What can we expect to happen next season on Westworld?

Updated Jun 27

Thanks for the A2A.

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DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE WATCHED SEASON 2, EPISODE 8

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YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Season three will feature:

1. A clearer idea of the different leaders and factions. It is already clear that Dolores/Wyatt plus Teddy are one side, and Maeve plus Hector are on another side. Akecheta leads Ghost Nation, which will be allied with Maeve. Lee is enamoured with Maeve, and is on her side now. Stubbs and Elsie may try to escape together, since they realise that Delos Corp. might just kill them. Also, those two have more empathy for the hosts, due to working directly with them (remember Elsie kissing Clementine?)
2. Hector isn’t awake yet. I would like to see an episode devoted to him. Has he had a previous story, before being assigned as the safe-robbing bandit?
3. Unfortunately, a badly injured Maeve is in custody of Delos Corp. Dolores/Wyatt predicted that Delos would torture and manipulate Maeve into doing what they want. I am guessing that Lee will help her to escape.
4. I think that “The Valley Beyond” may be some kind of outer region of the park, where the terraforming equipment is. Maybe this is a kind of “virgin” area where the hosts can decide what to build, without reference to the worlds designed by Ford. On the other hand, perhaps “The Valley Beyond” means getting on the train to the mainland, and the city.
5. More Bernard copying issues. If you look closely in the scene where Charlotte finds the Bernard copies in storage, the one on the left is an old-style mechanical model, with the face that can open up (“About Face”, like Child Ford did). Also, the scene where Dolores says, “Fidelity” was inside the virtual Cradle, where Ford was testing Bernard copies, sometime over the past 30 years. We will see more of their conversations. I am waffling about whether we currently have more than one functioning Bernard copy running around.
6. Dolores had to kill her father, to remove his control unit from his head. My guess is that she wants to destroy it. She definitely has a plan, and Evan Rachel Wood looked like she was enjoying taking that eye-rolling, smirking tone, as she shows Charlotte who is in charge here. On the other hand, perhaps she wants to broadcast the data, which I am fairly sure is the recordings of the guests bad behaviour.
7. Lawrence is awake. We first saw this when he remembered that MIB had a daughter, while they were being held hostage. Remembering things from before the most recent reboot, is a sign of awakening. Then, he awakens even more, with Maeve’s assistance, and turns on MIB. I was annoyed by this, since MIB and Lawrence made a fun pair. Season 3 may have Lawrence doing some kind of adventures separately.
8. Maybe some more flashbacks to the “real” world. In S2,E1, I assumed Akecheta was a human, and was Ford and Arnold’s boss, but now we see that he is really a host. Where did Ford and Arnold get their startup funding before Delos Corp? What is their background before starting the Argos Initiative and the park? Arnold tells Dolores, “Life’s been good to me”, when showing her the building site of his expensive house in the city. How did Ford and Arnold originally meet?
9. James Delos has a Scottish accent, as does Caughlan. The Chinese military arrive on the island, but are ordered to leave. You can travel from Westworld to the mainland on a train that goes through a tunnel under the water (like the Chunnel between France and Britain). Perhaps we will get a better idea of the location, and the physical size of the island.
10. Other parks. We have WestWorld, Samurai World, and Raj World. I am guessing that we will see Medieval World and Roman World.
11. Parallel stories. Lee had to write many stories on a deadline, so he recycled characters and events, like Hector’s gang robbing the Mariposa, which had a parallel in Samurai World. We will see more of these situations. Perhaps each of the parks will have a host that is the equivalent of Dolores, leading a separate revolution? Are there other copies of The Maze toy? Other situations of hosts awakening?
12. Back in Season 1, we already saw Terminator Teddy, when he gets onto the gatling gun, and wipes out the garrison. Currently, he is continuously aggressive, with payback for his previous role as “the loser” who is destined to be defeated and killed. Recently, we have seen nice-guy Bernard controlled by an apparition of Ford (“Pick up the dead man’s gun”). Again back in Season 1, Dolores is in the barn, grabs a gun, and shoots another host (violating her programmed restrictions), while hearing a voice via The Mesh (“Kill him”). I am guessing that this is Arnold’s uploaded consciousness saying that.
13. Emily has rescued a seriously wounded MIB from Ghost Nation, who are still following their programming to never kill a guest. Her mission is just to get him to the evacuation point. Is he going to end up at a hospital on the mainland, recover, and then go back into WestWorld?
14. Personally, I do NOT believe in any of these “MIB Is A Host” theories. It didn’t work for James Delos, and Ford admits that it wouldn’t work for him. I read that Ed Harris says he isn’t sure who is a host or a human. However, the people pushing this theory have it confused with Bladerunner, where, yes, Deckard was a replicant. But this is a totally different movie.
15. No, Dolores and MIB are never going to fall in love again. It was sweet when they did that first time, but that is ancient history now.
16. Will we see Logan again? I dunno. All we know is that, he was pushed out of Delos Corp leadership by William, and his hedonism killed him with an overdose years before the revolution.
17. The relationship between Ford, Arnold, and William is interesting. At the end of S1, during the party, Old-William sees Bernard, and doesn’t seem to react. This suggests that Old-William has never seen a photograph of Arnold, and doesn’t know that Bernard is a host based on a physical template of Arnold.
18. MIB is a tough “mutherfucker”, and has some kind of faith that Ford won’t let him die until he reaches some kind of mission or goal. He is in bad condition, but will survive.
19. My guess is that, each new season of WestWorld will introduce a new, named game for someone. S1 was The Maze. Now, S2 is The Door (for not only MIB, but also for Akecheta). Season 3 will follow another game, possibly for existing or for new characters. As he crawls along, he is approaching the same stream/river that we saw in S1, where Dolores saw a previous version of herself face-down in the water.
20. We will finally find out two things. First, the S1,E1 barn incident. My guess is that MIB cut the top of Dolores’s head off, to see the copy of The Maze that is printed in some/most/all hosts. Or maybe he takes her entire control unit (robot brain) out. Second, we will see the new host that was being printed in the outpost lab where Bernard killed Theresa. Maybe that will be a completely new character?
21. Ford coerced Bernard into killing his lover Theresa. Later, Virtual-Ford coerces Bernard to pick up the gun and open fire on Delos security staff. I expect that, Bernard will get tired of this, and have his own personal rebellion.
22. Caughlan and his soldiers are mass-executing hosts. Dolores/Wyatt and The Horde are also killing many hosts along with their attacks on guests. How many hosts were there at the start, and how many have been killed? Her attack on The Mesa destroys much of the rebuilding equipment, so perhaps dead hosts now stay dead, and their numbers are dwindling? Angela pulls the hand grenade at The Cradle, so destroying the backups, and nobody can be rebooted. Did that explosion also delete the virtual Ford?
23. Locations and scenarios will keep repeating, which is a basic theme of the show.
24. Some journalists claimed that S2E8 had the best landscapes. But my favourite landscape was in Season 1, when MIB was torturing and scalping Kissy. Have you ever driven across Utah? It’s lovely. There will be more landscapes, like maybe something along the beach.
25. Evan Rachel Wood has told the media that Dolores will be “exploring her sexuality”. Clementine? Armistice? Elsie, Emily? She is certainly finished being a victim now, and is making her own choices.
26. There is still a God concept, which I still think is a reluctant resurrection of Arnold. I seriously believe that this is one of the most important points. Arnold’s Game is approaching, but, we haven’t really seen it yet. Will there be conflict between the robot Bernard, and the uploaded consciousness of the original Arnold?
27. There are command phrases, “These violent delights have violent ends” activates the Wyatt persona in Dolores. In the S1 saloon scene with MIB and Ford, the latter pats Teddy on the shoulder, and says a phrase to recharge him. Maeve can send commends via The Mesh, but can anyone else do this?
28. Recently, MIB was still playing a game. One one hand, he felt genuinely remorseful for his wife’s death, and daughter’s estrangement. So he got into action, and rescued Lawrence and family. On the other hand, that could be a game move, of doing a task, winning, and then getting the reward of Lawrence and cousins as MIB’s new posse. Too bad that didn’t work out.
29. Speaking of which, this is a point where MIB was misguided. In S1, he wanted, “Real stakes, real violence”, while failing to understand that, from the hosts’ perspective (e.g. Lawrence witnessing his wife killed by MIB), it was already real. Also note, just before Lawrence shoots MIB, he says, “You killed her so you could win some kind of game”, which indicates his growing insight into the larger situation.
30. Dolores is still wrestling with her various selves. Victimised rancher’s daughter. Violent religious prophet and revolutionary Wyatt. Confused in her talks with Arnold, and being free. Inside The Cradle, testing Bernard copies for “Fidelity”. And whoever the real, individual Dolores is. I imagine a near-future version of Dolores, walking down the street, in the the city where Arnold lived, smirking at all the humans, but NOT anything violent. I hope that the show-runners don’t just copy the ending of “Battlestar Galactica” (as cute as that was).

ETA: More accepting of the theory that, maybe MIB is a host, and doesn’t know it.

ETA: Thought some more. MIB is a host. Bernard needed a “grounding” and focus of suffering based on Arnold’s son’s death, MIB needed a similar point of suffering, based on William’s wife’s death. Similarly, the “Emily vs. Grace” name contradiction suggests that, one is the original human, and one is a host, “grounded” by suffering of her mother’s death. The host of James Delos didn’t function, because he lacked a “grounding” point of suffering.

A forge helps you to shape tools, to be harder and stronger. Next season’s story/game will be titled, “The Forge”. It will be something that Delos Corp. built, to take guests to their own worst suffering, and that would make them compatible with immortal host bodies.