Westworld is Littered with Easter Eggs
Westworld demands your attention to catch all of the secrets, even while moving at a relentless pace.
Westworld is a show that tends to move quickly, but that hasn’t kept it from filling every episode with something fun to catch if you’re paying attention. The park itself even functions as something like a video game, offering rewards for those that choose to take hidden or more difficult paths. The Man in Black is chasing one such hidden path. But it’s also a show that offers easter eggs not only for the characters, but also for those viewing at home.
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The most obvious one is the player piano. Since the first episode that piano has been pumping out tunes such as Radiohead’s “No Surprises” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.” It’s an interesting device because it appears to be solely for the fans — other characters, Guests included, never react to it. It’s as if, to them, the songs are just there for ambience. It’s just one big wink to us.
And then, of course, there are the easter eggs for the Guests to find. Logan, William’s jerk friend, says as much in the previous episode. As does The Man in Black. In fact, Logan treats the entire park as a video game, even going as far as deriding the distracting adventures — side quests, if you will — and referring to found guns as “upgrades.” Westworld is built very much like a video game and rewards those the most that choose to treat it as such. And part of the art of building a good video game is creating alluring secrets.
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And those are just the examples that jump out immediately. There will likely be more easter eggs coming in the second half of the season, both for fans and for the characters. Westworld is a show that has done an admirable job at world building so far, and it is most taken with the idea of hidden paths. It will be interesting to see how far it is prepared to take that idea.