On the heels of its season 4 ending on Sunday (August 14), Westworld season 5 is up in the air as HBO has not renewed it yet. If we get one more outing of the sci-fi series, then Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan will conclude their story from there. In an interview with TheWrap, co-creator and co-showrunner Joy spoke about all the juicy details about the fourth season and, if it gets renewed, how the last season will be its final. (Spoilers ahead)
The latest season of Westworld felt like the last. With plenty of character deaths that felt definitive, like Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), real and host William (Ed Harris), Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), and Caleb (Aaron Paul), it seemed there is not much to go on. As Delores goes on to a new world in the Sublime for one last story, the series sets itself up to end where it began, in the Western park.
“We had always planned on ending the series next season. You know, we always thought that Westworld should kind of come full circle and back to the West. But with Dolores, who was just a player in other people’s games, finally getting to write her own. Just to close up a lot of the stuff that we’ve seen before like flashbacks with The Man in Black and everything, so we have a plan for season 5 but you know, life can make other plans for you.”
Lisa Joy speaks about Westworld season 5 being the last if it gets renewed
When you talk about ending your series, you must have a plan, at least one would think. In this case, Joy and Nolan had a plan since writing the pilot of Westworld on how the series will play out. To her, it was about how they would “tackle all these things,” then they would need to figure out the “point” they were “trying to make at the end.”
The endgame will see Evan Rachel Wood’s character Dolores return to Westworld, at least a version of it she conjured in the Sublime, as humans are extinct in the real world. The woman who was the kind farmgirl down the road to a bloodthirsty killing machine is now the storyteller. To Joy, that will alter how the story is told.
“It’s not an accident that they’re returning to the West, as Westworld, and this time with a completely different storyteller in charge. I think point of view can change drastically the meaning of any kind story or existence, and now it’s her turn. How often do you get to see the damsel in distress become the leader of a society?”
With the shakeups happening at Warner Bros., thus leading to shakeups at HBO will mean Westworld will be in limbo until we get a definitive answer to its fate. All four seasons are currently streaming on HBO Max.