‘Westworld’ Season 4 jumps into recognizable future 

A big month for Michael Crichton franchises continues with the launch of “Westworld” Season 4 (Sundays, HBO). This is the headier of the two Crichton sagas, requiring more brainpower to appreciate than “Jurassic World: Dominion,” which is goofier but more easily accessible. 

A seven-year jump 

Still, “Westworld” remains professionally and beautifully constructed enough (see the opening Hoover Dam sequence) to be worth exercising that brainpower. Indeed, showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan essentially ask this of us. Graffitied on the wall next to the residence of Caleb (Aaron Paul) is “My Brain, My Choice.” If you want to keep watching, understand that “Westworld” is interactive. 

Season 4 jumps ahead seven years since Season 3, when Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) dies. “Westworld” has always been about resurrection – the robots are constantly “killed,” repaired and sent back into the field – and that’s still true now that we’re away from the theme park and planted in the daily grind of the near-future real world. 

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“Real world” should be used loosely, because we don’t know precisely what we’re seeing in the Season 4 premiere, “The Auguries.” (Auguries are omens derived from bird behavior; this episode has no birds in it. Such is “Westworld.”)  

Wood is back, but now she’s called Christina, and – as revealed by an attack that might be a dream but nonetheless makes her bleed and leaves a scar on her arm – she’s not a Westworld robot but rather a human being. 

Creating a reality 

To say “Westworld” riffs on the 2021 films “Free Guy” and “The Matrix Resurrections” is probably not fair. Writers Joy and Will Soodik likely penned this episode independently of influence from those films. But the comparisons must be made once we learn Christina is a video-game story writer.  

This is a future where stories are told almost exclusively through games (rather than film, TV, books or comics), as many observers of young children predict for the actual years ahead. Christina writes NPCs (non-playable characters) — think of Guy in “Free Guy.” This is a metaphor for Dolores’ lot in life before she broke free of Westworld. 

Also, Thomas in “Matrix Resurrections” is a game designer. The Christina-Dolores dichotomy could parallel the Thomas-Neo dichotomy. As with that film, Christina’s characters impinge on her life – one of them demands she stop writing bad things happening to him. She insists she’s not doing that. 

But just as “Westworld” asks something of viewers, it asks something of its characters who might otherwise want to float along in a pre-programmed existence. Most likely, Dolores is affecting this poor NPC.  

‘My Brain, My Choice’ 

“Westworld” is either a simple story or a complex story (or an underexplained one, which is essentially the lazier version of being complex). In my opinion, it’s best enjoyed through the former lens, with our focus being on themes and moments.  

The downside to viewing “Westworld” as something accessible is that we never get a full picture of the characters; the writers obfuscate the big picture. The upside is that some great actors play these characters.  

Episode one features Wood, Paul, Thandiwe Newton and Ed Harris. Sitting out this one, but no doubt returning soon, are Tessa Thompson and Jeffrey Wright. James Marsden — last seen in Season 2 as the deceased Teddy, the love of Dolores’ life – is also back, as revealed in episode one’s closing stinger. (Death doesn’t mean much in “Westworld”; the stakes are bigger than that, as Harris’ William could tell you.) 

As with the similarities to those sci-fi films from between “Westworld’s” seasons, it’s probably kismet more so than intent that makes Christina’s closing monolog timely. Dreaming up a new game story while standing on her balcony with the gorgeous future Manhattan skyline behind her, Christina imagines a girl who dreams of a happy life. We see a montage of the characters played by Wood, Newton and Thompson. 

That “My Brain, My Choice” graffiti is of course a direct play on “My Body, My Choice,” a slogan associated with a woman’s right to either abort or proceed with a pregnancy. Abortion rights dominated the news cycle in the week before the episode, as the Supreme Court threw the lawmaking ability back to the 50 states. 

Fighting the forces 

Thematically, “Westworld” has always been about people (or robot-people) being controlled by outside forces. It rarely defines those forces explicitly; it never says “government,” and even corporations — those shifty bedfellows of governments — are ephemeral and ever-changing.  

But that vaguely tragic vibe of not being in control of your life lingers in every character’s life – except perhaps the destructive William, a.k.a. The Man in Black, who inexplicably is now one of the controllers. William unleashes a swarm of mind-controlling houseflies in order to acquire the massive databanks stored inside Hoover Dam. 

I view “Westworld” via Dolores/Christina, both because she’s the main character and because Wood draws my attention and sympathy. As “bad” as Christina’s life is as an easily replaceable game writer who wants to write happy stories but is told by her boss to write tragedies, she nonetheless lives in a swank apartment with a cool roommate who sets her up on blind dates. (“Set-ups are awkward,” Christina complains. “So is dying alone,” the roomie counters.) 

But just when I suspect “Westworld” is doing the “Friends” thing of giving Christina an upper-class living situation to pair with a lower-class job, I wonder if there’s an explanation. Maybe Christina’s world isn’t real. After all, the only obvious way Christina could exist as a human would be if Dolores was all along based on a real person: Christina. Maybe that’s the answer. 

Thinking about “Westworld” always leads to questions like this. It’s not an immediate pleasure like “Jurassic World: Dominion,” and I do sometimes wonder if Joy and Nolan are playing a grand con-game with viewers. But like Dolores when she was in the theme park, I think there’s gotta be something more to “Westworld’s” world, so count me in for Season 4. 

Top 250 trivia

• “Westworld” ranks No. 155 among IMDb’s Top 250 TV shows with an 8.6 rating.
• The only other Crichton project to have a similar level of respect is “Jurassic Park,” which ranks No. 151 on the movie list with an 8.2 rating.

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