WESTWORLD Season 4 Episode 3 Breakdown & E...

WESTWORLD Season 4 Episode 3 Breakdown & Ending Explained | Review, Easter Eggs, Theories And More

Westworld s4 e3

Westworld Season 4 Episode 3 is filled with major reveals, a tonne of easter eggs and lots of things that call back to the first season.

 

Callbacks to Earlier Seasons

We start off with Bernard who we last left entering the sublime at the end of the third season. We begin with him waking up, a motif that starts off several character arcs in the show.

We find him in Arnold’s house, a place that Season 2 ended at and it was also where Delores ran most of her operations from early on in Season 3. He’s holding the maze in his hand which is snatched by his son Charlie who is alive and well in this simulation. You can instantly tell this isn’t the real world due to the aspect ratio going 16:9 which is something that’s always used in a simulation. Bernard follows him out into a great green field, which is something that we’ve seen in the sublime at several points.

This is also where Serac took Maeve at the start of Season 3 episode 6, and there are other things that callback to the series here.

We can catch a tree up on a hill and this looks similar to the one that Delores spent her loop in the park painting. It’s also where she died in the simulation and running away from it is a white horse. A white horse was used in the earlier credits sequences but its meaning goes beyond that. White Horses are symbolic on several levels and they can either mean death or triumph over adversity. Clementine rode one at the end of Season 2 when she was carrying a killer virus that made the hosts turn on each other. Akecheta also saw one running through the graveyard before it hit the town after stumbling on the massacre there in Season 2 episode 8.

The tree itself ends up burning further bringing up biblical imagery and Akecheta also returns.

Bernard’s Timelines

This idea of a tree also reflects Bernard, who sees several timeline branches, some of which can lead to destruction.

Westworld s4 episode 3 Bernard

However, Bernard has to take a couple more trips down memory lane first and he sees not only the saloon from Westworld but also the massacre carried out by Teddy and Delores…well…look it’s complicated. The wolf is also there and this had several hidden meanings such as its tie to Native American cultures and the fact that Wolves mate for life and hunt in packs.

This massacre was later reflected in the Westworld massacre at the end of the first season which gets its own nod by the end of the episode.

Bernard then steps into the streets from the end of Season 3 and we can see the word Incite there which was the name of the company that Serac owned. Bernard also spots the tower, an important thing that’s popped up in these first three episodes and he walks along a pathway surrounded by water similar to the entrance to Delos. This likely hints at the tower being owned by Hale and that she’s running it from Delos.

Inside he has a sit down that reminded me a lot of The Matrix and we learn that the other hosts are off in paradises of their choosing. With this being a programme they can select what’s best for them but Bernard has chosen to remain in the past, hinting that he still has ties to the real world.

Bernard The Saviour?

It’s at this point that he’s given a gift and we discover that one year in the real world is 1000 in the sublime. It’s been talked about quite a lot how time moves slower in the simulation than it does in reality and this was seen in Episode 2 from Season 3 when Maeve monitored Incite’s sim farms the level up from where she was.

The hosts inside the Sublime have spent this time mapping out every single choice and outcome that they give to Bernard. He is now the only person that can save the world as he’s seen all the pathways and knows all the outcomes. He very much becomes a host version of Rehoboam who, using a complex algorithm, could predict and adjust its plans to plot a course for the future in which humanity is saved. It’s a complicated concept and the simplest way I can think to explain it centres pretty much around a video game level.

If you’ve played the level time and time again then you know where all the enemies are and how to navigate them. However, you won’t play it exactly the same every single time because it’s impossible to do that due to minor variables. Some enemies may pop up when you’re in a slightly different position to how you approached it last time and you yourself might even try something different. The level is still exactly the same though so you adjust your route due to the knowledge to get the same outcome and complete it.

I hope that makes sense but Bernard basically has the position of every possible outcome, he just needs to adjust things to stay on certain pathways.

Unfortunately for him, every scenario leads to his death and though he could stay in the sublime he decides to return home.

When Does This Happen?

Now we’re taking a big L here as we thought him waking up was years in the future but it’s probably only been the 8 that’s been brought up time and time again.

However, this could still be far in the future though we don’t quite get it confirmed.

Now I’ve admitted I’m wrong yeah, and I want you to admit, you find these breakdowns to be…ok…so as a thank you yeah, just hit the thumbs up button mate you sumoffabich.

Anyway, he starts taking Stubbs through the motion who’s been stubborn and stayed there guarding over him. In Season 3 Bernard rewrote his programming after finding him in the park and he’s guarded over him ever since. Bernard now wants to test some things to see which specific timeline they’re on as there are so many with slight variations that it would be difficult to decide after just waking up even though he does have some idea.

Maeve & Caleb

After the titles, we see Maeve and Caleb arriving in Temperance. This mafia-esque trip to the 20s is set in a recreation of Chicago which was home to gangsters at the time like Al Capone.

The episode itself is titled Années Folles which is the name of the decade in France. Noted for its artistic achievements and cultural significance we see it’s still as dirty as Ryan Arey’s mom when she finds out he’s out watching Thor and she’s got the house free for the night.

Maeve also says “they spared no expense” which is likely a nod to Jurassic Park in which John Hammond also said the same thing.

In case you don’t know Michael Crichton was an author that wrote both the book Westworld and Jurassic park showing that…it’s all connected.

Entering the Park

Now the entrance to the park is a beat-for-beat recreation of how it played out in the first and second episodes. There’s so much attention to detail here, for example, Caleb shoulder-barges someone which both Teddy and William did in episodes 1 and 2 respectively.

There are also people searching for a bootlegger and in the original park, this was the Sheriff’s department searching for Hector.

When we get a closeup of the poster we can also see that his name is Hector and he later carries out the saloon robbery similar to how the original did. His gang is exactly the same too and they arrive much like how they did in episode 4. They shoot one of the authorities upon pulling up and in the gang is a copy of Armistice who you’ll likely recognise because of her snake tattoo.

These are of course archetypes that most of the parks are built around and we saw similar dynamics when we went to Shogunworld in Season 2.

There’s also a can that rolls towards Caleb’s foot which in Westworld of course initiated the Delores side mission. We see that there’s a copy of her as well and she later leads the Westworld massacre mission that Maeve and Caleb find on the fake level.

This Brothel In Pariah easter egg she talks about appeared in the first season as a secret area but ey, can’t show it, can’t show any of that.

They head to the Saloon which is the exact same layout as how the original one and we hear the remix of Badguy by Billie Eilish playing out on the piano. This is called The Butterfly Tavern and the one in Westworld was named the Mariposa which also means butterfly. In the Season 3 park that we visited, it was also called Taverna Delle Farfalle which too means butterfly.

Really good work by the creative team.

Bernard & Stubbs

Now we see Bernard and Stubbs as they arrive at the Road’s End diner.

This is a very foreboding name that means where something can no longer survive or thrive in its current situation. This is very symbolic for the pair who now have to team up with a new character to progress.

She is being hunted, likely by Hale and William who send hosts out to meet her that Bernard comes across in the parking lot. To the sound of Call Me by Blondie, Bernard ends up kicking the crap out of them. This time he’s doing it by himself due to knowing their moves ahead of time whereas in the past he had to resort to letting his evil programming come out to take them down.

Got lots of flashes of the scene from Terminator 2 here.

Caleb’s Family

Across the country, we catch Frankie using a CB radio to contact her father. It shows how much Caleb is trying to live under the radar as this old tech would likely completely be out of commission due to the decade we’re in.

Spoilerman calling Frankie, tell Carver that he’s his own worst enemy and the mother and daughter end up having to leave because he’s duplicated.

The first clue for this comes outside when Frankie asks him something, and he has no idea what she’s talking about (or he just doesn’t remember like Boris Johnson).

We’ve been over fidelity a lot in these breakdowns and I did say last week that I thought the Senator and his wife were likely complete copies. However, this kinda debunks all that due to him not remembering. I’m kinda in two minds about it like Hale as William did say in Episode 1 that he remembered going to the Hoover damme as a kid.

So I do think that he might have passed the fidelity test and if we look at the episode names for the series, the sixth episode does have that as a title, possibly hinting at where we’re going but yeah, this at least shuts down the idea that they all have it.

Outside we also see the Banksy parody from the first episode and also a new bit of Grafitti that says Free Free Will. Humanity of course didn’t have it because Rehoboam decided that path that everyone would walk on and it held people back from getting certain jobs so they could never progress.

Westworld Season 4 episode 3 Graffiti

This machine was just trying to do what was best for humanity by guiding everyone on the path that was most likely to avoid destruction. Serac and it were of course painted out as the villains so it is interesting that Bernard is seen as the hero even though he’s basically doing the same thing.

Frankie also has a Teddy…which is a nod to Teddy…?

The Condemned Lands

Now at this point, we meet a member of the cause who reside in the condemned lands.

She rocks up in a buggy car that looks like the commercial version of the ones Delos used to ride around in the second season.

We learn little about them outside that they’ve been hiding there looking for something. Might even subtly hint that we’re decades in the future as we know from episode 1 that William was buying up a lot of wastelands.

The new park was built on this and if it fell again then they could settle out there. There’s also the yellow p*ss filter over the top which wasn’t there when we were in the area in season 3. When they reach their location they arrive on quads and we see that they’re led by Daniel Wu who you might recognise from Into The Badlands. Little is known about them but this area could be out in Nevada near where William was trying to buy up. Bernard has come to warn them they’re in danger and he promises to give them what they’re looking for in the desert. He says there’s a weapon potentially linking back to his discovery in Season 2 though it could be several things.

Copies at the Butterfly

Now back at the Butterfly we hear some classic Westworld music playing on the piano that was also in the original park.

Westworld s4 episode 3

Maeve’s copy also uses her dialogue “this is the new world, and in this world, you can be whoever the f**k you want.”

At this point, we get the first fly in the episode which, we learn a lot more about later on. There are copies of Clementine and it all builds to Hector’s approach who rides into the sounds of Enter Sandman by Metallica. There’s also the chain that’s tied to the safe but here it’s pulled by a car. Hector sidles up with Maeve by the bar, reflecting their interaction in Westworld but this is cut short by the real Maeve killing them both.

Great scene in which Maeve and Caleb ride with the dead to sneak into the admin areas of the park.

The blood on Frankie’s bear makes her follow a trail to Carver and we get a Halloween-esque scene where she and her mother hide in the house as he searches for them.

The pair make it out but they do a bait and switch and end up making it seem like Frankie has been taken to the park.

At the park itself, Maeve and Caleb are dumped down and we see the technicians wearing the same overalls that the staff did in Westworld.

There are several elements of this level that mirror the park including hosts having…sex…cacan’t show that and also admins on iPads.

Upon grabbing one, Maeve realises that it’s all fake and we see the response team carrying the Famas-like guns that the security team also had in the park.

Fight Starts

The woman who mentioned the secret game before arrives and she’s brought a crew with her. We also get the arrival of Delores, Teddy and a version of Angela to the right of them.

Maeve is shot at this point and she of course would still get damaged because she’s technically a host.

Caleb shoots the Delores duplicate potentially foreshadowing how he might end up having to do this later on. Christina is notably absent in this entry but there are some minor ties to things we heard last week which I’ll talk about in just a bit.

 

Drone Hosts

Behind the scenes, we encounter the creepy-looking Drone Hosts that first appeared in Journey Into Night. Looking like Lord Zed from The Power Ranger, these hosts were off-network ones that were assigned to carry out super secret tasks that were unfit for most of the staff’s eyes.

We see one carrying a tray of maggots which of course eventually grow into flies.

We see them being manipulated on a cellular level and implanted with parasites, potentially able to alter human behaviour.

There exist some parasites in nature that actually makes the animal they’re in end their own lives so that they can go to the animal that eats the one they’ve just killed. We also see the black goo being worked on by the Drones and this is what we saw pouring out of Anastia’s gunshot wound last week.

Hunting Humans 

Turns out that the flies are being infected with this black goo and they are likely used in the same way that pollination does to carry it from the substance into the human.

Now they clearly also hunt after humans and we see how they’re attracted to Caleb behind the glass. It’s at this point that the tower sounds off which Maeve can hear but Caleb can’t. Those infected can also pick up on it too or it may be the parasite which then directs its host.

This idea of being unable to hear something was brought up last week by the homeless man that Delores came across.

He talked about how only he could hear the frequency along with the birds. This is very important as in the next scene, Delores came across several dead ones on the ground who had likely ended their own lives similar to the people being experimented on here.

These birds were likely guinea pigs for the frequency and outside of the homeless man, no one can hear the tower.

Amongst the people, we can see Jim Navarro who was infected last week.

He’s played by Josh Randall who was part of the Navarro cartel in Ozark which was pointed out by Michael Narres in our last video.

It can get them to do simple tasks like building blocks before they shoot themselves. Super messed up.

Catching Caleb

Frankie is wheeled out to draw Caleb in.

It’s a trap and it turns out she’s a host. Her face opens up much like the child version of Ford and this sprays forth several of the flies which crawl into Caleb.

Now, this is obviously something that could be a death sentence for him and judging by fake Frankie’s dialogue Hale wanted him here. I’m very interested to find out why as he was on the side of the hosts when we look at Season 3. Not only did he help her original in Delores but he also sided with Maeve and helped to destroy Rehoboam. Now with Hale being a copy of Delores, it means that she shares all of her early memories.

In Season 3 we saw that when he trained with the army they used hosts for hostage practice and at the end of the mission the army basically let them do what they wanted with the women. Caleb talked down several of the soldiers from assaulting Delores which Hale would likely remember too. Gonna be interesting to see if this buys him favour and what Hale actually wants him for.

On the outside of the cell, Maeve ends up kicking the crap out of William who murdered her and her daughter in one of his most sadistic visits. However, he returns and Maeve realises he’s a host which leads to the pair both being captured.

Anyway, that ends the episode, lots of really nice callbacks and though it didn’t advance the plot all that much I’m still enjoying the journey we’re on.

Either way, the pair hit it off and definite fanny flutters are going on there.

Really nice scene and it’s great seeing these two characters back together even if Teddy is stalking her and beating people up in the night you sunnofffabich.

 

I’d of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know.

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