Praise our robot overlords: Westworld will return for season 4

It’s official: HBO’s Westworld will return for a fourth season. Does this mean we’re getting a huge cliffhanger in the finale?

With just two episodes remaining in Westworld season 3, many viewers – including yours truly – were busy asking themselves how in the world the show could wrap up its many outstanding storylines in such a short amount of time.

The answer is, thankfully, they won’t have to.

HBO has officially renewed the critically acclaimed techno-drama for a fourth season, which means that no matter what happens over the next two weeks, there’s still going to be more to the story.

And given that the show has only just started moving its major plays towards some sort of showdown, there’s every reason to believe that this season will end with one or more major plot points still outstanding. And that’s okay. Maybe it’s better to leave some of the larger questions – why is Bernard so special? Can William really change? What, exactly, is Dolores’ grand plan anyway? – until there’s more time to really dig into them.

As long as season 3 gives us some level of closure on some of the bigger plot threads – Rehoboam, Serac, what exactly is going on with Caleb – I think we’ll all be content to wait for more. Since we now know, officially, that season 4 is coming.

That said, we should probably prepare ourselves for another long wait.

Nearly two years passed between seasons 2 and 3, which makes a certain amount of sense giving the large budget and heavy VFX work that goes into each installment. Plus, with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down production all over the globe, who knows when shooting on season 4 will actually get under way.

(To be fair,  Westworld probably wouldn’t start filming until 2021 anyway if previous seasons are any indication. So maybe the world will be back to something like normal by then. But still.)

So, enjoy the last two episodes of season 3, Westworld fans! It won’t be our last journey with Dolores and friends.

Westworld season 3 airs Sunday nights at 9pm ET on HBO.