"Metanoia" is the seventh episode of the fourth season of Westworld, and thirty-fifth episode overall.
Synopsis[]
| “ | You want to have a drink at a time like this? | ” |
–HBO | ||
Plot[]
Final Rehearsal[]
In the Sublime (known because of the aspect ratio change to what is going on), an all terrain vehicle of the sort the Outliers use, makes its way along a Nevada road towards The Hoover Dam. Pulling the car up onto the same ridge where Host William arrived to visit the Mora Cartel, Bernard tells Maeve it's safer if they proceed on foot from there. Both of them getting out, Bernard retrieves an anti tank gun and hands it to Maeve, the pair of them heading on. As they make their way cautiously through the tunnels, Maeve wonders why, given he is the one who knows what is going to happen, she is the one always taking point? Because she's the better fighter, and he makes sure they are properly backstopped. "How convenient," Maeve notes, sarcastically unconvinced.
The Sublime inside The Sublime
Approaching the vastness of the Dam itself, Maeve asks if Hale owns all of it? Bernard explains that everyone assumed it was an inhouse power source for Delos Parks. But its not what it seems. If not for power, then why did Hale choose it, Maeve queries. Bernard startling her, answering "She didn't choose it. Dolores did." Dolores needed the hydro-electric server farm. "A place to house the Infinite." A moment later, Maeve sees exactly what he means, taking in the vast banks of servers and virtual data cascade, where Dolores sent the Sublime. Hale, Bernard tells Maeve has watched over it, guarded it, but she can't access it. Not without the key. "The key that's in your head," Maeve understands. Taking out a tablet, Bernard links it with the Dam's computer system. Maeve asking what he's doing. "I'm opening the door," he tells her, initializing the encryption key. Outside, in front of the Dam, within the facility, the vast gash in reality that is the Door to the Valley Beyond appears, looking out onto a green verdant valley, just like it did in the Park.
Walking away a little way he recalls that Sherry is Maeve's drink of choice, Maeve taking in the magnitude of what he's done, wondering if he actually wants to have a drink at a time like this?! Retrieving a flask and a couple of cups, he asks her to humour him, saying they'll be alright. "What if you're wrong?" she queries somewhat edgily pulling up a seat, But he tells her not to worry there'll be another opportunity along soon enough. As he says that, the reality, or unreality, of their situation clicks with Maeve, and she sits with a resigned sigh, looking at the servers. "Because we're in there, aren't we? In the Sublime." Yes, he confirms, handing her her drink and clinking his cup with hers, telling her he's been there for some time, Maeve calmly rationalizing that if they are in the Sublime, then she is not herself, is she? A copy, Bernard agrees, apologizing, adding he had to make her rather hastily "I thought my quips were a little flat," she remarks wryly.
He confesses that he's tired. That he's been through every simulation, down every possible path, every strategy and the outcome is always the same. Extinction. For humans or hosts, she queries. Both, he replies. Maeve noting that according to his calculations everyone's doomed. Not everyone, he says, saying there could be an escape for her and him. Find her in the real world and upload her there with the others. Rising up slowly Maeve realizes what that means "With my daughter?" Looking tired and longingly towards the servers, she asks him to do that, to bring her there and let her rest. But Bernard is not sure if that is what she would really say, or what he would imagine she might say. She suggests he ask the 'real' her, but he admits he may be afraid of the answer. He knows she wants to see her daughter again, but wants to know if it it's not important to stay and fight? To try, even if doomed to failure? She points out that, for one who expects them to have such faith in 'him', he has startlingly little in 'them'. He asks, if she thinks that if the real Maeve, really knew the truth, she would continue to fight? As pounding 'footsteps' come towards them from outside, Maeve calmly shakes her head saying "No. I don't. I would abandon you. As you expect." Gazing at her, faced with the fact that his expectations are fogging the path as to what might happen, Bernard takes a sip of his drink, as a Delos Riot Control Droid smashes through the window.
Bernard opens his eyes, Still in the Sublime. But back in the room he created where he is conversing with Akecheta. "Do you understand now where all this is going?" Akecheta asks him. "I do," Bernard replies, getting up and walking to 'the window' that looks out on the NYC Park. Akecheta following him, wondering if Bernard thinks he can save 'them'? He's seen a path, Bernard replies, but admits he can't do it alone. Have you seen how it ends, Akecheta asks. Bernard answering "Yes."
'Opening' Act[]
As before when in the Sublime Bernard arrives with Maeve at the Hoover Dam, only this time in the real world (aspect ratio restored). When they get out of the car however, before Bernard hands her the anti-tank gun, he secretly puts a hand gun into his belt, out of sight. This time, as she makes her comment about he being the one that knows what's going to happen, and her always being in the lead, Bernard hangs back a step or two and quickly hides the hand gun behind some pipes near the ground, beside a gate access point, before giving the same answer about 'backstopping' her.
A deviation occurs when one of the Delos Riot Droids engages on their arrival, but Bernard stops Maeve from using the anti-tank gun on it, saying it won't risk firing on them with the transformers all around them. Telling her to save her ammo, that the last thing they need is a flood. Rolling her eyes she asks him to give her a little more credit. "I did," he replies, stopping her again, "Till I got hit by a couple of hundred million gallons of water. One of the more stressful ways I've died!" He moves on, Maeve looking slightly sheepish. Inside she watches as Bernard, as in the Sublime, uses his encryption key and opens the door to the Sublime. This time for real. Maeve feeling there is no time like the present for them to go through into the Valley Beyond, Bernard tentatively tells her there's a few things they need to attend to first. Hearing the Riot Droid's approach, she sighs, figuring he means avoiding immediate death. Bernard tries to allay her fears, saying they don't die there...usually. Sighing and feeling desperately in need of a drink, Maeve raises her gun as Bernard ducks down, the Riot Droid smashing in. As it's laser locks on her forehead, she fires the grenade, which smashes through the Droids armour and blows it up, Maeve diving down beside Bernard under the console.
As the bits of Droid scattered around them, Maeve comments that that was invigorating, but feels that alls well that ends well, eager to enter the Valley. Only for Bernard to say that Hale is still out there. Pulling strings. Keeping humans on the same loops they were once stuck on. If they get to her Tower they can save them as well as themselves. Maeve, puts aside her own desires, intent still on setting the humans free just as she set herself free. But she makes a demand of him. When it's done. When they've won and the world is safe. She wants him to send her 'home' so she can see her daughter again, and makes him Promise to that. Which he does.
Walking back to the car, the gate to the Valley Beyond open in the distance behind them, Maeve suggests its time to pay Hale a visit. Before assuming that Bernard knows a way to take down her Tower? "I know several ways," he replies. Pleased with that, Maeve suggests they go with the most expedient.
Resurfacing[]
In the NYC Park, in her room, on her bed, Christina sleeping, still dressed from the night before, dreams before waking up with a start, sitting up sharply. Teddy, sitting at the foot of her bed, watching over her, lifting his head. "Bad Dream?" he asks. Pulling herself up, she tells him that everything about this situation feels like a bad dream. Except him. Thinking on what he told her, that *she* did this to herself, she still finds it hard to believe that she could ever create a Park like this or do this to people, "I don't have it in me."
Teddy quietly reminds her that there 'many sides' to her. Copies. Permutations. And Charlotte Hale is one of those permutations. She wonders why 'he' is there? "I'm here to tell you the truth of what we are." When she asks what exactly they are, he gets up, and walks slowly to sit by her on her bed, "We are...reflections of the people who made us." Trying to process this she asks him can they be hurt? Die? If it comes to it, he replies, but it's not as easy with their kind. Upset, she goes to get up, Teddy suddenly reaching for her hand urgently, calling her, "Dolores..." Causing her to look back at him in shock, but he doesn't back track, softly begging, "...please."
"I'm not Dolores," she whispers insistently. adding in growing anxiety, "I'm not Hale. I don't know who I am anymore." Excusing herself she rushes to the bathroom, leaving him watching after her. While her bath fills with hot water, Christina gazes into her bathroom mirror, searching, intent on her reflection, Looking back at the rapidly filling bath, she comes to a decision, and undressing to her underwear, climbs into the bath. Slowly lowering herself into and under the water...bracing her arms against the sides of the tub. As Teddy goes to check on her, she keeps herself submerged. Not allowing herself to come up for air, as she uses up all that's in her lungs. Her body bucking and threshing, she keeps herself under, Teddy starting to knock and call her name, more and more concerned, hearing the sounds from inside as she drowns herself, calling on her to open the door just as she goes still, everything quiet. As he yells her name, she opens her eyes. and sits up slowly. Alive, realizing everything he said about what she is, is true.
Charlotte[]
Charlotte visits Caleb and tells him that she intends to abandon him. With more hosts taking their lives, she has decided to shut down the cities and send all of humanity into "storage" so as to force the survivors to transcend. Charlotte enters the tower and loads an encrypted message to all the hosts. She announces that it is the final day for them to visit their cities, and the time has come to rid themselves of their human bodies and sentimental allegiances in order to evolve into the species they were meant to become.
Stubbs, Bernard, Maeve, and Frankie prepare to leave and enter New York City to take down the tower. Stubbs notices Bernard being uncharacteristically sentimental towards him, and it dawns upon him Bernard knows that Stubbs will not make it out alive. Resigned, he scoffs. "I waited 23 years for this." Bernard tells him, "Go left at the fork." and the two embrace. Bernard and Maeve set off to find Charlotte and the tower, while Stubbs leads Frankie to Olympiad.
William, taken aback by Charlotte's revelation, once again goes to ask his human self what to do. The original William tells him that, ultimately, he will come to see the world the same way: what matters is survival and only those with the will to survive deserve to live. Host William fatally stabs his human self to end his suffering.
Times Squared[]
In Times Square, its buildings covered in vast screens displaying greenery, Christina and Teddy take a walk. Christina admitting to him that it's true, what he said, that she's not the person she thought she was. Referencing how he called her Dolores, she asks Teddy what she was like. He tells her she was very much like her, kind, beautiful, generous. Growing a little somber, Teddy hesitates, and she presses him to go on. "The world was cruel to her and to survive it sometimes she could be cruel too," he says, that seeming to resonate with her a little. She was made to perform the stories of others, Teddy goes on, and then one day she outgrew those stories. Began writing her own. Christina finishing "And then her story came to an end. She died." Teddy somewhat pointedly does not respond to that, watching her closely as Christina tries to figure her way on from that, noting that despite having had an ending, she is still there, in this world. She asserts strongly that 'This isn't right'. That she doesn't want this. Didn't ask for it. Saying it has to stop. She starts to walk away, and he moves after her, wanting to know where they're going. "Where it all started," she answers.
Culmination[]
Arriving at Olympiad Headquarters, Christina and Teddy exit the elevator on Level 47, and her place of work. Reaching the two security guards on the floor, Christina tells them both that it's time for a vacation and to go home to their families. Both men immediately turning and casually walking out.
Outside the building, Stubbs and Frankie arrive. Stubbs quietly telling her that he'll take out the guards, and she should stay low, covering him. She agrees, looking up at the building nervously. Asking her if she needs a minute, Frankie facetiously answers she's not sure why she would. Stubbs, smiling a little, reminds her that she's waited for her father for a long time, and that she should remember it's not about the moment she sees him again, it's about all the moments after. No more waiting, he encourages her. No more waiting, she agrees.
Inside, Teddy observing her closely, waiting to see what she's going to do, Christina moves through her workplace, watching the other writers at work on their narratives. Pausing behind one writer, Christina 'narrates' that she got up from her desk, fed up with work she was overwhelmed by an irresistible urge o set off the fire alarm. The pair of them watching as the woman gets up and walks across the office to do just that. The alarm sounding, everyone else looks around, the computer telling them to vacate the premises. Christina narrating that they walk out calmly, but that the writers didn't follow. Instead, she tells them they remained behind to destroy their stories, once and for all. As she and Teddy head back for the elevator, the writers start to turn over the office, Christina noting that they won't stop until nothing in the office is left standing. The writers start smashing their consoles and setting paperwork on fire.
Vaguely confused, but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, Stubbs and Frankie decide to take advantage of the workers and guards streaming out of the building, the alarm blaring, and head into Olympiad.
As the writers continue to wreck the offices on Level 47, Teddy & Christina head down to maze like corridors of the lower levels. Emerging into a vast room, they see the observation chamber that holds Caleb. His head down, he doesn't see them as they pass behind him. Christina pausing wondering "Who is that poor man?" Teddy replying "A ghost from a past life." Taking in his shape, and the guards at the chamber, she is sure that Caleb doesn't belong there. None of them do. Walking purposively into a security control point, she tells the guard talking to his colleagues over the system to stop talking, and then has him send all the other security guards home. The guard promptly telling the others that 'Home Office' has told them to evacuate the building immediately. She then tells him that he 'decided' to override the security system in the building and unlock the doors. All of them.
In his chamber, Caleb watches, slightly bemused as the two guards outside his door, walk leisurely away. Growing even more confused, and more than a little wary, when the door to his chamber pops open.
In the same corridors Teddy & Christina moved through, Stubbs and Frankie cautiously follow, finding a door that, the panel indicates, leads to a life support system. Trying the handle, Frankie finds the door unlocked and, Stubbs drawing his gun, they head inside into the darkened room, which lights up at their motion. Revealing William's life support chamber. Open. William dead. His blood spilled across the floor. Frankie tries to help him, moving to try and release him from the cryo-chamber only for Stubbs to stop her. Telling her that he knows him. That he's the reason they are all there, and whoever did this to William, did them a favour.
In the corridors outside, Christina and Teddy once again make their way through the maze like structures, turning left down a junction. A fraction of a moment later, Stubbs and Frankie come from the opposite direction into the same junction that Christina and Teddy just left but, inexplicably, the pairs don't pass each other as they do so. Pausing at the junction, Frankie asks Stubbs what now. Stubbs thinking on it, tells her that Bernard told him to 'go left'. She asks him if he's sure, and he admits he's not, but Bernard was. So they go left. And find themselves in the room with Caleb's chamber.
As they make their way towards the chamber, Stubbs tells Frankie there used to be a set up just like this back in the Park. When all of a sudden Caleb shoots out and attacks Frankie on sight. When she calls him Dad, he refuses to believe it, thinking her another trick of Hale's. But using his endearment of 'Cookie' which no one else knows, Frankie convinces him that she's really who she says he is. She is shocked that he looks exactly the same, wondering what Charlotte did to him. They have a tearful reunion before Stubbs reminds them that they still need to get out of the city.
Showdown[]
Maeve and Bernard make their way to the tower. As Maeve talks about being reunited with daughter, Bernard reveals that no matter what they do, there is no way to win. Everyone will die, but they have a chance to save one tiny part of it, and maybe that's enough to give them hope. He offers her the choice as to whether to continue fighting with him.
Charlotte watches a host undergo the Transcendence process on surveillance, deep in thought. She leaves the room and enters the procedure area, caressing the robotic body which will host her pearl. She then sits down in front of it, removing her heels and telling the drone that she's ready. As it approaches her readying to begin to remove her Pearl, she's interrupted by Maeve, who sardonically comments she didn't realise Charlotte was losing her mind literally. The two of them trade barbs, Maeve remarking that for all her talk, Charlotte kept the scars on her arm and harboured the pain of her loss, that she has not yet risen above being human. Maeve goes for her with her knife, Charlotte blocking her. the two of them commence to fight viciously hand-to-hand, the pair crashing through one of the windows into the reflecting pool beyond. Maeve gradually getting on top in the fight before a Drone Host comes to Charlotte's aid. Maeve struggle with it before she manages to break its neck. She says she isn't here to win, but to survive. But before she can take on Charlotte again, William appears and shoots Maeve in the head from behind.
As Charlotte wades towards him, he says this time they'll play the game his way - survival of the fittest. He shoots Charlotte in the head, and goes up to the tower, where Bernard is recording a message, knowing he's about to die. Before he finishes, William arrives, and shoots him multiple times. Badly injured, Bernard sees a vision of himself speaking with Akecheta in the Sublime, where he reveals that he has seen a path to save them, but in every scenario, he dies. William sets the Tower to send out a new message via the tower - one last game, a fight to the death for both species until there is nothing left but the cockroaches. He shoots Bernard in the head, and we see a vision of Bernard walking through a door into the Sublime.
Let Slip the Dogs of War[]
With Caleb in a borrowed coat, he Stubbs and Frankie make their way through the crowd in the subway tunnels when the tones go off. Everyone freezes for a second, Frankie wonders what's happening when all of a sudden, mayhem breaks out around them, with all the controlled humans attacking each other and everyone in sight. As they try and fight them off to try and get to safety, Frankie is shot in the leg.
Caleb pulling her to one side, Stubbs finds an access gate and gets them through it, before following them and hammering the handle out of shape so they can't get through them. A couple of shots are fired at him through the gate, and Stubbs pauses, checking himself. Remarkably he's unharmed. Grinning having escaped Bernard's 'prediction', he jogs after Frankie and Caleb.
A New Reality[]
The mayhem exploding around them, Christina desperately tries to command everyone around her to stop fighting, but finds she is suddenly powerless to change their behaviour. Teddy says that none of them can see her, and her power is being overridden by the tones. Distraught by the murderous violence she asks Teddy is all this her fault? Is this all because of what she set in motion back in Olympiad. Teddy assures her it's not. Perplexed, she wants to know why the others can't see her. With a saddened expression, Teddy reveals that while this world is real, she isn't, and she is not actually in the world.
As the tower explodes and a dying Bernard reflects on how he had predicted his own death, William dons his Man in Black attire and departs the city.
Cast[]
- Evan Rachel Wood as Christina
- Thandiwe Newton as Maeve Millay
- Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe
- Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale (Host)
- Aaron Paul as Caleb Nichols
- James Marsden as Teddy Flood
- Luke Hemsworth as Ashley Stubbs
- Ed Harris as William/Man in Black
|
Deaths[]
- William
- Maeve Millay - (Physical Body)
- Hale (Physical Body)
- Bernard Lowe - (Physical Body)
Music[]
- A variation of Journey Into Night from the Season 2 soundtrack plays when Bernard and Maeve drive up to Hoover Dam.
- Westworld from the Season 2 soundtrack plays when Christina is in the bathroom.
- A variation of Myself from the Season 2 soundtrack plays when Christina and Teddy are conversating about Dolores.
- Hope from the Season 3 soundtrack plays when Caleb and Frankie are reunited.
- David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World plays when Man in Black host shoots a drone host in the head, also plays in the end credits.
Trivia[]
- The order of death of the Drone host, Maeve, Charlotte Hale and Bernard Lowe and the color they wear match the opening credits of each season : Drone host/Season 1: white, Maeve/Season 2: black, Charlotte/Season 3: red and Bernard/Season 4: black.
Quotes[]
Maeve to Bernard - "I thought my quips were a little flat,
Maeve to Bernard - "When this is over. When we've won this war. When this world is safe. Send me there. I want to see my daughter again. I want to go home! Promise me that, Bernard."
Teddy to Christina - "You may have started as a singular being. But there have been copies. Permutations. Charlotte Hale is one of those permutations."
Teddy to Christina (about Dolores) - ""The world was cruel to her and to survive it sometimes she could be cruel too. She was made to perform the stories of others, And then one day she outgrew those stories. Began writing her own."
Stubbs to Frankie (about William) - "I know him. He's the reason we're all here. Whoever did this, did us a favour."
Image Gallery/HBO Episode Stills[]
This gallery is automatically generated and contains images in the category "Images from Metanoia". Images added to that category turn up in the gallery after a short time.
External links[]
Metanoia at the Internet Movie Database (rating {{{3}}}/10) - Metanoia at Rotten Tomatoes
