"Westworld" continues to prove itself to be one of the smartest shows released in a while with its third episode, "The Stray.""The Stray" introduces us to Ford's new, twisted storyline, as well as giving us a look into the motivations of Bernard and Ford. We also get an impressive computer-generated young Anthony Hopkins in a flashback. Not to borrow too much from "Jurassic Park," but HBO is sparing no expense on this masterpiece.The episode begins with an interview between Bernard and Dolores. Bernard gives Dolores the book "Alice in Wonderland." I cannot help but think about "The Matrix," also wrought with "Wonderland" symbolism, in which Neo goes down the rabbit hole and finds his way out of the simulated life created for him."'Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night,'" Dolores reads.Bernard seems to be coaching Dolores' awakening into artificial intelligence.We then cut to Dolores' awakening. She finds a gun in the tapestry drawer and remembers her night with the Man in Black. She put the gun back and continued with her day, but she is beginning to have memories.Back in the lab, Bernard and his technician Elsie are examining Walter's homicidal episode with the milk. It is revealed that Walter killed hosts who were at one point involved in narratives in which they kill Walter. Walter was seeking revenge.Elsie goes to search for a stray host with Stubbs while Bernard remains to do a little digging.Stubbs once again proves to be the macho man of the show, resentful and mistrusting of the hosts."The only thing that is stopping the hosts from hacking us to pieces is one line of your code," Stubbs delivers in his gruff voice, cocked gun in hand.Teddy and his star-crossed lover Dolores have another romantic discussion on the mountainside at sunset. But, as per usual, something is a little different. Dolores wants to see the world, and Teddy promises to take her to where the mountain meets the sea … someday."Someday sounds a lot like the thing people say when they actually mean never," Dolores says.The hosts are beginning to learn. Their conversations are taking unique paths and the distinction between humanity and technology is blurring.Poor Teddy is not progressing like Dolores is. He says he has vague business to take care of, but "someday" they will have the life they want to have. Dolores walks back to her horse in quiet, but accepting, disappointment. Teddy flashes a winning smile at the prospect.Poor, stupid Teddy, who we learned has died at least a thousand times, was never written with an actual backstory. Ford, increasingly jaded by the park, informs him that his job is to keep Dolores in Westworld so guests can find her and have their way with her. Ford then promises Teddy the backstory that he has always kept a mystery. Teddy, uploaded with a fresh, shiny new narrative, spins rhetoric about an evil army sergeant named Wyatt who went missing down in Escalante and came back with some strange ideas. Cut to black.Ford is beginning to unveil his new storyline."A fiction, which like all great stories, is rooted in truth," Ford says of his narrative, promising a personal note attached to his masterpiece.In the next cycle, Teddy saves Dolores from a guest looking for something easy. He tries to teach her how to shoot a gun when a posse arrives, talking of a new bounty — a man named Wyatt.Teddy goes off for vengeance but promises Dolores he'll be back someday, which we know means never. Classic Teddy.Elsie and Stubbs are continuing their search for the stray. Elsie explains to Stubbs that the backstory is the most important part of each host. The backstory is what anchors the host, and the rest of his or her personality revolves around it.Teddy, with his brand-spanking-new backstory, reveals his past. He was an army man and Wyatt was his friend. Wyatt returned from his disappearance a changed man. On the surface, it appears to be religious fanaticism, saying he could talk directly to God, accumulating followers who do not fear pain or death and consider the world their own personal hell.This hell statement interests me as Dolores's father said that hell is empty and the devil walks with them. Wyatt said that the land does not belong to the old natives or the new, that it belongs to someone else. Is he talking about the guests? I suspect he might be talking about the hosts.Upon finding a display of rotting bodies one of the posse exclaims, "If ever the devil walked the Earth…"As another posse member gets close to the bodies, one lets out a startling cough, revealing he is not yet dead. Possibly a nod to the film "Se7en" and its famous cough jump scare.Then the firefight starts.Meanwhile, Elsie and Stubbs continue their search. The stray was carving Orion's belt into his woodcarvings, an odd addition to his established backstory.Ford yells at an employee for covering up the naked hosts used in questioning. He explains that the hosts do not feel anything they do not tell them to.He then explains to Bernard privately that Arnold, the imaginary man Dolores' father and Walter were talking to during their outbursts, was Ford's partner who has since been scrubbed from the records.During the first 30 years of Westworld, Arnold and Ford were creating the hosts without guests or any other distraction. Ford wanted to create the facade of a living, breathing world with virtual intelligence. Arnold wanted to create the real thing; he wanted to create consciousness, or artificial intelligence.Ford explains a pyramid path to consciousness. It begins with memory, improvisation, self-interest — and Arnold never got to the last piece of the puzzle. But he introduced the concept of the Bicameral Mind Theory: "The idea that primitive man believed his thoughts to be the voice of a God," Bernard explains.But Arnold did not count on the savagery of the guests and how it would impact conscious hosts, or that people who believe they are hearing God's voice are lunatics, like Wyatt. Arnold did not understand what the park was going to be and what guests would want out of the experience: power.Arnold eventually died in the park. "His search for confidence consumed him totally," Ford said. Without shedding too much light on what happened, Ford expresses his doubts that Arnold's death was an accident.Ford warns Bernard to not make the same mistakes as Arnold.Then we see Bernard having a painful, emotional conversation with the mother of his deceased child. They mourn their son together.As Stubbs and Elsie find their stray in a ditch, Teddy and Co. find the lunatics. Teddy shoots them but they do not react to the shots and slaughter Teddy on the spot. Make it 1,001 deaths.Bernard interviews Dolores again, questioning his decision to follow the path of her peculiar behavior. He admits he was fascinated but thinks he might have made a mistake. He asks for her help, if she would rather be safe or curious, and she does not comprehend."There aren't two versions of me, there's only one," Dolores says, "and I think when I discover who I am I'll be free."Dolores asks if she has made a mistake and Bernard says evolution is a product of mistakes. Bernard tells a story about how he was too scared to let his son swim on his own, to let him go — and decides to continue this journey down the rabbit hole with Dolores.Dolores goes back to her ranch to find her father dead and the same criminals getting ready to have their way with her, as was programmed to happen. She flips the script, though, and steals his gun. Struggling with the idea of pulling the trigger, a voice tells her to kill him and she shoots the criminal host twice in the neck. She then develops the ability to predict what is going to happen, imagining a man shooting her; she decides to run away before he does.Stubbs goes down to retrieve the deactivated stray's head. As he is sawing his head off, the stray wakes up and attacks Stubbs, raises a rock above his head over Elsie, but then surprisingly bashes his own skull in.The episode concludes with Dolores stumbling into Will and Logan's campsite, as the duo is out looking for adventure. Something tells me they will get more than they bargained for.This show really excels at the balance between answering questions and raising new ones. We are three episodes in, and we know what Bernard is doing with Dolores, plus the mysterious past of the park and Ford. These answers give the episode weight; it makes it feel as if the show is not just killing time or opening a million storylines.But questions obviously still remain. We have so much to learn about the stray, the MiB, the new storyline and the business drama behind the scenes.The main characters are all tightly wound and have multiple layers. The brief moment we had with Maeve was just as important as all of the time we spent with Teddy in this episode. We relate with William, we hate Logan, we need to know more about the MiB and we can't keep our eyes off of the gradual evolution of the hosts. "Westworld" continues to impress and enthrall me. I simply can't tear my eyes away.Now until next week, I am forced to do extensive research the Bicameral Mind Theory and formulate wild, improbable fan theories. And I can't wait for it all to unravel.