Westworld 2x01 'Journey into Night' TV TALK

I'm so happy Westworld is back!! If you don't know, Westworld is maybe one of the best shows out there and you definitely need to start watching (and obsessing) over it. Westworld is a theme park full of androids that look and think they're human. Human guests can travel to Westworld and live out their wildest fantasies- banging and shooting hosts as they please. But the hosts begin to remember what keeps happening to them and they start to become self aware and sentient. And that causes a bunch of problems.
That's a really simple explanation because it gets much more complex and awesome than that but... spoilers.
I absolutely love show and thought this episode brilliantly hinted at all the amazing things we've got in store for this season.

TV TALKS

Season 1: 1x01  |  1x02  |  1x03  |  1x04  |  1x05  |  1x06  |  1x07  |  1x08  |  1x09  |  1x10

SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD- SPOILERS AHEAD
I'm gonna go through this episode as systematically as I can because, as we all know, Westworld can get very confusing with all the different timelines. Each review will be my attempt at sifting through it all... wish me luck.

35 years prior
I love how the episode started with an interaction between Dolores and Arnold (or I assume it was Arnold... you can never be sure with this show). It had a reminiscent feel of season 1 which moved us lightly into this new season. The whole scene felt oddly foreboding as well so... I've spent a long time theorising over each and every line of dialogue.

Personally, I'd say that Bernard was the 'main' character of this episode- we seemed to follow his perspective the most.
When going into this series I thought, 'the two timeline plot was revealed last season so at least we won't be as confused all the time'. But I should've known.... this is Westworld. The audience is confused 99% of the time.
Because Bernard's timeline was very split and separated in this episode, I'm desperately trying to figure out the order of events.

Aftermath of Delos Massacre (2 weeks prior)
From what we can tell, we follows most of the characters directly or soon after the massacre in last season's finale.
We follow Bernard and Charlotte as they escape from Escalante. Charlotte takes them to a secret lab set up by Delos and we find out that they've been saving and storing data and footage of park guests. A lot of theories have been going on about why this is and I personally think it's because Delos are trying to sell a form of immortality to their clients- being able to somehow upload your consciousness into a host would be the closest way to immortality the clients can get.
We also meet these new drone hosts that have been teased from the trailers. From what I can predict, Delos is maybe creating these drone hosts for an army of super soldiers? Or were they a safety insurance to fight back against the normal hosts in a revolution situation we've now been faced with? So many theories!!!
Charlotte tries to call for an extraction team to save her and Bernard but Delos refuses until they have the package. I think this nicely sets up Charlotte's quest for the season- finding Abernathy and the 35 years of raw data he has stored within him and getting him out of the park.
Bernard also saves himself from malfunctioning but this was a little confusing to me... why was he malfunctioning? How did he exactly restore himself? Bernard will be an extremely interesting character this season.

And then we had Dolores and her scenes were maybe (okay, definitely) my favourite of the entire episode. Dolores is struggling with a split personality situation but I love how she's seeking her true self. She goes on a killing spree with a reluctant Teddy in tow but they still seem to love each other despite knowing it's been programmed. I'm very intrigued to see Teddy's growth- how all of his feelings for Dolores have been programmed and whether he truly agrees with her plans to conquer the real world as well as Westworld. Because, in season 1, he loved Dolores but hated Wyatt... I think it'll be an interesting internal conflict for him to get through.

Over to Maeve, she finds and decides to use Lee for all his information about the park. I love this whole dynamic with Lee because he's such a cocky character and Maeve is someone who will just not put up with it. The dynamic between these two made some of the funniest dialogue in this episode which I greatly appreciated. I also loved it when Maeve forced Lee to take off all his clothes just like they used to do to the hosts. Karma's a bitch and so is Maeve!!
I also loved how she reunited with Hector- how can you not ship these two? Hector reunites with her pretty quickly considering she literally just left him to die but... I'm not gonna stand in the way of true love or anything. Maeve and co. are now on a mission to find her daughter and I'm so excited for this!
And, finally, holding the fort for Team Human, is the Man in Black (I refuse to call him William- it's gets too confusing in my head). He narrowly escapes death by hosts and he comes across Young Ford- the host version of Ford from his childhood. I think it's brilliant how, even after death, Ford is still pulling the strings behind everything. He mentions a game and, much to MiB's joy, it's made especially for him!! Ford reveals that he must find his way out by finding 'the door' which sounds ominous and exciting at the same time- about as ominous and exciting as 'the maze.' And MiB, in full Black Hat fashion, decides that he got what he wanted from host Ford and kills him. I can't wait to follow MiB's path this season.

Present time
Finally, we have what I can only assume is the present time period. I think season 2 is all going to be about the missing gap in Bernard's memory between the Delos massacre and this present time (roughly two weeks after said massacre).
We quickly meet Karl Strand and I think he'll come to be a very formidable character in this season. He's got that air of cunning around him and looks like he'll be very interesting to follow.
They show Bernard around this team they've gathered to take down the hosts and they take out the physical mind of host to watch its memories. In this footage, we see Dolores killing Ghost Nation hosts but the real question is... why would she kill fellow hosts?
Karl and Bernard are later walking through Escalante and are surveying the damage and dead bodies from the massacre. We see Ford on the stage, dead and decomposing, which proves his death... or does it?! Ford's dead body could simply be a host because we saw from the dead tiger at the end that hosts decompose exactly the same as humans do. So, Ford's body decomposing doesn't actually prove that he's dead.... or I could just holding onto dear hope that we'll get Anthony Hopkins back...
This dead tiger is identified as being from park 6 which shows that hosts are moving between parks and I'm so pumped to see the full extent of this world.
We end the episode with Bernard and Karl finding an ocean of host dead bodies, including Teddy who, (surprise surprise) is picking up right where he left off in season 1. Bernard reveals that he killed them which makes me desperate to find out how and why and all these questions!!!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment your thoughts! Stay amazing!
Chloe