Spoilers for the tenth and final Season 1 episode of Westworld are all over this article. Go ahead and hop to one of our other lovely articles if you haven't caught the finale, yet.
It's only been a few hours since HBO aired the Season 1 finale of its freshman production Westworld. As promised, the first season really answered most of the questions that fans have had through the show's first run of episodes, including information about the Man in Black and the maze. Following the episode, series producer Jonathan Nolan explained that the creative team already has plans for Season 2 and that the upcoming episodes will revolve around what Ford set in motion. Here's what he had to say:
The end of the season finds us with the stakes taken all the way up. If the first season is defined by control, the second season is defined by chaos. I think that's part of what we come to understand Ford has been planning all along. Ford has set in motion what he thinks is a plan. The nature of that plan is something we explore in the second season: what his intentions are. Are they to let Dolores and the other hosts escape? Are they simply to teach the human guests a lesson?
Speaking in a set of shots that HBO cut together as part of a clip that aired following the finale, Jonathan Nolan noted that Season 2 will be all about chaos. While there was a lot of what seemed like chaos happening during Season 1, a lot of things that happened did end up being orchestrated. For instance, Maeve seemed to be acting with free will, but in the finale Bernard told her she was destined to make the moves she made. That massacre flashback with Teddy seemed out of character and uncontrolled, but in the finale we learned it was orchestrated by Arnold and played out by Teddy and Dolores. Control of the androids, control of Westworld and more were key in Season 1, but by the end of the 10 episodes, that was all devolving and real humans were being murdered on property en masse.
Also in the segment, Westworld producer J.J. Abrams elaborated further on this concept, noting that Season 2 will also focus on the androids and their consciousness. Clearly characters like Dolores and Maeve and others have begun to realize their true potential. According to Abrams, Season 2 will also be about waking up or more exactly:
What happens at the dawn of consciousness. What happens when you begin to actually wake up.
Westworld started out as a series about a park that was basically a playground for humans to run amok. Clearly, however, it hadn't always been envisioned that way, and as the main park employees--a set of highly sophisticated androids--began to remember past events despite having their memories wiped, it soon became clear that something beyond a theme park and a business plan was going on.
Although Season 1 answered a lot of our questions, it did inspire more. How will the androids seek answers now that both Ford and Arnold are gone. Will the Man in Black survive his big showdown with the androids in the park? What will happen if a bunch of artificially intelligent creations make it out into the world? There's a lot of directions the show could go in, and the creative team has already said they have five or six seasons planned out.
Westworld has already been renewed for Season 2 and we'll let you know as soon as the show has a premiere date. For now, you can check out what is coming at midseason, here.
