Taylor Swift's 'Fortnight' Music Video Easter Eggs Include 'Dead Poets Society' Cameos and More

Taylor Swift

On Friday, April 19, Taylor Swift not only dropped her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, but she also released a surprise double album at 2 a.m. called The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. And now, she has the pop superstar dropped the music video for a track titled "Fortnight— and it's bursting with Easter eggs, including cameos from the film Dead Poets Society.

At 8 p.m. ET, "Fortnight" featured Post Malone released on YouTube. Much to fans' delight, the video featured cameos from Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, who portrayed Todd Anderson and Knox Overstreet, respectively, in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society. (As Swifties know all too well, the year 1989 is kind of a big deal.) And the title of the film is a nod to the title of her album.

The video begins with Swift strapped and handcuffed to a mattress-less bed hanging from a ceiling in an all-white room. She wears a wedding dress with a garter and dark makeup on her eyes and lips.

After she swallows a pill—allowing it to linger on her tongue, much like the candy conversation heart did in her "Blank Space" music video—and the cuffs are unlocked, Swift walks over to a mirror and wipes her face, revealing facial tattoos. The words "Always Tired" are written under her eyes, and there's a tattoo of playing cards and other symbols and words.

Swift enters an adjacent room, seamlessing transitioning to a black dress and gloves. She sits at a desk with a typewriter directly across from another desk, where Malone is also typing. Over and over again, Swift types the lyrics, "I love you, it's ruining my life" while surrounding by walls of filing cabinets.

Fans have speculated that many songs on the album are about Swift's reported ex, Matty Healy, including "Fortnight." Therefore, it's likely that Malone serves as a stand-in for The 1975 frontman. This theory is solidified by the typewriters; Healy has expressed fondness for the antiquated writing tool in past interviews.

As pink mist floats out of Swift's typewriter and blue mist floats from Malone's, they collide, transporting them to a road filled with papers making an outline of her head. They lie on the papers while facing each other at first before she runs into his arms, and Malone caresses her as they embrace and gaze lovingly into each other's eyes. A cyclone of papers circles around them. (The same "cyclone" she mentions in another track, "The Tortured Poets Department," also assumed to be about Healy?)

Next, Swift is strapped to a table in a lab as scientists run tests and take notes. Hawke and Charles are two of the men dressed in white lab coats (another Healy reference) measuring her brain waves and shocking her with electricity. In a blink-and-you-miss it Easter egg, a black dog trots across the lab, likely representing Swift's song, "The Black Dog," also speculated to be about Healy. Finally, when the voltage is too high, Malone, also dressed in a lab coat, rushes over to unhook her.

Toward the end, Swift sits expressionless on top of a phone booth situated on a tall cliff with Malone inside attempting to call her. She doesn't answer and instead stares off into the distance as rain pours down on her. Suddenly, the scene switches to her inside the room filled with filing cabinets—and Swift flings open random drawers and throws papers everywhere. Burning pieces of paper then swirl around her. She smashes the mirror in the first room.

The scene ends with Malone leaving the phone booth and reaching up to grab Swift's hand.

Next: Why Fans Think Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets Department' Song Is 'Definitely' About Matty Healy