17 Questions ‘Westworld’ Season 2 Needs to Answer

Before you get wrapped back up in alternate timelines and androids, it’s worth asking if this new season is even good. Fortunately for HBO and fans of crazy theories, the answer to that question seems to be yes. At the time of writing this, Season 2 had a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

In her review of the series, Decider’s Meghan O’Keefe praised this new season, writing, “From the get-go, this new wave of Westworld episodes are far more emotional, and therefore much more compelling. The narrative is less about figuring out what something is — human or A.I. — than why things are the way they are.” So yeah. It’s worth checking out.

Westworld has never shied away from showing its brutal murders, which is why Elsie Hughes’ (Shannon Woodward) death is still a point of contention. In “The Adversary” the programmer heads to Sector 3 to look into a malfunction. That’s when Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) cornered her. Bernard’s flashbacks show him strangling the young woman, but this is Westworld we’re talking about. Even the most surefire things should be met with a raised eyebrow, and there have been hints that Elsie is actually still alive. One that note…

Ashley (Luke Hemsworth) is the head of security who runs to Elsie’s aid and is met by an equally mysterious fate. Was he also killed by rebelling hosts, or is he safe?

According to Vanity Fair, it seems that the lesser Hemsworth (as Decider’s Karen Kemmerle has dubbed him) is OK. But it’s still unclear how he fits in with Season 2.

The past timeline ended with William (Jimmi Simpson) tying his naked brother-in-law (Ben Barnes) to a horse and sending him into the wilderness. Why? Because Logan is a huge jerk, but William is always secretly worse.

Did this betrayal actually end in Logan’s death? If so, why wasn’t Delos keeping a better eye on its guests? And more importantly, how can William sleep at night??

Season 1 ended with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) emotionlessly shooting Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) in the back of the head. As Delos’ celebratory party for Westworld then fell into chaos, Dolores started methodically taking out more guests. It looks like Ford is gone for good, but this isn’t the first time a Westworld higher-up has seemingly died only to come back as a host. Was that really the last time we’ll see Robert?

When we last left the hosts, they were angry and they were finally able to kill humans. That’s terrifying, but it doesn’t really translate to a rebellion plan. Do the robots just want to take over their respective worlds? Do they want to destroy Earth as well? Do they even know what Earth is? And is this an organized rebellion or just Dolores losing her cool? Right now we don’t know. We just know that the Man in Black (Ed Harris) is happy his toys can punch back.

This is where things get fuzzy. Both Dolores and Maeve (Thandie Newton) have claimed they’re making their own choices, but it’s been proven that both of their stories have been rewritten to include a rebellion. Are either of them experiencing something similar to free will, or is this just part of another elaborate master narrative like Ford’s final speech implied?

Speaking of that uprising, where does it leave Bernard? On one hand, at this point in Westworld he remembers that he’s a host constructed from the memories of Ford’s past business partner, Arnold. You would think that would align him with the robots. On the other hand, Bernard still seems sympathetic to humans and can effortlessly pass among them. Which side will he choose? Or will he make his own side?

“Chill” isn’t exactly the word you’d use to describe a massive corporation that packages murder and rape as a luxurious vacation perk and wiped its own co-founder from the history books. Now that its merchandise is acting up, Delos is going to have to respond. Only time will tell how severe that response will be.

So far, we only know that two world exist for sure — Westworld and Shogun World. But based on how elaborate Delos is, there have to be more. Decider’s Jade Budowski used Reddit and the Westworld movies to speculate about what other worlds we may see. Are these other areas safe or are they filled with just as many revolting robots as Westworld?

You know how Westworld works — guests can kill whichever hosts they want, then every night a clean up crew comes up to mop up the blood, repair hosts, and reset the “dead” robots. So what’s going to happen once the robots start attacking real-life people? Those programmers are certainly going to be skipping repair day. Does this mean that the human and robot fight will be kind of evenly matched? Or will the hosts learn to fix themselves…?

She almost got out of there, but at the last moment in Season 1, Maeve turned back, returning to the park so she could look for her daughter. So that begs the question: where is Maeve’s daughter? And perhaps more interestingly, was Maeve’s decision to turn back part of her new storyline or was it a result of free will?

Out of all the rebelling hosts, Maeve is the only one who has consciously messed with her own programming. Will her hyper-intelligence and the superhuman strength she assigned to her allies translate to all Delos parks, or is it confined only to Westworld?

Oh Teddy (James Marden). Sweet, loyal Teddy. Dolores/Wyatt would be an unstoppable force of Ford-and-Arnold-created nature without this cowboy by her side, but Teddy’s unwavering support makes this terrifying robot even more ferocious. Is Teddy destined to forever live in Dolores’ shadow, or is it time for him to have a rebellion of his own?

Dolores’ father started as a fairly by-the-books host. He had a loving daughter, ran a quiet ranch, and was killed a lot by the Man in Black. But in “Chestnut” there were hints that something was wrong with Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum). Whereas a photo from the outside world caused most hosts to immediately glitch, Peter didn’t respond to the image right away. Later Herthum’s Peter is decommissioned and lobotomized. Is he really gone? And since the answer to that question seems to be no, why did he respond to that photo the way he did?

This question is more for my own personal sanity than anything else. In the past couple of years alone, we’ve seen exhaustive coverage about how VR is making people sick, autonomous cars are potentially dangerous, and even the cult surrounding a juice company that was never profitable. Technology has allowed us to do great things, yes, but it’s also allowed us to be exhaustingly thorough. Is there really not a journalist who thinks it’s suspicious that a major tech company’s head of programming looks just like a co-founder who committed suicide? I know that Arnold killed himself 20 years before the present-day plot line and that Delos scrubbed Arnold from the company records, but I’ve been on the Westworld subreddit. The hive mind of the internet forgets nothing.

Is there going to be a sassy journalist this season who’s in over his or her head? Or is the media in this universe generally cool with super lifelike robots?

When we first met Charlotte Hale (Thompson) the Executive Director of the board of Delos Destinations, Inc. was living her best life with a random host. This doesn’t feel like a one-time thing, so we have to ask: Who will she bump uglies with next?

Stream Westworld on HBO Go