The cancellation of Westworld in 2022 came as a shock for multiple reasons. HBO’s marquis lineup of prestige dramas have generally gotten to end on their own terms, and the sci-fi show seemed like it was hoping for one last season to tie everything together. Instead, we’re left with questions about how things could’ve gone, something even its cast is still wondering about.
Alex Winter on Innovative Horror Movies
In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, lead actor Evan Rachel Wood (who played Dolores and Christina) admitted she knows jack about how Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy planned to end things. She revealed that she flat out asked them about it after HBO canned the show, and that they opted not to answer. Why the secrecy? She thinks that they think “maybe somehow, someway, in some iteration we’ll get to finish it.” Whether or not that’s the case, she had no problem stating the lack of closure “does still keep me up at night.”
“They don’t tell us where the show is going,” continued Wood. “We were just always told, ‘We know how the show ends,’ when we started.” She and the rest of the main cast were genuinely looking forward to learning Nolan and Joy’s plans, and was candid in calling “devastating” to not get a proper ending. “After building an arc and a character for almost 10 years,” she said, “and not getting the payoff at the end to see where it was all going — I think for us and the audience, it was awful in a lot of ways.”
To date, HBO hasn’t said anything about giving Westworld anything like a movie to close things out (a la The Venture Bros.), and there haven’t been any talks of a revival. Nolan and Joy are currently working on Fallout for Amazon, while Wood herself is heading to the stage as Aubrey in the off-stage production of Little Shop of Horrors. Unless something changes, the four-season series will remain unfinished—which is bad for any show, but especially when it’s already basically at the finish line to begin with.
Westworld is no longer on Max, but it’s available on services such as Tubi, AppleTV, and Prime Video.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
