Well that Westworld Season 2 finale was certainly... something. But what exactly that "something" is still seems to be a mystery to most.

Not everyone was happy with the way the finale played out. It had all of us questioning much more than the nature of our own reality. Even the most die-hard fans on Reddit were left confused on basic plot points.

Luckily, a flurry of interviews with the creators and actors of Westworld surfaced after the twist-filled 90-minute episode. Each attempted clarify what audiences just saw. At the very least, co-creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan painted a much more coherent picture than the actual show managed to.

While some burning questions were left coyly open-ended, many lingering doubts can be put to bed. Of course, we've been lied to in the past by the people behind Westworld. But for now, let's take everyone at their word.

Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan say that the Season 2 plot was a lot more simple than we think Image: hbo

Here's what really happened in that bonkers Westworld Season 2 finale, according to the people who made it:

Wait, how many timelines were there in Season 2?

Jonathan Nolan, Entertainment Weekly:

[T]he second season is a little more straightforward but it is playing out in two distinct timelines — two and a half if you count the post-credits sequence, and complete with flashbacks. It’s not necessarily for everyone but all of these choices were rooted in the protagonists’ understanding of the reality around them, and centering this season on Bernard’s broken mind as he tries to navigate through the debris of memory. Subsequent seasons will be structured in ... different ways.

Lisa Joy, The Hollywood Reporter:

I understand that it seems complex at times, but we were really borrowing from very traditional bones of film noir structure. Something has happened, and the investigators, Strand (Gustaf Skarsgård), is taking his witness, Bernard, and trying to jog his memory to figure out what he remembers. He can't recall, and he's struggling to recall. He pivots back between this investigative moment, and this moment when the park has been thrown into chaos, and all of the events have unfolded. He's trying to understand and recall what's happened...

Finally, Bernard understands what happened. He remembers everything, including his own erasure of his own memory. You understand why: it's to protect Dolores, who has come back as Hale, in order to protect and ensure the future safety of the hosts. We wanted to wrap that up and have Bernard's story, in that sense, come full circle, so we would be sure to give that sense of closure within this chapter of the story. Unlike the first season, we played cards up with that all season; we knew we were lost in time, because we were very openly in Bernard's perspective as he struggled with it.

Then WTF was that post-credits scene?

We have some questions for the Man in Black Image: hbo

Lisa Joy, The Hollywood Reporter:

[T]he one thing we did pop in that did jump out of that time sequence was the storyline with the Man in Black. For the majority of the season, we're seeing him in the same timeline as everybody else. He's in the park as hell has unleashed. He goes a bit mad as he thinks about his past, as he journeys into the Valley Beyond. He kills his daughter, not sure whether she's his daughter or a host. Ultimately, we see him on the shore, as Hale — or "Halores," as we like to call her — leaves the park. We see that he has survived that final arm injury he's had. That rounds out that timeline.

What we see in the end recontextualizes a little bit of that. All of that did happen in that timeline, but something else has occurred, too. In the far, far future, the world is dramatically different. Quite destroyed, as it were. A figure in the image of his daughter — his daughter is of course now long dead — has come back to talk to him. He realizes that he's been living this loop again and again and again. The primal loop that we've seen this season, they've been repeating, testing every time for what they call "fidelity," or perhaps a deviation. You get the sense that the testing will continue. It's teasing for us another temporal realm that one day we're working toward, and one day will see a little bit more of, and how they get to that place, and what they're testing for.

Jonathan Nolan, Entertainment Weekly:

We’re watching a series of events play out: We see Emily’s dead body, we see the Man in Black in extremis — but not quite dead yet — but we also understand we’ve explored Delos’ greatest mistake, the one unalterable moment, the cornerstone decision he makes in his life, and we’re seeing that play out with the Man in Black. We’ve seen how it is that, using The Forge, that you’d be drawn back to these key moments and you’d run them again and again.

So is William human or a host?

Lisa Joy, The Hollywood Reporter:

Within [the post-credits scene], just to clarify, we don't necessarily say he's a host. A host refers to a creature like Dolores, someone who is pure cognition, someone who is made up of nothing and has a fabricated body as well. It's definitely a sequence that's indicative of a direction we're going to.

That version of him that was "human" would be somewhere lying dead, and this is some other version of himself now. He doesn't quite understand what.

Lisa Joy, TheWrap:

[I]n reality, a man got his arm shot off. He’s just lying on the ground somewhere. And later on, when Hale, or Halores is leaving the park, you see him on a cot. He’s injured, but he’s alive, and he’s real, and he’s going out into the real world — along with a handbag of pearls and Halores.

Was Emily a host? Did William kill his real daughter?

Yes, William really did kill the real Emily (Katja Herbers) Image: hbo

Lisa Joy, The Wrap:

And [the Man in Black], in his confused and tortured mind, kills his own daughter, for real, and then proceeds to start hacking into his own skin because he doesn’t understand anymore what’s real and what’s not. [...]

The [actress who plays Emily] Katja Herbers in the future talking to the Man in Black is now a Host version of Katja Herbers.

Lisa Joy, Deadline:

If you immerse yourself in the game for too long, do you lose the sense of what is real and not real? He struggles with this and it leads to the moment where he kills his daughter Emily thinking she might be a host. He was in fact mistaken, and he’s digging into his own skin for answers and doesn’t find any wires by the time Dolores arrives.

What about the hosts in the Valley Beyond? Will we ever see it again?

Teddy (James Marston) most likely really is gone forever in the Valley Beyond Image: hbo

Lisa Joy, The Hollywood Reporter:

The hosts are not like us. They are programmed creatures. The bodies they've been assigned are simply constructs. What's real about them is their cognition, the consciousness growing within them. They are digital beings, in the truest sense. The notion they would need an analog world to be free in isn't something that's necessarily right or true for them. In a digital world, they can make of that world whatever they want. Whatever they dream, it's possible. That was the allure of even the old notion of manifest destiny, people within America moving further and further west, hoping to settle their own patches of land. Now, the hosts have a patch of land that's basically terra incognita, untouched by the sins of mankind. They can build whatever they want and be whatever they want. Because Dolores changed her mind and in the end helped with that last step of the hosts' plan, securing the safety and sovereignty of that world and putting it in a place where humans can't access it, they can develop whatever they want now in it.

Jonathan Nolan, Entertainment Weekly:

Q: Is it safe to assume — and perhaps it’s not — that Zahn McClarnon’s character, the Ghost Nation leader Akecheta, and others who went through the portal to the virtual Eden are not going to continue on?

A: I think that’s on the safer end of things to presume. But there’s a big story we’re telling here so … yeah.

What about the Sublime?

Lisa Joy, The Hollywood Reporter:

Q: Dolores changes the coordinates for where the Sublime exists; is it safe to say she's the only person who knows where it's located now?

A: That's right.

Q: As the real world becomes a playground moving into season three, will we return to the Sublime as well?

A: (Long pause.) I think we have to take Dolores at face value. It's locked away. Humans can't access it anymore. They're gone. They're in a place we can't touch. There was an interesting corollary to this for me. Even religions and mythologies deal with this, an idea of a heaven or a nirvana where you don't have to be attached to your body anymore. You can be pure and free in that way. It's a sort of digital afterlife for them. The stakes and the finality of it are important. It's not something where I think the humans can type it up and get back in and start messing with them anymore. It's what so many hosts sacrificed so much for, to see their kind to this safe space.

What will the next season of Westworld even look like?

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) has made it over into the real world Image: hbo

Lisa Joy, Deadline:

[Bernard is] leaving his home in the end to be in the real world. Dolores is being totally upfront with him. That they escaped the park, and even if they’re working as foes, it will take both of them to survive. The real world is what we’re investigating next season.

Lisa Joy, The Hollywood Reporter:

Q: Season two revealed the Raj, and we already knew about Shogun World, but there are still three other parks we haven't seen yet. Will we ever see or learn about those parks, given the show's new focus?

A: Absolutely.

Jonathan Nolan, Entertainment Weekly:

We’re very excited about where the third season goes. It’s been a long build-up to get outside the park. And we’re incredibly excited about what that looks like and sounds like and what exactly our hosts discover out there.

There's no word yet on when we can expect Season 3 of Westworld, with both Joy and Nolan avoiding confirmation of whether we'd even see it in 2019 or 2020.



