OK, We Need To Talk About That Maeve Cliffhanger On 'Westworld'

Westworld Season 3 made the significant step of moving hosts into the out of the Delos Park. But with new freedoms come great responsibilities. Unlike Westworld, War World, and the other fantasy theme park spaces, the rules of the real world are very different. Most importantly, when someone dies, there's no lab to take them to where technicians fix them up, reprogram, and send them out again. Dolores already faced this issue once, when she allowed herself to be shot multiple times. Now fans are concerned if Maeve is really dead. Perhaps swordplay is best left to Samurai World. Warning: Spoilers for Westworld Season 3 follow.

After refusing to help Serac in Episode 2, "The Winter Line," Episode 4 brought Maeve back out of cold storage again. Serac has a new argument to help align Maeve to his cause in taking down Dolores. He admits he wants the rebel host, but not because she will destroy humanity. She possesses the key to open the Forge. He wants to access it, and the secret Sector 16 project, which mapped the human mind for implanting into hosts.

His argument to Maeve this time is Dolores also has the key to the Sublime. If Maeve wants to be reunited with her daughter, she needs Dolores as well.

Maeve does on the hunt. The trail begins with the identities Dolores stole and leads to the Yakuza, who smuggled bodies and DNA for her to make those identities watertight.

But when Maeve walks into the Yakuza headquarters, she was shocked to discover who was running the joint. Musashi, the ronin who was Maeve's ally in Samurai World, sits alone in the back room, surrounded by barrels and barrels of the white cortical fluid with which Delos creates its hosts.

Maeve has used her sword fighting skills learned in Samurai World to good use, cutting down all in her path. But Musashi's ability with the blade is legendary. (The show cast the legendary Hiroyuki Sanada for a reason.) It's not a fight where Maeve can win, especially once she realizes who is implanted in her former friend.

Dolores didn't take Musashi's pearl with her when she left. Maeve's first guess it might be Teddy is also wrong. It turns out this is Dolores. All the hosts in the real world are Dolores. As she tells Maeve: "If you want something done, you have to do it yourself."

The two hosts cross blades, but it's hopeless. By the end of the episode, Maeve lies dead on the floor in a pool of blood and cortical fluid. And there's no Felix and Sylvester to put her back together.

But this may all be an illusion. Fans have started to become convinced this season's twist is the action is taking place simultaneously in two worlds, a real one and a mirror copy inside Rehoboam. With no way for Serac to print Maeve's body, most are convinced all of Maeve's scenes are inside Rehoboam. She's still trapped in a virtual world just like the War World simulation she was in before.

If so, Maeve will wake up in her bed in Episode 5, and all of this is just another loop.