Westworld season three will still mess with your head

It’s always delighted in trying to spin a complex web, daring its audience to solve its complex puzzles.

Westworld has always, from the very beginning, been a puzzler.

It’s not just its characters that are asked to question their reality – the show routinely demands the same of its audience.

Maybe not in an existential way, but certainly in what they’re seeing on screen. Who’s real? Who’s not? What’s the real agenda? When is any of this even happening? Is it happening?

Westworld is a series that has taken great joy in messing with people’s minds, waving one shiny bauble in front of us in a misdirect while it fiddles with some other stuff over there.

The problem is, the internet being what it is, many of the show’s complex, layered mysteries were unravelled by observant and obsessive fans before the show’s creators, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, intended.

As much as the show delights in its intricate plotting, and deliberate obfuscations, it’s had to change tack a little bit, shifting focus more to the ideas that fuel the series, rather than investing so much on trying to outsmart its audience.

Westworld returns to explore free will over determinism

In the third season, starting today on Foxtel, expect Westworld to be more straightforward, though it still has some secrets it’s waiting to reveal.

It’s a gripping, opulent series with incredibly beautiful visuals that tip to classic film noir and Blade Runner. It has its flaws, but it’s also addictive.

Just a quick recap if you’ve forgotten where things were left almost two years ago when the first season wrapped up.

The pleasure theme park Westworld, in which cashed-up humans play out their fantasies with hosts (robots) was shot up in the internal rebellion led by host Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) though originally orchestrated by its founder Ford (Anthony Hopkins).

Dolores is Westworld’s oldest host and among the first to experience sentience. She also discovered the park’s true purpose is a data exercise in which it collected the personal information, experiences and mind-maps of its human guests.

Maeve has been set up as a foil to Dolores

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Dolores escaped to the “real world” beyond the park’s borders in the fallout from the massacre which saw scores of humans killed. She also downloaded that library of invaluable data into a secret repository only she can unlock.

Now in the real world, she’s not alone, having brought along a small number of “pearls” (data storage for the profiles of hosts) to aid her in her quest to bring down the people who created and enslaved them. The only host we know for certain she smuggled out is Bernard (Jeffrey Wright).

Maeve (Thandie Newton) was killed and left in the park – presumably she can be resurrected.

As the third season starts, it’s clear that we’re moving into a very different place, a futuristic version of our world, though not that far into the future.

The advanced technology here is an expansion or exaggeration of what we’re already using – driverless cars to transport us around, augmented reality glasses – and in that way, that’s what makes it all the more chilling that everything that’s designed to make our lives easier will be used against us.

Not just by the machines that we created, but by humans.

Aaron Paul is a new addition to the cast

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Nolan and Joy are warning us about what many of us already know – that Big Data, which has more information on you then you could possibly imagine, could be used to determine your value and future as ascribed to you, not by you.

Westworld spent two seasons mulling over free will as it applied to hosts, beings capable of sentience but who were created for the service and needs of others. They played specific roles in a narrative written for them, as brothel madams, as innocent farm girls or as the black hat villain.

Then the show evolved that concept to explore that humans, with free will, are also stuck in a loop, doomed to repeat patterns of behaviour, maybe because of something in our genetic material or maybe because of social engineering.

This season, Westworld has swapped out that loop for a cage, it’s the word that comes up the most in dialogue across the first four episodes made available for review.

And it’s not just the hosts trapped within their determined roles, it’s humans too – our future paths limited by the sum of our past choices, trapped in a cage built by big data.

Westworld introduces new character Caleb (Aaron Paul), a human, and he becomes a stand-in to process this dynamic. Paul is a great addition to an already strong cast, matching the intensity of performances from Wood, Wright, Newton and Tessa Thompson.

Westworld continues to have outstanding production values

But there’s a flipside to Westworld’s cerebral exploration of free will versus determinism – it can be cold and distancing.

In the past, there have been storylines with more of an emotional grounding, especially in Maeve’s subplot, but, at least in the early episodes, the series is so enamoured with exploring its philosophical concepts, it’s overlooked the heart.

In season two, the most outstanding episode was a bit of a stand-alone story about Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), a host character from the theme park’s Ghost Nation tribe. It was stirring, romantic and heartbreaking.

So it’s not as though the series can’t hit those emotional highs. Perhaps it’s still setting up for the pay-off later in the year and Dolores will be more than just a vengeance machine.

In the meantime, it’s still an intriguing show, and it’s certainly jaw-dropping in its visuals. The location manager outdid themselves, setting many of the exterior shots in Singapore, renowned for its modern architectural design.

If nothing else, Westworld’s visuals are truly a marvel to look at.

Westworld season three is on Fox Showcase and Foxtel Now on Mondays at 8.30pm

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