Westworld is returning on April 22 to HBO, but if you’re fatigued about the prospect of watching another ten hours of it, there may be a shortcut available to you. The series’ creators, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, said today during a Reddit AMA that they are considering posting “a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of season 2” to “help to distinguish between what’s ‘theory’ and what’s spoiler.” Nolan and Joy wrote that the purpose of the video could be to satisfy members of the show’s fan community who are looking for any indication of what might happen and enjoy presenting predictions as fact, as well as those who want to simply enjoy the show week by week without spoilers.
“It creates a larger problem for us…in terms of the way your guesswork is reported online,” Nolan and Joy wrote. “‘Theories’ can actually be spoilers, and the line between the two is confusing. It’s something we’ve been thinking about since last season. The fans of Game of Thrones, for instance, rallied around and protected the secrets of the narrative in part because they already knew those secrets (through season 5).”
The creators say they have the cast’s support on the proposal and will allegedly upload the video if their Reddit post gets 1,000 upvotes.
“It’s a new age, and a new world in terms of the relationship between the folks making shows and the community watching them,” Nolan and Joy explained. And with this, the age of self-serious peak TV, self-serious peak TV coverage, and perhaps the Internet itself has truly reached a new apex of absurdity.
It’s worth noting, too, that the decision may markedly affect the traffic of a wide array of culture and entertainment websites for two and a half months. Please have mercy.
Read Nolan and Joy’s full statement below.
Update (4/10/18): It turns out the Westworld creators’ post was an elaborate prank. They posted their “spoiler video” last night, which features a Rickroll courtesy of Evan Rachel Wood. Read more and watch the video here.
