The sly Game of Thrones meta reference in the second episode of 3 Body Problem

David Benioff and Dan Weiss are known mainly as the creators and showrunners of Game of Thrones, HBO's hit fantasy series. They're also the guys behind Netflix's new sci-fi show 3 Body Problem, and while the two series couldn't seem any more different, there is some connective tissue. For instance, a couple of Game of Thrones cast members appear in the new show, including John Bradley, Liam Cunningham and Jonathan Pryce.

On Game of Thrones, John Bradley played the intelligent, affable Night's Watchman Samwell Tarly. On 3 Body Problem, he plays the intelligent, far less affable snack food millionaire Jack Rooney. The plot of 3 Body Problem involves Jack and one of his scientist friends playing a mysterious, high-tech video game known as 3 Body. The game transports players into an incredibly detailed fantasy world; they can see, hear, touch, taste and smell the virtual environemtn. The game even gives them new clothes.

At one point, Jack Rooney finds himself wearing an outfit you might see on a fancy nobleman in medieval England. That happens in the second episode of the show, "Red Coast." Upon seeing the outfit, I got some deja vu, because it reminded me of a prank that David Benioff, Dan Weiss, and John Bradley's Game of Thrones costar Hannah Murray once played on him while they were making the HBO show.

The story goes that to pull off this prank, Kit Harington (Jon Snow) teamed up with Hannah Murray (Sam Tarly's wildling girlfriend Gilly), who was tired of always being given formless sacks to wear as costumes. When she finally got to wear a dress in the sixth season, when Gilly and Sam visited Sam's home of Horn Hill in the Reach, she asked Benioff and Weiss to help her prank John Bradley by putting him in a riduculous outfit. So Bradley was called in for a costume fitting for an outfit he was never actually going to wear onscreen, although he didn't know that at the time; it's an olde-timey English nobleman-looking getup that included a codpiece. There's even a photo of Bradley wearing the costume looking miserable:

While it's not exactly the same, I think Benioff and Weiss made Bradley dress up like an olde-timely English nobleman in 3 Body Problem to follow through on this prank from the sixth season of Game of Thrones. And thus are the two series connected.

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