Westworld Season 4 (Mini-Review)

Westworld Season 4 sees Hale seeking to create a perfect world for her fellow Hosts. It has been seven years since Caleb Nichols and Maeve helped free humanity from Rehoboam. Yet that hasn't changed humanity for the better or worse. Caleb has found peace living with a wife and daughter. But his peace is interrupted when Hale finds him. Caleb and Maeve pair up to stop whatever plans Hale seeks to enact. Westworld Season 4 was released on HBO in 2022.

Many people did not like the third season of Westworld. I didn't hate it as I saw it more as a bridge between Seasons 2 and 4. I guessed that for the fourth seasons things would need to be set up so that it would make sense. My assumption paid off as the fourth season is amazing like the first two. There's the confusing timelines that make figuring out what's actually going on difficult. The twists and turns land extremely hard. Which is good but emotionally draining.

Hale makes a great villain. Yet there is also depth to her. The horrors she inflicts on humanity are for what she sees as the way for Hosts to ascend to a higher plane of existence. She's not cruel for cruelty's sake. One great moment of the season happens when a character tells her that Hosts are killing themselves because they hate her that much.

Hale ends up making cities for the Hosts to live in. Instead of Hosts catering to humans, it's the other way around. Now humans live only to serve the needs of the Hosts. The plan is for Hosts to eventually ascend to the next stage of their evolution. But things don't go as planned. It turns out that Hosts prefer playing human. Some even kill themselves when talking to those not under Hale's control. It seems they're addicted to humanity just as much as we are.

Season 3 ended with the promise of Maeve and Caleb fighting for humanity's freedom. But at the beginning of Season 4 humanity's state seems to be the same. Sure they're no longer controlled by a supercomputer, but Caleb still has the job he had before. He just no longer has a cool robot companion. I think it shows that we're stuck in our own loops even when given the freedom to choose a different destiny for ourselves.

We finally get to see what Bernard encountered in the Sublime. It turns out that he saw different paths for humanity and decided to fight for their survival. This even though he won't survive if he decides that fate for himself. He really shows what kind of man as he's willing to die for a cause. He is willing to die for those that would rather kill him.

Dolores died at the end of last season but a different iteration of the character appears. Instead of going by Dolores, she is known as Christina. Her place in the timeline is the most difficult to figure out. I went between her being in one of Hale's cities to just being in a simulation. It's not until the final episode that you find out when/where she is.

I would highly recommend Westworld Season 4 to fans of Westworld. I would also recommend Westworld Season 4 to fans of science fiction.