Westworld Season 3 - What We Know So Far

While the first two seasons of Westworld have been told mostly from the points of view of Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and the Man in Black (Ed Harris), if the first teaser is any indication, season three seems to be taking a sharp left turn. The intriguing glimpse at Westworld's new season follows a brand new character, played by Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul, through a series of events in what appears to be the "real" world outside of Delos' park. 

From Paul's voiceover narration, it sounds as though the world he inhabits isn't much of an improvement on the park, as he talks about his sense that, although things may look nice on the surface, the beauty may be little more than a coat of fresh paint slapped on over a rotten core. He laments that "they" (Delos?) have made an attempt to smooth over the world's rough edges, making it all a "lie," and ends his monologue with his hope of finding something "real" — at which point the trailer finally shows us a familiar face, with Paul coming upon an injured Dolores and asking if he can help. 

And as we know from previous seasons, the men who offer to help Dolores are rarely all that they seem, nor do they tend to get what they expect. 

As one of HBO's most prestigious drama series, a lot is involved in bringing Westworld to our TV screens. While the show was impressively vast in its scope from its very first episode, it has only grown since then, with subsequent seasons venturing into new territories and spinning out increasingly ambitious and sprawling storylines. The first season of the series reportedly took three years to bring to life, and then there was a 17-month hiatus between seasons 1 and 2. Put in perspective, the 21-month wait for season 3 isn't all that out of character for the groundbreaking sci-fi series.

Westworld season 3 also introduced a new shooting location, which further nods to its ever-increasing reach. The show's first two seasons were filmed largely in California and Utah, but season 3 expanded production to Singapore, where the series spent ten days filming. And although season 3 will consist of only eight episodes (the first two seasons had ten each), we don't yet know exactly how long those installments will be, leaving it unclear how the runtime of the season as a whole will measure up to those prior.

Another factor that may play a factor in season 3's long production timeline is the effort that goes into making sure the show's complex storylines unfold in just the right way. Even ahead of season 1, actor James Marsden mentioned to EW that Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were already planning five or six years down the line. Marsden said the showrunners wanted to make sure everything was set up early on in such a way that they could satisfyingly pay it off once they eventually reached the end of the series — which, if Marsden's initial prediction of "five or seven years down the line" is any indication, may still be a ways off. Still, if Nolan and Joy's meticulous planning was enough to cause delays all the way back in season 1, we can only imagine how much more difficult their job has become by season 3. No wonder it's taken so long.

While a number of familiar faces are returning for season three, the end of season two marked a definitive farewell for several others. Anthony Hopkins' park creator Robert Ford has been dead since the end of season one, and although he continued to appear regularly in flashbacks and visions, according to series creator Lisa Joy, he's now gone for good. 

Meanwhile, Jimmi Simpson's character, William, will still be very much alive in season three, but will be portrayed exclusively by Ed Harris, as Simpson revealed at TCA that he hasn't been asked to return. In previous seasons, Harris played the older William, while Simpson portrayed his younger counterpart. As for Shannon Woodward's determined truth-seeker Elsie, she was tragically murdered at the end of season two, and Jonathan Nolan has confirmed that — while "there's never any real saying goodbye" in Westworld — for now, at least, Elsie is truly gone. 

Less clear is the fate of James Marsden's stalwart cowboy, Teddy. Introduced in the pilot episode, Teddy spent the majority of his time on the show as Dolores' most devoted protector and ally, until he realized that she had altered his programming. Teddy committed suicide near the end of season two, determined to die rather than become a monster — but Dolores left his brain pearl in the Forge, leaving his consciousness free to cross over into the Sublime. Nothing has yet been said one way or another about Marsden's return, but since this is Westworld, we know better than to rule anything out. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter following the conclusion of season two, Westworld co-creator and showrunner Lisa Joy confirmed that the storybook is closed for the hosts whose consciousnesses crossed into the grassy plains of the Sublime while their mechanical bodies plummeted off a cliff. "They're gone," Joy said of the Sublimed hosts, which included Ghost Nation leader Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), his lost love Kohana (Julia Jones), and Maeve's daughter (Jasmyn Rae). 

"The stakes and the finality of it are important," Joy continued. "It's not something where I think the humans can type it up and get back in and start messing with them anymore. It's what so many hosts sacrificed so much for, to see their kind to this safe space." So although we are used to seeing Westworld hosts get killed and resurrected, it sounds as though this time will be different, with the hosts in the Sublime no more revivable than the human beings who perished in the finale. 

By the end of season two, the real Charlotte Hale is dead and gone, murdered by her host doppelgänger, which was imbued with the consciousness of Dolores. However, this new, host version of Charlotte successfully makes it out of the park, and is ultimately able to construct a new Dolores host body to inhabit. 

But just because Dolores wore Hale's body out of the park doesn't mean that there are now two versions of Dolores. "Eh, not really," Nolan said when asked by EW if season three will follow double Doloreses. "The question of who's who and what we're looking at is something we're excited to play with. We're excited to withhold a little from the audience but ... it's complicated."

It's an intriguing answer, and one Tessa Thompson is eager to explore in season three. "It's a total game changer," Thompson said in an interview with THR. "I want to put on a lot of different characters. That to me is the real exciting potential in all of this." Whether Thompson will be permitted to "get [her] Tatiana Maslany on" (referring to Maslany's work on Orphan Black as multiple clones) is anyone's guess, but we can only hope she gets her wish. 

While the earliest episodes of Westworld took place almost exclusively within the park, as the series has progressed, so has the scope of its setting, with much of season two venturing into the world outside. Now, with Dolores, Bernard, and the Charlotte host all on the outside, the showrunners are eager to see what sorts of storytelling opportunities this vast new setting opens up. 

"It was always the plan to explore the real world," Joy told The Wrap. "There are three Hosts out in the world and next season will really be an exploration of what they find and who they become." 

Given that Dolores and Bernard were two of the most central characters in season two, it's probably safe to assume that with both of them on the outside, season three may wind up spending more time outside the walls of the park. Add to that the first teaser, which seems to take place exclusively in the real world, and it would be reasonable to wonder whether the Westworld-centric days of Westworld might be over. 

Once the screen faded to black at the end of "The Passenger," there was still one final curious tease awaiting viewers after the credits. In a short scene, we follow Ed Harris' Man in Black as he stumbles out of an elevator, badly injured, and meets his (dead) daughter Emily (Katja Herbers) in the rubble of what he assumes must be part of the park. At first, he assumes his consciousness has been uploaded to the Forge, muttering in defeat, "I'm already in the thing, aren't I?" 

But host-Emily is quick to assure him that "the system's long gone," and that, "this isn't a simulation." The conversation that follows echoes the ones that we saw earlier in the season between the younger William and James Delos, in which William repeatedly tested the host body that housed Delos' consciousness, waiting for it to break down. William discerns that he's now a host, and when he asks how many times he's been tested, Emily responds that it's been "a long time."  

Lisa Joy confirmed to The Wrap that Emily is telling the truth, and William — or at least, this version of William — is now in "a very different timeline," one in which William "has been somehow reconjured and brought into this world and [is] being tested." And while so far, that post-credits scene has set up far more questions than answers, Joy promises "that is a storyline that one day we'll see more of."

After having our Westworld appetites whetted by the Aaron Paul-centric teaser HBO released in May of 2019, the network finally dropped a full trailer at San Diego Comic Con in July, which focused a lot more on familiar characters, including Dolores, Bernard, Maeve, the Charlotte Hale host, and Stubbs. While the Comic Con trailer teases all sorts of exciting new developments and settings — including the Dolores vs. Maeve showdown the show has been seeming to build toward since the beginning — one piece seems particularly intriguing. 

Although Maeve was last seen shot to death outside the entrance to the Sublime, the Comic Con trailer finds her looking as good as new, in a place that looks a lot like Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. This may very well be a glimpse at one of the remaining three parks we haven't yet seen. While at first glance, World War II doesn't exactly seem like a prime vacation spot, if there's one thing we've learned about the elite clientele of Delos' theme parks, it's that they're drawn to violent settings where enemies lurk around every corner. But since a World War II park is possibly an even worse place for a woman of color to exist than a Wild West park, we can only hope that Maeve isn't stuck there for long. 

While viewers of Westworld are no strangers to artificial lifeforms, season 3 will introduce us to a different type of robot than the human-presenting hosts we're used to. Shown hanging out with Aaron Paul's construction worker Caleb in HBO's initial teaser for season three, George is a standard construction robot, Delos model G-267. Built to serve as a helpful co-worker for Caleb, George doesn't speak, and likely won't have much in common with his mechanical counterparts from inside the park. 

"Part of what our hosts find," Nolan said in an interview with EW, speaking about Dolores and the other hosts who escaped the park into the real world at the end of the second season, "[is that] they're caught in between — they're fashioned to look like human beings and act like them, but they have more in common with the mechanical pieces in our world." Robots like George and the other real-world worker-bots glimpsed in the full season 3 trailer will play an important role in the upcoming season, contrasting the human-like traits of the hosts with their mechanical origins. These more utilitarian robots like George have "been designed for a specific purpose," Nolan said, "and the hosts have been designed to be emotional mirrors for us."  

Obviously, Westworld is an HBO original, so the easiest way to tune into its newest episodes as they drop is to subscribe to the premium cable channel. However, there are still a number of ways to tune in if you've cut the cord on cable, although some of them will require more patience than others (and after waiting so long for Westworld season 3, patience may be in short supply).

If you want to watch new episodes of Westworld as they air, or very shortly thereafter, all roads wind up leading back to HBO. Even if you don't have cable, you can subscribe directly to HBO through HBO NOW, the channel's à la carte streaming service. The benefit of watching via HBO NOW is that new episodes are available for streaming as soon as they premiere on TV, so you can watch at the same time as your cable-subscribing friends. Or, if you're already a Hulu or Amazon Prime subscriber, you can simply add HBO onto your existing plan, enabling you to watch all of HBO's programming through your preferred streaming app. Both Hulu and Amazon Prime offer a 7-day free trial for their HBO add-ons — after that it is $14.99 per month, the same price you'd pay for subscribing directly to HBO NOW. With any of these services, you should get access to the new episodes as they air.

For those willing to wait a little longer, full seasons of Westworld become available for purchase through iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu once the season finishes airing on HBO. If you decide to go this route, be prepared to shell out either $2.99 per episode, if you purchase them piecemeal, or around $30 for the full season (season 2 of Westworld will run you $28.99 on Vudu and Google Play, and $29.99 on iTunes). Of course, if you're a physical media collector, the previous seasons of Westworld are available on Blu-ray and 4K UHD, so you can expect season 3 to hit those formats in a few months.