Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan made two claims about the series’s third season: that it would make more sense than season 2, and that it would portray a more sympathetic view of humanity. Many fans were clamoring for the former, but considering the human depravity and timey-wimey-ness that was all that we’d seen of Westworld so far, neither claim would be difficult to achieve.
Nevertheless, nothing about this show has instilled a bond of trust between audience and creators, and these claims in and of themselves weren’t enough to assuage viewers’ oft-justified paranoia. Instead, drawing on this and previous seasons’ message about how memories inform our choices, upon starting the first episode, I noticed this sort of apprehension and intense focus come over me, which I can only refer to as “Westworld mode.” I was prepared to detect all possible metaphors and clues in the new title sequence, to accept at any moment that any given character was really a host in a printed body, or to expect that any given situation was really a simulation. I had my podcast episode reviews and recaps queued up, and was ready to devote an inordinate amount of time each week to parsing out that one hour of television.
But guess what? I didn’t need all that, at least not like last season. I could—dare I say—understand Westworld.
What with the new setting, structure, and cast members (notably Aaron Paul and Vincent Cassel), season three was hailed as a soft reboot of the series. (Also a reboot of the black leather jacket industry, judging by the wardrobe.) But, true to their word, Joy and Nolan’s devotion to orient us within this new world was evident in the first episode: from multiple lines of dialogue establishing that three months had passed since the end of season 2, to the visual aid of Rehoboam’s chyrons identifying where in the world key scenes were taking place, and, marvel of all marvels, to all characters’ stories being in the same, chronological timeline! I mean, for a season that was set up to have multiple unknown hosts wearing other characters’ faces, widen the scope from a few island parks to the entire world, and be led by showrunners with a penchant for gaslighting their audience, it was… pretty straightforward.
Sure, this season had its own problems (oh, we’ll get to it), but I was, overall, pleasantly surprised by how comprehensible it all was. As the season began, the central mystery was not “how do I piece this story together” but rather “Ooh, I wonder what will happen next?” And unlike last season, I understood enough of the main characters’ motivations to feel invested in their stories, like how I knew Dolores had some sort of master plan to take down Rehoboam, Serac via Maeve was positioned to intercept, and Bernard would bumble along in the background. More importantly, I had a pretty good idea of what I didn’t know, like Caleb’s backstory or the identity of Dolores’s fellow conspirators. Exactly how it would all turn out was rightfully unknown. And along the way, viewers were encouraged to debate who to root for, as Dolores and Serac’s chess match intensified in pursuit of their opposing utopias. Naturally Westworld needed to inject some deception and surprises into the mix, but even so, the twists were more predictable, and often revealed within each episode: for instance, in the first two episodes, we are clued in to the fact that Caleb’s phone friend was actually just a therapy bot, Maeve’s time in Warworld was just a simulation, and Stubbs is indeed a host. Even the big “who were the pearls Halores brought back from season 2” question was answered (in a genuinely satisfying and unforeseen twist, by my count) in episode 4. To me, this signified that Westworld’s season 3 game isn’t so much with its viewers as with its characters, which was a welcome respite.
Naturally, these simplification tactics didn’t stop the conspiracy theories—plausible and ridiculous—from sprouting, as if viewers needed to get ahead of any and all remotely possible twists. Some posited that Dolores was actually in “Future World” instead of the real world (before parks 4 and 5 were revealed), others that Serac only existed as a hologram, and still others that Charlotte had the mind pearl of Dolores’s horse. I simply sat back and relaxed, confident that (and frankly, hoping for) a “rug pulled out from under me” moment like in season 1.
Still, as the Decoding Westworld podcasters liked to say about this season, “Westworld’s gotta Westworld”—by which they mean, in part, that the show loves creating puzzles and including Eastor eggs for its eagle-eyed viewers. For instance, just as “Bernard Lowe” is an anagram for “Arnold Weber,” the character’s alibi this season—“Armand Delgado”—is an anagram for “Damaged Arnold.” Similarly, episode titles continued to have deeper meanings, often tied to Joy’s fondness for poetry, like “Absence of Field” and “Mother of Exiles” (lines from Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole” and Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” respectively). As if to highlight the similarities between various seasons’ fate-controlling corporations, the Incite logo is reminiscent of Ford’s maze symbol. On a more extreme level, casual viewers lost out on clue-giving or world-building details by not freeze-framing certain shots, like the text on the RICO app, host IDs on tablets (which would have clued you in to Clementine being one of Maeve’s chosen helpers), Arnold’s wife’s address, and even a sign in Maeve’s Yakuza-fighting scene that translates to “same mind in many bodies.” And those who didn’t engage with Westworld’s ancillary content missed out on the new Incite website, which crashed at the same time Dolores first hacked Rehoboam and released all user profiles. On the Delos Destination site, virtual assistant Aedan now reports he’s gone “through the door,” then says “parce do-” and finally “parce Dolores” as a nod to the first episode title, “Parce Domine.” Meanwhile, the season poster held clues like scraps of blue dress on a dying robot (foretelling Dolores’ demise), the Dubai skyline (referencing William’s finale post-credits scene), and sand (perhaps tied to the layers of dust in Bernard’s post-credits sequence). So for those who want to dig, well, there’s something to be found.
Even without being cognizant of any of that, though, the season was enjoyable enough, especially given the tone and scope changes from previous seasons. I, for one, enjoyed tracking the number of similarities this “reboot” had with previous seasons’ structures. For as it turns out, Incite does to the humans in the real world what Delos did to the hosts in the parks: A quasi-megalomaniacal coder manipulates his selfish financier, ousts his partner when he diverges from their original plan, effectively enslaves an entire race without anyone’s knowledge, and is enamored with his digital creation and the world over which it has allowed him to reign, until it inevitably comes crashing down around him. You know, that old tale. But in more detail:
Liam Dempsey, Sr. is the new James Delos, supplying the capitol for an innovative and lucrative coding project without realizing its true potential or intended purpose, and caring only for the personal ROI—money and/or immortality. Their entitled sons go on to lead uninspired, and tragically short, lives as an indirect result of their fathers’ respective business ventures.
Coders and philosopher-wannabes, the Serac brothers are the new Ford and Arnold, the real project masterminds working behind the scenes to create their version of a better world. The more, let’s say, forward-thinking of each pair gets a little too attached to the project, enough to threaten or enact homicide, and is disappeared because of it. The remaining partner takes the project public, only to eventually come around to his partner’s way of thinking.
Though not handed the reigns until the final scene, Caleb is the new Dolores, introduced through voiceover as he wakes up and goes to work on his everyday loop. He is guided by an all-knowing figure along a mysterious path, only to discover that his memories have been tampered with, and his fate has been decided for him. He goes on to destroy the data-rich establishment subjugating him and his kind, shuttering in an age of chaos and violence—but also freedom.
Rehoboam is the new Forge/Cradle, storing and analyzing all data related to its subjects, and then creating their loops and limiting their potential. Any “anomalies” go on to be interrogated and reprogrammed in white-and-glass-walled rooms, or, if that proves unsuccessful, sent into cold storage. When the general public is made aware that their lives have been controlled by a machine without their consent… the shit hits the fan.
There are, of course, many other assorted parallels to and echoes of previous seasons, not limited to the yottabyte of recycled dialogue: Dolores falling into Caleb’s arms like she did William; Maeve running around the mesa with a scalpel; human Caleb controlled with a tablet, like the hosts; a member of an oppressed group being manipulated to attack their own (first Clementine, now Caleb); a slave-cum-revolutionary leading the masses out of their machine-controlled loops… I’m just saying, if Season 1 = robot awakening, Season 2 = robot revolution, and Season 3 = human awakening, then we can guess what’s in store for Season 4. (Though I’m sure Westworld will have its own spin.)
These similarities are on purpose, of course, for they explore the same characters, themes, and stories as previous seasons, just from a different angle. As Lisa Joy said in the finale’s “Creating Westworld’s Reality” segment, this season was meant to “turn the gaze from how AI is similar to humans, to how humans are similar to AI.” I actually really like that reframing, as it’s far rarer to encounter than its reverse. Each season, at its core, has been about characters striving for freedom, to be self-aware of themselves and their place in the world, and to break out of their loops to “be whoever they want to be.”
In fact, my happiest realization about this season was that with the clearer plot (or at least order of events), I finally had the time, energy, and mental bandwidth to consider the deeper themes and debates inspired by this show. This is exactly what I called for in my season 2 review – to cool it with the narrative fractures in order to bring sci-fi themes out into the open. And this season brought it all: chaos vs order, freedom vs control, hope vs despair, ignorance vs truth, and the big two: fate vs free will and memory & identity.
This season, like others before it, was rife with characters asking “Who am I?” Is identity determined by our physical form? Our experiences and memories? Our choices and actions? And it answered, to varying degrees, yes. We have the Dolores copies, who all “start in the same place” but wind up merging with their human sides and forming new identities, none more so than Charlotte. She initially takes human-Charlotte’s family to heart, but when she later lashes out and refuses to be a pawn, she reveals her inner Dolores; the fact that she is, at one point, “kinder” than the original human Charlotte is at once fascinating and totally out of step with the ruthless warmonger she seems to become. We have Caleb, too, whose reconditioning (i.e. memory altering) procedure left him broken, confused, and trapped—a living callback to the season 1 idea that “you can’t heal from something if you don’t remember it.” We have William, who came to terms with past “versions” of himself while rooting out questions of nature vs nurture and original sin (and true to his nature, chooses to blame others for his move to the dark side). And of course we have Dolores Prime herself, who falls prey to what is portrayed as Serac’s greatest act of villainy—deleting her memories, her identity, little by little, until there is nothing left.
But considering the precipice on which the show ended this season, the biggest thematic question I am left with is “how do we create a world allowing free will, but not free reign?” After all, the violence and damage that humans can do isn’t contained within the park—as Serac’s home of Paris can attest to. So how do we curb humans’ most harmful and selfish impulses while still allowing for people to choose their own paths, unoppressed by the powerful or wealthy? In three seasons we have seen two men impugn others’ freedom for a chance at immortality—James Delos wanted synthetic bodies for the wealthy few, and Serac wanted to ensure the survival of the human race. Host leaders Dolores and Maeve, too, were primarily concerned with their kind’s survival. Now, going into season 4, we have Halores 2.0 seemingly preparing for a worldwide Wyatt-level massacre. I mean, after Ford, Serac, and Dolores—all of whom thought they had all the answers—haven’t we learned that no one entity should control the fate of an entire race by now?
Westworld tried to have a poignant moment, but all I could think about was this…
And to revisit Lisa Joy’s “how humans are like AI” question, it’s interesting to consider the reversal from how Ford ultimately wanted to make the hosts more human, to how Serac wanted to make humans more like hosts (in that everyone knows their place and life is predictable and safe). In that way, Serac’s beliefs reminded me of those of Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale, who at one point has the gall to say, “There is more than one kind of freedom... In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from.” And like The Handmaid’s Tale, the “freedom from” (crime, war, instability) sure comes with major losses of personal freedoms (pursuing careers or relationships). “It’s not about who you are, it’s about who they’ll let you become,” Dolores host-splains to Caleb. “By not investing [in each person’s potential], they ensure the outcome.” Without the chance to improve, to “change their story,” no one on Serac’s Earth can evolve. Would I want to be awakened to all the negative forecasts and oppressors in my life, all at once? Probably not. But I wouldn’t want some French dude and his giant judgmental digi-brain deciding what’s best for me, either.
Unsurprisingly, what this season ultimately confirms is the chaos inherent in humanity. The inevitability of entropy. This is a classic sci fi (and general [non]fiction) theme: that humans are emotional and imperfect beings, who have just as much capacity for benevolence as for malice. The choice of who to be, in everyday and pivotal moments—i.e., free will—is the essence of humanity. As Westworld has explored, humans aren’t meant to be immortal, nor are they meant to be without flaws. Humans can be selfish, deceitful, and harmful, but they are redeemed through their capacity for kindness, love, and beauty. It’s very Fifth Element. Or very Stardust, considering fallen star Yvaine’s summation of humanity: “All those wars. Pain, lies, and hate... It made me want to look away and never look down again. But to see the way that mankind loves—I mean, you could search the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful.”
That sentiment is echoed in Dolores’s final speech about her realization that humans “knew enough of beauty to teach it to us”—that after all the pain and strife Westworld guests and other humans have caused her, she is willing to not only let it go but be their savior as well, so that they may have the power to choose for themselves how to live. “Some people choose to see the ugliness. The disarray… I choose to see the beauty.” When she delivers that final line, full of sincerity and with no trace of her character’s season one naïveté, that marked the highlight of the season to me. I love a good “character coming into her own” moment, especially when Dolores’s choice to focus on “the beauty” also stands as an example of a person embodying “the beauty,” in the form of forgiveness and joy. In terms of Joy and Nolan’s claim to portray humanity in a better light, this message was certainly uplifting, and the perfect culmination of the other glimpses of kindness we saw throughout the season—like Caleb assisting and then refusing to divulge the secrets of an injured Dolores, or Ash going back for Giggles in midst of a riot—that give credence to the judgment that humanity is worth saving. Or at least being given the chance to save themselves.
And now to go from best to worst, for as I said above, this season was not without its problems.
First up is how Bernard, William, and Maeve were all sidelined, seemingly in an attempt to keep them just involved enough to set them up for season 4 arcs. Bernard played the “too little, too late” card all season long, picking up Dolores’s (and the writers’) crumbs, which was disappointing. It’s also why his visit to Arnold’s wife in the finale, supposedly to “connect with his human side,” didn’t carry much weight. I mean, in what way is Bernard not already the most empathetic character? Similarly, I was excited to see the Man in Black at first, but soon found his extreme swings from finally accepting and confessing to killing his daughter (as a gateway to admitting his other sins) to proclaiming himself humanity’s savior and vowing to kill all hosts, to be confusing and lacking motivation. And I’m still waiting to see the connection with his season 2 post-credits scene… Finally, though Maeve got more screentime than the above two, my biggest problem with her storyline came in the narrative contrivance of having her at odds with Dolores. We are led to believe that Maeve “just didn’t trust” Dolores with the key to the Valley Beyond, because the thought that Maeve could be manipulated using carrot or stick by Serac is simply not acceptable for a character of her stature. (And let’s not forget, she short-circuited his fail-safe button with her mind! …after waiting until the last possible second to do so.) But what makes even less sense is why Dolores didn’t share her master plan with Maeve, or succeed in rescuing Maeve’s pearl any of the THREE TIMES she had the opportunity, thus depriving us of the Dolores-Maeve team-up we deserved.
This leads me to my other major issue with this season—the end. The outcome of Dolores’s plan was meant to be this season’s big reveal, but I must admit, it left me with a lot of questions. If I am to believe, as the Decoding Westworld hosts pointed out, that Dolores uploaded Solomon’s final strategy right before hitting the EMP… fine. That whatever that code was allowed her to make Caleb the new Rehoboam master, which the almighty Rehoboam didn’t see coming? Fine. But what does this mean about Caleb’s flash drive? Was it just a backup? Did Dolores plan on sacrificing herself? And was whatever she uploaded to Rehoboam the same as what was on that flash drive, i.e. what made Rehoboam predict the end of human civilization? If so, is that preventable? If not, how is it different? Beyond that final moment, I also don’t understand what Dolores wants for her Valley Beyond cohorts. She gave the key to that world to Bernard, but did she know what she wanted him to do with it?
Speaking of lingering questions: Who was Serac’s other mole (who recovered Maeve’s and others’ pearls)? How did Bernard, a wanted felon, paddle right up to Westworld? Or gain entry to the Rehoboam building, for that matter? Were all the people in cryosleep underneath Solomon killed or awakened when the EMP was deployed? Where is the Musashi pearl? And does getting shot hurt hosts or not?
Some viewers, like the Decoding Westworld hosts, were harder on this season than I was. Though I only listened to the podcast in order to confer or commiserate with others on what worked well or what was never fully explained, I was surprised by how frequently they brought up their disappointment with the fact that “Westworld’s gotta Westworld.” Co-host David Chen proclaimed that “Westworld couldn't escape from its own loop of needing to deceive the audience,” and that though good sci-fi themes were raised, it was “in a confusing way that wastes our goodwill for the characters.” Like me, co-host Joanna Robinson pointed to the fact that solely “in order to preserve the surprise of Dolores's intentions,” the writers were willing to place Bernard and Maeve in frustrating positions all season long. There were important plot points not explained—like Dolores blink-downloading Solomon’s final plan before hitting the EMP—and plot points barely explained—like how Halores was responsible for creating Dolores’s fail-safe metal body, which is why she could hack it in the finale. Between big-level plot contrivances and the Easter eggs listed above, the hosts agreed that Westworld intended “to obfuscate meaning as long as possible,” because “on every level, they still aren't willing to make things too easily digestible.” And it is precisely because of all these sorts of games that Joy and Nolan “can’t resist playing with us” while being “non-essential to our understanding of the plot,” that Chen deems this season’s finale to be merely “whelming.”
Isn't it weird when your thoughts about season 2 make it into the dialogue of season 3?
Like so many shows, Westworld can never recapture the brilliance of its first season. That simultaneous-timelines reveal established a potential for greatness that got us through the madness of season 2. While a more readily understandable and strangely Westworld-less season 3 still proves to be divisive, what I will say is this: take a page from this season, and note that you can focus on the ugliness, the disarray… or you can focus on the beauty.
I applaud Westworld for still being a show that you must pay attention to. You must watch watch (if not also rewatch) Westworld, because though characters this season would actually deliver exposition not in the form of Shakespearean quotes, the dialogue was still layered, high concept, and not likely to be repeated (with the exception of the fact that Caleb “doesn’t do personals”). On many occasions, I greatly enjoyed the move from discussion-based drama to high-octane action sequences, most notably the sequence in which Halores used the riot control bot to escape the Mesa. And I think I speak for everyone when I say I can’t wait for the Maeve–Lee Sizemore spin-off. Best of all, what I most wanted—bringing deeper thematic discussion to the forefront—was rightly delivered.
Should you come back for next season? Well, you get to exercise your free will. And isn’t that beautiful?
Stray observations:
Let’s start with this: Evan Rachel Wood deserves ALL the awards. For every line, and every emotion (or lack thereof). What can’t her face do?
Maeve wasn’t the biggest presence, but she still made herself my hero with her acerbic tongue. Her two best lines? “If there’s one thing I know about human nature… it’s that your stupidity is only eclipsed by your laziness” and “So easily seduced… but then you are a man.”
Kinda makes sense that Dolores only trusts herself, right? When she first smuggled those pearls out of Westworld, I thought to myself, Dolores doesn’t have five friends! Too bad she’s also her own worst enemy.
Just updating the scoreboard… William: 0, Some version of Dolores: 3
Let’s get this straight – Dolores didn’t sacrifice Connells or Charlotte. She sacrificed herself. Four times! And Dolores Prime unarguably suffered the most.
How do futuristic bullets at once have the ability to do a 180 midair and locate targets within a building a mile away, but miss when firing rapidly at a target in the open desert? And they have even worse aim when used by Delos security, who continue to be the best-paid yet least-effective guards 2058 has ever seen.
I take issue with the line “If we change ourselves just to survive, would it even matter if we did?” Um… yes! We call that evolution. Or was that taken straight from the creators’ negotiations in getting season 3 and 4 renewals?
There’s no way this interview cutting out when ERW starts talking about season 4 is a coincidence. …Right?
If my calculations are correct, following the exponential curve established in season 2, season 4 will have no fewer than 30 actors doing Dolores impressions.
This: