‘Westworld’: 5 Things You Might Have Missed On Season 2, Episode 2, “Reunion”

There’s a new El Lazo in town and he’s…Giancarlo Esposito?!?!

That’s right. GUS FRING WAS ON WESTWORLD. Acclaimed thespian and Do The Right Thing star Giancarlo Esposito stopped by the robot hellscape that is Westworld last night and he had a vision of nihilism for the Man in Black. Esposito played “El Lazo,” and if that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because last season he was set up as a mysterious outlaw figure…played by William’s current sidekick Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.).

You see, in Westworld, guests can play out certain stories, and the hosts are cast in rotating roles. Lawrence’s specific host body used to be El Lazo, and now he’s a humble family man whose been roped into the Man in Black’s crusade. This new El Lazo is…something different, hence why he’s played by Gus Fring. As the hosts are coming into consciousness around the park, it would seem that not all of them are interested in fighting back or obtaining freedom. This El Lazo has a message of doom and gloom for William…and then he promptly kills himself.

So will we see Giancarlo Esposito on the show again? Time will tell…

Did William’s wife look familiar to you? That might be because she’s former America’s Next Top Model finalist Claire Unabia. Now, television is littered with models-turned-actresses, but Unabia’s situation is a little bit different. You see she got cast thanks to a stock photo.

Last season, a photo is found in the park of a beautiful woman in front of a cityscape. This woman is supposed to be William’s wife. In fact, the photo is just a stock photo of model Claire Unabia, who had no idea that her face had been chosen to be the face of William’s dead wife, Juliet.

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Thank you Internet for finding me on #WestWorld 😆 Apparently I am Juliet the deceased wife of the psycho Man in Black #EdHarris Score! Found out when a #HuffingtonPost Journalist contacted me. • •#bingewatching it soon. #hbo • •#impossiblecasting #toomanypicsofmyself out there in the world. #modernworld #timessquare #surreallife

A post shared by Claire Unabia (@claireunabia) on Dec 5, 2016 at 6:48pm PST

Last year, it was speculated that this was probably just a coincidence and that the part would be recast in the future. However, Westworld producers brought Unabia to set to cameo as Juliet during James Delos’s party.

In last week’s episode, we got a sort of “in show” teaser for what was to come. Bernard seemed to lose track of time and a bunch of scenes mashed together in his mind. One of the things we saw was an eerily beautiful sight of him and Dolores in contemporary clothes, happily walking outside the park. Did you think this was a vision of the future? WRONG. It was the past.

Westworld, Season 2, Episode 2, “Reunion” opens up on Dolores coming to in a swanky hotel in something close to our contemporary times. Bernard (or is it Arnold here?) is trying to ease her into our reality, but it’s not working. Then, a young Ford, played by a shadowy stand in actor (with Anthony Hopkins voice over) comes in. This moment is where it all began, you see. This is the day that Ford and his partner pitch the Delos family — specifically that doomed rapscallion Logan Delos (Ben Barnes) — on the concept of Westworld.

The rest of the episode flips between the timeline that led to Westworld’s creation and everything that is happening in the immediate aftermath of Dolores’s revolt. What we learn is that Logan fell in love with the carnal luxury of the hosts, and later, a heartbroken and newly cynical William figured out how to make it into a money maker…

Even though much is made of William’s relationship to Dolores, he also has quite the history with Angela, the beguiling host played by British beauty Talulah Riley.

In Season 1, when we first meet William, he’s presented as an unassuming guy who’s been roped into the park by his soon-to-be brother-in-law, Logan. He’s greeted by a beautiful blonde in a slick white dress named Angela. Later that season, Angela, now dressed shabbily in Western garb, appears in a hellacious storyline in Westworld’s frontiers. When the Man in Black (i.e. older William) sees her, he makes a quip that he thought the park had retired her long ago. This season, a now liberated Angela operates as one of Dolores’s most loyal soldiers in her rampage through the park.

Well, it would seem there was even more to Angela’s story. When Dolores doesn’t make the cut for the big Delos pitch, Angela’s unit is sent to lure the client in. She not only gets the job done, but catches William’s eye in the process…

Last week, Arnold discovered that Delos was secretly recording guests’ visits to the park and collecting their DNA. This week, we got confirmation that William — the once sweet William! — came up with the plan to turn Westworld and its adjoining parks into a data mining business.

At a key moment in the episode, we get a flashback to the second big pitch that would make Westworld what it is today. You see, the park, as a pleasure paradise, is floundering. James Delos wants to pull out. William convinces him that the real money to be made isn’t in selling people their fantasies, but harvesting that secret knowledge for themselves. As William explains, Westworld removes societal restraints from visitors, giving them a glimpse of who they really are, and what it is they truly want.

So Westworld, like Facebook, MoviePass, and so much else, is making money on data. That said, William lets it slip to Dolores that he may have found something else of value in the park.

Well, I guess that means there’s another top secret puzzle to figure out this season, huh?

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