Westworld season 2, episode 3, brought the stakes to a whole new level, with the hosts showing a deeper level of sentience than ever before.
Ever since Dolores reached the “center of the maze” at the end of Westworld season 1, there’s been a marked difference in the behavior of some of the hosts. Particularly in the case of Dolores and Maeve, they’re showing agency and individuality in a way that they’ve never been able to in the past.
Since season 2 jumped right into the middle of the chaos and drama that followed the hosts’ retaliation at the presentation of the new narrative, we’ve largely been left to guess at their level of intelligence and consciousness. We saw the instigation and the aftermath, but there still seems to be some time missing, in which Dolores and the other hosts did a lot of growing.
For me, any and all questions about the sentience of the hosts (again, mainly focusing on Dolores and Maeve) were answered in Westworld season 2, episode 3. There were two specific moments that sold me, and they firmly secured my place on Team Host, in the war of Westworld season 2.
The first of these moments took place between Dolores and her “father,” Peter Abernathy. Seeing the mess that had been made of the man who the rancher’s daughter had loved, Dolores was brought to tears. This moment was incredibly significant.
Why? Dolores knows all too well that she is in no way related to that man. In fact, she knows that she couldn’t possibly be “related” to anyone! However, she recognizes Abernathy’s significance in her story, and the pain that he’s experiencing. She doesn’t feel resentment toward the part that he’s played in her manipulation. Instead, she looks past all that and experiences true love for him.
While this is similar to what Maeve was able to do for her “daughter,” Maeve’s moment of elevated consciousness and love occurred thanks to a different character in Westworld 2×03.
Maeve’s relationship with Hector has been growing since she discovered what she was. It started off as two characters playing their roles in a greater storyline, but has become something much bigger. According to Sizemore, they never should’ve desired each other at all! Even within the park, something deeper was bringing them together.
Maeve and Hector, just like Dolores and Abernathy, proved that hosts really can grow to love each other. It’s not about what they’ve been programmed to think and do. It’s about what they’re really feeling, as they react to everything that’s happening around them.
If you ask me, these two powerful moments have officially changed everything in Westworld season 2. The hosts are no longer trying to figure out who or what they are. They have become fully conscious beings who are experiencing feelings and making choices, all on their own.
These moments proved that the hosts can, in fact, love. And if the hosts can love, they have just as much to lose as the humans involved.
This raises the stakes of Westworld season 2 in two ways. First of all, if the hosts have truly reached sentience, it’s more clear than ever before that they have just as much of a right to live as the humans do. Their pain cuts just as deep. They deserve to survive.
Beyond deserving survival, they’re now going to crave it more than ever. Their will to live has officially pushed past revenge. Dolores and Maeve are already seeing that there’s so much more worth living for. They don’t just understand that from the viewpoint of their characters, they’re beginning to really feel it.
This is going to make it all the more difficult to choose a side in Westworld season 2. That is, if anyone was even on the humans’ side to begin with! At the very least, it will make the fight much more interesting to witness. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
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