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Westworld creators want to stop spoilers by spoiling all of season 2

John P. Johnson/HBO

CHANCELLOR AGARD 

The creators of HBO’s Westworld have come up with a crazy solution in order to stop the drama’s upcoming second season from being spoiled: They apparently want to spoil the entire thing ahead of the premiere.

Yes, you read that correctly.


On Monday, co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy released a statement on the Westworld subreddit via Nolan’s personal Reddit account in which they shared their desire to stop fan theories from spoiling the new season (a.k.a. what happened in season 1) by posting a video that reveals everything that happens in season 2.

“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,” wrote Nolan and Joy. “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.”

Westworld‘s season 1 story was an intricate mystery box; however, it was so well plotted that fans were able to guess all of the twists before they were actually revealed, and many outlets would report on these fan theories, unintentionally spoiling the plot in the process. Nolan and Joy’s plan to prevent this from happening again was inspired by HBO’s other big-budget drama, Game of Thrones. In the statement, the executive producers noted that “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).”

But the proposed Westworld plan hasn’t been set into motion yet. Nolan and Joy will only release the video if their post receives 1000 upvotes. At the time of publishing, it had 640.

When reached for comment, HBO told EW, “This is an initiative from the WESTWORLD showrunners. We suggest you stay tuned to Reddit for their next move.”

While we will closely be monitoring the situation, something tells us Nolan and Joy’s idea could quite possibly be a stunt. Read the entire statement below and decide for yourself:

Hey Reddit!

Many thanks for your great questions and thoughts. As I’ve said before, I’ve been a member of the reddit community for years (no I’m not going to share my original username…). And I greatly enjoyed watching the friendly folks at this subreddit guess the twists and turns of the season.

It creates a larger problem for us, though, in terms of the way your guesswork is reported online. ‘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).

We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision. 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.

It’s a new age, and a new world in terms of the relationship between the folks making shows and the community watching them. And trust is a big part of that. We’ve made our cast part of this decision, and they’re fully supportive. We’re so excited to be in this with you guys together. So if this post reaches a 1000 upvotes we’ll deliver the goods.

Hasta victoria siempre!

Jonah and Lisa

Westworld returns to HBO on April 22