Westworld season 3 episode 5 recap: Dolores sends the world into chaos

It was an even bigger episode than usual this week for Westworld, both to get Dolores’ plan hyper-powered and to learn more about Serac’s shady backstory. But the best – and strangest Bits – everyone took part in Caleb taking a drug called Genre and going on Westworld’s equivalent of an acid trip.

Aptly named Episode 5, Genre was co-written by series creators Jonathan Nolan and Karrie Crouse. A lot has happened, including more screen time for the diamonds Lena Waithe and Marshawn Lynchand a possible romance between Caleb and Dolores. Let’s get stuck in everything that went down.

Continue reading: Looking back at Episode 4: The man in black returns and all these pearls are explained

Spoiler ahead.

Serac and his confused childhood

Through French subtitles and a look back, we learn that as a child Serac (Vincent Cassel) and his brother Jean Mi (Paul Cooper), an extremely intelligent and philosophical ten-year-old, were disappointed with the state of the world after seeing how Paris was destroyed. Understandable.

They believed that God had not existed at all and that “humanity was on the verge of extinction” and decided to build a God to save them. These are goals that we should all have as 10-year-olds.

And that, as we learn, is the thesis behind Rehabeam, the machine that they eventually built and that essentially got humanity on a loop.

But as we know, it didn’t work.

When the brothers appear to be older, they go with the now deceased Liam Dempsey Sr. (Jefferson Mays), Co-founder of Incite. Incite puts the world’s data in your hands. However, since Dempsey Sr. believes that iterations of Rehabeam are not working, he pulls the plug.

Dolores and Caleb are one thing

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Caleb (Aaron Paul) have a little chat with Liam Dempsey Jr. (John Gallagher Jr.) about his options after kidnapping him last episode. Dempsey Jr., Dolores reminds us, is trying to outbid Serac in Delos, and Serac is not happy about it. She kindly offers Dempsey Jr. to help him if he gives them the key to Rehabeam so they can study Serac’s past, present, and future and get him done.

But Dempsey Jr. says his key isn’t enough. “Either we find a way to defeat him together, or we all die,” says Dolores, and then Dempsey Jr. Caleb injects a new party drug with zero team spirit and tries to escape. In new territory for Westworld, the drug transforms everything into a kitschy black and white noir of the 50s for Caleb, moody orchestras and everyone.

The trio gets into a car and is chased by Serac’s fortunes almost immediately. In addition, Caleb’s head is in an increased state of paranoia.

During the battle, Caleb begins to hear Ride of the Valkyries. It is strange. Caleb shoots a guided missile and blows her pursuers in perfect time with the crescendo of music.

It gets even stranger: Caleb’s thoughts mix with a hint of sickly sweet romantic music. In the middle of the street he stares wistfully at a glowing Dolores as she shoots down the next group of thugs. It seems like more is going to happen between these two, and if we do, we hope they stay away from the hallucinogens.

Dolores publishes data to Rehabeams

Ash (Waithe) and Giggles (Lynch) Join Dolores’ party and explain that Caleb’s strange internal soundtrack is the result of “Genre”, a “film marathon” drug.

The gang keeps moving and gets on a train going west – a train that is definitely a metaphor for what’s going to happen. While debating whether to release Rehabeams information about everyone and reveal to them that their lives have been pre-written – or on train tracks – Caleb Dolores impresses with his allegory about rats and how he would rather live in chaos than in one of Incite controlled world.

Dolores uses the Dempsey Jr. passcode and instructs Martin Connells (Tommy Flanagan), also known as a copy of himself in Martin Connell’s cloned body, to share data with Rehabeams.

People on the real train receive a notification on their cell phones and see their files with their pre-written stories, including predictions of when they will die. It’s pretty dark.

When Caleb, Dolores and the gang leave the train station, they meet more people who realize that their reality is a lie. In the midst of people throwing stones at shop windows and just sitting on the floor, two of Serac’s shooters get out of a car and aim at Caleb.

Dolores stands before him without emotion and takes the bullets. Then she shoots the thugs. Caleb gapes on Dolores’ torso, riddled with bullet holes. Even so, she is still breathing.

Serac ‘worked’ on his brother

In the past, after Serac and his brother Dempsey Sr. got back on board by showing him how to manipulate the stock market and do banking, we see Dempsey Sr. discover how messed up Serac really is.

Serac reveals that he was experimenting to “edit” his own brother, who is too “impulsive” and “messy” for this new anal world they are trying to have Rehabeam built. Serac’s brother had also planned to murder Dempsey Sr.

Goodbye Connells, hello Stubbs

Connells shows Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) Images of one of the many re-education centers where Serac sends the “runaways” of society, probably including his brother, to reform them on their “inner journey”.

But then – surprise! – Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) jumps out from behind a door to save Bernard. The two overwhelm Connells and ask him to tell them everything Dolores has planned.

But Connells reveals that his role has ended and Bernard and Stubbs have previously fled Pom Klementieffs Martel, who works for Serac, takes Connells to be killed.

Connells, who gets the last laugh, blows himself up, Martel and a few other thugs.

Caleb’s traumatic flashbacks

Somewhere on a beach, Dolores, Caleb and the gang consider what to do with Dempsey Jr. after stealing his money and access to rehab officers data.

To stop him from mocking them all because they are a problem for society, Ash Dempsey Jr. shoots his stomach. While Dempsey Jr. dies in the sand, Caleb has more confusing flashbacks.

Caleb sees fragments of memories from his time in the army: he seems to be leading a man with a bag over his head into an abandoned warehouse where Caleb looks like he’s going to be shot.

Then he remembers sitting on an operating table and being overseen by a woman in an elegant white outfit that we have never seen before (played by Bahia Haifi Gold and recognized as Dr. Greene). Was he in one of the rehabilitation clinics?

Before he can find out, Dempsey Jr. dies. His last words are: “You did it.”

Caleb asks Dolores: “Who do you think I am?”

Caleb’s character has had a mysterious layer for him since the first episode, and it would make sense if he eventually erased his memory.

The end

In the past, Serac brings Dempsey Sr. to the desert where they philosophize about agency. Dempsey Sr. believes Serac will not harm him, as Rehabeam predicted he would not. But Westworld’s free will issues come into play, and Serac goes ahead and brutally beats Dempsey Sr. to death.

Today Dolores stands out with a Serac hologram. She knows his brother and explains: “It is time for everyone to wake up.” Caleb and Dolores then jump into a jet (are they heading to one of these re-education centers?), Which ends a particularly bizarre episode of Westworld.

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Westworld Season 3: Incite vs. Delos

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Deeper into the labyrinth

• A young Serac runs his hand through a wheat field and calls back to seasons 1 and 2. And gladiator.

• Serac appears to have his personal connection to Rehabeam in his wristwatch. The white face looks like it has a coffee stain circle. But it looks chic on Vincent Cassel. Vincent Cassel can do anything.

• Alexandre Bar, who plays the 20s Serac, is one of those incredibly good casting decisions: Bar and Cassel have exactly the same chin and bone structure.

• Serac and his brother name iterations of their machine by numbers in the Hebrew Bible, from Solomon to his son Rehaboam.

• Dempsey Jr. wears a t-shirt with a print that describes him perfectly: “Basic”.

• No Maeve, Charlotte, or the man in black this week.