As a robot slowly realizing that her entire existence is a lie, Dolores arguably has the clearest character arc right now, but does that make her the “hero” of Westworld? Right now, the show seems to be trying to get us to sympathize with her the most, so I would probably classify her as a protagonist, but what of the rest of the sprawling cast? James Marsden’s Teddy Flood is certainly depicted as a “good guy” but that’s because he’s been programmed that way, so it’s difficult to say whether he’s a character worth backing right now. We’ll just have to wait until we see more.īuilding off the previous point, Westworld also doesn’t give us any obvious protagonists, with the possible exception of Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores Abernathy. Perhaps Westworld is the type of show that will continue to plow ahead with a cast of morally ambiguous characters who could all reasonably be considered villainous and/or heroic. Robert Ford could emerge as a major antagonist, as Hopkins kind of has a proven track record of being a good bad guy but again, we don’t really know enough about his character yet to make that call. We don’t see him commit any violent acts against any of the human guests and it’s clear there there is some higher purpose to his actions, as if he’s trying to figure something important out.īesides Harris, Anthony Hopkins’ Dr. Based on the limited time spent with these characters so far, you could make the case that Ed Harris’ mysterious gunslinger (more on him in a bit) is the main villain, since he acts the most sadistically, but even that’s a complicated assertion to make at this stage. So if some of these questions have very obvious answers, forgive me.Ĭlearly, Westworld is a show that has far greater ambitions than simply drawing a line in the sand and having clear-cut heroes and villains, but at the same time, the first episode throws a bunch of characters at us and it’s difficult to know who we should root for and who we should root against. The premiere left me with a number of questions heading into the rest of the season, so let’s dig a little deeper into this show and see if we can figure out just what the heck is going on.Īlso, please note that I’m coming at this from a position of relative ignorance, as I have not seen Crichton’s original film and have limited my viewing of pre-release trailers so as to not spoil the experience. While entertaining, Westworld also introduces a number of complex concepts, and it can all be a bit much to wrap your head around.
WESTWORLD SEASON 1 FILM FULL
The series premiere is an immaculate piece of television that delivers a fantastical world full of intrigue and danger.
HBO has been looking for its next Game of Thrones for awhile and while it’s still much too early to tell whether Westworld can be that series, it’s certainly started off on the right foot. Based on the Michael Crichton’s 1973 science-fiction film of the same name, the Westworld series has some serious pedigree behind it, with Jonathan Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy Nolan serving as showrunners and J.J. At some point we’re going to hear an orchestral version of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” And this season is going to have a huge cliffhanger that’s going to leave us all rather impatient while waiting a year for season 2.After repeated delays, HBO’s Westworld has finally arrived.
Lee Sizemore will be brutally murdered by robots, and we’ll cheer. Elsie is not dead and will have several f-bombs for when she’s back. Arnold is somehow orchestrating the coming robot uprising via Bernard or some other mechanism. Bernard is a host version of Arnold, and I’m now thinking that he did not die of an accident, but rather Ford killed him. Delos wants to use the park’s technology to upload human consciousness into hosts (there was another hint about this from Ford in this episode: “I’ve just been wanting to tell my stories … it’s you people who wanted to play god with your little undertaking”). So, my current working theory: William is somehow a younger version of the MiB, perhaps in an alternate timeline, who is being used by Dolores, who in turn is being used by Arnold.