Warning: Contains Major Spoilers
Westworld is back after almost two years of waiting with its season premiere Journey Into Night.
I have been anticipating season two for a while now after the great cliffhanger that The Bicameral Mind left us with.
I could not wait to see the aftermath of the massacre Delores’ committed at Ford’s party and what the consequences of it would be… only for me not to get that, at least not in its entirety.
Because, rather than picking up immediately where season one left off it picks up a few weeks later and delves into multiple timelines, just like in season one.
I do not know why I did not see this coming because so much of the first season was about the multiple timelines so it is only natural that the writers would continue this.
However, that being said, I do have a problem with the multiple timelines this episode but I will get to those later.
For now, let’s talk about the positives.
For starters the opening sequence is great with a conversation between Arnold and Dolores in the past.
This scene not only looks to be setting up future events but also, interestingly enough, is shot in a different aspect ratio, which made for a nice touch.
My favourite scene of the episode though, had to be Dolores hanging the three guests because of how many amazing callbacks she made, including, “you’re in my dream,” “these violent delights have violent ends”, and my personal favourite, “it doesn’t look like anything to me.”
I have also got to say Evan Rachel Wood gave an absolutely fantastic performance this episode as Dolores this episode.
She pulled off the chilling nature of Wyatt and the innocence of the homesteader’s daughter very nicely.
Then there is Maeve, my favourite character from season one, who meets up with Sizemore and Hector, which leads to some pretty comedic moments, although dark ones at that.
But if Westworld is good at anything it is certainly dark humor.
We have William going off on a new adventure to find the door, whatever that is, and Bernard discovering Drone hosts that store guest DNA for a reason yet to be determined.
The episode also ends on an interesting cliffhanger where it looks like Bernard somehow flooded an area of the park, drowning numerous hosts including Teddy.
Don’t worry though, Teddy will come back, this is only like the hundredth time he has died, no biggie.
Now however, we have to get into my big negative with the episode.
After the Arnold and Dolores sequence at the beginning, Bernard is seen waking up on the beach weeks after the host revolt started and meets up with Stubbs and newcomer Karl Strand, played by Gustaf Skarsgard, who is a representative of Delos.
Strand looks to be an interesting character but we do not know that much about him yet and as for Stubbs it kind of feels anti-climatic with him just showing up after the cliffhanger of him being attacked by Ghost Nation in season one.
This is where my problems with the multiple timelines come in.
First, it is disappointing not to see what happened to characters like Dolores and Stubbs initially after season one, with so much hype surrounding it.
On top of that, however, there is a worse problem.
In season one the multiple timelines were a twist so we were still afraid for characters when they got in danger, like William because we did not know we were already seeing him as The Man in Black in the future.
Because we see characters like Dolores, Bernard and Stubbs alive in the future timeline we are not going to feel scared when they get in danger during the past timeline because we know they survive, creating a complete lack of tension.
Hopefully, this problem will not continue to the other episodes though.
Other than that, this was a great opening for season two with a lot of other interesting moments and hints towards the future.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 