Westworld has been off the air for several months already, but fans are still talking about that explosive finale. It’s not hard to see why, either, as the shocking events of the episode left us with arguably even more questions than we had going into it. Admittedly, it did answer quite a bit, but there’s still a lot that we have to ponder over as the long wait for season 2 continues.
With the show not set to return until some point in 2018, it doesn’t sound like we’ll be getting any sort of closure any time soon, but the creators are currently hard at work on putting everything together, dropping small but tantalizing teasers here and there. The most recent comments came from a Paley Fest panel this weekend, where producer Robert Patino, showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and several of the cast members were in attendance. While they wouldn’t offer much about what to expect, they did say the following:
Patino: “There will be a story, and it will f*ck with the metaphysical at some point.”
Nolan: “We’re writing right now — we’re terribly excited about what we’re writing. Reddit has already figured out the third episode twist, so we’re changing that right now.”
What’s even more interesting, however, is what Ed Harris had to say. If you recall, at the end of season 1, we got a very brief glimpse of Samurai World, leading many to believe that the tease had been planted to suggest that we’d be taking a trip there when Westworld returned. Well, according to Harris, that may not be the case.
When quizzed about possibly exploring another location, the actor said, “It’s ‘Man in Black,’ not ‘Man in a Samurai suit.’ Samurais don’t wear hats.” Is he simply downplaying the tease to throw fans off the scent, or will season 2 really be staying strictly in the titular theme park? Time will tell, but we suspect that Samurai World will certainly factor into things in some way.
Later on in the panel, Nolan touched on all the fan theories and speculation that surrounded season 1, saying that it’s annoying when people guess the twists, but the engagement is also gratifying.
“It’s annoying sometimes when people guess the twists and then blog about it, but the engagement is gratifying, on one level, because if someone guesses your twist, it means you’ve done an adequate job [of structuring the series],” Nolan said. “You can’t complain when people are that engaged. It’s very gratifying—but stop doing it, please.”
Finally, Thandie Newton addressed the controversy regarding the show’s frequent violence and nudity, offering up some interesting insight into the discussion:
“When we were going into the publicity for the show, and people saw little bits, there was a lot of comment on, ‘Is this going to be gratuitous?’ Violence against women…It’s valid. And even though we were all terrified, because we just desperately wanted to stick with it—stick with this—we also knew that that was the point. The point we’re trying to make is, look at where we are, and is there a road out from here?” she said.
“I was just filled with excitement of where this show could go—of where this show could not really take us not as actors, but the audience, and people; and I know this is hyperbolic, but the world,” Newton said. “Here we are right now at a crossroads, and I think Westworld, for me anyway, is part of the solution, not the problem. With so many of the roles I’ve played—[speaking about] roles for women—it’s tough out there, and very often I feel like I have to put my activism behind. I have to just be the actor, do what I have to do, but [on Westworld], I was an activist every single day I went to work. I felt part of the solution every single day.”
Westworld returns to HBO in 2018, and with pre-production on the new season now underway, you can expect to learn a little bit more about it in the weeks and months to come.
