Will ‘Westworld’ episode 2 help lead to a quick season 2 renewal?

Through one episode into “Westworld” this season, it is fairly clear that HBO has almost everyone who watches hooked. The ratings were the strongest for any series premiere since “True Detective,” and we certainly do not see that slowing down in any way moving into Sunday night’s new episode.

Now that we say that, we do certainly expect the ratings to look a little different for Sunday’s episode — as previously reported, it is already available on both HBO NOW and HBO GO for people with those services, and we tend to think that the majority of subscribers are at this point fairly web-savvy. Also, with the Presidential Debate and NFL football coming up this weekend, they have other events that they may be watching.

Do we expect HBO to still have consolidated figures? Absolutely, and it is for that reason we wonder how long the network is going to wait before deciding to order a second season here. From our vantage point, the sooner that they make a decision to announce this, the easier everyone can rest. We do understand that this was an expensive affair for season 1 — especially with a halt in production midway through — but you can argue maybe things will run a little more smoothly moving forward.

Regardless of the price tag, we imagine that the network would want nothing more than to tout another huge hit with “Game of Thrones” in the home stretch. This is why it would not come as much of a great shock if a renewal is announced at some point over the coming few weeks.

If you missed it, we have our review of the series premiere over here. While we recognize that some outlets are putting out episode 2 reviews early to correspond with the show being uploaded already, we will likely wait until we get closer to its standard air time before publishing.