Everyone has a Tell.
It can be “fatal” when playing high-stakes card games as well as when writing and directing movies.
With all the screenplay writers and directors in the world, there’s only a handful who are truly masterful at creating a story arc, casting the right people, writing a good story and then directing it.
When I recently re-watching all of Westworld through the current Season 3, Episode 6 I paid particular attention to the writers and directors of each episode.
Spoiler Alert: As you’d expect, this critique reveals the film.
Season 1
During Season 1, husband and wife team Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy either worked together or with another partner on all but Episode 9: The Well-Tempered Clavier. Still, there’s a connection between writers Dan Dietz and Katherine Lingenfelter and Nolan & Joy: Dietz worked with Nolan on Person of Interest and Lingenfelter worked with Joy on Pushing Daisies.
From an episodic perspective, Season 1 ranks the highest because each episode contributed key points to the season as well as being well-crafted as a standalone episode.
Season 2
We pretty much got Dolores Abernathy killing everyone over-and-over again. The menagerie of writer/director teams managed to not only create episodes that were boring but, with the exception of the Bernard arc, the connection between episodes was weak. And no, the timeline skipping wasn’t particularly confusing or helpful from a storytelling perspective. It simply seemed that Nolan & Joy had become less interested in telling a good tale and instead turned to trying to out-fox their Reddit followers.
The one exception was Kiksuya (Season 2, Episode 8) when Dietz teamed up with Carly Wray to write a truly good story. Wray is a producer on Westworld and had worked with Nolan on Reunion (Season 2, Episode 2). It’s a love story that focuses on Akecheta of the Ghost Nation and his connection (figuratively and literally) with Maeve.
In an enlightened moment, they asked director/cinematographer Uta Briesewitz to pull it all together.
The end result is the best combination of writers, director, and actors in all of Season 2.
Season 3
Here we are with two episodes remaining in Season 3. Nolan & Joy are more involved in this season, but the menagerie of directors is back. What we’re ending up with is a season that has a strong top-level arc but not much else going for it. There haven’t been any standout episodes although there are strong characters and cast members to support the characters.
Unlike Star Trek: Picard, which I gave up on before the first season ended, I’m invested enough in the potential of Nolan & Joy to pull off a good finish during the final two episodes that I’m committed to watching at least Episode 7 of 8.
But if nothing of significance, from a storytelling perspective, happens during Episode 7, then I’m out. Because what will inevitably happen is the ghost-of-J. J. Abrams (Executive Producer) will have stepped in to cram 8 episodes into one ending a la the finally of Lost. Or Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
After all, that’s J. J’s Tell as a writer and director.
Plot
Who knows.
Here’s the Story
- See above.
Oh, Dolores kills a lot of people…
Directing
Hit-or-miss.
Sparkly Stuff
This TV show looks like a genuine film.
Ending
To be determined.
Recommended Changes
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- After jettisoning so much of the cast at the end of Season 2, I’d hoped for tighter writing around a smaller cast. Instead, the cast seemingly gets expanded every week and we’re once again unable to delve into the potentially delicious details of Dolores, Maeve, The Man In Black, Bernard and Caleb. So, focus on three characters at most and tell a good story for the remaining two episodes.
- If J. J. Abrams is somehow actively involved with Season 3, pay him whatever it takes to leave his Executive Producer position on the show.
- If there is a Season 4, have Nolan & Joy writer the season arc and then hire writers Dietz and Wray again with director Briesewitz to do their magic for every episode.
- If Nolan & Joy have lost interest in Westworld because of their new gig with Amazon, then end it with Season 3.
Real Cole Johnston Score
3 Star out of 5 because there’s potential to pull off a good story within the last two episodes of this season.
Photo by Artem Maltsev