Half the fun of watching Westworld is trying to predict and solve the show’s many twists and riddles before the answers are revealed. When season 1 ended, however, there were still so many questions left unaddressed, so many easter eggs left as clues about what will happen in season 2. Into the vacuum left by Westworld’s seemingly interminable hiatus poured a frenzy of fan theories, fueled by cryptic interviews with the show’s creators and Reddit’s untiring community of pop culture detectives.
Here are the 10 best fan theories about Westworld to keep handy during the season 2 premiere on April 22—and maybe for the next couple of months.
Warning: Spoilers for season 1 below.
1. Ford Printed a Host Ford Before He Died
Variations of this theory emerged as soon as the season 1 finale aired, but the most compelling revolves around a host that Ford was 3-D printing in his secret lab, the lab where Theresa finds blueprints of a Bernard host. We get no clues as to who this host will be, but the show really wanted us to notice it.
Popculture.com speculated back in 2016 that we do indeed see a host version of Ford: “The camera shows a close up of Ford's hand as he shakes Bernard's hand, and it looks like one of Ford's knuckles is out of place. In the original Westworld movie, the only way to tell the difference between a host and a human was by looking at their hands. This could be a subtle nod to fans of the movie that Ford might not be as dead as we might think.”
2. Then Who Did Dolores Shoot?
Did Ford, knowing Theresa and other Delos execs wanted to oust him, create a host as a sort of contingency plan? Did he create a host of himself, and then program a Dolores narrative wherein she shoots Ford at the Delos investors’ dinner?
Show co-creator Jonathan Nolan tried to snuff out this theory by telling IGN that the Ford Dolores shot “was definitely a real Ford.” And if Ford is alive with appearances in season 2, that means HBO had to hire Anthony Hopkins again, which one redditor notesprobably didn’t happen: “They got him for a season because a.) $$$ and b.) they offered him a compelling and limited narrative arc. Same reason Game of Thrones got Sean Bean for season one.” Still, some fans don’t trust Nolan right now (more on that later).
3. Ford Printed a *Young* Ford Host
YouTube channel New Rockstars released a video breaking down a season 2 trailer, arguing Dolores did kill Ford, but that Ford still created a host version of his younger self before his death. CGI young Ford does appear in the trailer, and New Rockstars points out a few moments where it looks like the Man in Black might be interacting with a young Ford host. In a Reddit thread one redditor suggests Ford may have even “uploaded himself” into the brain of his host self. Another redditor takes issue with this, arguing “you can't ‘upload’ your mind/consciousness into a host.” But, really, if Ford was able to create an AI empire, who’s to say he can’t upload his mind into a robot?
4. But What If *Everyone* Is a Host?
The question of exactly who is a host and who isn’t appears on nearly every single list of fan theories out there. Even Ed Harris, the Man in Black himself, made a casual comment to Entertainment Weekly that he’s not really sure which characters are actually AI bots. So the question has to be asked: Could it be that every character is a host?
Of course, if it turns out everyone is a host, if this has all been one big simulation, it will be as profound a letdown as the realization that the entire 1980s series St. Elsewhere took place inside a snow globe. But this Dr. Ford quote from season 1 rings true here: “We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.”
5. The Creators’ Fake Spoiler Was Actually a Real Spoiler
Because fans guessed pretty early into season one that William becomes the Man in Black (one of the show's most important twists), Westworld co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy decided to prank the black hole of a guessing-machine that is Reddit by releasing a video they claimed was a season 2 primer. It starts with a voiceover by Jeffrey Wright (who plays Bernard/Arnold) explaining the beginning of the season, then cuts to Evan Rachel Wood singing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” followed by another 20 minutes of a dog sitting at a piano.
But what if this Westworld Rickroll is just a red herring? Redditor /r/flowity352 asks, “What if Nolan was being truthful when he said the video was a spoiler… So lets actually apply the possibility of Nolan's honesty to the new Journey Into the Night narrative. JITN purports to be a new era in the park where the hosts are finally free from loops and can hurt/kill humans. I think the Primer gives credibility to the theory that its really just another one of Fords narrative.”
Navigating spoilers has become its own kind of maze!
6. Is This What the Season Title Means?
OK, so what if the Rickroll has some truth to it? In Wright’s ultra-serious voiceover, he says, “The bodies on the beach spark something, like a door opening in Bernard’s mind.” We do know that season 2 is called “The Door.” Redditor /r/Bludfyr posts, “In Season 1 the most prominent door to me would be the one relating to Bernard. Which involved his inability to see something until he could. Is this perhaps the larger thing at play; that the ‘awoken’ hosts will see/find something that they were previously blind to. That their world is limited and has an end perhaps? Maybe an end that has an entrance to another world.”
So: The hosts’ exploration of their own potential and their exploration of other worlds, including the human world?
7. Maeve and Dolores Might Become Enemies
In a season 2 trailer, Maeve and Dolores finally meet as self-aware people. Remember that Maeve is searching Westworld (and maybe other parks) to find her daughter, while Dolores seems hellbent on conquering Westworld for the other hosts and killing any humans they encounter in the process. Maeve chides Dolores, saying, “Revenge is just a different prayer at their altar, darling.”
The two hosts have very different ideas of what this new world of self-aware hosts should look like. New Rockstars notes that where Dolores wants revenge, Maeve wants “a true revolution that doesn’t play by the rules at all.” Perhaps Maeve and Dolores will ultimately emerge as the hero and villain of Westworld, with Dolores obsessed with destruction and Maeve interested in just how powerful AI can become.
8. This May Be When Westworld Is Set
In your impatience for the return of Westworld over the last year and a half, you may have spent time searching for easter eggs on the Westworld themed sites DelosIncorporated.com and DiscoverWestworld.com. Screencrush revealed in 2016 that visitors to DelosIncorporated.com were able to access a video the Delos site marked “corrupt footage” of Maeve’s escape attempt with Hector and Armistice, aided by Felix. The video was timestamped with the date June 15, 2052. While that video file has since been deleted, if the date can be believed, then the storyline with young William and Logan takes place in 2022. In other words, we still have four years to figure this all out.
9. Delos Is Trying to Take Over the World
Season 2 trailers show creepy, ghost-white, weirdly muscular hosts walking around the Mesa Hub, which Nolan called drone hosts in an Entertainment Weekly interview: “The drone hosts relate to the corporation’s secret project which is hidden in plain sight in this park. As we talked about in the pilot, the park is one thing for the guests, and it’s another thing for its shareholders and management… There is an agenda here that Delos has undertaken for a very long time.”
But what is this “secret project”? Mic.com points out that in Futureworld, the critically panned 1976 sequel to the movie Westworld, Delos creates robot clones of world leaders in an attempt at global domination. Are these terrifying drone hosts part of a Delos paramilitary force that will be used in a hostile takeover of the human race? Which leads us to ask: How much does Delos already know about the host revolution taking place in Westworld? How involved is the corporation?
10. How Conscious Is Maeve Really?
This isn’t a theory so much as a question that’s worth coming back to as season 2 starts. Remember that before Maeve attempts to leave the Mesa Hub, Felix shows her a tablet of code that reveals her path to self-awareness has been programmed (though it’s not exactly clear by whom). One line of code reads “Narrative MAINLAND INFILTRATION,” meaning Maeve’s escape has been pre-destined. Nolan even tells Vulture that Maeve’s choice to get off the train instead of infiltrating the human world is the “first real decision she’s made all season.”
But earlier this month, redditors picked apart the next line of code, which reads “OVERRIDE FUNC.” Redditors with programming backgrounds noted this is a common phrase found in code and doesn’t mean the previous line of code is literally overridden. But /r/energirl suggests Maeve isn’t totally conscious in the way Dolores is: “She likely isn't conscious because she doesn't seem to have had the same bicameral experience as Dolores… Her current programming says to get on the train, but her past programming which is still buried deep within her tells her to love and protect that child. Hosts are given the ability to improvise, right? I think that's exactly what Maeve is doing.”
