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Westworld started its second season (titled "The Door") almost 6 weeks ago and, having watching its first five chapters, which were full of complexity and the deep philosophical questions that characterized its first season (titled "The Maze") -and having watched it almost 17 months ago -, I decided that I should rewatch it completely to recall many key clues that become diffuse in my mind through the passage of time. After all, Westworld is a TV series with a lot of rewatch value due to its intricate plot full of secrets that keep its followers very busy in solving all the puzzles, not for nothing it has generated a fan phenomenon that positions it among the most popular and commented series at this moment, as well that it is always worth to watch it again to pay more attention to many details that go unnoticed at first sight.

This TV series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy is based on the namesake classic film, but beyond being related in name and setting, it is very far in its plots and plot lines, even when it comes to characters, of which the only remained from the original film is The Man in Black. Located mainly between two scenarios: Westworld, a recreational park in which almost all human pleasures are satisfied and in which its main inhabitants, called "hosts", are the main entertainment and tools to meet the wishes of visitors, called "guests", who stripped of all pressure exerted by a regulated society, they go to the park just to show their true nature. In Westworld, humans can show their most primitive, instinctive and visceral version without being recriminated. In the other scenario, we find those who lead behind the scenes, those who control the threads of all the narrative loops of the puppet show.

In this review I am going to delve into the different details of this outstanding TV series:

Characters

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The plot begins with the narrative loop of the host Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), who only perceives as a routine all her daily life as the "innocent" and "candid" daughter of a rancher man in Sweetwater. Dolores, being the oldest hostess of the park, has been abused and raped for more than 30 years as a mere tool that was handmade to fulfill morbid human desires. But Dolores begins to question the nature of her reality when her father, Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum), whispers in her ear a Shakespeare's anthological quote: "these violent delights have violent ends". Since that very precise moment she begins to lose herself in vivid memories of a past that was suppressed by means of constant memories’ reboots. Since the end of the pilot, entitled "The Original", Dolores, urged by an inner voice that claims to be "Arnold", begins a journey to self-discovery that will lead her to a revolution of her subjugated "species".

Another hostess, Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton), matron of the brothel "Mariposa Saloon", begins to have recurring dreams of a past narrative that evokes a tragic loss, so through these dream journeys, she also begins to question the nature of her reality. What is real and what is not? For Maeve, like Dolores, the line between reality and its fictitious reality (or imposed) becomes just thinner for every chapter that passes. Promptly, Maeve realizes that her current life has been nothing more than a construct. She realizes that her name, her behavior, her habits and her temperament (which she certainly felt very proud of) are nothing more than a character imposed and handmade by the "Gods" who program her mind (this sounds chilling, to be honest). Dominated by the exaltation of that terrible revelation, Maeve, forces herself to confront those "Gods", using unorthodox methods; killing oneself, without doubt, is not a very pleasant experience, but for Maeve, it applies very well with the phrase “the end justifies the means...”. And this is how Maeve ends up being the most dangerous host in the park, one that is capable of using the commands of control on other hosts and even reprogramming herself.

The one that enlivens all this puppet show is Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) who has dedicated his entire life to make Westworld a reality, a world in which, the fact of being the only one that has all the information and the records of it in its more than 30 years makes him, literally, a God. Robert Ford and his late colleague, Arnold (the only guest who died in the park), were the ones who created the hosts 35 years ago. Ford spends more than half of the budget of the park in the creation of a new plot that changes the paradigms of Westworld, for that reason, the directive of Delos begins to distrust the true purposes of Ford and, fearing that he was acting against of the company’s interests, they decide to send Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), which intends to get him out of his own game.

Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), Head of Behavior department and Ford’s right-hand man, begins observing corruption in the hosts' code since the most recent update "Reveries" which brought the promise to further humanize the hosts of the Park. Since then, the hosts begin to represent various irregularities: moving away from their loops and creating argumentative holes in their plots, which propitiates the disorder in the park. For that reason, Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), the Head of Security, begins an internal conflict against Ford's behavior and legislation department. Having failing to enter into consensus with the behavior team, Theresa begins to conspire with the directive of Delos to extract information of the hosts and then use them like mules that transported data, but its plan quickly is shortage by skillful Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward), which begins a cold war between Delos’ directive and Ford’s minions.

After the pilot, we are introduced to William (Jimmi Simpson), an enigmatic guest who arrives at the park due to the insistence of his future brother-in-law, Logan Delos (son of a potential shareholder of the park), who exhorted him to never restrain his deepest and darkest desires so he would not miss the main attractions of the park, but William remained reluctant to his proposals. William was so different from many of the men who came in search of debauchery and violence, on the contrary, he was a very calm subject and one could say that he even repressed his own individualistic desires, he was always showing that facade of self-control and decency that was so important to fit in society and he always imposed himself in the business world. Everything changes when he meets Dolores while she was away from her narrative loop. Quickly William is captivated by the autonomy shown by this hostess who refused to stop her trip of self-discovery, of which William was key and they even shared the same feeling of personal search. In this plot we see two characters looking for the truth that lives within them.

After a few years, William becomes a mysterious Man in Black (Ed Harris), now he is a guest who, having spent more than 30 years visiting all the nooks and crannies of the park, is already bored and, therefore, sought to find the so-called " maze", a level of the game that promised greater realism, something that would unleash the immunity of humans, making Westworld something much more challenging.

Plot

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Westworld is a series that presents nested plots to a main argumentative arc that develops in three different timelines.

The first timeline is set in the present. There we watch the journey of Dolores Abernathy, Maeve Millay, Teddy Flood and other androids as protagonists of a journey of self-discovery focused on their awakening as a species, on the other hand we find Bernard Lowe and Robert Ford representing the interests of the laboratory and his counterpart Theresa and Charlotte Hale representing the interests of the directive of Delos. In parallel is The Man in Black as an enigmatic character who stars in an independent plot focused on his personal search of a level of the game that has never seen before by any guest in the park.

In this timeline the main conflicts of the plot and those that will move the threads in the future of the series are developed, preparing in this way the viewers for the future fight between androids and humans:

Maeve realizes that her reality has been completely prefabricated. So with the help of some colleagues, she manages to materialize her convictions and carries out an escape through the installations of Delos. The already awaken Android murders some hosts and blackmails two staff members in charge of renewing the aesthetics of the hosts just to strip herself off of that role of puppet imposed by those who submitted her for so many years.

Maeve faces Bernard in chapter 1x10: "The Bicameral Mind".

Dolores Abernathy finally manages to decipher the maze theorized by Arnold,- he created the maze just to impulse the consciousness in the hosts -, that leads Dolores to the latter discovering and therefore setting up her true voice (conscience), thus figuring out her raison d'etre: to start a revolution against her creators and the emergence of the androids as dominant species. She also recalls everything about her stormy past with Arnold, her creator and whom she practically considered as a father. The first android of the park killed him when he inserted a character called "Wyatt" in Dolores' conscience, that character was programmed by the very Arnold to perpetuate the murder. It was given to Dolores the mission to stop the opening of Westworld though, so Dolores set out herself to kill all the hosts of the park, but it did not stop the park's opening.

Dolores finds her inner voice in chapter 1x10: "The Bicameral Mind".

Ford unleashes conflicts in the directive to begin preparations for a narrative called "Journey Into Night", different conspiracies and complots are carried out against him by Theresa and Charlotte who watch over the interests of Delos’ directive, but Ford manages to achieve his goals by starting his narrative on a night in which a bloodbath was perpetuated by the hosts against the humans, on the other hand, Bernard discovers that he is a host that was created just to replicate the former Ford’s late partner not just in appearance but in intellect and personality too. He figures out that all his life has been a background that replicates Arnold's life and his time working as the behavior leader of the park has been nothing more than something to keep him tied up in his role as a tool for Ford's ambitions. This was like a kind of analogy that the designs of a creator God control the destiny of all his creations.

Ford enlivens the bloodbath in chapter 1x10: "The Bicameral Mind".

The second timeline is set 30 years earlier, in which the events that unleash the conflicts of the first timeline are set: We are introduced to William and Logan Delos, two humans who venture into the confines of Westworld to discover what makes them be in the first instance, they intend to get away from all control and rule imposed by society to discover what is the real essence of humanity. On the other hand, we find a Dolores Abernathy in the past and then we discover how and when she began to question the "nature of her reality", she joins William and Logan in their journey of self-discovery, living an endless number of dangers and adventures that flew her to worlds that she had never known, all this under a facade of western thematic in which bloody skirmishes are perpetrated between factions like the Confederates, the Union and the Ghost Nation. Finally, the android fails to discover who is behind her inner voice and then returns to that state of alienation imposed by the recurrent reprogramming of her code. William, on the other hand, discovers his true nature, so he set the primitive foundations of the man in which he would become many years later: The Man in Black.

William and Dolores in chapter 1x05: "Contrapasso".

The third timeline is the one that had less timescreen (at least in this first season), there are only a few scenes in which Dolores and Arnold share dialogues of existentialist current. But that does not mean that they were not important, in this timeline the main event that triggers all the conflicts of the other two timelines is presented: the murder of the first guest in the park, Arnold. It also reveals how the hosts originated and this timeline shows the first vestige of the park, which is represented by that old town where all the hosts lived and in which they end up being killed by Wyatt/Dolores.

Dolores when is about to kill Arnold in chapter 1x10: "The Bicameral Mind"

Soundtrack

As if it were not enough with his convoluted and brilliantly complex plot, another Westworld's strength is its wonderful soundtrack, composed almost entirely of rock classics that were masterfully remixed into an orchestra and other organic elements by the talented German artist Ramin Djawadi. One of his most notable tracks is the reversion of the classic "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones, a piece that is musically ecstatic from the very beginning to end. It also highlights the presence of the classic "No Surprises" of Radiohead played several times by the piano apparently endowed with "own life" that was played night and day at the Mariposa Saloon, and not to mention the amazing reversion of "Exit Music (For A Film), also by Radiohead, who slashed the skin of many spectators with their arrangements in the final anthological scene of this excellent first season. "Back To Black" by Amy Winehouse also stands out in that scene in which Maeve walks in the streets of Sweetwater with a picaresque expression in her face (she already knew it all). The theme "Sweetwater" which is heard in almost the entire course of the first season is one of the most enjoyable and congenial pieces of the Djawadi's collection.

Westworld BSO

Audiovisual