What Westworld Season 3's Story Will Be About

Westworld Season 3 is already on the way, and considering how Season 2 ended we actually know a lot about what's the come. The heavily-criticized second season took place over multiple timelines, motivated by the memories of several characters, primarily malfunctioning Host Bernard Lowe. Many fans found trying to follow the narratives challenging and frustrating, with the season sacrificing character development in favor of deliberately confusing subterfuge. Season 2 shuffled back and forth between various points of time depicting the events in the theme park in the wake of the Hosts' uprising. The season also unveiled Westworld's location and showed two more of the six theme parks housed on the massive island: Samurai World and The Raj.

Complicating matters further, the series jumped to the even more distant past to show the origins of Westworld and to illuminate the secret, dark true goals of the Delos Corporation: the data mining of the parks' four million guests in a bid to eventually place human consciousnesses in Host bodies. But it went even deeper, revealing the late Robert Ford's master plan to give some of the Hosts a new world to inhabit, which was a simulated reality within Westworld's System where they would be freed of both their programmed narratives and their human masters.

In the Season 2 finale "The Passenger", all points converged in the Valley Beyond, a.k.a. the Door, a.k.a. the Forge, which is where the data of all of the Hosts and guests were kept. Some Hosts like Maeve's daughter, Teddy Flood, and the Ghost Nation made it through to their virtual reality Nirvana, indicating their stories may be over. Other major human and Host characters died, but this is Westworld and death isn't necessarily a permanent state of being.

The concluding events of the finale attempted to answer Season 2's big questions and mysteries. It also set up a new paradigm for Season 3, so let's sort out what Westworld looks to be about when the series returns.

This Page: Dolores' Westworld Season 3 Plans
Page 2: The Future Of Westworld In Season 3

Dolores Has A New Plan In Westworld Season 3

Dolores Abernathy was refashioned as a villain and spent Westworld Season 2 leading a Host army to the Valley Beyond to find "a weapon" there. Dolores's actual plan was never clear, nor were her roundabout actions to get to the Valley Beyond, but her intentions were always vengeful towards humans. She spoke about "destroying their world" but also noted that the Hosts couldn't survive there if they escaped Westworld. Overall, Dolores hated both the Delos Corporation and in a larger sense, the human race she was occasionally allowed to walk among in her early days.

In "The Passenger", Dolores and Bernard made it to the Forge where they discovered The System, which controlled the virtual reality world meant for humans and the one intended for Hosts once they pass through the Door. Dolores decided the Hosts deserve better than another fake world to live in so she flooded the System, only for to Bernard shot and kill her.

However, Bernard then built a Host version of Charlotte Hale and uploaded Dolores' consciousness into it. The Dolores/Charlotte Host promptly murdered and replaced the real Charlotte (this means that the Charlotte fans watched in the Two Weeks Later timeline was always Dolores posing as Charlotte). Dolores now has what she wanted: the freedom to leave Westworld, and she did it by impersonating one of Delos' highest-ranking executives. This doesn't bode well for the unsuspecting humans in Westworld Season 3.

Dolores Will Try To Destroy Delos From Within In Westworld Season 3

Westworld Season 3 looks set to spend a great deal more time outside the confines of Westworld and following Dolores' activities in the real world. When she escaped the park, Dolores/Charlotte also took about a half-dozen pearls that contain the control units of Hosts in her bag, although which minds are in those balls is a mystery. In the real world, Dolores made her home in the house Bernard's human predecessor Arnold Weber built for his family, which came complete with a Host-making 3D printer. With that, Dolores built a new Host body of herself and also rebuilt Bernard. The closing moments of the episode showed Dolores testing the Bernard she built for fidelity, but the Charlotte Host was also there, suggesting Dolores now has the ability to inhabit two Host bodies at once.

What's interesting (and a bit confusing) is the reason why Dolores rebuilt Bernard: apparently, she wants her "old friend" to also serve as her antagonist. In the past, Bernard/Arnold noted Dolores' desire to kill humans and destroy 'their world'. Though she resurrected Bernard, Dolores stated that she did it so that she and Bernard would be enemies, setting up a Host vs. Host rivalry for Season 3. Now that she is also able to pose as Charlotte Hale, what Dolores will do next (and kind of damage she can potentially cause to the company that literally made her) is set to be one of the focal points of Season 3, along with Bernard trying to stop her. And of course, there are still some mystery control units Delores can use to build more Hosts as allies (or enemies) in the real world.

Page 2 of 2: The Future Of Westworld In Season 3

Westworld season 2 finale post-credits scene

The Man In Black's Future Is Dark

Going into Westworld Season 3, the future of William, a.k.a. the Man in Black, is bleak. Season 2 definitively revealed William to be a monster, as if there was any prior doubt; his backstory and his misdeeds were thoroughly explored. He took control of the company after his father-in-law James Delos died, but he then made 149 failed attempts to recreate James as a Host. William was the mastermind behind Delos' data mining its guests and employees for profit and to create human-host hybrids. What's more, he is the cause of his wife Juliet's suicide. Inside the park in the present narrative, the Man in Black was so obsessed with beating Robert Ford's game and finding The Door, he didn't believe his daughter Emily, who entered Westworld to bring him home, was really his child or a replica. As a result, William committed an unforgivable sin by murdering Emily in cold blood.

The Man in Black could return for Season 3; he was shown to presumably be still alive on the beach waiting for transport out of the park at the end of "The Passenger". Although things go beyond that: Westworld Season 2's end-credits scene, set during an unknown time in the future, showed William trapped in a hellish loop being tested for fidelity by an A.I. version of Emily the way William once tested the Host version of James Delos. How these two aspects mix is unclear, but evidently self-dobut will lead to a very dark future for the character.

Will Westworld Reopen In Season 3?

For all this talk of world domination and torture, the show is still called Westworld, and so there is the question of what comes of the theme park in Season 3. The number of deaths that occurred in the park involving both human and Hosts was staggering. In addition, a great many of the Hosts were killed; some made it through the Door, but it's likely they can and will be rebuilt, possibly with different narrative loops and personalities (though with chief creatives Robert Ford and Lee Sizemore both dead, the park will need new writers.) The resurrection of Maeve, who died helping her daughter escape through the Door, was teased to be Oscar and Felix's next project, meaning at the least the superpowered former madam could return in Season 3.

However, there are five other parks adjacent to Westworld (fans have only seen Shogun World and the Raj), and only some of the Westworld Hosts made it through the Door. The Hosts in the other parks seemingly weren't given the chance at entering the afterlife. Those other parks could possibly be reopened for guests more quickly if Delos is still actually in the theme park business.

Since there were so many Delos higher-ups who died in the Westworld Season 2 finale, including the real Charlotte Hale, Elsie Hughes, and Karl Strand, "The Passenger" left Ashley Stubbs more or less in charge of the park. Stubbs revealed himself to be a Host all along when he allowed Dolores/Charlotte to exit the park, and he indicated he also knew she was a Host. Regardless of his true nature, there is a monumental clean-up job Stubbs must now oversee.

Westworld Season 3 isn't likely to premiere until late 2019 or 2020. Regardless, many frustrated fans are hoping Season 3 embraces a less deliberately obfuscating story structure and that Westworld returns to the narrative splendor of Season 1.