Westworld‘s Producers Explain The Meaning Of Ford’s Weird Secret

Westworld isn't afraid to get weird. We already knew that (robot orgy, anyone?), but this episode took the cake. We're talking, of course, about Anthony Hopkins' Ford's secret robot family. Spooky as hell, if you ask us. But not entirely inexplicable. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy say that the family Ford builds for himself comes from a very personal place. "He had been married but his wife expected to have children," Nolan tells EW. "But he already had children — the park was the world he wanted to build, and it was incompatible with the intimacy of a marriage and his own relationship. So he’s built company for himself here." Joy adds that the family functions as a time capsule more than anything. "In a weird way, his sense of company is his former self," Joy tells EW. "And the weird things that must occur… if you could talk to a simulation of yourself as a child, what are the things you would say? Would it change you now? Would that change the child? It’s that fractal-like effect of looking at yourself through a different time." Heady stuff. Westworld is slowly revealing itself as a show that's dealing with complex topics in a way that goes beyond just sitting around and talking about them. Here's hoping it avoids the J.J. Abrams curse and completely comes to pieces in its second installment.