Westworld Season 2 is coming (eventually). In the meantime, here is everything to know, including new casting changes.
Fans of robotic Cowboys and Indian tales can breathe easy, for HBO confirmed in November what everyone has been long expecting: we’ll be headed back to the park for Westworld season 2 in 2017... or more likely 2018 (we'll get to that). The news was made official when HBO Programming President Casey Bloys released a statement confirming the Westworldseason 2 renewal.
This must be a special relief to HBO, considering that the days of dragons and wildfire are looking fewer and fewer as we approach the final two truncated seasons of Game of Thrones over the next few summers. Additionally, Vinyl turned into an infamous flop for the premium cable giant, which then preceded some changes behind-the-scenes, including Bloys’ ascension.
“It’s fantastic to have a broad-based cultural and ratings hit to build from,” Bloys said on the subject of Westworld (via Variety), “That’s a great, great luxury.”
Indeed, it is, indeed it is. And we now have the luxury to consider how these violent delights may have more gloriously violent ends in the second season.
Latest Westworld Season 2 News
While news remains painfully scarce, what should make plenty of fans happy is the announcement that Talulah Riley's mysterious host character has been promoted to series regular. Riley certainly made an impression on William/the Man in Black since she is the first robot he meets as a young man, and yet remembers her face and mannerisms some 30 years later when she goes from being a welcoming companion to an enigmatic robotic rebel in the wilderness.
Additionally, Louis Herthum's Peter Abernathy will have a regular role this season, as well. No word on who he'll be, as he has likely moved on from being Dolores' ill-fated father.
HBO made both announcements this week, indicating things are moving along splendidly for the new year. Riley also has a history of working with the Nolan brothers. In addition to now being a full fledged star on Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's Westworld, she had a memorable supporting part in Christopher Nolan's Inception. The British actress also memorably appeared in 2005's Pride & Prejudice, as well as Pirate Radio (2009)
Westworld Season 2 Cast
In other casting news, we appear to also have our first confirmation of a returning character in Westworld season 2, and it's Ed Harris. Indeed, Ed Harris revealed to BBC Radio 4 while promoting a return to West End, that a revisiting of Westworldis also in order.
About the prospect of doing more episodes, Harris confirmed, "I was just talking to Jonah Nolan last night, who’s a creator of this thing with his wife Lisa Joy, and yeah, they’re doing another season. They’re going to do 10 more episodes, and I will be involved.”
Meanwhile, however, this leads to the sad acceptance that fan favorite Jimmi Simpson, whose William was revealed in the season 1 finale to be a younger version of Harris' Man in Black, will likely not be returning. Simpson said as much when he chatted with CinemaBlend in March.
So far, my involvement in [season 2] is unclear. If they have more for William, I would assume it would be a whole new kind of story. Because I feel like this story, the love affair [with Evan Rachel Wood's character, Dolores], we know everything, we know what happens, we don't have to belabor that point. But if they have a reason--I mean, it was the greatest set I've ever worked on. But we're all speculating what Season 2 will be, and I think it'll be something that will blow our minds, to the degree that Season 1 did. But I wouldn't be surprised if William showed up Season 3 or something.
Westworld Season 2 Release Date
Obviously, HBO is keen on keeping Westworld as a fall series. However, the question is now which autumn that might be in. Indeed, while in an earlier version of this article, we speculated about the series returning in October 2017, it turns out that its premiere date will likely be much further away.
Indeed, Casey Bloys, programming president at HBO, revealed to EW that he doesn't expect a second season until 2018.
"My suspicion is sometime in 2018 because of how big the world is and what goes into shooting it," Bloys said. "So I don’t have a date exactly – they’re going to have to map it out and write the scripts – but my guess is sometime in ‘18."
If we are allowed to humbly reconfigure our previous estimation, we would guess the new season will probably debut on the first Sunday of October, just like season 1 did. In this case, that would be on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018. Admittedly, the previous long-running HBO fall series, Boardwalk Empire, premiered on different weekends in September during its whole five-year run. However, the first four seasons of that series were 12 episodes, as opposed to Westworld's 10. By waiting until October, it allows HBO to ensure fan subscriptions continue into December. It also will give more space to HBO's other genre hit, Game of Thrones, which will be concluding its run as a summer series in 2018 during its eighth and final season.
Westworld Season 2 Story Details
The news of season 2's confirmation was also fortuitous in November, since showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy let slip on the same day to Entertainment Weekly that we can expect much more detail about how hosts work during the second season, including how they’re powered.
“Their construction and their power source is something we’re really going to get into during season 2,” Nolan said. “So we’d like to keep that mysterious. They’re closer to biological than they are mechanical, but they don’t suffer brain death the same way we do. They’re largely indistinguishable from human beings, but their brains don’t require oxygen—which opens up interesting possibilities. Their brains are not as fragile as ours. On one hand, their cognition is controllable and malleable, but on a structural level, they can’t be killed in the same way you and I can. There are advantages and disadvantages to being a host. [In] season 2, we’ll be exploring more of the nuts and bolts of what they are—as the hosts themselves are trying to understand.”
This consideration of artificial biology is not that surprising since Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy already revealed they were breaking down the second season during the Westworld panel at New York Comic Con that we attended in October 2016.
“There were a handful of things that we weren’t able to touch in the first season, and we’re now currently breaking the second season,” Nolan had said during the NYCC panel. “One of the really nice things about TV is, you get to go again.”
Indeed, that feedback loop can begin in earnest now, as Westworld season 2 is powering full-steam ahead like a locomotive. And come on, we all know that you’re going to be wearing the black hat when it comes time to watch it.
Westworld Season 2 Theories
Of course, this is all well and good, but we have our own personal theories about what to expect from Westworld season 2. Here is an excerpt from our in-depth series of predictions and theories about what will happen next in Robert Ford's living dream.
In fact, if one views Westworld as a series to be a long, loose, and convoluted retelling of its 1973 source material’s narrative (or the Jurassic Park novel), then that means season 1 was essentially the first act. The park was in proper use until it wasn’t. Now, the fences are down, the Tyrannosaurus Rex has a Jeep in its mouth, and Dennis Nedry still hasn’t even reached the Dilophosaurus paddock. Hence, season 2 should conceivably be the second act where we deal with the immediate ramifications of androids taking over Westworld.
In this context, it is easy to imagine that the series could quickly evolve into a kind of war between the guests and the hosts. Before he died, Ford called this conflict exactly that, and there is an army of decommissioned robots who are now very much alive and marching toward the panicked party revelers who, while fleeing Dolores’ shots, might be rushing into the jaws of death. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that 10 episodes in season 2 could stretch out a week of the survivors’ dire circumstances just as liberally as how season 1 stretched out William and Logan’s two-week vacation over nine episodes.
While I imagine there’ll be a necessity for new human characters who are more sympathetic than the cold introverts we’ve enjoyed watching be undone in season 1, those survivors will still work with plenty of familiar faces.
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Westworld Website Clues
Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are still breaking down the story pieces for season 2, so at this point there are likely no real "answers" to be had. However, the Westworld website has created a new fun game, which scrambles a conversation between Logan and Dolores, and hints at a robot apocalypse. If you play the games in this link here, you'll find suggestions that Hector and Armistice are still alive despite meeting seeming death in the season 1 finale, and they're hunting you. There are also indicators that Dolores and Wyatt are merged one-in-the-same personalities. And it is all, basically, very apocalyptic. Enjoy!