Ryan Shoots First: Westworld (S3 Ep5) “Genre”
In the wake of Dolores’s revelation that she is all and all is her, how will our other anti-heroes respond?
This week starts with a cold open to what appears to be Serac speaking French, he is recalling the fall of Paris we saw glimpses of last week. He appears to be speaking to Rehaboem referencing how they sought to build a God as mankind was destroying itself. Cue up the circle we have been seeing and a pan out to reveal the circle exists in real time on the watch face of Serac. He is meeting with the President of Brazil and informing him of a group plotting to take over. He is threatening the president with his scary amount of control like exposing secrets or devaluing their currency. He pulls the power move and leaves on a future plan bringing up the credits.
We open on the Rehaboem circle but this time it forms a tunnel and we pick back up on Seracs story of it’s creation. He meets the owner of Incite who is not happy with the results of his investment into a early prototype, this form of their creation is called Solomon, he references other interactions called David and such. It seems they are naming them after kings of Israel. Liam is there as a young boy and he is enamoured with the tech, Serac’s brother whispers to him they should kill Liam’s father as he is getting in the way. Back in the present day a man is informing Serac of multiple anomalies including Dolores taking Liam from last week. We cut to Dolores moving with Liam and Caleb to stay ahead of Serac. They are keeping Liam to get access to deeper levels. Liam wants to know who she is and Dolores slips a pair of glasses on him and says go ahead and look. He sees nothing as Dolores is outside the system. In an attempt to escape Liam stabs a small device into Caleb’s neck, it’s a drug that causes Caleb to go loopy. The scene turns black and white with an old sounding movie score when we are seeing the story from Caleb’s perspective as he fights off the drugs. While trying to escape in a rideshare vehicle it is taken over by an amber alert and pulled to a stop causing Seracs men to move in. Dolores convinces Liam to give them his Key to the system so they can get out of there. Just then the drug Caleb is on “switches Genres” from a black and white film to Flight of the Valkyries. Meanwhile Dolores whips out a grenade launcher for Caleb to take out the trailing vehicles. As Caleb misses it turns out these grenades don’t miss as they convert to a little drone Dolores controls, blowing up the truck. As they fight it out Calebb switches now to a slow motion love story as he looks longingly at Dolores. As they are pinned down Ash and Giggles come out from an alley to help out. Giggles notices Caleb is on Genre and warns him about the last act. She radios Bernard and Martin (yes I remembered his name) who are at Rehaboem, they are trying to get everything in there on Serac. Bernard tells Dolores even though he is a copy they experience things differently essentially making them a different person. He asks if he ever re-considers what Dolores proper tells him to do.
Back at Seracs story he and his brother are showing Dempsey stock market projections and making him a ton of money in an instant. He doesn’t see the big picture but sometimes you gotta please the investors. He remembers when they locked out Dempsey because he got greedy and encountered a major problem. No matter what they did at a certain point the model fell apart, he remembers his brother losing touch in the same unpredictable way. Dolores plans to open the cages and expose all the fates Incite has kept secret about people. Essentially the loops they have laid out for them. Caleb tells a story about how when they were at war they would trap Rats since they had so many, they had to get the amount of water in their trap perfect or else the rats had hope and didn’t die painlessly, he would rather live in chaos than with this false hope. She gives Martin the command to send the info to everyone and he does. Instantly people in the train begin receiving their profiles. Some see info like they will develope Alzheimer’s, one lady finds out her daughter who is young now will commit suicide. As they experience everyone losing their minds Caleb asks Giggles which Genre this is and he tells him this is reality. Just then a truck pulls up to attack them, they open fire on Caleb and Dolores steps in the way taking the bullets. He is of course shocked when she turns around bleeding but ok.
We cut to Serac not taking the news well and he recalls the day Dempsey discovered the real project they were working on. They are running experiments on various people, attempting to re-write humans themselves. He classifies them as outliers, people who the system can’t control or predict. The system now recognizes these people and manipulates their loops to send them to dead ends. Serac reveals his brother was planning to murder Dempsey. Back at the brain center Dolores reveals the center where these outliers are being kept to Bernard, just then Stubbs shows up and the two take Martin-Dolores down. Just then Seracs men show up and Martin reveals his role is done and Bernard needs to escape since he can’t be replaced. Martin tells VR Serac he is to blame and blows up his office along with Seracs men. Sure am glad I finally remembered his name. Back with Dolores’ team they no longer need Liam, as Liam is rambling about how everyone is a leech on the system Ash shoots him in the stomach. Caleb, still on Genre, is flashing back and forth between memories and trying to save Liam. Before he dies Liam tells Caleb “you did it” and Caleb is wondering who he thinks he is. Back in Seracs plane he is made aware that Dolores was after his files. We have one last flashback to Serac and Dempsey driving out to the dessert to likely put him out of his misery. Dempsey tells Serac he will let everyone know what they are doing. Serac says his brother knew he would and that’s why he wanted to kill him. Dempsey then reveals he saw the projections too and Serac lets him leave (are you tracking with me?). Serac mentioned there are white spaces where you can make a choice: a “bubble of agency” he calls it. They walk down to a smoking jet crash that Dempsey explains to be his. Serac then says “I’m sorry you didn’t make it” and kills him in a rather brutal way by bashing his head into a plane wing. We pan out to see it is Dolores who has been viewing these logs, she is then greeted by the VR projection of Serac himself. They exchange threats and as Dolores walks off Serac looks down to see the circle on his watch blowing up with anomalies. Meanwhile Caleb is delivered something at the hanger they are held up in. He questions Dolores whether what they did was right as the two get on a jet and the credits roll.
Someone get me a flow chart to keep track of who’s seen whos futures. The WestWorld timeline game has taken on new forms where instead of being obsessed with past timelines interacting we are focused on the predictions of the future and what will happen. I feel like with the show there are some really profound themes about big info collection and how it can dictate the walls of our lives, but then I get exhausted and lost in it and just want to see robots blow stuff up. I like the idea of outliers being glitches in the system and how being able to identify those anomalies could be beneficial. I don’t see how Caleb’s drug trip really added to the episode, it seemed somewhat insignificant and it didn’t reveal anything to him he couldn’t have discovered in his own mind. Either way we only have 3 episodes left believe it or not so things should keep picking up as we steamroll into the finale.
Observations
- The Young Serac casting was spot on.
- I keep expecting to see a Cybertruck pop up.
- Downside of Autonomous vehicles. They make getaways tough.
- Dolores at this point is pretty much like Neo in the Matrix.
- Good for Tommy Flanagan to go from Security goon to main character just like this.
- I still love Giggles shirt.
- Dolores taking on more of a Robin Hood role, I don’t buy it.
- Man and you thought some email hacks were bad.
- Well sorry Tommy Flanagan I can’t believe the week I remember your name you blow yourself up.
- Does this mean Dolores wasn’t hurt when she met Caleb? Was that a way to get him to join her fight?
- Serac seeing his goons blow up on VR was pretty nuts.
- So Serac is pretty cemented as the big bad now with Dolores being the anarchist. Where Maeve and Bernard fit in is still not clear.
Predictions
- Maeve and Bernard end up with Dolores by the end.
- Seracs brother will come back in some form.
- I don’t have a prediction for William but he will have his say in all of this before the season is done.