Westworld Season 1 Episode 4 Review

Westworld (2016-)
Season 1 (2016)

Westworld - Season 1 Episode 4 - Dissonance Theory

Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
This is another solid episode that slowly edges the plot forward. It looks like 'the maze' might be the endgame for season 1. This doesn't have any big revelations, it's primarily a foundation for plot yet to come.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme parked stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

Dolores strays farther off path as the show is getting her to wherever she's going, and the Man in Black edges closer to the maze. The maze might be the end game of this season. Maeve determines that nothing matters, but no other hosts have awoken.

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is talking to Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) again to open the episode. She tells him there is something wrong with the world, or something wrong with her. Bernard wants to start her on the path to "the maze." It is the same thing the Man in Black is chasing. Bernard tells her if she can get to the center she can be free. She wakes up with William (Jimmi Simpson) and Logan (Ben Barnes). Apparently the Bernard conversation was a dream. This could be a seed planted from Arnold.

William and Logan off some outlaws and Logan claims to have found an easter egg to one of the best rides in the park.

Technicians notice Dolores is deviating and notify the behavior department. Dolores has a vision of the Man in Black's captive Lawrence's (Clifton Collins Jr.) daughter and sees the pattern she drew in the dirt of the same maze the Man in Black is seeking.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) remembers the shootout and clean up from episode 2. She draws the technician from the body shop and goes to hide the drawing under a floor board. It's not the first time she's drawn that picture.

QA takes over the investigation from the behavioral department into the host that crushed its own skull with a rock in episode 3. Elsie (Shannon Woodward) is upset that Bernard allowed it, but he's trying to hide the aberration from QA. Letting them investigate is the only way to make it look like he has nothing to hide.

The Man in Black (Ed Harris) has found the Blood Arroyo but no egg laying snakes, that is until he spots a woman with a snake tattoo that wraps around her body. He was thinking too literal.

We do learn that whoever the Man in Black is outside of the park, he owns a medical foundation.
Man in Black knows Arnold. Man in Black recounts the legend of Arnold, and how Arnold said you can do anything in the park except die. Arnold wanted a world with real stakes and real violence. If that's what the Man in Black seeks, why?
He tells the tattooed woman he'll retrieve what she wants from a jail provided she'll tell him about her tattoo. He gets into the jail, finds another outlaw, Hector (Rodrigo Santoro), and frees him.
Man in Black lights a match which sends a signal to the staff for a pyrotechnic effect. Since he's such a big benefactor, it gets approved. He escapes the jail with Hector and Lawrence.

That tattooed woman tells Man in Black a story of revenge and how she added a segment of the snake as she took her revenge on those that killed her mother. The last man she wants to kill is Wyatt, the same character just introduced in Ford's (Anthony Hopkins) new story line.

Teresa (Sidse Babett Knudsen), the head of QA, meets with Ford. She tries to suggest delaying his new story line, but he has no intention. It's not a theme park, it's a world. In the park Ford and Arnold were gods. They designed every inch. Ford states that Arnold, "lost his perspective" and went mad. Ford knows everything about the guests and his employees. He knows Teresa and Bernard have a relationship, and he tells Teresa to not get in his way. He will finish the story on time and it won't be a retrospective. A giant earth moving machine in the background tears up the Agave garden in the distance.

The Man in Black finds Teddy Flood (James Marsden) tied to a tree. Teddy was after Wyatt last episode.
Hector and his crew return to the city for their heist story line where Maeve corners Hector, wanting to ask him a few questions. He tells her a few myths about the techs she drew and gets the safe for his trouble. Maeve asks him to stab her. He refuses so Maeve does it herself, finding a bullet inside her from episode 2, proving that she was shot and there is more behind the park. As she says, this proves "nothing matters."