Westworld Season 2 will finally begin filming this month, and with production off and rolling, HBO has already begun its strategic marketing strategy for the second installment of its western/sci-fi hit series. Go to discoverwestworld.com, and you’ll find that HBO has made some chilling edits to the show’s official website that tells its own mini story hinting at what’s to come. Entertainment Weekly reported this week on the changes.
When you go to visit the site, you first encounter the home page, which quickly changes to a glitching window with a steady stream of computer code. An unknown user ominously types, “Is anybody out there? Something’s gone wrong. We need help. Can you hear this?” A “system override” then flashes onscreen, and the site now tells its viewer that it is loading “Journey into Night”. A registered user (presumably a host) takes over and clarifies matters: “All is well,” they type. “Celebrations continue…”
These exciting website changes appear to reveal quite a bit about the upcoming season. Series viewers will remember that Season 1 ended with Dolores killing park creator Dr. Ford and turning her gun to the Westworld board members that sat in the audience. The mini narrative told on the Westworld website indicate that Season 2 will center on a group of humans trapped in the park with some self-aware – and lethal – hosts.
The time jump that show creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan indicated would take place between Seasons 1 and 2 might be referring to the fact that we will not see the immediate aftermath of the Ford assassination – rather, viewers will be flung into the thick of it come Season 2, and the second installment might be more survival story than adventurous western.
The faux-glitch prompt that reads, “Loading: Journey into Night” is telling in and of itself. “Journey into Night” is not only the name of Ford’s new narrative that was revealed to the park board members at the end of the Season 1 finale, but it is also the title for the first episode of the second season. Westworld creator and writer Jonathan Nolan (brother to famous British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, best known for The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception) partially revealed the title for Season 2 Episode 1 in a comment to a Reddit post last month.
Other bits of Westworld news have slowly been trickling out since Season 1 aired. It was announced this week that Katja Herbers (The Leftovers, The Americans) will join the Westworld cast playing character named Grace, mysteriously described by HBO as “a seasoned guest in Westworld whose latest visit comes at the park’s darkest hour.” Earlier this year, HBO promoted Louis Herthum, who plays Dolores’ father Peter Abernathy, to a series regular (a bump up from his role as a recurring guest back in Season 1), and Ed Harris revealed that he will have a role to play in Season 2.
Fans have a good deal of waiting until Season 2 airs in 2018, but until then, discoverwestworld.com is delivering its own thrills. HBO will also be bringing Westworld to this year’s San Diego Comic-Con from July 20-23.
