[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Westworld Season 4 episode 5, “Zhuangzi.”]
There’s no guidebook for being a god.
More than anything, perhaps that’s the message of “Zhuangzi,” the fifth episode of Westworld’s fourth season. Hale-ores (Tessa Thompson) has succeeded in her mission to control all of humanity, and she’s turned New York City into a kind of park — think Westworld, but where hosts can do “whatever the f–k they want” to humans. Total dominance over humankind is what she always yearned for, to exact her wrath for the years she spent being tortured, and now she has it. She won. You’d think she’d be happy, right?
Nope. Not only is Hale-ores dreadfully bored — as she demonstrates in a scene where she forces humans to dance to a frenetic version of “Perfect Day” just to, like, feel something again — but her Eden has its fair share of problems. For one thing, 38 hosts have killed themselves after coming into contact with human outliers, the only humans able to slip out of her control. For another, hosts as a whole aren’t choosing to “Transcend” (a term for ascending to some other host form that gave me vivid The 100 flashbacks), instead opting to remain in their original bodies. She’s forced to consider that she might not fully understand her own species… or even her second-in-command, The Host in Black (Ed Harris).
HBO
“Zhuangzi” is probably the most Ed-Harris-heavy episode of the season so far, and it’s better for it. While Hale-ores doesn’t always land as a compelling villain, he’s as captivating to watch as ever. Host-William and his creator don’t see eye to eye, and he has started having reservations about his world and his role within it. So much so that when he’s tasked with killing an outlier, he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
The woman, who resembles his late wife, tells him “You see it, too, don’t you?” She’s referring to the tower. Only Outliers and hosts can see it. Poor, confused Host-William even allows her to rest her head on his shoulder before Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) and his resistance buddies break onto the rooftop and shoot him, whisking the outlier away to freedom outside the city walls. After that, the injured Host-William goes to have a chat with his human self. He’s rattled, and he demands his human counterpart tell him what his true purpose and nature is. “Sounds like you’ve reached the center of your maze,” human-William says smiling.
HBO
Elsewhere in the city, Christina (Evan Rachel Wood) has a revelation of her own, spurred by a meeting with Teddy (James Marsden). He reveals to her that she’s a god among the people of New York, able to control their lives with her stories. At first, she’s disbelieving and indignant, calling him another stalker. But at his urging, she thinks really, really hard in the direction of two women across the courtyard, first convincing them that they’re friends, and then making them strangers again. There’s no denying it then: Christina is an architect.
Reeling, she goes to lunch with her “college roommate,” Hale-ores. Things unravel further there, as she won’t talk about Teddy because she doesn’t know who she can trust. (Not trusting Hale-ores? Good choice.) She goes to work and searches the database for “Charlotte Hale” and her own old name, Dolores Abernathy, only to get an error message and a restricted access warning. This gets her in trouble with her boss, and it seems she’s about to get fired when she suddenly realizes she can control him, too. She makes him go home to his partner, but before he leaves, she asks him, “You said there’s a walled garden. You mean a closed system, don’t you? Where is it?” He responds: “Everywhere. You just have to see it.”
With that, she goes through a door in the wall and discovers a layout of the city. She asks the system to bring up all of her characters, and every single one of them is a real person living there. Horrified, she leaves and tracks down Teddy, who is waiting for her. Now, she can see the tower — and she wants to know who would do this to her. Teddy knows. “You did,” he says.
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Other Observations
- Some neat callbacks to Season 1 in this episode with host and human William’s “center of the maze” chat, Hale-ores discussing the Judas steer with host-William, and the inclusion of a piano in the dancing scene.
- Admittedly I was never a huge Teddy-Dolores fan, but I think the chemistry between him and Christina feels off. Is that intentional? Is he… not Teddy? Or is he Teddy, and he’s acting differently because he’s trying to free Dolores? The dinner-date last episode was fine, so maybe I’m overthinking it.
- Hale-ores isn’t working for me as a villain. I understand why she wanted host domination and I understand the character nuances that got her there, but she feels one-dimensional this season.
- On the subject of Hale-ores, I’m guessing she wanted Caleb (Aaron Paul) because he’s an outlier, and she wants to know why the outliers are not only slipping from her control, but also “infecting” hosts. Part of me wonders why she killed him, then — wouldn’t she have needed him as a human?
- Ed Harris, though. I’d been looking forward to that “William talks to William” scene since it appeared in the trailer, and it was as great as I’d hoped. While William’s not a good person by any means, sometimes — like when Hale-ores is screaming at him — it’s hard not to feel a little bad for the guy. I’m guessing he’ll turn on her by the end of the season.
- Rating: 4/5. While it was gorgeous visually and composer Ramin Djawadi never misses, “Zhuangzi” is my least favorite episode so far (but still good). After the “relentless f–king experience” that was “Generation Loss,” it felt a bit slow. It was also a bummer we didn’t get any answers about that massive Caleb cliffhanger. Ed Harris carries the episode.
Westworld, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO