Moderator: Chief Couch Potato Kylie

THE SPECS:

Who: “Westworld” is a science fiction western based upon the 1973 film of the same name (written and directed by Michael Crichton) and to a lesser extent, the film’s 1976 sequel Futureworld. It is currently on hiatus.

What: “Westworld,” created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, depicts a fictional, technologically advanced Wild West-themed amusement park populated by android “hosts” called “Westworld.” The park caters to high-paying “guests” who may indulge their wildest fantasies within the park without fear of retaliation from the hosts, who are prevented by their programming from harming humans.

SYNOPSIS

In an unspecified time in the future, Westworld allows guests to experience the American Old West in an environment populated by “hosts,” i.e. androids programmed to fulfill the park guests’ every desire. The hosts, who are nearly indistinguishable from humans, follow a predefined set of intertwining narratives but have the ability to deviate from these narratives based upon interactions they have with guests.

The hosts repeat their multi-day narratives anew each cycle. At the beginning of each new cycle (typically following the host’s “death”), each host has its memories of the previous period erased. This continues hundreds or thousands of times until the host is decommissioned or re-purposed for use in other narratives. For guests’ safety, hosts’ programming prevents them from physically harming human guests; this allows guests nearly unlimited freedom to engage without retribution in any activity they choose with the hosts, including rape and murder. Staff—situated in a control center called “The Mesa”, which is connected to the park through vast underground facilities—oversee daily operations, develop new narratives, and perform repairs on hosts as necessary. Unbeknownst to the staff, members of a small group of hosts have retained memories of their past “lives” and are learning from their experiences as they gradually start to achieve sentience.

When: Season 3 aired on HBO from March 15, 2020, to May 3, 2020, with a total of eight episodes.

Where: The action in Season 3 is set primarily in the fictional “real world” at some unknown future time.

Why: To find out why individual podcast panelists started watching this show, listen to the Season 1 podcast episode via the link below!

How – as in How Was It? – THOUGHTS

We have been discussing Westworld since the beginning; we caught up on the series in 2019! To listen from the start, click the embedded links below or search our archive here at the website!

Season 1

Season 2

As you might recall, by popular request, though notably by several established CPU! panelists and viewers, Westworld became a new show panel at the CPU! Water Cooler in 2019. Somewhat sadly, however, our cadre of hosts and guests experienced something of an algorithmic changeover since last we covered this series. Two panelists – Kyle and Hilary – jumped the shark, as they became too frustrated with the new direction of the show in Season 3. The rest of our adventurous Westworld panelists – namely Samantha, Jeremy, and Ben as well as a panelist new to the panel but not to the podcast – were still willing to reconvene “Around the Water Cooler” to talk about the “New World” order of this lush and complex drama, and in so doing, to ruminate in-depth upon the production values, performances, writing, and densely plotted mysteries of this show hailing from seeds planted by Michael Crichton’s creative brain in the seventies. In this review, our new reconstituted panelist bodies, pearls in tact (and not cloned, as far as we know), dissect the most mixed reactions we have ever had as a panel to this program, as some panel members were more engaged, others were less engaged, and still others if not the entire panel yearned to recapture the magic of the series’ first season, as panelists continued to struggle with series story direction and with what was perceived to be story development that “missed the mark” by the third season finale.

Thus, in this episode, our panel reflects on and recaps Season 3 of Westworld, in which we learn about the fates of some of the Delos parks, the Man in Black aka William (Ed Harris), Dolores’ (Evan Rachel Wood) plans for the New World, and the existence of a new artificial intelligence that seems to predate the AI embedded within the Delos park attractions. We also meet a new character in Caleb (Aaron Paul), who appears to be more than he seems as well as emblematic of what this so-called “future world” has become. In the meantime, the show continues to explore humanity, consciousness, and conscience as well as the the definitions and boundaries of love and freedom, as defined by existence and/or by the individuals bound to that existence.

This episode was recorded in May 2021, and there are, without question, MAJOR SPOILERS, as the panelists cover key plot points – very key plot points – of the third season. Listen at your own risk, and let us know what you think by commenting below!

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Remember, new episodes and blog posts are published weekly! Next Wednesday, our boldly going Star Trek 50+ Series panel returns to the Water Cooler to lovingly discuss the final season, Season 7, of Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as to present their Top 10 Best and Bottom 10 Worst Episode Lists for the entire series.  Stay tuned!

Questions, Impressions, and Future Considerations

Old Questions

1) At what point did/will William aka the Man in Black become a (SPOILER) host version of himself? How does he reach that point, and was that all part of Robert Ford’s plan? Does William figure into Dolores’ machinations for the wider world?

ANSWER: William aka the Man In Black (MIB) is cloned and made into a host in the third season finale by the Charlotte/Dolores clone (Tessa Thompson), who is hellbent on revenge after the many events that occur to bring her to that breaking point (listen to the podcast episode for details). We think it is safe to say that aside from Robert’s dream for the evolution of his AI, most of these events are far removed from whatever he initially intended when he created the host intelligence staffing the Westworld park. The last question above is somewhat tricky to answer, as Dolores Prime initially attempts to remove William from her larger scheme by having him committed to a deprogramming facility, yet her Charlotte/Dolores clone is an evolved offshoot of her original programming, a version of Dolores that has lived Charlotte’s life and walked in her “real world” shoes. This (presumably) new Dolores further decides to have the William host/clone (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER) kill MIB prime and assume his existence. What this all means for the future is decidedly a Season 4 question.

2) Did William aka the Man in Black actually murder his own daughter, Grace/Emily? Is she actually dead? Aside from the flashback to Emily’s mother’s suicide, were we watching Grace/Emily in a chronology contemporary to Dolores’ insurrection? Was Grace/Emily initially hunting in one of the other Delos parks? Will we see her again?

ANSWER: Yes, William actually murdered Grace/Emily, and it is his internal reaction to this act with which he grapples during his institutional stay in the third season. Grace is actually dead. We see her again when William hallucinates a vision of her, with which he converses, in this season, but her life chronology as depicted in Season 2 is not further clarified. It is safe to say that what we see in Season 2, when William mistakenly takes the life of his own daughter, is in every way real, and that Grace/Emily was in the Delos parks when it happened. Since reality and fantasy frequently blur in the parks, particularly for William, who struggles the most with the blurry line throughout the series, the nightmare and its consequences become very real to him in Season 3.

3) What character will Aaron Paul be playing in Season 3? How will he fit into this picture?

ANSWER: Aaron Paul plays Caleb, who seems to be a military veteran down on his luck when we first encounter him. He becomes a key component of Dolores’ larger plans as someone who (SPOILER) is able to assert free will and break through deprogramming/brainwashing treatment he receives from another AI/entity insidiously governing the world order. Listen to the podcast episode for details.

4) What is Dolores’ true endgame – is it truly “kill all humans,” or is she looking for a way that hosts and humans can coexist, even if hosts hold the power or control over humans? Will Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) stop her if it’s the former? Will killer robots take over the world?

ANSWER: Column B. She sees beauty in humans, she claims near the season’s end, and she becomes aware of the larger AI controlling the flow of money and human decision-making in the world. This is the largest subject of tonight’s episode discussion, as this plot direction might have been the source of the most confusion for our panelists. Bernard does not intervene directly with Dolores this season, except in one failed attempt, but we do not necessarily bear witness to the once and future fate of Dolores, based upon the season-ending events, because of the clone complication and in light of the basic knowledge that the AI of this world can reconstitute itself (Dolores being one of the most adept at this skill). Listen to the podcast episodes for details. Notably, killer robots do not take over the world; humans regain control of their own faculties and wherewithal, but the season ends in chaos as humans wake up to what their lives have been under the control of the AI that dictated those lives and to what it means to again have free will. Listen to the podcast episode for all of the related discussion.

5) Does the Delos Corporation still exist? Are any of the parks, Westworld included, still open? Is someone still searching for the Valley Beyond/the satellite matrix containing the hosts’ consciousnesses? Will that someone or something be after Bernard? Does he still have the encryption key?

ANSWER: Delos was hostilely taken over by a rival company, Insight, in Season 3. In addition, Charlotte/Dolores takes out the Board of Directors near the end of the season. Where does that leave the company? It is hard to say.

We know that Westworld itself is closed, but WarWorld was operating as a prison for Maeve (Thandie Newton) and as a repository for AI that the rival company’s CEO does not want to deal with as the Westworld AI and hosts emerge from the so-called “massacre” of Season 3.

The panelists believe that Bernard accesses Sublime, the satellite matrix contained within the Valley Beyond, at the end of this season, and that Bernard innately possesses or obtains the encryption key this season that accesses that matrix. What he finds is the subject of the major cliffhanger of the third season’s end; we do not expect to learn the results of his journey until the airing of Season 4.

6) What other hosts did Dolores smuggle from the park?

ANSWER: She only smuggled bodies, and not all of them initially belonged to hosts, as the pearls she took were clones of her pearls that she secretly produced while still in the Westworld park. She places pearls in Charlotte, Musashi from Shogun World, and Connells, a man on the outside. Yet, other former hosts appear. The panel is unclear whether Clementine and others we see are Dolores clones or were revived by Maeve or Engerand Serrac (Vincent Cassel) in their effort to stop Dolores.

7) Where is Maeve right now? Is she one of the hosts’ core matrices that Dolores smuggled from the park? Or, did Lee (Simon Quaterman) accomplish that feat and how?

ANSWER: She begins the season imprisoned in WarWorld, which is operated as a sort of cage for errant AI from Westworld, including her. Neither Dolores nor Lee are responsible for placing her there; Serrac claims it was he who did so near the end of the season.

8) Will we see any of the other parks beyond Shogun World, such as Medieval World, to which panelist Kyle alludes in this episode?

ANSWER: We see only WarWorld this season, though we also revisit the empty and unpopulated Westworld.

New Questions

1) Will Caleb return in Season 4? If so, what will his role be?

2) Where is Maeve? Where does she go after Season 4?

3) Is Dolores truly dead?

4) Was the Dolores in Evan Rachel Wood’s body the actual Dolores – Dolores Prime – or is Charlotte/Dolores (or some other clone) hiding the real Dolores or the original Dolores pearl?

5) Will the show ever explain how Dolores was aware of Rehoboam?

6) Is the William/Man in Black clone/host that takes out William Prime in the season finale the same version of William that we saw in the post-credits series finale tag for Season 2?

7) How far into the future does Bernard wake up from his visit to Sublime, and is he in the same general time period or era that we find William/Man in Black in the post-credits series finale tag for Season 2?

8) How many Dolores clones remain, if any, beyond Charlotte/Dolores?

9) What does Bernard learn from Sublime? How can this world be rebuilt in the wake of divorcing the Rehoboam AI from humanity’s collective consciousness?

10) What is the state of the Delos parks in the world in which Bernard returns from Sublime?

11) Does Maeve still care about the whereabouts of her daughter?

12) What is Charlotte/Dolores’ endgame? Does she want to marry AI matrices with human consciousness? Or, is she truly bent upon world destruction?

PARTING SHOTS

Westworld continues to be recommended by our CPU! Westworld panel, unanimously anew but somewhat tepidly all around, to anyone who enjoys an ambitious story, with exciting action coupled with cerebral, intelligent mysteries to titillate and to ponder; to fans of science fiction and/or westerns and/or mysteries in general; and to music lovers who enjoy auditory Easter eggs, as the person responsible for the score, Ramin Djawadi, is both clever and prolific with his use of music, original and adapted, in this series.  The panelists universally agree that the production values on this series remain remarkable, with particularly breathtaking cinematography, costuming, and visual effects representing the series’ crowning achievements. The panelists also continue to unanimously praise the performances by this noteworthy cast/ensemble, especially those of Jeffrey Wright as Bernard and of Ed Harris as the Man in Black.

The panelists’ reactions to the third season, however, are decidedly mixed in tonight’s comprehensive review. Some of our panelists appreciated the more linear storytelling and streamlined pacing of the third season. Some are not altogether in support of how potential details and story/plot points depicted on screen may have been sacrificed overall in an effort to achieve said linear storytelling and streamlined pacing. Some panelists struggle with Episode 5, “Genre,” seeing it as mostly a filler episode with no real bearing on the overarching plot arc and, therefore, time wasted that could have been better spent on table setting in the first half of the season. The panel proves further and markedly split with respect to how each individual panelist received the overall reward for the redefined story build and tonal shift of Season 3: some easily suspended disbelief, happy to be along for a ride that seemed to lose much of the distracting and perplexing ballast of the previous season, while others saw this third season as considerably less gratifying in terms of its punchline than the mind-bending twists of the preceding seasons. In fact, half of the panel believes that Season 2 was more engaging and enjoyable, while the other half found Season 3 to be a vast improvement over the confusion and uneven pacing wrought by the preceding season.

Our panelists, though, continue to (strongly) suggest that any would-be viewer be prepared for an engaging puzzle of a tale that should be actively watched and processed without distraction, like the “multi-screen experience,” and possibly with a notebook or journal at one’s side to keep track of the story information. They also opine that the story continuity and complexity remain intermittently clunky in Season 3, despite the aforementioned streamlining and redefinition, and that the show does not adequately build upon the momentum of the endpoint of Season 2’s finale in a satisfying way, particularly since the viewer must begin Season 3 with the somewhat tedious task of reestablishing bearings, given the ending events of the second season and how Season 3 begins with Caleb as the point-of-view character. Still, all panelists consider Westworld’s third season to be worth the watch, so long as potential viewers abandon most preconceived notions (and forget much of Season 2’s seeding plot) in order to adequately engage and to suspend disbelief for any length of the viewing experience. Furthermore, though our panel remains committed to watching the future fourth season, one panelist has all but lost interest in the show, regarding Season 3 as far less satisfying and less worth the watch than prior seasons, but, at least, panelist Jeremy intends to give Season 4 a chance, as do all the rest of the panelists, with varying and oscillating levels of interest, engagement, and enthusiasm going forward.

LOOKING AHEAD

HBO renewed Westworld for a fourth season, which is expected to release in 2022, though no tentative premiere date has yet been announced. CPU! will next visit Westworld at some point following the Season 4 finale.  Like, follow, and/or subscribe to the website, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Castbox, Amazon Music, Patreon, or our social media accounts to stay abreast of new episodes regarding Westworld as well as new episodes for all of our podcast panels! And, if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Thank you!