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The 'Westworld' season 2 premiere ended with a surprising revelation for Bernard — here's what it means

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Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) on the Westworld season two premiere. John P. Johnson/HBO Warning: Spoilers ahead for HBO’s „Westworld“ season…
Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) on the Westworld season two premiere.
John P. Johnson/HBO
Warning: Spoilers ahead for HBO’s „Westworld“ season two, episode one, „Journey Into Night.“
The second season of „Westworld“ kicked off with many surprises, including an important conversation between the young Ford host and William. But the episode also made a careful revelation about the multiple time frames we’ll be seeing on the coming episodes — especially around Bernard’s plotline.
At the end of the episode, we learn that Bernard has (for unknown reasons) killed a large group of hosts — including Teddy. The final shot showed Teddy’s drowned body floating just under the surface of the sea.
When we see Bernard waking up as waves crash around him and a Delos security guard (named Maling) tells him to put his hands in the air, this is all happening 14 days after the events of the first season finale.
Bernard on the beach two weeks after Ford’s death.
HBO
The Delos head honcho, Karl Strand, tells Bernard that communication with the outside world has been down for two weeks, so they’re largely in the dark.
Bernard, who the audience knows is a host at this point even if the other Delos staff don’t, starts experiences time-slippage. While Karl grills him about what has been happening for the last two weeks, Bernard starts remembering what he went through post-Ford’s death.
Because host’s memories don’t deteriorate with time, when Bernard is remembering something we see it as crystal clear flashback sequences (more on those in a bit).
By the end of the episode, Bernard is with the Delos team in this „two weeks later“ time frame. They find a swath of hosts all gathered in a section of the park that is supposed to be a valley. But when they arrive, the valley has been flooded with water and turned into a sea.
Where did this come from?
HBO
Hundreds of drowned hosts are floating in the newly made bay. When Strand asks what happened, Bernard seems to remember… something. „I killed them,“ he says. „All of them.“
Based on this premiere episode, season two will explore Bernard’s journey in the weeks after Ford’s death by showing us dual time frames that lead up to Bernard killing a large chunk of the hosts.
Before we see the drowned hosts, the episode cuts back to Bernard hiding in a barn with Charlotte Hale, the executive director of the Delos board. This scene and the others where Charlotte is in her gold gown are occurring right after Dolores shot and killed Ford on the first season finale.
Dolores killed Ford, starting a robot revolution with the pull of a trigger.
HBO
Bernard sticks with Charlotte as they try to escape the wrath of the newly conscious hosts and their deadly weapons. While the other human VIP guests fall into traps and get killed, Charlotte leads Bernard to a secret facility underground.
This is a remote work station manned by „drone hosts“ — those faceless white hosts HBO had been teasing prior to the season premiere.
Bernard realizes that Charlotte had been using off-network drone hosts to collect data on the guests in the park.
Earlier on the episode, we saw how the hosts record video footage of everything that happens to them (Strand had his team review one dead host’s video and saw Dolores shooting it). Down in the remote work station, Bernard watched as a drone host swapped the genitals of a human host and logged the DNA found there.
Then the drone host plugged in the human host’s central „brain,“ which means they now have the video footage of whatever a guest was doing with the host that resulted in their DNA being on the host’s private parts.
The drone host collecting DNA from the park host.
HBO
Charlotte tells Bernard that this data collecting project is what the Delos board is most interested in. She had arranged to send the dataset off the island using a decommissioned host named Peter Abernathy.
We saw Charlotte plan this with Lee Sizemore on the first season, though we never saw Abernathy actually leave his cold storage. He was simply gone when Sizemore went down to that section again.
So post-Ford death, Bernard and Charlotte are looking for Peter Abernathy while trying to survive in the park. Bernard is also trying to conceal his true host identity from Charlotte, but he’s badly injured.
Remember when he shot himself in the head back on the first season? Maeve had Felix and Slyvester patch him up, but clearly there was more damage than could be fixed in a hurry.
Bernard shot himself on Ford’s orders on the first season.
HBO
The time jumps show that Bernard will, at some point, go from being with Charlotte and on the hunt for Abernathy to killing the hosts in the newly made sea by the end of those two weeks.
In the episode’s opening, we see Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) with who we believe is Arnold (Jeffrey Wright). But since Bernard is a host made in Arnold’s image, it can be hard to tell.
The black clothing worn by Wright and location are identical to scenes from the first season when Arnold and Dolores were speaking, which is why we’re inclined to think that’s what’s happening on this episode as well.
„I dreamt I was on an ocean, with you and the others on the distant shore,“ Arnold says to Dolores.
Arnold and Dolores speaking at the start of the episode.
HBO
„Were you with us?“ Dolores asked.
„No. You’d left me behind,“ he replied. „And the waters were rising around me.“
If this was truly a conversation between Dolores and Arnold, about 35 years ago, then it was awfully prophetic. Bernard seems isolated in the immediate aftermath of Ford’s death, and something happens that brings him to participate in the deaths of hundreds of the hosts — all involving a sea.
So how does Bernard come to kill all of those hosts, including Teddy? The short answer is: We don’t know … yet.
Hopefully as the season continues, we’ll get more answers.

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