Here's how Evan Rachel Wood's two Delos' WestWorld theme park. Not only was Dolores a favorite of the human revelers, she was a favorite of her creator, Arnold, who left a route toward sentience in the form of a mental maze. After gaining independence, Dolores led an army of hosts on a WestWorld escape, before realizing humanity was also imprisoned and helping to overthrow its oppressor, Rehoboam.
In defeating this evil AI, Dolores makes the ultimate sacrifice. At the end of Westworld season 3, she allows every last memory to be deleted from her pearl - the "brain" inside a host. Despite her character more or less dying, Evan Rachel Wood returns in Westworld season 4 as Christina, a young woman seemingly living in the real world. From the very beginning, Christina has no idea about her past or true nature, and a deluge of audience speculation followed speculating exactly why the newbie looked identical to Dolores.
Though breadcrumbs are sprinkled throughout Westworld season 4, only the finale unveils Christina's full truth. We now know why she and Dolores share a face, what Christina's purpose has been in Westworld season 4, and even why James Marsden left his pet blue hedgehog behind to return as Teddy.
What Happened To Dolores After Westworld Season 3
In Westworld's game-changing season 3 finale, Dolores' pearl is "wiped clean" by Rehoboam. Searching for her key to the coveted Section 16 data (which Dolores had already palmed off to Bernard Lowe), Rehoboam deleted one memory after another, destroying everything that made Dolores Dolores.
As revealed in Westworld season 4's finale ("Que Sera Sera"), Dolores' pearl then fell into the possession of Charlotte Hale - a host copy of Dolores who evolved into her own unique beast and developed a hankering for global domination. Hale reacquired all of Delos' assets back from Engerraund Serac during the gap between Westworld seasons 3 and 4, so it makes sense she'd get Dolores' remnants one way or another. And although Rehoboam completely cleaned Dolores' pearl of memories, this process apparently doesn't destroy the actual host. Dolores Abernathy's "death" was more akin to a factory reset, with a persona still programmed into the sphere, albeit lacking memories, a name, and an identity.
Who Is Christina In Westworld Season 4?
Charlotte Hale plotted to turn humanity into sheep under host control, but must've required the mother of all processors to do it - an artificial intelligence capable of writing narratives and understanding the human mind. Dolores was apparently perfect for the job, and Hale used her pearl as an operating system for Delos' human control system. The pearl itself is plugged into a computer beneath the hub of Hale's Tower complex, surrounded by an interactive red hologram depicting the entire city. Dolores gets to roam this simulated urban map similar to how hosts roam the Sublime. The one major difference being that Dolores believes she's in the real world.
One curious detail in Westworld season 4 is how Christina's simulation perfectly mirrors the real world in real-time. Once William activates his apocalypse tone, for instance, Christina sees the carnage unfolding. The most likely explanation is that Hale's Tower monitors everything happening in reality and feeds that data back so that Christina's world accurately reflects outside.
Westworld's season 4 finale doesn't explicitly reveal where the "Christina" persona came from, but it's a safe bet that Hale programmed these bits herself. She renamed Dolores "Christina," gave her a job writing character backstories at a video game company, then added herself as a fake college friend to subtly check from time to time whether Dolores was waking up. The NPC material Dolores pumped out at work would then be fed through the Tower's tone system and dictate the lives of humans in the real world. Comparing Hale's system to the WestWorld park, Dolores performs the jobs of Lee Sizemore and Bernard Lowe, simultaneously writing and programming the human narratives... just on a much larger scale.
How Dolores Wakes Herself Up
Rehoboam's deletion of Dolores' pearl in Westworld season 3 didn't quite take. Those lost memories were still lurking deep down in Dolores' figurative recycle bin, and her naturally curious, introspective personality meant she would eventually extract them after 23 years serving as Charlotte Hale's storyteller.
Quite subconsciously, Dolores generated digital friends to make sense of her inner confusion, and these characters channeled voices from the parts Rehoboam deleted. Maya the roommate told Christina to "pick a side" between light and dark, then introduced her to other made-up creations. Peter the stalker made Christina suspicious about her job at Olympiad Entertainment, and the reason she found his memorial plaque at the Hope Center for Mental Health is most likely because the real Peter died long beforehand. The bad date Christina endured before meeting Teddy stoked a sense of unease, with her companion suggesting she was depressed. The arrogant Olympiad boss showed Dolores the red 3D map where her physical self was secretly stowed, and Christina even subconsciously drew Arnold's maze symbol on her balcony. All of these signposts were planted by Dolores' inner self to show Christina the truth of her reality.
How Is James Marsden's Teddy Back In Westworld Season 4?
James Marsden's Teddy shot himself in the head during Westworld season 2, disgusted that Dolores had altered his personality. She ed his pearl to the sublime, and the cowboy hasn't been spotted since... until popping up as Christina's knight in shining armor during Westworld season 4's premiere. Inevitably, Teddy is yet another construct of Christina's imagination, but whereas her other creations were made from scratch or based on strangers, Dolores generates Teddy through her memories of him - just as Bernard did with Maeve in the Sublime.
Teddy is the real trigger for Christina reawakening into Dolores. Back in the WestWorld park, Dolores and Teddy were each other's cornerstones - the foundations of their respective narratives. Dolores also its, "Talking to you [Teddy] is when I see the world most clearly. It's when I'm the most myself." Bringing Teddy - even an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Teddy - into existence helped Dolores guide her alternate self back toward sentience. The real Teddy, sadly, remains hidden deep in the Sublime.
Is Christina Gone? Dolores' Westworld Season 5 Future Explained
When Evan Rachel Wood emerges in her traditional blue dress, strolling through the wreckage of humanity, Westworld season 4's finale confirms she's back to her usual self. The transition back to Dolores is then cemented by a gushing declaration of love for Teddy that only makes sense if her memories from past seasons are restored. But Christina isn't completely gone. Dolores still re the 23 years she spent inside the Tower, and retains all the knowledge she accumulated during that time. Maybe it's more accurate to say Evan Rachel Wood is now playing an amalgamation of both Dolores and Christina.
Dolores finally reawakens facing a choice - a choice Bernard spent all of his Westworld season 4 arc fighting for her to have. She must pick between staying in the Sublime, abandoning humanity to its fate (the Teddy version of Dolores s this option), or choosing to see the world's beauty and giving mankind another shot. Fortunately, she plumps for the latter, and Westworld season 5 (if it happens) will likely see Dolores running a simulation to test whether sentient life has a future.