Westworld plumbs dark depths in “Fidelity”

It’s time for another weekly review of Westworld! Now that we’ve been introduced to the new world that Charlotte Hale has created for her host followers, it’s time to catch up with those few humans who still resist her reign.

As always, there will be SPOILERS below for the latest episode of Westworld below.

Westworld Episode 406 review: “Fidelity”

We’re still getting used to the new status quo on Westworld after the massive twist that Caleb and Maeve had failed in their mission to stop Charlotte Hale’s global takeover. Part of the reason it’s taken a minute is that the show made the choice to split the cast for Episodes 5 and 6, focusing on a different set of characters each week. Last week was all about the characters in Charlotte’s New York City; this time around, events revolve around Caleb (Aaron Paul), Franke/C (Aurora Perrineau) and Bernard (Jeffrey Wright). And since Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) is the big bad of the season and Caleb’s tormentor, we see her quite a bit as well.

Let’s start with Caleb. After discovering that he actually died 23 years ago in the 1920’s-themed park, Caleb’s consciousness is being perpetually transplanted into new host bodies…but Charlotte hasn’t managed to stabilize him. The Caleb we spend the episode with is the 278th Caleb to be built since the crisis at the 1920’s park. His body is breaking down, and the episode really drives home the horror of his situation.

Caleb’s journey is one of the darkest things we’ve seen on Westworld in quite a while, and I kind of loved it. Hale interrogates him, still desperate to find out why some of her hosts are killing themselves after coming into contact with “outlier” humans. It was nice to get a bit of an explanation for her motives. When Caleb proclaimed that he had something the hosts didn’t and that it was why he was able to resist her mind control in the 1920’s park, Hale took it very literally. It’s been haunting her for years, leading her to reconstruct Caleb again and again to try and figure out what secret he was keeping.

The depths of those mind games, we come to find, are pretty demented. Aaron Paul’s acting is some of his best in the show to date, as different Caleb clones at different levels of decay help guide him through the lab as he makes an escape attempt. The most twisted bit comes when one clone encourages Caleb to “use him” as a human cushion when he jumps out of a vent.

At the end, Caleb sneaks out onto the roof and manages to send a message to the radio frequency that he and Frankie used years earlier. Hale reveals that she had been letting him escape, over and over, to see if he would tell Frankie whatever secret she believes he knows. His heartfelt message to his daughter is not at all the revelation that Hale expected, and as such she executes Caleb…but not before he can deepen her doubts by telling her he thinks the hosts are killing themselves because they can’t stand to live in the illusory world she’s created for them. And yeah, that’s fair. I guess not all hosts enjoy sitting on human chairs as much as Charlotte Hale does.

Tussle among the tumbleweeds

The rest of the episode is fixed on Frankie/C and Bernard as they try to revive Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), who they discovered buried in the desert in Episode 4. Frankie takes Bernard to the rebels’ hideout, which happens to be in the gutted shell of the old 1920’s park. Reclaimed by the desert, the part now looks like the original Westworld. It’s fitting, since Frankie’s questions about Bernard’s past lead him to reflect on the journey he’s taken and how the hosts have come to rule the world.

Things start to get tense when the rest of the rebels return from their trip to New York City. Frankie outs Bernard as a host, but ultimately chooses to believe him when he tells her that one of her friends has been replaced by one of Hale’s soldiers. That mystery resolves pretty quickly; of course it’s Jay (Daniel Wu). There was no huge surprise there, although the show did a decent job of stringing it out a bit, and the way Frankie realizes the truth (Jay says she’s “like a sister to him” — something the real Jay did not feel) was a nice touch.

Jay is after Maeve’s control unit, hoping to destroy her once and for all. As Frankie and Jay fight, Caleb’s recorded message comes over her car stereo, leading both Frankie and the newly revived Maeve to realize he’s still alive. I may have cheered when Maeve came back to save the day — it felt right that she mostly sat out these past two episodes after her sacrifice at the 1920’s park, but Newton is so magnetic onscreen that she just elevates the show.

With the immediate threat averted, Frankie and Maeve have a heart-to-heart before deciding to join forces in order to go after Caleb. How they’ll react once they realize just how dire his situation is, we’ll find out in the final two episodes of season 4.

Westworld Bullet Points

• A highlight of this episode was getting to finally see what happened to young Frankie (Celeste Clark) and Caleb’s wife Uwade (Nozipho Mclean) after their escape from the hosts. It turns out that Uwade was integral in forming the rebel system that got outliers away from the hosts. This scene also gave us some insight into Frankie and Jay’s relationship as adults.
• Speaking of Jay, the casting of Alec Wang as a younger version of Daniel Wu’s character was so good. Wang’s speaking voice sounds so much like Wu that I did a double take.
• Tessa Thompson is killing it as the tortured evil villain this season. Her fluctuations between chillingly calm and explosive bursts of anger are just perfect.
• The parallel between countless versions of Caleb dying and the way the hosts were killed repeatedly at the old Westworld park is very cool. It’s the same sort of perpetual violence the hosts dealt with, but executed in a slightly different way.

Verdict

“Fidelity” was another solid episode of Westworld and continues season 4’s return to form. It felt a little slower since we’re in a bit of a liminal space between the huge twists of Episode 4 and the upcoming finale, but the show has done a great job at fleshing out what this very complex situation means for each member of its ensemble cast. At the moment, my only real fear is that the show only has two more episodes left in the season to wrap everything up in a satisfying way.

Episode Grade: A-

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