Not sure truer words have ever been spoken, Nux. It’s Westworld Premiere Day! What lovely day indeed! I don’t know about you all, but I LOVED this episode. Maybe it was because I was so hyped for this new season that I was just going to love whatever they gave us. Or maybe it was because it actually was a great episode. I’m going to say it was a combination of both.
Before we get into what happened in the season two premiere, a quick note or two on how I’ll be covering the Westworld episodes. I don’t think I’ll be doing a full-on, deep dive weekly recap. I’ll hit some of the highlights and major plot points. I’ll touch on some show theories; either popular fan ones, my own, or some of both. And I’ll get into some questions that the most recent episode brought up for me. Alright, let’s get to it!
On Sunday I wrote a post about six questions I have for the second season. One of those questions was about the location of the park, and that was answered almost immediately. New character Karl Strand is ordering an unwanted military presence “off my f***ing island!” We’re given even a bit more information as the aforementioned military officer is speaking Chinese. Which leads us to believe the island is located somewhere in Asia, assuming that in this near-future setting China hasn’t expanded its geographical reach. One of the popular fan theories was that the park was actually located on another planet. That could still be a possibility, but does seem a lot less likely after this episode. If this is all we get for an answer, I’m okay with it. It would be a great way to easily slip it in without forcing it in.
And here we have our first theory of the season. Did you notice those red ID cards? We saw the one with Bernard which had him marked as “High Priority.” The easy thought is that those cards were identifying high level employees yet to be accounted for. But we didn’t get a clear look at any of the other cards, so could they be high level hosts instead? This was the only clue pointing to that (that I caught, at least) but it’s never too early to start theorizing, am I right?
Strand and Stubbs (whose season 1 disappearance remains unexplained for now) are working with the quality control team, during which we learn about two weeks have passed since the violent delights came to their violent ends. This confirms we will be dealing with at least three timelines this season, and likely more:
Past Likely two, depending when the Arnold/Delores conversations are taking place this time around. William aka Young Man in Black will also be in the past, obviously. This leaves us with for sure one past timeline, with possibly two.
Present Lots of possibilities here. We know there is the Bernard/Hale storyline taking place in the days between the uprising and the opening scene of the episode. The Maeve/Sizemore storyline also seems to be taking place in that general time frame, as does the Dolores/Teddy story and the Man in Black scenes. Whether they all count as the “same” remains to be seen. This gives us two more for sure, with the actual total potentially being as high as four. If you’ve been counting along, after just one episode, we are potentially dealing with six (!) different timelines here. They are just diving right in, aren’t they?
Dolores has some serious plans up her sleeve. She speaks to Teddy about the world outside the park. “It won’t be enough to win this world. We’ll have to take that one from them as well. I know how this story ends: with us, Teddy. It ends with you and me.” I am all in for that, especially as it sounds like we will be getting to see some of the outside world after all, another one of my questions for this season.
In an unlikely team-up, Maeve drags poor Sizemore along on her quest to find her daughter. She also finds Hector who wastes no time joining her. Not much happened with this storyline. Maeve continues to be a bad-ass and Sizemore continues to be a whimpering puppy with a bark way worse than his bite. In what is already a darker season, if there were to be a “fun” storyline for season two, this will be it.
In the “After Host Revolt” timeline, Bernard and Hale make their way to a secret underground laboratory where Hale tries to call for help. Unfortunately for these two, Delos is refusing to send help until they have secured a specific host, one Mr. Peter Abernathy. If you recall from season 1, a backup of Delos’ IP was uploaded into Abernathy. We also just might get our first hint at to the larger plans at play here.
The new drone hosts are seen seemingly removing something from the hosts…shall we say, guests’ “DNA samples?” Yes, it’s that. Bernard asks the question we’re all thinking, “Are we logging records of guest experiences and their DNA?” Hale brushes it off, “We’re not having this conversation, Bernard,” she snaps back. This is obviously what’s happening and I’d assume this will be a major plot device at some point this season, if not a consistent one all throughout.
We don’t get much from the Man in Black, but what we get does reveal some important information for the season. Old William comes across the child Robert Ford host, who informs MiB that this new game is indeed meant for him. His mission, now that he’s reached All-Madden level, is to find “The Door.” “The game begins where you end, and ends where you begin.” I’ll think about what that could mean, but for the immediate reactions, I’ll leave that to the big brains who actually get paid to cover this stuff. Before heading out again, MiB does an MiB thing and shoots and kills the young host.
The last few scenes and the ending scene were great. We start with Stubbs and Strand finding a dead tiger on the beach, which prompts Stubbs to say “We got Bengals in Park 6.” The safe assumption is that Park 6 is Shogun World, given that Bengals are found in Asia. But wouldn’t it be just like Nolan and Joy to throw us a misdirect like that? This also proves out a couple other things for us. Whether or not hosts at the other parks are becoming self-aware, they are at least being thrown off their loops. The second is that, for the first time, hosts can cross over their boundaries into other parks.
As the satellite feeds start coming in, they find that all the hosts are clustered together. This is where the first big mysteries show up. They find a lake, one that nobody knew existed, as Stubbs points out, “There’s no way Ford made this without anyone knowing.” Either Stubbs is wrong, or something crazy happened in the days leading up to this point. Smart money is on the latter. But it’s what’s in the lake that offers the bigger surprise: the hosts, all of them dead. Stubbs wonders aloud what happened and Bernard answers with “I killed them, all of them.” And among the “them,” the camera focuses on one host in particular: dear old Teddy Flood (get it, his last name is Flood and the mysterious lake was likely caused by a flood).
Clearly something wild happened and I cannot wait to learn all the gory details. But do I think it was actually Bernard that killed all the hosts? I’d say it’s unlikely that he physically killed them all. Maybe there is some sort of kill switch for the hosts that was still active that Bernard had access to. I also read another theory from James Hibberd at EW in his premiere recap. I won’t explain it here to avoid the potential spoilers if he turns out to be even partially correct. But check it out if you’re curious. It’s an interesting theory that I think might have some weight to it.
And there we have it. Westworld is officially back and by all accounts we are in for another fantastic season.
