Westworld – The Best It May Ever Get

This is it, ladies and germs.  The moment of truth is upon us.  Westworld is rolling into its last episode this Sunday and some of us are very excited to see where the show is taking us.  I, from the beginning, have been in on this, so much so that it has become a weekly hobby of mine to do some reading about the show, some hypothesizing and to talk it out with friends.  All this aside, the week before the finale is an important moment, because the very real possibility exists that this is the best the show will ever get.

Westworld is a show about mystery, specifically the central question surrounding what the show is all about.  There are existential questions and implications of creating sentient life that have complicated answers.  There are moments of stark reality that the show toys with regarding family and memory that are lofty, heavy themes to tackle.  All of these things and more are still on the table, because you see, we haven’t seen the conclusion yet.

The wonder of a great second act/early third act in a story such as this is that the possibility of what is to come is truly unknowable.  The Empire Strikes Back continues to be the strongest Star Wars film because that film delivers darkness, despair, foreshadowing and hope for the future.  Say what you will about Return of the Jedi, but for many that film was a let-down simply because it ends the story, and all stories must end.  Ending a story well is paramount to whether or not I can recommend it to someone, so a lot is at stake for this finale for me.

When you look at the great TV series of the past sixteen years, there are examples of both phenomenal and lackluster endings.  The Wire, Breaking Bad and Six Feet Under still endure as examples of shows with good arcs for everyone involved and logical conclusions to those stories.  Even Battlestar Galactica, a show that by all accounts should never have been as great as it was, finds a way to complete the story in a way that serves what came before it AND does not insult the fans.  Shows like Lost, The Office (US) and almost everything on Showtime fail to show restraint in their storytelling and fail to stay true to their original ideas and conventions.  The stark reality of Westworld is that the latter is a completely viable path for the show to take after this week’s episode, and although I’ve been saying this since the first article I wrote, I am worried that this is the best the show will ever be.

So for you Westworld fifes out there standing in opposition to the tyrannical hordes trying to convince you this show is a waste of effort (GC), good luck this weekend.  I’ll be there with you, watching with baited breath, hoping the numerous mysteries and implications have been worth the wait.  Do I think it will wrap up everything we want and leave us confident for the next season?  I have no idea, but I do think it will be worth the experience.  At the end of the day, if all this show gave me was Anthony Hopkins sitting in a room with Jeffrey Wright having a conversation, or having a battle of wits with Ed Harris, then it was worth it.