The most fun I had watching the first season of HBO’s Westworld, a show about a theme park full of murderous robots owned by an angry gamer, occurred during last night’s finale. Spoilers ahead, for anyone who has watched fewer than three episodes of this show and also doesn’t have an internet connection.
Okay, so, the Big Twist was finally revealed last night, which is to say the thing that everyone saw coming—William and the Man in Black turning out to be the same person—finally came. The fun in watching this big reveal wasn’t in the revelation itself, but in seeing the show attempt to string us along for as long as it did.
When Young William put on the black hat in last night’s episode, and then slowly raised his head to reveal himself as Old William, I felt like I was watching a nine-year-old pull a rabbit out his pants at the elementary school talent show. Evan Rachel Wood’s shocked and exasperated performance in that scene made it one of the this year’s most unintentionally hilarious TV moments, and I loved every second of it!
Was anyone genuinely shocked by last night’s big reveal? I genuinely want to know, so if you were blindsided, please let me know in the comments. As for the rest of you, when did you figure it all out?
- Did you figure it out when the show made a big point of William choosing a white hat instead of a black one when he first arrived at the park?
- Did you figure it out when Logan teased William about his “cheap black suit”?
- Did you figure it out when Young William and Old William kept giving the same speech about the park showing you “who you really are”?
- Did you figure it out when Lawrence seemed to somehow be participating in two different narratives at the same time?
- Did you figure it out when the picture of Young William’s fiancée was revealed to be the same old, tattered picture Dolores’s father found in the dirt?
- Did you figure it out when Old William met and recognized the host that had greeted him when he first entered the park 35 years prior?
- Did you figure it out when Young William and Old William were both revealed to have business ties to the park?
- Did you figure it out when everyone kept talking about how Dolores is the oldest host in the park?
- Did you figure it out when Logan cut Dolores open and revealed her old-timey robot innards, a callback to the scene in which Old William told Teddy about how the hosts used to be much more mechanical?
- Did you figure it out when Dolores, who was all stabbed to shit when she escaped Logan’s soldiers, was somehow no longer stabbed to shit when she arrived at the church?
- Did you figure it out when Young William and Old William started using the same knife?
Anyway, this show was fine I mostly enjoyed watching it.