Every episode of Westworld season 2 ranked worst to first

7. Episode 202, “Reunion”

In the context of season 2 as a whole, “Reunion” is very important. We find out how Ford and his partner Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) got Logan Delos interested in the park, which led to William (Jimmi Simpson) convincing his father-in-law James Delos to invest. And we saw Arnold take Dolores to the home he was building for his family, which turns out to be very important in the endgame of the season.

But the episode itself just didn’t pop for me. Dolores’ raid on the Delos substation felt like a waste of time because her whole reason for going was to show Teddy the true nature of his reality, which never really set in until she force-programmed him to change.

We also hear her mention the Valley Beyond for the first time, telling Teddy there was a weapon there she could use against the humans. That weapon ended up being knowledge on how human beings worked, which…is a bit of weak payoff. They played around with a lot of vague language this season, never more so than here.

6. Episode 201, “Journey into Night”

The premiere episode of season 2 was solid and helped reorient viewers with the show and its characters after a while away. But what should have been Dolores’ coming out party as a self-aware host ended up making the plucky rancher’s daughter from season 1 a villain, which made it hard to get behind her as a character.

This was also the first time we got an earful of Dolores’ overwritten dialogue — she gives the first of many diatribes about humanity’s greed and love for violent delights, and how she wanted to dominate our world. These will keep coming throughout the season, but they’re monotonous from the start.

All that said, “Journey into Night” is a decent episode that sets into motion many of the twists and turns ahead, but it’s nothing to write home to mom about.