A Quickie: Dolores and Maeve in Season 2 (Westworld)

The first season of Westworld was full of twists and turns. It lead you down one path only to throw the rug out from under you. It was extremely exciting and thought provoking so I am eagerly awaiting Season 2. In the mean time I can only go over the first season and theorize on what happens next. This is hard to do as the HBO show makes it difficult to guess what comes next.

What happens between Dolores and Maeve next season really interests me. Will they be allies or enemies when we meet with them again?

Dolores Abernathy in Season 1

At the start of the Season 1, Dolores Abernathy seemed to be almost child-like. She has notions of everyone being on a path and dreams of things changing one day. She loves a man and adores her father. Everything is simple for her.

While she might dream of going off on an adventure, she is more than fine with her current life. A life where she smiles and can't guess at the horrors of the world she lives in.

During Westworld's first season, Dolores goes through some changes. She goes off on an adventure with William to find her home. It turns out that we have been viewing multiple times she has taken this journey, clever viewers figured this out before the reveal, which has ended in failure every time. The season allows us to see her complete the journey though she isn't happy about the revelations she finds out about.

One of them is that she killed Arnold Weber, under his own orders, to keep Westworld from opening. This attempt failed, obviously, or else we wouldn't have a show. Thanks to her connection to William the park got enough money to stay open for good.

At the end of the Season, Dolores has changed back into her Wyatt personality. The personality Arnold created to turn her into a killer. Whether or not she killed Ford by choice or by him persuading her isn't clear enough for me.

In any case she starts to kill the humans at a dinner thereby signaling the start of a Host revolution. One that she is the head of. Though come Season 2 she might have to fight to keep leading and to create a unified front.

Maeve Millay in Season 1

Maeve has gone through one of the greatest character arcs during Westworld's first season. At the start she was the owner of the whorehouse. She was just another Host who did what she was supposed to do. She didn't question her reality.
At the start I thought Dolores would be the Host who was most interesting, but that turned out not to be true. By the end of the Season, Maeve easily topped Dolores in the realm of interesting.

Maeve's awakening began when she woke up unexpectedly. She was shut down and being repaired for the next day. Her waking up wasn't expected by those who worked at Westworld. Minus Ford who seems to know everything about the park.

She then starts to work to free herself. While it appears on the surface that she wishes to free the other Hosts, she doesn't have the caring nature for that. She needs to get out and be free. Everyone else's freedom doesn't matter to her.

By the end of the Season, Maeve discovers that it was her programming that made her want to escape. Everything she has done up to this point has been planned. Dolores' massacre could only be accomplished by what Maeve did in preparation.

It was Maeve's own nature that didn't allow her to see the truth. It was also her nature that allowed her to have free will by the end. Instead of staying on the train, she got off.

Dolores vs. Maeve

Come Season 2 of Westworld, Dolores will be heading a Host revolution. I believe this because she is Wyatt who a group of Hosts are programmed to follow. So she will be making her army strong so that she can win against the humans.

Any leader, whether flesh or circuits, needs to show others why they should be followed. This is why it's easy for a leader to come off as arrogant. They're not allowed to show any weakness that could threaten their rule.

To make it so she will have the best possibility of defeating the humans, she needs to make sure all Hosts follow her. If there is someone that has a different mindset they will have to be dealt with. Allowing a break in the chain would mean giving the humans the ability, however slight, to push the revolution down.

So Dolores will have no choice but to be domineering just so she won't lose.

Dolores being a leader won't sit well with Maeve. She has finally found her freedom and is learning what that means. She will learn that her choices will be of her own making and she will have to deal with the consequences that are her fault. For someone who doesn't like to be controlled and is dealing with epiphanies, Maeve won't easily go under Dolores' sway.

Unless, that is, she wants to. She might like Dolores' plan enough to be one of her minions, but I don't think that is likely.

It isn't likely that the two will be allies. Their personalities are just too different.

Dolores will most likely be more concerned with the Hosts' welfare than her own. I don't say anything for certain as the Wyatt programming might view fellow Hosts as pawns in the game of gaining freedom. Losing one or a hundred might not concern her.

Maeve, on the other hand, is concerned for herself. She left the train to find her daughter and won't be too concerned with joining Dolores' fight. Not at first at least. In any case she won't be someone that Dolores can easily control.

I don't see them as allies. Whether they are trying to kill each other by the end of Season 2 I can't say for certain. But it won't surprise me in the least.