Warning: the following article contains spoilers for Westworld season 4, episode 2, ‘Well Enough Alone.’
Tessa Thompson reveals more about what Charlotte Hale’s plans are in Westworld season four. In season three, a Charlotte host was used as one of Dolores’ clones (also referred to as “Halores”), but after experiencing enormous family-related trauma, she found her own autonomy and made a batch of her own hosts. Following Dolores’ death, it looks like Charlotte is the new host making major moves.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Thompson discussed where Charlotte’s mindset is and how much the tables have turned for her character.
“There’s always been a real struggle for power between them, and then this season when we find her she has host MIB there to do her bidding, that’s a reversal also of how we met her at the beginning of last season, which was that she was that to Dolores [Evan Rachel Wood].”
Westworld, season 4, episode 2, “Well Enough Alone” sees Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) working with Caleb (Aaron Paul) on a mission to a grand California estate. After a brutal fight, Maeve uses her network accessing abilities to view the memories of Senator Ken Whitney’s host and learns that Charlotte and the host of William (Ed Harris) were the ones who killed the original Senator Ken and his wife Anastasia, replacing them with the robotic imposters.
At the end of the memory, William is ordered by Charlotte to keep Anastasia alive for an experiment, clearly showing she’s the one in control. Thompson said that although the relationship between Hale and William looks one-sided, there’s more than meets the eye.
“There’s this interesting thing too [about] even though he’s meant to be in service to her and I was meant to be in service of my master, hosts are always striving towards their own independence, in a way, and that, I think is really interesting. She possesses a tremendous amount of power, she still is not ALL powerful.”
Although Charlotte is a host, she’s not without her own desires and emotions. At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that she’s kept the human William alive in a stasis pod for him to know that he and his kind have lost. She wants to turn the tables on humanity with the hosts firmly in control, but Thompson hints that it might be lonely at the top.
“You get to really see her struggle with her own power and with wielding it, and also, this idea that sometimes the top is lonely.”
Episodes of Westworld season 4 premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.