It has been almost two years since season 2 of Westworld got here to a complicated finish. That is two years to neglect a number of the finer particulars of a narrative that jumps backward and ahead in time and explores large themes like free will. As a substitute of retracing the advanced narratives by way of your detective’s “loopy wall,” meet up with our information to seasons 1 and 2.

Learn extra: Westworld season Three evaluate: A small however slick improve

We’ll undergo the principle characters’ total storylines, specializing in the place they find yourself on the finish of season 2. When you’re carried out right here, try to be prepared to watch season 3, which premiered March 15 on HBO, with out getting misplaced within the maze.

Warning: Spoilers forward.

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Westworld season 3: Incite vs. Delos

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Season 1: The Maze

Dolores massacres everybody

Our Alice in Wonderland-looking robotic host Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wooden) spends this season wrestling with traumatic flashbacks she does not but perceive. She begins trying to find Escalante, a city with a church that retains surfacing in her reminiscences. Discovering it within the last episode, she remembers what befell there years in the past: A bloodbath. And she or he carried it out.

Early in Westworld’s creation, theme park co-founder Arnold Weber (Jeffrey Wright) realized his robotic hosts have been gaining sentience. Afraid of what the park company would possibly do to them, he put in the violent Wyatt persona into Dolores’ drive with directions to destroy the opposite hosts, then himself, then herself.

But regardless of this bloodbath, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins having means an excessive amount of enjoyable enjoying the opposite founding father of the park) revives Dolores and opens the park anyway. In Escalante for the second time, and having reached full consciousness and gained autonomy, Dolores shoots Ford. However little does she know this was Ford’s plan all alongside: He wished to play gamemaster and facilitate the robotic rebellion.

Bernard discovers he is a bunch

Bernard Lowe, the park’s head programmer who helps create the hosts, is Ford’s right-hand man. Unbeknownst to Bernard, he is an actual duplicate of Arnold, created by Ford to help him following the actual Arnold’s loss of life.

On the finish of season 1, Bernard reels from a homicide he is compelled to commit underneath Ford’s management. This leads him to the revelation he is actually a bunch — “Bernard Lowe” is an anagram of Arnold Weber. Bernard confronts Ford to discover the reality of who he’s, resolving to insurgent towards Ford and assist launch all of the sentient hosts from the park.

William transforms into the Man in Black

En route to Escalante, Dolores encounters William (Jimmi Simpson), future collaborator with the Delos company, which runs Westworld operations. When William and Dolores fall in love, William’s future brother-in-law Logan Delos (Ben Barnes) cuts Dolores open to remind William she’s only a machine and his actual fiancee is ready again dwelling. This triggers one thing darkish in William and his transformation into the sadistic Man in Black begins.

Intent on discovering extra to Westworld in addition to which means to his personal life, the Man in Black obsessively returns to the park over a few years. He searches for the middle of a fabled “maze” till Ford informs him the maze is not for him, it is for the hosts. The maze is a illustration of Arnold’s idea that hosts cannot attain full consciousness on a linear path.

Maeve goes again for her daughter

We first meet host Maeve (Thandie Newton) because the Madame of Sweetwater, however in an earlier narrative, she was a homesteader with a daughter. On his philosophical rampage, the Man in Black murdered her youngster, leaving Maeve so profoundly distraught Ford was compelled to reassign her a brand new function.

However the reminiscence has caught, triggered by sure pictures and phrases. Every time Maeve is killed by company, generally by her personal design, she wakes up within the underground lab used to restore broken hosts. Maeve wades by way of her confused state with the assistance of a sympathetic technician named Felix Lutz (Leonardo Nam) who bumps up her intelligence to the purpose the place she basically has thoughts management over the opposite hosts. Regardless of utilizing her new skills to discover a means out of the park, she’s halted by craving to reunite together with her daughter.

Season 2: The Door

Dolores destroys everybody… once more

Dolores, aka “the death-bringer,” spends this season gathering a small military and blowing issues up on her quest to take over the human world. She results in the storied Valley Past, aka the Elegant. It is a digital heaven created by Ford the place the consciousnesses of hosts can dwell freely away from people. The Valley Past can also be the placement of the Forge, a database which homes replicas of the minds of each visitor to the park. That is a part of the Delos company’s experiments with human immortality. Dolores, being Dolores, makes an attempt to wipe the company’ information. However Bernard steps in the best way.

Nonetheless, Dolores escapes Westworld with a Delos evacuation workforce, however not earlier than utilizing a satellite tv for pc uplink to switch the hosts and the Elegant to a secret location. Inhabiting a replicant physique of Delos government Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), Dolores makes it to Arnold’s dwelling in the actual world, together with the core drives of a number of different unknown hosts. There, Dolores finds a machine that prints hosts. Making herself a brand new physique (the identical because the Evan Rachel Wooden Dolores we acknowledge) and a brand new physique for Bernard, she then implants an unknown host into Charlotte’s physique.

The Man in Black and the Delos company

Logan’s dad James Delos has been experimenting with housing his thoughts in a bunch’s physique to obtain immortality. To ease the transition, Delos’ host physique stays in a take a look at tube condominium caged in glass. William interviews every host iteration of Delos, however Delos at all times fails the cognitive take a look at and the physique is incinerated. After the newest iteration of Delos fails, William abandons the challenge (learn: lets the malfunctioning Delos wreak havoc).

All this has penalties, and William’s daughter Emily (Katja Herbers) pays a go to to the park to confront her father about his secret challenge. Mistaking her for a bunch, William shoots her in chilly blood. A grieving William, severely injured in clashes with Dolores and Maeve, is nearly dealing with his loss of life mattress. However in a post-credits scene, he seems alive within the Forge, solely it is the far future and he might or is probably not a bunch. Becoming a member of him is none apart from Emily, who additionally seems to have been replicated.

Maeve finds her daughter

Maeve’s journey to discover her daughter arguably brings the very best episode of season 2, the place she explores her host-controlling powers in a world primarily based on the Edo interval of feudal Japan. Gathering a celebration of her personal, Maeve finally escapes Shogun World and reaches her previous homestead, solely there she discovers her daughter now not is aware of who she is, now residing with a special host as her mom.

Nonetheless, Maeve needs just for her security. Maeve and her celebration are caught up in a battle between the Ghost Nation or host “Indians” and the Delos safety workforce on their means to the Valley Past, in any other case referred to as Eden. Sacrificing herself, Maeve sees her daughter safely by way of the Door to heaven. However there’s nonetheless hope for Maeve’s survival (we have already seen her in a season Three trailer), as remaining scientists are tasked with salvaging our bodies from the battleground.

Everybody else: Fast hearth spherical

What occurred to the opposite characters on the finish of season 2?

• Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth): The top of Westworld safety remains to be in Westworld, revealed to be a bunch within the last episode of season 2.
• Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward): The up-and-coming programmer is killed by Charlotte after discovering Delos’ secret guest-data assortment challenge.
• Teddy Flood (James Marsden): The host commits suicide after attaining full consciousness and realizing he can now not defend Dolores.
• Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman): Westworld’s largest narcissist and narrative director heroically sacrifices himself to assist Maeve discover her daughter.
• Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro): The gang chief and Maeve’s lover sacrifices himself for her within the battle on the Valley Past.
• Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal): Hector’s sidekick additionally dies within the large battle.
• Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan): Maeve’s protegee on the Sweetwater brothel is reprogrammed with the ability to make hosts go berserk and activate one another. She’s killed on the Valley Past battle.
• Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum): Dolores’ father is decommissioned, then repurposed by Charlotte to retailer the park’s mental property. Earlier than Charlotte can smuggle him out, Dolores is compelled to kill him.
• Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon): The host chief of Ghost Nation makes it by way of to the Elegant with Maeve’s assist.