‘Westworld’ Season 2 Theory: Is Bernard Really Teddy?

Already, fans have speculated as to whether Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is truly himself or if Dolores’ (Evan Rachel Wood) consciousness has taken up occupation inside his body. However, now there is a new Westworld theory called B = T. This theory assumes that Bernard is not Dolores, but Teddy (James Marsden) instead.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains information about HBO’s Westworld Season 2. Please proceed with caution if you wish to avoid potential spoilers.

The Season 2 premiere episode of HBO’s Westworld saw Bernard wake up on a beach. He appeared dazed and confused throughout the entire episode. Along with this, it was noted that he had lost his compulsive need to wipe down his glasses after he dropped them and did not retrieve them in Episode 1.

Fans were confused by his behavior. However, they also learned in Season 2 that the hosts have processors in their head that could — in theory — be swapped out for other hosts. Effectively, this would mean that the consciousness of one host could be placed into another and be that host on the outside, but another one on the inside. Fans immediately took to Reddit to discuss this and one of the theories was that Bernard was not Bernard anymore. Instead, they argued that Bernard had the consciousness of Dolores inside him.

Now, there is a new Westworld theory that claims Teddy is the one now residing inside Bernard and this makes a little more sense if you factor in the fact Dolores knows Arnold (who Bernard is a replica of) quite well and should be able to replicate his personality traits. Teddy on the other hand, is a little more clueless, not only in his knowledge of Bernard and Arnold, but of everything in general.

This Westworld theory sees Teddy being placed inside Bernard’s body as a way to wreak havoc on the world. Directly, the theory is centered on the end of the first episode of Season 2 where Bernard makes the admission that he “killed them, all of them.”

The original Reddit post explains it further.

“‘I killed them, all of them’ – well isn’t that Teddy’s whole Season 1 arc? Killing all the other hosts on Dolores’ behalf is what Teddy does. That guilt is his cornerstone. And that long shot at the end is Bernard fixating on Teddy Flood’s drowned corpse?”

It does seem possible that perhaps — for whatever reason — Teddy is now inside Bernard and has caused the ultimate destruction in the park thanks to his cornerstone programming.

However, Esquire does make a good point against this Westworld theory, though. If Teddy were now inside Bernard, he wouldn’t actually have the knowledge of how to perform maintenance on the hosts like Bernard has been programmed to do. So, perhaps Bernard really is just confused by everything in Season 2 of Westworld and hasn’t been possessed at all.

Of course, along with all Westworld theories, fans will just have to tune into future episodes to find out if this theory turns out to be true or not.

Season 2 of Westworld returns with Episode 3, titled “Virtu e Fortuna,” on Sunday, May 6, at 9 p.m. ET.