Summary: Flashbacks show that Serac's brother Jean created Rehoboam to create a better world. The project was funded by Liam Sr. who was greedy and only in it for the financial benefit. Serac ended up confining his brother with all of the other people who Rehoboam deemed as threats to humanity. Serac kills Liam and stages his death to look like an accident. In the present, Dolores and Caleb travel with Liam to get away from Serac's men. Liam is hesitant to help them but when it becomes clear that Serac doesn't care about Liam's life, Liam gives them access to Rehoboam. Along the way, Caleb is injected with genre and the trio escape from Serac's men in a car chase. Dolores leaks Rehoboam's predictions for everyone's future to everyone in the world. With the balance towards chaos tipping, Serac is frustrated. Dolores and Caleb pick up Ash and Giggles for help. Liam is deemed useless and they debate what to do with him. Liam antagonizes Caleb, Ash and Giggles about their futures leading to Ash fatally shooting and killing Liam. Meanwhile, Martin is with Bernard and he leaks the information about Rehoboam at Dolores' request. When Serac videos in to find out what happened, Martin detonates a bomb, dying in the process. Bernard and Stubbs escape.
The Good: As ever, this show remains pretty beautiful to look at. There is a lot of creativity involved with the presentation of the show, and the show does carry an almost artistic feel from scene to scene. The heavy emphasis on slower shots, the futuristic environment, and the lovely score all give the show a visual beauty that most TV shows don't accomplish. Add in some terrific performances from the main cast, and nearly every scene provides something impressive to look at, even if there isn't very much substance. This show has always been impeccable with creating its cinematic feel and I think this episode is a great example of this. While the scenes with Serac weren't telling an incredible story by any means, I was still gripped by the acting. While the car chase sequence was pretty dull overall, the episode tried many new things, including showing us the effects of the party drug genre, to ensure that there was always something interesting going on visually. It was nice to get a thorough backstory on Serac in this episode."Westworld" typically has had problems with keeping things too mysterious for too long, but here I'm pleased to say that they corrected that problem. It's important that we understand who Serac is and what he's about for his conflict with Dolores to mean anything. I thought his backstory was edited nicely into the episode and it did offer some interesting insights into his motives and why he is so motivated to ensure Rehoboam is a success. What I like most is that Serac isn't portrayed as purely villainous. In this episode, Dolores seems like more of a villain than he does. I appreciate that this show is blurring the lines between villains and heroes this season, even though it makes it hard to root for anybody, this does help the season feel unlike anything else on television right now. Furthermore, having the show not pick any sides makes its exploration of its themes feel more meaningful and open for interpretation. Some other things pleased me about this episode. I thought that young Serac was perfectly cast and he did actually look like a younger Vincent Cassel. I thought the Martin and Bernard story was pretty solid as well. There wasn't anything too spectacular, but it did build to a lovely moment where Martin blew himself up and gave Serac yet another piece of bad news. The sequence of everyone getting their own profile leaked from Rehoboam was very well done and I appreciated the episode's emphasis on exploring this idea. The Bad: Caleb's drug trip wasn't done as well as I had hoped. There were some neat bits of cinematography but I never really felt like Caleb was high on a drug. It all felt so artificial, almost like it was tacked on at the last minute. The drug also didn't have any effect on the story whatsoever which was underwhelming and made it feel like a useless addition to the episode. For an already bloated series, I don't want to be wasting time on things like this. The Dolores/Liam/Caleb story wasn't interesting at all. There were no real storylines or conflicts for any of the characters and the whole thing was bland. The only character who had anything to do was Liam who had to debate between sticking with Serac or giving Dolores what she wants. The story wasn't any good because it was completely predictable and generic with no effort put in to make me get invested. This issue exemplifies a much larger problem with this episode. Even though it was put together well enough and advanced the plot in interesting ways, I'm still struggling to really care about anything I'm watching. The characters are pretty bland, there aren't any interesting conflicts, and the action has no clear stakes. The show still feels as emotionally empty as the season premier. While myself and lots of other people had major issues with season 2, at least that season provided emotionally satisfying scenes, something that this season doesn't even attempt most of the time. The Unknown: What did Liam see in Caleb's past? Who is he? What has he done? Why doesn't Caleb remember it? What were those flashes? What's in the bag that Caleb got at the end of the episode? How is the world going to react to the Rehoboam reveal? How will Serac fight against this? Best Moment: Caleb's speech to Liam admonishing the entire concept of Rehoboam was the most emotionally resonant moment of the episode for me. Character of the Episode: Serac. Conclusion: This episode did a lot of things right, but the emotional emptiness I'm feeling is preventing me from fully enjoying anything this season is attempting. Once again I'm left feeling underwhelmed, and with just 3 episodes left to go, I'm not sure that this season has any chance of building up to a climax that will change that. Score: 57
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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