WW – Westworld S3 E1 Parce Domine

Jason and Cristina break down the Westworld Season 3 premiere Parce Domine! Meritocracy, Incite, Rehoboam.

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Podcast Notes –

DIRECTED BY:	Jonathan Nolan
WRITTEN BY:	Jonathan Nolan
RECEPTION:	Imdb – 8.7 / RT – 88%

 

“If you’re stuck in a loop, try walking in a straight line.”

 

SEASON 3 OVERALL

LJ:    “Season 1 was an examination of consciousness, and this emerging species beginning to hear their own voices.  Season 2 was really about exercising their agency and autonomy.  Out of that rises the issue of free will – not only of the hosts’ free will and self-determination, but also the humans. Who is really programmable and who is the one with real agency?”

The third season takes place immediately after events of the second season, with Dolores having escaped Westworld along with the cores of a few hosts, including Bernard and someone inside of Hale’s recreated body (4-5 pearls – who will they be?). Taking residence in Arnold’s old home in neo-Los Angeles, Dolores develops a relationship with Caleb, and comes to learn how artificial beings are treated in the real world. Meanwhile, Maeve finds herself in another part of the Delos park, one based on Fascist Italy during World War II. As a result of the complaints about the complex narrative of Season 2, showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy stated that season 3 would have a much more comprehensible story line, with Nolan stating “This season is a little less of a guessing game and more of an experience with the hosts finally getting to meet their makers.”

• There will only be eight episodes — the shortest season so far.
• Caleb will have a strong impact on Dolores, along with other hosts who experience major ‘culture shock’ now that they’re out in the real world. He will challenge Dolores’ notions about the nature of humanity – he’s the type of person who doesn’t get to go to Westworld.
• Other new faces – Vincent Cassel (a villain), Michael Ealy, and Tommy Flanagan.
• This season will feature Maeve in Warworld (World War II), another park.

 

EPISODE 301

CRITICS:  “Parce Domine” dares to go beyond the show’s previous boundaries, embarking upon an entirely different world. Exactly what’s needed to turn the show around and make it not only accessible again, but to take it in a new, very exciting direction.”

TITLE:   Parce Domine = “Spare, Lord”.  A Roman Catholic antiphon derived from Joel 2:17 – Lord, spare your people; be not angry with us forever.

MUSIC:

• Sweet Child of Mine – Ramin Djawadi
• 99 Red Balloons – Nena (Caleb meets Ash & G about a job)
• Bubbles Buried in This Jungle – Death Grips (Ash’s audio takeover)
• Dissolved Girl – Massive Attack (Dolores arrives at party)
• Common People – Pulp (Martin holds Dolores captive)
• This World – Ramin Djawadi (Caleb saves Dolores in tunnel)

NEW FACES & PLACES & IDEAS

FACES:

• Jerry: played by Thomas Kretschmann. A wealthy businessman retired from Incite.
• Liam Dempsey: played by John Gallagher Jr. Figurehead of Incite, man who ostensibly runs Rehoboam.
• Martin Connells: played by Tommy Flanagan. Works for Liam (bodyguard?)
• Caleb Nichols: played by Aaron Paul. An army veteran now working construction in LA and barely getting by.
• George: Caleb’s robot co-worker; a Delos model G-267
• Francis:  played by Kid Cudi. Caleb’s friend, in military together.
• Ash & Giggles: played by Lena Waithe and Marshawn Lynch
• Serac: the man who has control of the Rehoboam system

IDEAS:

• Incite: *Closer Look
• RICO: an app to pick up criminal work for money.
• Rehoboam: the most advanced AI – strategy engine that ‘saved the world’.  In history, the son of Solomon and King of Judah.
• Nucleus Accumbens a part of the brain that plays a significant role in the cognitive processing of motivation, aversion, reward and reinforcement learning – involved in addiction, induction of slow-wave sleep, processing fear, impulsivity and the placebo effect.        

TITLE SEQUENCE:

Consistent Imagery:

• Hands playing the player piano
• Female hosts (1 – having sex with male host and riding horse; 2 – holding a baby; 3 – swimming to surface of dark pool)
• Artificially constructed animal (1 – horse; 2 – buffalo; 3 – eagle); Horse = represents strength, freedom & nobility. Buffalo = represents sustaining of life, a reminder to take only what one needs. Eagle = a powerful symbol that represents victory, conquest and personal power.  Man in Maze = 7 paths and cycles of life one must be guided through – the journey of life that is not always easy. 
• Vitruvian Man – host stretched out and lowered into liquid.

Changes/Foreshadows:

• 1 – Revolver constructed and fired (Dolores shoots Ford at end); Couple making love (William and Dolores relationship
• 2 – Host mother holding baby (Maeve’s search for her daughter; Buffalo breaking through glass (host rebellion/liberation); Vitruvian man with halo behind head when lowered/MIB hat falling in similar light (MIB becomes human/host hybrid)

Season 3:

• Dandelion comes apart in concentric circles – flies towards Rehoboam, lights of circular structure (tech replaces natural?), reproduce (cells in mitosis)
• Eagle flies toward the sun (first an eye?) and body disintegrates from heat (Icarus)
• Host swims up towards surface, reaches out hand to touch/break surface (DaVinci – Creation of Adam, “God created man in his own image” – hosts create others in their image). Starts to sink back into water, parts of face disintegrate to reveal machine underneath and fingers fall apart (like wings on bird) – host missions will fail?
• Vitruvian man sinks into red liquid this time (blood – becoming more human, hybrid?), has drone face instead of host face?

PLOT

DOLORES – COLD OPEN

Jerry is being given a report on the Westworld massacre, with the information that casualties were mainly employees but the media is calling it a ‘bloodbath’.  He closes the holographic image and goes into his bedroom, where he takes a disc from a container and puts it in his mouth for a ‘mellow sunset – duration 6 hours’.  In the middle of the night, he wakes with a mask on to find his security system has been hacked and finds a woman – Dolores – swimming in his pool.  “You want to be the dominant species but you built your whole world with things more like me” (lack of control over tech).  She notes he doesn’t remember her from his bachelor party in the park (before his marriage to his first wife).  After reading his book, she knows his flaw is his temper, and forces on a pair of glasses that shows critical memories (he’s chosen to forget), including beating his ex-wife and drowning her in a pool.  Dolores tells him she’s already taken most of his money, but now she wants information.   He saved confidential files when he retired early from Incite, which he transfers to her.  “I’m the last of my kind for now; I need a competitive advantage for the origin of a new species.”  He runs after her as she goes to leave but her hologram disappears and he ends up diving head first into the pool, hitting his head on the concrete and killing himself. 

Elevated Scrutiny: London, U.R.E.W.
Special Circumstances. 
Location: 51.074N. 0.1278W

DOLORES (“LARA ESPEN”) – REHOBOAM

A self-driving car drops Dolores off at an Incite party (transforms her black dress to a gold gown), honoring their ‘Technologist of the Year – Liam Dempsey’. With climate catastrophe around the corner, he created Rehoboam, the strategy engine that saved the world.  Greeted as “Lara”, a woman remarks that Liam met the mysterious girl in Burma last month and isn’t like the woman he usually dates.  In a conversation where Roderick wonders if any of this is real or they’re living inside a simulation, Dolores says people believe the things that help them.  It could be because of the Nucleus Accumbens – a small part of your brain that evolved to believe in God.  Martin pulls Liam aside to tell him they have a problem; the higher ups want a meeting.  He asks Lara to come with him. 

Aboard the flying transport, Dolores tells Liam it’s been a while since she was ‘home’.  She wonders if Incite ‘controls all if’, down to the traffic.  But he brushes it off that his father just had the best AI and they were in the right place at the right time.  They enter a building that looks like a maze and inside is Rehoboam, a spherical lit structure designed by his father that took 15 years to build.   He lost track of how many thoughts it has per second  – more like strategies.  His father thought the biggest problem in the world was unrealized potential.  If you could chart a course for every person, you could make the world a better place.

Splitting up, they agree to meet later.  But Dolores finds a bike and follows Liam to the Hotel Indigo, where she has her virtual assistant rent her an apartment within seconds so she can enter and spy on him. She listens as a woman tells Liam there’s been turbulence or discrepancies in the data – they think someone on the inside has gotten access to Rehoboam (as the machine would alert them to outside intrusion).  Liam insists a leak is impossible – “You do what HE tells you”.

Later, Dolores approaches Liam saying she knows he’s in trouble and wants to help.  He admits, sometimes he wishes he could shut the whole system down – he doesn’t have control of it and never has.  After his father died, his partner locked him out of all but the surface levels – he’s a figurehead.  No one knows what the system is doing.  Other than it’s original architect, and if he told her or anyone who it was, they would kill him.  It seems he’s about to go further when Martin comes from behind and tazes Dolores.  He admits his first check missed her true identity, but they discovered she stole the identity of a dead 12-year-old Ukrainian girl.  She sent an encrypted text last night:

Unknown Contact. “It’s time, I’ll lure him out tonight.” “I’ll meet you there”. 

Martin’s angrily tells Caleb he has safeguarded the fortunes of the company for his father for 20 years.  He’ll clean up the mess.

Anomaly Detected: Los Angeles, USA
Minor irregularities.  Analysis required.
Focal Point: 34.0522N, -118.2437W

CALEB – RICO

Caleb is struggling to get by, running fiber to pay the bills alongside George. He thinks this world is run like the army, on algorithms, and he thought technology would make it better – sometimes it seems like the world is alright, like they put a coat of paint on it, but inside it’s rotting.  They say it’s a meritocracy; the system picks the right people for the right job, but where does that leave those who didn’t make the cut?  He needs to work better and get his scores up.  While ignoring calls from his friend Francis in real time, we hear snippets of conversation in voice-over – Francis wonders if Caleb ever thinks of getting his implant turned back on to ‘smooth out the rough edges’.  But Caleb thinks he needs them.   We see him visit his mother in a facility he can’t afford; they’re urging him to switch to a state facility.  And his mother thinks it’s ‘not her son’.

Frustrated about the financial challenges, Caleb logs onto an online app called RICO where ‘Redistributive Justice’ takes place.  “Steal from the rich, give to RICO, make money.  Keep it clean, no blood, no guts, minimal mayhem.  Stats of 3.0 or higher”.   He meets with two people for the next job who he has seemingly work with before – Ash and Giggles.  They think he should do more ‘personals’ to up his stats but he doesn’t do that.  Using a device to knock out all loggers and cameras, they create an explosion at an ATM, steal the money and deliver it to a car – $1200. 

Trying to stay positive, he meets with his therapist who doesn’t have time for him due to an overwhelming caseload, and encourages him to speak more with Francis – someone who knew him best at a challenging point in his life. His benefits are conditional on the fact that he participates in therapy. But the DCA calls and tells him he didn’t get the position, so he signs in for a new RICO job.  It’s a man demoing a new designer drug.  Since he’s got a prior, he would go to jail, but he’s got high net worth.  Caleb thinks about what Francis told him when they were being med-evaced out – “they built the world to be a game and then they rigged it, to make sure they always won.”   (emotion words glow– Amused/ Angry/ Bored)

Caleb finally takes a call from Francis who tells him he needs to face the truth; what happened to them was fucked up but he needs to let go.  After all, he doesn’t want to wind up back in the VA.  He encourages him to try playing the game.  Caleb thinks the ‘real’ Francis would never say that, he thought the system didn’t care about them at all; they had to have their own plan.  But Francis never had to figure out how to live in this world – he never made it back.  Caleb thinks this isn’t working for him and he needs to find someone real to get on with his life.  So he unsubscribes – ‘you have chosen to discontinue your treatment’. 

He takes another RICO job, meeting a man in a garage who tells him they want a package delivered and a manual car (which Caleb can drive).  But arriving at the site by the water, he thinks something strange is going on and keeps watch.

DOLORES

After being taken to the place by the water, Martin instructs a man to inject Dolores with a medication.  After two vials, she’s still breathing.  Another call pulls up and Martin goes to investigate, ordering the man to finish the job.  However, Dolores breaks out and kills the guards, chasing after Martin as he tries to get away in another car.  She shoots him and before he dies, asks him who has control of the system.  Martin says his name is Serac.  She won’t need to find him; he’ll be looking for her.  She thinks she’ll use Martin to get close to Liam – before she kills Martin, we see she’s printed another version.  “You were free, you had no God, so you tried to build one.  But the real gods are coming.  And they’re very angry.”

They split up and Dolores shoots all those chasing her.  She’s wounded and stumbles into an alley where Caleb finds her and she collapses into his arms. (*piano music)

HALE

In a Delos meeting, the members tell Charlotte Hale that the company should be focusing more on their core businesses – Biomechanical and Agritech.  They should sever the park’s business – it would be insane to take Delos private because the stocks are town and PR has been a nightmare after the massacre.  But Hale, the interim CEO, is confident it will recover.  While they need ‘his’ agreement, she says he stipulated a machine shareholder as proxy and they’re in agreement.  Their official line is that there was one person responsible for orchestrating the massacre and the death of their founder – Bernard Lowe. 

BERNARD/ ARMAND

Bernard is working in a meat factory under his new disguised identity – Armand, Delgado – and feels for the suffering of a cow caught in the wire in the fields.  Inside the pod system where he lives, he runs a self-diagnostic:

Trial #342.  Prompt questions.  Last contact with Dolores – 92 days, 7 hours, 5 minutes, 33 seconds.  He wouldn’t lie to him. 

In the factory, two men discover Bernard’s identity and confront him.  When they are about to attack, Bernard switches the button on his remote – “remember yourself and don’t hurt them too badly” – after which he fights back, killing at least one of them. 

Following this, Bernard makes his way to the pier where he secures a boat to take him to Westworld; he’s “looking for a friend.”

CREDITS SCENE:

Maeve awakes in a chair in bedroom, gun in hand, one man on floor dying, the other tied up in chair.  World War II Germany. 

QUESTIONS

• How much does Incite truly control? Who is the architect of Rehoboam?  Is this related to Delos? 
• Will Dolores and the technology here be at odds? Will it even be a fight against humans or the other tech? 
• Who’s inside Hale? Who’s now inside Martin?
• Is there someone else in Bernard?
• What is Caleb?
• How will Maeve and the park factor in?