Westworld season two left many fans polarized. It didn’t pack the newness and excitement of season one, but the show’s harshest critics thought it became muddled, slow, and sometimes confounding. Love it or hate it, season two unquestionably lost people because the ratings took a noticeable dip. Maybe the quitters will give the hit series another chance, because creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are now taking the show in a fresh new direction.
Westworld Season Three Trailer
Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) escaped the park. She’s no longer a prisoner to Westworld, nor are a few of her friends and foes from the past seasons. Now, she’s living in Los Angeles, where she crosses paths with a construction worker played by Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad). Together, they start a fight Dolores will probably finish.
Trailer Reaction
First off, the production value of Westworld is still wondrous and a sight to behold based on the trailer. HBO puts a lot of money into the show. More than they expected to begin with, too, but it pays off. Few shows on network or cable television have the scope and beauty of Westworld. The piano cover of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine” is fantastic, too. It has a haunting yet fun quality, as the best parts of Westworld do. The team behind the show never gets their covers or song choices wrong.
Looking at the bigger picture of season three, though, the trailer raises expectations for the future of the series. It’s stepping in a direction impossible to pass up. A robot uprising on Earth led by Evan Rachel Wood and Tessa Thompson? Who doesn’t want to see that? The new environment and characters should be enough to convince a few people to give Westworld another shot if they thought it hit a sophomore slump in its second season.
Season two is still exceptional science-fiction storytelling, it just wasn’t as spellbinding as the world and mysteries in season one. With season one, Joy and Nolan gave themselves a lot to live up to in the future. From the look of it, season three won’t disappoint.
A More Straight-Forward Season
Westworld can only play the mystery game for so long. By the end of season two, it already felt like a formula, meaning it was time for a new approach. Last year, Nolan confirmed to Entertainment Weekly the constant guessing games are over and the show is moving forward:
This is season is a little less of a guessing game and more of an experience with the hosts finally getting to meet their makers. I love shows that find a groove and hang with it for 100 episodes — that was never this show. We always wanted every season to find our characters in radically different circumstances. And with a cast this talented, watching the metamorphosis of all these characters is one of the most fun parts.
Joy added season three deals with the aftermath of the park massacre:
We’re looking at the aftermath of the massacre in the park. After all they went through to get out of the park, Dolores finally got what she wanted, so we wanted to see how she interacts with the world and what her plan is. That’s a part of the story we were excited to tell.
Synopsis
Live without limits in a world where every human appetite can be indulged. Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris and more — this dark odyssey follows the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin. Now renewed for Season 3.
Westworld season 3 premieres on March 15th.
