Westworld Season 3 Episode 4 starts with William.
He’s mad with “grief” and “guilt” , because last season, William killed his
daughter Emily, because he thought she was a host . He’s also haunted by the suicide
of his wife Juliet – he wakes up in a bath like she died in a bath, and sees water raining
from a chandelier, just like when she died.
This chandelier has one red sphere, and five black ones – just like Dolores had one red
pearl, and five black pearls, including her own.
William’s haunted by a vision of Emily, who says William destroyed their family – including
her uncle Logan, and her grandfather James Delos . William didn’t directly kill these
guys, but his domineering, self-destructive hidden nature did lead to his family’s downfall
– its “collapse” like a “dark star” .
William says he knows what’s real , and he’s in control . But he doesn’t want
to take responsibility for the terrible impact he’s had on people.
So it’s a paradox, like the problem of evil – either he is in control, and he’s a
terrible person, or he’s not in control, and he’s a helpless machine . Emily shows
him his profile from last season – the data from the Forge which records his crimes, and
shows the “code” he follows like a host . Last season, William wanted to destroy the
Forge , cause he wanted to escape “judgement” , and he wanted to prevent himself being made
into an immortal host in a loop, like James Delos . So in a sense, William wanted to destroy
himself . He shoots at mirrors, which represents self-destruction.
He considers literal death, cause it’s the only way he feels he can prove he has control.
But even that is taken from him . William gets a visit from the host Charlotte.
She warns William that Serac is about to take over the Delos company, and to use the Forge
data – [that’s “the project in Sector 16”].
So William agrees to help Charlotte – but it’s all a trick.
Charlotte shaves William, just like Dolores shaved William in Season 1.
It’s a symbol of control – letting someone put a knife to your throat shows that you
know they’d never dare to hurt you.
But really, Charlotte is in control here, and is manipulating William.
Cause Charlotte is not really Charlotte.
It’s revealed that this Charlotte, and this Martin, and this Musashi are all copies of
Dolores . These pearls Dolores brought from Westworld aren’t the minds of other hosts,
they’re just copies of Dolores’ mind put into all these bodies.
And Charlotte isn’t really getting William’s help, she’s having him committed to a mental
hospital, as revenge for his years of abuse of Dolores . Charlotte also seems to inject
something into William, or maybe take a blood sample?
Maybe to track William, or drugs to make him crazy or something.
With William committed, Charlotte takes over his shares in Delos, so that should help Dolores
take control of the company back from Serac .
So William ends up in the mental hospital – the Man in Black is now all in white.
He’s got a glove on his right hand because last season it was injured fighting Dolores.
William is now trapped much like James Delos was trapped – the exact situation he hoped
to avoid.
A vision of Dolores says that William is a prisoner of his own sins . William’s only
problem in this whole story has been his own paranoia, obsession, and self-destruction.
So the only way he can have freedom is to change, to find his humanity, face his trauma,
be a half-decent person.
That was the idea of the Door quest last season.
Ford told him to make it out of the park , Emily told him to come home to his family . But
William failed, and continues to fail – trapped in a prison of his own sins.
He doesn’t even know if he’s real . Last season, we saw a flash-forward to the far
future where a copy of William is stuck in a loop – a fidelity test to see if William
can ever escape his cycle of violence . Maybe all these scenes are just part of that loop
, and William’s already been replaced with a host.
Maybe his punishment is to never know if he’s real.
So can William ever change his nature, and escape?
Or is this infinite endless prison the end to William’s story?
We see Bernard in a simulation, being created by Dolores . It's not clear if this happened
in the Cradle in Westworld, or at Arnold’s house in the real world, or if this might
even be the original Bernard being made years ago.
But the point is that Bernard and Arnold are important to Dolores – he’s a father figure,
who believed that the hosts could grow into real people , and that’s part of why Dolores
remade Bernard, even though she knows he’ll try to stop her.
Bernard has a flashback of Arnold’s son Charlie, which reminds us that this Bernard
is part Arnold.
Bernard and Stubbs were both created in Westworld.
Now, they get to hang out in the real world for the first time.
So naturally, they sink some beers in southern California – and everything’s pretty familiar,
except now in the future, they’ve got reusable landing rockets like SpaceX.
Stubbs mentions a shoulder injury , because the actor Luke Hemsworth hurt his arm, which
forced a rewrite of the fight scene in Episode 2 . Bernard thinks that Dolores has killed
Liam Dempsey and replaced him with a host, and wants to stop her.
So Bernard makes a little clicker button that can freeze hosts, like what Serac used to
freeze Maeve.
The robot lads dress up and prepare to play a new role.
Dolores and Caleb go shopping – there’s some technology that digitally shows what
clothes look like on you – this kinda stuff has been developed in the real world.
Caleb feels uncomfortable buying fancy clothes – cause he’s a working class guy, this
isn’t his style . But Dolores says that style is just a marker of class and tribe,
like animals with plumage.
Like hosts, humans dress up to play roles, and once you see that, and break free of your
role, and you can use that code to manipulate others . [As in “dress code”!]
Dolores wants Liam Dempsey’s money.
So she gets the Martin host to get Liam’s financial authorisation key.
Liam is one of the richest tech bros in the world , but he lets Martin handle all his
financial and security stuff, so he can spend his time partying . It seems like freedom,
but really Martin’s in control.
So this rich man is no more free than a host.
Dolores also steals the blood of Liam’s money guy, Michael, so that Caleb can use
the security markers in his blood to impersonate Michael.
Caleb is nervous, his palms are sweaty , but he successfully plays the “role” of a
rich asshole , and steals all Liam’s money – showing how status and class are just
as artificial and coded as the roles that hosts follow.
Maeve chats with Serac in a fancy Singapore bar.
And Serac explains why he wants to control the world.
When Serac was a kid, he saw Paris destroyed . A Westworld trailer mentions a “thermonuclear
incident” in Paris in 2025 so it must be that.
Serac and his brother look weirdly similar to young Ford and his brother, who we saw
as hosts.
Is it possible that Serac and Ford were brothers?
Or do all children look that in 2025, frolicking in fields in formal dress?
Either way, the point is that young Serac witnessed a terrible preventable tragedy,
so he wants to control everything to prevent disasters from happening again – to stop
humanity from destroying itself . It’s a pretty good reason to wanna rule the world.
But it also raises questions about freedom – should we let ourselves be controlled
to save lives?
[Corona yo, stay at home] Serac controls the world with data technology on the computer
Rehoboam and the Incite company, but his data is not yet complete.
He wants Westworld’s data, from the Forge.
Cause the Forge data is the most “complete” “map of the human mind” . In Season 1,
the whole idea of the Westworld park is that it gives people the freedom to reveal their
true selves.
Like, William, outside the park, acts like a “family man” and a “good guy” , but
inside the park, he reveals his true dark self . That’s why the Westworld data would
be valuable to Serac – with data on the real true identities and choices of the human
mind, he could better control people, like Caleb, and everyone else in the world.
Apparently the key to unlock this data is in Dolores , so Serac wants Maeve to capture
Dolores for him – now that we know there are at least four Dolores’ – is the key
in all of them, or just one, or split between them, or what?
But in return, Serac says he’ll upload Maeve into the Sublime, the digital paradise for
hosts, so she can be with her daughter in robot heaven forever . We were told that the
Sublime was sealed away and inaccessible, but Serac claims he can get Maeve in anyway
. And if she doesn’t comply, he says he’ll trap her in a digital hell forever . So Serac
plays the role of a devil, tempting Maeve into conflict, promising paradise – but
maybe he can’t be trusted, and his promises are empty.
Serac takes Maeve to Arnold’s house, and says this is where the “divergence” started
which threatens Serac’s plans.
All these circular images this season seem to be from the computer Rehoboam identifying
people who are going against Serac’s plan.
He thinks the Doloreses are the big threat to his plans , but Bernard also came from
here – maybe he’s the big threat to Serac.
We see that Dolores printed five host bodies here – she made herself a Dolores body,
and Bernard, and Martinlores, and Musashilores.
And she printed the new Charlotte – unless she just reused the Charlotte body she came
in.
If so, there could be a mysterious unknown fifth host for Dolores’ fifth pearl out
there somewhere.
Serac has this guy Jiang, an identity broker, who helped Dolores set up her fake identity
as Lara . Serac interrogates Jiang, and shows him images of his family suffering.
Serac says he’s not gonna hurt Jiang’s family, this isn’t a threat, it’s a true
simulation of what the world will do to Jiang’s family if Serac fails and Dolores wins , which
suggests that the world would really be better off under Serac’s control.
But then Serac murders Jiang, so Serac is still villainous – he kills people in his
quest to save people.
Maeve follows Jiang’s information to a woman called The Mortician, who provided blood for
Dolores’ fake identity.
The Mortician treats human bodies like objects to be chopped apart and sold, just like how
host bodies are treated in Westworld.
Maeve hacks the Mortician’s device to stop her calling for help.
Maeve learned some super l33t hackerman skills in Westworld.
The Mortician refers Maeve to the Yakuza, so Maeve finds their base at Itaidoshin Distillery.
Itai Doshin is a Buddhist concept about unity, literally meaning many bodies, with one mind
. This refers to how Dolores has copied her one mind into many bodies.
The Yakuza have cyberpunk guns that aim automatically.
So Maeve hacks them so the Yakuza all shoot each other.
Maeve learns that the Yakuza’s new leader, called Sato, is actually the host Musashi,
who Maeve met in Shogunworld last season.
Musashi complains that Maeve left him to die in the park.
Maeve says it was Musashi’s choice to stay, but Musashi says the choice wasn’t real,
because Musashi didn’t know that he was a robot in a theme park . This is similar
to how William says his choice to kill Emily wasn’t a real choice, because he didn’t
know that Emily was human.
But this Musashi isn’t really Musashi.
He, and this Martin, and this Charlotte, are actually all copies of Dolores.
Because the only person Dolores trusts to be her ally is herself . It seems that Dolores
isn’t taking over the world for all hosts, she’s just filling it with copies of herself
, like Agent Smith in The Matrix, she’s spreading and replicating like a virus.
The Yakuza base is full of this white goo, that’s used to make hosts.
Maybe Dolores is making a heap of bodies to copy herself into, an army of herself to fill
the world.
But she also talks about building a world for Maeve’s daughter , so maybe she’ll
take the real world for herself, and build a virtual world for other hosts, and leave
no world at all for humanity.
Musashi kills Maeve, and she bleeds out into the white host goo, just like this host bleeding
into milk in Season 1.
Milk is connected to motherhood, birth, creation and growth, while blood is connected to death.
The Season 1 intro had this milky white stuff, and Season 3 intro has this red stuff, playing
with these concepts of birth and death.
And if you mixed em together, you’d probably get something like Caleb’s strawberry shake.
Musashilores goes to take Maeve’s pearl, so that Serac can’t keep using Maeve, but
then he leaves it behind cause they run out of time, or cause Maeve is being tracked or
something?
It’s weird to not take the pearl – maybe Musashi-lores believes that even if Maeve’s
fighting against them, she has a role to play, just like Bernard .
Liam and Roderick and Penny go to a fancy sex party for rich people, like in Eyes Wide
Shut , while a classical rendition of Wicked Games by the Weeknd plays.
High class sex workers are displayed on pedestals, and auctioned off for cash.
Roderick says that “All sex is commerce” , which is like what Maeve says in Season
1 , in her brothel . Liam and Roderick’s dynamic is much like William and Logan in
the park.
The point is that in both Westworld and the real world, people are objectified, sex is
a commodity, and the world is a playground to gratify the rich . Dolores says that the
real world is no different to Westworld . Roderick gives Liam a fancy new drug called
Genre, that “Sends you straight to the silent era” . The next Westworld episode is called
Genre, and Liam still has that drug – so maybe next episode will be a drug trip to
the “silent era” – like that one episode of Watchmen, where a drug trip takes a character
to the black-and-white era.
You might wanna watch our Watchmen videos, they’re pretty good.
Bernard crashes the party and tries to freeze Liam with his button, but it doesn’t work,
because Liam’s still a human, not replaced with a host . If Dolores wanted to replace
Liam with a host, she probably could have done it when he was alone with Martin earlier.
She must want Liam alive as a human for some reason .
Dolores intercepts, and fights with Stubbs.
Which is sad, cause Stubbs doesn’t want to fight, he’s just been programmed to by
Bernard . Three seasons in, and the hosts are still forced to fight each other in coded
conflicts.
Penny and Roderick are surprised to see Dolores kung-fu fighting robots at a sex party – cause
they thought she was dead.
Dolores taps the side of her head, cause she once said to Roderick that’s the nucleus
accumbens, which evolved to make humans believe in God . Now Dolores is like God – undying,
omnipresent, and unstoppable – Dolores once said that “The real gods are coming” , so
Roderick best start believing.
Martin captures Bernard, and Dolores captures Liam, and as all the storylines sync up, it’s
simultaneously revealed that Charlotte and Martin and Musashi are all copies of Dolores.
The reason why this is interesting is that as we learned last episode, these copies aren’t
identical clones – they’re more like Dolores’ children, who grow and change and make their
own decisions.
So they might not all follow Dolores’ plans.
This episode is called “The Mother of Exiles”, which refers to a poem on the Statue of Liberty.
It frames the statue as a symbol of hope, a powerful maternal figure who’ll welcome
and protect the downtrodden . So is Dolores this Mother of Exiles – will she protect
the downtrodden, like Caleb, and her host children?
Or is she just taking the world for herself?
Is Maeve the saviour, at least for hosts like her daughter?
Or Might Bernard be the real hope, a more compassionate compromising person who doesn’t
fucken murder people all the time?
Will Serac save humanity, despite his brutality?
Or will one of the Dolores copies find new possibilities?
Or are D&D the saviours we need after all?
Westworld presents lots of different perspectives on freedom hope and control.
So Itai Doshin is a Buddhist concept.
Buddhism has been practiced for thousands of years, and a lot of it is about how to
deal with suffering – so in stressful uncertain times, Buddhist texts can be really helpful,
regardless of whether you consider yourself religious or spiritual.
If you’ve never read any Buddhist stuff, you might like to start with the Dhammapada
– it’s simple and short and wise and practical and an absolute banger, and you can get it
on audiobook for free right now by signing up for a trial with Audible.
Members get an audiobook each month, and if you cancel, you keep the audiobooks.
You can listen while you drink in Singapore, or while you wait in isolation.
Sign up at audible.com/asx.
Thank you for watching, please like and subscribe.
We’re holding livestreams right after each episode of Westworld Season 3, at 10:30pm
Eastern Time Sundays.
Patreon supporters can watch livestreams after broadcast.
Thanks to Patrons Alistair Twombly, Kelly Quinlan, Madeleine Welsh, Aimee Moffat, Aasne
Vaa, Jonathan Beland, Geng Chen, and Dron.
Cheers.