Westworld Season 3 premiere recap

After a two year hiatus, HBO’s hit series Westworld returns for its third season on HBO Sunday night. 

Evan Rachel Wood returns as Dolores, who meets a new character named Caleb Nichols after escaping into the ‘real world’ at the end of Season 2.

If you aren’t caught up through the end of Season 2, there will be SPOILERS below and SPOILERS for the Season 3 premiere so read on at your own risk.

The season begins with a shot of a huge house on a cliff, overlooking the ocean, an investor wanting to sell off his shares in Westworld, after the disaster at the end of Season 2.

The investor goes to bed, taking a strange wafer of some sort as he gets in bed with his wife, telling the ‘system’ in his house to turn off the lights.

He tells her that he doesn’t want her going into town alone anymore because it’s a ‘security risk, but what he doesn’t see is that his system is being hacked as his house is set on fire.

He wakes up with a gas mask on, calling for security, asking for an ambulance but the system can’t do that, as he finds he’s locked inside.

He looks out and sees a nude woman swimming in the pool, which we see is Dolores, who puts on a black dress and sees him, saying she hopes he doesn’t mind using the pool because she’s never been in one.

He doesn’t remember her but she tells him how they met, in Westworld. 

She tells him that she read his ‘book’ meaning the entirety of his memories, telling him she wishes she didn’t see some of the things she saw.

He’s being flooded with dark memories from his past including his first wife, as Dolores tells him its ‘hard to break our loops.’

He goes outside and sees his dead wife floating in the pool, as she asks if he remembers what he did there.

He says she drank too much and slipped and hit her head, and she says he can hide her indiscretions but he can’t hide from himself.

She tells him that when he remarried he told himself he would change but he really didn’t.  

Dolores says that she stole all of his money while he slept, and that she knows he didn’t delete all the old files from his old company, Incite, which she needs 

She tells him to think of the money she stole as an ‘investment’ in a start-up for a ‘new species.’

When she leaves, he tries to attack her with a golf club, but she disappears and falls into the pool, smacking his head on the ledge, bleeding to death.

His wife comes out and asks who she is and Dolores says she’s the person who saved her as the new credit sequence begins. 

After the title sequence, a graphic reveals that an anomaly has been detected in Los Angeles before we get our first look at Caleb.

He tells Francis (Scott Mescudi) that he’s been making a living coding, and that he doesn’t believe technology doesn’t lead to a better life.

He’s seen working on a robot, which scales a building to work on it, before he’s seen eating lunch on a beam with the robot.

Frances asks if he thought about getting his implant put back on, as he visits with his mother at a nursing home, though she doesn’t remember him.

He’s talking with a woman who says the cost is ‘challenging’ and she thinks the best option may be a state-run facility.

Caleb goes onto an app named Rico to make some money, where he’s given instructions to go on a subway train.

He sits in a red seat and grabs a backpack before going to an outdoor cafe where he’s met by Lena Waithe’s character. 

Marshawn Lynch’s character says he’s definitely not OK as she tells him he should do personals because his stats are ‘s****y.’

She walks off with them as they hack into an ATM and rob it before throwing the stash into a black car and walk away just as the cops get there.

For his task, he earned five ‘crime coins’ as a voice says, ‘you made money motherf***er.’

Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) goes to a board meeting where the board are worried about their brand deteriorating.

It’s revealed she is the ‘interim CEO’ and she says they will resume host production, saying, ‘robots don’t kill people, people kill people,’ saying Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) is responsible for the massacre, making him a ptasy.

She also reveals that they have not found him yet, which naturally segues into Bernard’s first scene, showcasing a shaved head and a thicker beard.

He’s on a farm of some sort, tending to an animal with a broken leg. 

It’s also revealed his new name is Armaund Delgaudo, as he eats a meal in a cafeteria.

At night, he returns to his tent where he does some self-diagnostics, asking the system inside him if anyone has tampered with his code.

He reveals his last contact with Dolores Abernathy was 93 days ago and then he asks if he would ever lie to himself, and he says, ‘No of course not.’ 

Another graphic says there is ‘elevated security’ in London, as Dolores is seen inside a self-driving car, which tells her that her invitation is for Table 7 as she turns her black dress into a gold dress before heading into an Incite event.

She greets a man named Roderick who says he missed her before talking to a group where a man claims they are living in a ‘simulation.’

Roderick is pulled aside by an older man named Martin Connells who says the partners want to meet.

He says he’s going back to L.A. and he wants Dolores to come with him, and she says maybe for a day or two because she has some friends she wants to visit there.

Back in L.A., Caleb is talking to Francis while he heads into a job interview that doesn’t seem to go well.

He meets with his therapist who asks if he’s been taking his (Francis’) calls. 

The Season 2 finale ended with Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) disguising herself as Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) and made it out into the ‘real world’ with five pearls – data cores of the hosts.

The Season 3 trailer revealed Dolores resumed her familiar form, meeting up with Nichols in the real world, what she says is the one place she wasn’t allowed to visit.

A ‘host’ copy of Charlotte Hale also made it out of Westworld, after killing the human version of Hale, and now she has presumably resumed her role as an executive at the park.

This new season of Westworld is set in what is described as ‘neo-Los Angeles’ with the episode synopsis teasing, ‘Dolores develops a relationship with Caleb, and comes to learn how artificial beings are treated in the real world.’

Also returning is Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard, who was ultimately saved by Dolores, but her motives for saving him remain unclear.

Ed Harris will also be back as the Man in Black, who, in a post-credits scene in the Season 2 finale, was reunited with a host version of his daughter Grace (Katja Herbers).

This season will also welcome a slew of new characters aside from Aaron Paul’s Caleb Nichols.

Other newcomers include Vincent Cassel, whose character is seen telling Maeve (Thandie Newton) that he wants her to track down Dolores and kill her.

Also joining this season is Lena Waithe, Scott ‘Kid Cudi’ Mescudi, Marshawn Lynch, John Gallagher Jr. and Tommy Flanagan.

Season 3 of Westworld will air new episodes Sunday nights at 9 PM ET on HBO.