The ‘Westworld’ Season 3, Episode 7 Promo Promises To Reveal All Of Caleb’s Secrets

Westworld Season 3 began with the introduction of a brand new main character: Caleb Nichols, played by Aaron Paul. With Dolores escaping the Delos park system and entering the real world, viewers knew there would be brand new, non-host characters for her to interact with as she navigates this very different reality. But Caleb has been a mystery since he first arrived on screen, with fans speculating the character is not what he seems. With only two more episodes to go this season, the show is finally giving viewers some answers. The Westworld Season 3, Episode 7 promo promises to deep dive into who Caleb really is. Warning: Spoilers for Westworld Season 3 follow.

On the face of it, Caleb is an everyman character, someone who survives on the working class fringes of an oligarchical, technological society. An army vet who was discharged under murky circumstances, he spends his days working alongside "George" his robot buddy, laying fiber optic cables. He's tried to get promoted into a more middle-class management position, but somehow never manages to get hired.

Fans believed Caleb might be a host or a Dolores-created character. But, oddly enough, it was the show's evil algorithmic program, Rehoboam, which seemed to disprove that theory. One would assume that if Caleb were not human, the machine would either not be able to read him, a "blank space" a la Dolores, or flag him as an outlier for Serac to arrest. But instead, the program reads him like any other human, putting him on the same modest little loops it does for all those in the world it deems unimportant.

So what is Caleb's deal? The promo for next week promises a deep dive into his army years that will explain everything.

The title of the penultimate episode of Season 3 is "Passed Pawn." The synopsis, as always, is largely unhelpful.

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

But once again, the show suggests that any theories that Caleb is a host should be tossed. Though the dialogue is heavy on the reverb for effect, it is clear that whatever happened to Caleb, he's not been replaced or recreated. He is who he says he is, a former army vet who underwent severe trauma during his time in the service.

If so, it only makes Dolores' message far more powerful. Like hosts, who spend their lives as nothing more as playthings for the rich, Caleb has spent his life believing he is nothing more than a grunt, unfit to stand beside the leaders of the world.

This may be the moment when he discovers how wrong he's been about that.