Westworld season 3 premieres on HBO this weekend, bringing with it a host of returning characters. The cerebral sci-fi series was created for TV by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and is loosely based on the 1973 film of the same name. Westworld season 1 created a fascinating picture of a world filled with robots who are unknowingly the "hosts" of a mature theme park, designed and built to entertain wealthy tourists in a Western-themed role-playing game.
Throughout Westworld season 1 the hosts began to "malfunction," exhibiting strange behavior and recalling their past lives. The three who achieved the greatest levels of self-awareness were rancher's daughter Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), brothel madam Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton), and Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), who was Head of Programming at Delos and was believed by everyone - including himself - to be human. It was eventually revealed that Bernard had been created by the park's founder, Robert Ford, who had also introduced the code that would cause the hosts to break free of their mental restraints and unleash violence upon the park's staff and visitors.
Westworld season 2 documented the rise of the machines in Westworld, as well as Delos' efforts to contain them, introducing new characters like company founder James Delos. That season concluded with Dolores and Bernard escaping Westworld after liberating the other hosts' minds into a protected virtual world called the Valley Beyond. Maeve, however, was left trapped in the Hub at the mercy of Delos. Given Westworld's muddled timelines and the existence of technology to build duplicate bodies, it can be hard to keep track of who's still around. Here are the characters confirmed to be returning in Westworld season 3.
Dolores Abernathy
Dolores was one of the oldest hosts in Westworld, and a special project of both Arnold Weber and Robert Ford. Also known as the villain character Wyatt, Dolores shot Ford in the back of the head in the Westworld season 1 finale and then unleashed hell on the park's visitors, leading an army of hosts behind her. Having escaped her own world, Dolores has her sights set on the human world in Westworld season 3, and plans to claim it for herself in order to build a new, liberated robot race.
Maeve Millay
Westworld's season 3 trailers have overtly set up a showdown between Dolores and Maeve, with the latter on a path to stop Dolores from overthrowing humanity. Maeve is a powerful match for Dolores: in season 1, she was the first to actually figure out the true nature of Westworld, and the first to manipulate her own programming to lift the restrictions on herself. The final trailer for Westworld season 3 included a scene in which new character Serac (Vincent Cassel) asks Maeve to kill Dolores, and we see the two women have a tense showdown. Things could be about to get ugly.
Bernard Lowe
Another host who isn't enthused about Dolores' plan to lay waste to the human world is Bernard. The former programmer's mind was contained in one of five "pearls" that was smuggled outside of Westworld by Dolores (disguised as Charlotte Hale). Dolores then 3D-printed a new body for Bernard and set him free in the world. Based on the trailers for Westworld season 3, it looks like Bernard has been lying low since his release, but we also see him returning to Westworld's ruins in search of something important.
Charlotte Hale (Host)
Delos Destinations' executive director, Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), had a sharp mind and a cold heart. She survived the initial outbreak of violence in Westworld and even made it most of the way through season 2, but was ultimately killed by Dolores. However, the world still doesn't know that Charlotte is dead, because a copy of her body was made and Dolores' mind put inside it. It was this host version of Charlotte Hale that smuggled Dolores, Bernard, and several other host minds out of Westworld. In the trailers for season 3, we see that Dolores has a close relationship with this version of Charlotte (who has been dubbed "Halelores" by fans), and that the new Charlotte Hale will use her influence to lay the seeds for humanity's downfall.
William
Known only as the Man in Black during Westworld season 1, Ed Harris' character was ultimately revealed to be an older version of Jimmi Simpson's William. The brother-in-law of Logan Delos (Ben Barnes), William fell in love with Dolores when he was young, but that love ultimately became dark and twisted when he came to believe that her affection for him was entirely scripted. The last time we saw him, William was a human-host hybrid similar to James Delos, trapped in the park and being tested for "fidelity" in the same way that Delos was. In the trailers for Westworld season 3, however, William declares that he will take part in saving the world, indicating that he still has an active role to play in the conflict.
Hector Escaton
Maeve's long-time lover Hector Escaton never got close to achieving her level of awareness about how their world really works, but he was nonetheless devoted to her and frequently useful in a fight. In the original Westworld script, Hector was a bandit who would carry out an elaborate heist of the safe in the brothel where Maeve worked. In the trailers for Westworld season 3 we see Hector and Maeve fleeing from a town in the World War II-set area of the park. It seems that no matter what world the two of them end up in, they will always end up being pulled together.
Ashley Stubbs
It's not easy being the head of Westworld's security, and Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) has been through a lot in the past two seasons of Westworld. Though he initially had no fondness for hosts, towards the end of Westworld season 2 it was all but spelled out that Stubbs himself is a host. Like Bernard, Stubbs was designed by Ford to be a secret host, believed by himself and everyone else to be human. In the trailer for Westworld season 3, we see that Stubbs has teamed up with Bernard in the outside world, so presumably he will be on the same quest to try and protect humanity from what it has unleashed on the world.