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Westworld: Who Is the Good Guy and Who Is the Bad Guy?

It's a pretty grey area, actually

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Tim Surette

Sweeping epics usually tell a story of good versus evil, and while Westworld is well on its way to being a sweeping epic, we're having a hard time trying to tell who in the story is good and who is evil.

Are we supposed to be behind Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), the robot leading the violent uprising against her fleshy oppressors? Or do we support The Man in Black (Ed Harris), who seems to be the only one who realizes there is something greater at play here? Is Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) a man to be admired or feared? It's a grey area, and apparently that's how it should be, according to the cast and crew.

"This show plays with the idea of good and evil being binary," Westworld executive producer Lisa Joy told TV Guide. "And [it] tries to look at character, be it the character of the hosts, the robots, or the character of the guests, the humans who visit. And kind of dig deeper and deeper into their psychologies, and it necessarily blurs the idea of purely good or purely evil."

Westworld: Here's One Little Detail From the Premiere That's Very Important

Evan Rachel Wood puts it a little more bluntly, and says more confusion is on the way. "There are no heroes and villains in Westworld, and that will become much more apparent in Season 2," Wood said. "I think you won't really know where your allegiance lies a lot of the time."

After a first season in which we developed a sense of empathy for these robots as they were abused for the entertainment of hosts, and a Season 2 premiere in which Dolores slaughtered and tortured human guests, that blurry line between good and evil is just a huge smear now.

Westworld airs Sunday nights at 9/8c on HBO.

Thandie Newton, Rodrigo Santoro; Westworld

Thandie Newton, Rodrigo Santoro; Westworld

John P. Johnson/HBO