Posted in: HBO, Review, Trailer, TV | Tagged: action, cable, caleb, Delos, dolores, drama, episode 7, fantasy, HBO, incite, Maeve, Man in Black, passed pawn, Review, sci-fi, season 3, serac, streaming, television, thriller, tv, westworld

Westworld Season 3 Passed Pawn Review: Truth-Revealing Endgame Begins

This is it, Westworld fans: we are down to the penultimate episode of the third season. Next Sunday's episode will be the finale, and I cannot wait to see how the plan unfolds at the very end to wipe out the blight that is humanity. If you're not caught up, I highly recommend doing so before next week's season finale as it tackles some timely topics in interesting and visually stunning ways. I mean, the whole season is like that, really. With this whole quarantine, it feels like HBO perfectly catered and timed this content, though everything was already in play far before COVID-19 hit: it's just a case of brilliant content at the exact right time.

Honestly, I don't really see how or why Maeve (Thandie Newton) is fighting against Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood). I get the whole "working for the bad guy so that I can be with my fake daughter in heaven, even though she doesn't know nor care who I am" sub-plot. As far as character motivation goes though? It's beyond weak. Not to even mention that she should be just as against the humans who controlled them as well, but she's weirdly not – yet again, she just wants to control hosts with her inexplicable "God complex-mind control" nonsense. Sigh.

Ranting about Maeve aside (though it's no secret I've been thoroughly bored by her character since the beginning), the story was compelling enough to set up next week's finale episode. The big reveal this episode was that Caleb (Aaron Paul) is an outlier who was re-programmed to operate within the confines of the reality that the Rheobaum program created. I don't know about you, but I'd say free will is pretty dead in this future and the dude who stuck people in invisible boxes and controlled their lives and futures is seriously messed up and needs to be taken out like, yesterday.

Westworld Shows Caleb the Power He Didn't Know He Had

On another note, I am all for Caleb and his newly-discovered independence and power that comes from that. Dolores is not playing him as suggested; humanity, like Serac (Vincent Cassel), is corrupt and terrible and I can't understand how anybody would be on his side. Seriously, would you advocate for humanity when it's set on closed loops with basically zero free will? That doesn't exactly sound like freedom: one man and his machine and a host of trendy tech companies are running the world and disappearing anyone who doesn't fit their molds. Is that the amazing "star-spangled awesome" freedom we have here in the USA?

As a series whole, Westworld has only grown into itself and gotten better with age: the first season was good, the second season was compelling, but this season, oh man. It started off by dropping a match in a powder keg and then lived up to that same intensity every episode since. True, I could literally gush about all things Westworld all day, but suffice it to say that this season is probably the best so far. We know we're getting a season four (eventually) so that just makes it all the more compelling to see how this season ends. Where is there to go after the battle for a corrupt civilization between mankind and machine? Maybe we'll get more clues about that when things actually go down, and the endgame begins playing out. Either way, I cannot wait, and kudos to HBO for continuing to make Sunday nights worth remembering and staying up for.

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