Beware the Ides of March.
HBO has unveiled the premiere date for season three of Westworld, which brings the robotic hosts into the real world as they discover, through data companies like Incite, Inc., just how much humanity has become willing to automate itself.
In a new video, HBO revealed Westworld is coming back for its third season on March 15. The teaser features an Arrival-style circle of black and white dots drawing a timeline of divergent events, starting with last year’s Hong Kong protests and the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Then they continue through a series of future tragedies, including the assassination of a future U.S. president in 2024, a nuclear attack in Paris, and a Russian civil war. Looks like we’ve got a lot to look forward to in the next decade, folks!
There’s also this mysterious “Solomon Build 0.06″ in 2039 (possible connections to the story of King Solomon or the construction of Solomon’s Temple) followed by a “critical event” in 2058, which is thought to be the year that Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and the other hosts gained sentience and escaped Westworld. In addition, the date of the premiere cannot be a coincidence. March 15 happens to be the “Ides of March,” which was known in Roman times as a deadline for settling debts—it was also the day the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar about in William Shakespeare’s play because of, you know, that whole death thing.
Considering this season is about social media and data collection, with Incite, Inc. at the centre, it seems we could see greater forces “coming to collect” sometime this season. That’s one of many clues the latest teaser contains, along with the slough of websites and hidden messages HBO continues to sow throughout the internet. For example, the URL for the newest park on Delos Destinations says it’s called Warworld, which looks to be the world Maeve (Thandie Newton) finds herself in this season.
Westworld returns to HBO on March 16. It’s currently undated in Australia, but it will air on Foxtel locally.