So you’re preparing for a new season of Westworld? You’ll need a slick new wardrobe, a former soldier to befriend, and a few bodies to stick copies of your mind in. But if time doesn’t allow it all, this recap of the third season should suffice.
The first episode of Westworld Season 4 premieres Sunday, so it’s time to look back at where things ended in HBO’s complex and fascinating sci-fi series. Season 3 took place largely outside the theme park of the same name, revealing more of human society in 2050 and ending with a cliffhanger. There will be eight episodes, just like last season, with more coming on Sunday. When you’re ready, go ahead and get yourself back online.
Aaron Paul joined the Westworld cast in Season 3.
HBO
Caleb (Aaron Paul) joined the cast
Season three introduced us to Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad), a war veteran haunted by the memory of losing his friend, Francis, in battle. In Episode 1, we learn that he is a construction worker and a low-key criminal who takes jobs through an app. When he met Dolores, he went with her on her mission.
We eventually find out that Caleb is considered an “outlier” by a machine named Solomon and his successor, Rehoboam. Because of this status, he underwent reconditioning therapy, a “treatment” that altered his memories. According to Solomon, it was “effective,” and Caleb was allowed to re-enter society. Not everyone was so lucky (more on that in the “pods” section).
It is revealed that Caleb and Francis (played by rapper Kid Cudi) both survived the war and that Caleb killed Francis. Solomon offered money to each of them to take out the other, and Francis turned on Caleb and forced Caleb to shoot him. Another twist is that the crime app Rico was created so that outliers like Caleb would round up other outliers.
Maeve is back.
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HBO
Maeve and Caleb work together.
Maeve reluctantly teamed up with a new character named Engerraund Serac in Season 3 after Serac tells her that the key to the sublime – where Maeve’s daughter exists – is in Dolores’ mind. Serac is a billionaire who created Rehoboam with his brother, Jean Mi, and came to serve as Rehoboam’s mouthpiece. Serac and Rehoboam wanted the wealth of guest data collected by Delos Incorporated, and they believed the key to it was also in Dolores’ mind.
In the Season 3 finale, Maeve switched sides at a crucial moment, helping Dolores and Caleb. She said she realized why Dolores “chose” Caleb to help her — not because of his capacity for violence, but because of his ability to choose. Dolores left it to Caleb to decide the future. He told Rehoboam to “execute the last command” — applying a new strategy, Solomon gave him — and brought about the apocalypse—more details on that big step are below.
In the third episode of Westworld, Caleb, and Dolores get to know each other better.
HBO
Dolores is no longer-es. Perhaps
In the Season 3 finale, Rehoboam destroyed Delores’ memories to find the key to the Delos above data. It wasn’t there. It seems that Dolores, as we know her, is gone for good, but with this show, I’m not ruling out any possibility.
‘Charlotte Hale’ builds hosts.
It’s not the end for this Dolores duplicate. Season 3 confirmed that Dolores made copies of herself (the “self” in her peal, or control unit) and inserted them into the bodies of Charlotte, Musashi, Martin, and Lawrence. Pseudo-Charlotte helped Dolores by posing as Hale, but she was eventually discovered, which cost her. The last time we saw the new Charlotte was in the finale’s post-credits scene when a host version of William joined her, and it looked like she was going to build more hosts.
Charlotte Hale (or a host version of her) arrives at Delos headquarters.
HBO
Host William has replaced William
Season 3 was a doozy for William. He had hallucinations of the daughter he killed, was cheated by the new version of Charlotte, and underwent unconventional futuristic therapy. When he emerged from all that, William declared that his “original sin” was building hosts and would wipe them all out. However, in the finale’s post-credits scene, William is mortally wounded by another version of himself – someone who reacts to fake Charlotte.
There are still a lot of people in those weird pods
Solomon revealed in episode 7 that the treatment given to Caleb only works for one in ten people. So what happens to everyone else? They are put to sleep in pods, where they are “not even allowed to live or die,” as Caleb put it. In Episode 7, we saw what appear to be hundreds of creepy, gray, human-sized containers.
Caleb ushered in… the apocalypse.
So back to that whole apocalypse thing. When Caleb made his final move in the Season 3 finale, he said he was doing it to give the world a choice, as Dolores did for him. The show shifts to Bernard, who sheds much-needed light on Dolores’s intentions and Caleb’s fallout: “She wasn’t trying to wipe out the human race. She was trying to save it,” Bernard said. “What’s going to happen will always happen. Serac and his brother just held back. Humanity has never considered its sins.’ He added: “Our world had to burn down before we could be free.”
Stubbs, who was with Bernard in that scene, called it the apocalypse, and Bernard didn’t correct him. So the reckoning is now. At the end of the finale (before the credits), we see Caleb and Maeve looking out for some skyscrapers, which are startled by explosions.
Bernard, played by Jeffrey Wright.
HBO
Bernard enters the sublime
Bernard, not Delores, holds the key to the Sublime, the place occupied by hosts, including Maeve’s daughter. In the Season 3 finale, Bernard used it and announced that he was looking for an answer to what would come after the end of the world.
We may see Engerraund Serac’s brother, Jean Mi, in Season 4
We saw Jean Mi in season 3 flashbacks, and it’s suggested he was in one of the pods we saw in the penultimate episode. In the Season 3 finale, Engerraund admitted to having podded (podded?) his brother at the behest of Rehoboam. Maybe we’ll see him again when the show covers those hair-raising capsules again.
