The second season of Westworld has wrapped up with “The Passenger,” and it was bold and ambitious and lush and kind of a messy disaster.
I’ve had a conflicted relationship with Westworld this year (and based on the falling ratings, I don’t think I’m alone). Is it a brilliant rumination on free will, technology and what it is to be human, or an overlong, shallow slog through Philosophy 101? Are the multiple timelines a way to disorient us so we’re in the right state of mind to absorb this story, or are they an unneeded indulgence?
One thing I’ll say for the show: it is challenging. If you want to get the most out of Westworld, you need to pay attention. It’s always good to see a show — especially one as expensive and high-profile as this — unafraid to make its audience work a little. But I think Westworld takes it a bit far sometimes, and gets so concerned with designing its puzzle-box narrative that it forgets to be entertaining.
HBO has renewed Westworld for a third season. Looking back at season 2, how can they spruce up the place up going forward? We have some ideas…
1. Have more clearly-defined stakes
Think back to Game of Thrones season 2. What were the characters after that year? If you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you:
- Stannis Baratheon wanted to take the Iron Throne.
- Tyrion Lannister wanted to stop him.
- Daenerys Targaryen wanted to find funds to raise an army and sail to Westeros.
- Theon Greyjoy wanted to prove himself to his father.
- Arya Stark wanted to survive long enough to reunite with her family.
What’s the common thread between these stories? We know what the characters want, which makes it easy to be happy for them when they get it and sad when they don’t. Well-defined stakes keep us interested. In Westworld season 2, most of the characters were driven by the same thing: they wanted to get to “the Valley Beyond” or “the Door” or “Glory” or “the Forge.” No matter what you called it, it had the same problem: until the final episode, we didn’t know what it was. If we don’t know what the Valley Beyond is, how can we be happy for the characters when they get closer to it, or cry for them when they suffer setbacks? For nine episodes, the season revolved around something without definition or form, and that made it hard to get invested.
Now, there’s something to be said for a show maintaining an air of mystery. Part of the fun can be guessing What It All Means — the fans on the Westworld subreddit certainly have a good time with that. But in the long run, a story driven by characters will always be more interesting. Which brings us to…
2. Let the characters drive the story
The first season of Westworld did a better job of giving its characters clearly defined wants and needs. For the hosts, who were trapped in cycles of violence and torture, it was easy: they wanted to break out of their loops. Maeve’s slow story of self-discovery, which saw her turn the park against itself from the inside, was exciting to watch, as was Dolores’ mounting feeling that something was amiss with her reality. When you know what the characters want and why they want it, it’s easy to get invested in their journeys.
In this regard, it looks like season 3 can improve on season 2. We have a new status quo. Dolores and Bernard are out there in the real world. Dolores wants to subjugate human beings. Bernard wants to coexist with them. These desires will drive the characters to make new choices. Maybe they’ll choose the same thing. Maybe they’ll make different decisions and come into conflict. Other characters can choose to follow or oppose them. Whatever happens, it promises to be way more interesting than watching people race to reach some ill-defined endpoint for some hazy reason.
Or at least it will be if the writers let the characters forge their own paths. In season 2, it felt like showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan had something they wanted to say about human nature and were willing to let the plot drag so they could say it. They have interesting characters. If they let those characters lead the way, they’ll say everything that needs saying.
3. Bring back Maeve Millay
Maeve, the robot madam with a heart of hold, was shot to death in “The Passenger.” That’s a bold move — Maeve was a major character — and should be commended.
That said…please bring Maeve back. Now would be good.
For my money, Maeve was the best thing about season 2. Like everyone else, she ended up in the Valley Beyond, but for the bulk of the season, she had a simpler quest: finding her lost daughter. Her search took her to some interesting places — “Akane’s Dance,” the episode set in Shogun World, was a highlight — and Thandie Newton sold Maeve’s longing with a pathos I didn’t get from many of the other storylines.
In fact, Thandie Newton rocked all around. While Even Rachel Wood (Dolores) sometimes came across as stilted while delivering heavy-handed monologues about the nature of consciousness, Newton injected some much-needed humor into her line readings, even when the lines themselves were a little cheesy. (Creepy lab tech in “The Passenger”: “There is no pleasure without pain.” Maeve: “The pleasure’s all mine, darling.” Then she has a bunch of zombie hosts kill him.) She’s a resource this show doesn’t want to lose.
I expect the show to bring her back. Delos lab techs Felix and Oscar saw her body on the beach near the end of the finale, and since Felix is pretty sweet on her, I can see a resurrection in season 3. Or perhaps Maeve’s mind is one of the several Dolores smuggled out of the park. We’ll have to wait to be sure, but I dare to hope we haven’t seen the last of Maeve Millay.
4. Tone down the dialogue, guys
I think Westworld is a well-scripted show, but there are a couple moments every episode where I roll my eyes at the dialogue. Part of that may be due to the nebulous Valley Beyond narrative. No one knows what it is, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that no one can articulate why they’re going there or what they want to do when they arrive. Dolores, in particular, seems pathologically incapable of saying what she means. Let’s look at a few examples from the season finale:
"Man in Black: “What are you hoping to find out here?” Dolores: “The same thing you are. You wanted an answer to the final problem: your mortality. But you found something else, didn’t you? Something you want to destroy.”"
“Something else,” “something you want to destroy”…Would it kill you to spell out exactly what that something is, Dolores?
"Bernard: “What is [the Forge] to you?” Dolores: “Mankind’s undoing. The secret we need is inside.”"
Enough with the secrets. Just speak plainly.
"Bernard: “What are you looking for, Dolores?” Dolores: “Something underneath this. The system itself.”"
Great, very specific.
I realize this is nit-picky, but characters can only talk in riddles for so long before it rankles. Why can’t these robots just speak like people?
At other points, the dialogue is overwritten. Take one of Dolores’ good lines from the finale, when she explains why she’s going to torpedo the Valley Beyond. “I don’t want to play cowboys and indians anymore, Bernard; I want their world!” That’s a solid line; it expresses clearly what Dolores wants, ties it back to where she came from, and is delivered with passion by Evan Rachel Wood. But then the writers go too far and add, “The world they denied us.” That part is obvious and better left unsaid.
There’s a pattern of stating the obvious on this show, of making the subtext text when it doesn’t need to be. See also Maeve’s line after she reunites with her gang in the Mesa: “You were both a bit late, so I went ahead and saved myself.” We know, we just watched it. Then there’s this line from Charlotte Hale as she watches Clementine, who’s been rigged to drive the hosts crazy, ride for the Valley Beyond: “This is what I love about technology. Who needs four horsemen when one’ll do just fine?” Thank you, Dr. Doom.
There are other issues — at certain points during this episode, Bernard and Logan are turned into walking exposition machines — but in general, I think the writers would benefit from taking a few steps back and considering if their dialogue is too melodramatic. Take it down a notch, people.
5. Nix the timeline jumps
In season 1, Westworld presented viewers with multiple timelines. In the past, a young man named William (Jimmi Simpson) ventured through the park, fell in love with Dolores, and got to know the darker recesses of his own mind. Much later in time, the Man in Black (Ed Harris) violently tore through the park searching for the elusive “maze.” Only at the end of the season did we learn that the two men were one and the same — until then, it was possible to believe the two characters were going on separate journeys concurrently. It was a clever way to underline how the park could change the lives of its guests.
We also jumped around in time a lot in season 2, courtesy of Bernard’s scrambled memories. But unlike the William-MIB parallel stories, these time jumps were very noticeable, and intentionally so. Yes, they were also covering for a plot twist (Bernard nerfed his own memories so the humans couldn’t extract any useful information out of him; specifically, he didn’t want them finding out he had installed Dolores’ mind into a new host modeled after Charlotte Hale), but we didn’t need clashing timelines for that twist to be effective. As used in season 2, the time jumps were more annoying than clever.
In season 3, I hope the show tells its story chronologically. The characters have a new start, and should be strong enough to carry the narrative without relying on what increasingly look like editing tricks. Making the audience piece together a few things can add to the experience. Making them piece together everything is tedious.
We’re not sure how long we’ll have to wait until Westworld season 3. When it finally comes around, I hope it’ll be bigger, bolder, and a shade more coherent.
Next: “Alexa, open Westworld”—Amazon’s new game lets you be a host
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