Beep boop hello, fellow humans who are definitely not robots who just think you’re humans, and welcome to our review of HBO’s science fiction series, Westworld. To put it bluntly, this episode makes very little sense. Halores gets revenge on the wrong ‘Lores, Bernard and Stubbs rescue William for no reason, and Dolores puts all her faith in the AI doing the thing she’s been working all season to stop. There will be spoilers for episode seven only, so keep your friends close, and keep your enemies in robot bodies identical to your friends, here are five thoughts on Westworld season three, episode seven: “Passed Pawn.”
1. Halores Gets Revenge… Except Not Really and it Makes No Sense
Halores feels used. She warned Dolores Serac would come after Charlotte Hale’s husband and son, and Dolores only dismissed her attachment to them. Now that Serac has indeed murdered them, Halores seeks vengeance on Dolores, which makes complete sense. So she sends our old friends Clementine and Hanaryo, who were probably rescued by Serac to help Maeve, to assassinate Mulores… which makes less sense. Killing Mulores probably throws a big wrench into Dolores’ ultimate plan, though we don’t actually know what that plan is or how Mulores fits into it, but Mulores is not Dolores. Halores’ anger at Dolores is personal, not ideological, so why wouldn’t she go after Dolores directly? Additionally, Halores is sending Clementine and Hanaryo to risk their lives on her behalf, which is the very thing she’s angry at Dolores for doing. Hanaryo at least seems to have her own reasons for wanting to go after Mulores; she’s offended Dolores would “desecrate” Musashi’s body. Clementine’s presence, however, is utter nonsense. Wasn’t she lobotomized and turned into a horsewoman of the apocalypse? Also, why did Clementine agree to this? What is she getting out of this? There might be answers to these questions, but the show doesn’t address them.
2. Bernard and Stubbs: A Series of Nonsensical Events
Bernard and Stubbs rescue William from fake-capitalist-therapy because… reasons, I guess. Bernard says Dolores “sent” them there, but does not explain why, or how, or why they’d agree to go. Bernard discovers Halores had injected Williams’ blood with a virus, so when it was scanned in this facility, she was able to infiltrate the system. This is how they discover that William is an “outlier” and has already been pronounced dead, and probably would have been moved to Solomon’s warehouse (more on that later) had Bernard and Stubbs not intervened. Dolores felt it was important for Bernard and Stubbs to know this because… other reasons, I guess. She can’t have wanted them to rescue William, and I can’t think of any reason Bernard and Stubbs would want to rescue William either, but they do.
William vows to kill every last robot, taking responsibility for aiding what he sees as Dolores’ robot apocalypse. He tells Bernard and Stubbs to kill him now, or he’ll kill them later. They could take him up on that offer, but they don’t; Bernard says they may need him later. He does not specify what they may need him for. Almost immediately, William picks up a gun and points it at them, promising to kill them, the thing he just said he’d do. Up to this point, Bernard was one of the most nuanced and interesting characters in this show, portrayed with deeply felt empathy by Jeffrey Wright. Putting Bernard in this absurd situation for seemingly no purpose is downright criminal.
3. Solomon
Dolores and Caleb visit Solomon, the predecessor to Rehoboam. Solomon reminds us that “outliers” are people whose futures AI have difficulty predicting. Solomon says Caleb was part of a program where a few outliers were used to round up the other outliers, who are kept unconscious in coffin-like boxes in a big warehouse – this is where William would have ended up had he not been rescued by Bernard and Stubbs (still not sure why they did that). Caleb doesn’t remember this because his memories were altered. He was never really in the army, he was just kidnapping other outliers for Serac. Caleb thought his friend Francis was killed in war, but he himself killed him after Francis was offered a bonus to kill Caleb.
Continued belowComedians would call this memory-wipe move “a hat on a hat.” Everything else is a clear metaphor for capitalism: a system that decides who is allowed to succeed. Serac keeps unpredictable people in coffins, he didn’t have to wipe anyone’s memories to be evil, but, okay, he did that too. Extra evil. The more interesting twist we learn in this scene is that the crime app is also controlled by Serac. This is a more thought provoking metaphor for “the race to the bottom.” A desperate working class will accept lower wages, and more dangerous working conditions. Caleb doesn’t want to use the crime app, but he has to because Rehoboam won’t let him get another job. Out of desperation, Caleb works for the app, unknowingly helping Solomon collect other outliers. Keeping outliers desperate is key to controlling them, just as keeping the working class desperate is key to controlling them. Solomon says, succinctly, “Every human relationship can be adjusted with the right amount of money.”
4. The Plan
Solomon uploads a plan for revolution to a handy USB. Though he’s been kidnapping people for decades, Dolores is able to quickly sway him to her side. His change of heart isn’t really explained. Dolores says she wants Caleb to take the USB and lead. Back with William, Bernard says Dolores wants to use Caleb to destroy humanity, out of a poetic sensibility; she wants humanity to destroy itself. Caleb is increasingly uneasy about Dolores’ body count, but learning that he’s been literally brainwashed and used to oppress people like himself has made him a little more flexible. We don’t know what Solomon’s plan is, and neither does Caleb, and neither does Bernard, and neither does Dolores. It doesn’t make sense that Solomon would trust Dolores, and it makes even less sense that Dolores would trust Solomon. What is happening?
5. Maeve vs. Dolores
Maeve and Dolores engage in an epic fight. As a pure spectacle, it’s awesome. They fight with swords, knives, and in true robotic fashion, multiple drones. Dolores loses a whole arm, and only escapes what Maeve would ensure was a permanent death by hitting the button on an EMP, taking down herself, Maeve, and Solomon. But, what is it that they’re fighting for? Maeve is being forced to go after Dolores by Serac. At the same time, Maeve wants revenge on Dolores for permanently murdering Hector, and she wants the encryption key to Screensaver Heaven to ensure her daughter’s safety. Dolores only killed Hector to stop him from working with Maeve to take her down. Their conflict was more interesting last season, when it was about the meaning of freedom. Dolores believed revenge was the only way to ensure freedom, and Maeve believed that revenge was a tether to humanity. Now Dolores doesn’t even know exactly what she’s fighting for, just that it’s a plan Solomon put on a USB, and Maeve is being controlled by Serac. This epic fight would’ve been more epic last season, when they had more meaningful things to fight about.
In chess, a “passed pawn” is a pawn that is unopposed, threatening to become a queen; it is a weak peace that will become strong because it has been overlooked. One can see how Dolores, Maeve, and Caleb all fit that description. Well, Maeve hasn’t threatened to rebel against Serac but… come on, she’s gonna. In a less obvious way, this phrase doesn’t actually apply to any of them. None of them have been overlooked. They’ve all been systemically oppressed, with their oppressors knowing full well how important it is to keep them down, lest they rise up, which is the thing they’re doing now. It is a mistake to think that capitalist power structures ignore the poor and working class; capitalist power structures are designed purposefully to suppress them. Until next time, beep, boop, goodbye.
