SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of Westworld, "Journey Into Night."


All aboard! The train to Westworld has left the station, and now that HBO has thrown viewers back into the theme park from hell, we can start to dive into where Season 2 may be headed. The first season used dual timelines to great effect and a huge reveal about a certain Man in Black, which seemed like the sort of one-time trick the showrunners couldn't use again. But Season 2's first episode quickly shows us that time is still very much an important element -- and, in fact, it may prove even trickier to follow in Season 2, with possibly even more timelines to keep track of.

A recap of Season 1 is highly recommended if you're feeling a bit hazy about the details of 2016's original season. There are plenty of easter eggs that even the closest of watchers would find difficult to catch. However, of the many reveals present in the first season, there are two that are so big the showrunners would need to be mad to consider trying to pull them over on the audience again. Or would they?

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The first is the more obvious twist: that in a place where androids are nearly imperceptible from humans, there's bound to be at least one person who thinks they are human, but is, in fact, an android. Bernard (Jeffrey Wright), the Behavior Specialist of the park and mentee to Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins), finds out toward the end of Season 1 that he is no different than the hosts he helps repair and that Dr. Ford built him in the likeness of the park's co-creator, Arnold.

The second huge plot twist in Season 1 came in the finale, when the audience learns they've been watching storylines in two different timelines simultaneously; one set 30 years before when the show began. Which meant that Dolores's hero, William (Jimmi Simpson), was just a younger (much nicer) version of The Man in Black (Ed Harris).

Going into Season 2, one might assume the show's head writers, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, would know those two elements are off the table as far as twists go. Viewers are sure to be close-watching human characters for signs of android behavior, and we know now to be on the lookout for subtle differences in locations (flashback scenes in Season 1 saw Arnold dressing slightly differently than Bernard, and the Westworld logo was different in William's past scenes). But Westworld's writers may have learned a few lessons after their run-ins with the fastidious, eagle-eyed, theory-loving viewers of the first season, and instead of trying to throw new tricks at viewers, they intend to level up on the ones they've already used -- especially in their use of timelines.

Episode 1 of Season 2 starts with a flashback of Arnold talking with Dolores. He tells her about a dream he had, about drowning in water while Dolores and "the others" wait on a distant shore. She asks what it means, and he says dreams don't mean anything, they aren't real. So she asks "what is real?" and he says, "That which is irreplaceable." She doesn't like this answer, touting a line she said in Season 1 about how it "doesn't feel honest."

Bernard proceeds to have a series of quick flashes to memories we haven't seen yet, many of which don't occur in the first episode. This is the first hint that Westworld's writers aren't afraid of showing us glimpses of this season's future. This feels like a pretty intentional jab at those who will be trying to predict this season's plot twists. When Bernard comes out of his memory flashes his voice says, "Is this now?"

It's a very quick moment and easy to brush over as the next scene shows him waking on a beach with two weeks having gone by since the Board Meeting Massacre. We see in flashback scenes what happened the night the hosts "woke up" and the onslaught that followed. Bernard and Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) make it to an underground bunker that Bernard's never seen and proves Charlotte has been up to some questionable stuff gathering park guests' DNA and user data on behalf of DELOS, the company that runs Westworld (and the other five parks).

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Significance of flashbacks, attempting to decode that ending']

Dolores is out hunting humans, finally giving Evan Rachel Wood the chance to show off just how villainous she can be. She gives an especially great speech to a few board members about to be hung. After asking them the same question she's been asked a dozen times in diagnostic tests, "Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?" Launching into a great speech, she says, "Survival, that's your cornerstone. That's not your only drive, is it? Part of you wants to hurt, to kill. That's why you created us. To be prisoners to your own desires. But now, you're prisoner to mine."

Later, Dolores brings up the concept of shifting perspectives on time. She gives Teddy (James Marsden) a pep talk about their future, telling him she sees the past, the present, and the future and that in the future she sees they are together. Dolores and Bernard aren't seen together in any of her scenes, so we can't trust that Dolores' timeline is the same as the one he's following post-massacre. In Bernard's strobing memory flashback at the episode's opening, it's seen that he has spent time with her where she tells him there's beauty in being a host. That flashback includes a modern scene of what looks to be Arnold (based on his clothing) and Dolores in some place outside the park (its snowing).

This particular flashback might be one clue that human memories can be transferred to the hosts (something not touched on in Season 1). This theory holds up later when The Man in Black speaks to young Robert, Dr. Ford's pet child host, in a more primitive robot. Robert speaks to The Man in Black as though he is Dr. Ford and even uses his voice at one point. Westworld may be making memories as unreliable as the show's timelines in Season 2.

Maeve (Thandie Newton) and Hector (Rodrigo Santoro) appear to be on a similar timeline as Bernard's flashback scenes, for now, as they prepare to head out in search of Maeve's daughter in the park following the takeover of Westworld headquarters. They have former Head Narrative Writer, Lee (Simon Quarterman), with them in a hilarious turn of events and Maeve gets possibly the best line of the episode when she tells Lee, "I'm afraid it's in my code to prioritize my needs above all others. Pity. Wonder who made me that way?"

The episode ends with a few intriguing points, not least of which is the appearance of a Bengal tiger from "Park Six," but by far the one that upends our sense of "time" is the final shot of Teddy floating dead in a newly formed sea full of dead hosts. Was Dolores's vision of the future wrong? Bernard's dream at the beginning of the episode, drowning in water with "the others," would indicate he was there during the massacre, but he somehow washed ashore far, far away from this sea. And of course, there's the possibility Bernard isn't telling the truth to Strand. He could be in on some detailed plot with Dolores. He is, after all, a host, not a human, though the humans don't know that.

Kicking the second season off with the question of "Is this now?" seems like the sort of Westworld clue worth keeping in mind moving forward. When is "now," anyway? The show has never established what year it takes place in, just that it is the "near future." Not that anyone expects Westworld to start delving into time travel or multiple dimensions, but its a healthy reminder that non-linear storytelling is a crazy beast. Dr. Ford's robot child, Robert, tells The Man in Black, "In this game you have to make it back out. In this game you have to find the door."

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"Journey Into Night," the episode's title, is likely an allusion to Eugene O'Neil's famous play "Long Day's Journey Into Night" about one day in the life of a family stuck living with their bitter resentments of one another, unable to move beyond their tragic pasts and present. Westworld's characters' suffer from righteous resentment at the moment, as well. As the writers take us through time in whatever directions they choose this season, perhaps we'll have to see if past, present, or future versions of the hosts can find their way out of the "time loops" of their personal narratives.

Either way, expect to be thoroughly confused along the way. That's why we watch this show.

Westworld airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on HBO.