Westworld Season 2, episode 1 recap

HBO’s Westworld is back and twistier than ever. Here is everything that went down in the epic season 2 premiere.

The episode opens with a flashback of Dolores and Bernard having a conversation about dreams and reality. Bernard then has a serious of flashes of events. Bernard wakes up on a beach to find Stubbs and armed Delos members killing hosts, even the non-hostile ones. He meets Karl Strand, the Head of Operations.

With the help of Costa, a tech guy, they learn Dolores was going out of her loop and character from a recording on a host. Bernard flashes back to the gala where a scared Charlotte asks him if the attack is some kind of sick game. Bernard theorizes the hosts are out of their loops into some kind of new narrative possibly engineered by Ford. Together, with a few other guests, they make a plan to escape.

In the park, Dolores and Teddy chase down fleeing gala guests and hang them. Before leaving them to die, Dolores makes a speech stating she is no longer the sweet rancher’s daughter or the ruthless Wyatt, but something new-herself.

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William (The Man in Black) survived the gala attack. He walks around in the park and a few hosts pursue him. William kills them and goes into a nearby house to tend to his wounds.

Back in the Delos workplace, the cannibal host created by Lee for his narrative tries to attack him. Maeve saves him. He offers to help her find whatever she is looking for. He takes her to the map of the park only to find it is destroyed. Lee tries convincing Maeve her daughter is not real,but she threatens him.

Back with Bernard and the gala group, Bernard hides with Charlotte when he thinks the others are walking into a trap. Charlotte tells him she knows another way out.

Lee assures Maeve that everything will eventually be restored to the way it was and he can offer her protection when that happens. The Delos team finds them and Maeve pretends she’s human. Lee tries outing her as a robot, but a host attack interrupts the conversation. Maeve saves Lee and threatens him once again.

Maeve goes to find Hector and together they plan to find her daughter. Hector tells Maeve: “Wherever you go, I follow.” (I had to make note of that line because it was so cute.) Later, Maeve makes Lee strip in front of them and change.

Charlotte leads Bernard to a secret place where creepy looking hosts without any human exteriors are possibly extracting guests’ DNA and experiences. Charlotte tries contacting Delos, but they will not send help until they receive a specific host.

Young host-Ford comes across William in the park. With a chilling voice he tells William he is in a new game now, one with real stakes.

Teddy voices concerns about their actions to Dolores. She reassures him they are taking back the control they didn’t have before. Dolores states they need to take not only Westworld, but the real world as well.

Charlotte tells Bernard the host they need to find is Peter Abernathy. While trying to find him, Bernard almost blacks out. He inserts a liquid from another host in himself which steadies him.

Back with Stubbs and Strand, Bernard claims not to remember what happened after the gala. They find a dead Bengal who somehow crossed over from another park.

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The group also comes across a body of water in the park that they do not know about. There, they find a large group of hosts dead. In a bout of confusion, Bernard claims to have killed them. In one of the final shots, we see a close-up of a host (that looks a lot like Teddy?!) dead in the water.

This episode was an excellent start to the season. It was action-packed and raised a lot of interesting questions. I am excited to see these new storylines play out throughout the rest of the season.

What did you think of the season two premiere? Comment below! Westworld airs Sunday nights only on HBO.