Westworld type TV Show network HBO

What… is… that?

Earlier this month, EW revealed the above photo from Westworld season 2 with the park’s science chief Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) standing before a lurking white thing.

Now the acclaimed drama’s showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are telling us a little more about it.

As you’ll recall, last season Bernard’s detective work uncovered mysteries about the park’s past, and a major reveal about his own identity. As Nolan explains below (mild tease-y spoilers), in season 2 Bernard discovers there was a lot more about the park and its mysterious corporate owners Delos that was kept from him. The white robot is called a “drone host.” And there’s apparently more than one of them.

“The drone hosts relate to the corporation’s secret project which is hidden in plain sight in this park,” Nolan says. “As we talked about in the pilot, the park is one thing for the guests, and it’s another thing for its shareholders and management — something completely different. We’ve used the Google analogy — for consumers, it’s for search and email, yet for the company, it’s for advertising. There is an agenda here that Delos has undertaken for a very long time. As Bernard is making his way through the wreckage of the fallout from the first season, he’s discovering things about the park that even he doesn’t know and coming upon creatures like the drone host.”

Creatures… once again, Nolan is using a plural. So, are there other creepy robotic inventions other than the drone hosts? We’ll just have to wait and find out.

Also, we know from a quick shot in Nolan’s lavish Super Bowl ad that the drone hosts can be violent:

The news comes on the heels of EW giving some new details about the return of several season 1 characters whose fates were left uncertain in the finale.

For more Westworld news, bookmark our Westworld hub and follow @jameshibberd.

Westworld returns for 10 episodes on April 22.