‘Westworld’ creators prank plot theorists
Lisa Joy.
It seemed as if Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creators of HBO’s Westworld, had given up. No plot twist could ever escape the imagination of theorists, the element of surprise was dead, striving for a spoiler-free television show in 2018 was futile. Reddit had defeated them. So, like a soonto-be-exiled employee insisting “You can’t fire me because I quit,” they told their Reddit superfans they would reveal the entire plot of the second season in a 25-minute video, released less than two weeks before its premiere.
The theory: If all the plot details were known ahead of time, the community’s moderators could potentially squelch any open discussion of them, protecting the rest of the community from stumbling upon the truth. Everyone would get what they wanted. If such a video were posted, it would upend every viewer expectation of secrecy and surprise in modern television serials. But such an industry-changing video wasn’t posted. There were no spoilers.
The video opens with Jeffrey Wright, who plays Bernard and narrates the video, waking up on a beach next to a champagne flute. He says he can’t remember how he got there or what happened, and he’s questioned by park security.
There are bodies littered on the beach, and a gunshot is fired. Bernard rides a train into town — then, 90 seconds into the video, everyone freezes.
Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Dolores, appears and softly sings “We’re no strangers to love.” Savvy viewers start to put together what’s going on: It’s all just an elaborate Rickrolling. The 10-yearold internet prank — tricking people into clicking on a video of the British singer Rick Astley’s hit song Never Gonna Give You Up — had its heyday but hasn’t been much of a thing for a while now.
In a December 2016 interview, Nolan said that he loved Reddit and that the theorising was right on target. “I was only frustrated when quoteunquote theories, which at a certain point clearly became spoilers, wound up in headlines,” he said. “When those theories have been taken out of a site like Reddit and put into headlines, that’s a bummer.” two, left Wood unnerved. “I’ve worked for a very long time to not be angry and vengeful,” she said, “so it was hard to take pleasure in that, even though I knew that the character had definitely earned it.”
Her hope is that — especially post #MeToo — Westworld would do for others what Dolores did for her: help them to feel powerful, and be heard. “Everything you want is on the other side of fear,” she said.