‘Westworld’ season 1, episode 2 review: A hero emerges, Maeve learns the truth
The premiere of “Westworld” threw us into a universe filled with drama and violence. We have a theme park that allows visitors to live out their wild west fantasies where they can gamble, kill, rob, seduce – pretty much anything they want without consequence. The AI’s try to fight back and protect each other, but the design of the park makes it impossible for them to do so leaving them in misery and terror by the end of every day. Dolores is the park’s oldest AI and as sweet as she is, she is the target of most of the abuse by the patrons, but after her “father” (Abernathy) tried to warn her about what is really happening in “Westworld” we have to wonder if she is going to remember what he said. Let’s see what episode 2 has to bring us.
The “Westworld” crew are worried that Abernathy’s problem might be “contagious” to other AI’s. Is there sabotage at play or are the AI’s capabilities growing? Dolores is cleared and put back into play, but as we saw at the end of the last episode, Dolores killed a fly – something she is not programmed to do. As it turns out, Dolores is remembering snippets of what happened and didn’t tell Bernard the programmer. Bernard tries to talk to Dolores again to find out what’s happening and whether or not someone is tampering with her or the other AI’s. He sees that something is different with Dolores, but erases their talk and puts her back into the park again.
Dolores isn’t the only one that’s having issues, some of the other AI’s are as well like Maeve, and while Quality Assurance head, Theresa, hasn’t noticed Dolores’ changes, others are being pulled from the park for further examination. We got a deeper look into Maeve, who we have known as the head of the brothel in “Westworld”, but she has dreams of a past life where she was a mother and she and her daughter were attacked. The team thinks that these visions are happening because her body is sick with MRSA (interesting to know that these AI’s can get diseases… can they be passed to patrons?). When they bring Maeve into the real world to operate on her abdomen, she wakes up in the middle of the procedure and runs off into the building, seeing things she’s never seen before. Will she remember when she’s brought back to “Westworld”?
The man in black is still trying to dig into the deepest recesses of “Westworld” to find the point to this whole universe. He found a map of sorts on the underside of a mans scalp and is bringing in another AI named Lawrence, to help him find the entrance to this maze. He brings Lawrence back to his wife and child, reuniting them only briefly. He wants Lawrence to tell him where the entrance to the maze is and if he doesn’t, then he’s going to kill his entire family. He ends up getting the information he wants and heads out to find a way to enter “Westworld” permanently.
While this episode brought us all the horror and savagery we saw in the premiere, it also brought us something that we didn’t think we would see, and that’s love. Not programmed love between the AI’s, but love from a guest towards and AI. We had our first visitor to the park that wasn’t there to kill and cause mischief, and once he met Dolores he figured out what it was he wanted to get out of this park. He wanted to do things that made him feel good about himself in helping others in a miserable land… he wants to be a hero. Very interesting turn of events. Episode grade: B
How are you liking “Westworld” so far and is this a show you will continue watching? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts. If you ware looking for more scoop on what’s coming up this season on “Westworld” then be sure to click the link here and let us be your guide.