'Westworld' Season 3 trailer promises Dolores-Maeve face-off on the outside: 'Welcome to the end of the game'
“These violent delights have violent ends.” This line, part of a monologue delivered by Friar Laurence in William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet', has over the years, come to define HBO’s most ambitious undertaking to date: ‘Westworld’. The trailer for season 3 of ‘Westworld’ dropped on Thursday, February 20, and it promises exactly that: violent delights, and a violent end.
While the trailer has a lot to unpack, it leaves little room for guessing what the plot really is. And when it’s a tale written by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, it is not just difficult, but entirely too pointless to even attempt to guess what can happen.
But with an orchestral rendition of Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ playing in the backdrop, we see the promise of carnage in what is likely to be an epic battle between the androids (or as they are known in the show, hosts) and human beings. And by the looks of it, it will be a defining battle, perhaps comparable to the events of the second renaissance that led to the events of ‘The Matrix’.
The trailer, almost three minutes long, starts with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) saying, “I was born into this world, and my first memories of it are pain.” This stands in sharp contrast against what a less-sentient Dolores would say every time she was woken up by Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) in the past: “I'm in a dream… Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty.”
Season 3, like season 2, will introduce several new characters. Aaron Paul, Vincent Cassel, Lena Waithe, Scott Mescudi, Marshawn Lynch, John Gallagher Jr., Michael Ealy, and Tommy Flanagan have joined the show’s ensemble cast this season. Among the most visible of the lot, in this trailer (and past teasers) is Aaron Paul, who plays a man (presumably) called Caleb.
We see the ‘Breaking Bad’ actor in conversation with Dolores, trying to figure out who she was. Dolores explains to Caleb that they were both a lot alike -- they were both put in a cage, both of their fates were decided by other men, and they were both condemned to lives sans a future by the same person. At this point, it is as good a guess as any to presume that she is talking about William/The Man in Black (Jimmi Simpson/Ed Harris).
We see Vincent Cassel -- Little is known about Cassel’s character, save the implication that he is not a good guy -- talking to Maeve (Thandie Newton), telling her, “Dolores. I want you to track her down and kill her.” As we see later in the trailer, there is the promise of a showdown between Maeve and Dolores. Which is, frankly, a bittersweet thing.
Both Maeve and Dolores have been the two strongest pillars of the show. Both hosts, they have severely different ideologies and qualities. And they both are strong. To pit them against one another is both an exciting idea and also somewhat sad, considering that only one of them would manage to survive.
In the first season 3 teaser, we saw Maeve in a kind of “World War II World”, which looked a lot like Germany from the late '30s. But in this trailer, there is little mention of that (just one scene where Maeve and Hector, played by Rodrigo Santoro, seem to be running away). Instead, we see Maeve in what looks like the real world, dressed at one point in a unitard, holding a katana, as she faces Dolores.
There are also a lot of shots of Tessa Thompson’s character Charlotte Hale. Dolores, at the end of season 2, killed Hale and inhabited a host version of her body to escape Westworld. The host Dolores-Hale then killed Bernard, before rebuilding both his and her Dolores at Arnold’s (also played by Jeffrey Wright) home. She also smuggled five control units, containing five different Hosts’ consciousness out of Westworld and into the real world. No indication has been made as to who these control units belonged to.
In the trailer we see the host Hale saying, “Five of us, against an entire world of them.” While we hear Dolores reassuring her that it would be enough, we see the host Hale approaching a giant armed robot with an entourage. It’s safe to assume her identity as the Delos upper management person has still not been suspected of being a host.
But the pièce de résistance of the trailer is Dolores visiting The Man in Black in what looks like a dark cell and telling him, “Welcome to the end of the game.” Dolores and The Man in Black have a long history, perhaps only second to the history between Arnold and Ford (Anthony Hopkins).
All in all, as far as trailers go, this is one insane roller coaster ride. One is left dazed, confused, exhilarated, and with a surge of adrenaline. And one can be sure of one thing: ‘Westworld’ Season 3, even if not as good as the previous seasons, will still be one of the most amazing things on television in 2020.
To quote Shakespeare once more: “Beware of the ides of March.” ‘Westworld’ Season 3 will release on March 15 only on HBO.