Let’s hope this season becomes a game actually worth playing.John P. Johnson / HBO
No longer simply a series of plot twists, the second season is taking steps towards deeper dimensions — just as its newly conscious characters do the same.
When “Westworld” first arrived in 2016, it seemed like HBO’s spiritual heir to “Game of Thrones.” And from the outside, the two shows looked like cousins, even sharing members of the same production team. The fanbase crossover was also so heavy that two of the biggest fan sites focused on “Game of Thrones” branched outto cover it.
But like its android “host” characters, “Westworld’” was mostly surface level imitation. Expensive, dark and violent, the show acted as if the only thing great TV required was an endless supply of harrowing narrative twists. But there’s good news. The second season is taking steps towards deeper dimensions, just as its newly conscious characters do the same.
Derived from the 1973 film of the same name and set in the near future, “Westworld” takes place in a Wild West theme park, an old-fashioned virtual reality landscape that spans hundreds of miles in every direction. Populated by extraordinarily lifelike android “hosts,” guests pay thousands of dollars to be utterly immersed in a pre-programed adventure, complete with pistol-packing sheriffs, highway bandits, fresh-faced rancher’s daughters and saloon dwelling painted ladies.
The endlessly twisting plot was a fun clockwork toy, but just like the safe the park’s robot outlaws are forever trying to steal, once you opened it up there was nothing inside.
The original movie only had two hours to tell its tale of how the hosts gained self-awareness and free will. HBO, faced with ten hours to fill, focused too much on unreliable narrators and endless foreshadowing, without much concern for things like character development once the puzzle was solved. The endlessly twisting plot was a fun clockwork toy, but just like the safe the park’s robot outlaws are forever trying to steal, once you opened it up there was nothing inside.
Season two has more meat. Unfortunately for showrunners, this realization had to be learned the hard way. Their puzzle-first method backfired badly last season, simply because the show wasn’t as clever as it thought it was. Fans banded together on Reddit and with five episodes left in the season had guessed nearly all the twists. Without mystery, viewers realized pretty quickly that there was little else to sustain their interest. This tough love led to some internal bitterness, but the results are worth it.
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Source: Nbc News