Review: Westworld 301, “Parce Domine”

Time to go back to the park…kind of! Westworld’s third season kicked off tonight, and if there were any doubts that the show would start strong, they’ve been laid thoroughly to rest. “Parce Domine” has a lot of the elements the show has become known for — great plot twists, moral questions surrounding technology, incredible acting, writing, and music — but at the same time, it was decidedly…different. Westworld is a show that has had to reinvent itself each season, thanks to ambitious plot arcs that closed out the prior two seasons with huge game changers. Last season ended with Dolores and Bernard escaping the park and taking refuge in the real world, so it’s been a given that this season was likely going to be the biggest departure of all.

The hour-and-eight minute-long premiere does not disappoint those of us who have been waiting to see what happened next. There’s a lot to talk about here, so let’s get right to it. It should go without saying, but if you haven’t seen the episode yet…go watch it! Then come back and talk about it with us. SPOILERS are the name of the game in this post, my friend.

The premiere kicks off with an eerie location screen that’s almost reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed, letting us know that the third season’s opening sequence is set in China. There’s something disconcertingly timely about watching millionaire Jerry receiving reports of the crisis at the Delos parks which occurred during last season, freaking out because he wants to sell all his stakes in the company but can’t…and then proceeding to tell his wife that he “doesn’t want her to go to town at all anymore. It’s a security risk.” Considering that this episode was filmed months and months ago, it only makes it more arresting how relevant this feels to current events.

Right from those opening moments, it’s clear that Westworld is a very different sort of show this year, taking the leap from western sci-fi epic to a more modern cyber thriller. While it’s all but a certainty that we’ll be going back to the actual Westworld park at some point (or at the very least, Nazi-Germany-World), to judge by the premiere, the park that the show is developing for us this year is the real world itself. The sights are an absolute feast for the eyes, and the attention to detail is through the roof. The third season is showing us how the people of the future are living in a way that the previous two seasons, which were set almost entirely in the parks, couldn’t.

Aside from the new scenery, the other key change that is put front and center is the advanced technology, which is embedded into every level of society. Much of it so similar to technology that already exists today that you can’t help but take a step back and think about it in a new light. Skype-style hologram calls, planes that bear a striking resemblance to drones, smart houses, self-driving motorcycles, in-ear transmitters…there is hardly a scene in the premiere that doesn’t introduce some sort of nearly-recognizable tech.

But if the tech seems familiar, the characters who survived the previous two seasons don’t. From the moment Dolores Abernathy appears on screen, it’s immediately apparent that she is much changed even from her days as a vengeful revolutionary. The opening sequence conveys this through Evan Rachel Wood’s fantastically chilling acting to the almost demonic firelight to Ramin Djawadi’s music. Like Westworld itself, Dolores has had to constantly reinvent herself…and from what we can glean from the premiere, this season may well hold her biggest changes yet.

But for all that darkness, there’s also a humanity to Dolores that was missing last season when she was on the war path. “I’ve hurt so many people,” she tells Jerry when he asks if she’s going to kill him. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else…unless they try to hurt me first.”

Alas, quite a few people try to hurt Dolores this episode…and it doesn’t end well for any of them. Evan Rachel Wood has some excellent action scenes, including one absolutely brutal long shot that utilizes a car’s rearview cam. Despite claiming she doesn’t want to hurt people anymore, she’s still basically the Terminator, and doesn’t hesitate to use deadly force when she deems it necessary.

After all, it’s hard to break our loops, isn’t it?

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

As good as Dolores’ scenes are, the premiere really stretches its legs with the introduction of the new human character, Caleb (Aaron Paul). It’s no small task to come on a show like this that has had more or less the same core leads since season 1, and this episode spent an awful lot of time getting the audience up to speed on how this down-on-his-luck construction worker/petty criminal/war vet fits into the picture. It should go without saying that Paul’s acting is brilliant; he’s a great addition to an already great show.

But as with so much else this episode, the insane attention to detail is what really drives Caleb’s material to the next level. The show draws parallels between him and Dolores as she was in the series premiere, right down to the way that Caleb wakes up three times and has conversations with his therapy AI, which are reminiscent of Dolores’ interviews with Arnold. It’s an episode highlight.

Aaron Paul Westworld season 3. Official

In “Parce Domine,” we see the hosts struggle to fit into a world run by humans, but Caleb is a human and isn’t faring any better. Thus far, the only human beings we’ve seen on the show have been either scientists or the social elite, the kind of people rich enough to afford a trip to Westworld. But Caleb is an average working person, and may have more in common with the hosts than the humans who created them. It brings a whole new dimension to the show.

In a show filled with robots, the technology feels coldest and most alien in Caleb’s scenes. Having to talk to an AI voice rendering of a deceased person to help with the mourning process? Using an app to sign up for crimes (which felt an awful lot like a real-life video game)? And I know I’m not the only one who groaned with empathy when he realized he was on the phone with a robot voice near the end of the episode.

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

The wild card of the episode is Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), who it turns out has been framed for the disastrous events of season 2. He’s been in hiding somewhere that looks like China, working at a cattle processing plant while he tries to figure out what Dolores is planning. After being accosted by some coworkers who want to hand him over for the reward on his head, he books passage on a boat to an island off the coast…in search of a friend in Westworld.

We spent around 99% of the episode with these three characters, making this a pretty tightly focused premiere. Since there’s been a three-month time jump from the end of season 2, a lot of the episode is spent showing where all the pieces are now positioned on the chess board, and setting up what’s to come. Despite that, it still felt like an awful lot happened, and the ending crossover between Dolores and Caleb left me eagerly awaiting next week.

The biggest question I left the premiere with involved Dolores’s plan. Through her, we learn that mega tech company Incite has developed an AI called Rehoboam that can predict people’s life paths in order to help them “unlock their potential.” (Kind of a funny name for such a technology, but sure). She wants access to it, but why? What is she planning to do to humanity once she has it?

This episode’s title, “Parce Domine,” come from a Latin chant that roughly translates to “Spare, Lord, spare your people: Be not angry with us forever” … but if God is feeling forgiving, Dolores certainly is not. The episode is bookended with instances of her taking vengeance on people who visited the park, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she continues to struggle with her impulse towards vengeance throughout the rest of the season. As she tells Conells (Tommy Flanagan) seconds before having him killed and replaced by a host:

“The real gods are coming. And they’re very angry.”

Other Takeaways:

• That post-credits scene! Maeve is in what looks like a World War II-themed park. Could this be where all the hosts who survived the catastrophic events of season 2 were placed for safekeeping?
• The fact that Jerry slips and falls into the very same pool where he claimed his first wife “drank too much, slipped, and hit her head” is visual poetry, and a great example of Westworld’s amazing writing this season. This truly feels like a show at the top of its game.
• Caleb’s work-for-hire app, Rico, has every sort of job from “Smash & Grab” to “Babysitting.” I found myself thinking of Grand Theft Auto more than once when he was watching it…and then I went back and paused it on the screen. “Grand Theft Auto” is literally one of the jobs listed on his phone! Seems like an intentional nod if ever there was one.
• What are the little discs that people eat? They were used both as sleeping pills (seemingly) and during the club scene with Caleb. Some sort of technological substitute for drugs?
• The location screens, which say things like “Anomaly Detected” seem innocuous at first…but could they actually be giving us a glimpse through the eyes of Rehoboam?
• It doesn’t seem like the Delos board know that Bernard is a host. And since we know from last season that Charlotte is a host controlled by Dolores, the fact that she’s basically in charge of the company and just ordered production on hosts to resume seems aaawful foreboding.

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