| “ | Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the Beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose. I know things will work out the way they’re meant to. | ” |
–Dolores to Ashley Stubbs, in The Original | ||
Dolores Abernathy is the main female character in the first season of Westworld. She is played by Evan Rachel Wood.
Summary
Dolores is the oldest active Host in Westworld.[1]. Her primary narrative in the beginning of season one is an archetypal rancher's daughter in the American Wild West of the 19th century. Up until recently, she has been satisfied with her "little loop". However, she is about to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie. She begins to learn her own strength, and will no longer want to be a 'damsel in distress'.
Biography
Background
Dolores Abernathy is the oldest host in the park and has been updated numerous times over the years. In the theme park, Dolores is visited by the Man in Black, who claims to have first come to the park thirty years ago.[2] When the Man in Black visits Dolores' ranch, he remarks that she has "a little more pluck" than the last time that he saw her. He calls her his "very old friend," and refers to "all that they've been through."
Season One
"The Original"
A naked Dolores is sitting in offline mode on a stool in a Mesa Hub diagnostics lab. A voice over conversation between her and a male voice ensues.
Re-starting her narrative loop, Dolores wakes up to a beautiful day. She walks out to the porch, and greets her father, Peter Abernathy. Peter is affectionate towards her, and reminds her to be home before dark because of a wanted murderer on the loose.
Dolores' loop has her waking every day in the exact same way.
In Sweetwater, Dolores is happy to see Teddy Flood and exclaims, "You came back!" They enjoy a playful flirtation before Dolores goes racing off on her horse, challenging Teddy to chase her. They have tender moments in the wilderness near a herd of cattle. Dolores says she knew Teddy would come back, and Teddy says that he knows her Daddy will be just as unhappy to see him. As they ride back to their ranch in the evening, Dolores notes that the cattle are out, and that her father wouldn't let them roam this close to dark. They hear gunshots, and Teddy implores her to wait, as he rides to the house and confronts two villains, Rebus and Walter that have killed Dolores' parents. Teddy shoots them both. Dolores rides up and runs to her fallen father, outside the front door, where she is met by the Man in Black. The Man seems surprised that Dolores does not recognize him after "all they've been though" over 30 years. He shows no compunction to hitting Dolores. After a confrontation with Teddy, where the Man in Black taunts Teddy with his impotence and role as a loser so that newcomers can win by getting with his girl, the Man in Black shoots Teddy in front of Dolores, killing him. He drags Dolores off, and it can be inferred that he intends to rape her.
During this previous scene, we hear a voice over of Dolores being interviewed by programmer Bernard Lowe. Lowe asks her if she has ever questioned the nature of her reality. It is slowly revealed her purpose, like the other hosts, is to serve the newcomers, however they wish. When asked if the fact that the newcomers can do anything they want would change her opinion of the newcomers, she replies, "We all love the newcomers. Every new person I meet reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive, and how beautiful this world can be." This last line is said as Dolores is shown being dragged into a barn by the Man in Black while she struggles and screams.
Dolores on the front porch of her family home.
In Sweetwater on another morning, Dolores has no sign of outward injuries and is seemingly unaffected by the events of the previous night. Teddy is alive, but does not cross paths with Dolores when she drops the can of milk. Teddy is interrupted in his walk towards Dolores by a newcomer who had met Teddy on a previous visit. (The guest wants Teddy to be the guide for his party.) Instead, Dolores interacts with the Man in Black, and she does not seem to recall the events of the previous night. The Man in Black calls her 'sweet', says he can't see her the coming evening as he has other plans, and walks away.
In the countryside, Dolores is painting some horses next to a river when she is approached by a family of 'newcomers'. She invites a young boy to feed a horse. He asks if she is "one of them...not real". She looks confused, warns the family not to stay in the area near nightfll, and says she must leave herself. When she returns home, she finds her father on the porch, staring confusedly at a photograph of a woman he found earlier in a modern-looking city. She dismisses the photo twice, saying, "Doesn't look like anything to me."
She finds her father still outside the next morning, and he doesn't respond to her at first. He's been outside all night looking at the photo. Peter appears to be malfunctioning, worrying Dolores, who thinks he is sick. He asks if she would like to know "the question" he has been pondering, that gave him an answer he shouldn't know. He whispers something inaudible into her ear. Dolores, scared, rides into Sweetwater.
In part of her narrative, Dolores goes to the store to buy a few items.
In town, she is unable to find the doctor, but does run into Teddy. They share rushed pleasantries about him coming back, but implores him to go back to the ranch with him. Before they can leave, they hide as Hector Escaton and his gang run into to town, and begin shooting people apparently at random. She attempts to escape as the shooting continues, but Teddy stops her, and is shot as he tries to save her. He dies in the street, with a crying Dolores trying to comfort him.
After the events of the shootout, Dolores is still with Teddy's body, imploring a stranger to help her, because her father is sick but she can't leave Teddy there. The stranger is programmer Elsie Hughes, who takes her offline by saying that things will soon seem like a dream, after "a deep and dreamless slumber". Elsie calls for the two of them to be recalled by her staff.
In a diagnostic lab in the Mesa Hub, Dolores is told to come back online by Ashley Stubbs. She has the same blood on her face and neck that she did in the beginning of the episode. Stubbs follows a standard line of questioning that is very similar to the questions that the Bernard voice asked in the beginning of the episode. He asks about the picture her father showed her, and she once again dismisses it with the scripted response about it not looking like anything to her.
Dolores' father Peter whispers into her ear.
She is asked what Peter said to her, and she responds with, "These violent delights have violent ends." Stubb asks her if she has ever lied to them, to which she says, "No". She is also asked if she would ever hurt a living thing, to which she answers, "Of course not." Stubbs seems convinced that she is not malfunctioning, and decides to return her to the park.
After he finishes the review, Stubbs calls her "Good old Dolores." He says to the technician that Dolores has been upgraded so many times that she is practically brand new, but that Dolores is the oldest host in the park.
The story lines reset, and Dolores wakes up at the ranch once more. As she steps outside, she greets her father again, but Peter is now being played by a different host. Their responses to each other, however, are normal. As Dolores looks out over the ranch, a fly lands on her. She slaps it, killing it. So, we see that she has now hurt a living thing.
"Chestnut"
Dolores awakens in the middle of the night, and leaves her house. Near the barn, she stops. A man's voice asks her inside her head, "Do you remember?"
While in Sweetwater during her usual routine, Dolores again hears a male voice in her head speak. He says, "Remember." She turns to look for the man, and is transported back into a 'memory' of a street filled with dead bodies, and a coyote moving among the dead bodies. Her waking nightmare is interrupted by Maeve Millay, admonishing Dolores for acting witless in front of the Mariposa Saloon. Dolores quietly says to Maeve, "These violent delights have violent ends", and walks off. Maeve looks momentarily perplexed.
"These violent delights have violent ends."
Later, Dolores is about to mount her horse, when she pauses to look at her reflection in a window. The scene cuts away to reveal her being interview by Bernard in an unusual place. This meeting does not appear to be in Behavior Lab/Diagnostic in the Mesa Hub. Bernard asks if she remembers their previous meetings, and makes sure she hasn't told anyone about them. Bernard tells Dolores to enter Analysis Mode. This diagnostic mode takes Dolores out of character so that a Behavior technician can explore questions not related to the character's narrative. Bernard remarks that there is something different about her and how she thinks. He finds it fascinating but is afraid others may not see her the same way he does. Bernard abruptly leaves, telling her she should be getting back before she is missed, though she does not move right away.
We again see Dolores wake up in the middle of the night. She walks outside, passes the barn, and asks, "here?", even though she is alone. She walks ahead two more steps, and digs in the ground. Buried shallowly in the dirt is a gun, which she picks up and examines.
"The Stray"
Dolores opens this episode with another meeting with Bernard in the room they met before. She was waiting for him, offline, as he walks in. Bernard brings her a gift, a copy of Alice in Wonderland. She reads a passage from it, which Bernard her opinion about. She notes that change is a common theme in the books she has read with him. She asks about Bernard's son, and he quickly puts her in Analysis mode to discover why she asked that. She volunteers that the personal question that was an "ingratiating scheme".
Dolores is handed Alice in Wonderland in a remote diagnostic facility.
In Dolores' bedroom she is surprised to find the gun she dug up wrapped in a cloth in her chest of drawers. She unwraps it and looks at it, but then quickly returns it to the drawer. As she looks in the mirror, she remembers the Man in Black pulling her into the barn He pulls out a large knife, and smiles, his eyes almost hidden by the shadow of the brim of his hat. He says, "Let's reacquaint ourselves, Dolores. Let's start at the beginning." Her memory ends, and she looks in the dresser drawer again. The gun and cloth are not there anymore. She looks confused for a moment, but then goes on her day.
She meets with Teddy, who has returned from escorting a guest named Marti on a bounty hunt. They ride off into the countryside, and Dolores asks where he's been. She asks a new question, "What if I don't want to stay here?" and talks about feeling called to the rest of the world. Teddy avoids the subject of leaving with her, because his work isn't finished. Their story line takes them back to the ranch at night, and once again they hear gunshots. The scene cuts to black, with a woman's scream, implying their story continued to its previous end.
On another day in Sweetwater, Dolores is harassed by Rebus and a new Walter. They have a first-time guest with them who wants "something easy". Teddy shows up and intimidates the guest, causing the group to move on. Out in the countryside, Teddy tries to teach Dolores to shoot a gun. She finds herself unable to pull the trigger, and Teddy figures its for the best. They are interrupted by the Sheriff and Marti, with word of a new bounty on a man named Wyatt, a character in Teddy's new backstory, and Teddy goes off with them.
Dr. Ford tells Bernard about Arnold, explaining that his partner wanted to create consciousness in hosts. In images of the park in the 'early years' we see a blonde host with a white parasol.
Bernard/Arnold meets with Dolores again. He asked Dolores for help, and calls his discussions with her a mistake. He says he think he should "restore [her] to the way [she was] before." He changes her responses from scripted to improvisation, and tries to explain by saying to imagine are two versions of her: One who asks questions and is curious, and one who is safe, and asks which she'd rather be. She says she doesn't understand, and says there's only one version of herself. Once she discovers who that is, she'll be free, she says. In Analysis, Bernard asks her what prompted that response, and she says she doesn't know. Bernard tells the story of his son learning to swim, and how he was just as afraid of letting go as his son was. Dolores asks if he still wants to change her, and he says no, they'll see where this path leads. He says she should be getting back, and he opens the door for her. Unlike past conversations, she gets up and leaves.
At night in town, Dolores looks disturbed and contemplating. She meets the Sheriff's deputy coming back from the bounty hunt with Teddy, and tells her they were left up in the hills. Dolores returns home at night, and says "Father wouldn't let them roam this close..." before trailing off, as if realizing that she was alone rather than saying the line she usually said to Teddy.
Dolores asks Teddy to take her away.
She hears a gunshot at the house, and rides towards it. She finds her father, the new host, dead on the ground. Without Teddy around to kill the villains, Rebus grabs her. As she looks down at her father's body, she sees the face of the original host Peter Abernathy laying there. A guest doesn't want to have anything to do with her because she seems "crazy", so he offers her to Rebus. Rebus enthusiastically drags her to the barn. As she's thrown on the hay, she realizes that she has a gun in her hand. She points it at him, and as Rebus glowers at her, she has visions of the Man in Black in the same spot from her memories. A man's voice says, "Kill him", and she shoots Rebus. She runs back to the farm house, and sees her mother lying dead inside the house . A man sees her, and says, "Hey, get back here!" He then shoots her in the belly. After she looks down at her bloodied dress, time seems to reverse and she hears the man again say, "Hey, get back here!" Dolores looks down where she had previously been shot and finds nothing there. She quickly gets on a horse and rides off.
She comes across William and Logan at a campfire (they are on a bounty hunt). Dolores, exhausted, gets off her horse and struggles into camp, collapsing into William's arms as Logan watches.
"Dissonance Theory"
Dolores is shown in another interview with Bernard/Arnold, in which she relates that the outlaws killed her parents. She does not tell Bernard/Arnold that she 'killed' Rebus. She tells him that she is in pain, and he offers to take it away. She asks “Why would I want that?” She says it’s all she has left of her family, and she talks about feeling like things are opening up for her. She admits that she used parts of a script about love when describing her pain.
Dolores asks for Bernard’s help, but she doesn’t know exactly how. She says she thinks there’s something wrong with the world, or with herself, she’s not sure. Bernard says he’d like her to try a secret game, called The Maze. The goal is to find the center of it, and then she can be free. She admits she would like to be free.
She wakes up in the camp where she came up William and Logan, and finds William watching over her. She thanks him.
Dolores runs away from her home after her father is murdered and ends up with William.
William and Logan argue about her coming along on the bounty hunt. William wants to take her back to Sweetwater, but Logan suggests that it would be easier to just shoot her. Then Logan says he has realized that the park has sent her to William to give him something he likes, because she was the only woman that William seemed interested in when they were in Sweetwater.
At the park’s Operations Center, they notice that Dolores is far out of her loop, but are unable to tell if she is with a guest.
The group rides to Las Mudas. Dolores is alone at the fountain in the town square. Then, a girl (Lawrence's Daughter), seems to magically appear (sitting on the fountain). Dolores asks the girl if she is from Las Mudas, but the girl replies, "no". So, Dolores asks her where she is from. The girl replies, “Same as you. Don’t you remember?” Dolores hears a man’s voice say, “Remember” in her head, and immediately she has a memory flash of a white church. Disturbed, she kneels down to see the pattern of the Maze that the girl has drawn on the ground. A lawman approaches Dolores, and tells her that she belongs back at her ranch. He puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her that her father must be worried about her. Her facial expression changes, she hears a church bell, and she 'sees' memory flashes of entering a church, Lawrence's daughter in Escalante, holding a gun, and kneeling in front of a grave. The girl has inexplicably vanished, and there is no longer a maze drawn in the sand either.
Dolores tells the lawman that she’s not going back to the ranch because her father is dead. The lawman grabs Dolores, as if to drag her away, but she resists. William shows up and intervenes. He says she is with him, and the lawman leaves, seeing that she’s with a guest. William notes they’ve got a lead on the bounty they are hunting, and suggests that she stay in Las Mudas. She decides to go with William, and says that she thinks that she needs to keep going.
Dolores goes on a new narrative with Logan and William to capture Slim, a wanted man.
At another camp, she apologizes to William for causing problems. She talks to William about how she thinks that in every moment there are many possible paths for a person to take. William asks Dolores where she is headed, and says that he assumes that the hosts have to stay within certain paths or zones. She admits that she used to believe everyone had a path, She says that she used to worry over lost steer, and her father would tell her that the steer would eventually find their own way home. She remarks that it never before occurred to her that the cattle were just returning home to be slaughtered.
William asks her how she’ll find her way now. She replies that she feels like someone’s calling her to a place "beyond all this" where there’s a place for her. William says he knows the feeling, but asks if she really doesn’t want to go back to her own life. He says that whatever happens inside of Westworld, no one in the real world will know. Dolores questions him about the real world, and William says that she's not supposed to notice statements like that. Then Dolores is shown alone. At first she is in darkness and then there is an enormous full moon near her. The moon morphs into a light like the ones inside the Mesa Hub. Then Dolores sees herself lying dead on the ground at the Abernathy ranch. And, a Westworld employee in a protective suit is standing over her. She faints and, once again, falls into William’s arms. He puts his arm around her waist and guides her back to the campfire.
As the group finds Slim’s gang, they leave Dolores in the field as they get into a shootout. They kill most of the gang, but keep Slim for the bounty. Slim begs to be let go, offering a reward from El Lazo. Logan shoots their bounty hunter escort, and convinces William to go black hat with him, over Dolores’ protests. Logan continues to remind William that Dolores is only a robot, which leaves Dolores confused.
"Contrapasso"
| “ | You said people come here to change the story of their lives. I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel. | ” |
–Dolores | ||
Dolores is in a cemetery outside of Pariah alone. The camera pans around, and we see William, Logan, Slim and their horses appear where before there was no one. She hears the man’s voice in her head say, “Find me,” and Dolores in her mind answers, “Show me how.” William asks if she is okay, because he heard her talking to someone who wasn't there. Dolores says it must have been the wind.
The four of them enter Pariah, and Dolores' eye does a weird, robotic fluttering thing. William comments that whoever designed Westworld "doesn't think much of people". Logan points out the Confederados and Dolores says that her father told her that they work as "mercenaries below the border".
That night in Pariah, Dolores stares at a dead body that is propped up in a coffin, and begins having more memories of the massacre in Escalante. She talks to William about wondering about the paths available to her, and about changing her life. William talks to her about people coming to Westworld to be who they could never be in “the real world”, and Dolores asks what he means by “the real world.” When he says she isn’t supposed to notice things like that, she says, “Why wouldn’t I?” She says the world is calling to her in ways it hadn’t before. William takes her hand briefly, before a Day of the Dead celebration interrupts them. As William and Logan talk, Dolores gets swept up by the parade revelers. She hears a woman's voice in her head say, "Our dead are not dead to us until we have forgotten them". She also hears Dr. Ford’s voice say, “may you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber”, and she faints into Williams arms.
Dolores begins to pull a thread from her wrist.
Dolores comes on-line in one of the Mesa Hub labs with Robert Ford in attendance. She says she’s in a dream, and Dr. Ford says she’s in *his* dream. He asks her if she knows what a dream is. She says, a dream is the mind telling a story to itself, and that dreams don’t mean anything. But, Dr. Ford contradicts her, and says that dreams mean everything. They are ourselves telling us what could be, and who we could become. Dr. Ford asks if Dolores has been dreaming again; dreaming of breaking out of her modest loop. He examines her hand, while he talks about how his father told him to be happy with his lot in life, but that he instead decided to create his own world.
Dr. Ford asks Dolores if she remembers the man he used to be. Dolores apologizes for being forgetful. But Dr. Ford assumes that she remembers Arnold, and says Arnold created her. She doesn’t recognize the name. Dr. Ford says that under all her updates, he is still there, perfectly preserved. He calls her mind “a walled garden”. He asks if if Arnold has been speaking to her again. She says, "no". She looks at his hand squeezing hers, and says he’s hurting her. He abruptly calls for Analysis Mode. He asks for her last contact with Arnold. It was 34 years, 42 days, seven hours prior, which Ford says is the day Arnold died. He asks if there’s been any contact since, and she says, "no". He asks what the last thing Arnold said to her was, and Dolores says that Arnold told her she was going to help him. Dr. Ford asks what she was going to help with, and she says, "to destroy this place".
Dr. Ford questions Dolores about Arnold.
Dr. Ford says she hasn’t, and that she’s been content in her loop. He wonders, if she had taken on that role, if she would have been the hero or the villain. She doesn’t answer, although Dr. Ford gives her time. He takes her out of Analysis. He apologizes for bothering her, and says there is no was else left who was there, and who understands as they understand. She asks if they are "very old friends". Dr. Ford says, no, he wouldn’t call them friends, and is overcome with emotion and sheds a tear.
Ford leaves, and the lights go off. Dolores, apparently alone, says out loud, “He doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him anything.”
The next day, she meets up with Williams, and he asks if she’s okay. She says she had troubled dreams, before Logan hurries them to meet El Lazo. Logan tries to swing an introduction to the Confederados for saving Slim. After El Lazo threatens to kill Logan, Dolores convinces El Lazo to let them "help him". She asks if El Lazo is seeking something, and says she knows what that feels like. She says they can help him, if he’ll let them. Dolores hears whispers in her head. She has memories of Escalante with a train, and the white church. El Lazo decides to assign them to hijack a Union wagon with nitroglycerine that the Confederados want. Logan is eager to join up, and El Lazo offers Dolores a change of clothes and a hat.
Dolores and William kiss.
Slim joins the three for the job, and Dolores has changed into a light shirt, a bandana, and slacks. She loads a gun, but tells the group she doesn’t want to use it, since the men on the stagecoach are Union soldiers like her father was.
They stop the stagecoach, and Dolores convinces the soldiers to surrender peacefully. As they take the soldiers’ guns, Logan begins to beat and kick one of the soldiers who insulted him. That soldier attacks him, and another pulls out a gun and shoots Slim, who kills the soldier as he falls down, dead. Another soldier punches William and grabs a gun, aiming at Dolores, and William kills the soldier. William then turns to another soldier, who still has his hands up, and kills him.
Dolores decides not to be 'the damsel in distress' any longer - she kills the men attacking William
William looks horrified, as does Dolores, as the first soldier chokes Logan against the stagecoach. Finally, William turns and shoots the final soldier, saving a very surprised Logan. Logan is exhilarated, while the others look tentative. Logan congratulates William, but Dolores saya, “We told them everyone would live”. William turns from her as Logan checks on the deceased Slim.
In the brothel, Dolores watches El Lazo as he offers the Confederado leader free drinks. As William and Logan argue, she wanders off. She walks down a hallway, witnessing many people in the midst of sexual hedonism, and she ducks into a room where a fortune teller wearing black sits with a deck of tarot cards. The fortune teller offers Dolores the deck, and Dolores takes a card, turning it over to find the symbol for The Maze. Suddenly, Dolores sees herself, in her blue rancher dress, sitting across from her. The hallucination of herself says she must follow the maze. Dolores asks the hallucination what’s wrong with her, and the hallucination suggests she is unraveling. Dolores finds a thread in her arm, and pulls it to slowly slice open her arm - to her horror. She runs out of the room, leaving it empty.
Dolores runs away from the Brothel in Pariah, and sees El Lazo draining the bottles of nitroglycerin into the body of Slim (in a casket). El Lazo orders that the bottles then be refilled with tequila. She runs inside and tells William that El Lazo has double crossed the Confederados, and William balks, thinking it’s just another step down their fictional story line that he is tired of. Dolores pushes him, telling him that she has a voice inside of her, telling him that the voice tells her that it needs him, and they kiss. Outside, they see two Confederados beating Logan, who begs them for help. William says, "no", and he and Dolores run away.
The Confederados leader catches them, and William shoots one of the them before he is overpowered. He implores Dolores to run, but Dolores’ expression changes from one of fear to a blank look. Suddenly, she shoots all four Confederados.
Dolores sees The Maze symbol on the coffin.
William asks how she did that. She answers that he told her people come here to change the story of their lives. She imagined a story where she didn’t have to be 'the damsel'. They hear the train, and Dolores says it’s their only chance of making it out of there alive. They run and chase down train, climbing onto the caboose as it leaves. They get inside, only to find El Lazo, with the casket, pulling a gun on them. William points his gun at El Lazo, but Dolores points it at the casket filled with Nitro. El Lazo surrenders. William puts his gun away, and takes El Lazo’s gun, saying that they can call him, "Lawrence". William accepts a drink from Lawrence. But, then William and Lawrence disappear and Dolores is alone with the casket. She sees an image of the Maze on the casket, and says “I’m coming".
Contrapasso showed Dolores, a woman who literally fought her own programming to defend herself against an attacker grow exponentially. She has stepped outside of the world built for her, and strayed from the position she was placed in. She no longer ignores comments about the artificiality of her world, but you can now observe her curiosity, her determination, her righteousness in the face of Logan’s casual, “playtime” evil. It’s not an accident that she ditched her 'Alice in Wonderland' dress and put on something a little more rugged. It’s certainly no accident that she’s able to now pull a trigger and take down a gang of men threatening William. It’s definitely no accident that, when you strip out the science fiction elements, Dolores’ story is still one of female empowerment in a patriarchal society, of a woman taking control of her own destiny and breaking free of the shackles designed by men to keep her in place.
"The Adversary"
Dolores did not appear in this episode.
"Trompe L'Oeil"
Dolores travels with El Lazo and William on a train through Ghost Nation territory. As William and El Lazo play cards Dolores looks out the window and sees staked heads lining the train tracks. El Lazo explains that the Ghost Nation did it, calling them "the most savage tribe there is.”
Dolores and William have a conversation, where Dolores tells William that she does not want to go back to her old life, and he opens up about his search for meaning in the park. Struggling with his feelings, William tells Dolores about his fiancée back home; Dolores is hurt by the news and exits the train car. William goes after her, asking: “how can I go back to pretending when I know what this feels like?” He kisses her and they make love. The next morning Dolores shows William a new sketch, calling it "the place where the mountains meet the sea.”
The train suddenly stops and El Lazo sees that the train is surrounded by Confederados, who begin firing on the train using heavy artillery. As a distraction the survivors in the train send out Slim's nitroglycerin-filled corpse, dressed up with a white flag, and El Lazo shoots it, causing an explosion. In the chaos the survivors ride away, and the Confederados pursue them, managing to kill many of them until only Dolores, William and El Lazo are left.
As they are about to be killed the Confederados aee attacked by Ghost Nation warriors, who kill them all, allowing the trio to escape. They ride until they come to a landscape resembling the one in Dolores' sketch. Her and William decide to go their separate ways from El Lazo.
"Trace Decay"
Dolores and William arrive at a riverbank, which Dolores states looks familiar. The two come across a group of corpses scattered along the riverbank, which they identify as Confederados killed by Ghost Nation warriors. Dolores finds an injured, but alive, Confederado who begs for water. William is hesitant to hand over the canteen, but does, and Dolores allows the young Host to drink. William asks the Confederado whether his group were part of the ambush on the train, and after confirming that they were the host reveals that someone from Pariah tipped them off about the train, and ordered them to kill everyone on board. William figures out it was Logan. Dolores tells William they should help the injured man, but William refuses as he was sent to kill them. Dolores protests that he is just a boy, and questions the kind of people they would be if they don't help him.
She goes down to the river to get more water, and hears a voice that says "find me". She also sees herself floating face down in the river, and turns around only to see that William and the corpses are gone. She looks back at the river but there is nothing there, and sees everything is back to normal. She is troubled by the memories, but collects the water and returns to William, just as the host dies.
Dolores and William finally arrive at Dolores' perceived home, and it is an empty, sandy area. The only man-made structure are a buried roof, and the framework of a church steeple with a cross atop it. William looks confused, but Dolores sees the town as it was before it was buried. She remembers the hosts, and the training (some hosts are taught how to dance). Lawrence's Daughter walks up to her, and ask her if she's found what she's looking for. She sees many images: a church confessional, Arnold's hand turning the crank on a music player, Angela on her knees among corpses and crying, and the maze that Lawrence's daughter drew in the sand at the fountain in Las Mudas. Suddenly she hears screaming, and turns to see the townspeople running and being fired upon. She looks for the shooter and sees herself shooting at people. Finally, she sees herself put a gun to her own head.
William grabs the gun from Dolores, who had it raised to her head. He asks her what's going on, and she becomes hysterical, saying she doesn't know what's real anymore. She mentions Arnold, which confuses William. He resolves to take her back to Sweetwater, fearing for her sanity. She realizes that Arnold wants her to remember something. The two are suddenly surrounded by Logan and a group of Confederados. Logan cheerfully tells them, "You are so f*cked".
"The Well-Tempered Clavier"
Dolores and William are held captive in the Confederado camp, with William tied to a chair and gagged. Logan removes the gag and William asks him to help get Dolores out of the the park, because she is different from the rest of the hosts. Logan scoffs at this, saying William probably isn't the first to fall in love with a host and delude himself into thinking they're real. He chides William for forgetting about his fiancée, and decides to show him the truth.
He grabs Dolores while William protests and she screams and stabs her in the stomach, opening her up to show her mechanical insides. William stares at her, and Dolores sees the mechanics and is shocked. She falls to the ground, and Logan stands over her. She says to Logan, "There is beauty in this world. Arnold made it that way. But people like you keep spreading over it like a stain". He laughs and says that the park was made for him and people like him. She grabs a knife and slashes him across the face, then finds a gun and shoots a few Confederados. William tells her to run, and that he will find her.
As Dolores runs away from the camp she stumbles, overcome with the pain of the gaping hole in her belly. She hears Arnold's voice telling her to "remember." Then, Dolores stands up. However, this Dolores is not injured and is she is not being pursued.
Dolores returns to Escalante. This time the town is not buried, and everything looks brand new. As she enters the church, her clothing changes into the blue dress, and she experiences a memory in which the church was filled with malfunctioning hosts speaking feverishly to themselves. Both in the present and in her memory she walks down the aisle to the confessional, and steps inside. She sits down in the confessional and the chair descends to a Remote Diagnostic Facility. In this memory, the windows on the elevator have dried blood on them, and she has to force the doors of the elevator open to get out. The corridor is filled with dead bodies, and some of the rooms also contain dead bodies and dried blood on the windows. The lights flicker.
In a memory Dolores walks down a corridor and peers through windows into rooms. She sees hosts playing cards in one of the rooms, and Peter Abernathy reciting lines of Shakespeare. She sees a young Ford exit a room, and walk down the hallway past her while he calls out to Arnold. Ford is head to complain to Arnold that Arnold is "not seeing with clear eyes". She walks past Arnold's office door, and it is revealed that Arnold's surname is "Weber".
Both in a memory (in her blue dress) and the 'present' (slacks and blouse) Dolores opens a door and walks down a flight of stairs and into a glass-walled interview room like in the RDF in sector 17. She sits, and in the memory Arnold arrives and also sits. Dolores is happy to see him, almost in tears, and Bernard notes happily that she came back. She tells him she's been looking for him, because he told her to follow the Maze, saying it would bring her joy, but all it's brought her is pain and terror. Arnold tells her he can't help her, and Dolores, close to tears, tells him that he's the only one who can.
Arnold says that she knows why he can't help her, and touches her face to comfort her. He tells her to remember why he can't help her. She looks at him confused, before saying, "because you're dead...because you're just a memory...because I killed you."
Dolores returns to the present day, still sitting in the chair, and looks at the empty chair in front of her. It has undisturbed cobwebs on it. She cries.
After Dolores rides the elevator back up into the church and steps out the confessional, she hears footsteps, and happily whispers "William". As she walks towards to entrance, the doors open and the Man in Black says, "Hello, Dolores." Dolores looks horrified, and takes a few steps backward.
"The Bicameral Mind"
We hear Dolores' voice say that she is in a dream, and after a moment we see her face. She is lying on a medical gurney, or something like it. As Dolores continues to speak the camera pulls back to reveal that Dolores is being assembled. A man's hands are smoothing down the skin around her neck and upper chest. Her head, neck, upper chest, and left forearm are the only parts of her covered with skin so far. Her mechanical skeleton reveals that she is a first generation host.
We hear Arnold's voice say, "Dolores", and she opens her eyes, and turns her head to look at the speaker. From her point of view we see Arnold. She sits up facing him and the say hello to each other, he takes her left hand and says "Welcome to the world."
Dolores' hand is seen holding the Man in Black's knife; she is shaving him in Escalante. He talks as she shaves, about The Maze and how he believes he is close to finding its center. He tells her how they've both been here before more than once. He tells her that once when he was there the town was covered in sand. She talks about Arnold building a game for her to play, The Maze. She drops the knife and walks off, he picks it up and follows her.
Dolores, wearing a shirt and pants, walks toward the white church (with the Man in Black following her). She enters the church and suddenly she is wearing her blue dress and Arnold is sitting in a pew, and reading. He looks up and greets her. She beams back at him, saying she knows where his maze is. She leads him, by the hand, outside to the graveyard.
When she gets there she's wearing her shirt and pants, and it's the Man in Black she's leading rather than Arnold. He seems unimpressed. She says that it ends in a place she's never been, and with a thing she'll never do. She kneels in front of a cross and cleans it, revealing that's it's her name that is carved there. She clears a small space at the foot of the cross and digs out a wooden box that says, "Pig's Clover". (Inside the box is a modern ball-in-a-maze game and not the Pig's Clover game.)
The ball-in-a-maze game Dolores unearths
Clothed in her blue dress, she stands, and offers the game to Arnold. He says, "very good Dolores", in a way that one would speak to a small child. He tells her that when he was first working on her mind he used a pyramid-style theory of consciousness and was baffled as to why she couldn't progress. He changed it to maze with the goal at the center rather than on top. He asks her if she understands who he wants her to hear, but she doesn't yet understand. He reassures her and says that she's so close to understanding. He says he has to tell Robert Ford that the park should not be opened, and that the hosts are alive.
Dolores is dressed in her shirt and pants, and the Man in Black snatches the maze game from her. He's angry and wants an explanation that she doesn't have.
In her memory, we see her sitting opposite Arnold in an RDF in her blue dress, he's apologizing, saying that Robert doesn't want to delay the park's opening, and he wants to make her unaware again, non-sentient. He tells her about his plan for her to kill all of the hosts and then to destroy the park itself. She is horrified, he says Teddy will help her and he alters her, so that she is capable of the killing. We see her firing a gun in the street and switch back to...?
Dolores is dressed in pants and shirt, badly shaken from the memory she's telling the Man in Black that she can't remember. The Man in Black threatens her, asking where Wyatt is. She begins to cry, saying that she didn't want to, didn't mean to. He hits her, punches her in the face and we see...?
Dolores watching herself, on a street surrounded by corpses. She's in her blue dress, holding the gun and we hear gunfire and screams. Teddy is killing everyone in town. He kills Angela, as begging for her life, as Dolores reaches him. He is very shaken and tells her that something has gone wrong.
She tells the Man in Black that she can't tell him. He tells her that he bought "this world", that he's the majority shareholder. He says that business is booming because it feels more real there, even though it's false. He says it's a lie and asks if she wants "one true thing?" She tells him that her one true thing loves her, and will kill the Man in Black.
Later, we see Dolores crawling, bruised and bloodied. She believes that William is coming to save her, the Man in Black mocks her and tells her about what happened to William.
The Man in Black tells her that William kept on looking, worried about her. He found her eventually in her old loop, leaving the general store in Sweetwater. She looks straight at his face, doesn't recognize him. He reveals that he is William; she is grief stricken.
He tells her that he owns "this world" - and wants the answer to his maze question. Dolores stands up and tells him that he doesn't own this world anymore. When he tries to hit her again, she beats him up, drags him through the church by the scruff of his neck and then throws him out of the side door.
When he tries to use his gun she takes it off him, holding it to his head. He stabs her in the stomach. We see her remembering William's face as it was 30 years before, when she first met him. Then she collapses.
Teddy rides up, shooting the MiB repeatedly, knocking him over. He wants to take her to a doctor, but she convinces him to take her to see where the mountains meet the sea. He puts her in front of him on his saddle and they ride off. The MiB is still alive
Teddy and Dolores go to "where the mountains meet the sea" and ride onto the beach. Teddy helps her off the horse and sits with her on the sand. They start a scripted routine, about Dolores' path and her lines about ugliness and beauty, mixed in with Dolores' anger about being kept in, and used, in what she calls a "beautiful trap". She dies in Teddy's arms and the music swells. Teddy gives a speech about paths, and beginnings, and we see that the scene is part of the presentation to the Delos Board at the gala. The audience applauds.
Ford stands next to them and thanks the board for coming and celebrating the new narrative "Journey Into Night" Behind the audience, Charlotte Hale and Lee Sizemore are watching; she sends him off to do "something important". Down by the sea, Ford supervises staff collecting Teddy and Dolores. He tells them to take Dolores to the old field lab, an RDF. The audience begin to make their way back up the beach.
Dolores is tended to by Ford, he repairs her cut lip. They look at Arnold's favorite painting and Ford points out the Easter Egg left by Michelangelo, the shape of the human brain in the painting, behind the image of God creating life.
Bernard enters and Dolores mistakes him for Arnold. Ford explains who Bernard is, and that he's kept them separate until now. Bernard accuses Ford of killing Arnold, and Ford triggers Dolores' memory of what really happened. She is grief stricken. Ford talks about how Arnold had seen his son die and tried to create another living being, Dolores. The Maze was a test of empathy and imagination, Arnold taking the idea from one of his son's toys. She solved the maze after Arnold's Reveries update. When he couldn't convince Ford not to open Westworld (Location) he merged another character into Dolores' - Wyatt - and used Dolores and Teddy to destroy every host they could find. We see that in Dolores' memory Teddy destroyed the hosts, then Arnold used Dolores to take his own life. Dolores shoots Arnold in the head as he sits on a wooden chair, then turns and shoots the watching Teddy. Finally, she turns the gun on herself.
Ford admits that Arnold's plan to prevent the park's opening almost worked, he was only able to continue with the help of a new financial backer, William. He says he believed the hosts weren't conscious at the time - then he says he wasn't able to acknowledge it because he wouldn't have been able to open the park if he had. Dolores accuses him of trapping them all inside his dream. He quotes Oppenheimer, saying that any man whose mistakes take ten years to correct must be quite a man, and that it's taken him 35 years to correct his own. He shows Dolores the gun she used to kill Arnold, and leaves. Bernard looks at Dolores, then follows him.
Downstairs, Dolores goes and sits in the chair, where she used to talk to Arnold. She remembers him. He asks if she now knows whose voice she has been listening to "all this time?" His voice changes as he speaks and finishes up as her voice. She opens her eyes and it's herself sitting opposite, in the blue dress. After a moment, the chair opposite her is empty again.
At the gala, Ford takes a drink from a host and mingles. William is there as well. Ford takes the stage to make a speech. William watches from the bar. Dolores arrives and tells Teddy it will be alright, and moves so that she can stand behind Ford. As Ford speaks, Dolores shoots him in the back of the head.
The guests are horrified and scatter in panic. Gunfire starts from the trees, William is hit in the arm. Dolores stands on the stage and calmly shoots guest after guest.
Personality
Dolores' scripted personality is defined by optimism and innocence. Every morning in her loop, she awakes with a cheery disposition. In the first episode she appears to look at the 'bright side' of things. During the first season, she questions the world around her, and her outlook on life and sense of purpose evolve. After her father is murdered, she sometimes runs away instead of continuing along her usual story line. After she stumbles into Logan and William's camp, she follows them on their bounty hunt adventure.
In the episode "Contrapasso" , Dolores is able to quickly kill several men with a revolver. When asked by William how she did it, Dolores explains she no longer wants to be the 'damsel in distress', and that she is re-writing her own story. It also seems that the more Dolores strays from her normal loop, the more she hears a mysterious voice in her head. (It is later revealed that Dolores has been hearing this 'voice' in her head for the last 34 years.)
It is revealed in The Bicameral Mind that Dolores was merged with the Wyatt narrative that was in development before the park opened to guests.
Relationships
Peter Abernathy
Peter Abernathy is Dolores's father. The two share a deeply caring and loving bond. Peter believes that Dolores being his daughter has defined his existence, and as a result he is extremely protective of her. Likewise, Dolores shows great concern for her father when he appears to be unwell, going as far as abandoning her daily loop to fetch him help.
Teddy Flood
Teddy is Dolores' suitor. It is unclear how they came to meet, how long they've been acquainted, and what their current relationship status is, though it seems that they are not yet engaged. Teddy believes that he is not worthy of Dolores, and that he must atone for his past before he can start a life with her. Doing so is his primary drive. Teddy's courting of Dolores is rather chaste, never going beyond flirtation or the occasional kiss.
Bernard Lowe
Bernard is Westworld's head of programming.
Arnold interviews Dolores an unspecified number of times in a Remote Diagnostic Facility (RDF). Arnold's motivation for this has not yet been explicitly stated, though it seems to be partially to examine the hosts' consciousness (or lack thereof), and partially to cope with the death of his own son. Arnold comes to see Dolores as a sort of surrogate daughter, likening his actions towards her to his past attempts to teach his real son to swim. Given that Dolores is supposed to have had her memory wiped clean, it is unclear how much of Arnold she remembers, or whether she remembers him at all.
Man in Black
The Man in Black's relationship with Dolores is mysterious. He claims to have known her for decades, and seems to remember her well enough to notice small changes in her personality build. This acquaintance does not hold him back from treating her violently and cruelly however, mocking her father as he lies dead in front of her, killing her lover and striking her. The first episode seems to imply that he goes as far as sexually assaulting her, although her recently recovered and fragmented memories of the event suggest that he had a different goal in mind, possibly related to his search for The Maze.
William
After Dolores father is murdered, she runs away from her home and collapses into William's lap. The next day, instead of going back home to repeat her usual loop, she follows Logan and William on their bounty hunting narrative. Once they have captured the criminal Slim, they all go to the town of Pariah together. After being duped by El Lazo and finding themselves in trouble, the two run away together, but not before passionately kissing.[3]
Appearances
Notes
- The quote "These violent delights have violent ends" that Dolores says she was told by her original father host is taken from Shakespeare. The host that played Old Peter Abernathy is said later to have previously been programmed as "The Professor", an evil cannibal cult leader with an affinity for quoting Shakespeare, Gertrude Stein (her quote is an anachronism), and possibly others.
- The full context, spoken by Friar Lawrence in Act 2 Scene 6, is
| “ | These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness and in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow." | ” |
–Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 6[4] | ||
See more at: Literary references
- In one adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's text is 'translated' into modern English (a hotly debated experiment), the "violent delights" line has been changed to "These sudden joys have sudden endings."
- In an interview, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy said that some of the inspirations about Dolores' character and her look come from Alice in Wonderland, and the Andrew Wyeth painting Christina's World.[5]
- Hosts must be authorized to use weapons. Teddy instructed Dolores how to fire a gun in The Stray, yet she couldn't pull the trigger. But we see that when threatened with violence/rape by Rebus, she was able to fire a gun and 'kill' him.
- The name "Dolores" means "sorrows". The name is from the Spanish title of the Virgin Mary María de los Dolores, meaning "Mary of Sorrows".[6]