In the end, HBO's "Westworld" ran for 36 episodes over six years. There are ongoing arguments over the relative quality of the four seasons, but I enjoyed it the whole way through. And though the creators might have planned a fifth season, I don't find one necessary. The cold, ambiguous finale is a perfectly suitable way to close out a very difficult, often impenetrable show. I know I didn't understand what was going on half of the time, but I admire Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's ambitions, and a lot of good work by talented cast and crew members.
The episodes below are unranked and ordered by airdate. Spoilers ahead.
"The Original" - The series premiere was an event, showing off this new universe full of sinister robot "hosts" and the even more sinister human beings behind them. Characters are introduced, the rules of the game are announced, and then we get to watch the fantasy grow darker and darker. The line between the hosts and the guests is already blurry, and the show is already playing with time and memory to good effect. And has the swatting of a fly ever been more portentous?
"Tromp L'Oeil" - A big turning point episode for the first season that reveals Bernard is a host, with one of the great lines of the series - "It doesn't look like anything to me." This is also the episode where Maeve finagles her way into Operations and menaces Sylvester and Felix, Dr. Ford reveals himself as a Bigger Bad than he'd let on, and Theresa ends up dead. The first season was great at building up tension and juggling tones, and this is a great example for both. What did happen to Sylvester and Felix?
"The Bicameral Mind" - The finale of season one had a big reveal that many fans managed to work out weeks ahead of time, but I thought that it still had plenty of impact. Several characters reach big, decisive moments as the massacre we've been waiting for all season finally takes place. The death of Dr. Ford is a highlight, and I still find it hard to believe that we had Anthony Hopkins as a regular on this show, even if it was only for one season. He certainly proved impossible to replace.
"The Riddle of the Sphinx" - I haven't talked about Ed Harris and the Man in Black yet, who is the show's most memorable human character. Here, we delve into his history and his family ties, especially his relationship with his father-in-law, James Delos. The fidelity trials are some of the most fascinating and horrific bits of science fiction we see in the show. Ed Harris and Peter Mullan both deliver unnerving performances, especially when it's revealed what happened to the rest of the Delos clan.
"Akane no Mai" - It's too bad that we didn't spend more time in the Eastern version of the Westworld park. The show got Rinko Kikuchi and Hiroyuki Sanada, and clearly spent considerable resources to create their Japanese village and outfit all the samurai. The repeated musical cues, echoing the series premiere, are especially fun. However, the MVP here is Thandiwe Newton. She's always been one of the standouts in the cast, and here she's juggling Japanese dialogue and a lot of action scenes beautifully.
"Kiksuya" - The best episode of the series gives us a look at this universe from the point of a background character, Akecheta, played by Zahn McClarnon. Their tribe may be fictional, but there's still a strong sense of authenticity to the experience of the Native American characters in this episode, who try to make sense of Westworld from a very different cultural context. McClarnon's performance, a Nirvana cover, and stellar direction contribute to some of the show's most arresting moments.
"The Passenger" - Though highly convoluted, the second season ends in a satisfying way, with many of the hosts escaping into the Sublime, and a few others making their way into the outside world. The extended ninety minute running time, the convergence of so many stories, and the another round of big reveals and new mysteries make this too much of a good thing at times. However, it's a great farewell to the park, and the post-credits sequence is one of the show's greatest cliffhangers.
"The Absence of Field" - Tessa Thompson took on a more central role in the later seasons, when Dolores decided to use a Charlotte Hale host body and killed the original. Here, we see the Hale host struggling to reconcile her AI existence with the life of the human being she has replaced - both ultimately influencing her path forward. Meanwhile, the Rehoboam story with Dolores and Caleb is rolling along, which I seem to like better than most viewers, especially the way it treats the idea of predestination.
"Generation Loss" - Just when you thought that the fourth season was going to be relatively straightforward, it's revealed that we've been watching asynchronous timelines yet again. I thought the fourth season was actually better than the previous two in many ways, especially the AI-run dystopia that it presents, inverting the original premise. Hale makes for an excellent villain, and Caleb is a far more sympathetic protagonist than anyone else in the series, and worth rooting for.
"Fidelity" - Finally, this episode doesn't quite share the same premise as the 2009 horror movie "Triangle," but it shares a lot of the nightmare imagery, as Hale creates multiple copies of Caleb to interrogate, who quickly become a pile of corpses littering the latest version's escape route. It's a terrifically dark scenario that builds on the existential horror of "Riddle of the Sphinx," and gives Aaron Paul a chance to give a really memorable performance.
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