'Westworld' Season 2 Trailer Breakdown: It's A Robot World, We're Just Living In It
HBO released their first Super Bowl trailer in 20 years last night when they unveiled a new look at Westworld season 2. You can watch the full video here, but join me below to take a closer look at the secrets it holds.
The video begins with pristine images of the park's western landscape and a calm voiceover by Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood). This shot may be a flashback involving Maeve (Thandie Newton) and her daughter, but the way the first season of the sci-fi series dealt with time, it's just as likely that this is a new image of the two of them reunited.
As a piano version of Kayne West's "Runaways" plays in the background, we see Maeve atop a horse. She was seconds away from escaping to the outside world at the end of season 1, but the draw she felt toward her daughter was too strong to ignore; this shot looks like the determined gallop of a mother seeking out the only thing in the world that matters to her anymore.
We get a quick look at Arnold/Bernard leading a team of Delos security employees to the edge of a cliffside overlooking a beach...
...and the reveal of corpses floating in the water and washed up on shore. Remember, the android uprising against the Delos board members at the end of the season 1 finale happened at the same beach where Dr. Robert Ford's (Anthony Hopkins) "Journey Into Night" narrative came to an end, so these corpses are likely the bodies of some of those Delos employees. All those murders are going to be tough to cover up, but I'm sure Bernarnold will be able figure something out.
There's a look at Dolores's father, Peter Abernathy, who's looking like he's seen better days. He's strapped down, struggling against his captors, and the table next to him implies that some sort of surgery has occurred (or is about to). Last season, Delos board leader Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) uploaded 35 years of data into the lobotomized Peter Abernathy, so perhaps this is an attempt to reclaim that information.
The show's opening titles show a host being created out of a milk bath substance, and it seems as if one of them may have come alive earlier than intended, before all of the proper attributes have been applied to disguise it as human. Is this white humanoid about to attack Arnold/Bernard, or is it on his side?
My first thought about the two figures in the center of this frame is that we're looking at the bandit Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and a longer-haired host greeter Angela (Talulah Riley, who's been upped to a series regular in season 2). However, I've seen some people say this is actually Logan (Ben Barnes) and Dolores. The trailer is only in 720p, so it's impossible to zoom in and get a clear enough picture to fully confirm, but I'm going to go with my gut on this one.
I don't have any guesses as to how this factors into the new season, although later in the trailer there's a brief shot of Dolores in a modern black dress with Arnold/Bernard, so maybe he's just throwing a "Let's all get to know each other before the uprising expands" type of soiree?
There's some really cool slow-mo footage of Maeve walking through the Delos offices and leading bulls as they charge at security guards, but since The Hollywood Reporter says that some of the footage here was shot specifically for this TV spot and won't actually appear in the new season itself, I'm going to assume that this scene is one of those moments. (It somehow feels a bit too slick for Westworld in my mind.) But even if my guess is accurate, I'm wondering what the robot uprising might mean for season 2: will the hosts be able to control the android animals and use them to aid in their attempts to overthrow the park(s)?
Who are these guys? Their clothes look cowboy-ish, and they have ammunition and six-shooters, but their faces are all covered in black cloth that, upon closer inspection, looks like it has bones running through it. Perhaps these men have been captured by the Ghost Nation tribe? Or maybe even new recruits to the tribe itself?
It's unclear if that's Arnold/Bernard or another poor sap getting thrust into this circular contraption. However, it looks like the milky white new android A) isn't too pleased with whoever that is, and B) is into creating imagery that provides a distorted reflection of what we've seen before (a human in the center of a circle instead of a host being created in the center of one).
Those are the biggest revelations from the new trailer, and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments if you spotted anything else that's worth discussing. Westworld season 2 arrives on April 22, 2018.