Days before the Westworld season 2 premiere (and a late April Fools joke), showrunners Jonathan and Lisa Joy Nolan played a hilarious prank on fans.
Westworld is known for its theories and to take advantage of the fan frenzy behind it, showrunners Jonathan and Lisa Joy Nolan decided to play a late April Fool’s joke days before the season 2 premiere.
In the Reddit AMA post from April 9th, 2018, Lisa Joy and Nolan stated that they would release the season 2 details and plot points in detail so critics and commentary by other fans wouldn’t ruin it for others as the season progressed.
While it seemed highly unlikely that this would actually happen, the night of April 9th, Nolan posted a link to a video that claimed to be one that would explain what season 2 had in store. The 25-minute video began with Bernard walking around on the beach confused as to how he got there (having seen season 2 now, we know this actually happens).
But then Bernard walks into town, and suddenly Evan Rachel Wood emerges as Dolores and starts singing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” with Angela Sarafyan’s Clementine as her backup singer. Suddenly fans realized they were being “rickrolled”, which, for those of you who don’t know, is:
"“A prank and an Internet meme involving an unexpected appearance of the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The meme is a type of bait and switch using a disguised hyperlink that leads to the music video.”"
As the video closed out, a message flashed across the screen that said, “Dear Reddit, From all of us here at Westworld, thank you for watching. We hope you enjoy Season 2.” And just like that, the Westworld showrunners got us good in advance of the season 2 premiere.
Did the Nolans manage to fool you with their Reddit rickrolling? Share your comments below or on our Twitter, @BeyondWestworld.