Pop Culturing: 'Westworld' Season 3 Leaves the Theme Park but Brings its Baggage

Creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are giving their mystery-box series "Westworld" a much-needed upgrade for its third installment, which hits HBO on March 15. After the catastrophic events of an excruciating Season 2, the popular drama – thought of the network's substitute for "Game of Thrones" – is set mostly outside of the theme park where robot cowboys were continuously murdered and sexually assaulted by humans only to have their memories wiped and have the same things happen to them for eternity. For the first time, we get to see what is beyond the Westworld park as the new season mostly takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles; think a softened version of "Blade Runner."

Though the new setting gives a jolt to the ultra-serious "Westworld," it's not quite enough to make up for the drama's shortcomings. For its first two seasons, "Westworld" pondered questions about human existence, artificial intelligence, technology and what it means to be alive. Those questions are still probed in Season 3, making the show's latest installment feel redundant despite its compelling new location. ("Westworld" still looks like the most expensive show on TV.) Even though the first episode is an exciting return – and perhaps one of the better episodes of the show's entire run – "Westworld" quickly reverts to its old ways with the following three episodes.

One of the better additions to "Westworld" this season is the inclusion of Aaron Paul ("Breaking Bad"), who plays military vet Caleb Nichols. He's a construction worker living in future L.A. He's down on his luck, maybe mentally and emotionally unstable, and picks up side jobs via an app that recruits people to carry out illegal operations, often involving acts of violence. This is how he eventually meets up with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), who is infiltrating the world, determined to get revenge on the human race for the harm they caused her fellow A.I.s. There's also Maeve (Thandie Newton) and Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), who are both still in the Delos (the parent company of Westworld and its surrounding parks) theme parks, more specifically Warworld, which seems to be World War II-themed. Both women died in Season 2 – as did a number of other characters who show up in Season 3 – so revealing in what ways they're back would be a major spoiler and ruin the "fun" for those who watch "Westworld" in order to solve its crafted mystery.

That's always been the biggest problem for "Westworld." It is a show that feels reverse-engineered; built backward from an answer to a question. The show exists for audiences to directly interact with it on the Internet. To get the full "Westworld" experience, one must participate in Reddit threads, dive deep into Facebook group theories, and hash it out on Twitter. That is certainly one way to engage in a television program but "Westworld" suffers from lack of character development, resulting in a show that feels like you're watching someone play a videogame. Characters are given directives that need to be carried out, going from one "boss" to another, which can be excruciating at times. Like its first two seasons, "Westworld" Season 3 can also be filed under "TV Shows That Feel Like Doing Homework." Despite all of its change, "Westworld" basically remains the same TV show albeit a more streamlined version of itself. If you're looking to get more out of "Westworld" than figuring out a puzzle, try FX/Hulu's excellent new series "Devs."

Martin Scorsese found himself in the headlines many times throughout the second half of 2019 for his comments on superhero films, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html|writing in The New York Times|This text will be the link> that – Marvel movies in particular – "aren't cinema" and "that they seem to me to be closer to theme parks." It's a bit funny, then, that "Westworld" – a TV show based on a 70s sci-fi flick – happens to be the thing that embraces the ideology of the acclaimed filmmaker lambasting. No, "Westworld" is not a film, despite its attempts to be cinematic and poetic and say something larger about human nature. But the show also greatly leans into being a Marvel-esque blockbuster: Nothing matters, characters who have died can easily return in one form or another should the powers that be want that. There are hardly any real stakes in "Westworld" when you know the architects behind the series can pull out literally anything to course correct or surprise you. "Westworld" ends up being an empty theme park trying to be something else.

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by Jason St. Amand

This story is part of our special report: "Pop Culturing". Want to read more? Here's the full list.