So before starting to rant a little bit, I must say I enjoyed this season more than season 3 and probably even season 2. Its writing is nowhere near season 1's level of writing and dialogue, but it's still decent and better written than season 3. There isn't really that much of an emotional connection with the characters, but they grow on you as the season goes, especially Frankie and Caleb. As someone else said, and I have said before when watching season 3, it's obvious that the writers had only good materials and ideas for one season and now they have to come up with inferior ideas and writing for the unnecessary subsequent seasons.
The fact that the whole population of real-world got extinct is a really cool idea, if this was the finale of the whole show and there wasn't another season. So this begs the question, what in the actual f are we gonna see in the next season? This whole show's theme and idea is maker vs creation and "what actually makes us human" and real humans vs androids, so what exactly are they gonna tap into when every actual real human is dead and there is no one in the real world? I guess Frankie and her girlfriend are still alive and going to the place with all the rescued outliers, but all the major characters of this show are dead. So are we gonna just watch a simulated Westworld for the final season?
I don't mind shows and movies being mysterious, unless they are mysterious all the way and just don't want to reveal anything. My main problem with season 2 was this exact problem. Westworld season 1 was mysterious and vague enough, and asked a lot of questions, season 2 was the place it needed to give us answers but didn't. This season is not as vague and mysterious as season 2, but if I were to explain the plot of this season to someone, I couldn't put my fingers on it, because even though everything we've seen in this season has led to this, they still kinda feel disjointed.
Bernard being all mysterious and vague is the worst part. It's nice to see setup and payoff (Bernard leaving the gun for Hale), but if you think logically, there wasn't any need for this to even happen.
Bernard kept saying he has seen all the possible outcomes but there is not one that he survives and the world needs to end so they can make a better one in the Sublime. But I don't buy it. The way Bernard died and everything that happened after it could've been avoided if Bernard just killed William. How would Bernard die again and the whole world end the same way if Bernard just killed Willaim? He could've easily ambushed him and taken him out, then went to Hale and crushed her core and reprogrammed the tower. How would that not save the current actual real world? And not to mention Hale even needing a pistol to save the new world. Like you're telling me she couldn't have brought something bigger like a shotgun or a sniper to kill William then and there so Bernard wouldn't've needed to put the gun there as a cheap way for writers to give Bernard a purpose and a setup and payoff? What was the point of Hale getting a new body if she was gonna be on the verge of dying for taking a few bullets from William? Why didn't she bring more mags for her pistol? The whole thing just seems illogical to me, but then again, I guess this is the problem you're always gonna get when you introduce "I've seen all the possible outcomes and we always lose" to your story.
Another thing that bothers me is the whole tower thing. We only see one city getting ruled by this tower, we never see the whole country or other countries for that matter, so I don't get how this tower works and if there are many towers all over the world and with those mini speakers everywhere. So I don't know the scale of this as I said in my other reviews, therefore I don't see how she infiltrated the whole world, and 7 billion people were under her control and just died from "The Game".
I also don't get why they think the new world is permanent and Hale just abandons it like the water that produces the electricity for this fake world to exist isn't gonna run out in a few hundred maybe even fewer years. Not to mention that Dolores' core was out in the open.
Also, I forgot to mention how funny Chrissie's plot line is, the whole could've been explained and shown in only one episode or even less, but they stretched it to 7 episodes and the whole plot line is just "he's not real" (audience gasps), "now you're not even real", "this whole world isn't even real!", "Now my friend isn't real!", "My boss? He isn't real either!" (audience gasp again), and one last "twist", "Teddy isn't real!" (audience faint at the sheer unpredictability of the twist). Like it feels like the whole plot line serves as a thing to pad the "shocking" twist counter of this season rather than being a plot line related to the main plot. I'm not saying this plot line's twists are bad, they're actually good, especially in the last episode, but they reveal so much of the obvious in this episode as a Dun Dun Dunnn twist that it gets exhausting and laughable.
So rant aside, this season and this finale were thoroughly enjoyable and more so than season 3 and maybe 2, but it's not flawless and makes weird choices and most of the plot lines seem pointless after these past two episodes, and that they just made up some unnecessary mysteries just to give us few goods, but lots of obvious twists and reveals for the sake of being a twist. Twists are good, I love twists, and stories without twists are forgettable, good twists can make a mediocre plot a masterpiece, but when all you do is being vague and mysterious for the sake of being vague, and pad the run time and give twists after twists for the sake of giving twists, the story becomes less uninteresting, especially when the writing of these reveals and twists and setup-and-payoffs aren't that great (the gun that Hale needed for some reason).
As I said, this season was enjoyable all the way, maybe not the first few episodes but it picked up really fast and had some of the most enjoyable episodes of the show, only that the structure and story bits, and character motivations were weird.
I've been following this show for 6 years since it first started, so I'm obviously not gonna stop now, the show has had its ups and downs, and this season was mostly ups, but this finale still didn't feel satisfying as the conclusion of these past 7 episodes. So here's hoping the next season is a decent enough conclusion to the show and they drop the unnecessary vagueness and answer the 6-year-old unanswered questions.
I must as always credit Ramin Djawadi for the great compositions and also covers he does for this show. The music is probably my favorite thing about this show now and he does a really good job every time. The music in this season was just "sublime".
The fact that the whole population of real-world got extinct is a really cool idea, if this was the finale of the whole show and there wasn't another season. So this begs the question, what in the actual f are we gonna see in the next season? This whole show's theme and idea is maker vs creation and "what actually makes us human" and real humans vs androids, so what exactly are they gonna tap into when every actual real human is dead and there is no one in the real world? I guess Frankie and her girlfriend are still alive and going to the place with all the rescued outliers, but all the major characters of this show are dead. So are we gonna just watch a simulated Westworld for the final season?
I don't mind shows and movies being mysterious, unless they are mysterious all the way and just don't want to reveal anything. My main problem with season 2 was this exact problem. Westworld season 1 was mysterious and vague enough, and asked a lot of questions, season 2 was the place it needed to give us answers but didn't. This season is not as vague and mysterious as season 2, but if I were to explain the plot of this season to someone, I couldn't put my fingers on it, because even though everything we've seen in this season has led to this, they still kinda feel disjointed.
Bernard being all mysterious and vague is the worst part. It's nice to see setup and payoff (Bernard leaving the gun for Hale), but if you think logically, there wasn't any need for this to even happen.
Bernard kept saying he has seen all the possible outcomes but there is not one that he survives and the world needs to end so they can make a better one in the Sublime. But I don't buy it. The way Bernard died and everything that happened after it could've been avoided if Bernard just killed William. How would Bernard die again and the whole world end the same way if Bernard just killed Willaim? He could've easily ambushed him and taken him out, then went to Hale and crushed her core and reprogrammed the tower. How would that not save the current actual real world? And not to mention Hale even needing a pistol to save the new world. Like you're telling me she couldn't have brought something bigger like a shotgun or a sniper to kill William then and there so Bernard wouldn't've needed to put the gun there as a cheap way for writers to give Bernard a purpose and a setup and payoff? What was the point of Hale getting a new body if she was gonna be on the verge of dying for taking a few bullets from William? Why didn't she bring more mags for her pistol? The whole thing just seems illogical to me, but then again, I guess this is the problem you're always gonna get when you introduce "I've seen all the possible outcomes and we always lose" to your story.
Another thing that bothers me is the whole tower thing. We only see one city getting ruled by this tower, we never see the whole country or other countries for that matter, so I don't get how this tower works and if there are many towers all over the world and with those mini speakers everywhere. So I don't know the scale of this as I said in my other reviews, therefore I don't see how she infiltrated the whole world, and 7 billion people were under her control and just died from "The Game".
I also don't get why they think the new world is permanent and Hale just abandons it like the water that produces the electricity for this fake world to exist isn't gonna run out in a few hundred maybe even fewer years. Not to mention that Dolores' core was out in the open.
Also, I forgot to mention how funny Chrissie's plot line is, the whole could've been explained and shown in only one episode or even less, but they stretched it to 7 episodes and the whole plot line is just "he's not real" (audience gasps), "now you're not even real", "this whole world isn't even real!", "Now my friend isn't real!", "My boss? He isn't real either!" (audience gasp again), and one last "twist", "Teddy isn't real!" (audience faint at the sheer unpredictability of the twist). Like it feels like the whole plot line serves as a thing to pad the "shocking" twist counter of this season rather than being a plot line related to the main plot. I'm not saying this plot line's twists are bad, they're actually good, especially in the last episode, but they reveal so much of the obvious in this episode as a Dun Dun Dunnn twist that it gets exhausting and laughable.
So rant aside, this season and this finale were thoroughly enjoyable and more so than season 3 and maybe 2, but it's not flawless and makes weird choices and most of the plot lines seem pointless after these past two episodes, and that they just made up some unnecessary mysteries just to give us few goods, but lots of obvious twists and reveals for the sake of being a twist. Twists are good, I love twists, and stories without twists are forgettable, good twists can make a mediocre plot a masterpiece, but when all you do is being vague and mysterious for the sake of being vague, and pad the run time and give twists after twists for the sake of giving twists, the story becomes less uninteresting, especially when the writing of these reveals and twists and setup-and-payoffs aren't that great (the gun that Hale needed for some reason).
As I said, this season was enjoyable all the way, maybe not the first few episodes but it picked up really fast and had some of the most enjoyable episodes of the show, only that the structure and story bits, and character motivations were weird.
I've been following this show for 6 years since it first started, so I'm obviously not gonna stop now, the show has had its ups and downs, and this season was mostly ups, but this finale still didn't feel satisfying as the conclusion of these past 7 episodes. So here's hoping the next season is a decent enough conclusion to the show and they drop the unnecessary vagueness and answer the 6-year-old unanswered questions.
I must as always credit Ramin Djawadi for the great compositions and also covers he does for this show. The music is probably my favorite thing about this show now and he does a really good job every time. The music in this season was just "sublime".