Most of us are entering our third week of quarantine so just a warning, these Westworld Reddit roundups are gonna get weird.
The show’s third episode gave us plenty to think about, diving into the mystery beyond Tessa Thompson’s character and revealing more about Dolores’ master plan. We also got to know Caleb a bit better and man, does Aaron Paul like to play tortured sad bois or what? (Aaron, are you okay?)
Now that the dust has settled it’s time to turn our thinking caps on and figure out what the hell we just watched. As always, Reddit’s here to pack on the conspiracies.
1. The Mirror World
Dolores spent plenty of time recruiting Caleb this episode, revealing bits of her master plan in the process but it’s her description of Rehoboam’s data use that raised a red flag over on Reddit. Dolores tells Caleb this about her enemy:
“It’s about Insight. Not the company, the system that it’s built on, the machine they call Rehoboam. The founders of this machine fed it everyone’s raw data, long before there were privacy laws. Every purchase, job search, doctors visit, romantic choice, call text. every aspect of your live recorded, logged. In order to create a mirror world of this world… To make a composite of you, of everyone.”
The idea of a mirror world pops up a couple more times this episode. First, we have the show’s opening credits which always seem to hint at plot points to come. One eagle-eyed Redditor has noticed the strange interaction between two human-like figures in the show’s intro.
And then there’s Hale’s heartbreaking goodbye video to her son Nathan when she was still human and being hunted inside the park. The first video, the one our host Hale views in her office after her meeting with Dolores, sees Hale regretting not singing a lullaby to Nathan before she left. It’s devastatingly sad but also a quick, surface-level apology. The next time host Hale watches the video we see an altered version, one that shows Hale singing the song, yes, but also admitting her mistake in placing the park’s importance over her own son and perhaps atoning for the sins she committed while working for Delos.
Some Redditors think we’re watching the first video in a sim created by Rehoboam. It’s generic, less emotional, and seems to lack humanity. The second video feels more real, which may point to the bigger problem Rehoboam is trying to solve: creating a mirror world with hosts that can actually pass as human. That’s why the A.I. needs Dolores and the information from the Forge.
This might also explain Maeve’s storyline and her interaction with Serac. If Maeve exists in this mirror world, one Dolores has gained access to, Rehoboam might be testing Maeve to see if she could defeat Dolores in the real world. And Dolores may have saved Bernard so she could test Rehoboam, to discover how the A.I. might go about destroying her.
Ready for a headache? Dive into all the theories here, here, and here.
2. Ford’s Plan
We’re giving Rehoboam a lot of credit this season. It’s an all-knowing A.I. with limitless capabilities who seems to have figured humanity out and subjugated us, with our consent, but if there’s one mouth-breather this omniscient machine might not anticipate it’s the father of Westworld. Reddit thinks Anthony Hopkin’s character might be controlling this all from the grave. Perhaps the park was created because Ford anticipated Rehoboam’s rise to power? Maybe creating these hosts and gathering this data was a way to interfere with the A.I.’s plan? It explains why Ford was so antagonistic towards Charlotte Hale, who we now know was feeding information on Delos’ operations to Serac.
Dive into the tea here.
3. A (Robot) Mom Uprising
We’re still not sure who’s operating Hale’s host body. Is it Teddy? Abernathy? Perhaps Dolores herself? But that might matter less than we think if this prediction comes true. Hale’s arc this episode centered on her struggle to acclimate to her human life, particularly, to balance her work commitments and Dolores’ subterfuge with her responsibilities as a mom. She doesn’t do a good job at first – I think we can safely assume child protective services don’t exist in the future if forgetting your child at drop off multiple times doesn’t warrant at least an inquiry – but she eventually finds a way to connect with Nathan and even risks exposure by protecting him from a pedophile in the episode’s final moments.
Some fans think that growing maternal instinct might sway Hale to Maeve’s side in the end. Both hosts’ storylines seem tied to children now and with Dolores increasingly distracted by her relationship with Caleb and enacting her ultimate plan of revenge, it’d be easy to see Hale becoming attached to Nathan and not wanting to participate in any robot uprising that might hurt him.
Let’s hear it for the moms, here.
4. HBO’s War On Elephants
This is less theory and just straight up facts at this point but it needs to be addressed: HBO has a thing against elephants. It was a funny throwaway joke on Game of Thrones and after Watchmen it seemed like the network had realized its unfair prejudice and given these gentle giants their deserved 15 minutes but once again, the discrimination against these massive mammals rears its ugly head. They’re descendants of mastodons for Christ’s sake. Show some damn respect HBO.
We’re building a case. Here’s the evidence.
5. Hale: The Ultimate Horse Girl
Shout out to the horse girl community. This episode was a low-key nod to you.
Here’s proof.
