This opinion piece contains spoilers for Westworld Season 2.
The biggest surprise in Westworld Season 1 was probably the revelation that idealistic William and the brutal Man in Black were the same person, whose seemingly concurrent storylines were actually taking place decades apart. To keep the secret of this twist, Westworld didn’t do much to interrogate the older William’s character in its first season, leaving viewers to wonder not only how the young man Delores loved could become such a monster, but also what the Man in Black’s ultimate endgame might be.
Season 2 attempted to correct that problem, offering flashbacks dedicated to William’s life between his first entry into Westworld and the present day. Spread across three separate time periods, they shed some light on William’s (d)evolution into the Man in Black.