One of the oddest aspects of Westworld Season 4 is how the quality of the episodes were so all over the map. There tended to be one very good episode followed by one really bad one, followed by one excellent one. This particular pattern continued right through the end of the season. The penultimate episode of the HBO Max series was quite entertaining and set things up for what looked like it might be a wild ride to the finish line. Unfortunately, that wild ride to the finish was instead subverted by the writers once again trying to get too cute and trying to be too smart for their own good.
When it comes to putting together a pattern of one good and one bad episode, it's a bad sign when the pattern ends up making the season finale be one of those bad episodes. Though it's hard to claim the final episode of the season was anything but the worst episode of the entire season. It appears that the creators of Westworld wanted to have one big poetic finish with the characters that fans have come to know and love. There's been quite a bit of talk that there might be a fifth season of the HBO Max series. It might be best if that wasn't the case. In this case, it feels like "Que Sera, Sera" could mean that whatever is this end, should be the end of it all.
This episode of Westworld picked up right where the last had left off most prominently, with William truly blowing up. It is perhaps a big sign of just how bad the episode is that it manages to even waste Ed Harris in this episode. While there is some of the character that has become one of the best in the series, especially when he's killing willy, nilly, the character is wasted with a couple of scenes and a couple of speeches.
Speaking of speeches, this final Westworld episode of the season is chock-full of them. There is a bit of action mixed in here and there, but for the most part, it appears that the series creators thought it would be more fun for all of the characters to give a soliloquy about their motivations rather than actually show what those motivations may be. There were an awful lot of weird starts and stops when it came to wrapping up the fourth season of a show that seems to have totally gone off the rails at this point.
That included what looked like was going to be an interesting showdown between William and the hosts that were still trying to bring order to the world after he had basically given the order to tear everything down in the previous installment. Instead, that particular showdown lasted about 15 seconds as William once again showed that he is the best of the best. Normally, that would be one of the better part of the shows as it would once again establish Ed Harris as the biggest of the bads. However, this time around, even that seemed to be leaving things a bit hollow. Westworld attempted to go back to all the things that has made the show interesting over the years and found that they'd probably gone to that well once too often.
Somehow, even the big scene where Clementine looked like a killer Robert Palmer girl could have been one of the better ones in the season of Westworld. Clementine has not gotten nearly enough screen time in the latter episodes, though when she has popped up she has looked and acted like someone who could steal some scenes. That occurred in this episode as well as she seemed like she might even become a big player on the main stage. And then, as was the case with many of the scenes in this episode, the air was let out of the room.
There were also some less than impressive departures of some characters that certainly seemed like they were meant to be more important than they ended up being. That's especially the case with Aaron Paul, who hasn't been a particularly interesting or worthwhile addition to the show. It's not entirely clear why the writers of Westworld thought they needed to have this character in the show for two seasons. There's an argument to be made that he was kind of a "useful idiot" in Season 3.
His character at least seemed to be someone that would be worth messing with when it came to the hosts and what they were up to a year ago. This season, his entire existence was little more than a guy who was looking for his daughter and coming to grips with the fact that he was in fact, a host himself. The story wrapped up his particular story arc in about the lamest way possible and at least in some regard seemed to be a way for the writers to admit they just wanted a famed actor from Breaking Bad to be on the show.
Of course, the way this particular season ended, it feels as though most of the characters that were featured especially hard in the last few episodes were rather pointless. It's possible there was supposed to be a poetic way to bring the fourth season of Westworld to an end. However, it feels like instead of poetry, there were more than a few characters that very badly didn't need to be in the season at all.
This was especially the case when it came to James Marsden's Teddy. It feels like the show was all about fan service when it came to his character, only to have it end with some rather frustrating pointlessness. In fact, the entire season seems to have ended with a frustrating feeling of pointlessness. That feeling was actually underlined by the final scene. In fact, that final scene seemed to make the previous four seasons rather pointless. No show should ever put its fans in that kind of situation.
Westworld Season 4 in it entirety can now be viewed on HBO Max.