May 2, 2018 – Westworld became more enjoyable when I detected the show’s time jumps. Below is a help for Season 1. For simplicity, I’ve kept it to two time periods: Past and Present. But the Past also has several divisions if you’re interested:
Below are indications mostly for the trickier time jumps to the Past, not the more obvious ones (anything with William).
Past audio: When Arnold (not Bernard) questions Dolores, that’s audio from the way Past, but the video is of Dolores in the Present, after Teddy was shot. They’re trying to trick us.
Dolores at beginning of episode (VO of Arnold interview), then later in episode (Stubbs interview)
Past: Anything with William is the Past.
Conversely, anything with the Man in Black is the Present or the recent Past.
Past memory: Dolores remembers the massacre in Escalante, the town with the white church.
Past memory: Maeve and her daughter are hunted down by natives, and killed by the Man in Black. Per episodes 6 and 8, he shot them about a year ago in the recent Past.
Past memory: Dolores is interviewed by Arnold.
(recent Past) Maeve and daughter encounter the Man in Black about a year before the Present
This episode’s mixing of Past and Present makes it one of the hardest episodes to follow.
Past: Dolores is interviewed by Arnold. He gives her a book to read.
Past: As Ford (in the Present) describes to Bernard the early days of the park before it opened, we see footage of that Past time period.
Past: Bernard (not Arnold) speaks to a fake wife and son sometime within the past 10 years.
Past: Arnold interviews Dolores again.
Past: In the barn, Dolores kills Rebus by taking his own gun from him. Then she gets shot afterwards by the guy on the porch.
The Present day version of this event is different...
Dolores finds a gun in
the drawer – but doesn’t remember putting it there, just like Maeve with her drawings.
Dolores recalls the Man in Black taking her into the barn (recent Past), then hides the gun in the
haystack – but again she doesn’t remember hiding it, and we don’t see her hide it. She then
kills Rebus with the hidden gun, and this time she isn’t shot and escapes. This escape is
likely the start of her Present-day trip back to Escalante.
Past: Dolores, who doesn’t have a gun, stumbles into William’s campground in the Past. (They’re trying to trick us again.) It’s after a Past occasion when she fled after her parents were murdered, which happened numerous times.
Dolores is shot in the Past, but not in the Present.
Past: Arnold interviews Dolores. Tells her about the maze.
Present Note: Dolores wakes up with a gun in her hand. This is from the most recent Rebus murder and her subsequent escape. She has started her Present-day journey to Escalante, with the gun. Cut to…
Past: Dolores is at William’s campground. No gun.
Past: Dolores is in Las Mudas and speaks with Lawrence’s daughter. This could be the Present or the Past or both, because things happen repeatedly. Then
suddenly the scene changes, the girl is gone, and William (definitely Past) is there in Las Mudas.
Dolores wakes up with a gun (Present), then suddenly William is there and she has no gun (Past).
Dolores speaks with Lawrence’s daughter (Present? Past? both?), then the girl is gone and William shows up (Past).
Past: Dolores is by herself in a graveyard (Present), then suddenly William and Logan (Past) appear in the same graveyard.
Past memory: Dolores remembers the massacre in Escalante.
Present note: Dolores is interviewed by Ford. This probably takes place in the Present. Ford interrupts her journey to Escalante for a bit, when she’s in Pariah. When he sends her back out, she’s in the same pants and striped shirt from 30 years ago.
Past: Dolores visits an astrologer lady in Pariah. (This cuts to Dolores is in the same room in the Present, and this time she sees herself not the astrologer.)
Past: Dolores is riding on the train with William and El Lazo. (This cuts to Dolores by herself on the train in the Present. No William or El Lazo.)
Dolores by herself in the graveyard (Present), then William and Logan appear (Past)
Dolores with Lawrence and William on the train (Past), then by herself (Present)
Past memory: Teddy remembers Wyatt going on a killing spree. But this is actually a reprogramming of the Escalante massacre done by himself and Dolores.
Past memory: Bernard (in the Present) has a dream about his son dying. This is probably a planted memory in Bernard, not the actual event of Arnold’s.
Past memory: Maeve (in the Present) remembers her daughter.
Past: Dolores tells William she feels like she’s been there before, at the water by the canyon. They help the young soldier on the beach. Dolores goes up to the water
and sees herself dead in the water. This must have happened sometime in the Past, but not the same Past as her time with William.
Past: Dolores turns around and says, “William?” (probably Present). But William is gone, which cuts
to Dolores looking at the water again, with no body there, and William is back again (Past).
When we see Dolores and William later in the episode, there’s even more jumping around…
Past: Dolores is with William and says, “We’re here” (Past). But then we see Dolores walking by herself into Escalante (Present).
Past: There’s no one in the newly excavated town of Escalante (Present), then suddenly
Dolores is back in her blue dress, and in the town the hosts are being trained to dance (Past).
Lawrence’s daughter asks her, “Did you find what you were looking for?” (recalling another Past exchange between them in Las Mudas).
Then Dolores remembers her Past massacre on the town. Then…
Past: Dolores and William are in the desert, above where buried Escalante is. (Escalante was buried sometime after the massacre.)
Past: The Man in Black (in the Present) tells Teddy about his coming to the park a year ago (recent Past) and killing Maeve and her daughter.
Maeve recalls the same thing before she (in the Present) kills the new Clementine.
Past: Ford erases Maeve’s memory and reprograms her to be the brothel madame.
Dolores with William – “We’re here” (Past), then by herself walking to Escalante (Present)
Past memory: Bernard (in the Present) dreams about his fake son and wife.
Past: After she’s cut open by Logan, Dolores escapes Wyatt’s camp and Logan (Past), but then
she gets up, in the same clothes, and she has no cut in her stomach (Present).
Past memory: Teddy remembers helping Wyatt in the Escalante massacre of soldiers, but then sees they’re actually civilians.
Past memory: Bernard remembers his fake son dying.
Past memory: Bernard remembers he and Ford talking about Maeve stabbing herself in the lab.
Present note: Dolores – with no stomach wound – runs through the countryside.
She comes upon the now unburied Escalante. No one is in the town. She goes into the church, then…
Past: She’s in the church in the Past, wearing the blue dress.
This is before the massacre, and coincides with her secret interviews with Arnold. Then suddently Dolores is in the lab, which is in shambles (Present). Then…
Past memory: Dolores recalls the lab when Ford was younger.
Past: Bernard’s beginning is when Ford is middle-aged (approximately ten years before the Present).
This includes the implanted back story of his son dying.
Past: Dolores is in the lab, talking with Arnold, wearing the blue dress. Cuts to…
Past memory: Dolores is in the lab, wearing pants and shirt (Present), but remembers she killed Arnold (Past).
Back to Present: Dolores comes upstairs from the lab, into the church, and encounters the Man in Black.
Logan stabs Dolores (Past), then suddenly she’s okay (Present).
Past: Dolores is manufactured by Arnold. This is her beginning.
Past memory: Dolores briefly remembers Arnold in old Escalante.
Past memory: Teddy remembers the Escalante massacre and sees Dolores.
Lots of rapid-fire time jumps…
Past: Dolores walks and talks with Arnold, and says, “I know where your maze ends” (Past). But then it cuts to
Dolores walking with the Man in Black in the same graveyard in Escalante (Present). Dolores finds the maze game buried (Present).
Past memory: Dolores digs up the maze game and gets an explanation from Arnold.
Past memory: Dolores in the lab, sees young Ford, and talks with Arnold who says she must kill the other hosts. Arnold programs her for this.
Past memory: In the Present, the Man in Black asks Dolores where Wyatt is, and knocks her to the ground. She then recalls the Escalante massacre, and Teddy shooting the hosts.
Past: Young William looking for Dolores. (After this, many things happen in the Present for a while, then…)
Past: The Man in Black (in the Present) explains to Dolores more about William’s initial visit in the Past, William looking for her, and William’s transition into a different type of man. We’re shown all of that.
Past: William finally finds Dolores in Sweetwater, but she doesn’t seem to remember him, and instead begins to entertain another newcomer.
Present note: The Man in Black reveals to Dolores that he is William, and they have an altercation. Notice Dolores has the dusty gun with her. (Many things happen in the Present, until…)
Past: Ford (in the Present) reminds Dolores of how she killed Arnold in the Past.
Past (sort of): Ford and Bernard have left the old lab. Dolores imagines a conversation with Arnold. It’s not from the Past, but is influenced by it. Then comes the big finale.
Dolores with Arnold (Past), then suddenly she’s with the Man in Black (Present)
Season 2 has time jumps as well. See that article here.