‘Westworld’ Creators Release Season 2 Spoiler Video As Promised, But There’s A Twist
This afternoon,Westworldcreators/showrunnersJonathan NolanandLisa Joymade a daring promise: in order to avoid having Redditors guess season 2’s major plot beats before the show itself revealed them to its audience, the showrunners said they would release a detailed video online ahead of its premiere that went ahead and spoiled everything up front. According to them, the plan was to release this information to a select group of gatekeepers who would then be able to better control the flow of spoilers out into the larger world of the internet.
Tonight, Nolan and Joy followed through on their promise to release a spoiler-filled video. But as you might expect from the people behind such a mind-bending show, there’s a twist.
In the interest of protecting those who truly don’t want to know anything at all about the second season ofWestworld, I’ll drop a briefspoilerwarning right here. Now is your last chance to avoid discovering what this video contains.
you’re able to read the full backstory of this zany plotright here, but after his initial post met their requirement of 1000 upvotes, Nolan returned to Reddit withthis post, linking to the video below and saying, “All right guys. We left this in your hands. Some may feel this is a drastic step, but I, for one, love and trust this community.”
Westworld Season 2 Spoiler Video
The video begins with voiceover fromJeffrey Wright, narrating what appears to be a few very real plot points about his character, Bernard. He wakes up on a beach, is questioned by Delos’s head of security, and slowly starts to remember what happened to him. There’s even a reference to “The Door,” which isthe “secret” title for the second seasonthat the showrunners used internally on the production. We know froma previous interview with Wrightthat this all sounds legitimate: “He’s got some cognitive challenges as we enter the first episodes of season 2 and he has additional challenges that come up as he goes on board in terms of him being able to process,” he said.
But right around the 1:30 mark, we find out the true purpose of this video: it was an elaborate Rickroll, as actressesAngela Sarafyan(who plays Clementine) andEvan Rachel Wood(who plays Dolores) begin serenading the audience with a piano rendition ofRick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Redditlovesthis song, and considering Nolan is a longtime Redditor, it makes sense that he’d cater to that specific audience with this gag. (The remainder of the video is black and white footage of a dog sitting in front of a piano while the score plays in the background.)
While the showrunners' announcement about their controversial plan to release spoilers may have sounded interesting in theory, there was no practical way to ensure that the revealed information didn’t spread far and wide. Nolan and Joy knew this, of course, so they just decided to have a little fun with everyone as a way to get people talking aboutWestworldbefore it returns to HBO. Mission accomplished.
And not to gloat (because it seemed pretty obvious), but we predicted something like this would happen. Here’s an excerpt from my write-up about the creators' proposed plan from earlier this afternoon:
And remember, Nolan co-wroteThe Prestige. He’s all about misdirection and pulling off the magic trick. Releasing a fake video that tricks fans into thinking they know where the show is going, only to pull the rug out from under everyone when it does the exact opposite? Nowthatseems much more in line with Nolan’s M.O.
