This post contains frank discussion of Westworld season three, episode five “Genre.” If you’re not all caught up, now is the time to leave.
The big revelation of this episode has to do with Aaron Paul’s character Caleb Nichols and the very illuminating drug trip he experiences while kidnapping Liam Dempsey Jr. (RIP). For an exhaustive rundown of his genre-hopping journey and those confusing flashbacks at the end you can go here. You can find the rest of this episode’s revelations in the rundown below. All season, Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast will have weekly breakdowns of the episodes, which you can find here.
But let’s get on with some of the nitty-gritty details you might have missed.
WHERE IS WILLIAM? Last week, the Charlotte version of Dolores had William (Ed Harris) carted off to a mental institution called “Inner Journeys.” We should have known Charlotte was up to more than just trying to grab control of the Delos vote. This week, the Connells version of Dolores made sure to tell Bernard that Inner Journeys Recovery is one of Serac’s “Reeducation Centers” aka the place Serac puts people like his brother Jean-Mi whom he can’t control. (In fact, Inner Journeys Recovery is “Reeducation Center 36” which may mean there are at least 35 other locations.) This also means William is exactly where Dolores needs him if she wants to take down Serac’s centers from the inside. Clever girl. Not only did she make that happened, but she also sent Bernard on a collision path with William. Better and better.
Speaking of those Reeducation Centers, the shots of disturbed people in glass cages should remind audiences of a few things they have seen in previous seasons of Westworld whether the Forge from season two where the Delos system was trying to perfect its various copies of Jim Delos...
...or a season one flashback where unwell Hosts tried to grapple with the consciousness Arnold had tried to give them.
Either way, this image of people in cages has long been an image we associated with the barbarism of the park but it’s unsurprising to find it in the real world.
ASH AND GIGGLES: When these two characters played by Lena Waithe and Marshawn Lynch showed up in episode one we took them for exactly what we were supposed to take them for: petty criminals. This is the box Rehoboam put them. But when they popped up here in episode five they started dropping some high-brow literary references in pretty rapid succession. Giggles calls Liam Dempsey Jr. “Little Lord Fauntleroy” which, fine, is not that obscure of a nod to the 19th-century novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett about young boy who becomes an aristocrat. But then Ash comes through with the line: “He makes King Midas look like Tom Canty.” That’s Greek mythology and a reference to Charles Dickens’s The Prince and the Pauper in one breath. (Midas was a king whose touch turned everything to gold and good old Tom was the titular pauper.) Not that petty criminals can’t be well-read, but I think the implication here is that Ash and Giggles have the potential to achieve much more than the paths the System forced them onto. When Dolores decides to unlock the System, the information on Ash’s brother is one of the more depressing revelations:
The Connells version of Dolores points out that information deployed at the right time can be the most dangerous weapon one can unleash on society. So is Dolores’s big move here one of villainy? Is she just trying to sow chaos and violence? According to a post-episode interview with Evan Rachel Wood, this is an act of “anarchy” and, as she sees it, we’re meant to continuously question whether Dolores is the villain or the hero of this season.
PREDICTIVE TEXT One clever little moment has Dolores saying exactly what Liam does in an attempt to demonstrate how well she knows him. She read his book in the Forge library, after all, so she has him pretty well mapped out. This move recalls the arresting season one scene where Maeve discovered how much of her own speech was pre-programmed.
This revelation proves similarly unnerving for Host and human alike.
ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO INCITE At one point, Stubbs pops out of literally nowhere, says “guess you forgot about me,” and beats up the Connells version of Dolores in order to free Bernard. There are a few things to unpack here. For one thing, Bernard was being threatened by Connells. Both Dolores Prime and Connells acknowledge that protecting their “Friend” was a huge priority. (Unless the “Friend” they were talking about was William and they’re sending Bernard to protect him. Listen anything is possible, it’s Westworld.) But the point is that Bernard doesn’t seem like he's in danger with Connells which means Dolores needs him. That begs the question what could be so useful about a human/Host hybrid like Bernard. Will he be able to go inside Rehoboam in a way Dolores can’t? Either way he’s an asset that she wants and needs and maybe she should be worried that he’s now with Stubbs.
Because how did Stubbs get into the Incite building so easily when security is so tough that Dolores had to impersonate Connells? How coincidental was it that he showed up at the exact same time as Serac’s other agents? You may recall that back in episode three the Charlotte version of Dolores discovered that a mole high up in the company had been responsible for smuggling Maeve out of the park. And it certainly wasn't Hale who did that. Serac asked Charlotte:
I’ve suspected since then that he somehow had control of Stubbs and when you rewatch the show with that suspicion, Stubbs does ask a lot of very nosy questions which might be very useful to Serac. So, if Stubbs has Bernard, that might mean Serac has Bernard and we can bet that is something Dolores absolutely does not want.
OUR MAN IN BERLIN One of Serac’s men says that Dolores seems to have contact with people in Jakarta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Berlin. We can assume Jakarta is the Musashi clone, San Francisco is Charlotte, Los Angeles was Connells (RIP), and that leaves Berlin. Remember, we learned last week that there is still one mystery Pearl out there and we can probably assume that it belongs to whoever is working for Dolores in Berlin.
But the Connells sacrifice in this episode highlighted a potential future problem for Dolores. This particular clone was a willing pawn in Dolores's game. But, as Bernard points out during their conversation, inhabiting someone else’s body has a way of messing with your identity. Connells might be nonchalant about his death but I’m less convinced the Charlotte clone would be so blasé about her demise. Not after we spent an entire episode watching her become attached to her son. How will one of Dolores's most valuable assets react if asked to lay down her life?
A FLY IN THE OINTMENT Serac refers to the anomalies in his precious System as “flies in the ointment.” (Much more on those unpredictable anomalies and how they connect to Caleb here.) But hopefully you noticed the fly buzzing around the Brazilian president as he and Serac were having their nice little chat.
We should always pay attention to flies and where and when they show up in Westworld.
At any rate, we now know exactly what Serac does with stubborn people—or flies—that get in his way.
DOLORES’S HORSE A delightfully bonkers fan theory floating around the internet this season was that the Pearl inside of Charlotte was actually Dolores’s horse. Yes, seriously. So shout out to her motorbike (RIP) who was the real horse this season. We’ll miss you, buddy.
COMING HOME The Serac brother backstory begins with hands in the grass which is an idyllic image we’ve seen a few times on Westworld—chiefly with Maeve. It’s associated with a more innocent time and coming home to an act of violence and I’ve always taken it as an homage to Gladiator.
But it certainly applies to the Serac brothers who come home to find their entire city has been destroyed which sets them on the path to create the System which brings us, well, here.
