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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
The chaos that has commenced is out of control, and we don’t know what to make of it!
This episode of Westworld‘s third season is titled “Decoherence.” It is directed by Jennifer Getzinger (Mad Men) and written by Suzanne Wrubel and series co-creator Lisa Joy.
Some spoilers ahead for those who have not yet watched the episode or seen the show, so watch the episode first then return to this article afterward!
Continuing from last week’s episode “Genre,” the world has spiraled down into madness about the data leaks of the Incite company, and Rehoboam creator Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel) is trying to pick up the pieces. Main characters William (Ed Harris), as well as the hosts Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) and Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), take the spotlight in this sixth episode of the season.
- In the mental institution, William is rehabilitated for his sadistic and nihilistic viewpoints on the world. He faces his demons, showing viewers of the show that his propensity for violence started out during adolescence.
- Maeve returns to the Westworld simulation to look for help against Dolores Abernathy in the real world, but some allies are lost in the process.
- Charlotte Hale prevents Serac from taking Incite’s host data but she loses people close to her as this happens.
Of the three overlapping storylines taking place here, William’s and Hale’s have the best character development, albeit with some predictability toward the end. Hale learns that humans’ lives on Earth are temporary, whereas the hosts’ are perennial since their consciousnesses can be transferred from one place to another and carried over into another vessel, which is their bodies. Serac reminds the hosts that they are cogs that comprise the mega-machine that is technology. He tells Maeve, “Human memory is imperfect. Even the most treasured moments fade…every image you see is recorded and stored. You have no past because it’s always present at your fingertips.” With this in mind, Hale is taught that the hosts are survivors of violent events; as was said previously in the series, “These violent delights have violent ends,” which derives from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The William of Westworld speaks of how the world has served as a cesspool. In the first act of the episode, he says:
I think humanity is a thin layer of bacteria in a ball of mud hurdling through the void. I think if there was a God, he would’ve given up on us long ago. He gave us a paradise and then we used everything up. We dug up every ounce of energy and burned it. We consume and excrete, use and destroy, then we sit here, and I mean little pile of ashes having squeezed anything of value out of the planet, and we ask ourselves, “Why are we here?” You want to know what they think your purpose is? It’s obvious. You’re here along with the rest of us to speed the entropic death of this planet, to service the chaos. We’re maggots eating a corpse.
To add to this, background characters in the show’s real world have killed themselves when they learn the truth of their futures, allowing the system to control their very fates, or rather expedite these to occur sooner. However, this does create a division upon people who do not heed to the machine, separating such individuals from those whom Tiqqun the “Young Girl” and whom Maurazio Lazzarato refers to — as per Guattari and Deleuze — as people influenced by machinic enslavement.
People who choose to be attached to the machines (such as phones, tablets, etc.) can be lost. Lazzarato says in the Introduction to his theoretical text Signs and Machines, “In order for political subjectivation to occur, it must necessarily traverse moments in which dominant significations are suspended and the hold of machinic enslavements is thrown off.” (This text offers even more explanation on humans’ connection to technology as this severs humans’ ties with language and written text.)
The death algorithm, as discussed before, predicts the fates of many. People such as Engerraund Serac and Jake (Hale’s ex-husband) do not seem to succumb to what technology has to say. Jake tells the host, “I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I do know that it’s not up to a machine to decide. It’s our choice.”
Harris plays remarkable roles as different versions as William (including his current). Additionally, Thompson delivers an over-the-top performance here as Hale, and hopefully we see her do as well in future episodes of the show as well as future projects the actress has coming for her.
“Decoherence” has a lot to reflect on. Indeed, this episode mirrors what is currently happening around the world today. Some people make terrible choices and refuse to spend enough time to ruminate on what they do and impulsively make actions, and from there, the consequences can be quite brisk. As one character says, “People are rioting. Businesses are closed. The whole world is spun out right now.” On the screen, it can be dramatic, but the reality is that some people do not want to care and pay no mind to how these certain choices impact others on a wide-scale. It is the tragedy that we must face, and this episode of Westworld shows that too much is at stake to merely sacrifice innocent lives.
9/10
What do you think? Have you seen this series? If not, do you plan to binge it sometime in the near future? Let us know! For more Westworld and HBO-related news and reviews follow The Cinema Spot on Twitter (@TheCinemaSpot) and Instagram (@thecinemaspot_).
Source: Signs and Machines
Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
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