WW – Westworld S4 E2 Well Enough Alone

Jason and Cristina break down Westworld season 4 episode 2 Well Enough Alone! Plus a deeper look into the MIB’s Ernest Hemingway “A Farewell To Arms” quote, more theories on whats coming next and our Summary Showdown.

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Podcast Notes –

“I heard a fly buzz when I died.”

CRITICS:     

“Well Enough Alone” contained rudimentary Westworld intrigue and revelations — including notable unveilings about Charlotte’s evil plan and the introduction of a new theme park at the end — but it also very much felt like an addendum to last week’s premiere, focusing a bit too much on lengthy scenes featuring host William being smug and taking down political foes. It gave us an enticing ending featuring a brand new theme park, but it also spun its wheels a bit too much for a season that only has eight episodes.

TITLE:          Stop changing something that’s already good enough. Song, by Chavelle

MUSIC:

• “Caleb” – Djawadi (Caleb talks to Carver on phone)
• “Don Giovanni: Dalla sua pace” – Léopold Simoneau (empty opera theater)
• “Got My Blues” – Michael Carubia (on train with Sophia)

NEW FACES & PLACES & IDEAS

FACES:

• Jim Navarro: Josh Randall – Deputy Assistant to the Attorney General,

working on counterterrorism  

• Chuck – VP                   Jose Zuniga – Vice President of the US
• Senator Ken Whitney: Jack Coleman – California Senator
• Anastasia:                   Saffron Burrows – His wife                            

IDEAS:

• Mafia World:          New park set in the Golden Age of the Roaring 20s

PLOT

CHRISTINA

Christina wakes in bed again, this time with the cut healing on her arm. She tells Maya she’s not sleeping well, thinking about Peter.  She insists he was already in trouble – confusing a game with real life and his charity of choice was Hope Center for Mental Health (per his obituary.  But Christina thinks she might have written something like his story.

She tries going to work but on her way passes a man on the street –

“The song with no sounds.  It’s killing them.  It’s coming from the tower.  Can you hear it?  No one can hear it’s music except for me and the birds.”

Before entering the building, she sees tons of dead birds on the ground and decides not to go

(everyone dressed in black/ white)

• Auguries – 2 types – 1) Oscines (songbirds – their song), 2) Alites (how they flew)

In the car, she pulls up – Brainstorming files.  Character Archives.  P. Myers file.  New pitch – “Guy named Peter, depressed, different from others.  Seeing things, imagining conspiracies, wife left him, lost his job, stalked girl he became obsessed with.  Stalked her, spiraled out of control.  Killed himself.”  When her boss Emmett calls and she says she needed to stay home because she’s not feeling well, he knows she’s accessing files remotely and can see from her coordinates that she’s traveling.  But she’s entitled to her 4 sick days a year.  So Christina advances to the Hope Center for Mental Health in New Jersey, where she finds a clinic that’s been shut down years ago.  Inside, is a plaque showing a dedicated memorial wing to Peter Myers.  Wondering how this is possible, she calls Maya to tell her she feels like she’s going insane.  Maya tries to talk her down, saying it’s just been a long week and she should come home. In a room, she’s sees drawings pinned to wall, all of the Tower. 

MIB

Clementine Pennyfeather (who we last saw briefly in Season 3, working with Maeve in Jakarta and managing to escape a Dolores-Musashi from Shogunworld), arrives at an idyllic home to find the MIB waiting for her. He demands to know where her ‘old master’, Maeve is.  She fights back, thinking she’d rather see him in hell first, but he stabs her. 

• (brightly colored outfit – next scene, depressing grey tones)

Next we see, she’s working for William, turning away Jim Navarro from the Justice Department.  She doesn’t care that he’s Deputy Assistant to the Attorney General for Counterterrorism or that he’s supposedly backed by the full power of the US Government…he doesn’t have a scheduled meeting.  

While playing on his private golf course, Clementine entertains the two Secret Service guards, while the Vice President talks to the MIB.  The MIB is still angry that Chuck didn’t show up at Emily’s funeral, even if he was busy campaigning (the MIB bankrolled it). 

Chuck says there have been wild theories about William and the mess out west has drawn too much attention.  He can do what he wants offshore, but not here domestically.  They’ve all been pulling for him to ‘come out of his spiral’.  The MIB says he was tired of waiting for ‘permission to rebuild’, the deal is done and he’s taking his business back to its roots – ‘You’re for sale, everyone’s had a turn, and you’re gonna turn down my money?”  The VP tries to fight back, saying he’s a psychopath, damaged gods, and he can crush him.  But the MIB (demonstrating several hole in one shots), tells him it was a bad idea to come here alone today.  Ultimately, they’re friends in the way Hemingway and Fitzgerald were (in the way the weak are drawn to the strong).  “After I’ve broken you, you will grow strong, the same as I am”.    Chuck sees that Clementine has killed his Secret Service Men and the MIB advances on him with the golf club.

In a parking garage, Clementine attacks Navarro in his car and from the front seat, Hale says they’ve she’s spent most of her life being manipulated by those in the shadows.  But it wouldn’t be practical to replace humans one at a time – she wants her people to be able to grow, flourish, find their own identity.  She has plans for humankind.  She leaves him zip tied to the seat, a fly landing on his eye.

In a basement lab, she approaches a human William (tied to a spherical pod device).  He wonders why she needs him; why not let him die?  Hale says he is as close to a God as you get; he created world that controlled the hosts every move and now, she’ll do the same to him. She’ll make sure his people can’t harm them ever again.  A host version of William walks out and Hale puts him into a deep and dreamless slumber (some sort of cryo/ stasis – shot in neck, gas comes out as 2 circles close around center). 

MAEVE & CALEB

Driving to the Senators house, Maeve tells Caleb his daughter is lovely.  He thinks she and her mother are the best things that ever happened to him.  Maeve reflects that while alone in the cabin all that time, she wasn’t lonely; she came back to save his life.  

Arriving at the mansion, Maeve shuts the security cameras with her mind powers and the find  Senator Ken Whitney & his wife Anastasia getting ready for the opera.  When Maeve confesses she’s there about the MIB, the couple start attacking. They confirm they’re both hosts but Maeve can’t freeze their motor functions.  After a difficult fight, they get the upper hand.  Upon questioning Senator Whitney, he confesses he is an emissary of the New World Order.  There are 249 ‘like him’.  When the MIB came soliciting changing his ‘guidelines’, the Senator wouldn’t budge as Anastasia felt strongly about the issue (her sister died in the massacre).  So, he brought in host versions to kill the husband and use the wife to help research a new experiment (Hale’s orders).  She was brought to the barn.

Behind the house in the horse stables, Caleb and Maeve discover slaughtered horses, blood on the stalls, and Anastasia bent over a dead horse with a knife.  She’s humming and out of her mind.  She tells them they’re invited to opening night, Don Giovanni.  “I’ve done my part, now do yours – free me.”  She rushes Caleb with the knife and Maeve shoots her, reflecting that she was already gone and she’s never seen a human act like that.

In formal wear, Maeve and Caleb head to the opera house.  Knowing it’s a trap, they have no choice but to enter.  Before going inside, Caleb calls to make sure Carver is keeping his wife and child safe – he tells carver to get them out of the city (it’s getting bad – Delos funded the event).  Inside, they find an empty theater with a Gramophone playing. A platform descends from under them, leading to a familiar hallway.

• The titular character in Don Giovannifamously descends into Hell at the end, requiring most productions to have a trap door with a lift.

At the end of the hall, they enter a bar room area and get drinks.  Caleb wonders if they’re ever going to talk about what happened at the Lighthouse.  Maeve thinks there isn’t much to say, she saved his life and they went on with living.  But he confesses his wife thinks he’s living in the past.  Then, the room starts to move and Maeve thinks she should have known – “I ran away but when I thought I was finally free, I just found the same old shit.” 

The train goes through desert and Sophia (brought in as a replacement for Clementine in S1) – comes to assist with their reservation. She takes Caleb’s phone (for a more immersive experience).  And since it’s Mr. & Mrs. Morgan’s 1^st visit, she gets their information.  While Caleb never visited Westworld, Maeve was ‘a regular’.  She allows them to make their wardrobe choices and offers to assist Caleb, though Maeve dismisses her.    

Cuts back and forth.  The MIB gives an opening speech – “Some of you fear revisiting one of our company’s darkest chapters.  Nearly 150 years ago, the world had its first great war.  We were torn apart by fighting, a pandemic, it was our darkest hour.  But we came roaring back.  The public is ready to unleash their true selves once again.  And we are broadening our horizons.  Thanks to the support of our administration (the VP nods from the wings) – Delos Destinations has expanded its footprint.  Our own new world.  We aren’t revisiting the past, we’re recreating it.  Welcome to the Golden Age.”

Lights come on and full city lights up behind him. 

Maeve and Caleb exit onto a Roaring Twenties city – Temperance.

CLOSER LOOK: 

ERNEST HEMINGWAY – “A Farewell to Arms”

“If people bring so much courage to the world, the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

Set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. provided a realistic and unromanticized account of war. He wanted readers to experience the events of the novel as though they were actually witnessing them.

Hemingway sought advice on the ending from F. Scott Fitzgerald, his friend and fellow author. Fitzgerald suggested Hemingway end the novel with the observation that the world “breaks everyone,” and those “it does not break it kills.” In the end, Hemingway chose not to take Fitzgerald’s advice.

THE ROARING TWENTIES:

In the Roaring Twenties, a surging economy created an era of mass consumerism, as Jazz-Age flappers flouted Prohibition laws and the Harlem Renaissance redefined arts and culture. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.”