Now that the dust has settled on Westworld season 2, it’s time to look back and see which episodes hit the mark and left us begging for more, and which ones fell flat, leaving us with a sense of disappointment and longing for the good old days of season 1. While the show’s sophomore season might have seen a slump in the ratings, it was no less polarizing than it’s inaugural season, as fans and critics alike had strong opinions about its direction from the jump.
Just like in season 1, Westworld season 2 incorporated panoramic and sweeping cinematic angles, combined with composer Ramin Djawadi’s hauntingly beautiful score to convey part of the show’s story, but that was not enough to make up for what seemed like aimless storytelling and often clunky dialogue, at different points along the way.
With that being said, we dig into each episode from season 2 and rank them from worst to first. Let’s get started.
10. Episode 206, “Phase Space”
Somewhere in the middle of season 2, Westworld stumbled a bit. By episode 206, “Phase Space,” all of the major characters were in different parts of the park trying to find a way to get out. At this point, the show had introduced names like the Door, Glory, the Valley Beyond, and the Cradle, and yet, the audience still didn’t know what these places were…not really.
“Phase Space” saw Maeve (Thandie Newton) lead her ever-expanding group of loyal followers from the Snow Lake region in Shogun World, to a cemetery right outside of the homestead she shared with the daughter she’d been searching for since season 1. However, as soon as she realizes where she’s at, she inexplicably tells her well-armed escort to wait while she went to retrieve her daughter.
Of course, things go bad almost as soon as she arrives. Throughout season 2, Maeve had been traveling with Delos lead narrator Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman), yet he somehow neglected to tell her that she’d been replaced and that her daughter had a new mommy. Dick move, Lee. Also, by episode 206, the Ghost Nation tribe’s role hadn’t yet been made clear, so when Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon) and his band of warriors arrived at Maeve’s old home — dressed and painted like they were going to war — she understandably ran.
The whole scenario didn’t seem very thought out or well written, at all. There were some good points in “Phase Space,” however, as we saw Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) alter Teddy’s (James Marsden) programming to make him more like her — which ultimately led to him committing suicide in front of her. And, the episode ended with the reveal that Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) had uploaded his consciousness into the Delos operating system, and it was he who had been manipulating the events directly following the host uprising in season 1.
9. Episode 204, “The Riddle of the Sphinx”
Hear me out: Episode 209, “The Riddle of the Sphinx,” is not that great an episode. Sure, we learned why James Delos (Peter Mullan) purchased Westworld in the first place, and we got confirmation that Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) had survived her ordeal with Bernard from season 1, but the Man in Black’s (Ed Harris) story in this episode was a complete waste of time.
There are two things we know for sure about the Man in Black. 1) He is an asshole; and 2) He is not an antihero. In fact, by the end of season 2, we’ve learned that MIB is completely irredeemable. So why show him save Lawerence (Clifton Collins Jr.) and his family from the Confederados when he murdered them all multiple times in the past?
The whole side story just felt like filler that could have been better used exploring the Raj, which was introduced the week before, or Shogun World, which is teased at the very end.
8. Episode 203, “Virtù e Fortuna”
Episode 203, “Virtù e Fortuna,” was a fun episode, but what did it really have to offer to the overarching story of season 2? I’ll tell you: the introduction of the Raj (A Delos park set in British occupied India), the arrival of Grace (Katja Herbers), and the return of Armistice (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) roasting a Delos QA member alive with her flamethrower. She has a dragon!
But just like “The Riddle of the Sphinx,” this episode had way too much filler. And while I rather enjoyed watching Dolores’ horde turn on the Confederados, slaughtering them to a man and then somehow lure a trained paramilitary force close enough to blow up, the entire battle at Fort Forlorn Hope was unnecessary.
We could have seen Charlotte Hale and her team take Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum), or spent more time exploring the Raj or watching Armistice set dudes on fire. The Delores stuff didn’t have much weight, especially considering she’ll lose her entire army without comment later.
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.
5. Episode 207, “Les Écorchés”
The back half of season 2 was chockfull of fantastic episodes, with “Les Écorchés” being no exception. Right at the start, we see Charlotte Hale and her team discover that Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is actually a host. Then Dr. Ford explains how the Cradle and the Forge work and why they exist. To top it all off, Dolores and her gang ram the Mesa with a speeding train and blow up all their backups. It’s an eventful hour.
Elsewhere, Lawrence is killed and Maeve gets shot and taken back to the Mesa, and the Man in Black suffers multiple bullet wounds without being killed…it’s almost like he’s a host or something.
Dolores blowing up the cradle is key, because now, if a host dies, they die for good. The game has stakes. Except before that, Dolores took her father’s control unit, which has a lot of proprietary Delos code in it, and will eventually use it to create new hosts in the outside world.
Confused yet? That’s an ongoing problem in season 2. Regardless, this episode is entertaining from top to bottom.
4. Episode 209, “Vanishing Point”
“Vanishing Point” is a pivotal episode. We finally meet Juliet (Sela Ward), the Man in Black’s wife, and learn what drove her to take her own life. This is hugely important to understanding the Man in Black — it’s his cornerstone moment when he is rebuilt as a host — his relationship with his daughter Grace, and why he takes the drastic steps he steps.
And by “drastic steps,” we mean who shoots and kills Grace, thinking she’s a host. The Man in Black is irredeemable, but it’s great that he arrives at the point of no return in the same episode where he gets fleshed out as a character.
The theme of suicide runs through this episode, as Teddy also takes his own life. The Man in Black and his family are the stars of this hour, but seeing Dolores’ decision to augment Teddy double back on her is still heartbreaking.
3. Episode 205, “Akane no Mai”
The final three episodes on this list are basically interchangeable. But somebody’s got to be in third place, so we’ll start with“Akane no Mai.” We spend this episode almost exclusively in Shogun World, a Delos theme park set in Japan’s Edo period, where warlords and ninjas rule the land.
“Akane no Mai” really had it all. Learning that Lee Sizemore plagiarized himself by creating Japanese versions of Maeve, Hector, and Armistice was good fun. But what really sold this episode was the score by composer Ramin Djawadi, the highlight being a Japanese-inspired version of “Paint it Black,” which plays during not-Hector’s robbery in not-Sweetwater.
We also saw Maeve’s powers grow from simple voice commands to mind control. Yep, Maeve becomes a Jedi Master here, and I’m not even mad about it. But in an episode filled with haunting songs and gorgeous visuals, we shouldn’t overlook the more familiar scenes between Dolores and Teddy in Sweetwater.
This is the episode where Dolores decides to forcibly reprogram Teddy, making him a ruthless killer. The scenes are painful here, but they’ll be magnified in “Vanishing Point.”
2. Episode 210, “The Passenger”
The final episode of season 2, “The Passenger,” was absolutely perfect and was exactly what Westworld as a whole needed, heading into a long offseason wait between now and season 3. Each and every storyline that seemed doomed to be left twisting in the wind until season 3, was perfectly tied up into a neat little bow instead. And, the post-credits scene was so jaw-dropping that it will be the subject of innumerable theories until the series finally returns.
The Door and Valley Beyond were finally revealed, and the good guys like Akecheta and his Ghost Nation tribe actually got to go there before it was closed off forever, as did Teddy…which I guess since Dolores had his control unit, wasn’t that much of a stretch.
But, the big reveal came when Bernard remembered he had created a host version of Charlotte Hale and then placed Dolores’ control unit in there. This meant that at several points during season 2, that Dolores was going around in Charlotte’s body as “Halores” doing things that placed key players in important roles so the final outcome would be that she escaped the park before it was all said and done. This mindblowing timeline hopping twist really does merit a re-watch of the entire season, in order to see where Dolores was masquerading as Charlotte. Brilliant storytelling by showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan.
1. Episode 208, “Kiksuya”
If you’ve paid attention to the criticism surrounding Westworld this year, it should come as no surprise that we consider ”Kiksuya” to be the best episode of season 2. In fact, it’s probably the best episode of seasons 1 and 2 combined. The story of how the host Akecheta attained self-awareness was very much off the show’s usual narrative track and served as a refreshing palate cleanser going into the final two episodes of the season. His love story with wife Kohona, while unexpected, was all the more powerful for being condensed into one episode; it gave this hour a focus many of the other episodes lacked.
“Kiksuya” was also a breakout hit for actor Zahn McClarnon (Akecheta), and made him a sudden contender to win the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Emmy. Apart from that, the episode was visually stunning and daring in the way in leans so heavily on Akecheta’s narration, which is given almost entirely in Lokota. Up until this point, the members of the Ghost Nation tribe had been stereotypes. “Kiksuya” flips that on its head and makes them some of the most sympathetic figures in the park.
“Kiksuya” is a beautiful story told without any timeline trickery. It’s a landmark episode of the show, and something we hope the creators can build on in season 3.
Next: Westworld creator promises they know how the show will end
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