Entertainment

'Westworld' Fans Are Convinced The Rajworld Scene Isn't What It Seems & My Brain Hurts

Just when Westworld was about to give fans some answers, it's leaving us with even more questions. The third episode of Season 2, "Virtù e Fortuna," opened in a totally new park: Rajworld, or The Raj, a park that takes visitors back to colonial India. The Rajworld scene was brief, but it introduced fans to a young woman (she remains nameless) who seems just as dedicated to figuring out the park's puzzle as the Man in Black. We don't know much about Rajworld, but anything is possible in Westworld, so fans are asking a very important question: Is Westworld's Rajworld scene on an earlier timeline? You may have been too distracted by that "Seven Nation Army" sitar rendition to notice that there are a few strong connections to characters we've already seen before.

Westworld is known for switching up the timeline without warning, so even without evidence, it wouldn't be a huge leap to suggest that the Rajworld scene — or any scene, for that matter — takes place on a different timeline. But Westworld viewers are basically amateur investigators, and they've spotted a few things that suggest that the opening sequence of "Virtù e Fortuna" takes place far earlier than the hosts' rebellion. According to Redditor lurklurklurky, the woman we see in Rajworld bears a striking resemblance to Theresa Cullen, the Westworld Head of Quality Assurance who is killed by Bernard in Season 1.

Reddit

That cigarette-holding pose? That hair? In the episode, the mystery woman references a hexagonal pattern in a notebook, presumably a map to Rajworld's puzzle. If she's so concerned with the true inner-workings of the park, it seems natural that years later, she would work for Delos and oversee the parks' operations. At the end of "Virtù e Fortuna," the mystery woman survives a long fall off a cliff (with a tiger on her, because this is Westworld), but her survival looks a little unclear after she washes up on the beach and sees Ghost Nation warriors standing above her. If this theory is true, the mystery woman will fight them off and survive for many years (until Bernard kills her), so fans will have to keep watching to see how things turn out for Rajworld's hero.

But as with all things Westworld, not everyone agrees that the mystery woman is Theresa. In Rajworld, the mystery woman has a Danish accent (actress Katja Herbers is Danish), but in the first season of Westworld, Theresa has no accent. For many, this totally discredits the "earlier timeline" theory. Said Redditor Camelsinthedesert:

The accent is the big thing that has me convinced they're not the same person.

Another Redditor, PartTimeMisanthrope, agrees:

It would certainly be odd to have to work in the detail that Theresa just decided to adopt a Danish accent at some point in her life.

Sure, it would definitely be weird for Theresa to have an accent at some point and then completely get rid of it (she's no Lindsay Lohan), but here's the thing: According to Theresa's Westworld Wiki page, she was born in Denmark. This seems like a particularly odd coincidence, and if anything is true about Westworld, it's that nothing is ever really a coincidence.

John P. Johnson/HBO

I, for one, am convinced that Rajworld's mystery woman is connected to Theresa in one way or another. The similarities are just too striking to ignore. HBO originally called Herbers' character "Grace" in their casting announcement, but I wouldn't put it past Westworld to try to fake out fans at any possible moment — even throughout the casting process. Herbers has already been cast as a regular for Season 2, so expect to see plenty more of the mystery woman in the coming weeks. Hopefully, Westworld will answer all of my burning questions about Rajworld's hero, but if I'm being realistic here, the show will probably just leave me scratching my heads even more.

Westworld airs at 9 p.m. ET Sundays on HBO.