Entertainment Weekly - 04.2020

↑ A version of

Charlotte Hale

(Tessa Thompson)

returns to Delos

↓ Lena Waithe,

Marshawn Lynch,

and Aaron Paul

join the cast

WAY O U T

WESTWORLD

HBO’S SCI-FI DRAMA UPGRADES ONCE AGAIN AS THE

ROGUE HOSTS INVADE FUTURE-SHOCK LOS ANGELES

By James Hibberd

WESTWORLD IS FINISHED WITH THOSE

horses, saloons, and dusty trails.

The new season of the acclaimed

HBO drama (version 3.0, if you

will, out March 15) instead intro­

duces its most frightening world

yet: our own, just a few decades

from now. It’s a future that pre­

sents a different kind of sci­fi

dystopia, one that assumes the

continuation of some current

headline­making technological

trends—such as tech companies

becoming increasingly dominant

and algorithms being used to dis­

cern consumer preferences.

“The idea that we’ve created

technologies that are leading us

around by the nose is not just

something in the show anymore,

it’s acutely felt in the world,” co­

showrunner Jonathan Nolan says.

“So what does it look like if we

keep going in the direction we’re

going?” That’s where the android

hosts, who escaped their Wild

West theme park trappings at the

end of season 2, find themselves.

Robo­revolutionary Dolores

(Evan Rachel Wood) continues to

plot the downfall of humanity

while disguising herself as a

human, except now she’s a fish out

of water in a land she doesn’t

understand. “We’ve seen the car­

nage of her plan, but now we get to

see her being a bit more meticu­

lous; she’s 10,000 steps ahead of

everyone,” Wood says. “But since

she has to blend in with human

beings, she has to pretend to be

more flawed and messy.” Dolores

meets a constructor worker, Caleb

(new cast member Aaron Paul),

who brings something refreshing

to show’s character roster: a legiti­

mately nice human. “Caleb kind of

shines a completely different light

on humanity for Dolores,” says

Paul, who was offered a different

Westworld role years ago but

couldn’t join the show then

because of a scheduling conflict.

Robo­pocalypse refugee Maeve

(Thandie Newton) has somehow

been resurrected, and gets

a largely stand­alone adventure

in a never­before­seen park,

Warworld, a mockup of Italy circa

1943. So, yup, Maeve gets to punch
      some Nazis. “She has no experi­
      ence in the world she finds herself,
      but has to figure out her environ­
      ment to try and win the game—and
      that’s just Maeve, isn’t it?” Newton
      says. Meanwhile, Charlotte Hale
      (Tessa Thompson)—or, more
      accurately, a host replica of Hale
      who’s presumably controlled by
      Dolores—is rather ironically put
      in charge of the Delos corpora­
      tion’s attempt to dig itself out
      of the theme­park PR disaster.
      “She has to wrestle with the fallout
      of the massacre, essentially,” says
      Thompson, who would sometimes
      text a line of dialogue to Wood in
      the middle of the night to ask how
      Dolores might say it.
      Nolan notes that Delos greedily
      trying to “pivot” from the mass
      slaughter of hundreds isn’t
      entirely unlike how Boeing han­
      dled its 737 Max disaster that
      included two planes crashing
      largely due to software problems.
      “When we sat there and thought of
      the most cynical version of a plot­
      ted element, it was impossible to
      eclipse the real world,” Nolan says.
      “As Dolores says, ‘I thought your
      world would be so different.
      There’s no difference.’ ” �

66 APRIL 2020 EW ● COM

JOHN P. JOHNSON/HBO (2)

APRIL2020.TV2.LO.A.indd 66 FINAL 3/3/20 9:22 AM