Entertainment

This 'Westworld' Trailer Introduces A New Park, & No, You're Not Ready

by Taylor Ferber

If you barely recognize the character in the latest Westworld teaser, it's because fans are likely going to see a whole new Maeve in Westworld's next episode. Since the Season 1 finale, fans have speculated that Westworld wasn't the only park in existence and that there was a Samurai world in the making as well. Audiences got a brief glimpse of that park at the end of Season 2's third episode, as Maeve continued on the quest for her daughter and was met with a Samurai charging at her crew with a sword. A new teaser for the season's fifth episode shows that Westworld is introducing this new Samurai park with much more detail, and it looks like Maeve is the head host in charge.

The good news is that Maeve and Hector won't be killed by the Samurai they encountered when viewers last saw them in the episode three cliffhanger. (Although, the fate of Maeve's human hostage Lee, who isn't shown in the teaser, is still up in the air.) Not only does the host become accustomed to this new park, but by the looks of the teaser, she eventually runs the place.

The preview for the episode, titled "A New World," opens with Maeve, dressed in a kimono, telling a woman (presumably a host) in another language: "I was plagued by a voice saying, it said, 'This is a new world. And in this world, you can be whatever you want to be.'" Viewers then get a glimpse of this whole new world, including a ceremony with hosts (including Maeve) on their knees and surrounded by pits of fire, a woman dancing in Asian garb, and the Samurai army.

Will Maeve control this army and use it to fight Dolores and her soldiers? It's likely.

The teaser previews the Samurai soldiers gearing up for battle and then charging out, armed and on horses. It also shows Maeve learning how to use a sword, and later, she's walking among the soldiers and bringing them together to fight. "I think I'm finding a new voice, now we use it," she ominously says.

Maeve is stopping at nothing to find her daughter, who she keeps seeing glimpses of in distant flashbacks, and proved it when her crew encountered Dolores'. While Dolores made it clear she wanted to fight on and destroy the human race, Maeve refused to join her, keeping her core mission in mind. The two parted ways with serious tension, perhaps foreshadowing an epic showdown between the armies they've curated. Not only is Westworld headed in a host vs. human direction, but a host vs. host one as well.

Although the Samurai park was teased in Season 1, fans perhaps didn't know Maeve would be such a huge part of it. (But maybe they should've since she was the one to first discover the Samurai hosts.) In the Season 1 finale, at the start of the revolution, Maeve and Hector forced Westworld workers to show them around the control center. There, Maeve sees frozen Samurai hosts with a nearby symbol, the same one that's used by the army in the new teaser. She also sees two Samurai hosts sword fighting.

In complete confusion, Maeve asks one of the Westworld crew members, "What is this place?" He reluctantly mutters, "It's complicated." Chaos then ensues and Maeve isn't able to get more answers about what she'd witnessed.

Looking back, the clues leading to this new world were there all along. Maybe Maeve feels so comfortable and in charge of the Samurai world because she recalls experiencing it before when its hosts were in the beginning stages of creation. Now the question remains: Who is she gearing the Samurai soldiers up to fight? And further, will they win?