‘The chance to choose:’ Westworld’s third season delivers humanity from itself
The third installment of Michael Crieghton’s novel adaptation, Westworld III, questions technological reliance and pushes free will
SPOILER WARNING This review contains some spoilers of Westworld episodes. If you are not current on the seasons, I would not continue.
When Westworld III ended, some were left feeling a little less than enthusiastic. This season’s story felt unnecessarily convoluted and often left viewers shrugging. Delores (Evan Rachel Wood) is many of our characters, and the idea, though interesting, and even with the inkling last season on what we were in for — was still a disappointment because there are so many other characters it could have been.
Delores working with versions of herself in husks of former Westworld park characters was hard to watch. It’s not much different than how William (played by the brilliant Jimmi Simpson) aka the Man in Black (Ed Harris) treats Delores. As each gets killed except Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) there is no love lost. Thompson’s version comes to this conclusion as well. A connection to Delores isn’t there, not for viewers, not for her clones. It has been easy to find reasons to hate Delores’ story; Hate what happened to her, but mostly hate what she became.
Disliking a character in a show like Westworld is a dangerous gamble. Viewers have had many dynamic characters to root for every season. Yet in the third season, the point of view and the characters are very limited to Delores’ perspective. There isn’t as much relationship building as the past seasons. That’s not to say the acting isn’t beautifully and masterfully done. There are scenes capable of that emotional release fans are used to, but they’re too far between everything else. Keeping viewers in the same emotional space as the characters, a ‘loop’ — Newton at the behest of Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel) on the hunt for Wood and Caleb (Aaron Paul), who are being tracked by Bernard (Jeffery Wright) and Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), who all become the target for ‘the man in black’ — was … redundant?
The circular writing did make viewers feel empty, but it also created a deterrent. Unraveling what was going on wasn’t worth it for some viewers, bored after the first few episodes of the season. The chase; who was going to get caught by whom! No one cared. And what did that do to the storyline? It muddied it.
The storyline empathizes with Newton and not Wood. When the two finally battle, it was anticlimactic. Maybe, because we are living in a time when people are being pitted against one another in a fight for life and death, or perhaps the systematic division which exists, but this battle felt tactless. And while it could have been used to pivot and address something more important, it fell flat.
Questions went unanswered: What would happen to the characters Newton saved? Would ‘our world’ be destroyed, was it already? Is it better to choose or have that choice made?
The third season did however reveal one surprise. The distaste for Wood’s character allowed for a Kansas City Shuffle. No one suspected Wood was on the side of humanity all along, and especially not Newton until the final episode.
In the end, Wright and Hemsworth had the key to the Sublime. Aaron Paul’s (Caleb Nichols) story, was on its own intriguing, but I don’t see why we needed him. The way he was inserted into the story as the human connection to this evil AI, it didn’t work. Love Aaron Paul, he was my favorite character in Bojack Horseman (Todd). Accepting every role he is in, he’s one of those actors that you don’t even think of as acting. Maybe if the season were longer, or perhaps in the fourth installment, his story will have more weight.
Seeing that the ‘World’ outside of Westworld wasn’t so different from our own now, in America, was depressing. Even in the far future, a chasm between rich and poor remains. And while paying attention to actual socio-economic conditions and current temperatures in racial America is good and necessary writing, because it wasn’t allowed to be the star of the season, having it at all takes away from the point it was struggling to make. Either make the point or don’t.
How our world differed is the supreme reliance on Artificial Intelligence and computers to define humanity and more important ‘criminality.’ Entire criminal empires, run on cell phone apps, as a way to herd ‘bad’ people into ‘order.’ Taking away free will, the kind of person we are and will be is a terrifying prospect.
What happens when social media is the tool by which we judge each other? What happens to ‘free will’ when being ‘rated’ is standard?
This was the most compelling reveal. When we find out Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel) had (AI) Reboeheim the whole time, speaking in his ear. Holy Shit! A computer was making all of the man’s choices and by extension the world’s. OF course, Delores knew all along. And it’s left to Newton to deliver it to the viewer.
Without ruining too much of what concludes season three, the final scenes with the original Delores and Newton were cathartic. Delores, like Reboeheim, was constantly evolving. Two AI systems fighting to control or condemn humanity should cause pause, knowing how much society relies on technology.
Saying goodbye to a character is never easy, especially not one where viewers spent so much time at odds with their own emotions. It was a good end for her.
“I’ve lived many lives. I traded one role for another. I choose to see the beauty”
