‘Westworld’ Season 2 Finale: 16 Big Questions After “The Passenger”

Note: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the first two seasons of ‘Westworld’.

 

First of all, what did we just watch?

Let me start off by saying that I was disappointed by the final two episodes of the season, and, in turn, the season in general. It seemed that show-runners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy wanted to outsmart everyone who predicted Season 1’s twists, but I think that was simply a very small minority of viewers that spent way too much time looking into fan theories instead of thinking about it for themselves. I like to think I catch onto things if the clues are there in movies/shows, but I had no idea that Bernard was a host or William was actually the Man in Black. In Season 2, Nolan and Joy just made it so convoluted that no one would fully understand what happened, let alone predict the ending.

 

Why did the Man in Black suddenly want to kill Delores?

Towards the beginning of the episode, we see the Man in Black still digging in his arm to see if he’s a host or not, but he stops when Dolores finds him. The pair with a 30-year history decide to form an uneasy alliance since they are both headed for the same place, but when they find Bernard (and it’s revealed Dolores actually created Bernard, which didn’t really pack a punch as a twist), the Man in Black decides he doesn’t need Dolores anymore, and he shoots her because he believes she will eventually just kill him.

 

Well, why don’t the bullets don’t actually hurt her?

I guess only a headshot will put Dolores out of commission (as seen later when Bernard kills her in another moment that didn’t really provide much satisfaction), but when the Man in Black finally points the gun to her head and pulls the trigger, it turns out to be the already-used bullet that Dolores put in the gun, creating a blowback and taking off half of his hand.

 

What was the point of Sizemore going out in a blaze of glory?

Pure “drama” for his redemption arc, which is something I never thought a top-notch HBO show would resort to. There was no legitimate reason whatsoever for Lee to die as he did, especially because a moment before, Lutz tells him he should reveal who he is to the security team. But no, he instead uses the speech that he wrote for Hector while standing out in the open (seriously, how incompetent is Delos security?) to allow Maeve and everyone else to escape. Unless it’s revealed in Season 3 that the security team are all actually hosts who can’t shoot straight, there’s no way they wouldn’t have instantly mowed down Sizemore with their superior firepower before easily chasing down the others.

 

Why didn’t Maeve and her crew simply run for it?

Even though I was disappointed by the season’s penultimate episode, I was excited for the 90-minute finale that could have been all-out war between the hosts (led by Maeve) and the security team (led by zombie Clementine). However, the “battle” was just Clementine riding past all the hosts headed for opening to “The Valley Beyond” and turning them into self-fighting lunatics. And I probably wasn’t alone in nearly rolling my eyes when Hector basically reminds Maeve about her daughter (as if she forgot about the entire point of her arc this season), and when she finds her, Maeve holds everyone off with the help of Hector and Armistace rather than all of them running for the opening. In my opinion, “The Passenger” was centered around way too much incompetence to fit the show-runners’ desired outcome for the season and setting up the rest of the series.

 

Is that the last we will see of Teddy and Akecheta?

I would argue that the only two powerful moments from the season finale were Akecheta reuniting with his wife/girlfriend/partner in “The Valley Beyond”, and Teddy finally getting peace when he also ends up there thanks to Dolores. However, unless Teddy is a duplicate on one of the pearl-like units like I brought up earlier, it doesn’t sound like we will see the characters in their new world again, as it’s out of reach from both humans and other hosts.

 

So Hale is a host?

Kind of. Charlotte Hale was a real person all along in one timeline, but the other timeline—Hale, Strand, and the others trying to locate Peter Abernathy—was actually Dolores in Charlotte’s body the whole time. So, the real Hale is definitely dead (by the hand of her own duplicate body), but the host-version (that is actually Dolores or somehow controlled by Dolores in the real world) is going to be an “inside man” in the Delos corporation next season.

 

And Stubbs is actually a host?

Yes; well, probably. There’s also a chance he is just suddenly revealed to be some kind of weirdo loyalist (and human) to Ford and the hosts. But I’m still not exactly sure how he knew that Hale was actually Dolores (“Halores” according to the show-runners) on the beach in his final scene—which he had to know based on his creepy monologue to her.

 

Who were the other hosts in Halores’ bag?

I’m not sure if Dolores’ consciousness needs to be uploaded again into her original body—so, Evan Rachel Wood—using the ball or not, but let’s say that’s the case. Bernard is definitely another one of the balls, and Dolores’ father is almost certainly another. That leaves two left, which I would guess are a duplicate copy of Teddy’s consciousness (if Dolores is in two bodies, why can’t Teddy be in The Forge and the real world?) and maybe Angela? Besides Teddy, it didn’t seem like Dolores really had many friends, but Angela was loyal to their cause in Season 2.

 

So does Dolores definitely have double consciousness now?

That’s my guess, because I don’t know who else would be in Hale’s body now. But who knows?

 

What will Season 3 be about?

Dolores trying to bring down humanity. And Bernard trying to save humanity because he thinks they deserve a second chance.

 

Are we done visiting the Westworld park as we knew it?

I hope not, and I don’t think so. But we won’t know until Season 3. It could be all flashbacks, though, as even if Maeve, Hector, Armistice, and others are repaired, what left is there to do? It’s not like guests are going to be lining up to get back into the park after what happened starting at the end of Season 1.

 

What was the point of the post-credits scene?

*shrugging emoji* … The host-version of the Man in Black is apparently repeating the loop over and over again of killing Emily, having half his hand blown off trying to kill Dolores, and then going down the elevator to see the host-version of his daughter (who calls him William, not dad) for a “fidelity” test. At least that’s what I gathered from it, and the scene is apparently set in the “far, far future.”

 

Who is in control in the post-credits scene?

Ford? I have absolutely no idea.

 

Who are the actual humans remaining?

Ignoring the post-credits scene, the Man in Black is officially a human (I think) and recovering on the beach, so if Hale is dead, Elsie is dead, Lee is dead, Strand is dead, Costa is dead, and Stubbs is a host—I guess it’s just the Man in Black and the unnamed security team members. (And of course, the billions of people out in the real world, so we will probably get a bunch of new human characters in Season 3.)

 

Who should I root for?

Good question. I know he did some awful things, particularly in Season 1, but the Man in Black was easily the best and most interesting character in my opinion. However, the final two episodes of Season 2 kind of ruined him by a) making him snap and b) establishing a post-credits scene in the distant future, as we know his role can’t be that significant if it just ends with him turning into a host like his father-in-law James Delos. Unless S2E9 was a complete misdirection and Emily is actually alive and well in the real world, the Man in Black remains the only human worth getting behind—but we know he has an end because of the final scene in “The Passenger”, which I think was a huge mistake. Hopefully Season 3 introduces some new characters in the real world.