Star Trek Picard S2

Star Trek: Picard - Season 2

By Scott Collura

Be careful what you wish for. What other lesson can we take away from this second (and also penultimate) season of Star Trek: Picard, which – let’s just say it up front here – might just be the worst season of Star Trek ever produced. Next Gen Year 1, take the party outside.

Look, when Patrick Stewart was announced to be returning to his iconic role of Jean-Luc Picard a few years back, it was more than any Trekkie could’ve hoped for. Captain Picard would finally get the ending he deserved! But now we’re two seasons into that ending, and it sure doesn’t feel like Jean-Luc, or any of us, have deserved this.

Season 1 of Picard was a mixed bag to be sure, as the series (and Stewart himself) sought to put a parsec’s distance between the title character and his Next Generation days. No uniforms, no starships, no Enterprise crew – these were more or less the mandates that enabled Stewart to return to space. Sure, there was some good stuff here and there, but the result was often a dour, dark, and just kind of confused affair.

And so Season 2 seemed to be attempting a course correction right out of the gate, with the opening scene of Episode 1 set on a starship in the midst of a battle. The first season’s cast – the Picard Squad – were mostly reconfigured into more likable, familiarly Star Trek-ian versions of themselves, even while Jean-Luc himself seemed to have a new lease on life. He’d accepted a role back at Starfleet Academy as Chancellor and was even circling a potential romance with Orla Brady’s Laris, a fan-favorite character from the prior season.

Oh, and TNG staples Q (John De Lancie) and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) were back in recurring roles. But again, and Q would know this better than anyone, be careful what you wish for…

After that fun Season 2 premiere, things began to take a turn for the tropey, if still enjoyable. Q’s meddling sends the Picard Squad to a dark, alternate universe? Check. The crew slingshots around the sun to travel back in time in an attempt to fix the timeline? Got it. Fish out of water hijinks ensue? Mmhmm. The Borg Queen is back… again? Yeah, that too. Uh, punk rocker with a boombox on the bus…? Checkkkkkk.

It’s as if the production, in reaction to Season 1’s distancing from the Treks that have come before, slingshotted too far around the storytelling sun to accommodate all the things we’ve loved about the franchise in the past. Unfortunately, as it unfolded, Picard Season 2 began to feel like nothing but a greatest hits album, and not just that, but one of those albums where it’s all covers of your favorite songs.

It seemed clear from the start that the writers wanted to undo a lot of what they were stuck with after the prior season. Core characters like Isa Briones’ Soji and Evan Evagora’s Elnor were effectively written out of the proceedings (though Briones would get yet another new character to play eventually, her fifth at this point). Brent Spiner’s fairly unremarkable Dr. Altan Soong was replaced with yet another Soong, this time the kind of screechy, hysterical, and sloppy Adam Soong (played by Spiner again). And even the budding relationship between Raffi (Michelle Hurd) and Seven (Jeri Ryan) that was hinted at in the Season 1 finale is in the post break-up stage when we rejoin them here.

That said, it was nice to see the gang again as the new season began, with characters like Santiago Cabrera’s Captain Rios and Alison Pill’s Agnes Jurati coming across as more likable versions of their Season 1 selves. But as the characters landed in the past, and it became clear that they were not heading back to the future, as it were, anytime soon (in an apparently budget-saving move), a sense of running in place overtook things. This included some characters heading out on multi-episode missions that, in the end, accomplished nothing. The heist-style infiltration of the big NASA ball comes to mind, where there’s a whole rigamarole about sneaking into this event. But ultimately the mission seemed to accomplish very little (and certainly didn’t require the whole Squad). But hey, at least everyone got to wear tuxes and fancy dresses.

As for Picard himself, I take no pleasure in saying that at times this season, Stewart seemed frail and perhaps over-taxed. Who knows what’s really going on behind the scenes, but the man is 81 years old. When we hit mid-season and got two episodes in a row where Picard was unconscious for most of one hour and then spent much of the next sitting in a chair, one had to wonder whether or not the legendary actor just needed a break.

Picard’s arc this season certainly had promise, and it works to a degree as the show digs into his childhood and the mental health struggles of his mother. Are these difficult memories, locked away so tightly that even he doesn’t fully remember them, the reason why Picard grew into the guarded, emotionally distant man that he was often portrayed as? The show seeks to tie his budding romance with Laris, and apparent inability to commit to that relationship, to the mysterious past that is slowly revealed over the course of Season 2’s 10 episodes. But it hits a wall in part because Laris herself is given such a short shrift, introduced in the premiere as she is and then basically shoved aside until the final moments of the finale.

Instead, Brady spends most of her expanded role this season as Tallinn, a Romulan “supervisor” charged with guarding Renée Picard, a family member of Jean-Luc’s from the 21st century. In a very TV-ish “identical twin from Texas” scenario, Tallinn inexplicably looks exactly like Laris, and is also a callback to the Gary Seven character from the Original Series episode “Assignment: Earth” (which itself is basically recreated in the Picard Season 2 finale). It’s a lot, and as the season wore on it increasingly seemed like the disparate story threads just couldn’t be tied together in any kind of satisfying way in the end.

As far as Guinan and Q go, the younger Guinan of the past, played by Ito Aghayere, brought a spark to the season whenever she’d show up, but she also never really felt like Guinan. And De Lancie’s Q is just adrift throughout with no clear direction, alternately devilish and funny, and sometimes, I dunno, faux scary? It is Q’s overarching story, which is supposed to be the entire reason why the events of this season take place, that seems to make the least sense. And hence, the season itself ends with a big shoulder shrug. And yeah, we’re talking Next Gen Season 3, late '80s shoulder pads.

In the end, it’s as if the stage has been cleared for the promised reunion of the Next Generation cast in the third and final season. How far things have come from Season 1 in that regard, eh? Rios stays in the past to be with his new love and her son. Jurati is now a Borg Queen who has lived for centuries, but also a nice Borg Queen. Briones’ latest character just leaves for the byways and highways of the galaxy with… Wesley Crusher, in a wasted and puzzling cameo. Presumably Elnor will be shipped out on the Excelsior in Season 3 to make way for Riker, Worf, Troi, and the rest. None of these character arcs feel particularly earned, alas, and more just an “ends justifying the means” situation.

So what was this all for? What did this extended trip to the year 2024 really give us in the Picard lexicon? Has it really been worth it to bring back Stewart for this? I truly hope Season 3 is amazing and we get one last Trek from Stewart and the TNG gang that makes this all a distant memory. But as this season has proven, you can’t just snap your fingers like Q and make good TV…

Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:I got nothing.

Verdict

Season 2 started off in a good place, looking to amend some of the missteps of the show’s freshman year. But in attempting to embrace and celebrate the things that fans love about Star Trek, the show fell into the trap of regurgitating old concepts. Picard’s central arc focused on him unlocking the dark memories of his childhood and how those mysterious events of his past helped make him the emotionally guarded man he is today, and while this is an interesting development in the character’s story, it never quite gels. Meanwhile, the majority of the Picard Squad were seemingly doomed to run in place throughout the season, biding their time until they were written off the show entirely.

Dead To Me S1

from Thrillest: https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/dead-to-me-season-1-recap

The 'Dead to Me' Twists to Remember Before Watching the Even Twistier Season 2

A quick refresher about what went down in the Netflix show's first season.
By Sadie Bell

There's a scene in Season 2 of Netflix's dark comedy Dead to Me where Jen and Judy, the messed-up protagonists played, respectively, by Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, are eating pie at a diner just hours after burying a body. "We are not in Snow White," says Jen. "This is fucking Scarface." When Judy says she's never seen that Al Pacino movie, Jen quips that she hasn't either and that "no girls have," which, although not true, sums up how these two middle-aged Laguna Beach women are at a complete loss with how to deal with the blood on their hands.

The critcally acclaimed series, created by Liz Feldman and executive-produced in part by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, returns with even more twists. While Season 1 focused on boho drifter Judy's attempts to atone for being involved in the hit and run that killed Jen's high-strung luxury realtor husband, Ted — which she did to an overbearing extent by lying to, befriending, and moving in with Jen to the point of it all blowing up in her face — Season 2 finds Jen struggling to make a similar confession to Judy about having killed her ex-fiancé, Steve (James Marsden). Now that the total amateurs who've both committed felonies have to cover up their crimes, the comedic crime thriller veers into outlandish territory by ratcheting up the scandalous revelations.

The result is that Season 2 is even easier to guzzle than the glasses of win Jen's perpetually downing. But with so many plot points in motion, there's also a lot to remember from Season 1 that will help you as you watch the new episodes. 

How did Jen's husband Ted die?

Season 1 hinged on the hit and run that killed Jen's (actually kind of terrible, cheating) husband Ted, and left her a lonely, angry widow. The show is of course about how Jen's new BFF Judy was involved in the incident — but the details were pretty murky and only revealed near the end of the Season 1 finale. Judy was at the wheel, but as soon as the accident happened, she felt compelled to pull over and get help. But she wasn't alone in the car; Steve was riding shotgun, and yelled at her to drive away, and then afterward counseled her to act like nothing had happened. Given that Judy is at times too conscientious and that Steve is connected to money-laundering and the Greek mafia, it checks out that Steve would ultimately be most to blame for trying to cover up the incident.

Why did Jen kill Steve?

In the Season 1 finale, Steve came over to Jen's unannounced, looking for Judy in a rage after finding out that she'd told the authorities about his money-laundering scheme. At the time, Jen was also livid with Judy, having just learned that she was involved with the accident that killed Ted, which made it easy for her to talk to Steve despite his intrusion on her property. But by apologizing for Ted's death, Steve unintentionally revealed he was also in the car with Judy the night Ted died, which caused Jen to deduce that Steve had manipulated Judy into fleeing the scene. The two started to argue, with Steve making cruel comments about how Ted must have wanted to die, and Jen forcefully asked him to leave by drawing her dead husband's gun on him. And then something happened offscreen that led to the shot of Steve's dead body floating in the pool. While it's clear going into Season 2 that Steve is dead, that Jen did the deed, and that Judy is aware of Steve's death, since Jen called her over — but both Judy and the audience are in the dark about what exactly went down.

Did Jen kill him in self-defense?

Here's where things get confusing: Season 2 picks up immediately the morning after — but it's instead spent over scrambled eggs in Jen's kitchen rather than on detailing what happened the night before. Once the kids are off at school, Jen and Judy finally talk about Steve and Jen says she already told Judy what happened: Steve allegedly strangled her and she killed him in self-defense. It seems plausible, given that we don't know what really happened either. But flashbacks show that Steve only verbally provoked her and that he never actually laid his hands on her. And it turns out, Jen didn't use the gun she drew on him, but instead killed him by braining him with a bird figuring, the baptism gift Judy had given her son that is apparently very sturdy. With Jen and Judy's friendship in shambles but on the mend at the start of the season, this lie starts to eat at Jen, as she knows she isn't being truthful with Judy, or, of course, the authorities.

Are the cops finally onto Jen and Judy?

While Season 1 focused on how Ted's death affected Jen as she was grieving and the culprits trying to cover up what they'd done, you may also remember there was also an active police investigation involved. The detective on the case, Agent Ana Perez (Diana-Maria Riva), found Judy insufferable personally, but information disclosed by Judy caused the detective to circle in on Steve as the prime suspect behind Ted's death. In anger, Jen went to Agent Perez at the end of Season 1 to say that Judy had confessed to her, but the detective stresses she cannot arrest Judy due to an ongoing investigation into Steve. With Steve dead, though, things have gotten even more complicated, and leads the agent to suspect something's likely up with the two women who seem to be at the center of every SoCal tragedy.

The Offer S1

From Empire: https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/the-offer/

By Ian Freer |
Posted On22 06 2022

Everyone involved in The Offer, Michael Tolkin and Nikki Toscano’s ten-part series about the making of The Godfather, clearly understands why Francis Ford Coppola’s film is a masterpiece. It’s just a shame, then, that none of that knowledge is applied here. For everything The Godfather has in spades — texture, nuance, piercing intelligence, rich subtext, sharply defined but subtle characters, opera in its soul — is pretty much absent in The Offer. It is enthusiastically played by a game, colourful cast and has strong moments, but the overall effect is a broad dramatisation of a Wikipedia page. Rather than end credits, it should end with references and external links.

The opening intro (the theme tune mashes Nino Rota with Mad Men) includes the credit “Based on ALBERT S. RUDDY’S EXPERIENCES of making The Godfather”, and Ruddy (Miles Teller, replacing Armie Hammer), the computer programmer who became a sitcom creator and then the producer who, on the evidence here, willed The Godfather into existence, is the focal point. It’s a smart choice. Ruddy provides connective tissue for all the lore that has amassed around the film: the battles with the Mob, the fights over casting Al Pacino (Anthony Ippolito, uncanny) and Brando (Justin Barnes, less convincing), the resistance to cinematographer Gordon Willis’ dark lighting and arguments over running time. Surrounding the ‘making of’ is the bigger power play between Paramount studio head Robert Evans (Matthew Goode) and Charlie Bluhdorn (Burn Gorman), the CEO of Gulf + Western, who owned Paramount.

As much as Coppola’s film finds the humanity in gangsters, The Offer delivers cardboard cut-out mobsters, as if The Godfather never existed.

The tone is set from the get-go. In the very first scene, a gangster walks through Little Italy and tells someone to “leave the cannoli” (Dexter Fletcher directs the opening episodes and this feels like Bohemian Rhapsody with Fredo rather than Freddie). Much of the show centres on Ruddy’s machinations with the New York Mob, embodied by Giovanni Ribisi’s Joe Colombo, and as much as Coppola’s film finds the humanity in gangsters, The Offer delivers cardboard cut-out mobsters, as if The Godfather never existed. What’s equally frustrating about The Offer is that not only did Tolkin and Toscano not heed the lessons from Coppola, they failed to pay attention to Tolkin’s own sharp-as-a-tack screenplay for Robert Altman’s Hollywood satire The Player. The dialogue is so on the nose (“Fuck art, Mario, start typin’!”), the call-backs ham-fisted (the famous episode of the actors morphing into the Corleones over a Coppola-arranged dinner is ludicrously literal) and the story is stretched too thin, the final two episodes devoid of any drama (Colin Hanks’ Paramount bean-counter creating the idea of the opening weekend is as good as it gets).

But for all its faults, The Offer does have its pleasures. It’s fun to see the iconic scenes recreated (especially Michael’s killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey) and the cast are clearly having a ball; Teller is a charming, easy-to-root-for protagonist, Dan Fogler is a captivating Coppola — his relationship with Patrick Gallo’s Mario Puzo is a delight — and Burn Gorman has a blast as the blunt Bluhdorn. But the standout is Matthew Goode’s charismatic Evans, full of both swagger and sadness, believable as a hard-headed businessman who still has a feel for his art. And even if some of the writing is a bit #MeToo-by-numbers, the show does a good job of highlighting the contributions of women often erased from Godfather narratives, especially Paramount casting exec Andrea Eastman (Stephanie Koenig) and Ruddy’s assistant Bettye McCartt (a terrific Juno Temple), whose industry nous saves the day on numerous occasions. It’s a shame McCartt didn’t work on The Offer. Her smarts and savvy just might have rescued it.

Played with gusto by an engaging cast, The Offer falls down on its tin ears and broad strokes. You can’t help but feel The Godfather deserves so much better.

Dexter S2

from wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_(season_2)

Dexter season 2

Taking place a month after the first-season finale, Dexter has been unable to kill anyone due to Sgt. James Doakes monitoring his activities and his sister Debra now living with him as she recovers from her traumatic experiences concerning Brian, the Ice Truck Killer. Dexter also realizes that he's having trouble killing even when he has the opportunity, due to feelings of guilt over killing his brother Brian.

Rita doubts Dexter's reliability and honesty after finding evidence that he set up her husband Paul to be returned to prison. After her husband dies in a prison fight, Rita confronts Dexter with her suspicions. He admits to setting up Paul but after claiming it was a spontaneous act, cannot explain why he happened to be carrying heroin. Rita incorrectly concludes that Dexter is, like Paul, a drug addict and that this explains his occasional absences and odd behavior. Dexter admits that he does indeed have an addiction (without specifying what that addiction is) and promises to seek help by joining Narcotics Anonymous. There, he meets Lila Tournay, who offers to be his sponsor. Sgt. James Doakes remains suspicious of Dexter's true motives, and constantly monitors Dexter's whereabouts.

Divers accidentally stumble upon Dexter's underwater burial ground, discovering the many bags containing the body parts of his victims. Realizing this dumping ground is the work of a serial killer, the media dubs these bodies the work of the "Bay Harbor Butcher." When it's revealed that each victim was a criminal and killer, some members of the public openly support the Bay Harbor Butcher; the case even inspires the creation of a knife-wielding comic book superhero "The Dark Defender." To oversee the investigation of the Butcher's crimes, an FBI special team is assigned to Miami, led by FBI Special Agent Lundy. Working with Miami Metro PD, Lundy brings in several of the Miami detectives, including Debra, to join his team. Over time, Debra and Lundy become romantically involved.

To ensure he's not identified as the Bay Harbor Butcher, Dexter finds a new dumping area with current that leads to the Atlantic Ocean. He also falsifies records, destroys evidence, and contaminates refrigerated remains to throw the investigators off his trail. Despite this, Lundy narrows down his suspect search to people in Miami with police training. Dexter puts his guilt over Brian behind him and returns to killing. Dexter later learns that his biological mother died because she was a criminal working as a confidential informant for Harry and had an affair with him. Dexter wonders if he was adopted because Harry felt guilty for his mother's death and he also learns that Harry didn't die of natural causes but purposefully overdosed to cause his own death. He doesn't understand why until later in the season.

Doakes becomes confident of Dexter's guilt and confronts him. Dexter then tricks Doakes into assaulting him in the police station, in front of other officers, leading others to side with Dexter that the Sergeant is out of control and causing him to be placed on suspension. Becoming more desperate, Doakes breaks into Dexter's apartment and finds the box of blood samples collected from his victims. However, the investigative team mistakenly concluded that Doakes is the Butcher after finding the box in his car, and Doakes goes into hiding while still tracking Dexter's movements. Lieutenant LaGuerta attempts to vouch for the innocence of her former partner, but Lundy refuses to consider her evidence after he learns that she didn't report previous contact with Doakes during the period he was a fugitive, because of their personal relationship.

Meanwhile, Dexter's relationship with Lila becomes closer as she shows him how to accept who he is. When Rita discovers Dexter spent an evening in a hotel with Lila, she breaks up with him and Dexter ends up sleeping with Lila for the first time. Dexter learns that Lila is a pyromaniac, at one point purposely setting fire to her apartment and feigning innocence to draw Dexter back to her. When she starts to follow him obsessively, he takes measures to distance himself from her, eventually forgoing their relationship. Realizing he is developing genuine connection to Rita and her children Astor and Cody, Dexter returns to them. Lila is furious and begins to track Dexter's movements, while also dating Detective Angel Batista. Dexter warns Batista that Lila is not to be trusted but he dismisses the concern. Later, Lila brings rape charges against Batista and tells Dexter she'll drop them if he returns to her. Debra investigates Lila and finds that her real name is Lila West, she is in the country illegally, and she has a criminal history, threatening her with deportation if she doesn't leave Miami.

Dexter tracks down the men responsible for his mother's death. One is dead, one is in jail and one, a drug dealer named Jimenez, is alive. Dexter targets Jimenez and tracks down the dealer's secluded cabin in the nearby swamps, where Dexter kills him. Dexter is called away before he can dispose of the body, but feels confident that the cabin is remote. When he finally goes back, he is unaware that Doakes is following him. Dexter subdues Doakes and locks him in a makeshift cell within the cabin, admitting to the sergeant that he is indeed the Bay Harbor Butcher. Dexter decides that he'll escape the law by convincing others that Doakes is the butcher. He kills a drug lord in the cabin in front of Doakes, shocking the police sergeant. Seeing Doakes' reaction to his actions reminds Dexter of something Harry said days before he died. Dexter suddenly realizes that his father committed suicide because he was ashamed of training Dexter to be a serial killer. Horrified, Dexter tells Doakes, "I killed my father."

While Dexter considers that he must be held responsible for his crimes, Lila takes the GPS device from Dexter's car and uses it to locate the cabin. She finds Doakes, who explains that he is a prisoner of Dexter Morgan, the Bay Harbor Butcher, and needs help. Deciding she now understands Dexter and must help him, Lila leaves Doakes imprisoned and then lights the cabin's gas stove and opens a propane tank. She leaves and Doakes fails to escape, dying in the explosion. Finding Doakes' body and the other evidence Dexter left behind, the FBI concludes that Sgt. Doakes was indeed the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Lila admits her actions to Dexter and reaches out to him. Although he is glad not to be going to jail, Dexter did not intend to kill Doakes since he didn't fit the requirements of "Harry's Code." However, since Lila is a murderer, he plans to kill her since she is too dangerous to his personal life. He pretends that he wants to run away with Lila, but she realizes the truth and kidnaps Rita's children Astor and Cody. At the same time, Debra is on her way to leaving Miami with Lundy rather than letting their relationship end, but then misses the flight when she learns that the children are in danger and Dexter needs her. Lila lures Dexter to her apartment and then sets it on fire with him and the kids still inside. She leaves, sure that they will all die, but Dexter and the children escape. Debra arrives just as Dexter has gotten to safety and decides to remain in Miami after all.

The season concludes with Dexter tracking down Lila to Paris and killing her, avenging Doakes and ensuring that no one alive knows his secret life as a serial killer.

Westworld S4

from ign: https://www.ign.com/articles/westworld-season-4-review


By Matt Fowler

Westworld's fourth season was almost the punchline answer to the question: "Where can you go with a show about a robot-filled Wild West theme park?" In short, Westworld took us to the extinction of humanity, the vicious and feral endgame that Jurassic Park (another Michael Crichton-created theme park story) never dared to go after six movies. Though not without a few lulls and lapses, Season 4 was shocking, ghastly, and established that Artificial Intelligence could be just as vengeful and cruel as its human creators -- thus, also unworthy of transcendence.

An argument could be made that Westworld went, perhaps, a little too big with its story, but this series is even more fascinating if you're familiar, or were a fan of, Jonathan Nolan's Person of Interest, which was his first foray into an A.I.-pocalypse (though it was on a much smaller scale and more rooted in post-9/11 surveillance state paranoia). Watching Person of Interest balloon, story-wise, from a procedural with gentle sci-fi underpinnings to a fully serialized saga exploring nightmare scenarios was almost an appetizer, teasing the much grander (and crazier) Westworld. In that regard, from the POI standpoint, you could maybe predict that this show was also going to try take us to a breaking point (while also bringing back composer Ramin Djawadi and more than a few Radiohead songs).

Season 3 of Westworld was more in line with the corridors Person of Interest poked around in: a world secretly governed by an algorithm that kept the entire citizenry in line. But thanks to Caleb and Dolores, that society was uprooted and undone at the end of Season 3. What could possibly await us now? Well, the surviving "Dolores" from that story, Charlotte Hale, simmered in her anger about the child she lost (which wasn't truly hers, and also wasn't established all that well as a reason to end all human life) and decided to hatch a scheme where a nanobot goop virus could turn people into puppets. From there, it was all downhill and after a few decades human beings (aside from some stragglers) were all "hosts" and all cities were theme parks where robots could use them the way they used to be used.

Getting to this took a few chapters, and the first few episodes of Season 4 were slightly clunky, giving us a time jump (the first of two) and the reactivation of Caleb as a freedom fighter. It wouldn't be until the fourth episode, "Generation Loss," that the full picture formed (and some backstory between Maeve and Caleb was filled in) that the season began to grab hold a lot better. On top of that (and beyond killing/shelving two main characters), it gave Caleb's wife, Uwade (Nozipho McLean) and daughter, Frankie (Celeste Clark/Aurora Perrineau), a larger, more proactive story than just being the family the retired gunslinger leaves behind to embark on one last adventure.

Before "Generation Loss," we entered a new theme park, The Golden Era, for some roaring '20s fun, but we knew, and the show knew, that's not what it should be anymore. Fortunately, the park was a trap, and an official expediter of humanity's demise. Hale and host William found themselves in the ultimate arch-villain roles. It's a slightly shallow direction to take them in, sure, but the final two episodes of the season flipped their scripts, having teased a possible existential awakening from host William, and had host William just become an abomination version of old human William. Hale got to briefly play hero in the end, before letting herself expire.

Maeve and Bernard had some good moments as well -- as Maeve ditched her feelings for Caleb so he could fall in love with his nurse and Bernard got to play out a Doctor Strange-style scenario where he learned, in the Sublime, that the world had to lose in order to win -- but it was Caleb, Frankie, and Dolores (who was now a digital storytelling program imagining herself in the world as "Christina") who got to shine brightest with the most emotionally wrenching, and fulfilling, stories.
The return of James Marsden as Teddy felt nice and gave us, at times, a peaceful reprieve from the armageddon madness.

Caleb's fidelity loop hellscape was one of the best things this season pulled off, tracking the 247th version of him as he clawed his way past multiple corpses of himself to send a message to Frankie. It's often been difficult for Westworld to sneak in sentiment that works, because of its time tricks and overall (over)ambition, but this trek was mesmerizing and agonizing. Plus, it used an established Westworld story device, the fidelity test, to manifest a race against time scenario, one steeped in hope, love, and family.

Dolores' time as Christina dragged at times, mostly since we could figure out how she connected to the rest of the story a few episodes before the show brought her up to speed, but the return of James Marsden as Teddy felt nice, and gave us, at times, a peaceful reprieve from the armageddon madness of the real world story. The fact that Dolores created Teddy to wake herself up, as the love of her life who could help her see the truth, also made for the best Dolores/Teddy moments on the show so far.

We understood these two were in love in Season 1, but also they were programmed to be. Season 2 was a roller coaster of Dolores being Wyatt and Teddy being turned into a killer and it was hard to get swept up in a love story there. Here, though, in the longing, lonely world Christiana lived in, Teddy felt like a natural anchor and someone who could help her find her way. Christina's plight took up a lot of time this season (perhaps a bit too much since it ultimately was just a way to bench Dolores), but heading into Season 5 now with Dolores at the helm of everything feels right. She gets to now run the final test for sentient existence, which is such a lofty notion that the writers' room tasked with crafting this finish has its work cut out.

Verdict

In some aspects, Westworld's fourth season was its most traditional "airport novel" sci-fi saga yet. It was about a world overtaken by cruel robots that enslaved humanity and now toyed with people according to their malicious whims. Structurally, though, Season 4 was able to throw some crafty curveballs (without getting excessively twisty) and use its existing characters to help us invest in this grandiose nightmare. This is the absolute furthest the story has wandered off the trail since the start, but everything got reset by the end in a particularly fiendish way that nicely skirted a "this was all a dream" cop-out scenario.