Westworld Season 3 Episode 2: Wait, Was That…?

You may have forgotten about it already—by any rational measure, 2019 was a very, very long time ago—but HBO used to have a fairly popular TV show called Game of Thrones. There were knights and crowns and zombies and dragons. It was a whole thing.

Since Game of Thrones went off the air, every network has been racing to launch their own fantasy series that could plausibly serve as "the next Game of Thrones." To date, one of those shows has been any good. (Hint: It’s the one called The Witcher.)

But in addition to the actual Game of Thrones spinoff on the far-off horizon, HBO already had an heir apparent in the wings: Westworld. Massive budget? Check. Lots of violence and nudity? Check. A score by Ramin Djawadi? Check. A densely-layered plot that encouraged fans to congregate on Reddit and form theories that, by and large, would turn out to be more interesting than anything the show was actually doing? Check and mate.

I know what you’re thinking. Westworld isn’t Game of Thrones. It doesn’t even have any dragons in it. And to that, I would say (spoiler alert, west coast): I hope you were watching tonight's episode, "The Winter Line," closely, because boom! Dragon!

Yes, in case you missed it: During Maeve’s behind-the-scenes adventure in last night’s Westworld, a group of background technicians could be seen working on a massive dragon robot. And not just any dragon robot. A dragon robot that looked a lot like Game of Thrones’ own Drogon: the biggest, most beloved, and most hilariously-named of the three dragons raised by the great Khaleesi herself, Daenerys Targaryen.

There is a precedent here. The original Westworld movie, released all the way back in 1973, featured three parks: Westworld (for wannabe cowboys and cowgirls), Roman World (for weirdos who want to wear togas while robots hand-feed them grapes), and Medieval World. As you can see, the original movie’s take on Medieval World was basically just banquet halls and underwhelming sword fights:

But HBO’s Westworld is all about finding modern spins on the original movie, and turning Medieval World from a subpar riff on a Renaissance Festival to, well, a giant immersive Game of Thrones LARP makes all the sense in the world. If modern audiences could go to a theme park as expensive and elaborate as those run by the Delos Corporation, they probably wouldn’t want to sit around eating turkey legs in front of a Central Casting king. (That’s what Medieval Times is for.)

No, they’d want the whole deal: Giant castles, massive battles, and fearsome, supernatural creatures they could swing swords or shoot arrows at. They’d want to embark on their own epic quests. In other words: They’d want to be in Game of Thrones.

And when you really sit down and think about this, maybe this is the happy ending Game of Thrones always needed. If you’re one of the many, many fans who hated Game of Thrones’ actual ending, imagine what you could do in a Game of Thrones park where every event was shaped around your will. Have a heart-to-heart with Jaime and convince him that Brienne is his true love after all! Talk to the Night King and figure out what the hell he was actually doing! Sit at the royal council and get them to pick literally anyone other than Bran Stark to be king! One of the weird things about Westworld is that none of the theme parks we’ve seen so far have looked particularly fun. But I have to admit: If you told me I could go to a theme park that was basically just choose-your-own-adventure Game of Thrones, I’d start stockpiling as many Gold Dragons as I could to plan a trip there.

Westworld doesn’t actually name the medieval-themed park in the episode—and while I’m sure it’s just MedievalWorld, I’m going to go ahead and think of it as GameOfThronesWorld until the show tells me differently. You never know: If Westworld is set in 2058, there’s no reason it couldn’t be a theme park based on the most popular TV show from 40 years earlier.

Or, I don’t know, maybe HBO just decided to cut a few corners and save a few dollars by reusing that painstakingly-animated CGI Drogon that’s been taking up space on a laptop in a dusty old corner of the former Game of Thrones production office. Your guess is as good as mine—but I know what’s more fun.

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Originally Appeared on GQ