The mind-blowing seventh episode of Westworld Season 4 left me with one huge question: What’s real and what isn’t on Westworld? Keep reading for my best spoiler-filled guess.
Into the Sublime
The episode begins with Bernard in one of his many simulations. This time, he and Maeve are breaking into the Hoover Dam to open the door to the Sublime. But Maeve realizes they are already in the Sublime when Bernard mentions they’ll have other chances if their mission fails. Bernard tells Maeve, “I’ve been through every simulation, down every possible path, every strategy, and the outcome is always the same … extinction.”
It’s as if Bernard is playing a video game over and over until he can get to the end, dying thousands of times in the process. In this sense, it reminded me of Edge of Tomorrow, where Tom Cruise lives hundreds of lives until he finally figures out how to defeat the alien invaders.
When the scene shifts back to Bernard and Akecheta, Bernard reveals that he’s seen a path. But he can’t do it alone. He needs to get to the Tower, and if he can, he can save humanity as well as themselves.
Then we’re right back to the dam, reliving the exact same scene, but one where Bernard and Maeve escape. We’re led to believe we are back in the real world with Bernard carrying out his plan down the one available path. But I’m not sure that’s true.
Now, I believe almost all of Bernard’s scenes prior to this episode have been part of his last-ditch chance to save humanity in the real world. But in this episode, I’m beginning to suspect all — or at least most — of the Bernard scenes were part of his endless simulations in the Sublime. Either that or he and Maeve are really dead, along with Halores, leaving almost no one left to play out the season’s final episode.
Here is the best evidence supporting my theory. First, when Bernard and Maeve enter the Tower, he tells her there’s no way to save this world; everyone is going to die. This does not sound like the man who has seen a path to saving humanity, which we know he has by the time he’s talking to Akecheta after finishing his simulations.
Next, the scene in the Tower where William shoots Bernard is in broad daylight. But an instant later, the scene continues at night. This leads me to believe these are not the same events. I think at least one, if not both, are taking place in the simulation.
Finally, there are Bernard’s last words to the image of himself on the tablet: “There’s time only for one more game, if you choose to give her that choice. You can’t miss; reach with your left hand.” It’s as if he’s talking to himself about strategy for the next simulation. If this isn’t a huge clue, I don’t know what is.
Where is Delores?
I’ve gone back and forth all season, theorizing that Delores is either in a simulation or the real world. Well, Teddy has answered that big question … sort of.
But first, whatever Delores is and wherever she may be, she has full-on godlike powers, which she displays when she and Teddy go back to Olympiad. She can control everyone as if she’s the author of their stories, the architect of this world, whatever it may be.
And she’s clearly affecting the real world because when Frankie and Stubbs arrive at Olympiad, everyone is fleeing the building, just like Delores told them to do.
But you know who Teddy and Delores never encounter in Olympiad? Frankie and Stubbs! Even though they’re inside the building going to find Caleb. And even though Frankie and Stubbs are seen exiting the same corridor Delores and Teddy entered a second before.
By Delores’s last scene, after William has instructed the controlled humans to kill one another, she’s confused as to why the people she’s talking to won’t bend to her will.
Teddy tells her: “They can’t see you, none of them can.”
Delores asks: “Why can’t these people see me?”
Teddy replies: “Because you’re not in this world. It’s real, but you’re not.“
So, is she in a simulation? Or is she somehow in the AI controlling the world? One thing she apparently is not is a host version of Delores co-existing with the humans. (Farewell to last week’s theory!) But this leaves so many unanswered questions given the seemingly real humans she’s interacted with in past episodes.
Another option, if we’re going back to the original theory, is that she’s in a simulation within the Sublime, where it looks like Season 5 might take place. I can’t wait to see how all of this comes together next week because right now, I’m a bit baffled.
The Real Big-Bad
With so much focus on Halores this season, it was easy to forget about William. But by the end of the episode, the original big bad, the Man in Black himself, is back in charge. Host William’s encounter with real William convinces him that their true purpose is not to transcend but to destroy, to burn the world down until only the cockroaches remain. Host William embraces this nihilistic view and sets about to burn everything down — and maybe even destroy the Sublime.
I had thought Halores’s growing madness would lead to this, but instead, it looks like it was the Man in Black all along. Which, after four seasons of Westworld, seems fitting.
Loose Ends
There are quite a few, and whether they’ll all get tied up by the season finale remains to be seen. Here’s a short list.
What was Hale’s plan? This episode, Halores decides to transcend, at least until Maeve stops her. More hosts have killed themselves in the last three days than in the previous two decades combined. Halores says that if she doesn’t change plans now, there will be fewer of them alive tomorrow. She tells William, “You have a day left to preside over your city. Enjoy it.”
Then she records a message for the hosts: “This is the final day for our kind to visit their cities. It’s time for us to leave behind our human bodies, to rid ourselves of our sentimental allegiances. To evolve into the species that we were meant to become.”
At first, I assumed she and her hosts were transcending to the Sublime. However, earlier in the episode, Bernard says she doesn’t have the key (which happens to be inside Bernard’s head). So where was she going? It has to be more than transcending to those strange, tall, armless robots where the pearls from the transcendent hosts are docked, right? Though maybe the fact these new robots (hosts?) don’t have arms has something to do with Halores mutilating her own left arm. Perhaps she’s desperate to get out of her human body, though what these armless creatures are supposed to do remains a complete mystery.
The Cities. Halores mentions that she is shutting down the cities — plural — which means New York is not the only one under her control. I wonder how many other cities are left, though I doubt we’ll get the answer to this question. She also suggested to Caleb-279 that she was going to put humanity in cold storage. However, it’s hard to imagine she could put the remaining human race into cryogenic storage like she did real William. So, maybe cold storage was a figure of speech for killing all of humanity once and for all.
What was Delores doing in the tub? Maybe she was trying to kill herself after Teddy tells her what she really is. But I don’t think that’s the case. Instead, I think she is being reborn, just like when the hosts are remade and emerge from that white pool. The person who emerges is no longer Christina but Delores.
Will Stubbs survive? Before the team breaks up and Bernard and Maeve head for the Tower, Stubbs asks if they’ll make it. Bernard implies they won’t, but then he tells Stubbs to “go left at the fork,” a decision we appear to see Stubbs make at the end when he’s trying to get Caleb and Frankie out of the subway. Or maybe when he turns left and encounters Caleb. Regardless, was Bernard telling him how to save Frankie or how to save himself as well?
Delores does not recognize Caleb. When Teddy and Delores pass Caleb-279 in Olympiad, she doesn’t recognize him, and Teddy calls him a “ghost.” This suggests whoever Delores is in Season 4, she is not quite the Delores of Season 3 unless she had her memories erased. And, by the way, what the heck is Teddy that he knows so much?
Who is the “her” Bernard is referring to when he tells himself there’s time for one more game? My guess is Maeve. She was supposed to be the weapon, but so far, all we’ve seen her do is destroy a few giant robots and hold her own against Halores. I expected bigger things from our favorite samurai sword-wielding super-powered host! It has to be Maeve.