Westworld Review: Decoherence (Season 3 Episode 6)

Sometimes less is more. But for the case of Westworld Season 3 Episode 6, “Decoherence,” more is needed as some of the big moments land a little flat with not enough behind them to deliver fully.

It’s not a bad episode by any means; it does what it sets out to do, and does so while continuing the high-quality production that’s been delivering every single episode. But for Charlotte and William, they are progressing their respective stories at a quick clip without enough to really sell their arcs.

For William, there’s two previous seasons of work that has been done, and so his story, while truncated, does have something behind it. But for the host version of Charlotte, there are only a few small scenes throughout the season that help shift her decision in the latter half of the episode, and they don’t quite line up with being a piece of Delores, as well.

Bringing back Peter Mullan’s James Delos and Jimmi Simpson’s younger William should be cause for excitement, as both performers are outstanding on the show and their narratives have been the more successful threads of the first and second seasons. Here, though, they’re mostly to push older William/The Man in Black to accepting (or, as the case turns out, not accepting) responsibility for the things he’s done.

This part of the episode does have its upsides, mostly through William facing the collapse of his own mind as its stages of life battle itself, but there’s this sense that it’s a rather tame indictment on William and his cruelty.

He does accept the reality of killing his own daughter, but doesn’t exactly face that realization, or that he’s been a fighter his entire life rather than the nice guy the younger William portrays, with much emotional push.

Instead, it’s mostly an acceptance, a moving on to become something more. That’s helpful for a narrative standpoint as he looks to potentially join Bernard and Stubbs, but for emotional impact, it’s a little muted.

That missing impact is also found in Charlotte and Maeve as they face potential ruin. Charlotte’s ascent from a secondary Delores that’s meant to be a tool inside Delos into an emotion-based, more caring version of her true self is a neat way to take her; and yet, there’s the problem of it feeling a little superficial.

The background work of showing host Charlotte wanting to rebuild her family is certainly there, especially with how she protects Nathan at the park from the predator earlier on the season, but there still feels like a little more would help the decision to abandon Delores’ cause for wanting to pick up Charlotte’s life for her own.

So while Charlotte’s ex and son getting murdered in the car explosion is absolutely tragic and hits hard in the moment, there’s this small nagging wish that Charlotte needed to enjoy more moments with them on the show before making this sudden decision.

There’s also the ridiculousness of Charlotte immediately going to copy intellectual property for Delores the very moment after Serac mentions there’s a host to root out. Doing all of this right after being told that the hunt is on doesn’t seem very solid of a plan, especially since Charlotte mentions she’s been doing this for quite a while already.

But when the clock narrows and Serac’s control is nearly complete, that likely speeds up completing the task for Delores, and so it sort of makes sense. Still, it’s an odd choice.

Maeve, meanwhile, comes across as spinning some wheels while waiting for the rest of the story to catch up. The loss of Hector is a crushing blow to her, and it’s a haunting image, but all that’s come before feels largely unnecessary. It’s a lot of Nazi killing (something we have seen already) and chatting in a bar, waiting for their bodies to complete construction in the real world.

The confrontation with an older version of Delores does manage to perk up this part of the narrative, but it comes across more as a precursor to a final battle than a main event.

There’s also the need to see a little more of the breakdown of society as everyone realizes their predetermined lives. It leads to jarring imagery like William’s caretaker hanging herself in her office as he is escorted by and the chaos that Charlotte walks through with Nathan, but it feels smaller scale given the major implications the previous episode implied.

It also may be over, since Serac manages to settle the timeline on his watch back to its original, thinner shape. Is that a sign that the mistake has been corrected, or just a sign that he has taken control again? It’s still not clear what that loop means, though perhaps it’s a visualization of humanity’s loop, and Serac is looking to make it as clean as possible.

This is all speculation, though, for the time being.

This may sound overly negative, but it’s just that the end is near, and some things don’t land as perfectly as they could with a few tweaks beforehand. But the episode does set out what it means to do, which is an important point.

Westworld Season 3 Episode 6, “Decoherence,” settles things down and gives the supporting players their due, catching them up before the climax. They place loss into their hearts as the ultimate motivator, and defines those dividing lines even more.

Westworld has its share of problems in the past with showing too much of one thing and being tight-lipped about other, more important things, and this episode falls on the latter side with the emotions of its characters. It’s still a fantastic season so far, where the main thread is working and really hitting; but it’s in these supporting characters where their longer absences are felt when it’s time to deliver on their stories.

 

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Westworld airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

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