Each Westworld season can be described as a “mind f—k,” and season 3 is no exception. As these Westworld finale season 3 spoilers show, creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan have twists and turns in store for viewers of the HBO sci-fi series. But before we talk about what fans think will happen in the finale, let’s recap season 3 so far.
Season 3, which premiered in March, followed Dolores Abernathy‘s mission to seek revenge on humans after she escaped Westworld at the end of season 2. Along the way, Dolores meets Caleb, from whom she learns that lower-class humans are treated similar to Westworld hosts. Together, Dolores and Caleb embark on a revolution to take down Rehoboam, an A.I. that can shape the direction of humanity. Meanwhile, Maeve finds herself in another Delos park themed around Fascist Italy in World War II. She’s informed by Serac, the richest man in the world who’s trying to take over Delos via a mole, who tells her that he can reunite her with her daughter if she stops Dolores. The rest of the season sees Dolores and Maeve in a cat-and-mouse chase until the penultimate episode, where they come head to head and Dolores’ arm is blown off by a cannon.
How will Westworld: The New World end? Well, fans their theories for the finale, “Crisis Theory.”
The Westworld season 3 finale airs on Sunday, May 3, at 9 p.m. on HBO.
Image: HBO.
William Has Dissociative Memories Like Caleb
This idea, which was first written about by Inverse, theorizes that William has dissociative memories like Caleb. As we learned in episode 7, Caleb was reconditioned through something called “AR therapy” after he left the U.S. Army. The therapy, which Caleb went through because he was “outlier” as determined by Rehoboam, changed Caleb’s memories, which led him to remember events differently than how they happened. (Like the death of his partner, Frances, who he killed.)
In the flashbacks of Caleb’s AR therapy, Westworld showed him with goggles as his memory was reconditioned. In episode, Stubbs and Bernard find William, a.k.a. the Man in Black, in a similar facility with the same goggles on as Caleb. Westworld has yet to reveal what those goggles did to William, but based on the clues so far, it’s fair to assume that his memories were also reconditioned like Caleb, so he wouldn’t remember events in the same way.
William Is on a Different Timeline
Inverse also notes that William may be on a different timeline as Dolores, Maeve and other characters. Based on episode 7, it’s believed that Solomon, another powerful A.I. like Rehoboam, is housed in the area where Caleb received AR therapy. If this is true, then the Man in Black should’ve also been in the same facility, where he had been for a while, sometimes unsupervised, until Bernard and Stubbs found him. Why didn’t Dolores and Caleb run into him if they were in the same place? Well, the theory is that William is on another timeline. While Stubbs and Bernard are with William to make viewers think that the Man in Black’s storyline is in the present, Stubbs and Bernard could very well not exist due to the way William’s mind was reconditioned to make him remember anything as something else. This wouldn’t be the first time Westworld has used two timelines, as seen in the first and second seasons.
Image: HBO.
William Is a Host
Plot twist! As noted by Inverse, William could also be a host. In episode 7, Bernard tells William that he’s dead based on the data they found. How could that be if William is alive in the flesh with Bernard and Stubbs? Well, one explanation is that he’s a host and the “real” William is dead. In the season 2, there’s a flash forward that reveals that William is a host. We’re led to believe that switch happens way into the future, but perhaps it’s already occurred.
Serac Planned Dolores’ Revolution
We know that Serac knows what the future holds based on Rehoboam’s predictive programming, but we’re led to believe that’s only with humans. Could Serac have planned Dolores’ revolution the entire time to take control of Delos? One Reddit user believes that Serac could’ve masterminded the whole thing as a test for Rehoboam. We already know that Serac isn’t afraid of hosts, perhaps because he knows their thoughts and actions ahead of time.
Caleb Is a Spy for Serac
Caleb has been Dolores’ right-hand man throughout season 3. But could he turn on her at the last minute? One Reddit user discovered that Caleb’s name has Biblical roots. In the Bible, Caleb was a spy sent by Moses to Canaan to assess the “strength and numbers of its population.” We know that Westworld words like “Rehoboam” and “Solomon” also have Bible roots, so it isn’t too far-fetched for th Bible to predict Caleb’s behavior in the finale.
