Westworld, Season 3 Episode 4, ‘The Mother of Exiles’ Recap and Review.

You can get caught up on all of our coverage of Westworld or jog your memory of past episodes by taking a look here.

Its gonna be a man in black heavy episode. William starts off shooting up a house as he hears voices and tells the voices he knows they are not real. It looks a bit like one of the White House Press briefings. Blood drips from the chandelier as he wakes up in a bathtub. He is having flashbacks of his time in the park. He is visited by his daughter. She is not real and reminds him that he shot her. Man, this is some straight-up horror shit as her bullet wound materializes right in front of us. She pulls out his motherboard from her pocket and tells him he doesn’t have free will. Are you free and evil or blameless and helplessly enslaved? Or just not real at all. Man, that is some mindtrippy shit. She tells him to finish the game and rolls up his sleeve. He sits on the side of the tub and grabs the motherboard.

He immediately flashes to a different place and Charlotte is there and informs him about the hostile takeover. He tells her it’s not his problem he has delegated all of his duties and responsibilities. Nevertheless, the data they were collecting is more interesting to him. He is mad that he delegated his power to someone who is getting duped by a mole. She tells him to save the ranting and raving and that she needs his votes at the emergency board meeting later this evening. She tells him “come back, William”. I don’t know if that’s something they really want.

Dolores walks into a home that looks like a masueleum. It is Bernard’s home. He tells her none of this is real. We see a series of flashbacks as we get introduced to the people that Dolores liberated. He promised they could live free.

We are in Victorville, USA. Bernard and his neighbors watch Space X land their spacecraft and then take off again. Stubbs is back in the hotel room. He is complaining that they swam to shore and now his shoulder doesn’t work. Stubbs then reveals that Bernard knows about Dolores ‘kill and replace’ plan. Bernard then uses a button to freeze him. It’s his secret weapon. They have a plan to stake out John Gallaghar Jr and prevent her from getting him.

Jesse, I mean Caleb, is getting fitted with some new clothes. He is going to steal someone’s identity. This show is turning into some anti-elitist/capitalist shit. I can dig it.

The silver-haired robot security guy goes through some lengthy persuasion to get JGJ’s signature on a tablet. He eventually gets it.

Caleb and Dolores are walking down the street and she strikes up a converation with a private equity guy. She then beats him up and steals his DNA. She takes that blood and puts it into Caleb. Something about an encruption key and needing the blood.

The walls of this super swank restaurant are rich mahogany as Serac wakes Maeve up. They are in Singapore and she is not impressed. We learn he grew up in Paris with his brother but there is nothing left to see of Paris. There seems to be a big biological attack that took place in Paris as we see a mushroom cloud and lots of people in containment suits. He is not really worried about robots but is more worried about humans. He created a computer to try and figure out how to prevent humanity from killing itself. Delos did it better which is why he wants the information. He promises he will send her back to the world with her daughter but to get there he needs the key that is trapped in Dolores. He offers to show her something.

Another picturesque future cityscape. He has brought her to The Divergence. He tracked it down a few months ago. They walk inside and find a robot making machine. He knows Dolores created herself and stole a number of other Pearls so she could have allies. There is a dude who is tied to a chair. He is bloody and gross. He brokered all of Dolores’s stuff. Serac asks him where Dolores is. The man tied up to the chair will not tell him. Serac places glasses on him and shows the identity broker how his family will be killed if he doesn’t help. That’s some cold shit. The broker tells them she needed five identities and he sent her to the mortician. After the confession, Serac shoots him in the head. Now its time for Maeve to choose. She can go to her daughter or be frozen in this world forever.

The Man in Black is shaving in his bathroom and Charlotte offers to finish him up. He says the first job is to find the mole. He doesn’t think much of her and she quickly retreats to give him his privacy. Its all very Goodfellas like.

Back with Caleb and Dolores. They enter a building with lots of security. She tells him not to sweat it as it will make his fake blood degrade quicker if he is nervous. If it does she is going to use the old fashioned method, which is killing everyone. They sit down at a table and authorize the transfer. It will take a few minutes to transfer and they want one final authorization. It won’t work because he is sweating too much. He tries again and it works.

Every city looks bonkers. This one is no different as Maeve strolls a boulevard in Singapore. As she walks by electronics they start to behave wonkily. She still has some of that residual power. She approaches a club and asks the bouncers for the mortician. They cop an attitude and she shoots one of them in the dick. She follows his bleeding body into an actual morgue where she finds the mortician. The Mortician gave Dolores some blood and introduced her to The Yakuzza. Hell yeah, now this is part of the show that turns into Kill Bill. OKKKKK.

JGJ is at a masquerade party. His friends lament the passing of his girlfriend. There are a bunch of naked robots on pedestals. His friend gives him a synthetic drug to try later. OH SHIT. Dolores and Caleb show up at the same party. Let’s go. Things are about to go down. JGJ tries to buy one of the prostitutes who looks similar to Dolores. He has no more money because Caleb and Dolores stole it all so the transaction is denied. Just before Dolores can get there Bernard and Stubbs show up and try to rescue JGJ. Dolores shows up and starts shooting. Bernard runs away with JGJ and Stubbs gets thrown over the balcony by Dolores. It’s a pretty great scene

The Yakuza live in a warehouse because of course, they do. Maeve shows up. She wants to speak to the boss and they attempt to kill her but she uses the aim feature on their guns to make them kill themselves and then slices the last dudes throat with his own sword. Because of course, she does.

The Man in Black looks real sharp as he has cleaned up nice. He is still a little crazy though as he sees his dead daughter before he leaves. Charlotte tells them they have got to get a move on so they are not too late to the meeting. His daughter says she will wait for him.

The Yakuza warehouse is also a brewery and Maeve and the mortician are walking through it. She kills another henchman only to discover that it’s not booze in the barrels but rather its white robot juice. The Yakuza boss knows Maeve and she knows him. He takes out a gun and shoots the mortician.

Caleb stops Bernard before he can get JGJ into a car and to safety. The security head shows up to stop the conflict. He tells JGJ to run and sends Caleb after him. Bernard and the security guard have some business.

The Yakuza boss is another character from Westworld. Maeve thinks maybe Teddy.

Charlotte mentions she has listened to the Man in Black have conversations with his daughter. Holy shit Dolores is not Dolores. Charlotte is Dolores. They are all Dolores. I did not see that coming.

Maeve and Yakuza Dolores fight, and he stabs her with a samurai sword.

Charlotte Dolores talks William into flipping out, and he tries to kill her. That is when we find out that she is there to have him committed so that she can get his shares of the company.

Caleb catches JGJ. JGJ offers to pay him whatever he wants. Caleb laughs and says with what because Caleb already stole his money. Dolores Dolores shows up to say hi.

Back with Yakuza Dolores. We learn from the rest of the gang that a bunch of armed men have tracked Maeve. He leaves her body and prepares to retreat.

William, who is now the man in white, is in his cell, and he sees a very traditional Dolores who steps out of the shadows of his cell. Emily’s last wish was for him to die in a cell, a prisoner of his own sins. She tells him I guess you reached the center of your own maze. She tells him you haven’t even begun to understand yourself. Lastly “ask me the question you desperately want to know”. He asks “am I me”. She tells him welcome to the end of the game.

Random Thoughts

1. The Mother of Exiles is a reference to the Statue of Liberty. In the context of Westworld statues aren’t terribly far removed from robots.
2. The Statue of Liberty has come to represent that the United States is a country of immigrants. Traveling from one country to another. This describes Dolores’s journey perfectly.
3. The Mother of Exiles is also a reference to a freaking cool ass documentary HBO produced back in October. You should watch it.
4. You can read the full poem below

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”