Westworld outdid itself last night, presenting its viewers with a highly detailed, very crowded orgy scene deep within the Westworld park. The low lighting and piles of gold-brushed skin, however, were the result of a long (and not incredibly sexy) day on set. Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Dolores, told The Hollywood Reporter that the main actors had no warning of how the orgy would look: "I just kept having to go into a corner, put my earphones on, and try to zone out, because I also had to sit there and not really react to what I was seeing," she said.
Showrunner Lisa Joy told Entertainment Weekly that the extras put on robes in between shoots to stay warm, then stripped down to their merkins—a "furry bikini"—to film. A sex consultant worked on set all day to make sure the scenes turned out like they did; extras reportedly signed explicit consent forms before shooting. And according to producer and supervising director Richard J. Lewis, the orgy was filmed in a Compton mausoleum housing 40,000 dead bodies. "It had a very haunting flavor to it, right from the get go," he said.
So yes, viewers got quite the orgy last night. Why is a little unclear. Up to Episode 5, Westworld's nudity was purposeful: It exposed human vulnerabilities in the park's guests while humanizing the park's hosts. Last night, all the nudity did was draw attention from a rather dull bit of dialogue about lackluster middle management achievement—and give Dolores a new place to look confused. It was hardly a plot device, just one more distraction in a show struggling to follow up on loose ends.
Pretty damn distracting, though.
