Aspect ratios, dragons and running away from your problems

It felt like episode two of Westworld season three was the answer to those who had argued that the parks were missed in the season opener. Perhaps that’s why as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the Blade Runner-esque aesthetic of what is supposedly the real world in episode one, this week’s episode didn’t quite live up to the first.

But! That’s not to say that the Maeve and Bernard-centric episode two wasn’t filled with plenty of highlights. Which is good news, or else I wouldn’t have anything to write about as I sit here on day one of UK lockdown.

Intra-connectivity

In the vast majority of Westworld episodes, you never quite know how each narrative strand is connected – not until all the pieces begin to come together in the final episodes of a series. This episode somewhat bucked that trend.

Sure, it didn’t feature Dolores shooting her way out of a problem but that meant that we had what felt like a self-contained episode – at least by Westworld standards. This was the story of Maeve working out that she was trapped in a simulation outside the confines of Westworld while Bernard’s thread leads him to the same discovery – that Maeve’s hollowed out head in the Westworld dungeons means that she’s no longer within the park.

The clues that we are offered throughout the opening sequence makes for a well-earned twist. This isn’t the parkland Maeve from season two, capable of controlling hosts. Felix and Sylvester don’t recognise her and even before he starts to freeze, Lee Sizemore is acting all kinds of strange.

Intriguing Serac ending aside, this story works as a neat package all by itself. Much like season two, episode eight – you know, the one where the native American tells Maeve’s daughter his story of becoming sentient – this is one of the few episodes that you could watch in isolation and still, somewhat, understand.

Bonus points, I guess.

16:9 to 21:9

Storytelling through the aspect ratio. That’s a flex from an elite level writer and Westworld has often played with the edges of the frame to tell us certain things about what we’re watching. However, this was one of the most obvious switches as Maeve discovers and reveals that as “Lee Sizemore” begins to glitch out, events in the opening half of this episode aren’t a reality – they are a simulation.

21:9 – otherwise known as the aspect ratio where things aren’t quite what they appear to be.

“Empty safe” callback

Speaking of things being not quite what they appear to be, just when we thought Hector was back in Maeve’s life, we’re dealt the gut-punch that he doesn’t remember his previous life at all as he calls his ex-soulmate “Isobella.”

Salty Maeve then proceeds to tell the Partisan ex-Hector character to hand over the secret plans to the Nazis because “they are as empty as the safe you used to chase.” A brilliant call-back to season one where Hector’s band of rogues attacked Sweetwater to rob, you guessed it, a safe.

But Hector, like Captain America, isn’t so good with references…

“Screw management, that guy had an axe”

So you could argue that it was a little out of place for a show that is usually locked into a serious tone, but, damn if it wasn’t funny, as host Ashley Stubbs scared off a team of armed Delos security staff by swinging a medieval axe and wearing a determined expression.

Sure, they had guns, but he’s a former colleague whose now seemingly a killer robot. There isn’t enough danger money in the world to keep me in that fight.

Westeros World

I’m not a Game of Thrones fan. Not yet at least. I mean, it sounds like the type of show that would be in my wheelhouse, but catching up on that many hours of TV is a daunting prospect – even now that we’re starting a three week pandemic-induced lockdown in the UK.

That said, I still absolutely loved the easter egg of seeing David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Game of Thrones writers, cameo as Delos engineers tinkering with host dragon Drogon. Does this mean that Westeros and Westworld are in the same universe?!

No.

Does it mean that HBO are a fun-loving network who like to throw some easter eggy goodness into the world from time to time?

Absolutely, and I love them for it.