Westworld, ‘Reunion’ Plot Summary:
The episode takes place in multiple time periods. The first being during the impetus of Westworld, as Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) and Ford (Anthony Hopkins) have brought Deloros (Rachel Evan Wood) into the real world to meet investors. Those investors turn out to Delos — first headed up by Logan (Ben Barnes). Soon, we jump ahead slightly to see William (Jimi Simpson), and Mr. Delos (Peter Cullan) devising plans to invest the park. Post-uprising, Deloros, Teddy (James Marsden), and Angela (Talulah Riley) go on a recruiting mission. Also, post-uprising The Man in Black (Ed Harris) gathers faithful sidekick Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) to help recruit his own army.
‘Reunion’ proved to be a vast improvement over last week’s season premiere. However, there’s still a number of issues plaguing HBO’s sci-fi season.
The biggest problem — the storylines from the past, are much more interesting than what’s what happening in the post uprising timeline of the series.
The reason for this is two-fold. First, the revelations from the past are pretty damn interesting, and they have major consequences. Second, the post-uprising world is still in its infancy, and it hasn’t fully gotten its feet under it.
Now here’s where venture into spoilers…
The past timeline is anchored by an outstanding performance from Jimi Simpson. The man just flat out owns. He is able to take the purity of William that we saw when he first donned that white cowboy hat, with the cold, dead, selfishly nihilistic nature of The Man in Black. He’s a perfect shade of gray — one that’s cold, and calculating, but still is wounded by the dream that is Westworld. His scenes with Deloros are fueled with disdain, and disillusionment — literally convincing himself out loud (and to Deloros) that he was right in his turn to the dark side.
Then there’s the first of many bombshells dropped during the episode. William’s plan for Westworld isn’t just to invest in an interactive adult playground — it’s about monitoring people, collecting data, and then turning that data into profit. It’s a chilling revelation (and a brilliant one) because who in the audience can’t react to this notion when we’re wondering about Russian bots, and Facebook data mining.
This could’ve been a huge reveal in of itself, but then we had to find out about “The Valley Beyond” aka William’s biggest mistake. This is some sort of weapon he started building during when Delos began their initial big investment in Westworld. So now we have our new talking point — what the hell is this weapon, and how can it hurt the human race?
Because that’s exactly what Deloros wants to do with it. William, in a moment of arrogance, shows Deloros the weapon and mocks her. Unfortunately for him, Deloros does remember being shown this weapon, and is indeed looking to find, and use.
Speaking of Deloros…they really are doing her an injustice so far this season. Despite being “woke” from her robotic statement — her character is a little too tactical, a little too focused..basically she’s acting like a robot programmed for war. Now, one could theorize that maybe her new war general attitude is something Ford programmed, but that would undercut last season’s whole ideological premise.
So if it’s not some underlying program, or poor acting by Wood (who’s been one of the most solid actors in the series) — the Deloros problem lies distinctly in the hands of the writing and directing. Her fluctuation between a dreamer looking for a chance to write her own story, and a kill ’em all goddess of war has been clumsy. One minute she’s The Terminator, the next she’s a poet. It’s just not working.
Luckily, The Man in Black’s storyline — his race to the weapon, and constantly being posthumously tripped up Ford — is a lot of fun to watch. Also, it gave the series the opportunity to bring the brilliant Giancarlo Esposito (Gus from Breaking Bad) in for a cameo.
Despite its faults, ‘Reunion’ was indeed a marked improvement over last week’s clean-up/set the table premiere. We’ve got our first mystery of the season in form of the “weapon” created by William, and of course…the tiger we saw in the trailer.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
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