It’s only two episodes old, but Westworld season 2 already has more twists and turns than Armistice’s tattoo. We know Bernard has killed all the Hosts, somehow, and now the Man in Black / William is talking about having built ‘something’ in the park that could be a huge threat to everyone in it. It’s likely the thing Ford - speaking via his robot boy in episode 1 - was referring too when he told the Man in Black that they’re playing a new game, and this one is definitely made for him. So… what did William build? Be warned: there are major spoilers for Westworld S2 episode 2 coming up.
You’ll find our discussion in the video above, but the honest answer is that we don’t know. It’s likely related to the part of the park that Bernard - and everyone else - never knew existed, until now. It’s in a zone that is completely off the radar. No surprise, really, as William has had a controlling stake in the park (or the ear of the man who does, Logan’s father) for decades, so it’s very likely he’s been able to do stuff that no-one else knows about. During this episode we see him chatting to Logan’s father several years after DELOS invested in the park, where the pair formulate the idea of logging guest experiences for… well, at the very least it’s data gathering, it may be for blackmail (although that’s a little mundane for Westworld), or it could even be to create new, more realistic Hosts or provide cornerstones for their personalities. One thing we saw plenty of in this episode was Dolores - and a bunch of other Hosts - out in the real world, when Ford/Bernard was trying to sell the park to investors like DELOS. What if… oh god… DELOS has built Hosts that replicate people in the real world, and they’re planning some kind of coup? Now THAT would be something.
What William subsequently built could be concerned with this - it’s very likely he and the DELOS board built the underground labs that Hale and Bernard shelter in during episode 1. But that seems way too obvious. Perhaps he built some kind of failsafe weapon, which could instantly deactivate all the Hosts, in the event of some kind of mass rebellion. That would certainly explain how Bernard was able to ‘kill’ so many Hosts all in one go, but this doesn’t explain why he’s so worried about it when he talks to Lawrence. Surely that’s what they’d want?
One wild theory (ok, it’s mine) is that he created an area of the park to fulfil his Dolores obsession. It’s an area he could have filled with replicas of Dolores, or replicas of other Hosts he enjoyed over the year *shudders*. We know the technology exists to create duplicates outside of the main facility, as Ford had a machine in the basement of his house, where he created Bernard. There are several theories that multiple Bernards exist, and we’ll see some of them in season 2. Take a look at the scenes we’ve watched so far - could we feasibly be seeing several different versions of Dolores? It’d be a twist very much in keeping with the rest of the show, but it’s definitely speculation at the moment. What do you think the Man in Black has built in Westworld? Let us know your theories below.
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