Westworld cast and crew break down last night’s mind-blowing twists

Westworld came hard out of the gate in 2016 with a thought-provoking story about androids becoming self-aware and fighting back against their human masters. From the start, mind-blowing twists were a big part of the show’s identity, but there were diminishing returns in seasons 2 and 3. Now, Westworld has pulled off the biggest twist of its existence: it’s good again.

Last night’s episode, “Generation Loss,” not only had twists on twists: they were effective, bringing us back to the show’s early days even as it boldly pushes the story forward. As showrunner Lisa Joy told The Wrap, the premise of the show has been inverted. “You know, the park went from a place where humans went for their enjoyment and the hosts were captive and unaware of their situation, and now we’ve just turned New York City into a park and the humans are now suffering what the hosts used to suffer from.”

But it’s not exactly “the hosts” who have turned the tables on the humans. There’s one host in particular who made it all happen: Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), who’s actually a copy of the dearly departed Dolores Abernathy (it’s weird, just go with it). “I mean, she starts by testing it out in the park, but it’s also the ultimate place to start a plague from, because people from all over the world would go to Westworld, and then they bring that disease home with them,” Joy said of Charlotte’s scheme. “So it’s a very efficient way to kick off her nefarious plan. The fact that it takes, you know, a generation or so to kick into full effect to kind of critical mass is actually still incredibly fast if you think about a biological or political takeover.”

And that’s where the big twist comes in: unknown to us, we’ve been seeing two stories play out in parallel timelines. In the past, Charlotte is putting her plan into motion, using robotic flies to infect humans and turn them into compliant “hosts,” mirroring what the humans did to the androids in seasons past. Over two decades later, she’s won, although it’s unclear if she’s only infected the people in New York City or taken over the entire world. “I think you’ll soon see the full depth of Hale’s control,” Joy said.

Maeve, Caleb and Bernard all have their (west)worlds turned upside down

So Charlotte Hale has to go down. Who could do it? Well, Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is out there helping the resistance and digging up weapons in the desert, armed with brand new precognitive abilities. That feels right, doesn’t it?

“Bernard’s superpower has always been a little bit intellectual, right?” Joy asked. “Like he’s the one who has thought in simulations and has talked about how even when you’re programming a host, you’re thinking about different simulations and iterations and how it might behave, how it might change behavior. So the idea that his superpower is really actually grounded in these anticipatory moves, it’s not about strength necessarily and it’s not about speed. It’s about knowing what’s going to happen in the moment beforehand. So to me, it was just a really fun scientifically based way to explore a new source of strength for Bernard.”

And then there’s the weapon herself, Maeve, who sacrificed herself in Charlotte Hale’s ’20s-themed park, in the earlier timeline. She went down, but as an immortal android, she can always be revived. And when she inevitably is, she’ll find a world much changed.

But then again, Maeve has always been good at rolling with the punches. “[S]he’s this kind of rebel who never really fit under anybody’s control, you know, not the humans and not other hosts,” Joy said. “She never wanted to be controlled and she has an independent will. She’s not in her own world now. She’s woken up and the Man in Black works for Hale. For him, that is the new world order, but not for Maeve.”

Maeve may also come back into contact with Caleb (Aaron Paul), who did die during the incident in the ’20s-themed park, but whom Charlotte Hale revived as an android…although it’s unclear if this newest version will hold up; these human-to-host transfers have a way of going haywire.

That’s interesting for Maeve, though, because she and Caleb formed a close bond during the time between seasons 3 and 4, when they were fighting to free humanity from the control of the supercomputer Rehoboam. “I think it is a kind of love story, not necessarily a romantic love, but there are some forms of camaraderie and intimacy that I think are even more powerful than romantic love,” Joy said. “These two have literally gone through wars together. They’ve fought together and endangered their lives for each other and for a similar cause, and so they’re really bonded.”

"And when you have that kind of love, I think Maeve is faced with a choice at one point whether she’ll try to continue growing with him, or whether she’s going to let him go and experience all the things that she could never experience. She has an eternity to exist in this world, and he has one life and she’s had many already. She’s had children, she’s known different worlds. And he’s really known most of his life as fighting and being controlled. So I think her setting him free and leaving him was a really noble act of self-sacrifice."

Indeed, but now that Maeve and Caleb are both hosts, might these two crazy kids have a shot?

Brace for some kind of twist involving Christina-Dolores

Finally, there’s Christina (Evan Rachel Wood), who…may or may not be a new version of Dolores? It’s hard to tell.

In any case, Christina went on a blind date with Teddy (James Marsden), who seems to remember everything they went through together back in Westworld, even if Christina (or Dolores, or whoever this is) doesn’t.

“It definitely seems as though Teddy recognizes Dolores, in a way, in this girl Christina, but Christina, to me, seems genuinely somewhat flummoxed,” Joy said. “And you know, the fun of it is the ambiguity, right? And it’s the idea that Christina is a human just going on a date. When you have connection with people, they sometimes feel familiar to you, and that’s what she might be experiencing. So it’s just one of those interesting moments where we got to do like total naturalism, like you would feel on a date, but at the same time, having a completely sci-fi level to it as well, when you start to kind of broaden out about what’s actually going on.”

"I think we wanted to really harken back to Season 1 for some of the fans and some of these kind of poetic visual reverberations. It was great fun. I think part of it, too, is I have a nostalgia for these characters too, and I also think love inherently can feel kind of nostalgic, because basically it does feel like you’ve known the person for a long time, even though you don’t actually have a shared history together."

Wood weighed in on the scene, as well. “We just picked up right where we left off honestly, it was like no time had passed,” she told Newsweek. “And we all, I mean, that day was such a huge day on set, and everybody was so excited and so giddy because we’ve been working on this show for almost 10 years, and so the characters really are like old friends to all of us. And, so, to see two of these OGs reunite, and reunite in a way that’s very sweet and less murderous, was fun for us.”

What will happen with the rest of Westworld season 4?

So as you can see, there are a lot of moving pieces on the Westworld board right now. How will things play out going into the back half of the season?

“Oh gosh, I’m always so bad at these questions,” Joy said. “I mean, now that we know that Hale has won and the humans in fact have been subjugated by this new A.I. power structure, I think we have to see how the fight for free will — this time waged by humans against robots — plays out. And it’s pretty fun. You see all of our actors doing what they do best, kicking ass and exploring their lives and the realities around them.”

Whatever happens, I’ll be watching, which honestly isn’t something I thought I’d say when this season of Westworld started.

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