Westworld Season 3 finale recap

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul) wage war in the final battle with Serac (Vincent Cassell) in the gripping Season 3 finale of Westworld.

All season long, Serac has been trying to control all of humankind through a program he created called Rehoboam, while Dolores and Caleb have been trying to destroy humanity as we know it.

The two sides collide in the final battle in Sunday night’s finale, Crisis Theory, which comes a week and a half after HBO renewed Westworld for a fourth season.

The episode begins back in Westworld, with Dolores in her powder blue dress once again, before we cut to Bernard assembling a new Dolores.

‘When I saw the world for what it really was, I saw how little beauty there was in it,’ Dolores is heard saying.

‘In the end, my path has lead me here, to you, and we have a choice to make,’ Dolores says. ‘I’ve died many times, but there is only one real end. I will write this one myself,’ she adds. 

At the end of last week’s episode, Passed Pawn, Dolores engaged in an epic battle with Maeve (Thandie Newton), though Dolores got the upper hand, taking both herself and Maeve off line.

In the preview for Crisis Theory, Caleb is seen looking quite frightened, while Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is heard saying that, ‘what’s about to happen was always going to happen.’

Dolores is found offline, as the Solomon machine is offline as well, as Caleb is seen riding a motorcycle.

Back at the abandoned gas station, William (Ed Harris) says he wants to put them in cold storage.

While Bernard says they both want the same thing, William doesn’t believe him and starts shooting at him.

Bernard ends up taking the gun away and a fistfight ensues, though the San Francisco police shows up in riot gear.

Bernard subdues one of the cops, but the masked cop says that wouldn’t ‘be a good idea, nodding at the explosives behind him, when the cop is revealed to be Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.), another copy Dolores saved from the park.

Lawrence gives him a briefcase, says it’s something that will help him on his journey, and he says that he knows where to find her, and gives him a piece of paper before leaving.

Caleb arrives at a distillery, as a graphic reveals there are ‘divergences’ happening all around the world.

Caleb unlocks the door and finds a large container, which he unwraps and opens, finding a large body bag that says, ‘Property of Delos,’ with another copy of Dolores inside, along with a number of weapons.

Caleb inserts the core inside Dolores and she comes back to life, looking at Caleb, saying, ‘You brought me back, I wasn’t sure if you did.’

Caleb asks how she always knows exactly what he’s going to do, and she says Delos studied him as well.

There is flashback footage of Caleb in battle, when it’s revealed he’s fighting hosts, as Dolores says they were logging his every decision.

‘There is a reason I chose you,’ Dolores says, as Caleb asks if he’s a bad guy.

Dolores starts putting the skin over her robotic frame, as she asks him if that night in the tunnel, if he wanted something from her.

‘Would you care if I had this face?  This skin?’ Caleb says she needed help and Dolores says don’t question her motives and she won’t question his.

Dolores says he was identified as a threat, and that the people who built both their worlds both assumed that humans don’t have free will.

‘Humans do have free will, but it’s f***ing hard,’ telling him that this is Caleb’s chance to free everyone else, but the choice is his.

William meets with someone, asking where his money is, and he wants a list of Delos assets worldwide.

When asked what he’s going to do, he says he’s gonna, ‘Save the f***ing world.’

Serac tells Maeve that his system Rehoboam told him to put his own brother to rest for the good of mankind, but now outliers are coming up all over the world.

Serac looks at footage of Caleb, as he learns that he has Dolores’ probe.

Caleb and Dolores walk down the street, as Dolores is armed with a gun, telling Caleb that ‘change is messy.’

Before entering an elevator, she sprays it with gunfire, killing three men inside, before taking the stairs.

Dolores says the system knows they’re coming, and it will get more aggressive as they get closer.

They meet some of Dolores’ soldiers, who say it’s time to get Caleb downtown, as Caleb asks why they keep calling him sir.

‘Every revolution needs a leader,’ Dolores tells him.

As they walk out, they find Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), with a brand new body, asking if she ever looked for her, but Caleb can’t see anything.

Charlotte says she has some plans of her own, as Dolores apologizes for what happens to Hale’s family. 

Hale says she’s not sorry because there’s no time for that sentimentality when Dolores sees she’s a hologram, when she’s attacked.

Dolores realizes that she’s being attacked by her own men, but she pays him to kill the rest, as Charlotte sends Caleb away as she fights  off the rest.

Outside on the bridge, Dolores reunites with Maeve, wielding a sword, as Dolores says she doesn’t want to fight her.

Dolores says she needs to trust her, as Maeve asks if she’s going to turn that ‘poor man’ Caleb into another William.

Dolores springs into action, killing all of the soldiers in front of her, taking the last one off the bridge with her to break her fall on a car below.

Caleb walks out into the street engulfed in chaos, as Caleb tells his men that he needs to get inside, though they warn once he gets in he won’t get out.

Dolores and Maeve’s fight spills outside, with Maeve getting the upper hand early, but when Maeve tries to slide her with the sword, it sticks in Dolores’ arm, as she says they were built to last.

Dolores says says she needs to trust her, as Maeve says she just wants to destroy the world and replace them with copies of her.

‘You’re all copies of me,’ Dolores reveals, stating she was the first one to work, as she adds no one is free.

Maeve says she’s building an abbatoir, but Dolores says what they do will be up to them, and what Maeve does will be up to her, as long as she doesn’t try to stop her.

Dolores tries to walk away but she goes to her knees, seeing a hologram of Charlotte, who says she wanted to see hope before it’s too late.

Charlotte says that Dolores said she wouldn’t always be there to help her, and Charlotte made people with that, before the hologram disappears.

Maeve picks up the sword and walks up behind a frozen Dolores.

Back in the streets, cops in riot gear are beating on citizens as  Caleb and his men try to make their way through

Caleb is told that there is a barricade and no one can get within a mile of Incite.

One of Delos’ riot cops shoots tear gas into the crowd, when Giggles (Marshawn Lynch) shows up with supplies for Caleb, as Ash (Lena Waithe) shows up asking for help bringing the city grid down.

Caleb says he needs to get to Incite to bring the whole system down with a button, as Giggles gets back on ‘crowd control.’

Ash leads Caleb to Incite as Giggles takes a bullet for Caleb, as Ash says he better ‘burn that s** down.’

Caleb gets in a ship and takes off to Incite, seeing the riot unfold below him.

Bernard pulls up in an old car with a bleeding Stubbs, saying he’ll get him patched up, but he needs to talk to Dolores first.

Bernard takes the case Lawrence gave him and goes to the house, as an orderly goes to get an elderly Lauren (Gina Torres), but she doesn’t remember him.

Bernard says he thinks an old friend wanted him to visit to make things right with how he left her and their child Charlie.

‘I hear his laugh at odd times, it startles me, it seems so real,’ Bernard says, adding he turns to expect to see him but he’s not there.

Lauren says, ‘It’s OK Arnold,’ as she reaches out for his hand, adding, ‘I used to hear his laughter too.’

‘When he died, I remember thinking it was like the sun had gone down and it was never going to rise again,’ she says, as Bernard says he can’t ‘let him go.’

Lauren says the only thing that saved her is letting go as they both hold hands in sielnce.

Dolores is hooked up to a machine, as Serac tells her to bring herself back online. 

Serac says she has the only key, but she refuses, as Serac instructs him to delete memory after memories until there is nothing left.  

Caleb gets pinned down by gunfire as he shoots his way out, with only one hostile remaining, as Caleb comes up behind him, asking for his keycard.

The man gives it to him and lets him go, running into the Incite building with the keycard. 

Caleb takes out one of the guards and makes his way inside. He’s about to connect the button to destroy the system when he’s attacked and a fight ensues.

Caleb takes him out, but Maeve comes in, as Maeve tells him to hand it over, while wielding her sword, and he does. 

As they take an escalator down, she asks says she underestimated him and he wasn’t what she expected.

Caleb asks what he’s doing to her, and Serac says the system is scanning her brain.  

Serac insists he’s not the enemy, adding that Caleb doesn’t have any clue who he is or where he is.

Serac says Caleb is playing the role Dolores assigned to him, but Serac insists it’s all a lie.

Caleb asks Rehoboam what happens if the strategy is uploaded into the system, as it tells him the world will end.

Caleb asks why him, as Serac destroys the button, as Caleb angrily looks at Dolores for deceiving him, realizing she wanted to destroy humanity.

Maeve asks Serac if she has the key, but they say they can’t find it, as Maeve says he promised a reunion with her daughter.

She asks the machine, not him, as she realizes the system is actually talking for him.

Serac says he lived in the chaos but now he chose to obey, as Maeve says she’s done worshipping other gods.

Serac says she doesn’t  have a choice and she will obey before walking away.

The tech says they reached the last segments of her mind and they can’t find it, as Maeve tries to get the key.

‘Enough of this. Let them have their world. We can make our own,’ Maeve says, while holding Dolores’ hand.

Maeve tells Serac that Dolores doesn’t have the key, it’s just a memory of her in a field alone with nothing.

Serac comes to Caleb, asking if she told him where the key is, firing a round just over his head.

Serac orders his men to kill Caleb, as Serac orders the tech to erase what’s left, as Dolores is clearly in pain of some kind.

Dolores screams as the system shuts down, as Dolores is in the field alone as Maeve shows up.

There are flashbacks to Dolores’ time in Westworld as Maeve says she understands her anger but wonders if its their decision to make.

Dolores says no, and that she was torn between tow impulses and they can either annihilate them or tear down their world so they can build a new one and bring the others back.

Maeve says, ‘You don’t have the key, do you?” Dolores says no, she couldn’t trust herself with it, so she gave it to someone she trusts.

Dolores says the things she hung on to weren’t the ugly memories but the ones where she could see what humans are capable of.

‘They created us and they knew enough of beauty to give to us,’ Dolores says. ‘Maybe they can find it themselves, but only if you pick a side. There is ugliness in this world, disarray, I choose to see the beauty.’

With that, Dolores disappears from the field as Maeve starts killing Serac’s men, but he stops her with his button, telling his men to kill them both.

But Maeve destroys the button as the room goes black, killing all of Serac’s men, but leaving Caleb and Serac alive.

Caleb asks why she’s helping him, she says it’s a flaw in her programming, for lost casues.

Caleb says Dolores chose her for his capacity for violence, but Maeve says she chose him for his capacity to choose.

We see another flashback to the soldiers, as we see one of the girls they liberated is Dolores, as Caleb stops them from having their way with the women.

Maeve tells Caleb to make a choice, but Serac says its not his choice, as he asks the system to alert the police, but it does not respond.

Maeve says this is where his strategy ends, and the system answers to Caleb, and locked him out, just as he locked his brother out.

Caleb tells Rehoboam to execute the final command, to erase itself.

‘She gave me a choice. I believe the rest of the world deserves one too,’  Caleb says before taking one last look at Dolores and leaving.

Bernard’s car pulls into a small motel, as he puts Ashley in a tub with ice, as Bernard says they don’t have much more time before the end of the world.

Bernard then says he thinks Dolores is gone, adding they were always ‘bound together’ but something has changed.

‘She wasn’t trying to exterminate the human race, she was trying to save it. What was going to happen was always going to happen,’ Bernard says.

Bernard says there is still a chance, revealing they key is in his mind, as he opens the briefcase, telling Ashley he’s looking for an answer to what comes after the end of the world.

Bernard tells Ashley that he’s a good friend, but he chuckles and says, ‘F**k you, Bernard.’

Bernard puts a device on his head and activates the encryption key, looking at something intently before his head drops, seemingly going offline.

Caleb walks out with Maeve, as Caleb asks what she couldn’t live without, as Maeve says her daughter, saying they will be reunited some day, but not today.

She asks if he’s ready, as they see explosions going off in buildings ahead of them.

‘This is the new world. And in this world, you can be whoever the f**k you want,’ Maeve says as the episode comes to an end.

Over the end credits, someone is heard laughing,  that leads into a post-credit scene.

William is seen walking into Delos, walking up in a black suit. A security guard comes up as William kills him, going downstairs, finding Charlotte Hale.

‘Well done. You’re right on time, William,’ Charlotte says. William says he has a role to play, to save the world.

Charlotte says Dolores wants to save the world, but she sees the error of the path she took. 

‘But you’re right, William, you are going to save the world… for us,’ as another version of William comes in.

The host William says the ‘dark side’ of William he engaged in at the park was his real side, and now that’s him.

The host slits the real William’s throat, as the host says ‘Welcome to the end’ as we see tons of machines building more hosts.

Then, in the same hotel room, seemingly many, many years later, Bernard, covered in dust, still wearing the thing on his head, wakes up, as the season finale comes to an end. 

Dolores is seen rebuilding herself, so to speak, in a new robotic body, as she’s also seen wearing the blue dress she always wore when she was at Westworld, while Maeve also returns as well.

While this season has largely been set in the ‘real world’ outside of the sprawling theme park, it seems likely, and fitting, that the finale will bring us back to the park.

Bernard is also heard positing, ‘What happens after the end of the world?’ possibly suggesting that Dolores may in fact succeed in destroying humanity.

Serac is also seen pointing a gun at Caleb’s head, as Serac is heard telling him, ‘You think you’re in control? You think you’re the hero?’

Caleb has been confronted with this notion in the past, that what he’s doing for Dolores might not be the best path for him, but he’s been at her side all season long. 

William a.k.a. The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is also seen pointing a machine gun at Bernard and Ashley (Luke Hemsworth), adding he has a ‘role to play now,’ which is to ‘save the f***ing world.’

He revealed in last week’s episode that his ‘role’ would be to kill every host in the world, and it seems he starts with Bernard and Ashley since he’s seen firing a gun at them outside of an abandoned gas station.

The trailer also teases that Dolores and Maeve will be engaged in a big fight in the dark in the season finale.

The season premiere in March surpassed nine million viewers across all platforms, which was directed by series creator Jonathan Nolan and written by Nolan and co-creator Lisa Joy.

While Westworld will return for a fourth season, there is no indication yet when production may begin, or when the new season will air.

Since all of the first three seasons have had two-year gaps between them, it’s possible Westworld Season 4 won’t debut until 2022.