No one was expecting Westworld season 4's finale to be a straightforward affair, but "Que Sera Sera" drops a series of mind-boggling twists that prove the future really isn't ours to see. The humans finally lost in Westworld season 4. Tessa Thompson's Charlotte Hale - originally a copy of Dolores, but now something entirely different - set her sights on global domination, and where humans previously controlled hosts, she ushered in a world where hosts controlled humans.
But where Hale has a global corporation, several deadly assistants, and unlimited resources, Westworld's humans have a Bernard. Jeffrey Wright's Bernard Lowe awoke from the Sublime with a plan for (sort of) sparing Earth's native species, and has been enigmatically putting the necessary pieces in place for this mysterious salvation. By the time Westworld season 4's finale begins, Hale's William-bot has gone rogue by inciting the captured humans into a violent frenzy. Bernard and Maeve are offline, Stubbs helps Caleb and Frankie enjoy a heartwarming reunion, and Christina is still learning the truth of her reality from Teddy. All in a typical Westworld Sunday.
Those expecting the good guys to win will come away from Westworld's season 4 ending disappointed. "Que Sera Sera" leaves man and host alike in a major pickle, and as a familiar landscape comes into view, a new dawn for both species beckons. Here's how Westworld season 4 ends, and how the finale teases an unexpected season 5 direction.
Click here to watch Westworld Season 4 Ending Explained on YouTube
Westworld Season 4's Christina Mystery Finally Explained
Evan Rachel Wood's Dolores seemingly died at the end of Westworld season 3 when Rehoboam wiped her memories. The actress' return as "Christina" has given Westworld season 4 one of its biggest mysteries, and only in "Que Sera Sera" is the full truth finally unraveled.
After Rehoboam deleted the data within, Dolores' pearl was apparently salvaged by Charlotte Hale, who plugged the gray artificial brain into the very heart of her Tower control system. Dolores became a program existing within Hale's network, given the identity "Christina" and turned into the "storyteller," unknowingly writing narratives for oppressed humans. From the beginning, Dolores was living in a digital recreation of the outside world, which is presumably accurate in real-time thanks to the Tower's constant monitoring.
Rehoboam's season 3 wipe apparently wasn't as thorough as intended, as the digital entities Dolores interacted with - Maya, Peter the stalker, the bad date, and James Marsden's Teddy - were all generated by her true self. Some deeply-hidden part of Dolores left Christina a maze to follow back toward sentience, with every personal interaction designed to help her find answers to existential questions gnawing at the back of her mind. Teddy was the most important piece, as Dolores admits speaking to him is when she thinks most clearly. The plan ultimately works and Dolores reawakens herself. The return of that famous blue dress in Westworld season 4's closing moments visually confirms Dolores is back in town.
This shocking realization explains a few lingering plot points from Westworld season 4's earlier episodes. Christina found a memorial plaque for Peter Myers because the real Peter died long before, and the version who stalked Christina was merely a figment of her imagination. And Charlotte Hale sounded so desperate to hear about Christina's date because her pet storyteller should, quite literally, not be seeing anyone.
Are Humans & Hosts Both Extinct After Westworld Season 4?
Err, it's not looking good. When Bernard told Thandiwe Newton's Maeve, "There's no way to save this world. Everyone here is going to die" back in Westworld season 4's penultimate episode, he wasn't joking. William's command proves impossible to rescind, meaning humanity fights itself into extinction. "These violent delights have violent ends" is one of Westworld's favorite phrases, and the manner of mankind's demise shows the true meaning behind that quote. Humans created a new robotic species, abused them, got overthrown, then one of them hit the big red destruct button.
Although the fate of Westworld's hosts is less clear, season 4's ending heavily implies they're more or less wiped out also. Bernard already warned Maeve that both races would go extinct, and Dolores ends the finale by declaring sentient life on Earth is over. The finale's opening scene (with a cameo from Steven Ogg's Rebus, apparently brought back from Delos' storage) reveals that despite hosts' natural superiority over humans, the sheer number of flesh-and-blood rampaging is an onslaught even they can't defend against. That the host race is brought down by one of its own kind (William) may seem strange, but was addressed during Westworld season 4's "two Williams" scene. The human William argued that mankind's faults couldn't be erased by repopulating the planet with hosts. Watching his people become obsessed with the human cities convinces host William that his counterpart is right. Their solution is putting both races to the sword.
Westworld leaves one exception to the carnage - the Outliers. Frankie successfully escapes the city with her father's help, and the rebels remain unaffected by William's call to violence. Dolores' voiceover reveals these lucky few escapees continue living for a matter of months or years, but mankind eventually goes extinct regardless. Westworld confirming all the Outliers die feels like a subtle time-skip, meaning season 5 could jump ahead to an era after Frankie and the others have naturally passed away.
Bernard's Plan & Dolores' "Test" Explained
Westworld season 4's ending finally reveals Bernard's plan after a whole season of secretive maneuvering. Bernard accessing the Tower wasn't about shutting off the system or stopping William, it was about getting a message to Charlotte Hale, freshly revived by her mindless drone hosts. The video forces Hale into realizing her dream is now out of reach, and that relying on Dolores to save "one tiny part" of the world is their only option. On Bernard Lowe's instruction, Hale removes Dolores' pearl from the Tower and plugs her into the Sublime, which was helpfully left open by Bernard and Maeve during the previous episode.
Exactly how uploading Dolores to the Sublime brings humans back from the wilderness remains to be seen. Dolores mentions a "test" and tells Teddy that she'll "remember" humanity before declaring this new game a battle between survival and extinction. Earlier in Westworld season 4, Bernard discovered the Sublime is capable of generating whatever the hosts inside can imagine. Dolores looks like she's planning to use the Sublime's simulation programming to run experiments on whether humans have a future. Evan Rachel Wood's character drops a reminder that because she watched humanity for so long (back in Westworld season 2's library scene, and then as Christina), she knows them intimately. This means Dolores can "remember" the entire species authentically. As for why Dolores is testing humanity rather than just, say, bringing them back anyway, if humans don't fix their errors, the apocalypse will happen all over again. The test could be intended to avert the same dark future playing out ad nauseam.
But if humans and hosts are already doomed, what's the point? Even if Dolores' test inside the Sublime is passed with flying colors, how does this actually translate to bringing back humans in real life? All signs point toward Dolores' endgame involving the hybrid hosts. Westworld still hasn't explained season 2's fidelity test post-credits scene, and with hosts and humans both wiped out, surely the only way forward is putting human minds (which should still be stored by Delos) inside robotic bodies. This would explain why Bernard sneakily took Frankie's cognitive scan (a detail Westworld curiously doesn't address), while Dolores' deliberate use of the word "test" could secretly mean "fidelity test."
Why Season 5 Is Returning To WestWorld
Dolores could imagine any arena she likes for her test in the Sublime, but she settles on recreating Delos' WestWorld park. As her voiceover explains, the original WestWorld was designed to measure human impulses and gather data. It's the perfect place to decide whether humanity survives or dies forever. From a behind-the-scenes perspective, Westworld has had precisely nothing to do with the wild west for two whole seasons. Dolores' test promises Westworld season 5 will return to its roots. Those lawless saloons and dusty plains are coming back - only this time, it's all in Dolores' mind.
Westworld season 5 returning to the park might shine some light on the scene between William and his daughter from season 2's post-credits sequence. Set in the Forge, a far-future William was shown undergoing a fidelity test as part of Delos' immortality experiments. Instead of happening in the real world, this scene could've been playing out in Dolores' simulation all along, which explains why the Forge looks as good as new, and also why William is being tortured with a vision of his deceased daughter (Dolores hates him, after all).
Which Characters Could Appear In Westworld Season 5?
If Westworld season 5 visits a simulated version of the WestWorld park inside Dolores' mind, any character alive or dead, human or host, can return. If Dolores can imagine them, they can appear.
As for who's actually alive when Westworld season 4 ends, the list is a short one. Hale's failure to create a new world leads her to take her own life, and with her pearl crushed there's no coming back. The same goes for the William host, whose pearl also gets turned into a fine powder by Hale's hand. Despite Frankie suggesting he was alive last week, Hale confirms the real William is also dead. Westworld season 4's ending provides no update on Maeve, Stubbs or Clementine after the trio are taken offline, but since their pearls aren't destroyed, they can all return in season 5's real world. Caleb's final hybrid might've shut down, but with his consciousness still stored somewhere on Delos' servers, Dolores could potentially reprint him as part of her new world... whatever that ends up looking like.