Westworld season 2 episode 2 ending explained: What is 'the valley of the beyond,' Dolores' secret weapon?

In which we try to explain what the hell went on in Westworld's latest episode

Westworld season 2 has continued with an episode that both broadened the scope and piled on the mystery while (kind of) answering some questions.

While viewers seemed to learn the motives behind why the park at the heart of the series exists - something the Man in Black (Ed Harris) is deeming his “greatest mistake” - it seems the more important thing to note is how this is going to be used by the hosts in their rebellion.

By the end of the episode, it seems that William and Dolores are on a crash course for a collision at “the valley of the beyond” - but what is that?

Here's what we know.

'Reunion' revealed that the park provided Delos with a convenient way to collate all guests' personal information, something we discovered via Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) in the premiere. This idea was pitched by William (Jimmi Simpson) to his father-in-law, James Delos (Peter Mullan) following his stint in the park decades previous, inspired by his experiences with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood).

He tells Delos:

“Nothing here is real, except one thing: the guests. Half of your marketing budget goes to figuring out what people want. Because they don't know. But here, they're free. Nobody is watching, nobody is judging. At least that's what we tell them. This is the only place in the world where you get to see people for who they really are. If you don't see the business in that, then you're not the businessman I thought you were.”

A later scene sees William, now the park owner, showing Dolores a construction site. He rather frustratingly describes the place being built as “an answer to a question that hasn't been asked yet.”

His decision to show Dolores, however, will come back to haunt him considering the lengths this episode goes to show how much past information Dolores has retained (case in point: we see Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) tell Dolores, “it doesn't look like anything at all” in reference to the city lights he shows her years before in the real world; Dolores would later repeat this same line after placing nooses around the necks of several guests as seen in last week's episode).

Jump forward to the present and William sees the flaw in his work. Having been set on his own game by the late Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), he seeks out Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) whom he fills on the true meaning of the park.

“If you [believed in God], you would believe everything you've done has been watched by an all-seeing eye - every choice, every little indiscretion - and when you die, all your sins are tallied up and judgment is rendered. That's why your world exists. [Humanity] wanted a place hidden from God, a place they could sin in peace. But we were watching them. We were tallying up all their sins, all their choices. Of course, judgment wasn't the point. We had something else in mind entirely.”

It's hard to know what the true intentions behind William's original idea but, now the hosts are developing consciousness, he wants to “burn this whole f***ing thing to the ground.”

The very end of the episode reveals Dolores is heading right there. “An old friend was foolish enough to show me long ago,” she tells a rather confused Teddy (James Marsden). “It's not a place. It's a weapon. And I'm going to use it to destroy them.”

It seems Dolores is going to use the collated information against every guest to have ever visited Westworld which will shed light on some rather awful behaviour of many respected individuals. Dolores' weapon is information she can use against civilization - and if she gets her hands on it before William, there's no knowing the power she can wield on the human race.

And breathe.

Westworld season 2 debuts on HBO in the US and through Sky Atlantic and NOWTV in the UK.

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