Westworld season 3 explores the future of our “algorithmically determined world”

The third season of Westworld kicks off this Sunday, and everything is different. Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) has escaped the confines of her simulated world, and is ready to wreck havoc in ours. Over the course of its first two seasons, the show has presented a very dim point of view about the ability of human beings to govern their own affairs, exercise free will, and prevent their own destruction. I have to believe we’ll see more of that in season 3, with Dolores at the head of a spear driving itself right into humanity’s heart.

Or at least that’s the impression I get from showrunner Jonathan Nolan, who talked to Entertainment Weekly about where the series is going. “[T]he show has always been about reaching a point where our technical capacity potentially threatens our morality and identity as a species,” he said. “We’ve been in charge on this planet for a very long time. The idea that we created technologies that are now leading us around by the nose — that’s not something just in the show anymore. It’s something that is acutely felt in the world. We feel the transformative power of these technologies now seeping into our elections, into our policies, into our daily lives. There are unintended consequences of essentially unbridled unregulated technological development.”

"You have a technological elite and you have ever more concentration of capital amongst a group of people who control … well, “the means of production” is almost a quaint phrase, because these technologies that people control are so much more global. It’s not just about where you work and the product. You help create the political opinions and the way you interact with your friends and your loved ones. It’s the shape of culture and society around you. So we’re clearly on a very dangerous path. And the show now gets the chance to explore what happens 30 years down that path. What does it look like if we keep going in the direction we’re going?"

That is bleak, which is very on theme for Westworld. “So the show is interested in the consequences of these technologies in a world not unlike our own, and our hosts trying to understand the culture they find themselves in,” Nolan continued. “Even the complexities of the 19th-century frontier pale in comparison to a world that does not look like a dystopia — at least at first — but when you get under the hood, there’s plenty of dystopia under the surface.”

Clearly, Nolan has things on his mind. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about Westworld: it’s about heavy stuff, and challenges the audience to think. At the moment, Nolan is very concerned about the “algorithmically determined world” we seem to be living in, where companies try to eliminate the randomness of life by guiding us along paths tailored to our wants and needs and interests, which is a good idea in theory but can also isolate us culturally and intellectually, with disastrous long-term results.

It’s an idea worth exploring, for sure. The problem with Westworld, at least for me, is that all of these lofty philosophical insights often don’t come across onscreen. That goes double for season 2, when the show sometimes felt like the world’s driest philosophy seminar delivered by a professor who clearly thought the world of themselves. I’m hoping season 3 finds its center again.

Reading this interview, you get the idea that Nolan would rather talk about the existential problems facing our world than the show, but he does occasionally touch on how the one affects the other. “For two seasons, we’ve been wondering about Dolores’ world,” he said. “Now she gets a chance to visit our world. We’re now getting her perspective looking at the world going, ‘What a s—show.’ We thought the world of the hosts was bad and overly regulated. She says the line, I think it’s episode 4. She’s like, ‘I thought your world would be so different. There’s no f—ing difference.'”

Caleb. Westworld official. Photograph by John P. Johnson/HBO

Again, bleak. That brings up another thing I’ve always wondered about Westworld: are we supposed to root for Dolores? Because she wants to wipe out humanity…but we’re a part of humanity…that sounds like a hard sell.

Perhaps Nolan and wife Lisa Joy, the other showrunner, considered this, because this year they’re bringing in a major human character named Caleb, someone who’s supposed to represent the better side of humanity. “If you want to create from the ground up someone who embodied the kind of qualities of humanness and humility and kindness, but also introspection and depth, and wrestle with the deeper questions, Aaron Paul is a terrific actor,” Nolan said. “I think in terms of finding someone to stick up for the human side of the equation, you simply could not do any better.”

That said, the hosts are still the stars of the show, including Maeve (Thandie Newton), who wakes up in a World War II-themed park she has to escape, and (the host version of) Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), who’s taking over her (dead) human counterpart’s place at the top of the Delos corporation.

Delos, by the way, is still smarting from the PR disaster that was the first two seasons. I mean, guests killed or captured by rogue robots, the founder of the company murdered by Delores at a big event. How will the company deal?

"There’s a certain amount of fun watching our corporation try to deal with the negative spin from the many casualties of our second season. For every pitch we had in the writers’ room that felt like [a stretch], you should look at the real world. Look at Boeing. What’s the math on that? A couple of hundred people dead. “Well, let’s, let’s keep f—ing around for another six months. Maybe if a couple of hundred more people die, we’ll actually take action.” Right? We sat there and thought of the most cynical version of a plotted element and it was impossible to eclipse the real world. But, yes, the folks at Delos are trying to figure out how to “pivot.”And unbeknownst to them, one of their creations has actually assumed a prominent role in the company in the guise of Charlotte Hale. Who she really is, and what her agenda is, is something that we have a lot of fun with. Now we see the roles reversed, with the host now pulling on the strings a little bit and making their former corporate masters dance."

Nolan’s referring here to the Boeing 737 MAX disasters, where two planes crashed, killing hundreds, because of an automated system that caused the noses of the aircrafts to dip, even though the human pilots were trying to override it. That does sound like a Westworld plot, admittedly.

So now that Westworld has broken loose of the park and come to the “real” world, where does it go after season 3?

"I think a lot of us are wondering what the f— happens next. It’s clear we’re on some kind of ascent phase of the curve. Things are moving very quickly. There’s a global sense of unease. There’s a quote from an author I love. He was writing about the first world war, about what sounded like the rap of the conductor’s baton just before the orchestra started to play. I think we’re all feeling that. We’ve been talking from the first season about the moment data takes control, the moment the steering wheel starts kicking back in your hands and the algorithm has started driving. We’re there. The question of where this goes, I don’t think anyone has an answer. History has a mind of its own."

I don’t know if Nolan was talking about the show or our world here, which sounds about right.

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