The 5 most insane moments from the Westworld season 3 finale

Another season of Westworld is in the books, which means more twists and more questions than ever before. Here are the biggest moments from the season 3 finale.

Is anyone surprised that the final episode of Westworld season 3 was a wild ride? “Crisis Theory” had everything we’ve come to expect from a season ender for this show – a shocking death (or two), the revelation that someone wasn’t who we thought they were, and a hint that things might get even darker in the future.

Sure, this installment was perhaps a bit more straightforward than previous finales – at least until we got to the two post-credits sequences at the end – but that doesn’t mean that the show didn’t pull out all the stops to shock and surprise us.

While, thankfully, Westworld has already been renewed for a fourth season, we’ll probably have to wait a while to see it. The series’ production schedule is generally quite lengthy and even in non-coronavirus affected times, usually took nearly two years between seasons to produce.

At least we’ll have plenty of time to ponder what these shocking twists mean? Here are five of the most jaw-dropping moments from the Westworld finale.

Dolores is dead for real this time

Though Dolores’ plans to overthrow the superpowered AI known as Rehoboam and its algorithmic control of humanity were ultimately successful, she sacrificed her life in the process.  Her memories are ultimately erased, packet-by-packet,

This is Westworld, though, so it’s still very likely we’ll see Dolores again. (After all, HBO has to be loathe to let actress Evan Rachel Wood go, yeah?) But whether or not it’ll be this specific version of our favorite farmer’s daughter is up in the air. Beyond Charlotte, who is having her own identity crisis these days, there is at least one functional Dolores pearl still in existence, in the head of the Lawrence copy that provided explosives for the human rioters.

And, given that we’ve already seen various Delos storage units containing hosts – including the one that provide “our” Dolores with her final body – there’s every chance that some older version of her original operating system is still out there somewhere.

William is also dead and has been replaced by a Man in Black host

We also said goodbye to the human version of William in this episode. In the finale’s post-credits sequence, William discovers Dolores/Charlotte’s secret Delos lair, in which she’s busy building her own host army for what are surely nefarious ends. And when he threatens to kill her, a host version of the Man in Black, arrayed in his classic all black attire emerges and slits his throat.

RIP, Original William.

This sequence leaves is both shocking and intriguing – after all, thanks to the season 2 finale, we already knew that a host William was created at some point. Now we know when that happened.But how we get from this murderous gunslinger to the host that’s reliving his worst moment over and over is unclear. Maybe it has something to do with whatever Charlotte’s plan to overthrow humanity turns out to be?

Bernard has the key to the Valley Beyond

Serac and Maeve spent the entire season hunting Dolores, convinced that she held both the key to the Valley Beyond and all the secret guest data compiled by Delos in her mind. Joke’s on them, however – because that was never the case.

In Delores’ final moments she confesses to Maeve that she always knew she couldn’t trust herself not to do something terrible with that information, or to barter the future of their people in some awful way. So she gave it all to someone she felt was more trustworthy – Bernard.

It’s a surprising revelation in and of itself, but it’s also a deeply satisfying one. Mostly because Bernard hasn’t had much to do this season beyond making dire pronouncements and wandering around with Stubbs. So it’s nice to know that Dolores did bring him from the park for a purpose, and that he still has a role to play in this story. What that role is, we don’t know.

What did Bernard see during his trip to the Valley Beyond? Who did he talk to? And what plans were made? Is the end goal to bring back to the hosts from the Valley Beyond? Or to figure out how to join them there?

Humanity appears to be hanging on by a thread

After Dolores’ plea, Maeve finally picks a side – that of the humanity. She joins forces with Caleb, and it appears as though the two will be co-leaders in whatever this new revolution shapes up to be. The only thing is – is there any hope for it?

Rehoboam predicted multiple mass casualty events and eventual human extinction would result from Dolores and Caleb’s decision to remove the guardrails of the algorithms guiding everyone’s lives and removing “outliers” from society. And by the end of the episode, it sort of seems like one of them might already be started. Giant explosions – most likely engineered by the Dolores pearl in Lawrence – have already started going off even as Caleb and Maeve look out over the city they’ve promised to free. What could the future look like for any of these people? Will there even still be a human race by the time Westworld Season 4 takes place?

We may be headed to the future in Season 4

In the finale’s second post-credits scene, we see Bernard waking up from the sudden sleep/powering down that happened as soon as he put on the headset holding the Valley Beyond code. His body is covered with layer upon layer of dust, indicating that he’s been out of commission for quite some time.

Does this mean that we’ll be well into the future by the time Westworld’s story picks back up? It makes sense. As previously mentioned, humanity seems well on the path to destroying itself. And thanks to the introduction of host William, every main character who is now, for all intents and purposes, immortal. The continuation of Westworld’s story could take place at literally any time – and focus on the fall of the human race, the rise of the robots, or something in between. What kind of world will Bernard emerge from his hotel room to find? One in which humanity has been wiped out by Charlotte’s host army? Or something even worse?

What did you think of Westworld’s third season? Did the finale work for you or not? Let us know in the comments.