Ryan Shoots First: Westworld (S3 Ep 2) “The Winter Line”

Welcome back all you White hats and Black hats to our ongoing Season 3 recap of Westworld. Last week we saw Caleb fall into Dolores’ arms as the robots are infiltrating the human world.

This episode titled “The Winter Line” starts with Maeve, showing us a recap of her story from last season and starting off from the post credit scene from last week of her waking up in Nazi Italy. We get another Cold Open and Maeve being reunited with Hector. Why it seemed Hector may be awoken rescuing Maeve it seems he is playing a role in this loop. During their escape Maeve tries to use her Super Host control trick and it does not work so they are forced to do things the hard way. On their way out Hector calls Maeve Isabella revealing he is in fact in a narrative. Hector is taken out in a hail of gunfire and Maeve picking up his gun and placing it to her head tells him none of it matters because none of it is real and pulls the trigger. Cue the opening credits.

After the credits we start with the anomaly circle of Rehoboam noticing an anomaly in the China sea. It’s Bernard making his way back to the park. It’s been long rumored but we’ve confirmed it’s location near China.

We cut back to the body shop where Felix is working on Maeve as he has a new partner. He walks out allowing Maeve to get up and escape. She finds her old friend Sylvester who calls security, oddly he acts surprised to see her but not like they have the history they do. Maeve while cornered is prepared to lobotomize herself before Lee Sizemore comes limping in to save her, yes he survived his hero moment from season 2. He convinces the security to leave and he reveals he was shot 6 times and stayed behind to look after her. He put her in WarWorld so she would be close to the Forge. She seems to want to go there to join her daughter but from the trailers for the season that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

Cut to Bernard who is back at the underground bunker where he and Ford did their dirty work. He goes into the room of duplicate Bernard bodies and finds Host Stubbs. Yes we’ve also confirmed the theory that he was a host. He is malfunctioning as he tried to shoot the charge in his neck. Bernard patches him up and Stubbs reveals he was tasked by Ford to protect the hosts and cover Bernard’s tracks with that done he set to blow himself up. Bernard believes Dolores brought him back as a check on her so he is back for Maeve.

Maeve wakes back up in her loop in WarWorld and sets to work. Hector does all he can to get Maeve on the plane which forces her to leave him. She meets Lee out in the field and they set off to the Forge. Stubbs and Bernard though are on their trail in their Can-Am Maverick and they break into cold storage thinking Maeve will be there. At the Forge though Maeve reveals she never was there and didn’t open the door. Maeve becomes suspicious of Lee and Maeve figures out he is a duplicate.

Meanwhile in cold storage Stubbs and Bernard find Maeve’s body but her “brain” has been removed, so she is just existing in a simulation. She feeds the simulation a paradox and that seems to over task it so they can work. On the outside Bernard is so freaked out about what Dolores put in him he is scanning himself with the on base systems. Stubbs has to take out some guards but shows them mercy. He then proceeds to take out an entire squad with an axe.

Maeve wakes up yet again in WarWorld as Lee is surrounded by the system still trying to solve the paradox. Meanwhile she is wreaking havoc with the Nazis and breaks the simulation almost entirely. Maeve is reaching new levels of badass here folks as she is able to locate her pearl in the brain center place. Unfortunately her plan hits a snag when the bot she is controlling from inside the sim is taken out outside the facility. She awakens though in a modern facility with a circle painting on the wall that resembles the Rehaboem anomalies we have been seeing. She meets Serac who we have seen in the trailers and is the guy who runs Rehaboem. He wants her to take out Dolores but she is not game and when she goes to kill him he hits a trigger freezing her motor functions. The credits roll and that’s all for the episode.

Enjoyed this week’s episode. No Dolores but with Maeve being the other half of the equation for the season it made sense to devote an episode to both with Bernard fumbling around in the middle. WestWorld is at it’s best when it is slowly leading you along to the eventual reveal. Many times though by the time the reveal happens you have picked up on the clues. Sure it makes you feel smart and while it usually happens over an entire season this episode we had it all in one episode. From the beginning, to Lee and the way Felix and Sylvester responded to Maeve by the time they finally reveal it’s all a simulation you already called it because you’re so smart. The idea of Maeve over taxing the system was very cool and her ability to then hack the real world was a nice touch. Still not sure what to make of Bernard he is still finding his path for the season while the other main Hosts have clear paths now. The trio of Dolores, Maeve and Bernard are clearly the backbone of the series with everyone orbiting around those three’s conflicting goals and what their vision of the future is. With Maeve out and on track for her collision with Doloris we can really get things going in Season 3!

Observations

• HBO wasn’t gonna let Amazon have all the Nazi fun.
• I’m a little concerned not by the fact there would be a theme park to go fight Nazis but that there would be one where you could play one.
• Kinda crazy Felix kept his job in all this. (Yea remember I write these in the moment)
• WarWorld is the official name of the WW2 place. I suppose Nazi World didn’t test well with focus groups.
• Stubbs is just a man looking for a purpose, aren’t we all.
• Awesome change as Maeve figures out the manner of her existence to have the format switch to letterbox like last season whenever we saw the Hosts in the Cradle simulation.
• Lee’s line about female code breakers may be the best line of the episode.
• Maeve breaking the machine.
• I wrote “over tax” in my recap seconds before Lee said it, am I a simulation?
• Nice GoT cameo by B and B with Drogon. Started subtle then got pretty blatant.
• If you thought Maeve was OP in season 2 boy do I have a story for you.
• I don’t know if the idea of the real world looking slow cause the sim runs at a faster rate checks out but it sounds cool.
• That drone Maeve uses looks similar to the types of androids Boston Dynamics is abusing all the time. That’s worrisome.

Predictions

• Serac will dangle freedom to Maeve for helping but Maeve is to smart to believe him, They can’t have her running around.
• Hector will find a way to get back in this thing like he always does.
• Stubbs and Bernard will end up helping Team Dolores by the end of the season
• Looks like next week we get a little more detail about who is in Host Charlotte, my vote is it is Teddy.