Westworld's Season 2 Trailer Is Blood-Drenched, So Brace Yourself

Comic-Con has descended on San Diego and given us the gift of the first look at season 2 of Westworld. While we have to wait until 2018 for the second season of HBO's hit show about a futuristic theme park to drop, we can now view the trailer and man, it's a doozy.

While the first season was punctuated by a large amount of sexual violence, the second seems to be full of straight up violence, blood, and gore. Basically, the trailer is filled with dead bodies.

It opens with bloody footprints on the music sheet of a player piano and continues with images of various hosts looking around at rooms and bars full of dead people, an intense scene showing Delores (Evan Rachel Wood) shooting at people while riding full speed ahead on her horse. It ends with The Man in Black (Ed Harris) putting on his hat, his face streaked and splattered with blood.

Show runners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy appeared on a panel alongside cast members Wood, Harris, Jeffrey Wright, James Marsden, Tessa Thompson and Thandie Newton to chat about the show on Saturday.

The show has been criticized for its use of sexual violence as a plot device, but both Wood and Newton defended the show, describing their experience filming the series as an empowering one. “It’s so fulfilling,” Wood said on the Saturday panel. “Because especially as women, and I don’t know if this is true for men too, but a lot of times you feel as if your wings have been clipped and you’re not being represented the way that you want to."

Wood continued, "And this was like just like somebody had given me fucking condor wings and I got to take off and fly." Wood said she got emotional talking about it and thinking about it, and described it as a life-changing experience.

Newton echoed these sentiments, saying that getting to play Maeve has allowed her to break out of the box she's often contained to as an actress and that she fully trusts the writers of the show to carry her storyline forward in a way that she feels good about. "I’m a control freak, and I feel like that is the way forward to have power in a situation, particularly in a professional environment. Especially being a woman," she said. "You’re always looking over your shoulder. You’re always checking in with, ‘Am I being respected? What do I have to do to try and further my situation?’"

But, she added, "It is the most extraordinary feeling to be able to surrender, and to trust the way we get to trust."