HBO’sWestworld, whose fourth season trailer is chock full of all sorts of Easter eggs and hints as to what the next season of the sci-fi actioner has in store for longtime loyal viewers, just dropped a new mystery in the form of James Marsden, who played the host, Teddy. Teddy was a perpetual victim in the course of the stories that would play out at the titular Westworld park of the series, and was notably absent from the events of season 3.
The series, created by Christopher Nolan’s brother and writing partner, Jonathan Nolan, alongside his wife, Lisa Joy, is an update on the classic Michael Crichton premise (which can be viewed as an early precursor toJurassic Park). Fans have clamored for more of the series, picking apart its details with meticulous scrutiny.
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When Marsden popped up at the ATX TV Festival in Austin in the beginning of June, he surprised fans by revealing that his character of Teddy, who audiences had thought permanently dead after being abandoned by Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) when he killed himself at the end of season 2, would be returning to the series proper. Where was he going to show up in the show’s latest season?
In an interview withEntertainment Weekly, Marsden said he was going to “remain a little mysterious about where you find me in the first episode, if at all.” He continued, “The themes of exploring human urges of violence and things like that are going to continue," adding “And this season maybe we explore what the world looks like after Dolores set the humans and the robots free. Are they going to cooperate or are they going to vie for control? What happens when they vie for control? Will the hosts inherit these urges of violence? Some of the basic things that we continue to explore on this show, and definitely inseason 4—we ask a lot of those questions. What happens next?”
No stranger to sci-fi or action films, having played Scott Summers in the hugely successful and popularX-Menfilm series of the early 2000s,James Marsdenis also no stranger when it comes to having to play things close to the vest. And in a series likeWestworld, whose fans pick it apart scene by scene, background detail by background detail, that’s no small feat.
Though it started off sticking close to its original source material, concerning a theme park where patrons would interact with sophisticated, nearly-human robots, the show eventually left the park to explore the world outside. Per thetrailer for the fourth season ofWestworld, the previewopens with Evan Rachel Wood (now no longer Dolores but a new character called Christina) waking up and recognizing there’s something wrong with the world. Along the way, however, she’ll date a guy who looks just like Marsden’s Teddy. Long known for playing with viewers' expectations of reality, it looks likeWestworldwill disorient fans all over again.
