Westworld Showrunners Rick Roll Fandom & It’s Glorious

Everyone these days has a Westworld theory. Hell, I have more than a few myself. And showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are all too aware of this as we head into Westworld Season 2. Consider Reddit users sleuthed out within weeks that Jimmi Simpson’s kind-hearted William and Ed Harris’ vile Man in Black were one in the same from different eras. (We ourselves picked up on the Arnold/Bernard thing without crowdsourcing our speculation, thank you very much.) This is probably why it raised so many eyebrows that Nolan and Joy agreed to do an “Ask Me Anything” thread yesterday on Reddit.

During the proceedings, Nolan even went so far to promise Reddit users that he and Joy were going to release a video stuffed to the gills with spoilers for season 2. “The whole sordid thing,” as it were. He claimed this was to allow Reddit users to police themselves, so as to shoot down bad fan theories and speculation as season 2 progresses while “protecting” other fans that didn’t want to be spoiled. You know, like how if we just deregulate telecommunication companies more, they’ll safeguard the internet themselves, right?

Still, some folks believed this below video was genuine when it dropped. Oh, it does begin intriguingly enough, more or less revealing the first (or first two?) scenes of Westworld Season 2, which includes Bernard waking up on a beach we’ve seen in previous trailers. There will be apparently a time jump wherein Bernard may lose his “memories” (he’s a robot, remember?) about what’s happened. However, it is unclear whether the other human characters of Delos are aware Bernard is a host, and this includes Luke Hemsworth’s Stubs and new character Carl Strand, who will be Delos’ head of security. Also this is intriguing given the last we saw of Stubs in season 1, he was taken hostage by the Ghost Nation hosts.

However, any more “spoilers” are immediately thrown out the window as Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood sings the Rick Astley classic, “Never Going to Give You Up” with Angela Sarafyan accompanying Wood on piano. Because in case you forgot, this North Carolinian native got her start in musical theater in the RDU (and was in the Beatles musical Across the Universe). Yes, you got rick rolled. And if you believed that you wouldn’t, you deserve to watch the following adorable 20 minutes of a dog playing the piano to the Westworld theme.

Westworld Season 2 premieres at 9pm ET/PT on April 22 on HBO.