Summary: In the real world, Dolores infiltrates the company Incite by killing a shareholder named Gerald and taking his money. She develops a relationship with Liam, the son of the founder of Incite and works to get information about the company from him. She soon discovers that he doesn't have access to the deeper workings of the company but he knows who does. Right then, Liam's bodyguard Martin realizes Dolores is an infiltrator and knocks her out and attempts to kill her quietly. It backfires and Martin is killed and replaced by a host, though Dolores is shot in the process. Meanwhile, Caleb is an ex-soldier who is struggling to get by and can't get over the death of his friend. He does petty crime jobs by night using the RICO app. He decides to pursue a purpose and ditches his therapy program and ends up meeting an injured Dolores. Meanwhile, Bernard has been blamed for the deaths in Westworld and is a fugitive in hiding. He decides to go back to Westworld. Maeve wakes up in a Nazi-Germany style theme park.
The Good: This show is as beautiful as ever. The effects, the acting, the cinematography, the soundtrack, all of it is terrific. The presentation for this show has always been a high point. Even when the story gets too convoluted, or the shallowness of the characters gets exposed, the show still looks great and is easy to watch. The introduction to Caleb is the best stuff in the episode. He's a new character, so the show puts in effort to give him some development and create a meaningful character arc for him. Caleb is an ex-soldier struggling to get over his past and move on, something that isn't helped by the horrible class system in this futuristic world. It's easy to sympathize with Caleb, immediately making him a far better character than most that we've seen on this show so far. I appreciate that time was given to set up his storyline, making his encounter with Dolores at the end of the episode mean something. Caleb wants something real, and now he seems to think he's found it in Dolores. It's ironic considering that Dolores could very well be the most false thing he has encountered that entire day, including the robot he talked to over the phone. The Bad: Unfortunately this show is still misfiring quite a bit. Outside of Caleb, every character feels way too shallow and uninteresting to keep my interest. Dolores isn't a character anymore, she's just a thing that wants to kill people which I'm not at all interested in watching. It became tiresome last season, and I don't want to see Dolores on a path of destruction anymore. The other established characters don't have much of interest to do either. Bernard is performed tremendously as ever, but his arc in this episode is rushed and uninteresting. We don't have any reason to care about him at this point, and I'm finding it tough to even describe his personality despite knowing this character for 2 full seasons now. When you take away the mysterious plot elements from the show, these shallow characters are exposed, as they were here. That leads me to my second problem. I'm glad the show has stopped with the convoluted time jumping (I hope), but the problem is that we've been given nothing to take its place. Part of what made season 1 and 2 so entertaining was that it was really fun trying to puzzle out what was actually going on, and these dynamic plot elements were able to make up for the poor character work to a certain degree. But without any of that here, we're left with an empty show that doesn't offer anything different from your average TV drama with bland, 1-dimensional characters. This episode was also paced pretty poorly. It's a really long episode at 68 minutes and somehow the episode manages to feel both rushed and slow because of some strange choices in presentation. The episode is paced very slowly as we get countless shots where not much is happening. The show enjoys showing off its impressive cinematography, but when there is no drama happening on screen, it can be pretty dull to watch so many shots of just the environment and the actors doing their jobs. But the episode also feels rushed because it skims rapidly through what should be the most powerful moments, not giving them a chance to stick with me. Take Liam and Dolores' relationship as an example. It's established, developed and destroyed so quickly that I feel nothing for either of the characters, who by the end of the episode I don't understand any better than I did at the start of the episode. It's all so rushed. And yet it still feels slow because the episode takes forever to actually get from the start of the relationship to the end because there are so many wasted minutes spent developing a plot that I'm not at all invested in. With Dolores working to overthrow humanity in the real world, all of the stuff happening in the theme parks feels unimportant in comparison. As such, I don't care at all about what Bernard and Maeve are up to. The samurai world in the last season ended up being a waste of time, so how can I believe that this Nazi Germany world will be of importance. The Unknown: What are Dolores' plans for Incite? What is she trying to do? Who is this Serac that she's trying to get in contact with? Why has Bernard been isolated from Dolores? Does she have any plans for him? Why is he going back to Westworld? What will come from Caleb meeting Dolores? Will she recruit him in her plans to destroy humanity? Or will she want to destroy him? What is Maeve going to do in the Nazi Germany theme park? The only scene that leaves me guessing about time jumping is the one with Charlotte. When did this happen? I thought Dolores was Charlotte. Has she created multiple versions of herself and released them in the world? How many other Dolores' are there? Best Moment: Caleb unsubscribing from his therapy and vowing to move on and find something real was one of the few moments that stuck with me. Character of the Episode: Caleb. Conclusion: This was a pretty dull season premier. I commend "Westworld" for trying to reinvent itself but it just didn't work since the show failed to create a new form of itself that's worth watching. I'll keep watching for the rest of the season, but if the show's quality remains as weak as this episode, I'll likely be dropping the show. Score: 53
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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