Editor's note: The following contains Westworld Season 4, Episode 8 spoilers.In a season that was full of twists and turns, Westworld saved its biggest run of them for last. After a penultimate episode that left things in a bit of a lurch, the show covered a lot of ground to make up for its prior missteps and pull into the station of a daring final destination. It was a finale that was overflowing with cheesy one-liners which it then crossed with a series of big losses that basically reinvented the world of the show writ large. Hale (Tessa Thompson) literally crushed her own host brain after sending Christina (Evan Rachel Wood) to the Sublime to start one last game that resembles the park from the first season. Host William (Ed Harris) was killed by Hale after he turned the world on its head by pitting host and human alike against each other. As it turns out, the character we thought was Teddy (James Marsden) was never even alive in the first place and was actually just a creation Christina had made to help wake her up to the reality of the world that also was itself not real. Caleb (Aaron Paul) also died after getting to say a final farewell to his daughter Frankie (Aurora Perrineau) before she left on a boat to presumably join the few remaining humans left on the planet.
This was all quite a lot and wasn't always the most smooth, often playing out in a rather funny fashion that may not have been intentional. However, it also managed to be entertaining in almost all regards as it hurtled to an utterly unexpected ending that was one of the wildest of the show thus far. It packed all the same levels of philosophical and spiritual reflections that it then wrapped in what almost felt like the equivalent of a destructive B-movie. William in particular got one line that served as a thesis of sorts for the conclusion. No, not the bizarre one he had where he killed someone and then berated them for camping as if he was in a video game. This one came a bit later as he was nearing the end of his time in the game he restarted. As he did battle with a newly upgraded Hale, who made a rather sudden shift from being a terrifying villain to an unlikely hero, he monologues about his motivations. Without blinking an eye, he told her that “we're fruit from a rotten tree, might as well burn it all down" before being destroyed himself moments later. While he is now gone, at least for now, the show did precisely that and burned down basically everything. It was a bloodbath that hinted at a rebirth via a goofy and glorious conclusion that was just cheeky enough to pull it off.
Central to this was Christina, who seemed to fully return to being Dolores after all this time. After a conversation she had with her past self about the nature of who they are, she tore down the city she had been inhabiting to recreate the original western town where she had essentially been born. This homecoming was part of what she referred to as “one final test” that will be “a dangerous game.” It all had a very “here we go again” sensibility, complete with an instrumental cover of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song'' by Ramin Djawadi as Christina/Dolores talks about the world being “a graveyard of stories.” This was all quite sentimental yet still abundantly silly. Basically, every scene was just straightfaced and sincere enough to work as all the various storylines came to their tentative ends. The manner in which it all wiped the slate clean was rather audacious even as it was absurd, feeling like the narrative equivalent of hitting reset and letting the chips fall where they may. Of course, characters who seemingly have departed could be brought back once more in the Sublime if the story wants it. Still, the fact that the fight to save “sentient life” on Earth essentially failed was rather gutsy. While it had been set up for a while in repeated predictions by Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), seeing that all come to fruition was still another thing entirely. The show has now taken a leap into a completely new world constructed out of the memories of Dolores.
As she talks about creating a digital world to start anew, the reference point that felt most oddly apt was the work of absurdist extraordinaire Conner O'Malley. In particular, his video “Endorphin Port” now feels almost fortuitous about the direction that Westworld would take. This isn’t saying that the creators of the show drew from his comedic short for inspiration, though it also isn’t not saying that. The vague manner in which the show explains this new world as being one that will be “a dangerous game with the highest of stakes” only adds to this feeling as it could honestly go anywhere from here. It is also rather blunt, reminding us that this will take place “in a world like a maze” that was such a central motif in the first season. As the entire world as we know fades into nothingness and is transformed into the vast landscapes that were central to the show’s beginning, the music swells even higher. We are told that this will be “one last loop around the bend,” a line that practically shouts that the next season may be the last. Each of these proclamations is attempting to be wise to such an overwrought degree that they become rather humorous. It remains almost whimsical in its conclusion while still going scorched earth on the rest of the season's story as a whole.
As we then see Dolores taking one last walk directly toward the camera, it all cuts to black, and she says that “maybe this time we’ll set ourselves free.” Perhaps despite myself and amidst the many chuckles that were had at this conclusion, the feeling remains that this is exactly what the show needed. It takes some guts to literally destroy all the worldbuilding you’ve been doing for an entire season, yet that makes it all the more fun to see it get blown up to start all over again. Every moment seemed almost fine-tuned to flaunt order to instead steer its story into one now completely defined by disorder. Once you decide to basically upload the entire setting into a digital world, there is nothing that is off-limits from here forward. Dolores has now become almost a deity of her own virtual reality that she and the show can play around in however they want. Though he was a maniac, it was all as William predicted. The world has been burnt down to the very foundation and a new one has emerged out of the digital ashes. It is a bold yet bizarrely beautiful way to end the season, proving to be as preposterous as it is poetic. Westworld leaned into the vast frontier of its pulpy science fiction origins, setting up what certainly seems to be a final season where anything is possible.