HBO pulled the plug on its mind-bending sci-fi series Westworld just as it was setting up its most ambitious season yet, leaving fans stranded in a narrative maze with no center to reach. When Westworld was abruptly canceled after its fourth season in 2022, viewers who had navigated the show’s labyrinthine plot for years were left with dozens of dangling threads and unanswered questions. The series finale, which ended with Dolores/Christina preparing to run one final “test” in a re-created version of the original Westworld park, set up what could have been a fascinating fifth season that would have brought the story full circle. Unfortunately, HBO’s decision to cancel the series means these carefully planted story seeds will never bloom.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Despite the showrunners’ claims that they had a five-season plan mapped out from the beginning, budget concerns and declining viewership led to the premature end of the show. Now, fans are left to speculate about what might have been, piecing together clues from interviews, Reddit threads, and the cryptic final scenes of season four. As we look back at this ambitious but ultimately unfinished story, several major mysteries stand out as particularly frustrating loose ends that will never receive their intended resolutions.
What Was Dolores’ Final Test?
The most glaring unanswered question comes from the season four finale. After the destruction of both humans and hosts on Earth, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) creates a new simulation in the Sublime that resembles the original Westworld park. She mentions running “one last loop around the bend” to determine whether sentient life deserves to continue existing. But what would this test have actually involved? Would humans and hosts have been given another chance to coexist peacefully, or was Dolores planning something entirely different? The show’s cancelation means we’ll never see how this final game would have played out.
What Happens to William After the Season 2 Post-Credits Scene?
One of the most puzzling scenes in the entire series appears at the end of Season 2, showing a far-future version of William (Ed Harris) undergoing a fidelity test administered by someone resembling his daughter Emily. This scene takes place long after the events we’ve seen, in what appears to be a ruined version of the park. Was this meant to connect to Dolores’ final test? Would Season 5 have finally explained the significance of this moment? Without a final season, this tantalizing glimpse of the future remains completely disconnected from the main narrative.
Would Maeve Ever Reunite with Her Daughter?
Maeve’s (Thandiwe Newton) journey was driven by her desire to reunite with her daughter in the Sublime. Bernard promised her this reunion would happen, but Maeve was killed before reaching her goal. While Maeve’s pearl wasn’t explicitly shown being destroyed, her fate remains unresolved. Would she have been revived and finally achieved her heart’s desire, or was Bernard manipulating her for the greater good?
[RELATED – Westworld Star Says Creative Team Is Still “Plotting” to Finish Story (But How?)]
What Was Christina/Dolores Throughout Season 4?
The nature of Christina’s existence in season 4 remains somewhat ambiguous. We learn she’s a version of Dolores with amnesia who somehow gained the ability to control humans in Charlotte Hale’s world, but the mechanics of how she existed are never fully explained. Was she purely digital? How could she interact with physical objects if she wasn’t “real”? The final revelation that she was essentially writing the script for human behavior raises more questions than it answers.
What Happens to the Surviving Outliers?
Despite Dolores’ claim that sentient life on Earth was doomed, we last see Caleb’s daughter Frankie (Aurora Perrineau) and her girlfriend Odina escaping by boat to find other surviving outliers. Would they have managed to rebuild human society? Could they have eventually found and reactivated some of the host pearls left intact after the final battle? Their story ends on a hopeful note that now feels frustratingly incomplete.
What Was the Significance of the Sublime?
The virtual afterlife known as the Sublime remains one of the show’s most fascinating concepts, but its ultimate purpose in the story was never fully realized. Was it meant to be the final home for host consciousness, or was it always intended as a testing ground for Dolores’ final experiment? How would hosts from the Sublime have potentially returned to the physical world after Dolores’ test?
How Does William’s Fidelity Test Connect to Everything?
The fidelity experiments attempting to transfer human consciousness into host bodies was a major plotline that seemed to be building toward something significant. From James Delos to William to Caleb, the show kept returning to this concept without ever revealing its endgame. Would successful human-host hybrids have played a role in whatever new world might have emerged from Dolores’ final test?
In a show that prided itself on meticulously planned storylines, these unresolved mysteries represent not just loose ends but entire narrative pathways that will never be explored. While fans can theorize about what might have happened, Westworld’s premature conclusion ensures that these questions will remain permanently lodged in that most frustrating of places – the realm of what could have been.
