Westworld season 2, episode 1 recap: Journey into Night

Delos better watch out–the host rebellion is on in Westworld!

Tonight was the season two premiere of Westworld. Ah, yes, Westworld. A world full of hosts, simulations, and varying levels of consciousness. Now, after season one, it’s fair to say that the humans deserve what’s coming–because what goes around comes around. The season two premiere brought out all the guns, literally, and picks up where we left off.

Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) are having a little chat in the Delos headquarters about dreaming versus reality. Bernard shares that she scares him sometimes and her response is all-together frightening and unsettling as she smirks and responds inquisitively at the statement. Bernard, of course, is nervous about where she is heading due to her elevating state of consciousness.

Bernard has a series of flashbacks and maybe even glimpses into the future and suddenly wakes up to find himself lying on the beach. Interesting, right? So, we are to assume Bernard is now in the present and wakes up perplexed to see a security team with Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) approaching him.

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As Bernard tries to make sense of his surroundings, he is led to an interactive map of the park as nearby hosts are being executed one by one. We also meet the unpleasant Karl Strand (Gustaf Skarsgard), head of operations, who tells Bernards it’s been two weeks since comms have been down. Strand, Bernard, and Strand’s technician open up a warrior host’s head to get a glimpse into what was going down as the rebellion began.

After seeing a host “brain” for the first time (we think?), the tech removes it from the host’s head and checks to see what the final recording was on it. Any guesses? A badass Dolores shooting the host right in the head.

At that moment, Bernard is taken back to the night Dolores shot Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and scrambling to safety alongside Charlotte (Tessa Thompson). At some point, they head to a secret outpost where we meet the freaky host drones.

All the while, Bernard seems to be falling apart while Charlotte tries to locate a host that Delos is waiting for before they send in any help. Rude, much?

The host is none other than Dolores’ father, Peter Abernathy, who has all the smuggled code Charlotte is stealing from the park. While Charlotte walks away momentarily, Bernard plugs himself into the system to learn that he is minutes away from malfunctioning. He retrieves fluid from another host and injects into himself, just in the nick of time.

Perhaps the most badass, exhilarating moment of tonight’s episode is seeing Dolores shooting up a storm taking down guests from the Delos party. While Dolores is basking in this newfound rage, Teddy (James Marsden) isn’t too down with everything they are doing. However, she remains dead set on exacting revenge on those that have controlled them, manipulated them, and used them for their own pleasures. A for effort, Teddy!

The Man in Black (Ed Harris) makes an appearance in the season two premiere, as he comes across a young Robert Ford. The young Ford tells him he has to find the door and that the game will find him. So what door is he talking about? Guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

For anyone that was wondering what happened to Maeve (Thandie Newton) after she got off the train in season one got some answers from tonight’s premiere. She shows up at the Delos headquarters just as Lee (Simon Quarterman) is about to be devoured by a host. He decides to help her find her daughter or least the host that was her daughter anyway.

A group of guards comes rushing in, and despite Lee’s attempts to out Maeve, he miserably fails. As the two head out together, they come across the dreamy Hector (Rodrigo Santoro) who decides to help Maeve find her daughter.

We are taken back to the beach where Bernard woke up at the beginning of the episode. And interestingly enough, they head back to the start of it all–where Ford got shot by Dolores. Bodies are all over the town, including that of Ford’s–decomposing and rotting as they fell.

Next: Catching up on every Westworld character going into season two

The weirdest thing we saw this episode? A dead tiger. Yes, a tiger. How the tiger made its way into the Wild West remains a mystery but also makes us wonder what park it came from. The group learns that there is a group of hosts accumulated together, but upon finding them they come across a vast sea that no one knew was in existence.

And while there are hosts there, they’re all dead. Karl inquires about what happened to which Bernard cryptically responds, “I killed them. All of them.”

Westworld airs every Sunday on HBO at 9 P.M. EST!