'Westworld' Season 3 Finale: Aaron Paul's Caleb may be humanity's salvation but might die delivering virus
Spoilers for 'Westworld' Season 3 Episode 7 'Passed Pawn'
Despite the fact that the seventh (and the penultimate) episode of the third season of Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s sci-fi prestige series ‘Westworld’ has been largely hailed as lukewarm, it leaves a lot of doors open for further probing.
As fans on Reddit have pointed out, the show’s depiction of Solomon, the predecessor of Rehoboam, what Caleb (Aaron Paul) calls an “insane AI”, leads once again to question the very existence of Serac (Vincent Cassel) as a human being altogether. “I don't think Serac is real or ever existed. I think Serac is just a figment of his schizophrenic brother’s mind,” wrote a Redditor. “I think Jean Mi either grew up with him sharing his mind or perhaps he was created as a coping mechanism when he saw his home blown up in front of his eyes.”
Jean Mi, the Redditor explains, would go on to create Solomon imparting qualities pertaining to both Jean Mi and Serac, creating an unstable AI. “Solomon would then go on to create Rehoboam with just the Serac qualities, and Rehoboam with basically unlimited knowledge and power would manifest itself in holographic form as Serac himself. Serac/Rehoboam would then go on to imprison both of the original versions of itself in Jean Mi/Solomon.”
This explanation would make sense in many ways, especially considering that anyone who has so far met Serac on the show, has only met his hologram. We are yet to see a physical manifestation of the person, so to speak. It also branches out to another interesting proportion, that has been suggested by fans: What if Jean Mi and Caleb are the same person.
We know now that both were outliers in the system. We also know that Caleb is a powerful person in terms of being a divergence in the system’s near-perfect plan. It is a bit of a stretch, but it is not unlikely that if not the same people (although how awesome would that be?), they may have more of a link than we are privy to at this point.
Another fan had a fascinating insight into what lies ahead, based on the conversation between Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Solomon. When the AI asks her, “Which strategy, I made many of them,” Dolores says, “The final one. The one Jean Mi asked you to make just before Serac condemned him to this.”
The Redditor suggests that this strategy was one where an outlier would be required to save the human race. “A strategy that Serac could not accept, as he saw outliers being the reason for all divergences from a peaceful world (the irony of which is lost on him, that his own brother who helped him build this predictive AI was an outlier himself),” they wrote.
Serac’s vision is one of world peace through total dominion and eugenics, in a manner of speaking. His way is one that strips human beings of their very humanity and posits them as slaves to a higher authority. A shrill comparison could be then made between these humans and the fate of the Hosts as the Delos park.
“The value of freedom is what Dolores realized to be the most important value for both AI and Humans, it was Arnold’s (Jeffrey Wright) original view of Westworld, that it provides the freedom to choose your own path. A view that Ford’s (Anthony Hopkins) character had realized by the time Season 1 had started,” the Redditor further explained.
Of the many things, this post notes -- and is, by far, one of the most proper readings of the plot of ‘Westworld’ Season 3 -- how William (Ed Harris) and Ford were also outliers and how Rehoboam made William lose his mind through well-thought-out steps, only making him believe that he was in control, even though he really wasn't. But it also considered William as dead, or at least his fate. His being alive thus changes everything.
But the most important thing it notes is: “The warning Solomon wanted to give Caleb before the EMP shut everything down is that in this new predicted course or strategy, Caleb the human is just a messenger and not a leader. He will likely die in the process of delivering the 'virus' (altered timeline) to Rehoboam.”
Ominous as it may be, it is still strong speculation; one that we may hopefully see materialize in the finale. The next episode of 'Westworld' airs May 3 on HBO.