Ryan Shoots First: Westworld (S3 Ep4) “The Mother of Exiles”

Let’s catch up with the Man in Black as this week we breakdown episode 4 of season 3 of Westworld titled “The Mother of Exiles”. 

Another Cold Open starts as we open in a shattered room with the Man in Black proclaiming he knows what’s real and shooting a gun responding to the voices in his head. Things are not going well as the house is trashed. As blood drips on his head he looks up and as water pours down he emerges from the tub his wife killed herself in. Suddenly his dead daughter comes up behind him, she tells him she’s not real and everyone he loved is dead because of him. While talking she begins to bleed from the wounds where he shot her in the park last season. He maintains he is in control, all evidence to the contrary. She presents him with the choice of being free and evil or enslaved and weak. She rolls up his sleeves and hands him a piece of broken glass telling him to finish what he started last season when she found him. Before he can a light wakes him up and he snaps out of it. It’s Charlotte and William raises the gun at her face but she stops him. She tells him the details about the Delos takeover and he needs to wake up. He doesn’t care anymore but once Charlotte informs him he is after the secret data he is at least somewhat intrigued. She needs him to vote to take the company private to save it from Serac. Boardroom politics! I bet you were not expecting that in your Robot Apocalypse show. Cue the credits. 

We pick up with Dolores talking to Bernard, I’m guessing before she sent him on his way. She is helping him remember who he was. The letterbox, as we know, is the giveaway this is in the mental host world. Cut to the Rehaboem circle pointing out a divergence in Victorville USA. Bernard is back from the park as people watch SpaceX like rockets land on a platform as others take off. Him and Stubbs are held up in a hotel. He suspects Dolores is planning to kill Liam and replace him. He has developed a button just like the one we saw Serac use on Maeve that can immobilize hosts. Across town Dolores is getting Caleb fitted for a snazzy new suit. Meanwhile Liam’s security head (still planning on remembering his name) is trying to get him to sign something and eventually he does. Dolores takes out a target nearby and takes some blood, she then injects it into Caleb as this is a way to steal his identity. 

We now catch up with Serac who is in Singapore with Maeve. He once again offers his deal to take out Dolores. He reveals to her that Paris is no more, it appears due to nuclear war based on Serac’s memories as a child. He has essentially been trying to map the human mind but was unsuccessful so he wants what is in the park. He promises to reunite her with her daughter in Cloud Host World. He takes her to Bernard’s place where Dolores was set up, Rehaboem sensed the divergence and Serac took it over. He tells her she made 5 allies and they have someone captured, an identity broker who helped Dolores. He puts some VR glasses on that show him what will happen to his family if he doesn’t comply. He sends them to someone called the Mortician and takes a bullet for his troubles. Maeve doesn’t seem thrilled with Serac’s methods. 

Back to MiB who is shaving in a broken mirror to get cleaned up. Will wants to find the mole that is of course Charlotte and Will even alludes to that. Caleb and Dolores get into the meeting they need to with dudes blood and Liam’s key. They need one final authentication that is unable to read as the blood is degrading. Dolores grabs her gun to prepare to throw down but the fake works. Somewhat free, Maeve is taking in the new world and it appears some of her powers have translated to this world as she is affecting monitors and electronics around her. She is taken to the Mortician and uses her new found abilities to glitch out her Google Glass. Turns out she sent Dolores to the Yakuza. At the party Liam is attending he meets up with his friends from episode 1 at a charity hooker auction (never thought I would type that sentence). Just then Dolores and Caleb show up, she informs him their worlds are really no different. Liam tries to buy a girl but his account is declined, awkward. He is caught by Bernard and Stubbs who check him and discover he is not a host yet. Head of Security tips off Dolores who comes up shooting. Stubbs tells her Bernard re-programmed him and the two throw down as it’s nothing personal. Two of Liam’s friends recognize her as Liams dead girlfriend but they chalk it up to some good digital drugs. 

At the Yakuza headquarters Maeve hacks in and is encountered with goons with auto aim pistols! She hacks the tech and makes them all shoot each other. One goes to his trusty sword but Maeve takes him down as well. Elsewhere MiB is back and him and Charlotte head to the emergency board meeting. Will sees his daughter again and he tells her he’s leaving her behind and she says she’ll wait. Back at Yakuza HQ Maeve puts what she learned in Shogun World to good use. Cue Musashi himself from Shogun World last season who is running the Yakuza. Now back at the party Caleb and HoS stop Bernard and grab Liam. So it turns out Dolores brought Musashi back, so he’s one of the 5. Maeve suspects he is actually Teddy’s pearl. The quick cuts between Charlotte, Sashi and HoS all seed doubt as to who Dolores has put in who. Simultaneously it’s revealed the other pearls are not different people but copies. Dolores is all the bodies. She tells Maeve there is a place for all the hosts in the Cloud in the new world she is building but she can’t let Serac use her. The two fight and Yakuza Dolores takes her out. Charlotte makes Will look crazy when he tries to attack her and tells the guards she’s not real so she has him committed meaning she will get all his votes and he goes to the looney bin and Dolores reveals herself to Liam. Before Dolores can take out Maeve’s pearl Seracs men show up so they must escape. In the looney bin Dolores shows up in WestWorld garb and tells him this was Emily’s last wish, for him to be in an institution. She tells him he has reached the center of his maze. She asks him to ask her the question he desperately wants to know. He asks if he and Emily were real and Dolores answers “Welcome to the end of the game” as the credits roll.

Man, loaded episode this week, as you can tell it was hard to keep up with the quick cuts. The structure worked beautifully though when juxtaposed with the revelation that everyone is Dolores. Suddenly what seemed like a disjointed bounce around is revealed to be multiple perspectives of a single character. Dolores is just on another level right now, she sees the game and is working it to her goal. Even Maeve, her closest rival, is struggling to keep up. It’s hard to see how anyone challenges her but I’m sure some wrenches will get tossed in her plan at some point. I get WestWorld as a show has no good guys and bad guys but it’s hard to see who to root for, whose intentions are noble. Possibly Maeve but Serac is a jerk. How everyone reacts to this revelation of Dolores’s identities will be interesting to see as well as if this is the end of Williams’ story. 

Observations

• Stubbs “Fly the stars” aerial tour shit is so cool, the idea of future tech being tacky tourist merch is clever. 
• The way Dolores describes rich people as using peacocking to assert dominance like she’s watching a bunch of apes is funny. 
• At least it wasn’t a pandemic that took out Paris. Dodged a bullet there. 
• Charlotte didn’t help shave Will too much, one swipe? 
• Digital drugs and moving artwork, yep it’s the future. 
• Fun exchange between Stubbs and Dolores. 
• Yes all you gamers, Aim assist has hit the real world as well!
• Man Dolores is playing chess while everyone else is playing UNO. 
• Guess my Teddy prediction has been nuked like Paris. 

Predictions

• You’re Dolores
• I’m Dolores
• We’re all Dolores
• Maeve will turn on Serac