[Editor’s Note: The following contains Westworld spoilers, episode 2 of season 4, “Well Enough Alone”. To read about the music for episode 1, click here.]
There may not be a big epic cover in the most recent episode of Westworld, but there is still much to discuss, musically, with composer Ramin Djawadi. This is because episode 2, “Well Enough Alone,” continues to explore key questions for season 4, and ends with the revelation that Delos Destinations, the corporation behind the high-tech amusement parks where it goes born this future dystopia, he lives up to his old tricks: with a new theme park that made Djawadi very happy.
“I love jazz and, in fact, I also studied jazz at university, and I never get to do much jazz in the score. So whenever there’s an opportunity, I sign up right away, ”he tells Consequence about the introduction of a 1920s park, as part of our ongoing series of conversations about Westworld music this season.
Episode 2 begins with the return of Clementine (Angela Sarafyan), who now lives in peaceful anonymity in a remote Latin city. Until, that is, the arrival of the Man in Black (Ed Harris), who drags him back into service. Djawadi took advantage of this as an opportunity to give the character his own theme, or rather, not exactly a theme, but a “motive,” in Djawadi’s words.
On a tonal level, the motif is used very differently during her two appearances in the episode: when we first see Clementine in the opening scene, “there’s a lot more sense of freedom, she’s supposed to feel quiet, until everything goes south when the man from The Black appears, ”Djawadi says. But when the issue re-emerges when we see Clementine relating to Secret Service agents, it’s “a completely different deal, because it’s much tougher.”
Djawadi adds, “I wanted to make sure I wrote something that works more idyllic at the beginning of this episode, but then I can turn it around and make it more interesting.”
Much of the episode focuses on Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and Caleb (Aaron Paul) reunited after a long absence and looking for answers, including a long sequence at the home of a senator (Jack Coleman) who discovers that he is a duplicate host. What stands out from the score in this sequence is that at first, when Maeve and Caleb start looking at the grounds of the senator’s house, the music is certainly present, but you may not even know it’s there, that it’s by design.
“In a show like this, where we have a lot of music, Westworld practically has music from wall to wall, one thing to keep in mind is always when to pull back or when to push,” Djawadi says. “I felt [this sequence] was a good opportunity to really go back with punctuation. They’re walking, they’re exploring, they’re discovering things, and it’s weird and mysterious. So I thought the score could definitely go back, so really you’re just listening to the environment and working with sound effects. Then when things come out, you can reopen the marker. I think that’s something that can be very effective. “
