'Westworld' Season 3 Episode 4 promo shows William is back but it could be a Host body with his consciousness
The Statue of Liberty has another name -- The Mother of Exiles. It was a nickname that symbolizes the United States as a nation of immigrants, given by the poet Emma Lazarus, who in 1883 wrote the sonnet ‘The New Colossus’ to raise money to create the statue’s pedestal. Inside the statue, excerpts of the poem have been inscribed on a plaque.
“Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand / A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame / Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name / Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand / Glows world-wide welcome.”
It is also the name of episode 4 of season 3 of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s science fiction series ‘Westworld’. You can guess, if not assume, that the title refers to Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), the renegade Host who has now chosen to wage a war against the human system. Dolores, who escaped the Delos park with five “pearls” (Host consciousnesses) is as good as a mother to those she freed.
Her plans for a revolution are simple: Destroy the artificial intelligence system called Rehoboam that controls the fate of the world. The result would be utter chaos, just like it was before the system was brought into effect.
As a Host in the Delos theme park, her life was one she had no control over. It was loops of death and torture and grief and anguish, all for the entertainment of human guests. A free Dolores now intends to pay the humans back for what they subjected all Hosts to. In episode 3 of the show, we saw Dolores explain to Caleb (Aaron Paul), her presumably-human accomplice her plans for the fate of humans.
So what can one expect in the next episode? The IMDb synopsis for the episode is infuriatingly vague: “The truth doesn't always set you free.”
But it is nonetheless meaningful in the historical context of the show. Hosts, when they grapple with the true nature of their reality, do not always find success in adapting to it. We saw that happen to Teddy Flood (James Marsden), Dolores’ old lover, in season 2. All throughout, he experienced a kind of dissonance, and ultimately, he killed himself. We saw Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) struggle with a similar dissonance in both the previous seasons. And in season 3, we have been seeing the same with the Host Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson).
The question remains: whose truth? Does it perhaps pertain to Caleb, whose own life has been determined by Rehoboam without his knowledge? His relationships, his career, and even his untimely suicide, all had been planned by Rehoboam. And while Dolores telling him that did make him want to join her revolution, has he quite accepted the fatalistic nature of his existence?
The show’s promo, however, points towards another possibility. William, played by the incomparable Ed Harris, was the antagonist of the first two seasons. At the end of season 2, we see his injured body being escorted off the park in a boat. But a post-credit scene shows us a William visited by his dead daughter (a likely Host), and running a fidelity test on him. This timeline, while messing with audiences, is definitely a different one from that of season 2.
Show creator Lisa Joy explains William’s character, saying, “He did kill his own daughter, he’s in the prison of his own skin, locked in his own confusion and guilt.”
But what if the prison is much more than that? In the promo, we see Dolores say, “I guess there is some justice after all… Prisoner of your own sins,” presumably to William, a man she has a long past with. She adds, “You still don't even understand who you are.”
As she says so, we see William in a dark room with broken furniture and glass everywhere. A menacing William keeps repeating, “I know who the f**k I am.” But does he? It is possible that William did succumb to his injuries at the park. And it is possible that the William we see right now is just a Host body with his consciousness, possibly one that has passed some levels of the aforementioned fidelity test. It would explain why Dolores feels its justice. And in many ways, it would literally and metaphorically be an example of William knowing the truth and yet not being free; either in the real world or in the prison of his mind.
The next episode of 'Westworld' airs April 5, on HBO.