them off in the final two episodes of the series um I'm I admit it I'll admit it Ramin Chavati score kicked in

they slapped that blonde wig on Evan Richard Wood we're back in fucking sweetwater and I was like, cool, let's do it. Let's just start over. I'm tired of all this other stuff. Let's just start over. I just love post-apocalyptic shows.

Here's what, okay, here's my real last point. And I hate to be doing this. I hate to be like trying to second guess everything. But think about how excited we all are. And I'm going to include the perpetually downbeat Danny Hyvetson that all. Imagine how excited we're all going to be for season five, episode one, when it just, the train pulls into Sweetwater. Yeah?

Mm-hmm. Wouldn't it have just been so much better if that's how season four had started? Like, we spent a lot, we spent a lot of time, and there were some really good episodes, but we spent a lot of time and energy to get to the destruction of the earth

in a pretty empty way when, like, that could have been half an episode of backstory, exposition, if they had just started season four here. They also didn't need season three. I think an incredible thing is, I can't remember the last show I watched where you watched season four.

And you're like, you didn't need to know anything about, you really didn't need to know anything about season three to watch and enjoy 90. I don't even know what your questions would be because even season two, it's like, oh, Dolores is in Charlotte. And you would have put together on your own that Dolores is more like Charlotte. I don't even know what you needed to know from season three for this show. Yeah, if they got out of season two and they just spent season three, basically just robots burned down the world so that they can,

and Dolores recreates Westworld. That would have been a really nice. neat circle. I think that basically this all boils down to the first opinion that we all three agreed on at the start of this season, which was it was a mistake to leave the parks.

That was the coolest part of your show. And they're like 10-4, we heard you loud and clear, we're going back to Sweetwater. If this show gets canceled, we will never see Dungeons and Dragons world. We will never, we will

have like missed out on so many opportunities of just other worlds that we can hang out in. I'm not convinced we're gonna go to Dungeons and Dragons world in the final season anyway because... It's called the House of Dragon. It premieres next week, David. They like, they peg that too hard to Thrones and now they have to sort of like veer away from it, you know?

No, I know I'm just saying they could have stayed in the park and done so much fun stuff. I agree. I'm with you. All right, Danny Hyphids. Anything else do you want to say before we go? I said it as a joke in the beginning. I really do.

It's kind of a graveyard of stories. I just, I don't know. I, I, I, uh, I was, I was disappointed. I think that I, I don't know. I mean, I, I love theorizing about the show, but at the end, I'm a little sad. I'm sorry we landed here.

I'm so glad you did this show with us because otherwise we would not have had Why Fly or Cher Loris, two of my favorite things that came out of your mouth this season, among other things. I'm very happy we did this. I don't know how it would have processed any of this without you too. So even I actually like what Shoemaker said. Even if they cancel the show, we just do season one again pretend it's a simulation and we just rewatch it with the pot of view. And we should theorize and be like maybe this time William won't turn out to be a murdering sociopath. That would be great.

Maybe they could just not film it and they just edit season one again. like, you know, now musicians are like editing their albums. They just edit season one again. They're like, but it's now a simulation. Yeah. All right. I would totally watch that. You don't even have to film that.

Well, stay tuned then for Westworld season five, Taylor's version. We will be here. Maybe. We have been David Schoonmaker, Danny Hyfitts, and Joyner Robinson. Thank you so much for joining us on the Presti TV podcast feed for this season. I'll be back tomorrow with Better Call Saul. And thank you all so much. Bye.

And we'll all be back for me. Monarch next week. Not really.