- Warning: Major spoilers ahead for “Westworld” season three, episode four, “The Mother of Exiles.”
- Insider is here to break down all the smaller moments and references in the newest episode of HBO’s “Westworld.”
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“Westworld” season three continued Sunday night with episode four, “The Mother of Exiles,” and the big reveal that Dolores had copied herself and planted multiple Dolores-pearls inside various host bodies. But before the revelation, there were some pointed clues about her multiple identities.
As always, we took a closer look at the scenes and dialogue to suss out all the best details you might not have noticed on a first watch of the episode.
Keep reading to see what you may have missed from “Westworld” season three, episode four, “The Mother of Exiles.”
To start, the episode’s title (“The Mother of Exiles”) is another name for the Statue of Liberty.
The name is mentioned in Emily Lazarus’ poem inscribed on the New York City statue:
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome …
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Dolores seems to fancy herself a sort of Mother of Exiles - she created "children" copies of herself, and has brought Caleb under her influence as she tries to help the lower socioeconomic class of humans revolt against their world.
But is she really a shining beacon of hope? Or is there something darker at play when it comes to Dolores' grand plan for humanity?
The name of the custom suit company Dolores and Caleb visit is a likely reference to a famous scientist.
Dolores brings Caleb to a store called "Friston Custom Clothiers," which we believe is a small Easter egg reference to a famous neuroscientist named Karl J. Friston.
Friston is famous for developing brain imaging techniques. Journalist Shaun Raviv profiled Friston for Wired Magazine in 2018, writing that he "first became a heroic figure in academia for devising many of the most important tools that have made human brains legible to science."
In the fictional narrative of "Westworld," Friston's brain mapping tools would have been the benchmark for William's secret Delos data project (which involved taking countless scans and images of the guest's brains through devices hidden in the cowboy hats).
But brain imaging isn't the only link between Friston and "Westworld." He's the genius behind an idea that could revolutionize artificial intelligence.
The Wired profile of Friston is titled "The Genius Neuroscientist Who Might Hold the Key to True AI." And it seems like exactly kind of article "Westworld" creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy would have drawn new inspiration from when it comes to their fictional story about humanoid robots becoming sentient.
Friston's revolutionary idea is called the "free energy principle." Raviv writes that Friston said this principle sets out to answer a simple question: "If you are alive, what sorts of behaviors must you show?"
Raviv describes the free energy principle like this:
"To be alive, he says, is to act in ways that reduce the gulf between your expectations and your sensory inputs. Or, in Fristonian terms, it is to minimize free energy [...] Free energy is the difference between the states you expect to be in and the states your sensors tell you that you are in. Or, to put it another way, when you are minimizing free energy, you are minimizing surprise."
Friston has predicted that soon most machine learning (the most common application of AI) will incorporate the free energy principle. To get a full understanding of this idea, and how ground-breaking it might be, read the full article on Wired.
All this to say, the name "Friston Custom Clothiers" doesn't seem like a coincidence.
Looking closely at his accounts, it appears that Liam Dempsey's total net assets add up to just over $315 billion.
When the Connells-Dolores copy gets his "hash key" (a biometric authentication), the tablet shows Liam's "net assets."
All of his bonds, stocks, investments, commodities, real estate, private equity, venture capital, and hedge funds add up to $315,000,015,013.
Later in the episode Dolores and Caleb con the RGGR Centennial bank into doing a "full account withdrawal" of his assets. The screen didn't indicate where the funds were released, but presumably, it was going to an account Dolores has control of.
Serac alludes to a thermonuclear incident in France — this event was already teased by HBO with the "Westworld" season three date announcement.
Back in January, HBO released a teaser video announcing the March 15 premiere date for "Westworld" season three. The video had a voiceover (some of Serac's dialogue) and showed a timeline of events as mapped by Rehoboam.
Marked on October 9, 2025, was a "thermonuclear incident" in Paris.
Now season three has finally revealed that the event in question was what looks like a nuclear bomb dropped on the French city. It was one of Serac's formative moments of childhood, and what made him want to create the future-determining algorithm that became Rehoboam.
"Chalores" helping William shave was an early tip-off about her true identity.
Back in the season one finale, William had Dolores shave his neck and face for him. She wasn't yet fully "alive," nor did she recognize William at the time.
But in this episode, when "Charlotte" offered to help William shave, it was an early hint that the host inside the body copy was actually another Dolores. And she knew exactly what she was doing this time.
Tessa Thompson says we can call her newest Dolores-as-Charlotte character "Chalores."
Last season, actress Tessa Thompson played dual roles: The real Charlotte Hale, and a version of Hale that was really Dolores impersonating her.
"In the past seasons we called her Halores," Thompson said in an interview with Insider. "But this season I think it's slightly different, in a weird way."
After Insider suggested the name "Chalores" (since this version is embodying a little bit more of Charlotte), Thompson said that was fitting.
"Yeah, that's exactly right," Thompson said. "OK. I'm glad we settled this."
You can read our full interview with Thompson here, in which we discuss how she first learned about the new role of "Chalores" and why its been much different than last season.
The song playing during the charity sex auction party was a Ramin Djawadi cover of The Weeknd's "Wicked Games."
You can listen to the full cover here. To see all the various covers that have been used in "Westworld" so far, read our music guide here.
Liam's friend, Roderick, makes a statement about sex and commerce that sounds awfully similar to something Maeve was programmed to say in "Westworld."
"I'm not into f------ whores," Liam tells his friend at the party (despite that clearly being untrue).
"All sex is commerce, if you don't know that you're just being billed indirectly," Roderick says.
Back in the very first episode of "Westworld," Clementine hit on Teddy in the Mariposa while Maeve stood nearby.
"Meaning no offense but I'd rather earn a woman's affection than pay for it," Teddy told Clementine.
"You're always paying for it, darling," Maeve told him. "The difference is our costs are fixed and posted right there on the door."
It's not clear what the meaning is behind linking Maeve's scripted dialogue in the Westworld park and Roderick's line in season three. Are the writers tipping their hand towards Roderick's simulation theory he brought up in the first episode of the season? Or is it just a cheeky callback to the pilot episode?
We'll add this to our growing list of unanswered questions about this season of "Westworld" so far.
The name of the distillery where Maeve found the Musashi-Dolores copy was another foreshadowing of the multiple-Doloreses (Dolori?) twist.
Vanity Fair writer Joanna Robinson noticed this very sneaky clue: Maeve and the Mortician enter a factory called the Itaidoshin Distillery.
"Itai doshin" is a Buddhist term that means "many in body, one in mind."
Dolores copied her mind and placed it into many bodies - but you don't learn that until after Maeve has passed by the sign outside.
Now everyone is clued in on Dolores' multiple identity plot, but we'll have to wait until next week to see what that means for Bernard, Stubbs, and Maeve.
- Read more:
- 'Westworld' star Tessa Thompson reveals how she learned about the surprising identity of her character this season
- Luke Hemsworth says getting his butt kicked by Evan Rachel Wood in 'Westworld' was 'an honor'
- An essential timeline of every important event on 'Westworld'
- A complete guide to every song and piano cover featured on 'Westworld'