What I’m Watching: Westworld

Westworld: Season 1, Episode 4 “Dissonance Theory” (B+)

This show is evolving as it gets more comfortable with its overarching storyline, less focused on the preplanned plots set up for the hosts to act out and more on what’s really happening. We’re getting a few hints about who the Man in Black is with a moment in which other guests acknowledging his prominence in the real world and with a request for pyrotechnics sent to the engineers so that he could complete a showy prison break. Freeing Hector and bringing him back to town turned out to be less relevant for what he was trying to do and much more so for developments related to Maeve, who has finally started to put everything together after she woke up in the middle of a system reboot. Finding all the other drawings of the technician under her floorboards shows that she’s really figuring it out, and digging out the bullet was the ultimate confirmation, which led her to declare that none of it matters because she knows that her world is just going to be refreshed. William continues to be an appropriate representation of the outlier – someone who isn’t depraved and just wants to have fun in a theme park – and he’s trying to play along unlike his new relation who is more than happy to be blunt around the hosts about what their reality is. Robert recreating a memory from Theresa’s childhood during their sit-down was a subtle power play, conveying that he has grander designs for his fabricated world than just monetization and the fulfillment of fantasies.