Westworld season 3 continues this Sunday on HBO with an episode that – finally – seems poised to give us some answers about the mysterious Serac.
Westworld shook things up last week with an episode that brought back The Man in Black and revealed that Dolores has literally been everywhere – and everyone – at once all season long.
Where does season 3 go from here? We don’t know, but if the episode trailer for the season’s fifth episode, entitled “Genre” is anything to go by, the answer may be back to the past.
The trailer indicates that we’ll be meeting a younger version of the mysterious Serac, and learning more about the destruction of Paris that he referenced to Maeve in the last episode.
Perhaps we’ll also learn more about how Rehoboam came to be. We already know that this particular AI wasn’t the first build of its kind. In keeping with the Biblical naming tradition, its predecessor was called Solomon. (Rehoboam was the son of Solomon in the Old Testament.) But what did that look like – and why did it need such a drastic upgrade?
Given how powerful Serac it’s remarkable how little anyone appears to know about him. This appears to be a deliberate choice on his part – earlier season 3 episodes indicate that he likes to stay relatively off the grid – and in an age in which everyone is chipped and coded and fingerprinted within an inch of their lives it makes a certain amount sense.
Privacy is the real valuable in this world.
Which, of course, makes his decision to go after Delos now even more…well, it’s confusing, to say the least. (Surely, he could simply steal the data he wants from Dolores without acquiring the company?)
The official synopsis for this episode is maybe the briefest in Westworld history, but also immediately calls to mind some tantalizing possibilities.
"Just say no."
Is that comment meant for Caleb – who, it appears, has yet to say no to Dolores about anything, including getting injected with a stranger’s blood and kidnapping someone at gunpoint? Or is it meant for Dolores, who’s inching closer to power? Or is that warning for someone else entirely?
As per usual, we’ll have to tune in and see.
Westworld season 3 continues Sunday at 9pm ET on HBO.