It’s what Breaking Bad built its foundation on. Shorn of narrative trickery, the final downfall of William as he becomes the Man in Black is high tragedy. Furthermore, it undermines the work done in Dolores’ narrative, about her progression to consciousness. We forget why we were bothering with William’s meandering travels with Dolores the second it becomes clear that this has just been a ruse to hide his real, eventual character from us. The only pay-off is if the reveal is both shocking and momentous to make everything else worthwhile, because the emotion in a reveal is wholly different to the emotion of anticipating it. The entire plot of Romeo and Juliet rests on this notion: we know how things are going to turn out but we watch to see how it happens, why it happens, and agonise over every knife-edge moment that might have turned out otherwise.Īs it played, the first season, for William’s storyline at least, was an exercise in biding time until the reveal. How does this person turn into that person? The audience follows the character and feels every turn, every downfall, but also, every moment when things might have gone another way.
Westworld season 1 episode 5 full#
To watch the first season with full awareness of the two timelines, and of William’s development from earnest – and failed – romantic into the amoral Man in Black, is to watch a grand, macabre tragedy. And given the show’s need to work harder to earn empathy to its characters, this seems doubly concerning. It’s unusual, and makes for an oddly distanced viewer relationship when other shows will be angling for empathy, but the style here is wholly connected to the substance, and so I’ll accept it as part of the show’s own character.Īdditionally, and more damning, is Westworld’s tendency to favour plot reveals over plot development. But in a show that is focused on the deconstruction of artificial characterisation, this is not a huge concern.
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Character development hasn’t always been a strongpoint.
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However, there are some things Westworld hasn’t always been the greatest at. And, above all else, the writers’ absolute commitment to plunging the depths of Westworld’s thematic concerns cannot be faulted at all. The design, the tone, the very meticulous world-building and plotting – these have all been exceptionally handled throughout the show’s season-and-a-half.
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There are some things that Westworld does really well.