Westworld has finally galloped back into the HBO corral-and with it comes many gifts. There are of course the violent delights and violent ends that we must expect from visiting Robert Ford's dreams within dreams, plus all the mazes that accompany therein. But more pleasing still is the return of true appointment television. It is rare in the modern age for a series to still crack the zeitgeist threshold and feel like an event that everyone must experience live, yet here we are, hanging on every syllable uttered by Bernard, figuring out whether he is friend or foe to his human compatriots, and wondering just exactly how Dolores' bloody revenge will escape the park. Still, before we cut that down, the question remains why do we return once again to Bernard and Dolores' Pinocchio sessions in the bowels of Delos' early years? There is of course the most fan-pleasing tangent where Arnold posits that Dolores scares him, and the rancher's daughter blankly asks why on earth would anyone ever fear her? Wyatt only knows, my dear. However, the more important moment in this sequence is Dolores asking what is real. Arnold, struggling mightily to answer his ward, finally manages to articulate, "That which is irreplaceable." Still, something turned Bernard against his own kind, if it was in fact Bernard's play to bring about this apocalypse for hosts. However, that's a narrative for another day. In the meantime, we must simply bask at being back in the park, which for this first spring sojourn in 2018 has been nothing short of delightful. Is it possible that even though Anthony Hopkins seems definitely done with Westworld, season 2 is still just a giant narrative in which Dolores, Maeve, Bernard, et al. Are the guests? Plus William, of course. Always William.
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