'Westworld' Season 3 Episode 7 Review: Caleb's big reveal falls flat with an unsurprising twist
Spoilers for 'Westworld' Season 3 Episode 7 'Passed Pawn'
The penultimate episode of every season plays a very important role in setting up what is meant to be a large-scale and deeply satisfying finale. 'Passed Pawn' is this season's attempt to do just that. Despite its excellent robot-on-robot action, this episode falls flat. It's almost tempting to say it can be skipped over entirely, as it largely rehashes themes we've been beaten over the head with all season long.
Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul) discovers this episode that his entire life has been a lie, manipulated by the system, surprising nobody except for, perhaps, Caleb himself. In the meanwhile, with the aid of Charlotte Hale-Dolores (Tessa Thompson), Maeve (Thandie Newton) finds out where Dolores' (Evan Rachel Wood) location is, for their first real battle.
A lot of time has been devoted to hinting at the idea that Caleb might have have been the one responsible for Francis' (Scott Mescudi) death, and a lot of time was devoted to this episode to confirm that it's true. It's not really the game-changing twist that it's built up to be. The more interesting twist that Dolores plans all along was to have an outlier like Caleb take charge of the world once its systems were brought down is oddly underplayed. Bernard Lowe's (Jeffery Wright) comment that Dolores is setting Caleb up only to doom humanity makes Dolores's motivations a mystery worth questioning. Is she trying to save humanity from themselves, or make them the instrument of their own end?
We may never know, as an episode that reveals Caleb's horror at finding out how manipulated he's been. Dolores's plan seems to rely on Caleb either being compliant or predictably rebellious. In either scenario, Caleb's an unfortunate pawn whose backstory wasn't worth all the effort that was put into it.
Part of the problem may lie not with the writing, but with Aaron Paul's performance. He brings little to the character besides bland reaction shots of shock, horror and confusion. Caleb been easily manipulated his entire life, by Solomon, then Rehoboam and now Dolores, and through the season, there's been nothing he's done that makes us really care about seeing more from him. Compare that to what Thandie Newton's done for Maeve despite being pushed into badly manufactured conflict with Dolores, her every appearance is still a thrill. The fight between two, mixing in brutal hand-to-hand combat with samurai swords and hacked drones in strategic places, is an enjoyable fight between hosts that 'Westworld' should be featuring more of.
As a penultimate episode, 'Passed Pawn' missed its mark. While the finale still holds much promise, nothing is really enhanced by the events of this episode, but we did, at least, get a few really good robot fights out of it.
The next episode of 'Westworld' airs on May 3 on HBO.
