. . . with some very specific coordinates: 9° 55N 115° 32E. Type that into a map, and you’ll get an actual man-made island called, evocatively, “Mischief Reef” in the South China Sea. That reef is part of the larger region called the Spratly Islands, which are, in fact, a contested territory that contain structures occupied by military forces from Malaysia, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Brunei also has a vested interest. Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy has said the park is about “500 square miles” big. Of course that’s not accounting for the other parks like Shogun World. Could they be set on their own islands?

Now, do I think Westworld is literally set on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands? No. Do I think Delos has bought some islands just off the coast of China and set up shop? I really do. Sorry, Mars truthers.

Ford Is Dead. Like, for Real.

The most hotly contested question among the Westworld fandom, in the long wait between Season 1 and Season 2: did we actually watch original-flavor, human Ford (Anthony Hopkins) get shot by Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) in the Season 1 finale? Or did she really shoot a convincing replica? After all, Ford was building secret robots in a basement somewhere!

I’m not sure anyone can blame Westworld fans for going down this particular rabbit hole; after Season 1’s Bernard/Arnold game changer, we would probably be wise to be on the lookout for even more secret robots. Even co-creator Jonathan Nolan stirred the pot on this one last year, saying of Ford’s return: “We’ve well established we’re playing in a more advanced rule-set in terms of death and resurrection than other [projects] I’ve worked on. So I would say: assume nothing.” And who wouldn’t want Anthony Hopkins back on this show?

This is all well and good. But thanks to the Season 2 premiere, we can all agree he’s gone, right?

In the beach narrative, which takes place two weeks after Dolores shot Ford, we see a number of dead hosts strewn about. They are not in a state of decay, even though one of them has been dead for at least 11 days, according to the black-box data in his head.

The human guests Dolores killed at the party, however, are bloated and decayed and covered in flies. Last year, Lisa Joy said: “The flies were always the canary in the coal mine of where the story was going, because they were the one not-programmed creature in the park. . . . Now, in Season 2, now that the gloves are off, we’re gonna see a lot of flies—and they’re not necessarily gonna be actual flies.”

Honestly, who knows what Lisa Joy is talking about there—but I think she was trying to allude to this big, bold clue they left in Ford’s face.

Yep! The maggots mean this is one dead human dude. So, to recap: Ford is dead and Westworld is somewhere off the coast of China. We‘ll go ahead and cling to those two truths as we head into another bumpy, unpredictable season.