Dolores is on a mission, and she’s not going at it alone. Joined by her personal army of Hosts and a human who wants to help her break the cycle, Dolores is starting a “revolution” on Westworld. However, as star Evan Rachel Wood explained in a recent interview, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea.
In an interview with Deadline, Wood talked about the reveal in “The Mother of Exiles” that the Host pearls Dolores removed from the park at the end of last season have been stacked with her personality. Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), Musashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), and Martin Connells (Tommy Flanagan) are all different versions of Dolores, seemingly living their own versions of her life in bodies that are not their own. That’s because Dolores feels she’s the only one she can trust to complete her task of starting a revolution against Rehoboam, the supercomputer that can predict and control a person’s entire life.
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But what does that even mean? According to Wood, it could mean she’s trying to free humanity…or it might not. She said Dolores doesn’t want domination over humanity, which is hopeful, but she’s not necessarily looking out for their best interests either. Revolutions don’t always result in something good. Sometimes they just bring chaos.
“She’s seeing that the real world is a lot like Westworld, and she says she’s going to cut the cord to the system and show the world what it really is,” she said. “This is either heroic or a nightmare or both because revolutions are bloody, and revolutions are scary, and revolutions are not always what they are or how they’re portrayed. They’re not always heroic. The change is difficult and change is painful, and so I think it’s still up for debate whether or not Dolores is there to help or hurt. We’re not sure yet.”
Right now, the main opposition to her goal of destroying Rehoboam is Serac (Vincent Cassel), who’s been using every connection at his disposal—including Maeve (Thandie Newton)—to stop Dolores at any cost. Wood said he provides an interesting foil for Dolores because he depends on “the system,” while she wants nothing more than to be free of it. Plus…she’s really fucking smart in a way he’ll never be, and that terrifies him.
“She has the processing capability that his machine has—maybe not as many thoughts per second, but she’s really the only one that can go toe to toe with it, because she probably relates more to that piece of machinery than she does to any human,” she said. “Given the power that she has and the books that she read in season two that were, you know, decoding the humans, and given that access, I think we’re really going to see things blow up.”
HBO’s Westworld continues with episode five on Monday.