Westworld creator says Dolores is “absolutely dead”

The fourth season of Westworld is here, and it wastes no time in reminding us that it’s one of the most twisty, intricate science fiction shows on the air right now. From the return of Ed Harris as the (new and improved) Man in Black to the introduction of Evan Rachel Wood’s new character Christina to the fact that seven years have passed since season 3, the latest episode of Westworld is…well, it is very Westworld.

Christina is perhaps the largest of the myriad mysteries introduced in the season 4 premiere. For the first three seasons, Wood played Dolores, the very first host (android) created for the Westworld park back in the day. During season 3, Dolores sacrificed herself to help destroy the AI supercomputer Rehoboam, freeing humanity from its tyrannical loops.

But on a show like Westworld, it’s very hard to really kill anyone off, since three quarters of the characters are androids that can simply be rebuilt. So is Christina just Dolores 2.0? According to series co-creator Lisa Joy, no.

“Dolores is absolutely dead,” Joy told Deadline. “Her sacrifice was meaningful in that it helped get the world to this place, but it was a sacrifice in that there is no more Dolores.”

"I’m not sure I would call it a version, but you know, there’s this new character, Christina. We’re just along for the ride with her as she experiences the city, dating, being a writer. It’s really nice to be able to not speak wholly in metaphor, to be able to do something contemporary and human, to write roommates, banter and bad dates. I haven’t been able to do that yet. It’s always been a period piece in Westworld."

Yeah, but why is she played by the same actor who played Dolores? “I wanted a really great actor to play this girl, Christina, and I’m hoping people don’t notice because I changed her hair color, but we just cast Evan again. I’m thinking the hair color is going to fool them. They probably won’t recognize her,” Joy joked.

Westworld creators have plans for at least one more season

Westworld takes a notoriously long time between seasons; at least two years, on average. While season 4 is just getting started, fans have been if this is the end. “You never want to tempt the TV gods, but (Westworld co-creator) Jonah (Nolan) and I have always had an ending in mind that we hope to reach. We have not quite reached it yet,” Joy said.

As for this season of Westworld, it got off to a promising start earlier this week. Set seven years after the events of season 3, “The Auguries” introduces viewers to a new era while asking the same sorts of complicated questions Westworld is known for.

“It looks like after Dolores died over seven years ago that she kind of bought freedom for the humans from this massive AI, and they’ve kind of taken a mistrust to general AI,” Joy explained. “You can see it with Caleb where he refused to work with a robot, and now he’s working with a human, but that doesn’t mean that AI is gone. The hosts that remain have clearly been up to different things. In the case of Maeve, she’s been having her Eat, Pray, Love moment alone in Alaska, but maybe some of our hosts have teamed up for more nefarious shenanigans. I think the question that will emerge this season is after a period of unrest, once you’ve kind of earned this détente, this peace, can it stay, or are humans and their kind of inheritors in the form of these hosts somehow predestined to always fall in these loops of fractiousness and fighting and division?”

"Every war is a result of massive failure on everybody’s part,. Besides death and devastation, the thing that really interests me isn’t war itself because it’s so basic and it’s so sad, but the aftermath of war: How humans live with the scars of war, how civilizations kind of pick themselves up or reroute, how culture changes. Every so often people face these kind of generational changing forces. I think we’ve just gone through one ourselves and the question is, well, what is the next step in human evolution?"

Westworld has never shied away from big questions, and it sounds like season 4 will be no different.

Ed Harris is happy to be back to sowing mayhem as the Man in Black

Dolores isn’t the only one who met their maker in Westworld season 3. The season’s final moments showed William, aka the Man in Black (Ed Harris), discovering a secret facility where Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) was creating an army of hosts. And leading that army was none other than an android doppelganger of the Man in Black himself, who seemingly killed off his human counterpart.

The host version of the Man in Black is one of the main drivers of the season premiere; he brings about the deaths of some drug cartel leaders in order to take their high tech data banks before he sets a bunch of host soldiers after Maeve and Caleb. William may be gone, but the Man in Black is back up to his old tricks which is fine by Harris.

“That damn white jumpsuit loony-bin deal [in season 3] wasn’t my favorite. It’s just nice to get back to the Man in Black Western outfit,” Harris told USA Today. “This is what I signed up to do. And when I’m in it, it feels good.”

Harris seems pretty aware that it wasn’t only him who didn’t enjoy season 3’s weirder turns. “I’ve talked to people who really loved Season 1, hung with Season 2 and then got a little lost in Season 3. So I hope the audience comes back and checks out Season 4.”

New episodes of Westworld season 4 drop Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels