Since HBO has yet to announce a third-season premiere for Succession, I guess we’ll have to make do with the premiere of its second best show about the dehumanizing and insulating effects of extreme wealth: Westworld.You raise your eyebrows, but as you trace the various enclaves of opulence depicted on Succession — from kinky sex clubs in Prague to the rural retreat at Argestes — how could you doubt that were the series’ events just a few years in the future, the Roys would be taking family vacations to Westworld, where, rest assured, Roman’s activities would be truly immoral? Of course, on Succession, the disposable assets being cast aside by the main characters are flesh-and-blood people. That may be why that depiction of venal double-dealing actually connects for me, while the soulless pleasure seekers and manipulated synthetics of Westworld continue to leave me cold — even in a third season full of interesting narrative deviations that highlight many of the show’s strengths but also swiftly reminded me of many of its frustrations.Westworld Season 1-4 Download
Trailers for the third season of Westworld have attempted to sell the idea that this new run of episodes is close to a series reboot, which I wouldn’t have minded at all after a second season of redundant plotting and frustrating dead-ends. So it’s to viewers in my camp, viewers who watched every second of the second season and don’t remember much or dropped out entirely, that I offer the warning that the reboot is only partial and Westworld remains Westworld, which should excite those who remain fully engaged.
Yes, the premiere — written by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan and directed by Nolan — introduces Aaron Paul’s Caleb Nichols, a name The OC probably should have rendered off-limits. Caleb is a military veteran struggling to pay for his mother’s medical bills by doing dangerous mercenary odd jobs through a nefarious app.