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Westworld 2 review: Faster, bigger, better sci-fi television

If the first five episodes are anything to go by, the second season of Westworld learns from its past mistakes and opens up to add more viewers.

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(L-R) Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale, Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy, and Thandie Newton and Maeve Millay
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Westworld's premiere season took the concept of prestige TV to new heights. In the process, it ran the risk of losing casual viewers with its meta storylines, slow pace, and cautious handling of the parallel storyline. In the second season, showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy let go of being cautious to some extent. They trust viewers to keep up with the multiple storylines, like HBO does with another of their hits, Game of Thrones.

Cutting down these inhibitions lets Westworld season 2 gain pace. Things happen quickly and are nicely tied up to the main story so that jumping timelines becomes easier for the viewer. In trusting the audience to keep up, the writers are trusting themselves with embracing the opportunity every character presents when it comes to exploring their motives. In the last season, we saw Maeve (Thandie Newton) lead the rebellion of hosts that came, with the assistance of their creator Robert Ford (Though Sir Anthony Hopkins' character was killed in the first season, his voice is still a major part of the second one.) She continues on her path to find her daughter. Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is on a more brutal path to making humans pay for making her question her reality. "Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Did you ever stop to wonder about your actions? The price you'd have to pay if there was a reckoning?" she asks the guests and Delos executives. The third strong female character is of Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) who is human and brings in the ruthless management perspective to the table -- hosts are IPs, nothing more. With the exception of Charlotte Hale, these women were abused and suffering at the hands of men in the previous season. But their way of taking revenge differ. While Maeve is calculative and has her eyes on the prize, Dolores is brutal if not rushed by anger.


These strong women are leading three timelines that keep adding new characters and take the narrative in new directions.Their characters are so layered, every line and gesture brings out new psychological resonance. This is especially true of Maeve, who has the park's story architect Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman, often the satirical comic relief in an otherwise tense episode) as her hostage. The conversation between these two indulges in meta-narratives. They discuss how women on screen are written, they discuss plagiarism, they also discuss how difficult it is to write 300 stories in 3 weeks!


 
Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and the Man in Black (Ed Harris) are two other essential characters that engage head-on with the mayhem in the park. Both these men have timelines that jump back and forth. While Bernard is evolving still, his journey from being Robert's trusted man to being a tool for management to helping Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) is gripping. Wright makes right 'ol meal out of this role. Because most storylines are connected to Bernard, watching him keeps audience oscillating between whether to trust him or count him as a host supporter.


Westworld is grander than ever. Lavish production, visually ambitious scale, attention to detail in every narrative only adds another layer to the questions the show has been asking since it began-- what could full sentience turn into? 

Instead of making viewers guess, the storyline this time has some cornerstones that are too on the nose. Every episode touches back to those key points before moving the story forward. This sometimes goes broad and fails to stick. Especially in parallel stories of the Man in Black and his younger self William (Jimmi Simpson). We are still waiting on what made him transform into Man in Black and that narrative is slower than snails in the first five episodes that were made available for review.

The second season is still laying the groundwork for future seasons. It is quicker than before. It is thrilling to watch and easier to adjust to. Every episode has its own mini-cliffhanger, which is a plus. One can only hope that this newly found momentum will continue and will invite a bigger crowd, suitable for a production this size. Then maybe, just maybe, HBO will be able to replace Game of Thrones.

You can catch the season 2 of Westworld on Hotstar on April 23. The show will also make Indian TV debut on August 24 on Star World and Star World HD.

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