A major Westworld fan theory was just confirmed

Still here? All righty then – as it turns out, Westworld was pulling a Battlestar Galactica on us, with one of the lead human characters working at the park revealed to actually be a robot “host” controlled by megalomaniacal founder Ford (Anthony Hopkins).

And as some had predicted right from episode one, said surprise synth was none other than Jeffrey Wright’s programmer Bernard, who had previously exhibited some suspicious host-like habits (ie, not noticing certain things).

The heart-stopping moment of truth was first hinted at when Bernard couldn’t see a particular door (above, after explaining that hosts are programmed to not notice certain things), before being confirmed when co-worker Theresa (Sidse Babett Knudsen) found Ford’s original blueprints for a Bernard-bot – and her former lover’s programming prevented him from recognizing what he was looking at, as we’ve seen in other hosts before.

It was grim and surprising stuff, not least because Ford then had Bernard kill Theresa, but it has us wondering – if THIS theory is true, how close to the actual storylines have fans been with their other speculations? Could William really be the Man in Black – and are we actually seeing more than one time period onscreen at once?

And, perhaps most interestingly of all, could it be that host-Bernard still has a few more secrets to tell us? Could it be, as we speculated last week, that he’s actually a robot recreation of mysterious park founder Arnold, whose picture his programming clearly prevented him from seeing? After all, when we see the blueprints for the Bernard-bot (above) in this week’s episode the name is studiously kept off-camera (could the design read “Arnold” instead?)

Plus, Bernard’s little chats with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) where he seems to be edging her towards consciousness would make a LOT more sense now if it turned out to be the original Arnold in a flashback. Otherwise, why would Ford allow a host he controls to nudge Dolores to sentience.

Bernard realises the truth

Whatever the truth, based on Westworld’s next time trailer it seems like robo-Bernard remembers exactly what he did to Theresa, so we’re betting that he, like us, will be looking for answers. We can only hope they continue to be revealed with equally exciting flourishes going forward.

Westworld airs on Sky Atlantic on Tuesdays at 9.00pm