For a few weeks now, my boyfriend has been trying to convince me to watch this new show on HBO that his friends drug him into. I refused for quite some time, unwilling to add yet another series to my list of unfinished addictions. However, I sealed my fate with a handshake on Black Friday when I traded a plethora of Victoria Secret merchandise for an agreement to give the series a shot. I was hooked after the second episode and spent the remainder of my Thanksgiving break catching up on all nine episodes currently aired. I say the second episode because the storyline is so complex, it took an entire episode just to set up the plot line. If you have yet to hear about Westworld or aren't yet caught up, stop right now, go to your HBO Now app or HBO On Demand -- or steal a friend's -- and binge watch the entire season before reading the rest of this article. I promise you won't regret it.
Now that we're all caught up, Evan Rachel Wood, the actress who plays Dolores Abernathy has already hinted that the season finale airing next Sunday, December 4, will completely blow our minds. We have a few theories on what might lead to that mind explosion. At this point, I'm going to assume you've already seen every episode, so I'm not going to go into too much detail of the actual storyline. This is your last chance to get acquainted with the show. Any further reading will simply confuse you otherwise.
As we learn more about Westworld in each passing episode, one thing remains constant: the Man in Black (Black) is easily the most interesting character, yet we know nothing about him. He seems to already know where he's going and what he's doing. We feel, as viewers, just as lost and confused as the hosts are, while Black already has everything figured out. It naturally makes us curious about his past relationship with Westworld. However, these remain ever as elusive with each passing episode. We yearn to learn more about his previous engagements in Westworld, but we're given nothing more than his snide remarks to the hosts he encounters. Or are we? My boyfriend and I have a theory that suggests we know much more about Black than one might originally assume.
The basic argument is that Black and William (Billy) are the same person. The story is being told in two separate timelines. Billy's timeline would be thirty years ago while Black's takes place in present day. While there is no hard evidence to prove this theory, there are a lot of subtle clues that suggest the storyline will confirm it in the finale.
Clue 1: Age Difference
As obvious as it sounds, Black and Billy look to be about 30 years apart. Black frequently mentions throughout the series that he has been coming to Westworld for 30 years. Even though this is an obvious clue, it creates the foundation for those to follow.
Clue 2: Maeve
It was mentioned that Maeve has only had the role of a prostitute for about a year. We see Black visiting Maeve before her current build as a prostitute at Mariposa through multiple flashbacks, so the timeline theory would fall apart if Billy ran into Maeve the prostitute. If Billy's timeline is set 30 years in the past, Maeve would not have been programmed as a prostitute at the time.
In fact, there's not a single scene with Billy and Maeve together. Despite his many encounters in Mariposa, the only relevant prostitute we see is Clementine. Typically in the Mariposa scenes, Maeve and Clementine can be found interacting, but when Billy is present, Maeve is nowhere to be found. This suggests Maeve was not a prostitute while Billy was visiting Westworld. She was either somewhere else in the world -- or perhaps not created yet.
Clue 3: Angela
In episode two, Billy meets Angela, played by Talulah Riley, a hostess of sorts that helps dress Billy for his arrival into Westworld. We don't see Angela again until episode eight when Black runs into her in the mountains with Teddy. She's now allied with Wyatt and at first glance appears to be reprogrammed into a different build. IMDB confirms that the hostess and this rebel were played by the same actress. If we follow the "timeline" the show presents this in, only a few days have passed between Angela's role as hostess and rebel. However, things seem a little off when Black mentions, "I thought they would have retired you by now" when he first sees Angela. If she was a perfectly functioning host just a few days ago, as the presented timeline suggests, why would it come to such a surprise that she still loops within Westworld? It's our opinion that Black met her 30 years ago as a hostess when he was Billy and has now run into her again in his quest to find the maze.
One could argue, maybe her role was simply changed in between the two times we saw her. However, it seems improbable that corporate would not only create a brand new role for only one host but also to implement that change right before Ford's new narrative is introduced into Westworld.
Clue 4: The Business Transaction
Clue 5: Billy's Dark Side
While there's no direct evidence that completely sells the theory that Billy and Black are the same person, there's still enough there to make you think twice about it. At least, it made two binge-watching fans pick the show apart for a week.
