Last night,Westworldco-creatorJonathan Nolanposteda pretty shocking message on reddit. After admitting he’s been a reddit user for years, and acknowledging that redditors solved the puzzles of the HBO show’s first season long before the show itself offered them up as “reveals,” Nolan put forward a new plan to combat spoilers in Season 2. Nolan said he and his team had decided if his reddit post garnered enough upvotes, they’d post a video on reddit revealing all theWestworldSeason 2 spoilers ahead of the show’s debut. Nolan’s thinking was that much like withGame of Thronesreaders being ahead of non-book fans watching the show, now redditors who chose to learn the spoilers would protect them from people who don’t want to know.
Needless to say this was a very controversial and objectively idiotic plan. On the one hand it seemed so genuine, but on the other hand it was hard to believe the notoriously spoiler-phobic Nolan would willingly just let spoilers loose before the second season ofWestworldeven aired. So was this all a big joke? A bit of viral marketing? Or was it real?
Well the video went up last night, and while the first couple minutes seem genuine, it then becomes crystal clear this is one giant gag. We subsequently seeEvan Rachel Woodsinging “Never Gonna Give You Up” byRick Astley, accompanied on piano by co-starAngela Sarafyan, then the next 20 minutes are just theWestworldtheme song set against footage of someone’s dog. I mean it’s an adorable dog, don’t get me wrong, but yeah, Nolan done reddit dirty.
I’ve gotta say I’m kind of relieved. This idea seemed just dumb enough that Ikindof believed Nolan would do it. He and co-showrunnerLisa Joywere famously taken aback during Season 1 when after the first couple of episodes, fans and redditors had already guessed major reveals for the season like the dual timelines and Bernard’s true nature. They’ve said they made strides to combat that kind of guessing game this time around so I’m curious to see how Season 2 differs from Season 1 in that regard, but it was a stark reminder that in this day and age it’s hard to truly shock audiences when they can crowdsource guesswork on the internet.
So yeah, thankfullyWestworldSeason 2 remains under wraps until it debuts on HBO on April 22nd. Watch the delightful rickroll video below.
