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Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 3 of Westworld.If you had told me a year ago that this newest season of Westworld would not just be quite good, but also the most fun it has ever been, I would have had a rather hard time believing you. Yet with a well-timed jump into the future that still allows it to wrestle with the past, the show’s first few episodes have achieved just that and more. This continued to be the case in the show’s third episode, “Années folles,” which took a turn into some interesting new territory for the series. Specifically, we got to see the return of Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) in rare form as he came back from what is known as The Sublime which has given him foresight of all future outcomes. In practice, this turned him into a wisecracking badass who is making his way through a desolate world with the snarky Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) in tow to team up with a resistance movement searching for some sort of weapon in the desert. Alongside that, the dynamic duo of Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and Caleb (Aaron Paul) continued to infiltrate the new park. The episode, quite refreshingly, made plenty of genuinely funny and self-referential jokes about itself that also were intermixed with a solid heaping of broadly humorous situations. Whereas the show had been deathly serious in prior seasons, often to its detriment in the last one, this episode stood out for how gloriously yet subtly comedic it all was.
From the witty banter between characters to many winking jokes about the past continuing to repeat itself, there is much to appreciate in the show for being willing to have the actors let loose and have fun. While the show has always been rather grim, this episode was more gregarious in nature, and all the better for it. In particular, Wright and Newton brought a wonderfully playful sensibility to each scene. Bernard, after an intriguing conversation that saw the welcome albeit brief return of acclaimed actor Zahn McClarnon, is trying to get his bearings after years in what was essentially a deep sleep. He is a changed man, able to basically see into the future and know what is coming. Or, as Stubbs puts it, his old friend “came back even weirder.” The scenes of Bernard demonstrating his new skill, predicting the outcome of a sandwich order to the way he’ll be attacked by goons outside a diner, feel like they’re taking a page out of a film like Edge of Tomorrow in the best way possible. There is a mischievous edge that is intermixed with the macabre, making it so each scene carries weight while also being generally fun. Much of this is due to Wright, who has always shown a propensity for wit, though it also is that the show is willing to have fun with its premise.
When it comes to Maeve, Newton delivers a litany of biting lines with vigor and venom. The character has always been cutting in her observations, though this episode feels like it really reached a new height. The park itself is different, though many of the storylines that the creators have put into place are exactly the ones she is familiar with which allows her to riff on it all. From “Oh, they spare no expense on their prisons,” to “He’s just a shabby imitation of a man I used to know,” in reference to a stand-in character that Maeve once loved, Newton is just chewing up each scene with ease. When she then proceeds to just blow it all up by taking down everyone in the room she once was trapped in, it is comedic and cathartic in equal measure. That this is then followed by both her and Caleb pulling the classic trick of hiding with the bodies to sneak into the lower level is the icing on top. Paul also is a strong straight man who gets in fun quips like when he remarks, “There’s got to be an easier way to get down here,” after he falls through a chute into a pile of bodies. He groans as he pushes himself up to continue on, like a gruff action hero who is growing increasingly tired of all this.
The show still pulls the rug out from under us in typical form, though there is just something nice about the more sturdy and occasionally silly sensibility that makes these scenes really sing. After many missteps in the prior season, Westworld now feels like it is a show that is willing to have a good-natured laugh at itself and get swept up in the spectacle it has created. It all gives it an aptly adventurous feel that ensures we are more deeply invested in the respective journeys of the characters. It is a tonal shift that the show has undertaken, yet another way it has quietly reinvented itself when it needed to. It works not just to elicit chuckles throughout but to continue to build its world and characters. They feel like more complete people, wryly poking fun at how ridiculous this all can be. It continues to be a horrifying world they inhabit, driven by gruesome scenes which culminate in its most terrifying yet, that makes use of suffocating sound design to create a devastating reveal.
Its humor makes this even better as it creates a balance that ensures the episode’s climactic moment where the silliness quickly subsides is all the more sinister. As the full scope of the plan that is playing out takes hold of Caleb, and he is consumed by utter terror, we see how the witty man we had been with before is now completely gone. He has vanished into the nightmare, swallowed up by the fear of losing all he holds dear. It creates a strong juxtaposition that serves the story, showing how there is something to lose when all the silliness is stripped away to reveal the true horror of what is taking place here. While being too focused on being funny could easily tip things out of symmetry, the episode strikes a good balance that elevates every emotion as a result. Even this early in the season, the show ought to continue to lean into this tone for the future. It makes it all into a full-course meal of distinct flavors and intriguing tones that sharpens all the senses as a result. As of now, knock on wood, this leaves me hungry for more Westworld for the first time in a long while.
