“For the most part, that’s very rare in film, [but] it’s every day in television. That relationship becomes integral. We put material out there and see what comes back… Here, you get to play endlessly with it.” To use the well-known overlap of another Michael Crichton adaptation, Jurassic Park, season 1 was all about welcoming the visitors to the park while sweeping John Williams music boomed (or at least an out-of-tune player piano’s rendition of Paint It Black); the first half of Westworld Season 2 is, meanwhile, all about the fences being down and the T. Rex having her way with a couple of jeeps. In that sense, for those who thought the first season held back on the bloodletting and carnage of the ever implicit robo-revolution, you can rest easy: the revolution is here, it is televised, and it is grisly. In fact, much of the first three episodes deal with the direct consequence of the season 1 finale. Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores is on the warpath, and she is cutting a trail of carnage and death while getting a lot of mileage out of mockingly spitting the guests and Delos handlers’ favourite phrases back at them before pulling the trigger. It is clear Wood and the writers are relishing in the opportunity of transforming the farmer’s daughter into the veiled menace first teased when she swatted a fly on her face. In season 2, the fleeing guests are the flies and every tree branch and rope a swatter. Luckily, after the first few episodes, all the narrative threads, including Dolores and Teddy’s, take some interesting turns that should leave fans speculating for many weeks. Because from the outset, the series embraces many a new dramatically rich irony, which from the very first scene promises new “mazes,” new games, and probably a hell of lot of new think-pieces too. Without giving anything away, it seems much of Westworld Season 2 will rest on the choices made by my favourite character in the series, Jeffrey Wright’s perennially conflicted Bernard. After spending much of season one coming to grips with the fact that he is an android (twice), Bernard’s allegiances and what we believe, or maybe just hope, are his authentic choices are routinely tested. It is no spoiler to say that he finds himself falling back into the lot of humanity, with new Delos security badass Karl Strand (Gustaf Skarsgård) picking Bernard up off a beach and having some pretty fair questions about what the hell is going on. Yet the show invites us to evaluate Bernard’s answers with as much skepticism as Strand has, and to consider the paradox of Bernard being one of the most self-aware and sentient of hosts, and yet the humans who rely on him are utterly oblivious to that fact. However, there is also Thandie Newton’s crowd-pleasing Maeve. As still intentionally the most human character on the series, this synthetic madam is the only one of all these sad sacks who isn’t introverted or filled with either self-loathing or a god complex, and the show intentionally brings that to the fore by juxtaposing her with Dolores. Maeve continues her quest from the end of season 1—to find her daughter—and where it takes her leads to some of the most amusing and spectacular moments of season 2. Also bonus points should be awarded for Joy and Nolan wisely re-contextualising Simon Quartermane’s Lee Sizemore as Maeve’s comic relief sidekick, as opposed to being a narrative irritant. There are plenty more secrets that will come like a hail of bullets in Westworld Season 2. Some are expected (yes, we get to see Shogunworld, although I won’t say where, when, or how), and some genuinely left me surprised and with a big dumb grin on my face. The show’s ability to manipulate in the midst of all the intentional chaos is perhaps its strongest element, continuing to make it arguably the smartest genre show on television. However, with all the chaos and mayhem that is going down, it is easy to become wistful for the deft hand of Robert Ford, which gave a guidance to the madness and built to a pitch perfect release of catharsis. Anthony Hopkins’ gravitas is also notably absent. Westworld season 2 is a different beast that’s more aggressive, direct, and at times unknowable. As a whole though, it is still a delight, if ever an increasingly violent one. And personally, I cannot wait to see how this one’s blood bath will end. Westworld Season 2 premieres on HBO at 9pm on Sunday the 22nd of April in the US and on Sky Atlantic on Monday the 23rd of April here in the UK.
