Bernard has been telling us all season that he was going to die. And it seemed super likely that he believed that Maeve would die, thus his reluctance to confirm that she would make it to the sublime.

We did see Maeve recovered from a damaged pearl once already this season though.

amercer said:

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Bernard has been telling us all season that he was going to die. And it seemed super likely that he believed that Maeve would die, thus his reluctance to confirm that she would make it to the sublime.

We did see Maeve recovered from a damaged pearl once already this season though.

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The Maeve in the last episode is a copy. The real Maeve is still in the Sublime. Bernard's reluctance was that he had seen if he told her the truth that she was just a copy, then she wouldn't want to die or would end up dying needlessly. Basically if she found out that Bernard had copied her, thus she couldn't go back to see her daughter, the plan was screwed.

I'm not sure how she got from buried underground to the sublime though. Unless that version was also a copy of her?

The one he was talking to at the start of the episode was a (imperfect) copy that Bernard made in the sublime. But I guess he could have taken the real one there later. Seems a bit convoluted.

Yeah now I'm looking at recaps and I do have it backwards. I thought that was a possible future, not Bernard being honest about the simulation. Confusing as ever.

No idea what the hell is going on with Dolores/Christina.

C@LAg said:

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amercer said:

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trying to save humans (and probably hosts?) from extension.

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where are they extending to?

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The fact that he saw his kid and walked through whatever that door was makes me think Bernard is probably really dead.

But zero chance on Maeve and Hale. They both might die, but not like that.

This show is really something. Not sure what that something is, but that's on point for me and this show anyway. No idea about anything


Did Bernard know about the Dolores/Christina clone? Seems like he would have to...She basically has to be the one to save everything, right?

I thought this season had mostly landed until this last episode. There were some fuzzy parts, like what exactly the rebels are doing/why Hale hadn't nuked them from space, but otherwise this season had been at least fairly straightforward.

But yeah… that last episode was tough. I don't have a lot of hope that they're going to pull this thing together in one more episode.

Well since it is probably the series finale, I hope it's at least good.

The new corporate masters at HBO don't seem very sentimental.

So let me get this straight:

Maeve, the super weapon that they spent all this time, did not needlessly die because she is in fact a copy that will come back next episode to save the world?

Christina is virtually present in the real world, but no one can actually see her except for a few hosts and Teddy (another virtual host)

The process of transcendence is moving hosts virtually into the real world, similar to Christina, so that they are not physically present and Halores is planning to do the same with the other hosts that are in the sublime

A little confusing but I think this is it

I don't think we know what 'transcendence' is, but I don't think it's that.

I also don't think Maeve is a copy.

Then what a complete waste this whole time trying to find her and bring her back to life

I have no idea why i keep watching because this all seems like one big, confusing circlejerk of copies, copies of copies, and motivations that are all over the map.

At this point, I feel like I'm watching one version of an excel file fight other versions, and wondering why I should give a **** about which excel files wins

I don't think her or Hale are dead. I just don't think it's a copy and the real her is in the sublime or whatever.

I don't think you need to get hung up in all that. I too have lost track of all those details. I'm just taking it for what it is: a future where the hosts have won and humanity is sidelined and irrelevant. We're now watching the key hosts make their final moves and we'll see if that results in everyone dying or everyone dying except that tiny fraction Bernard mentions. I have a feeling that's tied to the sublime but not to let more in but let those currently in there out somehow. Right now the host in the lead is William who wants to burn it all down and literally has the cities burning as we speak. Hale mentioned cities plural in her message so I think it's happening world wide.

Echoing a number of posts above, yeah, this was the first episode this season that really lost me. They had built up so much good will, but then this episode, with so much offing of main characters in such flippant fashion (really, we're "killing" Maeve again???) was such a turn-off for me. Especially since we know Halores will no doubt be back (there's still that shot of her from the trailer, at Hoover Dam, firing a gun - the gun I assumed Bernard left?), and I'm sure Maeve will be as well (really, it's comical now how many times she's been resurrected). But Bernard feels like he's gone for good (though I assume he'll reappear digitally next episode/season), and I was always hoping the real William would somehow break free of his cryo chamber, but that whole thing just felt like a prolonged tease now. Too bad, because I loved both of those characters still being part of the real world, while the remaining pieces just don't do much for me. And even if everyone who "died" this episode returns next week, or next season, we've officially reached the point where it's, like, copies of copies of copies of nearly every host and human remaining in the main cast, and I just don't understand how the filmmakers thought that strategy would make for continued character investment on the part of the audience. Especially when it comes to Delores/Christina and whatever the hell reveal that was, which fell so incredibly flat among all the other "surprises."

That said, because I was so let down by the episode, I went back and watched it again a couple nights later, just to try and examine why it missed the mark so much, and it *did* play better the second time around. It's still not at all what you want from the penultimate episode of a season of a show you love, but it does work a lot better when you know what's coming.

A pretty good listen, as they're just as confused by this episode as many of us…

There is only one episode left of #Westworld Season 4. And yet, we're all still extremely confused.

Join @jowrotethis, @DavidShoemaker, and @Danny_Heifetz as they recap the disappointing episode "Metanoia."https://t.co/Lr54tsHZNw

— Ringer Podcast Network (@ringerpodcasts) August 9, 2022

amercer said:

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Well since it is probably the series finale, I hope it's at least good.

The new corporate masters at HBO don't seem very sentimental.

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Yeah, if this does end up being the series finale, I don't think I would care at this point. Granted, I say that before having seen it, but even if they somehow pull a rabbit out of a hat next week, I feel like I'm finally over Westworld as a series, no matter what happens. After a promising start last season, they notoriously crashed and burned. And when it felt like they had managed to right the ship this season, in reality, they were actually walking such a tight rope that crashing and burning yet again feels like even more of a potential let down now. Though, again, I'm fully prepared to eat my words if they somehow deliver something truly compelling/enticing come Sunday.

Hale basically this whole season. But particularly when I saw those armless robots.

I'm so confused by the whole "transcendence" thing.

At first I thought Halores had basically created another Sublime, for all the hosts she created. And that she was wanting them to embrace her fully digital "afterlife," yet a number of them weren't ready to transcend yet, etc.

But then she has this whole, never-explained operation where host pearls are being placed in new, armless robot bodies for some weird reason. Not only that, but she herself was about to enter her "final form"/armless host body, when it didn't at all feel like her "watch" over the cities was over yet, they weren't shut down yet, the remaining humans weren't in cold storage or whatever yet, etc.

So are the new, armless host bodies somehow part of transcendence? Are those hosts also in Halores' new Sublime somehow? Or are the new, armless host bodies just some kind of temporary storage/transitional host body before fully transcending to a 100% digital life?

I seriously have no f-ing clue what all that was about.

There's strategically keeping info from the audience and saving reveals for just the right moment... and then there's whatever Westworld is doing right now, to the point of utter confusion.

I've been assuming the armless body things are just a transportation device to take the pearls to (something.) It doesn't make any sense for Hale to want them to "transcend" human bodies just to put them in (decidedly worse) robot bodies.

But yes, that scene with Halores was extremely weird.

Part of me was wondering if, from time to time, she takes her pearl out and "transcends" to check on the others, and then gets put back in her body, or a new body if that one got messed up or whatever. But no clue.

At this point I'm sure Bernard has something up his sleeve given his Doctor Strange ability, opening the Sublime, and that message he left on the tablet, but still doesn't make the last episode any clearer for me. Maybe it'll all make sense after the finale...

Well put.

Jonathan Nolan too often tries way too hard to put the "reveal" above all else, obfuscating plot, intentions, etc, in favor of clear goals, motivations, and character.

His brother has the same habit - where the "trick" of it all often takes center stage - but Chris always manages to come back to character first. For whatever reason, Jonathan hasn't yet grasped that crucial aspect.

Bernard's plan HAS to involve somehow saving some version of Christina/Dolores/whatever we want to call her to the sublime.

Just has to. That's like the one thing I'm almost certain of.

I've just settled in to not expecting anything amazing or great from the show. I will watch it the day it releases, and hopefully enjoy it...but they have proven they arent really capable of reaching the lofty heights they aim for.

It's really just got a Wachowski feel to it at this point. First season was incredible, and then after that they have just gotten too smart for themselves to get you to explore different themes, at the expense of having any stakes or emotional attachments to any of the characters.

I don't mind hosts coming back from the "dead" as much as I wish the "rules"/tech would have been explained better from the start. And building on that, as mentioned in the latest podcast episode I linked to, it makes absolutely no sense that hosts wouldn't have some kind of bullet-proof encasing around their pearls. In other words, hosts should have been harder to kill, from the jump, and there should have been none of this fake-out BS, where they get shot in the head, we think they're dead for good, but no, the bullet missed their pearl and now they're back nonsense. Because all the writers ever seem to do is increasingly write toward that outcome/trick. Instead of setting concrete rules and finding more creative ways to stop hosts, or actually go through with truly killing them.

TCTTS said:

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Well put.

Jonathan Nolan too often tries way too hard to put the "reveal" above all else, obfuscating plot, intentions, etc, in favor of clear goals, motivations, and character.

His brother has the same habit - where the "trick" of it all often takes center stage - but Chris always manages to come back to character first. For whatever reason, Jonathan hasn't yet grasped that crucial aspect.

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Jonathan is too focused on The Prestige

Exactly.

What's even crazier is they DO have a bulletproof casing around their pearl. We've seen it stop a bullet before.