'Westworld' Season 3 Episode 5 will see Bernard ask Caleb if he's ever questioned Dolores' motives
‘The Mother of Exiles’, the fourth episode of ‘Westworld’ season 3, was a rush of adrenaline. The episode saw big reveals -- the hosts Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), Musashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), and Martin Connells (Tommy Flanagan) were all copies of Dolores’ (Evan Rachel Wood) consciousness.
Viewers saw some long-awaited good old-fashioned ‘Westworld’ violence and found out about what happened to William (Ed Harris) since the end of season 2. With six episodes remaining, and things already kicked into high-gear, the Jonathan Nolan-Lisa Joy science-fiction magnum opus sets itself up for only higher standards.
So what can one expect from episode 5?
One would think that after an action-packed episode like the fourth one, the show would take a step back into its usual slow (sometimes comatose) pace, right? Well, the promo for episode five completely disproves that notion. The episode is titled ‘Genre’. While all episodes titles in the series have immense significance, it is difficult to guess what ‘Genre’ means in the context of the show -- even the promo doesn’t allude to that.
But the promo itself is as confusing as it is vague. It begins with a shot of Rehoboam, the deterministic artificial intelligence technology that runs the world. The machine creates an alternate life for all humans based on available data (that it seems to have an incredible amount of access to) and based on that, it not just makes projections for real people, but also strategizes how they should lead their lives; all in the name of eliminating chaos.
As we see Rehoboam and what appears to be a younger version of its creator Serac (Vincent Cassel), we hear Serac saying, “Building a god wasn’t easy. There were people -- outliers -- who you couldn’t predict or control. And as long as they are part of us, there is no future for us.”
One can assume that Serac refers to Dolores as the outlier here. After all, it is her plan to destroy Rehoboam and add chaos to the world that Serac has fought so hard to control. In a sense, Serac and Dolores represent two sides of the same coin -- much like The Architect and The Oracle in the Wachowskis’ seminal work of science fiction, ‘The Matrix’. They both seek to change the destiny of human beings.
The promo, from there, is a mish-mash of high-octane action sequences, from chases to explosions to shootings. We also see Aaron Paul’s Caleb a lot in the promo. He’s supposedly a human that Rehoboam has deemed unfit to succeed. A veteran who worked construction and committed petty crimes for a ‘GTA’-like blockchain app, Caleb decided to follow Dolores’ revolution as he too was disillusioned with the human beings who, without his knowledge, wrote the whole script for his existence.
As Caleb appears on the screen, we hear a male voice asking, “Have you ever questioned what she’s asking you to do?” Presumably, the voice belongs to Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), another Host who wants to stop Dolores and the chaos she plans to pilot. Bernard, who has seen Dolores’ utter apathy, is right to ask this to Caleb. We have seen Dolores’ followers and fanatics meet terrible ends. Is Caleb just another Teddy Flood (James Marsden) to Dolores?
Conspicuously absent from the promo were two people -- Maeve (Thandie Newton), who we saw getting killed by Musashi-Dolores, and William, who we last saw getting institutionalized by Host Charlotte Hale. Yes, Maeve can and will be brought back to life, but her not being present in the promo likely hints at her playing little to no role in the upcoming episode. Which isn’t a big deal considering we haven’t reached mid-season yet.
Hopefully, the episode will be just as good as the fourth and just as fast-paced as the promo promises. Because at this point, slowing the story down will lose the plot the much-needed momentum it finally has. The next episode of 'Westworld' airs on April 12 on HBO.