The best reveal in the Westworld season finale

The Westworld season finale delivered action, suspense and shocks, but most of all, it offered a delightful callback to both the Westworld and Futureworld movies.

Note: As probably is obvious, this article contains copious spoilers concerning the Westworld season 1 finale, “The Bicameral Mind.” Watch it first, or read our recap if you simply can’t spare the 93 minutes but still want to join the conversation.

The Westworld season finale managed to do a fine job walking the tightrope between answering too much and being too vague. Along the way, it managed to pack in some pretty heady reveals, including the true identity of the Man in Black and the nature of Wyatt, the enigmatic villain plaguing the park during the second half of the season.

Yet if you’re a fan of the series’ source material, there was an even cooler surprise in store.

Once Maeve Millay and her lieutenants Hector and Armistice made their way into the Westworld offices, they ended up being confronted by a security team determined to stop them. That led to a bloody shootout, to say the least.

It also took them to a heretofore unexplored section of the offices, where they were surprised to see a group of samurai in the process of being created. There are even big ‘SW’ logos on the doors and in the hallways. Yep, it appears Delos also has a Samurai World.

That jibes with what creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have always maintained, that while we wouldn’t see Roman World or Medieval World, if we just stayed patient, we’d find out if there were other parks besides Westworld. Pretty sure we got our answer in the most awesome possible way.

On top of that, one can’t help but think that the choice of samurai is a callback to Futureworld, the mostly unloved sequel to the 1973 Westworld movie. When the reporters in that flick stumble onto Delos’ devious plan to replace world leaders with hosts cloned to look like them, they are menaced by … you guessed it, artificial samurai.

So Samurai World worked on two levels, and that’s largely in keeping with the nature of the whole series. Well played, showrunners.