Westworld’s Man In Black Twist Sets Up Season 2's Ending William Tease

Westworld season 2's post-credits jumped far ahead into the show's fictional timeline. Season 4's Man in Black appearance might've just explained how.

Westworld’s Man In Black Twist Sets Up Season 2's Ending William Tease

Did Westworld season 4 just secretly explain William’s far-future post-credits scene? Westworld is notorious for secretly incorporating multiple timelines into a single season, but the HBO show’s primary narrative between seasons 1 & 2 occurs sometime around 2052. Season 3 jumps slightly ahead before season 4 advances by a further seven years, entering the early 2060s – but Westworld has already shown a glimpse way further ahead than that. Westworld season 2’s post-credits scene featured the Man in Black back in WestWorld, undergoing a fidelity test conducted by his deceased daughter. The abandoned condition of the Forge immediately indicated this was happening in Westworld‘s far-future, where William’s consciousness had been placed inside a host just like his immortality-seeking boss, James Delos.

Even as season 4 begins, Westworld still hasn’t explained this curious moment. Indeed, season 3’s own post-credits sequence appeared to contradict William’s destiny by showing a host Man in Black (created by Halores) cutting his human counterpart’s throat. The version from Westworld‘s far-future believed he was the real William, but season 3’s robotic version is aware of his true nature. How can these conflicting scenes reconcile? Westworld season 4 drops two major clues, and hints a proper explanation isn’t far away…

“Well Enough Alone” confirms William survived last season’s brutal doppelganger attack. He’s now Hale’s prisoner, hooked into a futuristic contraption while a host masquerades as “William” in the real world. The original’s survival means Westworld season 2’s post-credits scene most likely showed a host body containing the Man in Black’s actual mind, not the robot killer introduced by season 3’s finale. This neatly explains why far-future William wasn’t immediately aware of his cybernetic nature, whereas Westworld season 4’s host Man in Black definitely is.

When Hale is done taunting her prisoner, she engages a deep sleep mode, setting off streams of gas inside William’s circular cage – and this detail could prove even more crucial for Westworld season 2’s post-credits. William appears frozen once the process is finished, implying a cryogenic sleep. As far as science-fiction is concerned, any character who gets cryogenically frozen can be thawed out years down the line, like hitting a human “pause” button. Westworld season 4, episode 2 means William can awaken in his original body decades or centuries ahead of the current timeline, which may address why Westworld season 2’s post-credits jumped so far into the future – because William skipped a whole chunk of history in a cryogenic sleep. Based on what we know so far, it seems William lays dormant for an indeterminate amount of time, awakens in the far-future, then somehow dies. His mind is inserted into a host, and the immortal version begins undergoing fidelity tests with Emily in the long-abandoned WestWorld Forge facility.

Maybe the scene audiences witnessed in the dying throes of Westworld season 2 is how Hale intends to punish William. The cryo-chamber is just a waiting room until the host revolution is complete. Once the world is finally taken over, Hale imprints her prisoner into a robotic body and forces him to relive a loop over and over again in WestWorld. It’s the kind of poetic justice Hale delights in, but also explains why Emily was chosen as William’s examiner – a torturous reminder of the daughter he killed. Throwing further weight behind this theory, Emily casually drops the line, “Your world, or what’s left of it” during season 2’s post-credits, implying humanity has already been taken over. As Westworld season 4 is rapidly proving, the apocalypse can’t be very far away.