If Westworld lands a renewal for Season 5, there’s a good chance it will be the sci-fi drama’s last.
Westworld Season 4 concluded over the weekend with a shocking episode reiterating that the quality was at an all-time high.
Speaking to The Wrap about the future, co-showrunner Lisa Joy revealed that the fifth season was always planned as the concluding chapter.
“We had always planned on ending the series next season,” Joy told The Wrap.
“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,” Joy continued.
“Just to close up a lot of the stuff that we’ve seen before like the flashforward 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. So we’ll just hope for the best.”
The good news for fans is that the show has always been building to this point.
“It’s funny, we had this planned out even when writing the pilot which is bizarre.”
“We’re like, well if we’re going to tackle all these things, what is the point we’re trying to make at the end?”
At the end of Westworld Season 4, Dolores charted course for the West.
“It’s not an accident that they’re returning to the West, as Westworld, and this time with a completely different storyteller in charge,” Joy said.
“I think point of view can change drastically the meaning of any kind of 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?”
“Somebody who went through what she did. I mean, look at our world now, how often does that happen, and who holds power in most civilizations?
“It’s not a person or creature like Dolores,” she added.
“And so to be able to see the test for what that would look like, to see the lessons she’s learned — and she’s learned specific lessons based on her own [experience]. She was a ‘thing’ to people.
“She lived through countless lives and reboots where she was at the mercy of guests in a park, indulging in their vices and id. “She’s seen a lot of human nature, and maybe enough to know how to structure something or give a game in which some kind of hope for it might emerge.”
Westworld got off the ground running when it launched in 2016, drawing rave reviews and strong ratings.
However, the series cooled off considerably when the fourth season launched earlier this year.
The reaction to the latest season has been much more positive than the previous few.
If an endgame is planned, it’s plausible to think HBO will renew the show.
However, there are big changes going on behind the scenes at the cabler, and the series is expensive.
Time will tell what HBO plans to do with the series.
What are your thoughts on a potential renewal?
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Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.