Westworld: Unlocking 9 Important Questions, Callbacks, and References from That Premiere
This post contains frank discussion of Westworld Season 2, Episode 1 “Journey Into Night.” Consider this your first and last spoiler warning.
If you thought Westworld was going to get less complicated in its second season, well, you were mostly right. Though there are still multiple timelines, flashbacks, twists, and glitching, unreliable narrators, HBO’s sci-fi western doesn’t seem as invested this year in pulling the wool over viewers’ eyes. Still, every little bit helps when it comes to unpacking this show and so Vanity Fair will be running a weekly podcast in conjunction with these next ten episodes in order to break down every angle and, perhaps, launch a speculative theory or two. You can subscribe to Still Watching: Westworldhere. And listen to the latest episode here:
But if you’re more of a visual learner, then maybe this breakdown of the many callbacks, revelations, and references in “Journey Into Night” will be more your speed. This post will contain spoilers only up through Season 2, Episode 1 so if you’re caught up, you should be in the clear.
When Are We? Once again we’re operating in two temporalities this season. There’s the present—with Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) on the beach and the Delos operatives trying to figure out what happened in the park. Then there’s the past a.k.a. two weeks ago a.k.a. right where we left off in Season 1. Just as was the case last year, there appears to be a third timeline with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Arnold (also Wright) having their philosophical tête-à-têtes. That scene, which opens the episode, appears to have been filmed in a different aspect ratio. So at least you can tell when you’re watching the far distant past? It will be in letterbox. For more on where are we, you can go here.
What’s going on with Bernard? Remember how towards the end of last season Ford (Anthony Hopkins) made Bernard shoot himself in the head? Felix (Leonardo Nam) then helpfully patched him up but mentioned ominously that the bullet had grazed Bernard’s “cortical shield.” Whatever that is. When this episode opens on the events immediately after Ford’s death, Bernard already has a distressing tremor in his hand. Then he hits his head and some goo starts oozing out of his ear. Never a good sign. We learn later that he is experiencing a “critical corruption” which may result in “time slippage” and “ephasia.” In other words, Bernard is our reliable, brain damaged narrator for the season. Welcome, Bernard. Just like Dolores last year, he’ll have some trouble knowing when and where he is at any given moment.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year, series creator Jonathan Nolan explained:
[The hosts’] construction and their power source is something we’re
really going to get into during Season 2. They’re closer to biological
than they are to mechanical, but they don’t suffer brain death the
same way we do. They’re largely indistinguishable from human beings,
but their brains don’t require oxygen — which opens up interesting
possibilities. Their brains are not as fragile as ours. On one hand,
their cognition is controllable and malleable, but on a structural
level they can’t be killed in the same way you and I can. There are
advantages and disadvantages to being a host. Season 2 we’ll be
exploring more the nuts and bolts of what they are — as the hosts
themselves are trying to understand.
Either way, Bernard has a ticking clock on his condition: “O.72 hours” until all his systems will shut down. Not only that, but he has to hide the fact that he’s a host from the humans he’s stuck with. You saw what happened to that poor stable boy. Can Bernard find some help—perhaps Elsie (Shannon Woodward)—in the time remaining? Well, we know he did. He’s operating fairly well, if a little fuzzily, on that beach two weeks in the future.
Where is Abernathy? Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) explains that in order to get rescued by Delos, she and Bernard are going to have to find the Host she uploaded some information into at the end of last season. That Host is, of course, Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum), a.k.a. Dolores’s glitching dad. For more information on why he’s so important—and why they were swabbing that one host’s pubes—you can go here.
As for Abernathy, well, where is he?
Honestly he could be anywhere but what’s intriguing is that in Season 1 Abernathy told Ford that Dolores was his reason for living. He has since been wiped but as Maeve’s (Thandie Newton) pursuit of her daughter proves, these cornerstone memories can be tough to get rid of. Will we see Abernathy hanging around Dolores soon and if so does that mean Dolores and Bernard are on a collision course?
What happens when Dolores and Bernard meet? That’s actually a really good question. Last season Ford said he kept Dolores and Bernard apart because of how unusually they behave around each other. When Bernard starts glitching out at the beginning of this episode we see some flashes—either from the past or the future—of his scenes with Dolores. So keep a close eye on any time these two share a scene together.
How freaked out is Teddy on a scale of 1-10? To be honest, Teddy (James Marsden) looks pretty freaked out by everything Dolores is up to in this episode. In a nice callback to a scene from Season 1, he urges her to leave with him. Last year it was Teddy who was determined (programmed) to stay rather than ride off into the sunset, this year it’s Dolores. Something tells me she’s going to wish she had gone with him when he offered.
What is our favorite mustachioed host Rebus up to? Rebus (Steven Ogg) was a side character in Season 1 but if you want to talk about violent delights and violent ends then look no further than Rebus gleefully shooting a glass off the head of a terrorized Delos board member. Last season, the guests took violent delight in shooting at Rebus, this here is the violent end. Sadly, it looks like Rebus died on that beach scene two just two weeks later. But back at the party, he said something intriguing to one of his murderous robot friends. He said: “Aim like yours, you’re never going to survive the journey.” More on that “journey” in a bit.
Meanwhile, Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) got a similarly poetic treatment over in Delos HQ.
Yep! When he was attacked and almost devoured by a cannibal robot, said cannibal was simply following the script Sizemore gave him in Season 1. Lucky Maeve happened to come along.
Is Maeve the robot messiah? Dolores is not only getting violent revenge on the guests, in that hard drive extracted from a poor dead Ghost Nation warrior on the beach, we see that she’s shooting down her fellow robots as well. She claims not everyone can make it to “the valley beyond.” (The dead stable boy mentions the “valley beyond,” too. Could this be the same as “the journey” Rebus was talking about.) In other words, Dolores doesn’t think all of her fellow hosts are worthy. Meanwhile Maeve is taking time out of her busy schedule to administer some compassion to a wounded, dying robot over in Delos HQ. “I’m afraid it’s in my code to prize my needs above all others,” she says before kneeling down, concerned, to help someone else. Between a murderous Dolores and a compassionate Maeve, which of these two aware robots seems better equipped to lead the rest into the promised land? That may depend entirely on Ford’s plan.
In Season 1, Dolores explained to Teddy the concept of the “Judas steer.”
Dolores always seemed like the obvious answer to this handy ranching metaphor. Who will the rest of the robots follow? Why her, of course. But should they? In a behind-the-scenes interview with HBO last year, Jonathan Nolan said of Ford’s plan: “The nature of that plan is something we explore in the second season. What his intentions are. Are they to let Dolores and the other hosts escape? Are they simply to teach the human guests a lesson?” If it’s about teaching the hosts a lesson, Dolores is the one you want. But if this is all about escape…then possibly Maeve should be the one to follow. But what about Bernard? Is he a possible leader?
Ford told Bernard in the Season 1 finale that he would have to suffer a bit more before he was ready to escape. Is that what these two weeks are all about? Letting Bernard suffer enough?
Speaking of metaphors. . . How about that shot of the dead piano player, hunh? Last season, Westworld flirted a lot with this metaphor of the self-playing piano and the grey-bearded robot programmed to plunk its keys. If Ford was, ultimately, the musician playing all the robotic pianos in the park then we can take this shot of the dead grey beard and a symbol of Ford’s demise. Because, of yes, he is definitely dead. And let’s go ahead and dip into one more metaphor:
That wolf showed up a few times last season connected to the mass carnage Dolores inflicted when she was in “Wyatt” mode. It’s back again and this time it’s staring down the Man in Black (Ed Harris). Let’s go ahead and call it a symbol for Dolores’s most destructive nature and assume she and Old William have some unfinished business possibly related to this “Door” game Robot Ford left behind.
What about Ghost Nation? Last year, the Man in Black’s game kicked off with him cruelly scalping a Native host in order to access a mysterious map etched under his scalp. When he did so, he said there is a lot of wisdom in ancient cultures. We see the maze map again on the inside of another Ghost Nation scalp. That could just be a callback to Season 1 and a tip of the hand that the higher ups at Delos didn’t know anything about the maze game Arnold and Ford were running. Then again, Westworld has cast a number of compelling Native actors for Season 2 including Kohana (Julia Jones), Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon), and Wanahton (Martin Sensmeier) so I’m hoping this mysterious tribe has much much more to do than simply be scalped and die this year.
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