'Westworld' Season 3: A look at where we left Dolores, Maeve and Bernard after the Season 2 finale
One of the greatest and the most frustrating aspects of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s HBO science fiction series ‘Westworld’ is having a grasp on everything that is going on in the show. On the one hand, it is so complicated, it’s almost like a brain teaser. On the other hand, it makes preparing for season 3 a pain, unless you sit down and watch the whole thing all over again.
So here’s a simple refresher on the key aspects of the show, so that you don’t feel completely clueless when you start watching the new season on March 15.
Dolores Abernathy
The show’s protagonist (and antagonist) played by Evan Rachel Wood, after coming to terms with reality, away from her programming, focuses most of season 2 on destroying everything. A woman (or really an android with the characteristics of a woman) with an iron will directed toward retribution, she went after Westworld's supercomputer known as The Forge, and destroyed it, but not before stealing a handful of pearls (devices on which the Hosts’ consciousness are stored) to take with her. Before she escaped, she uploaded her consciousness into a Host that looked like Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson).
Maeve
One of the show’s most loved (and bad**s) characters, Maeve, played by Thandie Newton, had a complicated arc in season 2. After having gained consciousness and sentience, Maeve’s story took her from Westworld to ShogunWorld, a similar theme park, but based in medieval Japan. Having mastered the algorithm that let her control other Hosts, Maeve ventured out to find her long-lost daughter.
At the center of it, back in Westworld, Maeve found herself in the middle of a showdown between the Native American Ghost Nation Hosts and the Delos guards. She was gunned down and taken back to be reprogrammed to be put back into a narrative. But can Maeve really be reprogrammed?
Bernard Lowe
Played by Jeffrey Wright, this Host (who was led to believe for the longest time that he was a human scientist) goes down a path that confuses him much. Mostly because his system was much in need of repair. At the same time, he kept hallucinating about (in a manner where Hosts can hallucinate because of glitches in programming) Anthony Hopkins’ Robert Ford, the man, who along with Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) gave birth to Westworld.
He ended up getting shot and killed after he helped Dolores open the portal to the Valley Beyond. Dolores, however, was not done with him. She took his pearl and rebuilt him in the season 2 finale's final moments.
Season 3 that begins on Sunday will now see the aftermath of this carnage that claimed as many Host lives as humans. The only thing that is certain is that Dolores’ lust for vengeance is not over yet. And now safely out in the real world, she was free to plot more aggressively. One can only imagine what that might look like.