Hot take, part 2: Westworld seasons 2 and 3 are not as good [No spoilers]

So, after raving about how good Westworld was in season one, I've finally finished seasons two and three, and I have... thoughts.

Thought one: Westworld is still good. Seasons two and three were not great, while season one was, but they're still good. I was still entertained, and I'm still interested to see where they take this fictional world next.

Thought two: Eight episodes was not enough for season three. The season suffered from some of the same problems as later seasons of Game of Thrones, albeit not as badly, and most of those were structural problems. Simply put, some elements of the plot needed more room to breathe, like the several major characters who spent most of season three in narrative limbo, occasionally popping up to remind us that they exist and are really, really important to this story, really, only to disappear and... not be all that important to this season. Those characters, their actors, and the audience all deserve better.

Thought three: Season three's major antagonist needed more work. He was poorly set up, then underdeveloped, and then undercut in the finale, which feels like it comes out of nowhere... because it came out of nowhere. It's not that the ending was bad, exactly, because I still found it satisfying -- philosophically, at least, I preferred season three's ending to season two's. But the plot whiplash that happens makes the ending less effective, and the fact that several major characters' motivations change very suddenly with very little prior setup makes it all weaker.

Thought four: The writers really need to decide how Hosts work. Are they nigh-unstoppable machines, capable of surviving everything except erasure (and, in some cases, even surviving erasure), or are they essentially synthetic humans whose pain we're supposed to feel, and whose perils we're supposed to empathize with? Hosts are either built so that they can bleed out from a gunshot wound, or they're built durably enough to take several bullets to the torso while barely slowing down, but the writers really need to stop alternating between the two.

Thought five: It's not just the hosts. The writers need to decide how all of the show's future-tech sci-fi elements work, and be consistent with them. One character in particular has basically mind powers that work differently depending on what the plot requires in the moment; sometimes reading a Host requires physically plugging their brain core into a terminal, and other times you can 100% read dozens of them into a simulated world just by having them walk over a special spot on the ground. Why does that work? Who knows? It's never really explained. If your show is all about exploring the ramifications of a particular set of futuristic technologies, then those technologies needs to be properly set up, and stay in place long enough for your explorations to finish.

Thought six: Season four cannot be the same kind of puzzle-box mystery as season one, and shouldn't try to be. Season one benefitted from taking place in a very open-ended narrative time; we didn't know for sure when it started, and we didn't know going in when it ended, which allowed the writers to pull off a non-linear narrative reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's Memento (which you should definitely also watch, if you haven't yet). It's satisfying in the way that a well-written mystery story is satisfying: you're given almost all of the pieces of the puzzle, and really do have a fair chance to piece together the story by yourself, but when the writers reveal the last, crucial piece of the puzzle and everything snaps into place, it feels fair, and earned, and immensely satisfying. When I finally saw where season one's story was heading, it was an OMG-that's-awesome moment.

Seasons two and three both tried to replicate that same feeling, but both fell short, and I think that's partly because the writers' previously boundless narrative space now had a hard boundary. The events of season two had to follow the events of season one; one end of the story was now closed off, and the trick they pulled off the first time to such satisfying effect felt less earned, less fair, and less satisfying the second time around. It was like watching magicians who'd absolutely fooled us the first time, and then showed us how the trick worked, go on to do the same trick again, apparently while still expecting us to keep being tricked... while spending less time setting up the trick itself.

Again, I enjoyed all three seasons of Westworld, enough that I'll be back to watch season four. I want to know whether the show's version of humanity makes it; I want to know if they can find a way to live peacefully alongside the Hosts. But, more than either of those things, what I really want is for the magicians to show me a different trick, next time around, and not just show me the same trick again that they're already done three times, and which was only truly mind-blowing the first time around.

Overall grades:
Westworld, Season one: A+
Westworld, Season two: B+
Westworld, Season three: B-

Season one is mind-blowingly great, while seasons two and three are only good, but all of them are worth watching. These are shows full of interesting ideas, memorable moments, and fantastic acting. Seriously, the The actors are all killing it, all the time; the dialogue is mostly excellent, which helps. The show is gorgeous, too, and every individual scene works when considered in isolation from the whole; it's only when you assemble it into a whole that the inconsistencies start to show. None of those flaws are fatal, though, at least not yet, and I'll be back for more whenever season four airs.