‘Westworld’ Successfully Trolls Reddit Superfans With 25-Min ‘Spoiler’ Vid

Westworld had addressed the rampantly obsessed Reddit community directly by literally Rickrolling them – and it appears to have worked.

If you didn’t watch Westworld‘s gripping first season as it aired, then you might have missed the week-by-week dissection of theories that proved almost as entertaining as the show itself. It meant that by the time the show revealed the identity of Arnold or the Man in Black, the huge twists were more like a confirmation of the viewer’s insane cleverness and attention to detail.

So coming into the second season, HBO and Westworld appeared to be taking massive – and unprecedented – steps to ensuring that no “theories” were later proven to be “spoilers”. (Side note: my personal belief is that an unproven theory based on all the available evidence IS NOT A SPOILER, but you know, to each their own.)

Co-creator Jonathan Nolan took to Reddit to claim that, in order to protect people who didn’t want to engage with theories from spoilers, they would release all the details of season two ahead of time.

“We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision,” he wrote. “If you guys agree, we’re going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of season 2. Everything. The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what’s ‘theory’ and what’s spoiler.”

If that sounds nothing short of absurd, then well done, you’re smarter than Nolan gives you credit for. Westworld did in fact upload a 25-minute YouTube video promising it was chock full of spoilers – and it starts off that way. In what looks like the opening shots of season two, perhaps, Bernard wakes up on a beach, and in a voiceover, actor Jeffrey Wright explains what’s happening.

“Can he remember how this all began? Can he remember Dolores? Can he remember the choice he made?”

The hosts freeze, and the opening notes of Rick Astley‘s Never Gonna Give You Up are played from a nearby piano. Next shot: stars Evan Rachael Wood and Angela Sarafyan are singing, performing… Rickrolling.

Afterwards, there’s about 15-minutes of footage of what we can only assume is composer Ramin Djawadi‘s personal dog, set to the intro theme played on repeat.

“Dear Reddit,” the clip said, following the performance. “From all of us here at Westworld, thank you for watching. We hope you enjoy season two…”

The Reddit community is now a full-blown circle jerk of fans pretending to be mad about spoilers, mad about Westworld, and mad about the whole idea of fan theories in the first place.

In fact, one fan took it so damn seriously they introduced the term “vag-sniffing” to describe a FAKE SPOILER VIDEO, and I’d be 100% done with Westworld fans if I didn’t want to chat incessantly online with them as soon as the season drops.

NO WAY. Oh my FUCKING God. This egregious video. This stupid goddamn vag-sniffing video ruined EVERYTHING. We all watched it, rather foolishly thinking the guys and gals at HBO would not really reveal the orgasm-inducing twists for Season 2”. Never in a million years did we think this nefarious event could happen. Then all of us watched it. And they did. Garishly, they forced this so called “intelligent” metaphor about our violent and animalistic nature down my esophagus (sic). TERRIBLE. Yes, I really am this angry. I am officially unsubscribing from this sub + unfollowing and blocking the unforgivable creators of Westworld on places like Twitter.

I just…. wow.

So is this actually how season two begins? With Bernard waking up on a beach strewn with dead bodies, being questions by Delos’ head of security? Perhaps. It officially begins airing on Foxtel April 23, at which point the never-ending theory discussion will begin ramping the hell up. See you… online.

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