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HBO's 'Westworld' experience at SXSW teased a theory about new park worlds - here's what fans might see in Season 2
HBO's 'Westworld' experience at SXSW teased a theory about new park worlds - here's what fans might see in Season 2
Melia RobinsonMar 12, 2018, 22:24 IST
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Courtesy of HBO
Warning: Minor spoilers ahead for "Westworld" season two.
"Westworld" fans got a chance to explore the dusty streets of Sweetwater at the SXSW festival.
HBO created an entire theme park set in the American frontier, where "Westworld" fans could experience what it's like to be a guest of the show's park. Actors playing the townspeople lived out elaborate storylines, and visitors interacted with them.
The network spent the last four months refurbishing a real-life ghost town in Austin, Texas, into the sci-fi Western park, complete with gunslingers, fake prostitutes, and booze - lots of it.
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Guests who paid close attention may have uncovered several Easter eggs in the experience.
At the back of the town, I came upon a quiet saloon. A dark figure lingered in the window.
It was a samurai!
In the season one finale, we learn that Westworld isn't the only Delos Destinations park.
Maeve (Thandie Newton) comes across a lab where Asian men wearing traditional samurai costume fight in battle. A sign marked "SW" hints at the possibility of a "Shogun World."
We don't know if Delos was working on these artificially created beings, called "hosts," for a new world or an existing one. But the shows' creators have hinted at other parks before.
In the original 1973 movie, there are two other parks: Medieval World and Roman World.
Jonathan Nolan, the show's co-creator, told an audience at New York Comic-Con in 2016 that fans would see neither Medieval World nor Roman World in future seasons.
But Nolan hasn't said anything explicitly about a possible Shogun World. An Easter egg buried in the "Westworld" season two trailer revealed there are as many as six parks.
During the "Westworld" experience at SXSW, the samurai left his post at the saloon and began patrolling the town. I asked him his name and where he came from. No reply.
Some brave fans stopped the samurai for a selfie. He never said a word.
The samurai's mysterious appearance at the "Westworld" experience suggests fans may see more of his type in the show's season two, which will return to HBO on April 22.
The samurai wasn't the only Easter egg we found in the "Westworld" experience.
There were a series of numbers hidden throughout the experience that, when combined, unlock a secret laboratory where Delos employees are working on a new type of host.
Visitors found one of the numbers in a grave marked for Dolores Abernathy.
I never found the secret room, but images on Instagram reveal the employees were working on a "drone host," an android that assaults Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) in the trailer.
We don't know much else about the drone hosts, but such an elaborate staging in the "Westworld" experience suggests they could become key players in season two.
