Westworld 4.1: Lean Mix

Westworld was back on HBO last night with the start of its fourth season, and I liked it.  It had a leaner feel and storyline than the previous season, which worked well with the meanness at large in every season.  Plus, it had a wallop of a surprise at the end.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Maeve is in great shape, forced out of some kind of retirement in the snowy woods because a team is out to kill her.  Like a hit woman or agent who hasn't lost her touch after all of these years, she disposes of them easily.  But of course there'll be more to come.  She needs to create her own team, and she starts with Caleb.  This almost could be a Liam Neeson movie were it not for the first three seasons.

Caleb is relatively happily married, and he has a daughter that looks like Maeve's daughter, but I assume she's not.  In contrast to Maeve's steely resolve, well-played as always by Thandiwe Newton, we have the mentally conflicted Caleb well played by Aaron Paul.  This part was a little trite, but, then again, the opening story with the Man in Black making like a mobster was even triter.

Not trite at all is Christina, once Delores, who is now in New York writing stories.  If she ends up writing a story about sentient AIs that would be ok with me.  Evan Rachel Wood is great, as always, and so far she's the most interesting character, storyline wise.

Which leads to that surprise at the end: Teddy's back!  Which I think is a fine move, not only because I'm sure we'll get a good story about how he ends up now in New York City, after -- how many years? we last saw him in Season 2 -- but because, hey, I like to see some true love in a story, and Westworld certainly needs some.

See you back here next week with my review of the next episode.

See also: Westworld 3.1: The Great Outside ... Westworld 3.2: Dolores' Enemies ... Westworld 3.3: Cyberpunk World ... Westworld 3.4: The Man in White and Multiple Doloreses ... Westworld 3.5: Ground Control ... Westworld 3.6: Family Group Therapy ... Westworld 3.7: M vs D ... Westworld Season 3 Finale: Redemption, Less or More

And see also Westworld 2.1: Maeve's Daughter ... Westworld 2.2: "Narcissus Narcosis" ... Westworld 2.3: The Raj and Guns of the South ... Westworld 2.4: Questions Pertaining to Immortality ... Westworld 2.5: Telepathic Control ... Westworld 2.6: The Dangling Conversation ... Westworld 2.7: Maeve vs. Dolores ... Westworld 2.8: The Wrong World ... Westworld 2.9: Fathers ... Westworld 2.10: The Realist World

And see also Westworld 1.1: Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick Served Up by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and J. J. Abrams ... Westworld 1.2: Who Is the Man in Black? ... Westworld 1.3: Julian Jaynes and Arnold ... Westworld 1.4: Vacation, Connie Francis, and Kurt Vonnegut ... Westworld 1.5: The Voice Inside Dolores ... Westworld 1.6: Programmed Unprogramming ... Westworld 1.7: The Story of the Story ... Westworld 1.8: Memories ... Westworld 1.9: Half-Truths and Old Friends ... Westworld Season 1 Finale: Answers and Questions 

They're coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....

Reminiscence: Recalling the Many Things that are Good and Great about It

So here we are again.  Critics are giving Reminiscence (on HBO Max) mixed reviews, saying it's derivative.  I agree that it's derivative, but think it's excellent.  In general, I think being derivative is not a bad thing, and I disagree with the myopic critics who miss how well Reminiscence does it.

Yes, Reminiscence is reminiscent of Blade Runner.  Even more so in some ways of Total Recall, and for that matter, of all things Philip K. Dick.  But it also recalls a lot of Christopher Nolan's work, as well as movies as far back as the 1940s like Laura, and even Body Heat in 1981 to some extent.  And if it harkens to Westworld, well, Lisa Joy plays a central creative role in both.

I was a little bothered by Thandiwe Newton's character Emily motivated by the exact same thing as her character Maeve in Westworld -- finding her daughter -- but that's just one unnecessary misstep in a long list of gambits and interludes done very well in Reminiscence.  Among them are the deft mix of a flooded world and the refuge in memories, and outstanding acting by Hugh Jackman in the lead role, and Rebecca Ferguson as his all-consuming love interest Mae.

This is first time I've seen Ferguson, and I'm very impressed.  She's Swedish, and even before I knew that, she reminded me of Ingrid Bergman.  Come to think of it, Jackman's Nick Bannister reminded me a bit of Bogart.  Is that supposed to be bad?  Of course not.  It makes Reminiscence even more fun to watch.

I won't go into the plot, so as not to risk spoilers.  I will say that I like happy endings, and I'll leave it to you to decide where the ending of Reminiscence resides on the happy/sad meter.  Nick tells Mae that there are no happy endings, especially of happy stories, presumably because to end them is sad.  Mae responds that therefore she'd like to hear a happy story that ends right in the middle.  That's the kind of dialogue that lifts Reminiscence into a top tier, and if it reminds us of triumphs in cyberpunk ranging from Incandescence to Altered Carbon, so much the better.