‘Westworld’: 5 Burning Questions From Season 3 Episode 2

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the second episode of “Westworld” Season 3.

After a Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Caleb (Aaron Paul)-centered premiere, Episode 2 of “Westworld” Season 3 brought the show back to the park and to everyone’s favorite brothel madam-turned-ruthless killer, Maeve (Thandie Newton).

Newton was reunited with Rodrigo Santoro in Warworld, a new environment set in Italy during World War II. After some frustrating back and forths with Santoro’s clueless character, Maeve met up with Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman), who was somehow still alive after sacrificing himself near the end of last season, and searched for a way out of the park.

However, after a while it became apparent that this wasn’t the Lee S-S-S-Sizemore she once knew. It turned out that Maeve was not in fact in the real park, but was trapped in a simulation.

Meanwhile, Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) found an old friend — Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), in the host scrap room. Last season ended with heavy hints that Stubbs was a host all along, and guess what? He is!

But although the episode delivered answers, it still left a lot of questions. Here, Variety breaks down five of those most burning ones.

So Bernard and Stubbs are now a buddy cop pairing?

Bernard and Stubbs kind of has a ring to it, doesn’t it? The dynamic, shall we say frazzled, duo teamed up and set off to find Maeve, to use her to stop Dolores’ human extermination plans. They found out that someone beat them to the punch, but not before some hijinks back in the “Westworld” labs, including running into two faces who will be extremely familiar to fans of another certain HBO series…

Will we get any more “Game of Thrones” or other HBO series Easter Eggs?

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, known to everyone as the “Game of Thrones” showrunners, had a cameo in the episode as a pair of Medieval World scientists about to slice up Drogon with a buzz saw and ship him to Costa Rica. It will be interesting to see how HBO fans respond to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, especially given the less-than-favorable reception to the final season of “Thrones.” Could there be more “Game of Thrones” related cameos later in the season? Will there be more Medieval World exposure, and if so how closely will it resemble the kingdoms and keeps of Westeros? It’s also worth noting that Ramin Djawadi composed the theme tune for both shows, and right after Benioff and Weiss’ cameo, a bard was seen strumming the “Westworld” theme while Stubbs dispatched a bunch of helpless Delos henchman. All perhaps a reference to the infamous Red Wedding and those haunting Rains of Castamere? Who knows.

Who is this new Engerraund Serac fellow?

In Episode 2 we met Vincent Cassel’s Serac for the first time and discovered that he was the original architect of Rehoboam, the spherical super computer which plans out humans’ lives for them. Serac seemed to think that mapping the exact future of each and every person is a good idea given that “for the most part, humanity has been a miserable little band of thugs stumbling from one catastrophe to the next.” But Dolores threw a spanner in his morally questionable works. Serac’s solution? Conscript an equally badass host in Maeve to track her down and kill her. Cue the next question…

Who will emerge victorious from the coming Maeve vs. Dolores showdown?

This is the big question the episode sets up. While Maeve was clearly reluctant to find and fight Dolores, Serac was able to control and force her to. Dolores, meanwhile, has been arguably as violent towards hosts as humans in the series up until now, so it’s unlikely that she will hesitate in putting the lovely madam down. But who will win if and when the two eventually meet? Well, Dolores controls all hosts and other machines around her, while Maeve has proven herself more than handy with a Katana. Could be a close one!

Is that the last we’ll see of Warworld?

By the end of the episode, Maeve managed to escape Warworld — the twisted simulation in which Serac put her. But does that mean our time in Warworld is over? If so, it was by far the least-explored part of the park. Almost every character has burst through into the real world at this point, but surely a return to the park and its twisted worlds must be on the cards at some point? After all, would it really be “Westworld” without a Westworld?

“Westworld” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.