‘Westworld’ Season 2 Spoilers: Is Elsie Hughes A Protagonist?

Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) disappeared in “Westworld” Season 1, and fans of the HBO show presumed she was dead. However, it has been confirmed that she will be back in Season 2.

But what will Elsie be up to? Is she a protagonist in the show? Or is she a villain? As far as Woodward is concerned, Elsie’s a protagonist since there are really no defined villains in the sci-fi show.

“I think Elsie is definitely structured as a classic hero, though there are no villains in this show, everyone has their directives but I don’t think anyone is set out to be one - that’s part of the nature of this show, questioning the idea of narrative and how we categorise people and characters,” she told The Independent.

Next season, Woodward said that Elsie and the other humans will be in for a shock because the hosts are taking charge. “What’s interesting about Season 2 is there’s such a role reversal, the human beings no longer have the control over the park that they had before and now the hosts have this autonomy,” she said. “They’re discovering and essentially choosing who they want to be, while the humans are now having to grapple with the idea that they’ve lost control and where does that leave them, what are there alliances and where do their morals lie?”

Her old boss, Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), will be in the crossroads of the revolution because he is a host who thought for the longest time that he is human. What’s worse for him is that he will have “some cognitive challenges” when Season 2 starts, and he is still having a tough time processing reality from make-believe.

“Bernard is in a pretty peculiar, kind of unique position in that he’s got certain allegiances to both sides and I think that’s part of the consideration for him,” Wright explained to Deadline. “I think given his robot brain situation and given kind of the social situation around him in terms of having been human and then discovering he’s a host, but he’s aspiring to kind of an awakening as the hosts are, the question for him at the beginning as you might expect is: ‘Where am I? Where am I in all of this?’ We lead from there.”

“Westworld” Season 2 premieres on April 22 on HBO.