It has been about a year and a half since the second season of “Westworld” ended with “The Passenger,” a feature-length episode so loaded with timelines and twists that even explainer articles became their own Russian nesting dolls.

Had the third season begun the next day, many of us would be scrambling desperately to sort through all the host-human hybrids, the smuggled control units and the three or four different terms for the virtual Eden where android souls are uploaded. “Westworld” has the power to turn the human brain into the ultimate corrupted server.

So let’s start with a basic reassurance about the new season, which debuts Sunday on HBO: You’re going to be OK. The action has shifted from Westworld to the real world, where Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) can continue her quest for revenge on the humans responsible for making her life — and the lives of the other hosts — an ever-looping hell of violation and death. Her path to this point was wayward to the extreme, but her mission hasn’t wavered in the least. In the great robot rebellion, she has always been the tip of the spear.