Westworld: Who’s Alive, Who’s Dead, and Who’s a Robot Heading Into Season 3

For as many answers as it provided, the second season finale of Westworld left fans with an equal number of questions. Most of the show’s regular characters were either dead, injured, or facing an uncertain future by the time the season finale cut to black, and in true Westworld fashion, the show has left fans to speculate about its remaining mysteries during the long wait between seasons.

Now, after an almost two-year break, Westworld is finally returning for Season 3 this coming Sunday. For anyone who might need help remembering where many of the show’s important characters were left at the end of Season 2, here’s a quick refresher:

Dolores Abernathy

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is still plenty alive at the start of the show’s third season. After having her original host body killed, Dolores escaped Westworld in the host version of Charlotte Hale (more on that below), before creating a new version of her original self with a host printer left for her by Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). The show’s second season concluded with Dolores in her best strategic position yet, and all the trailers for Westworld’s upcoming third season seem to indicate that she’ll be just as methodical in her movements as she’s ever been.

Maeve Millay

Unlike Dolores, Maeve (Thandie Newton) found herself in a much less certain place at the end of Westworld’s second season. Having sacrificed herself so that her daughter could live on in the Valley Beyond, Maeve was one of the many host bodies being salvaged by the Delos workers in the Season 2 finale, but the episode never explicitly showed Maeve being reactivated. Based on one scene in the finale, we can likely assume that it was Felix (Leonardo Nam) and Sylvester (Ptolemy Slocum) who are responsible for Maeve’s rescue, but it’s impossible to know for sure. No matter though, as the trailers for Season 3 have already explicitly confirmed Maeve’s role in the new season, and all signs point toward an impending, epic confrontation between her and Dolores.

Bernard Lowe

The final scenes of the show’s second season seemed to confirm that Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) was one of the five pearls/control drives that Dolores smuggled out of Westworld. Awaking in a new host body, Season 2 ended with Bernard having a prophetic conversation with Dolores, before taking his first steps into the human world. In those final moments, he seemed to be preparing himself for whatever role he may have in either helping or stopping Dolores’ crusade against the humans, and we can’t wait to see what direction Bernard’s story takes from here.

William/The Man in Black

One of the many questions left unanswered by Westworld’s Season 2 finale, was what exactly happened to William (Ed Harris) after his confrontation with Dolores outside of The Forge. The last audiences saw of the character was him entering The Forge, in what appeared to be a moment occuring decades after the events of Season 2, where a host version of William is being tested for fidelity by a host version of his daughter, Emily (Katja Herbers). But the Westworld finale never answered exactly what happened to William in the present timeline, apart from him being found by the Delos recovery team. We can safely assume he was taken out of the park at some point by Delos employees, and was given some time to recover from the wounds he sustained in the finale. What exactly he’s doing at the start of the show’s third season remains a mystery for now.

Charlotte Hale

As was revealed in Westworld’s Season 2 finale, Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) met her end at the hands of none other than Dolores, whose consciousness had been put into a host version of Charlotte by Bernard. Despite being killed by Dolores, Tessa Thompson is still very much a core member of Westworld’s cast moving forwards, as the host version of Charlotte was seen working with Dolores at the end of the second season, and is featured heavily in the trailers for Season 3. What remains unclear however, is which host’s consciousness is now operating the Hale body. Fortunately, that’s just one of many questions that the show’s third season looks to be answering. Here’s hoping that it does so fairly early in its run.

Ashley Stubbs

The head of parks security, Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) was doing just fine for himself the last time we saw him. Not only is he alive and well at the end of the second season, his final scene seemed to confirm the long-suspected fan theory that he himself is also a host, created by Ford to help monitor the park. After letting the Charlotte version of Dolores escape Westworld at the end of Season 2. As a result of his growing disillusionment with his Delos bosses, Stubbs seemed more than a little confused about what his role would be in the growing hosts vs. humans conflict. So far, the only glimpse we’ve gotten of Stubbs in the trailers for Season 3 shows him walking alongside Bernard, but there’s still no way of telling with whom Stubbs’ loyalties lie.

Teddy Flood

Like several other characters on this list, Westworld left Teddy Flood (James Marsden) in a strange place. After killing himself in front of Dolores, Teddy’s storyline seemed to have come to a quick end. But then viewers saw Dolores not only take Teddy's pearl out of his host body, but also leave it behind in the Forge. Our final glimpse of him in the Season 2 finale seemed to imply that he had been left to enjoy peace in the Valley Beyond, and the lack of James Marsden in any of the Season 3 footage that has been released seems to support that conclusion. Since this is Westworld, there’s always the chance for Teddy to make a surprise return, but for now, viewers can probably just think of him as one of the many original hosts that the show is leaving behind.

Elsie Hughes

The fate of this fan-favorite Westworld programmer was a big mystery for viewers between the show’s first and second seasons. Unfortunately, there’s no question of Elsie’s (Shannon Woodward) fate heading into Season 3, after she was killed in brutal fashion by Charlotte Hale in the show’s Season 2 finale. One of the many casualties to come from Delos' covert machinations, viewers shouldn’t expect to see any more of Elsie moving forward.

Lee Sizemore

Similar to Elsie, the death of Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) was one of the few seemingly unmysterious moments of Westworld’s second season finale. After being forced to tag along with Maeve on her journey through Westworld and Shogun World, Lee underwent a major arc throughout the show’s second season, going from a selfish egomaniac to an empathetic supporter of Maeve’s cause. And in one of the second season’s more unexpected emotional moments, viewers saw Lee sacrifice himself to help Maeve escape her Delos pursuers. It was a surprisingly heroic send-off for the character, and one that also effectively closed the book on his storyline.

Dr. Robert Ford

Ford (Anthony Hopkins) appeared a number of times throughout Westworld’s second season, which led many to wonder exactly how final his “death” was at the end of the show’s first season. However, the show eventually confirmed that Ford was, indeed, killed in the first season finale, and the version we were seeing in the second season was no more than a virtual backup of his consciousness that had been uploaded into the park’s database. So, with Bernard having erased Ford from both his own system and the park’s, it seems safe to assume that we’ve seen the last of the genius inventor, barring any flashbacks to events prior his death, or any unexpected twists pulled by the show’s creative team.

The third season of Westworld premieres on HBO Sunday, March 15th at 9:00 PM ET.

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Alex Welch has written about television and film for TV by the Numbers, IGN, The Berrics, Paste Magazine, Screen Rant and GeekNation. Follow him on Twitter @alexrwelch.