Will ‘Westworld’ Season 3 on HBO Solve the Show’s Biggest Problem?

Westworld Season 3 is being marketed as something of a system upgrade. The trailers are focused on the vast metropolises of the “real world” outside the park, futuristic shuttles, exquisite costumes, and goliath-sized robots. New cast members Aaron Paul, Lena Waithe, and Marshawn Lynch are being paraded in these ads like shiny new anti-heroes, ready to team up with Dolores and cause some mayhem. Even the musical cues are more epic: composer Ramin Djawadi has replaced the player piano version of “Black Hole Sun” with a symphonic cover of “Sweet Child ‘o Mine.” HBO wants us to know that Westworld Season 3 is going to be bigger, bolder, and more exciting than ever before.

But will Westworld Season 3 fix the HBO show’s biggest problem to date? No, not the incomprehensible timelines or over-indulgent orgies. Westworld has a problem with emotional stakes, and it’s still unclear if Season 3 can correct this.

When we first entered HBO’s Westworld, we saw the park through the eyes of two of its most beloved hosts: Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Maeve (Thandie Newton). Dolores was introduced as a victim. The opening shot of the series is her, naked, offline, being programmed by Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright). Then when we dip into her world, we see that she exists not only to serve, but to be abused by guests. Because we see the level of horror enacted on her, we’re able to understand her quest for vengeance against humanity. Maeve, however, is revealed a sly, know-it-all madam, only there’s a twist. In dreams, she is able to recall a past storyline where she and her daughter. Realizing she has a “daughter,” Maeve becomes consumed with the idea of breaking free from her host status to save that child.

This was all well and good. Both characters had an emotional origin point — a way we could empathize with their struggles because they made sense to us. Dolores was the victim seeking justice and Maeve was a mother searching for her child. In what HBO has shown critics of Westworld Season 3, they are still sort of those people at their core. Dolores’s whole raison d’etre this season is to wage a war on humanity that will free the A.I. slaves of the world, while Maeve is still motivated by a mix of self-interest and love for the echo of her daughter (now uploaded into a heaven-like cloud with a bunch of other hosts).

Which leads us the problem Westworld has. Because we know there are usually multiple timelines at play, because we understand that the host characters can be resurrected, because we’ve been told that Westworld itself was mapping out psychological profiles of its guests (meaning there is enough data on every park guest to potentially resurrect them in AI, there are no stakes for anything that’s happening. If Dolores dies, she’ll come back. Even if it looks like she’s dead, she might be hiding in plain sight, say, in the body of Charlotte Hale. This means that nothing that happens really has any meaning because Westworld can hit the proverbial reboot button at any moment.

We’ve only seen the first four episodes of Westworld Season 3, so it remains to be seen if Westworld can learn how to establish stronger emotional stakes. Dolores morphed into something of a villain in Season 2. Her avarice for blood sometimes overwhelmed her decisions. In Season 3, she’s up against a shadowy new figure with his own tech empire played by Vincent Cassel. This reframes her as an underdog bent on what she sees as a fight for freedom. Maeve, on the other hand, is turning into something of a rival operative working at the behest of and under the control of Dolores’s new adversary.

Which brings us to another thorny problem. For a show concerned about freedom and characters taking back control, the lead characters often find themselves compelled to act a certain way by an older male genius. Dolores’s insurrection was essentially plotted by her creators. Maeve is now working for Cassel’s Ciroc. So, again, what are the stakes? Is Westworld really a vibrantly complex look at the nature of reality or are we just watching two god-like human characters playing a game of chess with an army of exquisite robot pawns?

Westworld Season 3 premieres on HBO on Sunday, March 15, 2020.

Where to stream Westworld