Hard to believe that HBO’s most ambitious show this side of Game of Thrones, Westworld, aired its season finale 17 months ago, a damn near a year-and-a-half. Season One “capped” off with Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) plugging the good Dr. Ford at his gala, and the hosts gaining consciousness and attacking everyone. Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) realized his cruel fate is that of sentient life, Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) went on the search for her daughter and plenty of Delos employees’ tickets were punched. Then cut to black. For 17 long months we waited with baited breath to the question, “what comes next?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjVqDg32_8s
We enter the story with Bernard washing up on a sandy beach, somewhere, to be found by Delos security, all wondering how the hell he got there. As he makes his way through the beach with the security detail we see hosts being executed and keep seeing flashes, not yet known whether they’re flashbacks, flash-sideways, or flashforwards. But we all know how Westworld likes to play with the timeline.
All the while Dolores is mowing down any humans by horseback, with a conflicted Teddy Flood (Cyclo.. James Marsden) keeping her company. In between shooting and executing humans, Teddy and Dolores find time to wax poetically all while being framed by the setting sun. “We’ve ridden 10 miles and all we’ve seen is blood, Dolores. Is this what you want?” Teddy asks. One can’t help but think that Teddy’s conscious is conflicted with all the blood being spilled.
Maeve is making her way through the Delos underground trying to find a way to her daughter when she runs into the sniveling writer Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman), that’s miserably trying to fend off a cannibalistic android. Out of self-preservation he makes himself useful to Maeve and offers to help her find her daughter to whatever ends that may be. Not fully trusting Lee she goes and finds Hector (Rodrigo Santoro), the outlaw with a golden (or tin) heart, persuading him to help in her undertaking.
To no one’s surprise the Man in Black/William (Ed Harris) survived the robot massacre and the psychotic is actually having fun. Last season he was trying to find the center of the maze, to which many times different hosts reminded him, “the maze is not for you.” Not one to take no for an answer, William wanted higher stakes and an actual goal. To this end Ford’s childlike host bluntly states, “this game is for you,” to which The Man in Black responds by shooting the host in the face. Oh. Yes.
People that complain that the show is too confusing would rather best spend their time watching MTV re-runs of Jersey Shore or whatever pit of diluted shit passes for entertainment. Westworld is heavy on the conspiracies, mythology, does not spare blood or violence and is considered hard sci-fi. Sorry you can’t scroll your damn Facebook feed every 5-minutes while giving it the most minute of attention. The host revolution is being televised and it demands your attention! 4/5 Cowboy Bibles.
-Lauro Rojas